November 13, 2003

There are some eerie parallels between that 1996 season and this one. The Tech coach was a guy in his second full season on the Flats (George O'Leary then, Chan Gailey now). Tech was playing a freshman at quarterback (Joe Hamilton then, Reggie Ball now). And the Jackets headed into the home stretch of their schedule with a 5-3 record.

Those of us posting on the Hive back in 1996 assumed that Tech would win two and probably all three of the remaining games on its schedule. The question we discussed wasn't whether Tech was capable of winning those games it was which bowl the Jackets would be invited to. Instead of analyzing the remaining games on the schedule, we were discussing travel itineraries for the bowl season. We essentially had already factored in a 7-4 or 8-3 regular season record for the team. Sound familiar? It should, because last week I read the same kind of postings on the 2003 edition of the Hive. Even one of the players was talking about a possible Gator Bowl invitation.

Needless to say, things fell apart back in 1996. Tech traveled to College Park on a cold Thursday night and was upset by Maryland in probably the worst game I've ever seen a Tech team play against an opponent it was favored to beat. It was absolutely putrid. Tech then came back to Atlanta and lost to Navy in a game where Hamilton threw some crucial interceptions late in the game. The season ended with a wretchedly played 19-10 loss to Georgia. Tech's final record was 5-6. No bowl game.

I'll be damned if we haven't seen exactly the same sequence unfolding this year. A 5-3 Tech team goes into Durham to play a team that's working on a 30-game conference losing streak and loses. They didn't just lose a close one, either they collapsed completely and allowed the sorriest team in the conference to beat them by 24 points. Yeah, I know, Ted Roof is an inspirational coach who has fired up the Duke team to go out there and play their hearts out but that doesn't mean Tech should lie down and let the Blue Devils run all over them. Which is what they did.

Thus we see the repetition of the same pattern we've seen all season. Tech plays well against the teams it isn't favored to beat (Auburn, N.C. State, Maryland), but plays poorly in games where it is the favorite (Clemson, Vanderbilt and Duke).

Who's responsible for this? You can say that the seniors on the team are supposed to be providing leadership for the younger players so that they don't go into a game against a team like Duke unprepared, so part of the blame can go there. It is even more the responsibility of the coaching staff, however, to have their players properly motivated so that they don't fall flat, and on this point Chan Gailey has disappointed Tech fans several times now. He just can't get his players to perform consistently. It looks like the Jacket's streak of six straight winning seasons is going to come to an end, along with their streak of six straight bowl games.

Of course, this is one of those seasons where a lot of teams are falling on their face. Clemson, for example, opens the season with a 30-0 loss to Georgia, follows that with a 39-3 victory over Tech, gets blown out by Wake Forest and then in the very next week smacks Florida State the first time the Tiggers have ever beaten a team ranked in the top three. Florida looks terrible against Tennessee and Ole Miss, but recovers to beat LSU, Arkansas and Georgia outside the friendly confines of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Wisconsin has lost four games, including a home game to UNLV, but is also the only team to beat defending national champ Ohio State. Southern Cal is ranked number two in the nation and headed for a BCS matchup with Oklahoma, but still lost a game to California which has a 5-6 record.

So, yes, Tech under Chan Gailey has been very inconsistent, but so have many other teams. It's just one of those years like 1996. Will Tech end this season on a losing streak like they did then? The signs aren't encouraging. The chances of a victory against Georgia are slim. Tech has to play Virginia at Charlottesville, where it hasn't won since 1990, and the Cavaliers will be trying to redeem an underachieving season with a victory over the Jackets. Tech has played poorly all year against teams they are favored to beat, and this weekend they are a 10-point favorite against North Carolina.

I'm worried.

Now, let's get to some of your questions...

17. Is the Patrick Nix that Georgia Tech has as their QB coach the same person that was once a backup at Auburn?

1. It is the same Patrick Nix, but he was more than just a backup quarterback for the Plainsmen. In 1993, when Terry Bowden coached Auburn to an 11-0 record, Nix came off the bench in the Alabama game when starting quarterback Stan White was injured and threw a late touchdown pass to wrap up the victory over the Tide. It was a magical moment for Auburn fans. Nix was then Auburn's starting quarterback in both 1994 and 1995 and finished as the school's career leader in passing efficiency.

   More importantly, Nix has obviously done a pretty good job as quarterback coach at Tech this year. Judging by Reggie Ball's performance on the field, it looks like Nix has been able to teach him a few things about the position.

1. There are several reasons why the offense falls short. As we've noted several times already, the Jackets have a true freshman at quarterback who is still facing a steep learning curve. The offensive line has been very inconsistent. There's a real dropoff at wide receiver behind the two starters Jonathan Smith and Nate Curry have a combined total of 81 receptions, but their backups, Levon Thomas and Xavier McGuire, have caught only nine passes between them. There is a lack of breakaway speed at running back. All of those factors have a lot to do with the offense averaging only 16.3 points a game.

   Even with a stagnant offense, some of the Jackets are on course to put up some decent numbers. If he maintained his current production over the next three games, Jonathan Smith would finish with 68 receptions and 1,160 yards. Reggie Ball would finish with 2,155 yards passing. Even P. J. Daniels has a shot at gaining 1,000 yards rushing he's at 794 yards now with three games to go. Pretty good numbers individually but this is still an offense that isn't going to win many shootouts.

1. Nobody could ever duplicate the performance of the late, great Al Ciraldo when it comes to calling a Tech game, but Wes certainly ranks right up there among the best play-by-play guys in college sports. My suggestion would be that Tech name one side of Bobby Dodd Stadium as the "Wes Stands" in his honor.

1. I think that's a reasonable assumption. If Georgia loses to Auburn, the diehards of ChihuahuaNation will be grateful to even get a Peach Bowl bid. Of course, you'd never know that Georgia had even lost a game from reading the Atlanta newspapers.

   Honestly, I've never encountered such a sorry collection of suckups and brown-nosers as I saw in the sports pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and on the talk radio shows leading up to the Georgia-Florida game. Every one of them was predicting a blowout victory by Georgia and making the same idiotic statements that Georgia is going to step up and make a statement in this game and This is where Georgia shows they're a Top 5 program every year.

   Here's a typical sampling:

   Tony Barnhart Georgia can win this game because of its defense and special teams. Expect the Bulldogs to find several different ways to put pressure on freshman quarterback Chris Leak. If Georgia can force Leak to commit two or more turnovers, the Bulldogs will win.

   Jeff Schultz - Another loss to Florida? To Ron Zook? Again? There's one for the Sweeps. But it won't happen. Dogs overcome famine and pestilence."

   And of course, the gold standard in boot-licking and butt-kissing was set by Mark Bradley, a Journal-Constitution sportswriter whos so deeply in love with Mark Richt that you wonder why he just doesnt go ahead and propose marriage to him. Bradley has had his nose deep up the Richtum, so to speak, of every athletic coach at Georgia over the past two decades, but his adoration of Richt is truly something special. In the magical prose of Mark Bradley, Richt becomes not only the next incarnation of Bear Bryant, but the second coming of Jesus Christ himself. Check out the gushing sonnet that Bradley published on the morning of the game:

   Gators fans are forever reminding us of history: As the world knows, Florida has beaten Georgia 12 of the past 13 years. Those games are in the book, inarguable and unchangeable. But this vaunted series is about to change, for much the same reason it changed in 1990."

   "In 1990, Florida found the right coach. Georgia has the right coach now. . . Richt stands poised to leave his imprint on this vaunted series, just as he has already made his mark on the SEC. Yes, Richt lost to Spurrier in 2001 and to the lampooned Ron Zook last season, but Richt will not lose today. Hes the right guy in the right job at a transitional moment. There was a reason Spurrier beat Goff and Jim Donnan --- Spurrier was the better coach with comparable if not superior players. Richt is that man today.

   "The only reason Georgia lost to Florida in 2002 was that the Bulldogs hadnt yet convinced themselves they could win such a game. A fortnight later, the convincing came that cold day at Auburn. Now there's nothing barring Georgia's path. It has the better coach and comparable if not superior players, and now it has the requisite belief . . .

   ". . . Georgia has come to play the way Richt goes about his business: The Bulldogs are unafraid of their surroundings, undaunted by any misfortune . . .

   ". . . In many ways, Richt is the anti-Spurrier. He never brags. He doesn't strut. He won't even run up the score. (Surely Spurrier would have tried to break 60 in Knoxville last month.) But Richt is the SEC's Next Great Coach, just as Spurrier was when he returned to Gainesville. Like Spurrier, Richt inherited a program with all the resources but little of the needed direction. Like Spurrier, Richt changed those dynamics. Like Spurrier, Richt now knows the unanimous support of his team's rabid followers.

   "For more than a decade, there has always been something stopping Georgia in this vaunted series first it was Spurrier, and then it was the residue of doubt left after a decade-plus of Spurrier's domination. Now the way has been cleared. The Bulldogs are ready to win this game again. They'll win by two touchdowns today.