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August 18, 2006

Preseason Blog Poll is out. Say What?

The Preseason Blog Poll is out and with 59 ballots submitted it looks pretty solid overall. Brian Cook makes the Blog Poll interesting with a couple of "value-adds" including his analysis of homer laden ballots and overly pessimistic fan ballots.

This year, the most redonkulous homer ballot belongs to Tech fan Ramblin Racket. His ballot has Georgia Tech as #7 (in the nation...not the ACC). In attempting to justify his thoughts, he went on to explain "How GT Can Win a 2006 Championship." Interestingly, the post doesn't start with "First, kidnap Reggie Ball and replace him with Joe Hamilton."


Did I miss something? Isn't he still at GT?

Chanixticball Fever returns to The Flats as the unholy marriage of mathematical ineptitude and on-demand implosion collides with an innovation vortex to produce an offense that consistently ranks near the bottom of the ACC.

Chanixticball: Tech's Triple Headed
Anti-Success Combo of Doom.

Combine a woeful offense with an overrated defensive coordinator, and you've got a consistent 7 win performer.

Wait...did I said Tenuta was overrated? Yes. John Tenuta produces a hellified run defense almost every year, but this guy has two key problems. First, his pass defense is wretched year in and year out. Second, his entire defense falls completely asleep at least twice a year.

GT Pass Defense Under Tenuta (NCAA Ranking):
  • 2005: 52nd in the country
  • 2004: 24th
  • 2003: 60th
  • 2002: 64th
  • 2001: 53rd
Games in which GT has given up more than 30 points to a non-Top 10 team:
  • 2001: Clemson - 47 points
  • 2001: UVA - 39 points
  • 2001: Wake - 33 points
  • 2002: Fresno State - 30 points
  • 2003: Clemson - 39 points
  • 2003: Duke - 41 points
  • 2004: UNC - 34 points
  • 2005: Utah - 38 points
Additionally, GT has given up 51 points twice under Tenuta (UGA '02 and VT '05). He's just not the OMG hotne55 that GT fans would have you believe. But I digress.

Tenuta isn't the biggest thing holding Gailey back, and I don't want to imply otherwise. It's just that I think he is overhyped.

Chanixticball spells....NO DAMN WAY Tech is a Top 7 finisher.

pwd

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Paul - is there any way one of your cohorts could research how many weeks Tech has spent in the Top 25 under Chan Gailey? I imagine this would be a tough, time-consuming assignment, but I'd love to know (especially compared to how many weeks UGA spent in the Top 25 in Richt's first 4 seasons).

Dan said...

As far as I know the 3 weeks or so we spent on it last season are the only weeks Tech has been a top 25 team in the Gailey era.

Jmac said...

Give yourself a little more credit than that Dan.

I've just been able to do the past two years - 2004 and 2005 - and this is what I found ...

Georgia
Weeks in Top 25 - 33
Weeks in Top 10 - 26

Georgia Tech
Weeks in Top 25 - 9
Weeks in Top 10 - 0

Nathan said...

Not that I think Jon Tenuta is "omg sooper genius should be head coach Gailey is ruining his life" as some people do but I will throw up a couple of things in his defense.

Those 51 point games you can't hang on the defense, those were complete and utter special teams and offensive meltdowns - unless you expect Tenuta's defense to suddenly tackle guys returning interceptions and punts.

And really, that's Tech weakness - the offense puts the defense in such bad straights on a regular basis that even the best defense is going to give up points. The fact that Tech's defense is top 25 nationally every year with the decrepit excuse for an offense we've been running out (and worse, and offense that can't go out 3 and out with a good punt half the time it seems) and one of the worst special teams units in the country is pretty impressive.

Tenuta is a very good coach, one of the 5-10 best DC's in college football. Our offensive coaching staff (and particularly our special teams staff) have got to be bottom 25. There's no excuse for pissing away as much talent (not neccessarily UGa / UF / Texas / USC type talent but certainly top 25 talent) the way we have been the past couple of years.

Anonymous said...

The stats you cite are a compelling argument for the mediocrity of Tenuta, and I was a little surprised because I have generally regarded Tenuta as the best thing that could be said about the Tech program, besides CJ. I think maybe Tenuta is a demi-god as a defensive coach because he gets mediocre results with less than mediocre talent, and every now and then gets stellar results from the same less than mediocre talent.

Maybe we're both right.

Jeff said...

Tenuta was not at GT in '01. Significant because three out of the eight 30+ pts by a not-top 10 team were in '01.

Anonymous said...
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Dan said...

Jmac, I threw that up this morning and started thinking about it on the ride in and realize that we spent some decent time in the top 25 last year due to beating Auburn, UNC, and UCONN at the beginning of the season. I mistakenly thought we dropped out after the VT debacle, but thinking back I believe we hung on for a week or so more after that.

Jeff, thanks for pointing that out about '01 since I was thinking those were still the dark days of Ted Roof. My problem with Tenuta is that he seems to be a one trick pony. If the zone blitz is working, then he looks great. However, if we're playing somebody where they have figured him out then it starts to fall apart and he can't adjust. Now, I do think he's a master of making that zone blitz work more than it doesn't, but we also don't go up against a lot of outstanding OC talent in the ACC. Most of the ACC's stellar offenses are usually fairly straight forward and based upon out talenting your team.

Jmac said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nathan said...

Jeff is correct about '01 as well, those were Ted Roof defenses getting shredded. Tenuta joined the program for the '02 season.

Also, Tech's defensive talent hasn't been as poor as some in this thread made it sound (mediocre). Since 2002 Tenuta has had Keyaron Fox, Daryl Smith, Eric Henderson, Daryl Richard, Joe Anoai, Philip Wheeler, KaMichael Hall, Recardo Wimbush, James Butler, Tony Hargrove, Kenny Scott, and Gerris Wilkinson. Everyone of those guys has (or will) played in the NFL. 5 starters from the '04 defense are in the NFL already.

Tenuta hasn't made do with nothing, he's had a decent little cupboard to work with.

 
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