Who Won?
A poll conducted by ESPN SportsNation accumulated over 15,000 votes on who would have a more succesful season: Tech or Georgia. So final tallies indicate Tech won the popular vote over Georgia 52% to 48% but would've lost the Presidential Election as Georgia took California, Texas, and New York. Why did Tech win the popular vote? Well, the poll only polled people that cared so the states of Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Ohio were key states in the popular vote as those four states tallied over 34% of the total votes. It also didn't hurt that voters outside of the US (~8% of the total votes) chose Tech 53% of the time.
Conference Affiliations
An interesting trend was a delineation along conference lines. States affiliated with certain conferences aligned with certain teams. Obviously, ACC states chose Tech while exclusively SEC states took Georgia. What's interesting is the Clemson contigent in SC and the Tech contigent in Georgia overwhelmed the Cocks and Dogs, respectively. And I think Florida just went overwhelmingly with Tech because of FSU/Miami and Florida's hatred of all things dog-related. In states only affiliated with the SEC, Georgia took 55% of the votes.
Here's a breakdown of votes based on state-conference affiliations:
1. ACC - 2599 of 4591 votes for Tech (57%)1
2. Big East - 576 of 1113 votes for Tech (52%)2
2. SEC - 2789 of 5342 votes for Tech (52%)3
4. Big 10 - 1257 of 2471 votes for Tech (51%)4
4. Big 12 - 1149 of 2257 votes for Tech (51%)5
6. Pac 10 - 602 of 1247 votes for Tech (48%)
7. No BCS or I-A Teams - 244 of 516 votes for Tech (47%)
Interesting Trends
There were some noticeable trends such as states who had played Tech recently siding with Georgia and vice versa. So I went back five years pulling only OOC games and matched the teams up with their home states to show that Tech only had a 47% approval rating in states that had played Tech since 2004 (OOC opponents). Georgia, likewise, only had a 49% approval rating in states it had played OOC since 2004. This, to me, indicated Tech and Georgia left a sour taste in the mouth of OOC opponents or our OOC opponents perceive us to be weaker after playing us.
And I'm sure there're some random Georgia fans out there thinking, "This is BS, I know some conferences respect my good ol' 2009 DOGS!!! WOOF WOOF!" Well, I found one: the Western Athletic Conference. The WAC States are the only other grouping of I-A affiliated states on par with the Pac 10 at a 48% approval rating for Tech. Pretty interesting that the only conferences that approve of the Bulldog's upcoming season are 2,500 miles away or their own SEC homer friends in Goober, Alabama.
Top Fives
So with a minimum of 100 votes, here are the states that felt Tech would do better than Georgia followed by states that felt Tech would do worse. I think Nebraska loves the Triple Option and our ACC brethren took care of their own states. Georgia pulled Idaho because of their shillacking of Hawai'i/Boise State recently. Kansas I do not understand. It's an island of haters in a sea of Big 12-GT friendship.
1. Nebraska (61%)
2. North Carolina (59%)
2. South Carolina (59%)
2. Massachusetts (59%)
5. Virginia (58%)
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1. Mississippi (35%)
2. Idaho (37%)
3. Kansas (42%)
4. Arkansas (43%)
5. Minnesota (44%)
Notes: 1) Includes votes from Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.
2) Includes votes from Pennsylvania.
3) Includes votes from Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.
4) Includes votes from Iowa and Pennsylvania.
5) Includes votes from Iowa.
Thoughts are welcome.
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