The Hive Presents Ask Dr. Football

September 12, 2003

This is why I love college football. Youve got an unseasonably cool day in September, with a newly expanded stadium that youre showing off to the world on national TV, and your guys are up against a heavily favored team from the mighty SEC that at one time was picked to win the national championship, a team you havent beaten in 25 years, a team that is still ranked in the Top 25 while your guys are barely ranked in the Top 112, and . . . damned if your guys dont go out there and whip their butts.

WAR FEEBLE!!

I dont think Ive ever been as surprised by the outcome of a game as the one last Saturday. I usually will go into a game thinking, well, if we get a couple of turnovers and everybody plays over their heads, maybe we might pull off an upset. I didnt think that coming into the Auburn game I wonder if any Tech fan really thought the team had a chance of winning. I just went with the conventional wisdom that Auburn would be angry about its humiliating loss to Southern Cal and take out its anger on a team picked to finish eighth in the ACC. I didnt see any possible scenario under which Tech even had a remote chance at an upset. Zip, zilch, nada.

It just goes to show you how much the so-called "experts" know. I am particularly referring here to a pompous windbag named "Beau Bock" who has been infecting talk radio in the Atlanta market for the past 25 years. Two days before the BYU game, Bock ran out a commentary on his radio show in which he said that if Tech wasnt able to beat Brigham Young, they would go 0-12 this season. Which is about what youd expect from someone who sucks up to the Georgia coaching staff almost as much as Mark Bradley.

Little did he know . . . little did anybody know. Chan Gailey got it just about right when he remarked that no one believed in his team but they believed in themselves. That they did. So lets just go ahead and call out the heroes from that magnificent 17-3 blowout of the overrated War Feebles. And Ill call that game a blowout, not an upset.

Techs defensive line was outweighed by an average of 49 pounds a man, but they showed that quickness and aggressiveness can make up for a lack of size. Major props to Eric Henderson, who is basically a "Baby Gathers" at defensive end and who punished Jason Campbell all afternoon. Good job also by his bookend at DE, Gerris Wilkinson. Travis Parker went almost the entire game at DT without a substitution I hope Chan doesnt wear him out this season. Brad Brezina and Mansfield Wrotto did their jobs well.

The old reliables at linebacker Smith, Fox and Brown smacked down Auburns vaunted runners and kept intense pressure on Jason Campbell all afternoon. The DBs gave up a couple of long receptions late in the game, but basically kept the play in front of them. There was great run support from the safeties, especially Dawan Landry, whos even better than Jamara Clark at cutting down running backs who try to go outside. Wonderful interception by Dennis Davis to wrap up the game at the end.

The kick coverage by the special teams was superb, but whats up with Hal Higgins? He badly shanked two punts, one in the last two minutes that would have given Auburn a golden opportunity to score, if Auburn only had an offense. Which they dont. Hal, please do some extra work in practice this week.

In stark contrast to the BYU game, there was sharp, crisp blocking by the offensive line. Reggie Ball was only sacked once, and late in the fourth quarter they were opening up huge holes for Ace Eziemefe to run through in fact, I havent seen a hole that wide open since Christina Aguileras last concert. If Ace hadnt tripped over his own feet, Tech might have scored another TD. Nice job by Kyle Wallace, Nat Dorsey, Andy Tidwell-Neal, Brad Honeycutt and Hugh Reilly.

Thanks to the little guy at quarterback, Tech knocked Auburn on its ass on the first offensive play when Reggie Ball hit Nate Curry with a 54-yard pass and the tapes showed that Reggie hit him perfectly in stride. That play had the essential impact of kicking Auburn in the gonads after they recovered from the pain, they had to respect Reggies throwing arm. Ball is still calibrating his performance. He tends to overthrow a bit on long patterns, but hes getting closer and closer with each game.

Our running backs still look a little slow to me, but they were just good enough to get by Auburn. Among the wide receivers, you cant overlook a marvelous catch over the middle by Darius Williams and a fantastic touchdown grab by Mark Logan.

Guys, I was wrong not to believe in you. I badly underestimated you. Dr. Football is more than willing to eat crow. Especially if youre talking about Sheryl Crowe.

What was especially sweet about Saturdays victory was that I attended the last game between the two schools in 1987 at Grant Field (as it was called in those days). Auburn came rolling in heavily favored, but Tech (under first-year coach Bobby Ross) played them heads-up into the fourth quarter and led 10-7 with just a few minutes left. Then Auburn, with Jeff Burger hitting little dink passes, moved the ball downfield into Tech territory. Tech had a chance to put the game away with about 90 seconds to go when a defensive back (I believe it was Cedric Stallworth, but it might have been Gerald Chamblin) got his hands on a Burger pass for an easy interception. But he dropped the ball. Auburn, given a second chance, scored with less than a minute left to go ahead 14-10. On the ensuring series, Auburns Aundray "The Giant" Bruce sacked Rick Strom and caused a fumble, which the Tigers ran in for a last-second score. It was one of the bitterest defeats Ive ever sat through, and it destroyed the Tech team. After losing that heart-breaker, they just quit and finished out the season with a 2-9 record.

I had waited a long time for payback. I didnt think it would happen last Saturday, but thankfully it did. So I can fully understand why the Tech students tore down the goalposts. More power to them. As I left the OKeefe parking lot about an hour after the game ended, I could see a motley crowd of Tech students walking down Fowler Street in the deepening darkness, still carrying the goal posts and chanting, "Auburn sucks! Auburn sucks!"

Who could disagree with that?

Enough of this free association. Lets go to your questions . . .

Auburn is now 0-2 and still hasnt scored a touchdown this season. Was Tech just lucky that they played a really bad team?

I dont think so. There are a lot of players back from last years team that would have beaten Georgia if not for a late-game choke by the defense and did beat Alabama. Except at the quarterback position, theres still a lot of talent there.
Where I think Tech caught a break is that Auburn does not seem to be well-coached. Gailey and Jon Tenuta had obviously studied the tapes of the previous weeks game, while Tommy Dumberville didnt. Tenuta stacked Techs defense with eight men in the box and brought the safeties in for run support. If Dumberville had looked at the Tech-BYU films, he would have known that Tech was vulnerable to deep pass routes behind the safeties and short passes over the middle to the tight end. He did nothing to exploit either weakness. Im not a Division I football coach, but even I could have figured out that the best way to attack Techs defense is by throwing deep or dragging the tight end over the middle. Auburn, for reasons Ill never figure out, didnt throw deep down the middle until there were five minutes left in the game and by then it was too little, too late.
I can only surmise that Auburns offensive coordinator, Hugh Nall, is about as dumb as a bag of hammers. Does it surprise anybody that hes a close friend and former teammate of Buck Belue? I can also surmise that Auburns head coach never should have replaced Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator with someone as dim-witted as Hugh Nall.
Ive been one of Chan Gaileys most vocal critics since the disaster of last Nov. 30, but I will acknowledge that he called a very smart game on offense. He and Patrick Nix are also bringing Reggie Ball along at just the right speed, opening up the offense for him a little more each week. I can only hope that the Chan Gailey we saw last year when Tech played UNC, N.C. State and Virginia is the Chan Gailey well see this year. He certainly outcoached Tommy Dumberville (which is a little like saying youre more humanitarian than Adolf Hitler).

Could that officiating crew at the Auburn game have been any worse? Was the fix in?

You could tell it was an SEC crew. They blew the call on an Auburn fumble in the second quarter, which allowed the Tiggers to keep the ball and eventually get their field goal the only points theyve scored all season. Auburns defensive backs were gangbanging Techs receivers all day, but the officials only called them for pass interference one time. Midway through the third quarter, the officials made two bad spots in a row that kept Tech from making first downs when they clearly had advanced the ball beyond the chains. I guess we should have realized that the officiating crew would include a couple of Auburns assistant coaches.
This is the unfortunate legacy of the 1999 Tech-Georgia game, where an SEC crew made a call late in the game that sent it into overtime, where Tech won. If youll remember, the weasely scumbag Roy Kramer suspended that crew of officials, giving everyone else the clear message that theyre going to be canned if they ever make a call against an SEC team in a out-of-conference game. It looks like the message has been received and acknowledged.

Heres a turnover summary for our last 4 games: Duke 3, Ugay 5, Fresno State 7, BYU 4. Thats an average of almost five turnovers per game, over a significant period of time. What can cause such a consistent turnover problem such as this? What can be done to fix it?

Bad hands have been a long-term problem with Tech players and I dont know why. The turnover problem continued into the Auburn game. Levon Thomas dropped the ball on a botched end-around play. P. J. Daniels fumbled twice (thankfully, he and Reggie Ball fell on both of them before Auburn did). On successive series in the first half, Nate Curry and J. P. Foschi dropped passes that would have given Tech a first down and kept drives alive. This is a real concern for Tech you can mishandle the ball against Auburn and still win, but if you do it against FSU youll end up on the wrong side of a 49-3 score. The turnover problem is obviously caused by a lack of concentration on the part of the players. I dont know that any coach has ever figured out how you fix it, but I hope Chan Gailey is addressing this in practice.

Hey, Doc, what has 3,664 legs and three teeth?

The Auburn fans sitting in the Upper North section of Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Thank you, thank you very much. Please tip the waitresses.
Actually, the Auburn fans I encountered seemed like a nice enough group of fans, and they certainly were not loud and obnoxious during the game. Of course, when your team is getting bitch-slapped into the next county, it tends to limit your enthusiasm. Before the game started, I checked out the new Barnes & Noble bookstore at the corner of 5th and Spring Streets, which is a great facility. I ran into some Auburn fans at the bookstore and they were just dumbfounded at all of the literary treasures available there. "You mean that Tech students get these here book things with printing on them?" one of them asked me. "Yes," I replied. "Sumbitch," he said, shaking his head in bewilderment.
After Mark Logans stupendous touchdown catch near the end of the third quarter, I could hear tinkling sounds all around me in the upper west stands. It was Auburn fans dropping their empty Skoal tins in disbelief. But I didnt see any of them try to start any fights with Tech fans. (I hope that those of you who had a different experience with Auburn fans will send me an email recounting what happened to you.)

What do you think of the new look at Bobby Dodd Stadium?

Let me say this Dave Braine has been the focus of a ton of criticism from the Tech family, much of it deserved. But I think he and Sterling Brown and the rest of the people involved in the expansion of the stadium deserve credit for getting it done right for the most part. The one egregious error was the fact that the plumbing was evidently installed by a mad Ukrainian with a bad drug habit. In the upper west stands (and maybe in other parts of the stadium as well), the water went out in the first half and commodes in both the mens and womens restrooms started to overflow. There was almost as much crap on the restroom floors as there was in the officiating crew on the field. Lets get real, guys. Georgia Tech is one of the nations top engineering schools. Surely there is someone on campus with a rudimentary knowledge of hydraulics.

There have been suggestions that if Dave Braine leaves, Tech should hire Bill Curry as the next athletic director. Whats your take on that?

While I like Bill as a person, I would question his qualifications to be athletic director. Would you really want to put someone in that job whose first official action would be to hire Rip Scherer as the head football coach?