Spring Football Game Saturday 12PM

T-Day is upon us. Remember when you saw Reggie complete one pass in seven attempts in 2005 or bursts of Tashard Choice brilliance in 2006? I sort of do. Well tomorrow at noon is a time where we second guess all of our hopes for National Championships as the team bumbles/stumbles through a very rough/raw scrimmage.

Any thoughts or excitement about the upcoming T-Day are welcome.

If you can't beat 'em, copy 'em!

Mississippi State's "Dawgmobile"

Mississippi State was so depressed by our thrashing of them that they have decided to copy us. They have acquired a restored a 1929 Ford Model A and have dubbed it the "Dawgmobile".

Seriously? The "Dawgmobile"? WTF. Surely you can think of something better than that. Or wait, does Miss. State have no other traditions other than those annoying as hell cowbells? This is probably a valiant attempt by some old rich alumni of the school that is trying to force a tradition and leave a legacy so that everyone remember's his name. It's very difficult to "force" a tradition, so good luck with that. In the words of Furrer4Heisman @ Gobbler Country: "yeah hes thinking "everyone will remember me as the guy who gave miss state its first old fucking car no one gives a shit about"

Here are some quick facts that make the 1930 Ford Model A Sports Coupe, "The Ramblin' Reck" and why it will forever be better:

1. It is maintained, preserved, and repaired by the Ramblin' Reck Club. It has absolutely no ties to the Athletic Association or any other administration. Students take care of the car on behalf of the student body.
   
2. A student drives the car. The Driver is an elected officer amongst the Ramblin' Reck Club. Where the car is, the driver is. The Driver is the only one with a key to the Ramblin' Reck.
3. The term "Ramblin' Reck" goes back to the construction of the Panama Canal where engineers created their own vehicles to move around the jungle. See? "Ramblin' Reck" has been tied to Georgia Tech for over 100 years.
4. The Reck has traveled to countless away games. As north as Michigan, as south as Miami, and as West as El Paso, Texas. In 1990, the Reck went to the Final Four in Denver AND the Citrus Bowl in Orlando. I don't think you'll see the "Dawgmobile" anywhere near venues like that.
   
5. And finally, the Reck has been vandalized. These stories simply add to the lore. At the University of Tennessee it was painted a bright Vols Orange and in Auburn it was shot at from a dorm room window. You're never going to hear anything like that these days...
   

Roddy Jones Replay

The 54 yard TD by Roddy Jones against ugag is an excellent clip of our triple option at work. You see the fake to Dwyer (21), the option by Nesbitt (9), and the downfield blocking. The above diagram shows the GA defenders that could make a play (red) and those completely removed from the play (black).

GA is lined up in a 4-4 with press coverage on the wideouts. The right cornerback (2) is blocked and removed eventually by Bebe. This is actually a poor block attempt but who's judging? Cox (36) destroys the free safety (4), which basically creates the touchdown after the right outside linebacker (3) takes a terrible angle on Roddy (20). The free safety recovers pretty well and tries to knock Roddy out of bounds but isn't strong enough and the TD is scored.

I really enjoy watching these dog clips.

Spring Practice Report for 4/15/09

Today's last Spring practice was absolutely beautiful. It was in the high 60s and the sun was definitely out. Not a lot of people showed up to watch, but there were some new faces to practice. Adamm Oliver made it out today and even heard he is going to try out with the Falcons tomorrow. Hope he has the best of luck! :)

1. I counted 8 players on the beach. All the QBs were wearing orange/gold non-contact jerseys while practicing today. I guess CPJ at least wants two healthy QBs for Saturday's game. Josh wore a gold jersey and did not participate in any drills or scrimmages.

2. They started the day off with a mass huddle and a speech by Homer Rice. This lasted for a couple of minutes and then everyone broke up into special teams. They worked on a mixture of punt returns and kickoff returns. Since there was no contact, it was a little hard to tell if anyone was really doing well. It still looks like our two main options at punt returner are Tarrant and Roddy.

3. Instead of breaking into position drills, the offense and defense went head to head in a scrimmage to really get the day going. All offensive teams were getting stuffed by the defenses and there were only a couple of plays that really got more than 2 or 3 yards. The interior defensive line came to play. The defensive tackles were just closing up any holes that could have opened up.

4. They then broke into position drills and the receivers and corners did the towel drill some more. None of the receivers today, including Bebe, looked like they came to play. Every time a corner would get to the towel. The receivers just couldn't keep the corners away. They just couldn't get their blocks right. Hopefully, this will improve when summer practices start.

5. Jaybo looked pretty smooth in the 7 on 7 passing drills today. He threw some really nice passes that were just like threading a needle. This backfired a couple of times though when he would just force the ball into triple coverage and the pass would either get broken up or intercepted. He walked a fine line and sometimes payed for it when he made a bad throw. Tevin looked pretty bad and had many wobbly passes. He still has a while to go before he becomes an effective passer. He has progressed a lot since last summer. That isn't saying much though since he couldn't have really gotten any worse.

6. The final scrimmage of the day lasted about 30 minutes. This time the offense finally adjusted and got rolling. Jaybo looked smooth with his reads and pitches and broke several nice runs. The offensive line started getting a really nice push by the end of practice and did significantly better in pass protection. The coaches constantly switched A-backs and B-backs between the first and second team. Dwyer and Allen had some nice runs. Jaybo looked smooth and accurate when passing. Preston Lyons came in a couple of times with the first string offense and had some really nice runs up the center of the field. He broke a couple that could have went for touchdowns had the coaches not blown the whistle. I am so impressed with him.

Spring practice is now officially over and the T-day game is the final presentation. Hopefully the team will take what they learned this Spring and really apply it toward next season. The future's so bright I gotta wear shade!

Discussion Time: Spring Practice

Question of the Day

Oh, what to do about Spring Practice? Practices are fun because it's a relaxed atmosphere and you get to see the potential we have for the Fall. But can't we get MORE? F4H brought up the issue a few weeks back and Holly wrote about it over on Dr. Saturday. If you ruled the CFB world, What would you change about the spring season of college football?

Wednesday News Flash: Suck it Mutts!

• You can't beat us this year. Football, baseball, basketball. The sweet smell of victory! Softball is the only "major" sport you can talk about right now.
  

• Rumors are spreading that the AJC/Cox Media is cutting more writers/ columnists from their staff. That includes the likes of Terrence Moore, and the GT beat writers Larry Harstein and Ken Suguira. There is absolutely no love lost between me and Terrence Moore. He can fall off a cliff for all I care. As for Larry and Ken, they were decent enough and brought up discussion points, so good luck to them both.

• The AJC cutting writers is all the more reason to follow Coley Harvey at the Macon Telegraph. He goes above and beyond and is making the extra effort to draw readers and followers into his section of the newspaper. Follow Coley Harvey.

• A bash against Paul Hewitt?? It's not the first time people question him about player development. This is a report on Alade Aminu's performance at the Portsmouth Invitational. Specifically:

  Comparing the way Aminu played at Portsmouth with what we can now see from his film at Georgia Tech reveals a pretty stark contrast—it doesn’t seem like he was utilized very well at all in college from what we can tell. Aminu was an absolute devastating force as a pick and roll finisher for his Norfolk Naval Shipyard team—thanks to his tremendous combination of size, length, terrific hands and excellent mobility. At Georgia Tech he was barely used in this fashion at all—just 4.3% of his offensive possessions came on the pick and roll. They looked incredibly disorganized in the film we took in, with no point guard, no system, and very little ball-movement. It appeared that Aminu often was asked to play very far from the basket, and pretty much all of his shots were opportunities that he was forced to create on his own.

Nature gives way to Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate

First, TO HELL WITH GEORGIA! 7:00PM tonight in Athens.

Second, let's look ahead to the Coastal Division's remaining ACC schedule to predict a division champ. The winner (because of rainouts) is chosen based on win %. Ties are half a win. The Coastal division teams are ranked below based on remaining schedule strength:

1. UNC 10-7 (0.588) : remaining ACC schedule is 31-39 (0.443)
2. UVA 9-6-1 (0.594) : remaining ACC schedule is 32-37 (0.464)
3. Miami 11-7 (0.611) : remaining ACC schedule is 30-34 (0.469)
4. Tech 10-5-1 (0.656) : remaining ACC schedule is 33-33 (0.500)
5. Duke 9-9 (0.500) : remaining ACC schedule is 32-32-2 (0.500)
6. VT 7-10 (0.412) : remaining ACC schedule is 40-28-1 (0.587)

So VT looks sunk but UNC, UVA, and Miami can brag a little about having Wake/MD on their schedules to end the season. Sweeps will be huge right now.

If Tech Students Produced a TV Commercial...

Especially during this time of year

Oh wait! They can!

Georgia Tech has a history of some pretty different commericials. Most notably, the infamous finger. For some reason Bird loves this one:


Or this one....

"Who?"

So I was hitting up the Tech message boards like I've been known to do in my free (and not so free time), and over at Stingtalk I ran across this article on running back prospects for the 2010 NFL draft.

It doesn't surprise anyone who watched him play, but Jon Diesel Dwyer is #1, named a future franchise star in the Scout article.

So, if you have never heard of Jon Dwyer, it's because you are an overrated douchebag, not because Jon Dwyer isn't absolutely amazing.

Monday Practice Cancelled

Since the weather is all crappy and windy today, practice has been moved to tomorrow at the Rose Bowl Field at 3:30. Wednesdays practice is still on for it's its normal time.

Non-rev update!

Softball swept N.C. State this weekend, winning their first game on Friday 8-0 by walking our last run in during the 5th, and taking the rain-delay and regularly scheduled games on Saturday. A massive shoutout goes to those fans standing behind the third home dugout who went on the mental offensive, pointing out the fact that #12 and #21 should not be playing third and shortstop due to their fielding inabilities. (Yes, I was part of those fans).

Women's Tennis fell 4-3 at Duke this past weekend. It was a tough loss, but the good news is that as 4th seed for the ACC tournament we will still receive a first round bye. That leaves us playing either FSU or NC State in the second round according to the ACC's bracket, and since we've already beat FSU once, I'm feeling pretty good about it. The women's tournament will be held in Greensboro, North Carolina. Check out the bracket here.

Men's Golf came in third at last week's U.S. Collegiate Championships. Clemson took another title (repeating their 2006 team's efforts), and Stanford was the only other school to finish higher than us. That's right, we beat Georgia, who came in at fourth. We also placed higher that Georgia in individual competition. Yes, we know, "ARP ARP ARP GYMDAWGS"

Men's tennis lost to Duke on Friday. Ugh. That means they play this Friday in Greensboro, seeded 7th in the ACC tournament. Good luck Jackets!


THWG

A Travel Curfew? WTF?

Absolutely nothing got accomplished this past weekend as the Jackets literally tied the entire series. GT won Friday/ Saturday (rain delay), lost Saturday evening, and tied, yes tied Sunday afternoon. Why was the game not finished? Because someone high up somewhere deems is necessary to give a travel curfew to collegiate teams. WTF. I don't know if this is an ACC rule or a UVA rule. It seems like a UVA rule. Something about it just reeks of a gross mix of sportscoat, necktie, and snob.

"We feel like we wasted some opportunities this weekend, but Virginia is a very good team" was the quote from Danny Hall after the game this weekend. Basically we played like we've always played. We beat the teams we are supposed to but canNOT take care of business against the teams we HAVE to beat.

So where does this weekend put us? Still at the top. The shuffle all stayed below us. Here are the current Coastal Standings:

1. Georgia Tech 10-5-1 in conference
2. Miami 11-7 in conference
3. Virginia 9-6-1 in conference
4. UNC 10-7 in conference

Next ACC Series is @ Wake Forest this upcoming weekend