What word best describes Chan Gailey? For me, it's mediocre.
He has a 58.9 career winning percentage at GT, and he will likely close out this year having lost at least 5 games a year for 6 years. His career winning percentage is 61 percent regardless of location. He's the meaty part of the bell curve of average.
While he has managed to go 6-1 vs. Miami, Auburn and Notre Dame, he has managed to lose games against horrible UNC, Duke, Wake and Fresno State teams while blowing two layup opportunities to beat his biggest rival (UGA '04 and UGA '06). All the while continuing his career long tradition of not developing an all-star QB (other than 1 year with Kordell Stewart).
The problem for GT...Gailey is hovering around the 55 or so percentile of coaches. That means there's almost a 50-50 shot that they could actually do WORSE with their next hire.
Especially if they go looking in a year where UCLA, Nebraska, TAMU, Michigan, LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Pitt, Syracuse, Washington State, etc all may be looking for coaches...not to mention the fact that GT is an inherently hard place to win because of their culture, budget, facilities and curriculum.
So, basically...Gailey needs to beat Georgia. Badly. We're getting their A+ game on Saturday. It's a hungry crew desperate for a win. Vegas knows it. That's why the spread is around 3 points. We didn't fair well when we ran into this type of situation in Knoxville, but our team is nothing like the UGA Crew that was obliterated on Rocky Top.
He's mediocre, but ask Tommy Tuberville if the sting of losing to these guys isn't real. Our boys should win by two plus TDs. But will we?
See Also:
-- Pros and Cons of Keeping Gailey - AJC
-- Rivalry trumps job security concerns - Macon Telegraph
-- No Gimmicks for Tech's Game Plan - AJC
-- Gailey focuses on UGA - Savannah Now
-- UGA should be wary of a wipeout - Savannah Now
Ticket Info:
-- UGA at Georgia Tech - Stubhub.com
PWD
21 comments:
FWIW, the '04 game was only that close because:
1) Worst weather for a UGA game in the Richt era. We had that thing wrapped up, then the monsoon hit.
2) I think we had about 8 PI calls on the drive that put Tech back in the game. We all ended up loving DeMario, but it was obvious he wanted to be somewhere else. Which leads me to...
3) Shockley played like he'd rather be watching the game on TV. Drunk.
Excuses, sure, but we pretty much let Tech *completely* back in that game.
Funny how 2 people can see the same thing and come away w/ completely different impressions.
We PI'd the hell out of Calvin because we knew Reggie would eventually implode. Great defensive strategy on CMR/BVG's part.
Also don't forget that Greene broke his thumb in that game and had to leave for a while. That combined with the awful weather kept the game a lot closer than it should have been.
As an Atlanta-based Dawg, this game has always been biggest for me. I work with, am friends with, go to Church with GTechters so I've been able to have an air of superiority for the past 6 years that has been unmatched. (I didn't talk to one of my best friends for 2 months after the 51-7 massacre because he told me prior that "if Tenuta gets two weeks to prepare for the Rams we can stop them, let alone you" - again it was 2002)
That said, it is only with R&B colored glasses that people think that we're not in for a war on Saturday. GT has been waiting all year for this game and if any, any of CCG's players want him to stay, they'll have to find a way to win (as Paul says their A+ game). And find a way they'll need to as we're clearly the better team (but the better team doesn't always win).
Try to take 'em out early and let the fans grumbling & booing do the rest.
Go Dawgs!!
The Chan Question is a tough one and as you and the AJC pointed out, there are good arguments on both sides. If I remember correctly, Clemson was not one of the ACC teams to have reached the 10 win mark yet either. Hmm....
As far as the game is concerned- Job 1 is shutting down Tashard Choice (which is great with a pinch of cream and a drop of honey- see coffee/tea jokes EDSBS, I think). I just don't see Bennett beating us. And if we can keep Tenuta's blitzes from messing us up on offense, we should win.
The 2005 game was the game that Richt had possibly the best (and as a GT fan, most aggravating) defensive gameplan I've ever seen against us. Basically, he had the UGa defensive backs just tackle Calvin whenever he got past the line of scrimmage after his initial TD catch over Oliver. Because of the limited penalty in college football for PI, he basically conceded those yards and bet we couldn't move the football without Calvin. It also let him single cover Calvin and keep an extra man in the box, because they weren't trying to actually "Cover" him ... but just have one guy bringing him down. Brilliant strategy, unbelievably frustrating to watch.
This game is going to be an absolute war - "desperate" doesn't even begin to describe the situation at GT right now with regards to the Georgia game. If UGa was staring at 6 IAR to GT, it'd be similar straights in Athens (heck, when 4 IAR was threatening a few years back it was DEFCON 1 out east of Atlanta).
"...if we can keep Tenuta's blitzes from messing us up on offense, we should win."
This seems to be a common sentiment, but fortunately for us we have the antidote to blitzes in #24. It could be fun to watch them send the team only to have Knowshon get into the secondary. Blitzing a lot might actually help us.
On that point - GT mostly blitzes with the run in mind (partly why our run defense under Tenuta is normally ranked much higher than our pass defense). GT's blitz packages for this weekend will almost certainly be designed with Moreno in mind.
I'm much more worried that Stafford will hook up a couple times deep down the field against our poor corners, quite honestly. Heck, we made Sean Glennon look like Tom Brady a few weeks ago, Stafford could have a field day.
Actually, he's 6-2 against ND, Auburn and Miami. But who's counting. :-)
He had 1 loss to Miami in '04 and 1 loss to ND in '06.
His biggest problem, as you pointed out, is his inability to develop a QB. It's amazing how bad our QB play has been for 6 years under this guy.
7-5, here we come again.
"Basically, he had the UGa defensive backs just tackle Calvin whenever he got past the line of scrimmage after his initial TD catch over Oliver.."
It was Minter, not Oliver, first of all.
Second, challenging a WR within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage isn't tackling. If he's not man enough to get off the jams, then tough. 2-Catch couldn't handle it.
As nathan correctly pointed out, some blitzing is to stop the run more than the pass. But yeah, if we can pick it up, get Moreno through it, he should be able to spring a lot of long TD runs.
Scott, it wasn't within 5 yards (and the refs didn't think so either, as they flagged UGa for something like 8 or 9 PI or holding calls). It very clearly a calculated risk by Richt to take some penalty yards and not allow Calvin to singlehandedly win the game like he had done earlier that year down in Miami. It was the right move, UGa won the game and obviously perfectly legal. Just frustrating to watch.
You're thinking of the 04 game then, not 05.
According to the official game record, Georgia only got hit with three PI flags and no defensive holding flags in the 2005 game.
Damn, Doug, what is the point of bringing facts into the discussion? It takes all the fun out of it. ;-)
Yeah, it was the '04 game. I'm getting my painful losses to UGa mixed up =\
Actually, we only had 3 holding/PI calls on defense in the 2004 game too -- all of them on Minter, incidentally -- though it's not like we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot all game long with numerous other kinds of stupid-ass penalties.
FYI, the '97 game is on right now (4:12pm) on ESPN Classic.
That was the game with the Munson call about them ripping our hearts out and us picking it up and putting it back in, right?
Yeah, um - the '97 game never happened. Ever.
Neither did the '98, '99, or 2000 games...
Thanksgiving Dinner 1985 - Old man, UGA Grad; Uncle - GT Grad
Uncle - You go to Tech, I'll pay for it.....
Old man - Son, you go to Tech, you're out of the will.
My Choice.........
Let's just say the old man has been a little more of a financial success than his brother....
where in the hell do we tailgate for this game???
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