Thursday, October 02, 2003

Football notes

First, my pick 34-27, NCST. I hate it, but I agree with Walt. The secondary has to show me more than we saw against BYU and Clemson. Bottom line - teams that have tried to run against us don't win. Teams that focus on the pass do win. BYU/Clemson focused on the pass. Auburn focused on the run. FSU is another prime example. Tried to run the ball for 3 quarters and it didn't work. Finally started passing in the 4th quarter, and bammm - 2 touchdowns and a W 14-13. A key worry for me continues to be scoring on offense. Will Chan open things up Saturday a little more? By the sounds of this article, we are only "tweaking". Will he attempt to play ball control with the running game so NCST just doesn't get that many chances. That can work, but only if we convert our offensive possesions to scores. Please don't ask Reggie Ball to come-from-behind early in the game. Very telling the last paragraph - "The Jackets rank last in the ACC in total offense, pass offense (156.0 ypg.), scoring offense (14.0 ppg.), passing efficiency (95.6), first downs (72), third-down conversions (22.4 percent) and eighth in the nine-team conference in rushing offense (115.6), sacks allowed (15) and time of possession (28.03 minutes per game)".

With all that being said, did you know that Tech has won 7 of the last 8 against NCST. Of course last year, NCST was undefeated when we beat them. At home, Tech has won 6 in a row and 9 of the last 11. Maybe we are not giving Tech the credit it deserves. We will see.

Here is a rough re-cap transcript of the Chan Gailey call-in show. To hear the audio of the Oct 1 coaches press conference, click here.

No doubt with the new ACC alignment, the losers for the next 2 years are Wake Forest, NCST, Virginia and UNC. They have to play VaTech, Miami and FSU for the next 2 years. Of course, everyone will get their turns. Here is a summary from AJC. Here is an article on Boston College possibly joining the ACC. Notre Dame has made it clear that they do not want to join a conference for all sports so the ACC is out. GOOD!! They'll be looking for a conference once their TV contract runs out. Mark it down.

If you use Microsoft Outlook and want to download the complete Tech schedule along with TV details, go to this site , click downloads, pick a timezone, then click the link on the right for college sports/football. Pretty cool. Instructions are also provided.