John Salley presents Awkward Silence

For Friday's entertainment, I found a nice little tidbit. Tech alum John Salley was interviewed on local LA television station about his upcoming role in "I'm a Celebrity...Get me outta here!" You need to fast forward to the 3:50 or so mark to really catch the best part of the interview:


Side Note of the Day: According to Mash on the Gas, Matt Wieters will start tonight for the Orioles.

Dwyer's Case for the H-Man Trophy Part II

I like completely objective statistics. Like total touchdowns or total yardage per game. Things like that. So here're some interesting stats broken down for Dwyer across last season that should show he's gonna be a force to reckon with. I took Dwyer's rushing/receiving stats off each box score and broke down some critical info for your perusal.

Workhorse: Averaging 7.8 yards per play on offense is not as important as actually accumulating first downs as the GT b-back. Dwyer is capable of the big run but also runs for 4 yards or more 43.4% of the time (3 carries of 4 yards = first down). His consistency is undeniable averaging less than 5 yards per play in only one game last year (VT in which he was injured).

Big Plays: Dwyer racked up 23 plays over 20 yards or more not to mention that over 18.0% of his plays are equal to or greater than 10 yards. 6.3% of his total plays resulted in touchdowns, which seems like very little but is quite efficient for a big ol' runningback.

Career Stats/Records: According to Jon Dwyer's ramblinwreck.com profile, he will need 2,235 rushing yards to tie Robert Lavette's record set in 1984. He will also need 23 rushing TD's to tie Lavette's career TD record. If he were to tie or break these career records, he'd be beating single season records as well as no Tech player has ever eclipsed 2,000 all-purpose yards in a single season. Currently, Jon is 7th all-time at Tech for career rushing TD's and 10th all-time for rushing yardage. Meeting or surpassing these records WOULD BE HUGE. Mentioning these records is huge optimism on my part but Hell we've got 99 days 'til someone kicks a football off the tee so I'm allowed to be optimistic.

Baseball Today!

The new season begins today.

The Jackets get the prime time match-up facing cross-town foe Georgia State at 7pm. The Panthers split the series with us (Winning 10-1 and losing 18-2) but we didn't use our weekend starters and I would assume they didn't play their best as well judging from the scores.

Recently honored 1st Team All-American Deck McGuire looks to take the mound and get us off to a good start. Lord know we're gonna need everything he has as we tend to struggle in series after he pitches.

Before our game gets underway, Elon and Southern Miss. square off at 3pm. I think a lot of people are pretty confident with our chances in the first round (myself included). But we should NOT overlook Elon. The Phoenix is a very offensive-minded team. They average 10.4 runs per game, and lead the nation in home runs, and homers per game. If we have to depend on a slugfest to win a game, Elon has the capability to hang around.

Links:
The College Baseball Blog's preview of Atlanta
The College Baseball Blog's preview of Gainesville
Southeast Baseball simulates our regional.

It's either journalism or inflated egos

This blog has generally been alot of fun to write. I don't have a ton to offer right now, but I am really excited for football season to start.

While it has been tons of fun to write for, I've never really considered it important. I've never been under the impression that my words carry any weight. I can't imagine Coach Johnson or his staff come on here looking for approval. I'd laugh if other coaches came here looking for a hot tip or insider information.

Then again, I realize we have an audience, so I know the opinions expressed here don't just simmer in their own self-righteousness, anger, disappointment, or whatever is being addressed by the post. Does anyone think I am affecting anything whenever I post? I used to think "no way," but lately, it seems like there is a serious case building for the importance of blogs and the online community in general that in the very least requires a minute of reflection.

Winfield showed me this link a few days ago, and it got me thinking about where the online community stands in terms of impact on the programs they are associated with. BigBlueShoe from Stampede Blue obviously just owned this Bob Kravitz guy, but upon further reading, BBS also makes another point - blogging is indeed journalism. Did he intend to make that point? I don't know. However, I think he drives home the point that even people who may write under names like "Orson Swindle" are in fact very, very serious journalists.

Yes, I just grouped ourselves in with the funniest and one of the most popular sports bloggers around. You don't like it? Feel free to comment.

Yes, Bob Kravitz may not like blogging. If bob Kravitz's grandad was a journalist, he probably hated Rolling Stone Magazine as well. Why? Because the magazine is known for publishing subjective accounts of stories written by writers who get caught up in them.

Yes, I just grouped ourselves in with one of the most respected publications of the last century. Comments, use them.

Sure, your average blogger is a whiskey bourbon (excuse me) swilling miscreant deviant who spends too much time watching sports. However, Furrer4Heisman and Hunter S. Thompson both will tell you that being under the influence does not preclude good reporting.

I'm not going to pretend like this is serious business. The journalism we do here (and strangely, even though it is technically journalism I still don't like calling it that) is mediocre at best and in the grand scheme of written information is only slightly more valuable than the drivel that most message boards produce. My God, are just like the AJC.

Yes, I just grouped ourselves in with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Even I might have to post a comment in outrage about that.

The bottom line: this really is journalism. It is a valid form of self expression and communication that delivers not only outside information but also a motivation for caring to its readers. Sunday Morning Quarterback was (and still is as Dr. Saturday for Yahoo! Sports) the standard of sports blogging for the blogger nation. However, his move to Yahoo is not what legitimized his journalism. The fact that Matt Hinton is one of the most outstanding sports journalists around did that.

Blogging, reporting, writing, whatever you want to call it - journalism exists in many forms, and has always had dubious validity. Writing under a name such as "BigBlueShoe" or "Winfield Featherston," however, doesn't decide that.

Dwyer for 09 Heisman

Thanks to Mash on the Gas for starting the blog snowball effect. Also, thanks to UNC blog Tar Heel Fan for showing me the link to Obamaicon.ME. I'm hopin' for a Dwyer Heisman. Here's a breakdown of the Modern Era* runningbacks' Heisman and pre-Heisman years:


So Dwyer is well on his way at 1419 yards in his sophomore season. A net increase of 900 yards from Dwyer's pre-Heisman year to actual Heisman year seems insurmountable. Reaching the average Heisman rushing yardage in the Modern Era* would require Dwyer increase his rushing total by 637 yards, which appears to be another daunting task... We shall see.

^{* - Note, my Modern Era of college football begins in 1983 or 26 seasons ago.}

1938 Recording of Ramblin' Wreck

Was cruising along The Hive today and came across a 1938 recording of our beloved fight song. It's sung by Dick Powell, old time actor. Click here to listen.

Dick Powell

Baseball/Softball Weekend Recaps

It was pretty big weekend across the Georgia Tech softball and baseball diamonds.

The Softball team's historic season ended against the Washington Huskies on Sunday. In all honesty, the Huskies were just the better team and rightfully deserve to make the trip to Oklahoma City. They will play the mutts from Athens. I hope they beat 'em good. Needless to say, we are proud of our softball team. The inaugural season of the on-campus softball field (AKA "The Mew") was a grand success. We look forward to next year!

Oh, and after further review from this previous discussion, Danielle Lawrie was not quite what we all hoped her to be, but the team as a whole was lookin' pretty solid.

Lawrie at Tech

The baseball team ran in to some trouble over the weekend in the ACC Tournament but that can be overlooked thanks to the NCAA Tournament seedings. Atlanta was selected as a host and GT was granted yet another Regional #1 seed. The invitation to the tournament is the Jackets 3rd consecutive and 23rd in 25 years.

In addition to Georgia Tech, three more schools will battle it out to advance to the Super Regionals:
#2 Elon University (Wes Durham's alma mater)
#3 Southern Mississippi
#4 Georgia State--The Jackets will play against the Panthers this Friday at 7pm.

The winner of the Atlanta regional is slated to play the winner of the Gainesville Regional, hosted by the National #8 seed Florida Gators. This pairing tells me that a lot of weight was put into the RPI of the schools and less weight was put into performances towards the end of the season. Playing the #8 National Seeded region would make us the technical #9 seed, which means we were the last team to miss the National Seed.

Click here to see all regional pairings.

Who can't you stop: Georgia Tech or Texas Tech?

Good read on rivals about GT vs. TTU offenses and defenses inability to stop 'em. Will post more when baseball/softball finish their weekend games.