September 10, 2001

1. Did Tech run up the score against Navy? Obviously, or they wouldn't have scored 70 points. Should Tech fans be greatly concerned about it? No. George O'Leary has been on the losing end of a couple of run-ups himself, and I've never heard him cry about it. His stated attitude has always been, it's the coach's job to have his team ready to play and keep the other side from scoring. If your team can't stop them from scoring and you're that upset by the final margin, then you shouldn't have put them on the schedule in the first place.

   I'll admit I was a little surprised that Tech scored so much on Saturday, because O'Leary usually calls off the troops after they get five or six touchdowns ahead - he didn't even run up the score against Georgia last November and very easily could have. He pulled the first team before halftime against Navy and played everybody on the traveling squad, so I don't know what else he could have done except maybe start taking a knee in the third quarter. I saw 28 points scored by the second-, third- and fourth-teamers, but you shouldn't fault them for this - these are guys who are getting their only real chance to play all year, and they want to take advantage of that opportunity. If anyone is to be criticized for this, you probably should knock the Georgia Tech athletic department for putting Navy on the schedule instead of a more challenging opponent.

   Incidentally, the year Tech scored 63 points against Wake Forest (which was 1998), the Deacons scored 35 points themselves, so I don't consider that running up the score.

   Now, for those sportswriters and Georgia fans who have made so many predictions to the effect that Tech is doomed because Ralph Friedgen is no longer the offensive coordinator, let me note that the 70 points scored against Navy was higher than any point total posted by the Jackets during Friedgen's reign. That doesn't mean that Bill O'Brien is a better OC than the Fridge - at this point in his career he obviously isn't - but it shows that even the smartest offensive coordinator in the world doesn't gain a single yard or score a single point. That's done by the guys on the field, and Tech has some pretty talented guys on the field these days.

1. Yes I do. Florida State is still Florida State, and until Tech shows they can actually beat them on the field - and not just come close with a "moral" victory - I'm not ready to pick the Yellow Jackets. I will say this: if Tech is ever going to beat FSU in Tallahassee, this is probably the best opportunity they'll ever have to do it during the Bobby Bowden era, what with all the injuries to FSU's wide receivers and the inexperience at quarterback. But I still can't see it happening. If I'm wrong about this - and I hope I am - then it's up to the players to prove it on Saturday.

   Speaking of players, I'm going to be very interested in seeing how some of the young backups like Levon Thomas, Nat Dorsey, James Butler and Tony Hargrove perform when they match up against FSU's talent. This is when they'll really find out what bigtime Division I football is all about. Will they be overwhelmed by the experience? Or will they rise to occasion? I can't wait to find out.

   Hargrove, to me, is the most interesting of the freshmen players who have emerged this season. He was not a Parade All-American or a "Five-Star" prospect when he was recruited by Tech's coaches. He played safety and quarterback in high school, was recruited with the intention of being moved to linebacker, and has beefed up into a defensive end who's worked his way into the regular rotation. There's a valuable lesson here for Tech fans who worry so much about the "ratings" of the high school players Tech recruits. Tech was in the hunt a few years ago for a defensive end named Terin Smith, a highly rated prospect by the recruiting gurus who decided at the last minute to sign with Georgia. A lot of the fans posting on the Hive considered the loss of Smith to be a failure on the part of Tech's coaching staff and said Tech would never advance as a football power because our coaches couldn't "close the deal" on prospects like Smith. Smith is now in his fourth year with the Georgia program and has not made a significant contribution as either a starter or a backup. Tony Hargrove, who wasn't highly rated by the recruiting gurus, is making a contribution as a true freshman and has the potential to become a real star on the defensive line. Did Tech's recruiters "fail" because they signed an obscure prospect like Hargrove and didn't "close the deal" on Smith? Or is it just barely possible that Tech's coaches know what they're doing?

1. That's typical short-sightedness of lazy sportswriters. I've seen all three of Fresno State's games on the tube and believe me, none of them were upsets or flukes. They were all games where Fresno solidly outplayed their opponents. I normally don't care much for Bulldogs, but I could get behind Fresno State's Bulldogs as this year's team of destiny. They play good (but not great) defense, and they've got some decent players at the skill positions. Their quarterback, David Carr, has a very odd sidearm throwing style, but he gets the ball where it needs to go. I can see Fresno becoming the first team from outside the six BCS conferences to get an invitation to a BCS bowl game.

1. I don't know about that, but I'm thinking more and more that when it comes to a comparison of Casey Clausen versus A. J. Suggs, Tech may have gotten the better end of that deal. Phil Fulmer is not nearly as dumb a coach as Georgia fans make him out to be, but I think he should have given Suggs a fairer shot at the starting job. Thankfully for Tech, he didn't.

1. You could see this one coming from a long way off. For weeks - months - before the game, Georgia fans on their demented message board were talking all kinds of smack like "South Carolina sucks so bad they ain't gonna beat us again" and "No way we lose to a bunch of chickens" and similar tripe like that. Most of them predicted a final score in the range of 38-10 or 38-14 for Georgia. These 'necks had absolutely no respect for South Carolina or their coach. The overweening attitude of the Bulldog posters was, how dare those roosters think they can beat a traditional power like Georgia two years in a row. After I read all that, I was convinced the Gamecocks would win and made a beer bet with my brother the Georgia fan, giving him the mutts and two points (Thank you, Phil Petty!).

   As soon as the game was on the books as a 14-9 Carolina win, of course, mass denial immediately set in among the faithful of Dawgcounty: we outgained South Carolina so we really are the better team, we've got more talent than they do, if Terrence Edwards hadn't dropped those passes we'd have killed them, if David Greene hadn't thrown that interception in the red zone they wouldn't have come close, if Billy Bennett's field goal hadn't been blocked it would have been a rout, blah-blah-blah. I heard very few Georgia fans admit the obvious - they got outplayed, outcoached and outhustled for the second year in a row, which is why they now have two losses in a row.

   Granny Holtz may look like an old woman and act a little nutty at times, but the guy can flat-out coach. He knew he had a defense that would hold up under the pressure, so he played conservatively with a small lead and waited for Georgia to self-destruct, which they did. Holtz did not allow his team to do anything that would cause them to beat themselves, and they didn't.

   It was really the kind of game Holtz has won many times in his career - and that's been a much longer career than Mark Richt's. Richt was coaching in exactly his second game as the head man. Did Georgia fans really think he was going to outfox the old Granny? Holtz took Richt to the cleaners, just as any clear-thinking football fan should have expected.

   In fact, Richt has shown himself to be a somewhat ineffective strategist in the games that really count. FSU played for the national title three times during Richt's last three years as offensive coordinator. In two of those games (against Tennessee and Oklahoma), FSU's offense scored a combined total of 16 points with Richt's offensive schemes. It shouldn't have surprised anyone that in the biggest game of his very short career as a head coach, Richt's offense would fail to score a single touchdown. The pattern is there in his past for all to see.

   In saying that, I don't want to take anything away from South Carolina's defense. They are a tough bunch of guys who kept Georgia out of the end zone for 60 minutes. Was that a fluke, or just hard-nosed defense? Was South Carolina merely "lucky" to hold Georgia to only three field goals? Was it "luck" that the Gamecocks intercepted Cory Phillips to wrap up the game? Was it "luck" that Skip Holtz had the presence of mind to match up a six-three wide receiver against a defensive back who's four inches shorter and call for the ball to be thrown to that receiver? Georgia's players had been preparing for the South Carolina game since spring practice, they had been pointing to this game for the last 12 months, they knew what was coming, and they still couldn't score a touchdown. Was South Carolina just "lucky" to do that? Or could it be that they have a tough defense, they're well-coached by a shrewd tactician who's been in this game for quite a long time, they didn't lose their poise in front of 86,000 screaming fans, they didn't make any fatal mistakes, and they kept themselves in position to win a close game at the end? You make the call.

   Even though the loss was disappointing, Georgia fans have a lot to be happy about, the way I see it. They have an attractive young coach who does a very good job against programs like Arkansas State. They still have a stadium that's bigger than Georgia Tech's, and their team has a very realistic shot at finishing fourth in the eastern half of the SEC. They can take comfort in knowing their team is still better than Vanderbilt or Kentucky, even if it's not in the Top 25 anymore.

1. It was funny enough that Georgia lost, but after the game was over, someone who was posting under the handle "ccksckngdawg" spammed the Dawg Vent with hundreds of identical posts headlined, "KOOKY COCKS CORKED CORYS KERRY COCK CORK COKE COCK." This went on for page after page - hilarious! I haven't laughed that hard since the last time Bassndawg predicted Georgia would finish 12-0 (granted, that wasn't very long ago).