Thursday News Musings

Some of it is yesterday’s news, the rest came out today, but here’s some interesting links for your mind to wrap around.

Georgia Tech is well represented on the upcoming shuttle launch. Wooooooooo!

Terrence Moore says “Give the Jackets a break”. I don’t know what to think about this….is it a good thing when Terrence Moore and Mark Bradley start writing good things about us? I don’t know, I’ve never experienced it before.

Paul Hewitt lands an early top 25 recruiting class. Derrick Favors won’t sign until the spring.

Golf! Seth Reeves, the #1 golfer in the state and #30 in the nation, has decided to make Georgia Tech his home.

Coley Harvey of the Macon Telegraph writes that CPJ is proud of his young team but his expectations remain set at “perfection.”

Speaking of perfections, the AJC’s Larry Hartstein got to sit in with Paul Johnson as he broke down last Saturday’s game. Needless to say, we are not near perfection quite yet.
Good quote from the coach though:

“We’re awful on offense for my expectation level…we can be a lot better. And we will get a lot better."

GT Ballin' Names

Randomly thought of this today at work - the top 10 coolest names in GT football.

10. Jaybo Shaw - Gotta admit that having a name that sounds like a fighting style is pretty badass.
9. Damarius Bilbo - Fan favorite as well as a sweet last name. Maybe Bilbo should've been given a fair shake at QB.
8. Clint Castleberry - If you're gonna make a Heisman run, you've gotta have a unique name. Clint's name not only was unique, it was an illiteration.
7. Tashard Choice - "The choice is Choice for Heisman '07." Seriously, this guy tore it up in '06 and '07.
6. Prince Ahadzie "PJ" Daniels - From PJ, we created the term "To Tulsa someone" or simply beat mercilessly. PJ was named by his father from Ghana.
5. Renso "Rock" Perdoni - An All American DT during the 70's, Rock's name allows this list to come full circle.
4. Douglas "Froggie" Morrison - Most bloggers will not know this name but will know of his feat. Froggie led Tech to a 222-0 blasting of Cumberland in 1916. Froggie started at UT-Chattanooga, transferred to Texas A&M, and finished at Tech.
3. The Rhinos - Kelly and Randy both had great careers at Tech and are still big time fan favorites. The name Rhino was definitely fitting for Tech's All American safety (Randy) and his punt returning son (Kelly).
2. I-Perfection Harris - How can you top that? Maybe with his brother's name of I-Finesse? Harris ended up at Kent State but that first name is pretty epic.
1. Ajenavi "Ace" Eziemefe - Pronounced ah-juh-NAH-vee eh-ZEM-eh-fee. It really rolls off the tongue. He was a diesel at RB and finished his career as a wingback on field goals.

What are your favorite "Ballin' Names" ?

GT Volleybal and Basketball

Clearly, our minds have been fixed on football these past few months. But did you know that Georgia Tech has other sports as well!? Here are some brief notes:

Volleyball

The Georgia Tech Volleyball team wraps up their season in the next few weeks and with a win-out and some lucky spikes could take ACC conference championship and earn a berth into the NCCA Tournament. Their next home games are November 21 and 22 vs. Boston College and Maryland and finally November 28th against Clemson is the final home game. Below are the current standings:

One game separates us from the mess on top. The loss on Saturday against the Dookies hurt us (if only The Legacy showed up 15 minutes earlier!) Tech has to win out and Duke and UNC both need to lose twice for the Jackets to make the NCAA tournament.

Senior night is the 22nd against the Terps. Yes, earlier that day is Georgia Tech vs. Mercer basketball. Our suggestion to you is to drive to Macon, go to the game, come back up to Atlanta and cheer on volleyball. If The Legacy Crew does it, you have no excuse.

Basketball

The basketball regular season starts this Friday against Winston-Salem State at 8:30 PM. The disappointing news of the season so far involves Lewis Clinch, who is academically ineligible (again) for the rest of the Fall Semester, and D’Andre Bell, who is out for the season because of spinal stenosis. Clinch can regain his eligibility after December 12th. As we get to the end of football season, look for deeper entries for the basketball team.

Players to Watch: McDonald’s All-American Iman Schumpert, a 6’ 5” guard out of Oak Park, IL. Can we keep him more than one year? Only time will tell that one. Also, watch Lance Storrs. He showed some positive things last year and with Clinch out for the time being he will have a lot more responsibility on his shoulders.

How do you win the ACC?

Note: We have a new writer who has joined us. His name is Bird.

As my first post, I would like to drop some statistical analysis on how to win the ACC. This is based entirely on data provided by the post-expansion ACC (2004 forward, all BC data in 2004 is excluded).

Typically, in college football points scored per game goes hand in hand with a teams W/L column. However, the ACC offers us a bit of a different perspective on the matter. In the ACC, it is more important to have low defensive points per game than higher offensive points per game.

Every ACCC has featured the #1 scoring defense leading into the ACCC while the #1 scoring offense leading into the ACCC has been sitting at home watching the past two years (Clemson both times).

Below are some basic graphs showing Scoring Offense vs. Wins and Scoring Defense vs. Wins. You can use the linear regressions to predict your wins/losses for the remainder of the season (e.g. GT should win 6-7 games total for the season based on their offensive output but 8-9 based on their defense). I included this seasons wins/losses by normalizing them across a 13 game season for every team in the ACC that should make a bowl and 12 game season for those that wouldn't.







Currently, GT is the #1 defense but I do not see that lasting through the Miami/uga games while UNC is a close second and I see their defensive stats improving against the Terps, mighty Dookies, and hapless Wolfpack. Look for FSU to take the other division. Predicting the winner is a little more difficult because there are less points to interpret and because the statistically disadvantaged team has won twice (FSU in '05 and Wake in '06).

If I were betting man though, I'd put money on the team with the better turnover ratio and in this case it's UNC at +1.44 per game. However, the last time FSU won the ACC, they came into the ACCC with a negative turnover ratio. Look for UNC in the Orange Bowl unless UNC manages to Marcus-Vick-it-up in the ACCC.

Veteran's Day 2008

Today is Veteran's Day. Please take a minute to remember the individuals who have directly and indirectly affected all of us defending our country.

Frustration and Disappointment

Frustration comes to mind when thinking of this game. It was a bad, bad, bad game. Slapped us across the face quickly and didn’t let up. We’re beat up. I won’t say this off week could come at a better time because it couldn’t. We could have used it earlier. Deflated. That’s a fan’s mentality right now. Expectations, rightfully or not, are always going to be high and the confidence will be there. Give us two days and we’ll be back on top again.

Bowl Situation: Goodbye ACC Championship. That is but a distant memory. However, there is still plenty of room to improve our bowl situation. Remember, this year an East Coast Bowl Game should be the mark of a successful season. Beat Miami and we should be fine. We must sell ourselves to the bowl committees. Tech has a reputation that we don’t travel well. Whatever excuse (strikethrough) reason we can come up with, the perception is still there so the team and the fans need to prove themselves. So here’s the question for the day: Realistically, how do you see the season panning out and where do you think we’ll go bowling?

It’s an off week. Let’s get healthy!