Technical Tidbits 6/15

Cade is out on some much-needed R&R the next couple of weeks, so in the meantime you're stuck with the rest of us for your morning link dumps. We'll try to keep our #takes hot in his absence.

We're still a few weeks short of the Fourth of July, meaning it's prime time to be making predictions about how this fall's football season will end up. Lucky for us, on Saturday AJC columnist Mark Bradley took up the opportunity to do just that when he made his 2015 college football season predictions. Georgia Tech fans will be particularly intrigued by his prediction for the Yellow Jackets, which involves a Coastal Division championship and a loss to the in-state rivals. (Death, taxes, "Georgia Tech will lose to uga" predictions from Atlanta media.) Other interesting points of discussion: he selects Clemson to just barely miss the College Football Playoff, Tennessee to win the SEC East, and Ohio State to do it again. Not sure how much I agree on Clemson, but the other two seem pretty reasonable, especially when you read his explanations.

David Hale over at ESPN's ACC Blog recently looked at the toughest three-game stretch of the 2015 season for Georgia Tech, settling on the stretch between October 10-24. In that span, the Jackets travel to Clemson to face the conference favorites (on the heels of exam week, which has a really bad recent history on the Flats), then host Pittsburgh in what is sure to be a physical contest, before finally hosting the reigning conference champions Florida State in the homecoming game. That's certainly a daunting stretch, and yet I feel pretty good about the good guys' chances in the two home games. The trip to Clemson sets up pretty poorly (any trip to Clemson usually does, but the addition of exams directly beforehand only makes the clouds darker), but a 2-1 or 3-0 finish in these games could really set the Yellow Jackets up for a strong finish to the season.

This was included in Friday's Tidbits, but is probably deserving of more discussion than it received.Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly recently dropped some knowledge (or pointed out the proverbial elephant in the room) when he acknowledged that basically none of his team would make it into school in South Bend on academics alone. The linked article includes some discussion from a couple of SBNation's writers, in which they discuss the boldness of Kelly's honesty, as well as the possible tactical advantage the words could play in recruiting in the wake of recent academic woes suffered by the Fighting Irish.

It begs the question, though -- is it OK that players are making it into schools they wouldn't normally make it into if it weren't for their athletic ability? On one hand, their athletic skill is developed through countless hours of hard work and practice similar to other extracurricular activities that are valued on college applications. On the other hand, academically underqualified athletes are theoretically taking classes and receiving degrees in the places of more academically qualified students who were denied admission.

What are your thoughts? Why is it right or wrong that athletes get spots in those classes? Should they be held to the same academic standards (in high school) as other students are?