Let's take off the gold-colored glasses for a minute...

Last season was amazing. It was the most exciting season I've seen as a Tech fan. Coach Johnson exceeded everyone's expectations, and has definitely found a place in the hearts of the Yellow Jacket faithful.

With that said, I'm going to be a Negative Nancy for a little while. We ran the train on a few of our opponents... JSU, Duke, Mississippi State, and Miami. I'm proud that we crushed these teams like we did, but let's not pretend that those large margins of victory qualify us as a good team. We defintely got donkey punched ourselves... UNC was embarrassing, and I don't even want to bring up what happened - you know what? Nevermind.

While last year's 9-4 season eclipsed any under Gailey, I cannot shake the feeling that we probably should have lost 3 of those games.

Boston College: We played pretty clutch D at the end of this game, but I honestly thought they were going to march down and not leave us any time on the clock. Even then, Nesbitt has to go superhuman to keep us from a 3rd and 'oh crap'. Even ingoring the fact that this was a genuine scramble, not a run by design, it was still pretty darn close.

Gardner-Webb: A freakin' AA team held us to 79 rushing yards. Yes, this year, those kinks should be worked out. We should have dominated these guys, though, it just like with LSU, it shows that we can easily get shut down with good defensive line play.

FSU: I'm glad the game went down like it did, searing it into my memory. However, I know that I now exist in Bizarro Tech world with an alternate history, because in the normal universe FSU rans right into our endzone and I go home and cry myself to sleep. I know, I know, if Nesbitt was in, this game wouldn't have been a problem. (However, Nesbitt does seem pretty injury prone - do we expect him to show up for every game in 2009?)


Of course, there is always the counter argument... what about the close games we lost, that we should have won? These would be VPI and UVa.

It's hard not to blame losing to the Hokies on the refs; however, we did play some stupid ball. Maybe we should have won it, but we didn't. We had some bad turnovers, including an awful throwaway from Josh that was picked off.

With UVa, it was once again a matter of turnovers - this time, fumbling during what should be scoring possessions. Maybe we should have seen the debacle at UNC coming, because we managed to fumble at the worst possible times during both games.

We were fourth in the nation last year for rushing output, and our backfield is stacked. However, teams that we should be able to slice and dice were able to render our rushing attack completely impotent. Are we going to get stuffed like some people are predicting? Are we going to fumble away a double-digit season? Do we really even have a reason to expect better? Even if we play more consistently, it means that we swap the UNC and Virginia losses with the FSU and BC wins... not necessarily a better product (how does it go? "I'd rather be lucky than good any day.") Do Tech fans have any reason to expect more wins this season?

I think the fairest answer that I can give is that no - we shouldn't. This year, we should expect to win the games we should win, and lose the ones to better teams. Duh, right?

We haven't made it to the next level, where we are expected to win everything but the national championship game ever year. Maybe this is the year we finally start down the path to join teams like Oklahoma, WVU, uga, VPI, and other top schools that put big seasons together every year. Then, we can move to the tip top. Do we honestly think we are going to bring home a National Title anytime in the immediate future? Hold on.


*Puts his glasses back on*


Well, now that I step back and look at it, there isn't a game on this season's schedule that we should lose. It's going to be a good one.

I like tennis skirts

The Georgia Tech Women's Tennis team clinched a big ACC win over 17th ranked FSU yesterday.

Among the Jackets, Noelle Hickey stood out most to me during the match. Upon entering singles play, Noelle was playing decently, but was making too many small mistakes that began to add up very quickly. At one point she began scolding herself during the match, after knocking one too many returns about a foot too far down the court. After a rough 2-6 start in set 1, Noelle got her play together and won her final two sets 7-6 and 6-4. Congratulations, Noelle.

By the way, the Men's Rugby team beat Emory, and I forgot to tell you. My bad. For the final conference standings, they were tied with Kennesaw State, but since they beat that ass during the season, the Jackets take hold of their third consecutive conference title. Very nice, very badass accomplishment, gentlemen.

Helen Hunt is a big ol' snuggybear

Anyone who has lived in Georgia for more than one football season knows that the Athens cultists have a very, very predictable pattern. Generally, their preseason expectations are that not only will they win the big show, usually stemming from ignoring every other facet of CFB during the offseason.

They (obviously) don't meet those expectations and until after the spring game (where they crown some overrated running back as the next coming of Herschel Walker), they spend most of their time praising St. Richt's "integrity" yet wondering if he and his staff can "take them all the way". It even gets in the press. Current topic of discussion? The fact that Mark Richt is, well, kind of a sissy.


Is Mark Richt intense enough? The jist of the collective dawg answer: sure.

Is St. Richt intense enough?




Not for us.


THWG

There's a Queen song about this, I think...

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3679810

Yeah, who didn't see that one coming a mile away?

Also - Muschamp Muschamp Muschamp Muschamp.