In the on-going quest to equip the football public with inside information, we take a break from speculating on Matthew Stafford’s x-ray vision in order to give you the skinny on Thursday Night’s Clash between Georgia Tech and Virginia. Quickly and without bias, here are several indicators.
UVA's Mascot. Seen here with something more gay.
Mascots: Yellow Jackets vs. Cavaliers
For one of the rare times on it’s schedule, Georgia Tech University faces a school with a mascot less intimidating than its own. The hard-core football fan and cynic might ask, “How much impact does a mascot have on a game?” Good question. But this is the ACC. And in the ACC, this year especially, every point counts.
And try as we might to not give the nod to the Jackets, Buzz clearly comes out on top here. Which begs the question—is there a mascot in the history of football less intimidating than the Virginia Caviler?
Perhaps the only other candidate includes that other swashbuckler, the old school Tampa Bay Buccaneer who looked as if he’d gotten lost on his way from Midtown in Atlanta to Key West, Florida and ended up in Tampa on a shrimp boat.
Tampa Bay eventually had the resolve to change its mascot and its attitude which led to a Super Bowl victory. Unfortunately, for the Cavaliers, the only change this year has been its rapid meteoric descent into suckiness.
None of this is playing well in Charlottesville where now UVA seems to be a house divided as it comes to Atlanta. Word out of Charlottesville is that the UVA fan base is outraged as several alumni have written strongly worded emails to Athletic Director Craig Littlepaige asking him to look into “the most quarrelsome matter of our hardships on the fields of American Football.”
(UVA FAN TAILGATE: where discussions of turtle neck fashions, Warrick Dunn being stopped at the Goal line, Volvo repairs, Peach Bowls, and Whole Foods stock reign supreme)
For managing to have a wussier mascot than Buzz and given the fragile psyche of Cavalier Nation, we give a touchdown and a field goal for the Jackets.
ADVANTAGE: Tech +10
Coaching Match-Up
Where's Vinny?
(Happier times when Gailey had a non-midge quarterback who could count to four)
Both head coaches Chan Gailey and Al Groh have an NFL pedigree. Which is saying something. But not much. Chan Gailey went a pedestrian 18-14 in two seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. And Al Groh went 9-7 with the New York Jets in 2000 before turning in his Jets sweatshirts for the Cavalier kind.
What do either of these brief stints in the NFL point to? Mediocrity. Pure and simple. And while both similar records seem to represent a push in this category, Gailey was slightly above average with Troy Aikman. Al Groh had a winning record with Vinny Testaverde. That distinction alone gives UVA three touchdowns.
ADVANTAGE: UVA +21
Intangibles
Perhaps the biggest key to Thursday Night’s contest is the psychological advantage for Georgia Tech. Make no mistake about it. Thursday Night is ALWAYS a big time for Georgia Tech Football and its fanbase.
Thursday Night’s game has been officially declared “Throwback Thursday." To commemorate Georgia Tech’s "Glory Years" (sic), the team is going to be wearing a special uniform. We, at the Georgia Sports Blog, were tempted to crack back smart-alec like and ask if it was really safe for either team to wear leather helmets. But as a credible news source, we’ll forgo the easy route and do some research:
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Tech will don uniforms reminiscent of the early 1970s, including gold jerseys, white pants and white helmets. Tech wore various gold jerseys with white or gold helmets from 1968-1971.It’s hard to imagine if the GT AD could have picked a better era to honor as the essence of Georgia Tech football as those four years mark a standard worthy for all Georgia Tech teams to strive for.
- 1968 4-6
1969 4-6
1970 9-3 Sun Bowl (W)
1971 6-6
23-21. Two games over .500.
This teary eyed nostalgia for the mediocre past and mustard uniforms will certainly generate some excitement among the GT crowd (sic). This writer sees Throwback Thursday is worth at least two touchdowns and a blocked extra point from GT kicker Travis Bell.
Georgia Tech +13
The Outcome:
What can you expect from one team who struggles with Troy and makes Notre Dame’s secondary look fast and another a team with losses to Pitt and Western Michigan?
The outcome will be predictable, mediocrity always is, but when you tally up all the points we’ve outlined here, look for the Jackets to prevail 23-21 with the spirit of 1968-1971 pushing Tech to something like victory.
JeromeFromDecatur
11 comments:
"(UVA FAN TAILGATE: where discussions of turtle neck fashions, Warrick Dunn being stopped at the Goal line, Volvo repairs, Peach Bowls, and Whole Foods stock reign supreme)"....EL OH EL
You must e-mail this link to Colin Cowherd. You will get national attention for it I'm sure.
As the offspring of two Virginia alums (dad, BS '72, M.D. '76; mom, BSN '71), I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that the tailgating would also include frequent mentions of Thomas Jefferson, the beautiful campus he designed, and how that connection makes UVA the greatest institution of education ever created by mankind.
Those Tech throwback unis, though . . . I know gold, I've seen gold, I've held gold in my hand, and those unis aren't gold. They're the color of my pee after I'd had back surgery and had been pumped full of antibiotics for two days straight.
Only Tech would throwback to such a mediocre era, but it is consistent with GTU policy which requires Pepper Rodgers be honored in form or fashion before each and every game.
Shouldn't Tech be throwing back to a more glorious time, like 1917 or any season during which the healthy young men from opponents' schools were fighting nazis?
LOL - say what you want, but I've made some decent money investing in Whole Paycheck, er, I mean Whole Foods.
Hey show some respect for Chan Gailey's NFL career. He set some franchise records in Dallas. He was the first head coach Dallas ever had who didn't win a Super Bowl. I think he was also the only player ever to try and kill another player with his ice skate but that may have been Happy Gilmore.
Hey! Chan took those Dallas teams to the playoffs! You hear me?!?!? The playoffs! And he only had three first ballot hall of famers on offense at the time too! You clearly know nothing about footbaw!!!
(Now I see why people post on the Hive all the time. Those exclamation marks are fun.)
PS. You should send your parents my motivational UVA poster.
http://wtgw.blogspot.com/2006/05/motivating-acc.html
(Contains the f-bomb . . . repeatedly.)
Got the link here through deadspin and I have to ask: isn't this a UGA related blog? Do you guys really have any room to mock mediocrity? As a college football buff I know that Georgia Tech has 3 national championships--one in the past 20 years--plus a debatable one some time in the 50s. Oh, and Heisman coached there. And they keep going to bowl games despite playing the toughest conference in football (accoring to college football news rankings this summer) and having the worst coach in college football (Chan made the worst coach 2 years running on SI.com.)
Georgia has what? One championship about 30 years ago? And a lot of second and third place finishes in the conference, despite getting to beat up on Carolina, Kentucky, and Vandy every single year?
I bet you guys are also Braves fans...you know the team that tries to talk about how great they've been for the past 15 years despite only winning one world series and getting booted from the playoffs in the first round half the time.
GO DAWGS! We love you even though you're history is not quite as good as Florida...or LSU...or Auburn...or Alabama...or Tennessee...but you're definitely 6th out of the 12 teams in the SEC. YAY MEDIOCRITY!!
Anon,
UGA has 12 SEC titles. More than any school in the SEC other than Bama. As for Auburn, they have half that many.
All of your "facts" are fiction
pwd
PWD, Georgia has one national title, and you can check the rest of the facts yourself, braniac. Auburn has more than that, and that's not even including when they were robbed after going undefeated a few years ago...or the year they were undefeated and not bowl eligible. And several ACC teams have more: Georgia Tech, Miami, FSU. But I'm sure it's great to be a Georgia fan. Hey...you might win 10 games this year and then lose to a Big East team in a bowl again!
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