Matt’s Blog

This Thanksgiving I traveled all the way from Seattle to Atlanta (again) to, among other things, attend the best college football rivalry game in the country; the Georgia Tech vs. U(sic)GA game. This year the game was the first and only GT game that I attended at Bobby Dodd stadium (readers will recall that I also saw the team play in person at Vanderbilt) and unless you have had your head under a rock for the past few days you probably also know that the game did not go well for us.

Now I don’t really know what qualifies a game as “rough” but here’s what made the game last Saturday rough for the GT faithful. First, we hate UGA. Good, clean hate mind you but hate none the less. Perhaps it’s because most of their fans didn’t even go to the school, and cheer for them because they win a lot and make an easy team to root for. Perhaps it’s because they usually beat us in football. Perhaps it’s because their football players and mascot tear up our field in front of our fans when they win. Whatever. We just don’t like them at all and losing to them only makes that worse. Second, we were actually good this year. Although I’ll admit that I thought the ranking in the top 10 was a bit optimistic, I really do think that we’ve done a good job this year. And in years past when the roles were reversed and U(sic)GA was on top we got trounced. Any of those years we would have loved to play the spoiler to U(sic)GA’s otherwise great season. Why then on the one rare occasion where the roles are reversed are we the ones who provide redemption for our rival’s otherwise mediocre season? Third, the game was so close. Although we were trailing pretty much the entire time, we were always within striking distance. And except for a brief period in the second quarter we had plenty of offensive momentum. This means that for pretty much the entire game we were all on the edge of our seats screaming our heads off hoping that we would take the lead. Right up to the very end. Let me tell you how much fun it was to wake up the next day, unable to speak in anything above a raspy whisper and remember: “oh yeah, we lost to Georgia last night, sweet.” And finally, on the topic of that period in the second quarter, it wouldn’t be a game against the dawgs without a little “coincidence.” How fortuitous that the first play immediately following our recovery of a U(sic)GA fumble for the go-ahead touchdown our star quarterback goes down with a twisted ankle…

Phew, now that’s out of my system.

The rest of the trip was great. I had a great time with friends and like every time I go back I left wondering why I moved so far away. Also, this might sound dumb, but this was the first trip where I realized that I’m really not in college anymore. For the game I was standing with my fraternity just like the old days, except that it wasn’t. Most of my close friends have graduated and in their places are all these new guys who I don’t know. Even those guys that I do know are getting ready to move on to grad school and other things. So the limited connection that I do have there will soon be gone. Even just being around the house or on campus was interesting. For the first time ever I felt more at home at the alumni tailgate then I did anywhere else.

But then, what are my alternatives? I don’t really feel old enough to move to the alumni sections for the games. I mean who really wants to sit through a football game? If I wanted to sit then I’d just stay home where I can camp out on the couch and drink beer that didn’t cost eight dollars a bottle. This might not have been all that bad of an idea given the outcome of the game… Anyways the trip was great and the times were good. So I can’t really complain all that much, even if I’m becoming one of the “old guys.” I’m just not there yet.

So, it occurred to me that recently there’s been a pretty high word-to-picture ratio going on around here. That’s fine, words are good and quite entertaining when properly applied; however, preliminary research suggests that there is a strong correlation between the word-picture ratio and the douchey-funny ratio. I’ve dubbed this concept the “Butters principle.” Now, clearly, we can’t have the D-F ratio rising too high around here which means: It’s time for some images! Fortunately I did some image-worthy things last weekend.

Most anyone who’s known me for a while can tell you: I love GT football. This is why last weekend I flew all the way from Seattle to Nashville to watch Georgia Tech play Vanderbilt. Well, that and to spend time with some of my closest friends from college… but mostly to watch football. Um…. let’s call it a 55/45 football/friends split. Anyways, here are some of the reasons I love going to GT football games:

The Stadium Atmosphere

This season I’ve mostly been watching our games on ESPN 360 which is neat, but not the same experience as actually being at a game. There’s just not that excitement/energy level. Of course you might argue that going to a live game at Vanderbilt is pretty much the same thing as watching it on TV, but whatever.

Friends

I have some of the best friends in the world. Many of whom also cheer for Georgia Tech, which is actually a pretty important requirement for friendship with me. Just kidding, but no… really. Of course some of my friends look better than others. No offense Dustin

Paul Johnson

I’ve previously written about why I love our coach. But this season in particular I’ve gained new respect because a 4-quarter application of PJ usually results in…

Winning

I’ve already booked my tickets for the GT/UGA game and I cannot wait. Go Jackets, Fight, Win!

Enough said:

Let’s get the week started off right. Here’s an article I wrote for the Technique’s “To Hell With Georgia” edition this year. The THWUGA edition is is a spoof of UGA’s student newspaper, think theonion.com compared with cnn.com. Enjoy!

Mark Richt Endorses Ford Trucks; Automaker Seeks Federal Bailout

WASHINGTON, DC – In testimony before congress last week Ford Motor Company President and CEO Allan Mullay detailed his company’s desperate need for an emergency bailout due largely to what he describes as the “catastrophic effect of Mark Richt’s endorsement of Ford trucks.” Mullay pleaded with lawmakers to pass a bridge loan package of nearly $25 billion to help keep Ford afloat stating, “The effects of Mark Richt’s comments on our company cannot be overstated.” Analysts agreed indicating that the total cost of the endorsement may top $50 billion before the automaker is able to recover. News of the imminent bankruptcy sent Ford stock plummeting in a dive that one investor described as “nearly as meteoric as the fall from U[sic]GA’s pre-season football ranking.”

The commercial in question began airing prior to the 2008 college football season and features Mark Richt, the head coach of the football team at the University[sic] of Georgia expressing his endorsement of Ford trucks. In an opening line comprised mostly of monosyllabic words, reportedly a favorite of the head coach, Richt declares: “I believe that sweat feeds the soul.” He goes on to express several of his key opinions and concludes by emphasizing: “I believe in Ford trucks.”

Richt responded to allegations that he had caused the near collapse of a major US automaker by stating, “I stand by everything I said except that whole mental toughness part. Mental toughness is for wimps!” When asked what he meant by the phrase “Georgia Saturdays, build Ford tough” he clarified that “Ford trucks are as rock-solid as the feeling of despair in Athens on Saturdays when your team only beats Auburn by 4 points, loses to Alabama by 11 points or loses to Florida by 39 points.”

The commercial, widely available both on TV and the internet had clearly impacted consumer confidence. Dan Williamson, a Ford Dealership owner in Los Angeles, California stated that sales this quarter were “flatter than Uga VI’s EKG reading.” He continued, “You’d think more Georgia fans would be buying Ford trucks just because Mark Richt told them to, but no.” Stephen Jackson, a small business owner in New Bedford Massachusetts, explained to reporters, “I was going to replace my company’s fleet with Ford trucks. I was impressed when he said ‘I believe in outworking the competition.’ But then I asked myself, ‘does winning by 7 points over South Carolina really qualify as outworking?’ And then there’s Florida? Seriously? Even Georgia Tech can beat teams from Florida.”

Many “students” found some aspects of the commercial confusing. U[sic]GA 34^th year campus wildlife studies major Clyde McDermott took issue with the commercial’s claim that Ford trucks had been on top of their game for 31 years. “We haven’t won a national championship since 1980 which is like… um.. a bunch more years than 31.” Others felt that more effective representatives could have been employed. “Ford might not be in so much trouble if they had stuck to their roots,” says Brandon Kearse GT Ramblin’ Wreck driver, “the wreck’s been going strong for nearly 80 years, outlasting 6 Ugas.” The wreck, a 1930’s Ford Model –A, is the well-recognized and highly regarded mascot of U[sic]GA’s in-state rival the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Mullay explained that the idea for the now-infamous commercial arose out of a retreat for top company executives. “We all got completely wasted up at my cabin one night and Bill Ford said ‘You know, we should have Mark endorse our trucks.’ and we all thought it was funny, but I never thought it would actually happen.” Responsibility for the commercial has yet to be established. “It’s pretty much a blame game down here” says Anna Neugyn, a Ford employee, “finding the responsible party is harder than keeping U[sic]GA football players out of jail on alcohol-related charges.”

Mullay stated that overseas sales remained largely unaffected. “We haven’t seen as big a losses in our foreign markets, probably because no one knows about U[sic]GA over there.”

Not everyone was upset with the commercial though. GM and Chrysler officials are reportedly in talks with Richt to extend the commercial run as long as possible. GM chief Rick Wagner praised the spot and calling Richt “our most effective representative.”

Ford’s stock was trading at 0.11 a share at the close of the market Tuesday, which is coincidentally the average GPA for students at U[sic]GA.

I hope the offensive line notes the choice of “Extra Coverage” hint hint…

As the GTAA would have it Bobby Dodd will be whiter than a Star Trek nerd for tonight’s game against Miami. I suppose that having everyone in the stadium wearing the same color is supposed to build team spirit or some such thing. Probably not a bad ideal as Georgia Tech is notorious for having a rather dirty-looking crowd with no real standard football game color. Understandable when there’s like 50,000 different intrepretations of “gold” not to mention the grey, dark blue, navy blue, royal blue… and of course black (shudder).

Anyways, to help students dress appropriately SGA funded some t-shirts.

Which seemed like a good idea this summer when it was somewhere 90 degrees outside with 1-million percent humidity. But now that it’s going to be like one-third of that temperature the t-shirt idea dosen’t seem quite so neat now does it? That’s ok though, we always have this option:

Sigh, I refuse to buy a jacket just for this game. I swear this is just a chance for the bookstore to make some extra money.

So Georgia Tech’s football team has finally beat the Seminoles. Amazing considering both the length of our loosing streak and the abysmally low expectations that were made about GT and the beginning of the season.

Now I don’t usually write about football for two reasons. First, I know nothing about football. Well maybe not nothing, I do know how the game works and what penalties are bad and such. But when it comes to stats and strategy and all those other things I generally sit back and let those with the expert knowledge make fools of people like me who know nothing but unlike me don’t keep their mouths shut. The second reason is that for a long time there wasn’t much to talk about in the world of GT football save how much I hated Chan Gailey and his piss-poor coaching. Talking about that would have gotten really boring, because he sucked the same amount each time we played so there would have been no variation.

But as I’ve patiently watched our team this year I’ve come to some realizations that I wanted to share. I must admit, at the start of the season I wasn’t expecting much. Not that I didn’t have hope that things would go well, I just figured that it would take a while for Coach Johnson to get out team up to speed. Well… that and I was constantly told that it wasn’t just Chan’s fault that our team lost, it was the players too. So naturally I figured that having the same players would mean that we wouldn’t see major improvement until Coach Johnson was able to fill out the roster with guys that fit his program.

Even so I maintained a tentative hope throughout the early season starting with our first legitimate win against Boston College. A hope which was bolstered by subsequent wins against Mississippi State, Duke and Clemson. I realized that regardless of our performance this season, which has already far exceeded expectations, I believe that Coach Johnson is one of the best things to happen to Georgia Tech football in a long time.

I like Paul Johnson for a lot of reasons. He’s passionate (some might say mean), he’s driven and he’s old-school. I remember overhearing a conversation between an Athletic Association staffer and a campus police officer early this summer regarding Coach Johnson’s changes to the program. The staffer was detailing the military-inspired discipline and focus Coach Johnson brought to the program. Just the thing needed for a team that saw false starts and offsides penalties repeated every game like clockwork and suffered from a quarterback who couldn’t count the number of downs in a drive. I also heard rumors of changes to the practice schedule from easy and optional to grueling and mandatory. It warmed my heart every time I got up early to run before work to hear the shrill bark of coach’s whistles wafting over from the practice fields.

Perhaps the largest source of consternation for most fans was what is (now affectionately) known as the “Triple Option” or just “the Option.” Frankly when I heard people freaking out over Paul Johnson’s use of the TO at Navy I couldn’t understand what the big deal was. Maybe I didn’t understand things enough (a distinct possibility) but I figured that Dan Radakovich knew what he was doing. After all, he did can Chan. I figured that the Option couldn’t be all that bad or Johnson would have been run out of college football long ago. But as I’ve watched the Option in action over the last few weeks I began to realize something. Something that came to a head as I read post-game articles from the FSU victory this weekend.

I really like the Option.

While many regard the Triple Option as an outdated technique, I think it’s perfect for Tech. There are several reasons:

Weird... but Passionate

First, it’s not stylish. No one else is doing it, and some might even call the Option a little weird. But that’s ok because here at Tech we’re all a little weird. We’re all about pushing the envelope and trying new things (or old things in new ways). Just look at the wreck parade. We really like doing things that no one else is and we’re not always concerned with the best-looking thing just the most effective.

Which leads me to point number two, the Option is effective. Just ask Jacksonville State, Boston College, Clemson… you get the idea. Yes, we lost a couple already. Might even loose more. But this is year one, just imagine how things are going to be in year two, or three, or ten. Here at Tech we like our success, and so far the Option is a winner.

But the most important thing is that at Georgia Tech, we don’t quit. For students who are more than willing to pull an all-nigher (or two) to finish an assignment, we have little pity for a coach or players or a team that won’t express the same dedication on the field. To me the Option represents a hard-core, old-school approach that seeks to win at any cost. We’ll run the ball to the right or the left or up the middle or we might even throw it, but no matter what we will fight. And Coach Johnson exudes dedication on the field, both in his empassioned rebuking of mistakes and his masterful employment of an offensive system that many said was better suited for the scrap heap.

It would be foolish to expect to win all the time. Any good Georgia Tech student knows this. But what we do want is passionate dedication to fight, no matter what the odds. I had hoped to get through this post without resorting to the tired “Perfect Option” line, but the more I think about it the more I realize that Paul Johnson and his “antequated” systems couldn’t be any more perfect for Georgia Tech.

Go Jackets, to Hell with Georgia!

If you’ve ever played caranium then you will know what the title of this post is about. If you haven’t played then you should probably fix that at some point… Anyways, I recieved this tasty, and accurate treat today from a friend and thought it was good enough to share before it got eaten.

Those cookies were better than Tagalongs, which pretty much makes them the best cookies ever. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Georgia Tech moving to number 18 in the BCS standings.