Technical Tidbits 10/5

Georgia Tech suffered its third loss of the young season and second straight conference loss over the weekend, falling to North Carolina by a final score of 38-31. The Jackets have now lost to the Tar Heels for two straight seasons and fell to Carolina for the first time in Atlanta since 1997. A 21-0 lead was evidently not enough for Tech, whose defense faltered after having senior defensive tackle Adam Gotsis ejected for targeting early in the game. I'm truly tapped out in terms of speculating about why we lost. There's only so much fruitless banter about missed blocks or whatever else I can do before my head flies off and joins the 2015 season's bigtime aspirations up in heaven.

While many fans can and will fault Paul Johnson for just about anything that happens at any given time, the head coach at least deserves some credit for trying to adapt and fix the offensive struggles of his team -- during the first half of the UNC game, Johnson changed his patented method for playcalling to a much simpler form. I'm usually too focused during games to notice most things that are going on, but this was something that really threw me off from the first drive of the game. Johnson, who usually sends his play to Justin Thomas by substituting in an A-Back with the call, elected instead to have Thomas rely on signals from the sideline for the playcall. This change clearly worked to some extent during the first drive of the game but apparently faltered a bit thereafter as the Jackets failed to move the ball well in the second half. Though the results weren't ideal, it is encouraging to see Johnson adapting like this. Give him credit for going to great lengths to fix his team's biggest issue.

The gametime for Georgia Tech at Clemson was announced as a 3:30 start time yesterday, marking the second consecutive mid-afternoon start for the Jackets this season. No. 6 Clemson will be Tech's second top-10 opponent of the season after the loss to then-No. 8 Notre Dame up in South Bend. Interestingly enough, the Tigers opened up as just an 8-point favorite over the stumbling Jackets despite having the luxury of playing in one of the most electric stadiums in college football. It is the first time that the Jackets have been an underdog at any point this season despite Tech already having three losses.

Another week means another AP Poll! This week's edition of everyone's favorite ranking system includes a lot of shuffling at the top following some big upsets, including Alabama over Georgia and Florida over Ole Miss. The presence of Texas A&M in the top-10 continues to astound me. The simple truth is that the Aggies are continuously playing terrible teams, just before anyone realizes how terrible they are. For that reason, wins over Arizona State and Arkansas are their signature victories. They'll get exposed soon.