Technical Tidbits 5/29

Earlier this week, I speculated that Maryland transfer Charles Mitchell could end up at Tech, and the AJC has confirmed that Tech and uga are the front-runners for his services. Mitchell, a 6-foot-7 forward from Wheeler High School here in Atlanta, should be eligible to play immediately no matter where he goes-- he is transferring to get closer to his ailing grandmother. Mitchell was a four-star recruit out of high school and would help tremendously with the daunting task of replacing Robert Carter, Jr.

The AJC's Mark Bradley released his annual Memorial Day college football predictions on Monday, projecting the Jackets to win just seven games this season. I think that Brian Clark put it best in the video-- Georgia Tech is in college football purgatory right now. They never have a losing season or any inconsistent results but are always frustratingly far away from having any real success or being in contention for a BCS berth/ACC Championship victory, putting us as Tech fans in a precarious situation with a lot of uncertainty about whether or not we are improving or not. Bradley picked the dwags to win 10 games and the SEC East this season, a prediction which is a bit high for me. I think too many people are banking on their defense all of a sudden morphing into the best one in history just because they made a new hire.

SBN College Football put out a nice article recently about the challenges of scheduling power conference games for each of the five conferences. The template that they use is very interesting-- each school would fill their out of conference slate by playing one game against each of the other conferences. Tech would start off in a pool with Washington State, TCU, Minnesota, and Mississippi State, all of which they'd play in the first season of a system like this. I actually think the idea is a very good one-- the only problem is that we'd only see the dwags once every 13-15 years or so, which just wouldn't work out at all. The diversity of opposition would be a welcome change, just not at the expense of a historic rivalry.

While the ACC is requiring teams to schedule games against power conferences, there hasn't been any discussion of banning member schools from playing games against the FCS. FCS teams provide an easy-to-schedule game with the intention of purely filling a spot on the schedule with a team that is considered to be an easy win (unless you're Florida), so they naturally don't draw many fans to the stadium or viewers on TV for the most part. Georgia Tech played FCS opponents Alabama A&M and Elon last season and is scheduled to host the FCS's Wofford Terriers at home this season.

Daily Debate: Should the ACC ban schools from scheduling games against FCS opponents? What alternatives are there if they did ban FCS schools?