My bowl picks are teh lolzers

I don't do lines. I hastily picked these in a foggy haze that the first couple rounds provides. Laugh if you want. Then bask in my glory when I go 34 for 34.

First round winners:

Navy
Fresno
USF
Arizona


Yes, I'm picking my upsets early.

Vacation and Johnson's raise

I'm gonna be going back to ATL for 9 days so I'll let Dane/Winfield pick up the slack on bloggin'. Sadly, GT will be travelin' to the west coast while I'm in town.

Let's talk about Paul Johnson's raise. Why would you give someone who excites the fan base a 53% raise? One major factor is attendance. This year's poor attendance due to double barrel of I-AA's and lack of marquee crowd pleasers resulted in around 86% attendance.

If every ticket was sold for approximatly 25 bucks (estimation based on mixture of alumni/seat donors higher and 9,000 "free" student tickets), then we generated 8.7 million in ticket revenue. Now, next year we'll be bringing Clemson, uga, and VT to town. If VT sustains some momentum and the game is not a Thursday night, then we're talking at least 3 sellouts. Next year's home slate will be Wake (86-90%), UNC (90-92%), Clemson (99-100%), ugag (101%), VT (95-100%), and Jacksonville State (85%). So an average of 93-95% is not bad for 6 home games. That's a revenue of 7.6 million.

Imagine a team that annually excites the fan base. We continually bring in 95-96% capacity per game and you're taking care of Johnson's pay raise. This coming year's 6 game home slate doesn't help us but the big 3 opponents at home certainly doesn't hurt.

Now, throw in increased revenue from concessions, increased sales in merchandising (e.g. hundreds of #21 Jon Dwyer gold and white jerseys running around town), and increased television exposure and GT's talking an even greater revenue stream because we made the risk of keeping a good coach.

Are you frightful over Tech's financial future? Do you dislike the Tech fan bases poor home attendance yet odd eagerness to travel (except to VT)?

Thursday News and Links

Every now and then we do a blog search to see what the blogosphere is talking about regarding the Yellow Jackets. Here is what people are talking about:

Football

Paul Johnson: 2nd highest paid coach in the ACC. $17.7 million for 7 years. BOOM!

Coley Harvey continues to dish out the love to Cord Howard and talks about how he has stepped up in Andrew Gardner’s place.
Sidenote: I really do enjoy reading Coley Harvey. I suggest all of you do the same.

The ACC Sports Journal takes our pulse. Well more like they interview the guy who publishes GoJackets.com, Jonathan Leifheit. The responses fit what a typical Georgia Tech fan would sound like at this point in their life would sound like: excited but wary of being too overconfident AKA cautious.

Issue with VT blog “TechSuperfans” 1. Spell Ramblin’ Reck correctly (Wramblin Wreck, seriously WTF?) 2. “Uphill battle against LSU” Pfft. FAIL.
Please speak of what you know next time.

Some of you may not realize the history that Tech and LSU have together on the football field from back in the day. Here’s some information on that.

Basketball
Lewis Clinch is back! And boy did he perform! Coley Harvey discusses here.
Larry Harstein (AJC) talks about it here.

The Nick Foreman Walk-on love continues. This time it’s the ACC Sports Journal.

Randomness

The current bowl system sucks and is outdated. In fact, it’s a “boondoggle”. I don’t really understand that specific metaphor but whatever.

ATL midtown beat down

GT beats GSU by 20 to improve to 6-2 on the season. Gani takes care of business, as usual, and Iman adds 11 assists. Sweet. A nice little shining star in the stat lines is Brad Sheehan contributing 16 points. Do not underestimate the power of the 7' center. Tech now leads the series in the Midtown vs. Downtown Series 17-2 with the only losses being decided away from Georgia Tech before the dark times. Before the Empire.

I like seeing the games against instate teams. I know people that attended these schools and it gives a nice rivalry flavor to the game. It also gives you a challenge. These teams are stocked with kids that are jaded because they were "overlooked" by the big instate schools. So they're gonna play like they're in their conference tournament (see James Florence's performance for Mercer). They got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

You've also got the simple economics of the games. It's easy to attend a game in Macon. It's two hours right down 75 and a relatively nice campus to visit. It's really easy to attend a game at GSU being 10 minutes from GT's campus and right off 85. You assert your instate dominance and leave. Simple. Now, we must take care of business against the Cesspool. To Hell With Georgia.

Do you have any comments on pre-ACC bball action or just want to vent about the futilities in life? Post in the comments section.

Conspiracy Theory: Auburn Edition

If you are a fan of conspiracy theories you’ll enjoy reading the below conversation I had with a co-worker of mine. Rumors are swirling around Auburn like a mother and this is just one of the bunch. This is all in regards to Tommy Tuberville’s “resignation” and his buyout. Draw your own conclusions.

Jeff: I did see an interesting conspiracy theory, that if true makes sense.


Me: oh?

Jeff: yeah, so this story involes the yella wood guy,
you know who that is right?

Me: yep






Jeff: so the story goes, he's watching the iron bowl and gets seriously PO'd. Since he films all these commercials he has most of the big time coaches’ personal phone numbers and so he decides to call Houston Nutt directly and ask what it would take to get him at Auburn. Nutt says thanks, but I can't do that to Ole Miss right now.


Jeff: Now Nutt and Tubbs are both Jimy Sexton clients and the rumor is that after Jet Gate, Sexton negotiated a clause in Tubbs contract. That clause is that Auburn, or anyone acting on their behalf, staff or booster can not approach another coach. Otherwise it's a breach of contract and Tubb's gets his complete buy out


Me: Wooooow!

Jeff: Nutt mentions in passing that Yella Wood gave him a ring to Sexton... Sexton tells Tubbs they've breached the contract. Tubbs walks in the next day and asks for his money. They negotiate, agree to pay but he [Tuberville] steps down. To avoid Sexton going public with the mess they agree to hire another one of his clients... you guessed it Chizik.


Jeff: No idea if it’s true, but it makes for a good story

Damn right it is. Auburn is a mess.

Dr. Saturday speaks of this same subject here

Pro Bowl Prediction Correct

I knew this would happen. I figured that Calvin would be left off the NFC Pro Bowl roster because of his terrible team. I'm sorry but two Cardinals wide receivers should not have made it. Steve Smith should not have made it, if not just for his preseason altercation, but for the fact that he didn't play the first couple games and was shut down several times in the Panthers' losses. Calvin kept up his rate of around 1/6 of all catches going for TD's. He is top 5 in almost every WR statistic. And he did it with 5 different Lions QB's hucking the ball to him. So goes life for the modern era Barry Sanders. Here's my message to Mr. Johnson: DO NOT SIGN ANYMORE PAPERS WITH "DETROIT LIONS" IN THE HEADING UNLESS IT'S A TRADE DEAL.

CPJ and GT reach contract extension agreement

Yesterday afternoon, Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech came to a contract extension agreement. Details won't be announced until the end of this week unfortunately. When Johnson first signed on at the flats, his contract was 7 years, $1.6 million per year. That put him right in the middle of the ACC for coaching salaries.

Ladies and gentleman, we sure as hell are not in the middle of the ACC. Currently, Bobby Bowden, Frank Beamer, Butch Davis, Al "Chan Gailey pt. 2" Groh, and Ralph Friedgen all make more than CPJ. I expect the extension to be right around the Butch Davis $2.1 million a year salary.

So, while we wait on the official announcement and numbers, let's revel in some of the images of our beloved coach from this past year:

The Beginning.

Always givin' the Refs a hard time.

EXPECTING PERFECTION FOREVER AND ALWAYS.

What are your thoughts on a contract extension? Is 1 year to soon? Does CPJ deserve it?

Dilated pupils and Tim Tebow

I went to the eye doctor today for the first time in, well, for the first time I can remember. My eyes are perfectly fine, I have what the doctor described as "near-bionic" vision (she said that wasn't surprising, given that I was otherwise an impeccable physical specimen), which is really just another entry in the long list of reasons of why my genes should be passed on. However, It also means that I have had to read everything in old-people view on Firefox while covering my left eye, which has basically given up focusing for now.

Now that I am done with school for a few weeks, I am allowing myself to dumb down a little bit, and have done so by reading some threads at the DawgPost. If you would like to read some of the most hilariously ridiculous, envious, and patently false claims about the Great Tebow, here you go. Props to RobinsDemons14, a die-hard UGA fan (I actually know him from high school) for correctly diagnosing the problems of the average Tebow hater.


Apparently I am an old salty bastard. Thanks for the shoutout from the GT Sports Blog.

Clinch returns and new fball wrinkles

Mo Miller is out and Lewis Clinch says he's eligible again. Clinch should return against my second most hated team in the state, Georgia State. Clinch should finally provide us another three point shooter. And for CPH's teams, the more 3-ballers the better.

Concerning football, Johnson looks to be bringing in additional wrinkles in the passing offense. I think Georgia Tech's passing game has been pretty bad for about 5 years now. We haven't had our primary passer throw for over 50% completions since Reggie's freshman year in 2003. Wow, that's a long time and probably the longest active streak in CFB.


What are your thoughts about the new additions to the offense? About Lewis Clinch? Post below!

NOOOOOO!!!

Arena Football has been cancelled! What? Why? Due to the economy?!?

What's next? Cancelling Christmas, Easter, or St. Patrick's Day? Damn the economy. First you take 30% of my bonus. Then, you ruin millions of Americans' jobs/retirement/futures. Now, this.

UIC 66 GT 60

The UIC Flames continue to be a thorn in our side no matter the quality of either team. In a rather empty Alexander Memorial Coliseum, our Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets lost another close one. The time came for Mo Miller to close a 3-point gap down to 1 at the free throw line and he just couldn't hit a shot. We didn't come within 1 point again.

The Flames shot 28% from the 3-point line and it seemed as if we defended the perimeter much better. Unfortunately, the UIC's big man Scott VanderMeer, had his way on the inside, scoring a game high 17 points.

Lowlights: From my view, we struggle with a complete defense. If we defend the 3, we allow the 2. If we defend the inside, we open up the perimeter. Free-throw shooting is absymal. When we need clutch free-throws (see also Mercer) we can't seem to hit get them.

Positives: Once again, flashes of brilliance are shown in Gani and Iman. We just can't seem to catch those flashes and harness it into something cohesive. Nick Foreman is becoming a fairly solid asset for us. A walk-on, Foreman is showing hustle, grit and determination. Every game I watch him play, there improvement and I am impressed. Lewis Clinch should be back on Wednesday as long as he passes all classes which are released on Tuesday

In the end, we have good individuals. Maybe even some good duos, but we don't seem to have the solid team that we need to make that run that is so desperately needed. The potential is there, but the results not so much.

Upcoming Games this Week:

12/17: vs. Georgia State

12/20: @ Pepperdine

12/22: @ USC

Pete Carroll is awesome, dissenters invited to screw themselves

I have been made fun of for liking Pete Carroll as much as I do. Ok, ok, I may have facebook friended him the instant I found out he was actually on facebook. I may be a sucker for ultra-positivity (as long as it isn't like the

son of a bitch, I'm home for the holidays for 12 hours, and my cat welcomes me home by throwing up a giant pile of catfood right next to me while I'm typing, that smells awful

girl from the Progressive insurance commercials).

Yes I think he dresses impeccably, and he is basically who I want to turn into when I grow up. Make fun of me all you want.


Now, watch this, and go eat a dick. Pete Carroll is awesome, and you are just stupid if you think otherwise.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Now I have to go clean up cat throw up, because there is no way I can pretend I didn't see this until my mom gets home.

Gene Chizik? Really?

In this morning's post, Dane and Bird give you their opinions on how back Auburn sucks.

(Dane's Point of View)

It's Chizik. Gene Chizik.

Oh, that name is familiar, but you don't know who that is? That's because he was the defensive coordinator at Auburn during their undefeated season, but basically fell of the face of the football earth when he posted a 5-19 record at Iowa State. You would think that few tears would be shed for a coach with that kind of output, but according to ISU's AD, this is a "significant setback".


A few words of comfort to the dozen Cyclones fans out there - don't worry, he'll get what is coming to him for, um, snubbing your prestigious program. Ol' Gene is basically stepping into a meatgrinder built of unfair expectations from an rabid, borderline out-of-control fanbase and the fact that, well, Auburn (a team with a pretty good recent history) just put Gene Chizik in charge of it's program to battle the juggernaut that is Nick Saban (somebody who was basically already owning Tuberville in every facet of the game within a season of his hiring).

So, expect Chizik's blood to be spilled, figuratively and very possibly literally, within the next three seasons. After all, these are the same toothless hicks that shot, yes, with a gun, our beloved Ramblin' Reck during a visit to Auburn. This is gonna be ugly, folks. Can't say I feel bad for anybody involved.


(Bird's point of view)

Personally, I don't mind the hiring of Gene Chizik. I also have a strong dispassion for all things Auburn only reinforced by some of my coworkers who love the shitty university and its complete disregard for rules, regulations, and academia.

Auburn...you deserve what you got. You fired a winning, experienced coach because he got beat one time by Nick Saban. Great call. Way to think long term. Stability and Auburn will not be in the same sentence for another ten years. And all of the Auburn fans with their moonshine, blunderbusses, and snaggle teeth will fade away until they have another undefeated season that doesn't matter.

What will this yield for GT? I'd like to think there are more possible recruits from Alabama for GT in the future. Kids that grew up Auburn fans but don't want to play at the joke that is Auburn.