September 27, 2000

Before we start taking questions, indulge the good doctor on a little trip down Memory Lane. The memories, in this case, are of Saturday afternoons in the 1960s when Dr. Football's father would take him to see Bobby Dodd and the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets at Grant Field. Back then, Georgia Tech was the king of Atlanta's sports teams. There were no Atlanta Braves or Atlanta Falcons to compete for the fan's dollar, no Rankin Smith to get drunk and throw up in the press box, no Keyshawn Johnson acting like a major league a-hole (big time) . . . just glorious college football. The ritual for those golden days in October was to stop by the Varsity for two chili dogs and a frosted orange, then a leisurely stroll over to America's oldest on-campus football stadium. It was such a long-ago, innocent era that you could even walk by the Techwood Homes housing project without having to dodge bullets. Well, most of the time anyway.

There we sat, Dad and I, watching as Lenny Snow would juke past another linebacker and "the young lefthander" would throw one of his darts to Craig Baynham. As the game would progress, I remember the classic cheer that would go up from the student section:

(Actually, the second verse of that cheer normally would have been: Engineers Touchdown, Engineers Yell, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Fight Like Hell! But you know how college kids are.)

At the time, I thought it was one of wittiest, funniest cheers I'd ever heard. Still do. But you don't hear the students chant it anymore, and that's a shame. It would be a great complement to the Budweiser Song that Bucky Johnson's band plays at the end of the third quarter. Maybe it's a tradition Tech fans can revive when the stadium is enlarged. If they do, you can count on Dr. Football to be yelling right along with them. Now for the questions:

1. If someone had told me prior to kickoff of the N.C. State game that Tech would sack Philip Rivers seven times, intercept him twice and hold him to less than 270 passing yards; that Joe Burns and Sean Gregory would run better than they have all year (with Burns posting a 100-yard game); and that George Godsey would throw for more yards than in any other game so far this year, I would have assumed that Tech would win by at least two touchdowns, because those numbers would have indicated that the team had made big improvements in all of its problem areas.

   All of those things indeed came to pass, and yet today we contemplate the most disappointing loss of this season and one of the most disheartening in George O'Leary's career at the Flats. What went wrong? Simply put, too many mistakes and not enough killer instinct. Tech was in a position at the start of the third quarter to put State away for good and did not do it. The Jackets got the second half kickoff and started driving for a score that would have given them a commanding lead. But it never happened. The potential scoring drive was terminated by Will Glover's fumble. Then, after Jonathan Cox made a great interception to get the ball back, Sean Gregory fumbles the ball at the one-yard-line for an easy pickup and TD by State. Instead of leading 20-0, the Jackets were up only 13-7 and, worse, had allowed State to get back into the game. The Wolfpack grabbed the opportunity and, in scarcely more time than it takes to say "Bill Lewis," had secured an overtime victory.

   There were many other miscues that contributed to the loss: too many drops by the receivers (especially that last missed pass by Kerry Watkins in overtime), some erratic throws on deep patterns by Godsey (if the State cornerbacks could have held onto the ball, they would have had two or three more interceptions), and the inability of the secondary to keep Koren Robinson in check. But the game really came apart with those two fumbles early in the third quarter.

   Have we completely overrated this team?

   I don't think so, because I don't consider it a disgrace to lose to a team like N.C. State. Coach Chuck Amato has done a good job of turning the program around, and he has some players on the roster (Rivers, Robinson, Levar Fisher) who would be stars at any other school. They're going to a bowl game and may pull off a major upset at some point comparable to what they did to FSU in 1998. It's not like lost to some team like UAB. N.C. State is good, just as South Carolina was good when they whipped Georgia.

   As I noted above, Tech has made some real improvements in areas like rushing the passer, shutting down the run and wrapping up on tackles. It seems to me that some of the young players like Daryl Smith are showing that, if anything, we underrated them. Losing to an re-energized program like State does not mean that Tech has been overrated. It means that the team is making a lot of mistakes and, hopefully, these mistakes can be corrected by the coaches in practice. Now, if Tech should lose to a team like Duke or Wake Forest (or UAB), then it's time to start worrying.

   Where is this program heading? I think we'll know the answer after the game in Chapel Hill. If Tech can regroup and beat the Tar Heels - which won't be an easy task - then they'll go a long way toward proving that the program is on the road to being a consistent, long-term success, even with the loss of Joe Hamilton. If they lose, then we're looking at the prospect of a very long and disappointing season.

1. The shortcomings of this year's team can be understood a little better when you go back and analyze some of the recruiting patterns from O'Leary's first two or three seasons. In 1996 and 1997, Tech signed or offered scholarships to six defensive backs: Troy Tolbert, Armark Tolbert, Travares Tillman, Reggie Wilcox, Will Pettis, and Derrick Dudley. Those are the DBs that should have been starting last year and this year as seniors but, as we all know, only one member of that group (Tillman) became a starter. The rest either did not qualify or rode the pine during their Tech career. Tech signed another large group of DBs in 1999: Winfred Brown, Selwyn Scott, Kelley Rhino, Cory Collins, Eric Lavette, Algis Motiejunas, and Jeremy Muyres. Of that group, three have already left the program. That combination of attrition and misjudgments of talent has created a gaping hole in the secondary that Tech is forced to plug with a lot of young players.

   A similar pattern underlies the team's other trouble spot, the offensive line. In 1996, 1997 and 1998, Tech signed a total of 18 offensive linemen: Dan Mitchell, Kevin Knapp, Tim Castro, Michael Byrne, Michael Bledsoe, Jason Kemble, Brian Meager, Jesse Moody, Pat Ashley, Tim Brown, Ashley Henderson, Dustin Vaitekunas, Bill Madigan, Noah King, Brent Key, Chris Brown, Jason Burks and Jon Carman. Those are the guys who ideally would be starting this year as juniors or seniors, but fully 12 of the 18 either left the program or have been pushed down the depth chart by the young players and walkons who are starting. Again, attrition and misjudgments by the coaches have left Tech with an offensive line that is thin and inexperienced (with the exception of Chris Brown and Brent Key). O'Leary has acknowledged that the coaching staff is going to have to sign a lot of linemen in the upcoming class. Let's hope they do a little better in their selections.

1. I think so. Nobody has more respect for O'Leary and Friedgen than the good doctor, but on this one I think they're stuck in the same old mind-set that plagues so many sportswriters: successful teams don't rotate quarterbacks, according to the conventional wisdom, so you shouldn't ever do it. And they're not doing it. But sometimes that conventional wisdom is wrong. Rotating Jermaine Crenshaw into the FSU game jump-started Tech's offense and put the Jackets in the position of being one blown pass interference call away from pulling off a major upset. Letting Crenshaw play a couple of series against N.C. State might have had a similar invigorating effect. On four occasions in the State game, Tech drove into Wolfpack territory and had to settle for a field goal attempt (and missed one of those). Perhaps if Crenshaw had been allowed to run a few option plays in the red zone, Tech might have converted one or two of those field goal tries into touchdowns.

   Even Bobby Bowden has rotated quarterbacks at times. In 1977 and 1978, early in Bowden's career at FSU, he regularly alternated Jimmy Jordan and Wally Woodham at QB and did very well with them. Quarterback rotation can work. Ralph Friedgen is one of the most innovative thinkers in football - I wish he'd be innovative enough to give quarterback rotation more of a try.

1. Nope. Look, let's face some facts here. Godsey is the best of the four quarterbacks that Tech is suiting up at this time. He has his limitations, but he plays well within those limitations and I've seen some improvement as the season has progressed. It's obvious that a lot of fans are upset because George isn't as talented as Joe Hamilton, but then, who is? Let's consider the names of some other quarterbacks that are starting at the Division I level this year: A. J. Suggs, Phil Petty, Wayne Madkin, Tyler Watts, Jesse Palmer, Greg Zolman, Jared Lorenzen, Ben Leard, Robby Hampton, Josh Booty, LaVonya Quintelle Carter. Is there anyone who seriously believes that any of these quarterbacks have even half the talent of Joe Hamilton? And yet, they are all starters in the SEC, a conference whose fans loudly (if mistakenly) proclaim as the best conference in all of college football.

   Does George have problems with his deep throws? Yeppers. Is he a little slow on the option? Double yeppers. Does Tech have anyone who can move the team better than he does? Absolutely not. The fact is, I'd love to have Joe Hamilton back at quarterback myself. But Joe ain't here anymore, and we've got to accept that and move on.

1. I've heard the same complaints made by both the fans and the hosts of the talk radio shows, and they all run along this line: "Donnan needs to get back to that smash-mouth style of running the ball that Georgia is famous for. They've gotta start playing like an SEC team again." They all say it to one degree or another, but the talk-show host who has made it a personal mantra is Beau Bock (real name: Wally Maher), a pimple on the underside of Atlanta radio for the last 25 years.

   Beau, since you've obviously been in a coma for the last decade, let me clue you in to something: that SEC smash-mouth style of running the football no longer exists, because the SEC doesn't run the ball anymore. When Steve Spurrier took over at Florida in 1990 and started beating everybody with his "Fun 'n Gun" attack, the rest of the conference coaches quickly followed suit and retooled their offenses to emphasize the pass. Georgia was no exception, and the arrival of Eric Zeier in 1991 completed the program's transition from a run-oriented offense to a team that throws the ball as often as BYU. Georgia hasn't been a running team since Vince Dooley retired in 1988, so there's really nothing for Donnan to "go back to." It's no coincidence that under Ray Goff and Donnan, Georgia had three of the most talented running backs in the school's history: Terrell Davis, Olandis Gary and Robert Edwards. Not a single one of them had a thousand-yard season while at Georgia.

   The SEC only mirrors what has happened throughout Division I college football. With the exception of the service academies and the occasional throwback like Tom Osborne and Frank Solich at Nebraska or Ken Hatfield at Rice, very few coaches emphasize the running game anymore. They've mostly implemented some version of a pro-style passing game like the West Coast Offense or the Run and Shoot. Whenever a coach takes over a struggling program - like June Jones at Hawaii or Chuck Amato at N.C. State or Hal Mumme at Kentucky - the first thing they invariably do is install an offense that calls on the quarterback to throw the ball 40 or 50 times a game. Steve Spurrier with his Fun 'n Gun and Bobby Bowden with his Fast-Break Offense have been very successful with this pass-pass-pass approach, and almost everybody else imitates them.

   Unfortunately, this trend to a pro-style passing game has eliminated the aspect of college football that always made it so much fun to watch: the fact that it wasn't pro football. It was great to watch college football because you could see a lot of different teams run a lot of different styles of offense. Now, they all look like K-Mart knockoffs of Bill Walsh.

   Certainly, Tech is no exception. Ralph Friedgen, after all, came here straight from the San Diego Chargers. But even with Ralph's pro football background, Tech still believes in the value of running the ball (I attribute that to the influence of O'Leary, who loves nothing better than to line it up and run right at someone). Last year, for example, the Jackets averaged 225 yards per game on the ground and 283 yards through the air. That's a good, sound balance. When you get right down to it, in fact, Tech plays more like a traditional SEC team than any of the current SEC teams. But you won't find this style of football at many colleges, and more's the pity.

1. It was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away: 1965, to be exact. Georgia traveled to Ann Arbor to play Michigan that year and defeated the Wolverines, 15-7. It was Vince Dooley's second year as head coach and, oddly enough, that upset of Michigan was one of the original cornerstones of the Dooley legend. He really made a name for himself as a young head coach by traveling so far north to beat a heavily favored team. But apparently, once was enough. In the ensuing 35 years, Georgia has not dared to venture outside its home region to take on a single OOC opponent. The closest they came to leaving the South was in 1967 when they traveled to Texas and lost to the University of Houston, 15-14. I think most of us would agree that Houston is about as far South as you can get, even if it is west of the Mississippi River.

   In the last decade alone, Georgia Tech has traveled to the Meadowlands in New Jersey, to Chestnut Hill, Mass., to South Bend, Ind. and to Tucson, Ariz. to play OOC games. Even Alabama, of all schools, traveled to the West Coast to play UCLA. But not Georgia. Vince Dooley evidently is afraid for his boys to travel very far from the friendly confines of Sanford Stadium. He'd rather stay there and play powerhouses like Kent State and Utah State. Of course, it does get embarrassing when you run up against a team like Southern Mississippi that refuses to roll over and spread its legs for an easy Georgia victory, but I guess that's the risk you run. In Dooley's case, it's the only risk he'll run. So have some pity for poor, shivering, cowering Vince. Let him stay in his little stadium and be happy.