Somebody talk me off of this ledge. Please, help me.

http://dev.chuckoliver.net/2012/05/fsu-to-the-big-12-it-is-inevitable/

Here is the quick and dirty on this article. T.J. Barnes is going to play a 2 Gap nose guard/tackle and the ends are going to play a 1 Gap scheme. Inside backers and outside backers will play accordingly, but I will get to that if I have time. Who reads this stuff anyway when it is stuck over here on the side?

Do I have inside knowledge of next year's defensive scheme? No. Did I see something that tipped me off during the Spring game? No. So what am I talking about?

First, I simply want your opinion about the defensive concept of Tech changing from a 2-Gap to a 1-Gap system but with the following caveat. I do not think Tech is going to change what it does with the nose position. Except for this. Though the nose will theoretically be responsible for any play that happens on either side of the offensive center (a 2-Gap approach) the marching orders have been drastically simplified. The job now is to make sure that no matter what else happens on the play, the center is punished. Plastered might be a better word for it. The nose will be asked to not think but hit, tackle but not anticipate the tackle. Just push. Hard. Make it hard for the center to do anything other than hike the ball. If you miss a runner or two during the course of the game, let the linebackers worry about it. The main job and in most cases the only job will be to keep the center from being able to do more than one thing each play.

My hunch is that the inside backers will be asked to cover as many as four gaps between them. But again I will get to that if I am not bored with this article by then. I get bored easily. So, if you are ready to discuss, go ahead and skip the rest of this.

When I was a child I had one of those electric football games with the vibrating fields, the ones that people now make fun of because they were so low tech. I loved my mine and have always thought that people who didn't love them did not know how to play with them.

Each football player came on a little pedestal, the bottom side of which contained four small, plastic, sprue-like hairs. The magic of physics would conduct the vibration of the field through these hairs, and, depending on which direction they were slanted or bent, the tiny football player would move in a desired direction. I suspect people who hated this game hated it based on the fact that there were a thousand ways for players to go wrong or run the wrong way.

I kept it simple. I made sure most of my players were lined up to run fast and straight by adjusting the bottom hairs accordingly. If I wanted them to slant or stunt I simply pointed the player that way on the line of scrimmage. My running backs and ends were the only ones whose "hairs" I adjusted for special plays. I was especially good at running sweeps and end around plays. My offenses usually scored on every drive.

What does this have to do with T.J. Barnes? Well, if you have read this far you clearly don't have anything better to do so here is why in my fevered brain I associate the two. In this old electric football game there were ways to get an advantage, or at least exercise some control over how a play transpired. On defense I would always play a nose tackle. What my opponents often did not know (unless they were good friends and I told them) was that I had glued a small metal nut underneath the platform of the player I used for nose tackle.

This effected his performance in the following way. He ran slightly slower. He always maintained forward momentum. As a matter of fact you could put three blockers on him and he would still slowly mover the pile.

This meant the center of my defensive line was always secure and I could stunt my linebackers any number of ways.

T.J., your job is to be the guy carrying the extra metal nuts in your platform. Just plow straight ahead. Do not slant or stunt to one side or the other. Just push the center straight back on every play. We will call it a 2-Gap position but it won't even be that complicated. Everyone else on the front seven will have to think about what they are doing whether they are playing a one gap or a two gap or some hybrid multiple gap technique.

I think Al Groh is up to something and I think it is going to work this year. He has intelligent, fast and big linebackers who can multi-task. All he needs over the center is somebody who will create a log jam or at least keep the center from getting to the second level. Barnes can do that. I am a believer that he is big enough for this simple job.

Over 200 people instantly rallied to save Bobby Petrino's job when it first became likely that he would be fired for contact detrimental to the image of the University of Arkansas. Those who follow the Atlanta Falcons perhaps could have told Arkansas fans that Bobby was something of a loose cannon.

Out of curiosity I looked at websites related to Arkansas to see how the Petrino firing was impacting their recruiting this year. Needless to say, things are looking bleak. But in the process I stumbled across something that to me was even more stunning than the firing. Right now, as of this year, Arkansas has offered scholarships to over 100 class of 2013 football players. I know some schools (read Tech) are selective and tend to target particular types of students and players, whereas other schools carpet bomb entire regions of players with scholarship offers but this is ridiculous.

Arkansas seems to fall into that group of particular SEC schools that will offer three times as many scholarships as they can possibly honor in a given year and then pick and choose how they are going to treat individual students. As for the Petrino firing, hiring the man in the first place for an institution of higher education was questionable given his track record. What is more amazing is that after all he did he probably could have held onto his job, given his winning record, had he not hired his mistress. Everything else he had done up to that point would have perhaps brought severe reprimand but not a firing.

What do you think? Is Arkansas just an extreme case or does the SEC have a problem with the "win at all cost" mindset?

If Tech ever wants to join the likes of Alabama, Auburn, Southern Cal, Ohio State, and now, North Carolina, perhaps we have to learn how to be better cheats. Sarcasm aside, this is a telling quote: "A program can spit all over the NCAA rule book in an effort to reach or remain at the highest echelon of college football, and as long as that program cooperates with the NCAA during the investigation of its alleged 'crimes,' the Committee on Infractions will respond with a suite of penalties that contain far more bark than bite."

When Winfield http://www.youtube.com/user/fromtherumbleseat?feature=mhee channeled Gene Hackman in an effort to stir up a little upset magic for the Jackets in ACC basketball tournament play, I thought again about that wonderful movie, "Hoosiers." I then wondered what it is about some sports movies that they seem to rise above the genre. Why is it that some movies are just plain good movies even if you do not like sports? And why is it that some movies are watchable only if you are absolutely in love with the sport they are about? After the jump I will give you my top ten picks of the all time best sports movies and we can begin the arguments. But I must warn you, I am first and foremost a film snob. I watch foreign and independent films, I studied a little bit in college, I read reviews voraciously, and I have very strong opinions about what makes a good movie.

Continue reading this post »

I must apologize first for the use of the annoying cliche "thinking outside the box" which by now should be relegated to the scrap heap of corporate buzz words and professional management fads. However, I could not think of another short hand way in which to describe the phenomenon of those who are able to make intuitive leaps in their thinking, exploding beyond the confines of conventional thinking. Stephen Hill's sudden rise in his projected draft status speaks to the ability of Paul Johnson to do this very thing. Others constantly chirp the truisms about player size, background or systems, he just keeps on seeing what others don't see. After the jump we will take a quick look at why those who insist on sticking with football orthodoxies almost always miss the true gems of the game.

Continue reading this post »

Tech fans debate endlessly about the size of their linemen. If you have heard it once you have heard it a thousand times, "Tech's offensive linemen need to be smaller than average so that they can be agile enough to master the special blocking needs of the triple option." The corollary of this on the defensive side goes like this, "The nose guard has to be relatively short so that he can have the necessary leverage to tie up two offensive blockers in the middle of the line." Neither statement is inherently true but one can point to a plethora of examples that prove the point, as well as the few exceptions that seem to prove the rule. The disclaimer among more rational Tech fans usually is along the lines of, "Well, of course you can have a 400 pound offensive lineman in the triple option, there just aren't many who can move that fast." And on the defensive side of things it usually goes, "Well, sure you can have a nose tackle that is 6'7" but he better be able to get as low as a 6'1" player or he will never have enough leverage to play the position." After the jump we will take a rambling, somewhat nostalgic look at the fascination and fads that have always been part of football's size debates.

Continue reading this post »

When one thinks of losing in sports what comes to mind? Is it stirring back ground music with an apocalyptic voice intoning about, "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat?" Or are your nightmares less romantic, filled with self doubts, low esteem and anxiety about whether you will ever amount to anything? Do you want to go poison trees at Toomer's Corner the way that whacked out Alabama fan did after a loss to Auburn?

I don't know which coach first said it but many coaches have repeated the dictum that losing produces no good thing. Then there is Lombardi, one of the most admired coaches in history, who purportedly said, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." We respect that no-nonsense, General Patton-like approach even though in real life we sometimes see how losses can create a better person. We could go on but let's cut to the chase with a few basic reflections on those teams that have to incubate like a fetus for the next nine months knowing that they are losers.

Continue reading this post »

We all saw it on the field. I even remarked about it in my last article. Now there is apparent proof, if you can believe the West Virginia Players, that Clemson players were telling their opponents early in the first half to back off and just enjoy the win without running up the score too much. According to several sources the offensive and defensive linemen in particular basically told the West Virginia players that they were just going to go through the motions and to please just enjoy the win and to quit being so mean about it. Here is one link in particular:

http://www.shakinthesouthland.com/2012/1/7/2688975/you-can-just-read-that-i-dont-need-to-say-anything

Tell me what you think.

According to one ex-football coach who is now a talking head on TV, there is no magic to figuring out the outcome of bowl match-ups. According to him teams will pretty much do what they did all season long. Also, if you follow his logic, there is no such thing as an upset in a bowl game.

I beg to differ and not just because I am a contrarian, which I freely admit to being. I would argue that even though the regular season is a good way to gauge bowl game performance, there are some intangibles at work which are more difficult to calculate. After the jump we will dig in and open ourselves up for the onslaught of arguments that will follow.

Continue reading this post »

Let's talk last minute recruiting for just a minute. I am going to speak in round numbers here, O.K.?

So let's say Tech has about 12 offers out right now to some pretty outstanding football athletes. Let's say, just to keep it simple, that the average number of scholarships these players are fielding is around 12 with some getting as many as 30 offers from big time programs.

Here are the questions. Does it matter if Tech is at or near the top of a particular athletes list? Does it matter if Tech is a first choice over teams like LSU and Alabama if the list also includes Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame?

In some cases Georgia has also offered which strikes me as a fairly rare event since the kind of athletes the two schools are interested in rarely seems to overlap. The question here is simple. Should either Tech or Georgia win out against all of the other competition do you think either school will make a big deal out of it? (I know that was a no-brainer but I had to throw it in).

Finally, out of the scholarships that are still on the table how many do you think will be influenced by either a Tech win or Tech loss today?

"Teams that have enough time to prepare for this offense can usually beat it." Where have you heard that comment before?

How about this one. "Their offensive line is too light and their finesse approach always get manhandled by more physical defensive lines."

That's right. These comments were all made about Oregon and their vaunted spread option offense. After the jump we will look at conventional wisdom, bowl preparation and what it takes for Tech to win a bowl game.

Continue reading this post »

Contrary to popular belief Tech fans do not obsess about Georgia. Nor are we of one mind about whether we think the dogs should lose every time they hit the field. But we do care about the overall health and well being of college athletics and therefore today's match up between LSU and UGA presents a conundrum. Some say that even if LSU loses they are still a lock to play in the BCS Championship, which they would probably win. That would leave Georgia with the bragging rights of being able to say they were the only ones to beat the National Champions. Others hope that a Georgia win might scramble things sufficiently to allow Virginia Tech into the BCS Championship. Admittedly it is a long shot but it is also not the only scenario that might free up the monotony of the current standings. Tell us what you think.

    Coach Paul Johnson summed up the Tech loss to Georgia by saying, "Our margin for error was small."  He then went on to describe missed opportunities and execution.

   Atlanta Journal and Constitution writer, Ken Seguira, gave a similar assessment but in more blunt terms.  "Georgia was a better team and Tech had to play a perfect game to win.  They did not and they lost."

     Both comments resonate with me but not just because I strongly agree with them.  I think they also speak to why Tech's future prospects just get rosier and rosier.  I will try to explain why after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

     Here are the seven things we cannot argue with after this weekend's games.  But, if you must argue, do so nicely after the jump.  I look forward to your input.

Continue reading this post »

    A Georgia Tech team seeking to rebound from three weeks of lackluster performance, including an upset loss to Virginia, faces a Miami team that so far this season seems to alternate playing good games with bad games. Odds-makers have Tech wavering as a 2 to 3 point underdog. 

   Tech fans are quick to point out that revenge is a strong motivator for Coach Paul Johnson.  In the ACC he is 3-0 following his first loss of the season with an average margin of victory of 18 points following each loss.

Continue reading this post »

  It was getting toward the end of October and I had some unfinished business in Miami.  I was not expecting a cake-walk, but then, in this game, nothing ever is.  There was definitely going to be some hot action.

Continue reading this post »

      After Tech's humbling loss to Virginia, Coach Johnson stated that after playing with fire three weeks in a row it was inevitable that you would eventually get burned.  It should come as no surprise that what Tech fans saw happening on the field the last few weeks was not going unnoticed by those in charge.  But now that the shocking reality of what we were fearing has come to pass we still have to make sense of it.  To determine what category this loss falls into, whether it was a terrible loss, a good lesson learned, or just your standard loss by a team not as good as we had hoped, one must do the unthinkable and try to peer into the nether recesses of how the human psyche shapes reality. 

Continue reading this post »

      It should not have been close.  North Carolina State had a retread offensive line, a running game which in its most recent game had minus rushing yards, and a defense that seemed to only wave at ball carriers as they ran by.  Tech, on the other hand, led the nation in five major offensive categories and was second in the nation in  rushing yards.  Add to this that Tech jumped out to a three touchdown lead in the first half of this game and it is clear who the dominant team was.  Yet the final score was alarmingly close.  So how close did Tech come to blowing the game and losing to NCST?

Continue reading this post »

  I can't resist giving my two cents worth about how college football teams ought to be ranked at this point in the season.  This year more than any time in recent memory the top teams seem to have staggering athletic prowess.  One is stuck by the combination of shear size, agility and blinding speed.  Personally, I think once you get past the top five or six teams the falloff in talent is so great that the rest of the teams could probably be sorted in any number of ways and it would not matter.  Those teams could all beat each other on a given Saturday and the results could change a dozen times.

  Not so for the top teams.  If any of them lose it would probably be only once and  to one team and one team only.  After the jump you could see how I am feeling about the state of football in our land.

Continue reading this post »

    According to ACC Commissioner John Swofford after Pittsburgh and Syracuse joined the ACC the number of schools left that still wanted to join the ACC totaled in double digits.  Let's take the lowest double digit we can think of and pin down after the jump who these other 10 teams are.

Continue reading this post »

   When Coach Al Groh was asked by a reporter why he had accepted the defensive coaching assignment at Tech instead of pursuing a head coaching position elsewhere he said, "Coach Paul Johnson is creating something special at Georgia Tech and I want to be part of it."  I did not assume at the time that he was referring exclusively to Johnson's unique offensive formula.   But now with hindsight, I do not doubt for a moment that this was part of the equation in Groh's decision to come to Tech. 

    Al Groh was not the first defensive genius to speak with reverence about Johnson's triple option.  Legendary University of Georgia Coach Irk Russell, who made Johnson his offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern, said that the triple option was the one offense he never could figure out how to defend against.  Bear with me and after  the jump I will tell you exactly why I think Tech's offensive philosophy is very, very special.

Continue reading this post »

   Here we go again.  Another reporter with loose lips links Tech to a scandal.

Continue reading this post »

   Pretend for a moment that you are reading about some team on the West Coast that you don't know much about.  Let's say that all of the pundits predict this particular team to finish no higher than fourth in their division in a two division conference.  Having time to kill you read further and you discover that they have multiple question marks.

Continue reading this post »

 To begin with allow me to throw out some names of players I believe to be the ten best power forwards to ever play the game.  Our poll will consider others in addition to these but first we must give homage to the players who helped create the game we have come to love.

  Elvin Hayes  -He is the top scorer among our list of power forwards and the 7th best scorer among all NBA players in history.  He is also the 4th leading rebounder of all time and has been voted one of the 50 greatest players of all time.  No one, in my opinion, played this position any better.

  Karl Malone  -If you were building a team from scratch you also might want to consider him as your top pick.  Karl was an 11 time all star who holds the record for consecutive 2000 point scoring seasons (11).  He is the 6th best rebounder of all time and was also voted one of the top 50 greatest players of all time. 

Continue reading this post »

  As a preview to our final poll (whew!) on all time NBA greats allow me to make a few comments about the position of power forward.  I am reminded of  that proverbial judge who supposedly once said of pornography, "I can't define it but I know what it is when I see it."  So it is with power forwards.  We know they are a post player or low block player.  Usually they are the second tallest player on the team.  On rare occasions they are tallest player on the team, or, in even rarer occasions, they are the second shortest.   Sometimes we think of them as slightly faster than a center but not as quick as a small forward.  Their build is usually muscular.

   O.K., so what do they do?  To me this is even more ambiguous because it depends on the needs of the team.  Some power forwards act as a kind of policeman around the boards.  They can physically intimidate (O.K., not really, no NBA player is ever actually intimidated, but it just seems like it from a fan point of view) or they can eat up rebounds or they can dish it up to their play making partners.  Think Dennis Rodman.  If you want to know if Dennis Rodman was effective look at this simple fact.  Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan.  The only team any of these players had a losing record against was the Dennis Rodman led Detroit Pistons. 

    But this only begins to get at the question of how hard it is to define a power forward.  Some power forwards are formidable scoring machines yet few of them have the kind of name recognition that our other position players have.  Georgia Tech fans certainly know the name Chris Bosh but as good as he is he will have to play a few more years before we know whether or not he is one of the all time greats at this position.

   All of which brings me to the totally unsatisfying way this position is talked about among the sports writing experts.  I will be the first to admit I am no expert on these things.  I am just a fan and not even a particularly knowledgeable fan.  But if one does a word search for greatest power forwards the list that comes up seems terribly unimaginative and the same names are repeated.  "Surely," you say, "This simply means there is a consensus among the experts."  No, I say the parrots are simply talking to each other.

    Let me give you two examples to illustrate this.  This first example is controversial so I am letting myself in for some true fan hate here.  Tim Duncan is listed as a power forward.  He is a center.  All of those NBA All Star appearances, all of those accolades, would not have come to him if the program guide for the San Antonio Spurs listed him as center.  Stay with me here.  When Tim  Duncan was drafted the Spurs already had a center in David Robinson.  Duncan played some as a back up center or more regularly as the "second center" in a two center offense.  For those of you old enough to remember think back to the University of Jacksonville which attempted to join the basketball elite by putting two seven foot centers (Artis Gilmore and Permbroke Burroughs) in the line up at the same time.  It worked.  Jacksonville was the smallest enrollment school in history to make it to the final four and to the championship where they lost to UCLA.  But back to Tim Duncan.  Though he was a center, the Spurs listed him as power forward.  When David Robinson left even though Tim was now the tallest player on the team he was still listed as power forward.  As he is to this day.  He is a center.  He plays like a center, he guards the opposing center, he is a center.  But he gets more recognition by matching his stats not against a Kareem or a Chamberlain or an Olajuwon, but against a Dennis Rodman.

   My second example is even more frustrating.  I think a case could be made that Dan Issel is one of the greatest if not the greatest Power Forwards of all time yet he is never mentioned as one of the all time great power forwards.  Always under appreciated, coming out of college the knock on him was that he was either too slow or not muscular enough to take the pounding.  To be sure he was no Charles Barkley (Round Mound of Rebound) in terms of physical bulk.  But in my subjective opinion neither was he as slow as Paul Pierce or Matt Harpring. 

   Here is all did.  Drafted by the ABA (yes, just like  "Dr. J" you have to include ABA stats to get the full picture) he promptly put up a 29.9 point scoring average and won rookie of the year honors.  The next year his average went up to 30.6.  Championships and honors followed.  Later when the two leagues merged he ended up with Denver where he was their only representative to the NBA All Stars.  When Dan Issel retired he was the fourth leading scorer in professional basketball history only behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving. 

     I solicit, nay, I covet your comments.

  The role of small forward has evolved over the decades but certain characteristics remain the same.  A great small forward always is one of the leading scorers for the team, can run the fast break and is one of the top defenders for the team.  Arguably there are more "legends" of basketball at this position than any other.  Narrowing the list down to twelve, here are the picks along with a few comments.

Continue reading this post »

  Determining what makes a good point guard is fairly simple in theory.  Not unlike a quarterback in football, they should control the tempo, call the plays, exploit weaknesses in the defense, set up skill players to make big plays, not turn the ball over and agressively push the ball into enemy territory.  Oh, and yes, if you are also a terrific scorer then you are the total package.  

    Picking the best shooting guard was perhaps easy compared to picking the best point guard.  If a shooting guard plays on a losing team it is not generally considered their fault if while losing they also averaged 25 points a game.  Not so a point guard.  Just getting your stats is not enough.  The question is whether or not you make the rest of the team better.  I have always been interested in watching college coaches determine whether their new hot shooting freshman guard is going to play that role their entire career or whether they are going to be groomed for the point guard position.  It takes a special breed to play this position and, psychologically speaking, someone who is very comfortable in their own skin.

Continue reading this post »

       At the request that we keep the polls coming to sooth our collective enui over the current state of affairs in Tech sports we will now turn our attention to NBA shooting guards.  With enough polling we could eventually put together a depth chart for an entire all-time NBA squad. 

    Why do this you ask?  Well, as I recently observed some New England Patriot fans say after their team failed to make it to the Super Bowl, "It's going to be a long winter."

Continue reading this post »

   There are plenty of all time great NBA player lists one can find by surfing the web.   This question is a fan question, in other words, it is totally subjective with just enough facts thrown in to make it respectable. If you were building a team from scratch and could have any center in history in prime physical condition who would you want?

    Usually when looking at all time greatest NBA centers three names hover near the top:  Wilt Chamberlin, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bill Russell.  The reasons are obvious.  Wilt Chamberlin holds 60 out of 72 NBA records.  They even changed NBA rules to try to stop his dominance.  Compare this with rule changes in later years that were intended to help players like Michael Jordan.

    Kareem Abdul Jabbar is simply the all time scoring leader in the NBA and his "Sky Hook" was virtually unstoppable.  Bill Russell had 11 championship rings in 13 years.

Continue reading this post »