Thursday, March 22, 2007

Welcome to my debut post


I thank Scott for allowing me to post, and to link to georgiatechfootballfacts.com. Please take a look at some of my posts from over there, let me know what you think. I hope this debut post is more like Kenny Anderson's debut against the Russian national team as a freshman than to Bobby Sprowl's debut (for you non-Red Sox fans, google Bobby Sprowl Red Sox and 1978 and see what you get).

Most of the posts and numbers that I put together compares Georgia Tech versus other ACC teams, and against the other 65 BCS schools. The best comparisons come when you take out the rankings from mid-major dendrites like the Sun Belt conference.

Now that men's basketball season is over (by the way-kudos to the ladies-best GT team ever), let's take a look at one of GT's favorite lightning rods, Chan Gailey. I will admit that after his first season at Tech, I wanted to run him out on a rail. That team blatantly quit twice that season at Maryland and at UGA, and it was two more times than the entire George O'Leary tenure.

However, as time progressed, I've warmed to him, mainly because of the talent he has brought here. You'll see more draft picks from this year and last year's classes than any other back to back classes in the last 20 years.

One of the stats that I take a look at when measuring coaches is quality wins.

These are standings based solely upon each team's performance against "quality opponents" – that is, against BCS teams with winning records. Strip away the opponents of games played against tomato cans, and you get a much clearer picture of the true nature of a team. Quality Standings are more important than overall standings because every year there are teams that have 5 or 6 Peter McNeely’s to fatten up their record.

The program became Chan Gailey's program and no longer George O'Leary's program in Gailey's third year. This was when there were more starters that Gailey recruited than O'Leary. During the last 3 seasons Georgia Tech went 9-14 against quality opponents.

How does that rank against other ACC schools? We'll compare against other schools in the ACC where the head coach has been at their school for 5 years, which knocks out Duke. Let's take a look:

Virginia Tech 15-7
Boston College 10-6
Miami* 12-11
Clemson 10-11
Florida State 9-11
Virginia 8-11
Georgia Tech 9-14
Wake Forest 7-13
North Carolina State* 4-13
Maryland 5-15
North Carolina* 5-18

* - "YOU'RE FIIRED!!! (Insert Vince McMahon voice here)

What does this tell us? One, watch out for NC State in three years, and two GT needs to do better than 3-5 like they did last year. Can they? Time will tell.

Next week we'll compare GT to all 66 BCS teams in this category.