Technical Tidbits 10/13

Georgia Tech dropped its fourth straight game over the weekend, falling in Clemson by a final score of 43-24 to the second top-10 opponent of the season. I'm honestly out of things to say about these losses because every single one seems to be the same story. Bad blocking, bad offensive line play, bad weather, and questionable playcalling have all been constants over the last four games, but more so over the last three. Tech managed just 71 yards on 42 carries for an anemic clip of 1.7 yards per carry, a number which gets even scarier when you consider that 9 of those yards came on a fake punt by upback Chase Alford and another 14 came on two garbage time carries by backup quarterback Matthew Jordan. Without those three carries, the offense ran for a total of 48 yards on 39 carries, good for 1.2 yards per carry. Yikes.

Let's go ahead and shift away from football for the sake of our health and focus instead on Tech's superior athletic program, the basketball team. That is not something I enjoy saying, but at this point it is probably the truth -- expectations are much higher for Brian Gregory's team than they are for the footballers at the moment. The article I linked to is a great breakdown from Duke Basketball Report with lots of good info on the upcoming season. Don't get your hopes up, but do realize that there is reason to at least dream of a successful season. Otherwise we will be in all-out baseball mode very quickly.

If you think Georgia Tech is having a rough time, consider these next two stories of struggling programs to help you feel better. Maybe.

We'll start with USC and head coach Steve Sarkisian, who was fired by the school yesterday just one day after taking a leave of absence to take care of his alcohol problem. I'm not here to make fun of Sarkisian for his substance abuse problem or shame him in any way, but rather to hit on how poorly the USC leadership handled the situation. The fact that USC athletic director Pat Haden, who is also the one responsible for the Lane Kiffin debacle, still has a job is crazy. Rather than quietly trying to handle the situation, he threw his Sarkisian and his baggage out to dry, also allowing numerous leaks surrounding Sarkisian's behavior within the program to surface to media. He frankly handled the situation as poorly as one can possibly do. USC is a mess.

We now head to Denton, Texas, home of the North Texas Mean Green and now a very ominous record. Over the weekend, North Texas lost its football game by a final score of 66-7, a relatively common occurrence for a Conference USA team like them when playing a power-five opponent like Alabama or Florida State. Well, that would be the justification if the Mean Green had actually lost to a power five school. Their actual opponent over the weekend? The FCS's Portland State. So yes. North Texas lost. At home. To an FCS school. By 59 points. That's a new record for margin of victory of an FCS team over an FBS team. North Texas fired its head coach the second the fourth quarter ended. Feel better now?