Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Football Notes

Well, there's a good old internet rumor floating around that Reubon Houston is back on campus and back in school now, although not back on the team. Guess we'll have to wait to hear more. However, I did find that Houston is listed in the student directory........... If he truly only needed a couple of classes to graduate, then you just hope this will all work out for him. Still, I wouldn't get my hopes up on him joining the team again.


Here's a good quote from Bill Curry on Bobby Dodd and motivating players:


Playing for the coaching triumvirate of Bobby Dodd, Vince Lombardi and Don Shula, and then coaching 17 seasons, including three at Alabama, Bill Curry saw the spectrum of motivational ploys. Dodd won 29 straight games at Georgia Tech in the 1950s because he "used academics like a hammer" and had the luxury of 200 players in uniform, Curry said.


"If you fumbled twice, you just didn't play next week," said Curry, a center for Dodd in the early '60s.


Lombardi applied emotional pressure, upbraiding a player for days in front of his teammates. "Then he would walk up and say, 'You looked pretty good today,' and you were ready to jump out a window for him," Curry said.


When he arrived at Alabama, Curry said coaches were expected, like Bear Bryant before them, to take players to the lower gym, lock the doors and line up trash cans for them to vomit into during grueling workouts.


"Every coach has a crucible," Curry said. "You have to find out who's who and have to put them in a position where if they quit, they're embarrassed."



John Bunting talks ACC wide receivers:

Top to bottom, who has the best receiving corps in the ACC?
"It's hard for me to say. I don't know who the incoming freshmen are across the country. Every year there is one freshman that comes in; last year it was Calvin Johnson at Georgia Tech. From what I hear, their receivers are very good. I know we have a corps. I know we have a chance to be the best, and that remains to be seen. I don't know what's happening at every other college and what's happened there in the spring. Florida State always has very good receivers."


And evidently Bunting thinks we are going to sneak in a wet football during our game:

The Tar Heels have tried to simulate absolutely everything that could happen in the season opener against Georgia Tech. That includes wet footballs. During Tuesday's practice, coaches instructed a manager to sneak in a completely soaked football during 7-on-7 drills. Ben Lemming was preparing to snap the ball when Bunting blew his whistle. "That could happen in Atlanta," the head coach said. "We do not want to snap a soaked football. You've got to be alert for that.".


Here's a Georgia Tech team preview.......