Winning Big, Losing Big

So there's been tons of talk about Georgia Tech football in the Chan Gailey era winning AND losing games they weren't supposed. I thought I would throw together a little chart of our wins / losses year-by-year. However, I have ranked the games in terms of "easist" to "toughest". In other words, games at the top of the list, we were supposed to win and they get tougher as you go down. Wins are in green and losses are in red. The rankings of games is a bit subjective and a bit more fuzzy in the earlier years.


What you see is our ability to lose games we shouldn't, BUT our "bad" games are getting "better" each season since 2003. In 2003 we lose to ACC-record losing-streak Duke - low of lows. The next year we lose to UNC - bad for sure - but not as bad as Duke the previous year. Last year you can argue that our worst loss was to NCST (maybe Utah if I were counting bowl games in the list). But we beat the 4 teams we were supposed to in the regular season. So the "bad" is getting better in my eyes and the ability to knock off a tough team has always been there.


I also highlighted another area - "blowout losses". That's another thing that drives coaches and fans crazy. Losing is bad enough, but when you don't even show up people get ticked. I defined a "blowout" as a loss by more than 17 points. Coach Gailey's teams have been good for 2 of them each season. Beat the teams you are supposed to beat, pull an upset or two, win most of the middle of the road games and be competitive in all of them, and you have the makings of an 8-4 or 9-3 season............ or maybe better............. and happier fans.


UPDATED: The chart has been updated - 2005 UVA blowout loss was moved to 2004 (error), and the order of easy games was changed (Duke, Samford, Troy).



(click chart for larger version)


Thoughts?????