Mailbag 8/4

Win, Place & Show....
1) List your top 3 Offenses in the ACC and state your metric(s) used to determine the list (Total points/game, Yds/Game, TOP, FEI, color of home uniforms, whatever)

Georgia Tech and North Carolina will definitely be the top two. They have both consistently performed near the top of that list. After that is where things get blurry. I'm going to go with Louisville though. Bobby Petrino may be a total jerk, but he knows a thing or two about football. Pitt could also be there with their very young offense.

2) List your top 3 Defenses in the ACC.

As much as we hate them around here, Virginia Tech is going to be near the top. Bud Foster knows what he's doing. If Georgia Tech's defensive line improves as much as I think they can, they could definitely be in talks to be in that top three; I think they'll fall short of that mark though. Instead I'm going to say Florida State and Louisville. They both lost some talent, but I think they can definitely reload.

3) Ten of the 14 SEC teams made the pre-season top 27—-an astounding accomplishment (tongue so far into cheek, it looks like the equivalent of 3 cans of Skoal crammed into one’s mouth)—-so be a prognosticator and state how many SEC teams will finish in the top 27 (top 25 + the top 2 teams receiving votes).

I'll say five or six. The ones that come to mind are Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Ole Miss and Miss State.

Okay, t-shirt cannon to your head, who is the better Georgia Tech QB at the end of their college career, Justin Thomas or Joe Hamilton?

Justin Thomas will have the better career, but Hamilton will have more accolades.

If you are Mike Sanford at ND, how do you prepare for Gotsis, JH-D, Freeman, and Gamble coming after your Sophomore QB with extreme prejudice? Tell the ambulance drivers to keep the engine running?

I honestly don't know much about Notre Dame's offensive line, but I do get the feeling that Tech's defensive line is going to be something special this year. If that turns out to be the case, Sanford will have them frantically watching film from the Alcorn State and Tulane games to try and figure out how to stop them.

Questions about the FTRS Band "Bastion"
1) What style of music would "Bastion" play?

Given the nature of what I've been able to tell is the style of music that most of the community listens to, I get the feeling they would be playing a lot of rock music from the 60s and 70s.

2) Give a sample set list based on covers of songs in that genre.

This isn't part of the genre, but their biggest hit would have to be "Ramblin' Wreck." Also not from that genre, but Weird Al's "Word Crimes" would probably also be a big hit.

3) Who would be the front man (or woman)?

Auditions are open. I vote for anyone but me. If we're going for name recognition, I feel like the go-to guy would be Joey. I just don't know how talented he is musically. I know he used to play saxophone in his high school marching band, so he could play that.

If Tech wins the first five games of the season what will be our ranking going into the Clemson game? Then postulate Tech’s national ranking based on either a win against Clemson or a loss against Clemson.

If we're undefeated going into Clemson (and they are too), I think it'll be a top-10 match-up. The real key to doing that will be to make sure Notre Dame is also undefeated when we play them.

Now that the Jackets have played Ga Southern, which of Ga State, Mercer, and KSU will play GT and how soon?

As people have already said, we have games lined up with Mercer and KSU. I would be interested to see us play Georgia State though. It would be a fun game.

Considering one of my comments on the last mailbag (Brian VanGorder and ND’s defensive performance against Navy- surrendering 454 total yards to what should be a smaller and less athletic Navy option) in addition to CPJ’s desire to and I quote "beat the Hell out of Brian VanGorder," what would you predict the score, total yards gained by each team, sacks, and number of injured quarterbacks to be during our trip to South Bend?

For this prediction, I'm going to toss it over to Mr. T as "Clubber Lang" in the movie Rocky III.

IF our D-line ends up being as potent as we hope it is, how many sacks and TFL do you predict for the D-line, and how many (sacks and TFL) do you predict for the linebackers (when CTR calls a blitz entirely out of spite)?

As I wrote in an opinions week piece, I am predicting that this year's defensive line will be better than 2007's. For that to happen from a pass rushing perspective, they will have to eclipse 29 sacks and 60.5 tackles for loss. Just for prediction's sake, I'll say they finish with 32 sacks and 63.5 tackles for loss.

As for the linebackers, I would say that 10-15 is a very nice number to give them for sacks. I think it's likely to be closer to the 10 though.

What do you think is the over/under for number of interceptions thrown by Golson if he starts in our game against FSU?

If Golson starts, I would say the over/under for interceptions is 2.5. Of course, I would have said something similar last year when we played Florida State and Jameis Winston was a turnover machine. Then again, Golson isn't anywhere close to Winston's level.

Will FTRS visit the Goldfellas in the Nanotech parking lot at some point this year?

If you decide to organize an FTRS tailgate, you and thelittlepecan are more than welcome to get that put together. I know it was talked about fairly recently. The best way to do that would be to make a FanPost for the specific details. If you do that, either Joey or I can put it on the front page for all to see. It would look something similar to this tailgate from the ACC Championship that was quite enjoyable.

Who do you think will start at quarterback for the dwags? Will he be better than Mason was last year? (my brother is a Georgia fan, except when they play Tech, and he hated Mason because he thought that Mason was a piece of garbage QB).

Right now, I will say Brice Ramsey starts for UGA this season. Reason being, the kid has a ton of potential. He can definitely run, but, at least to me, his passing abilities have always been suspect. By the end of the season when we play them, we'll have a good idea of how good he actually is.

What are your over/ unders for the number of points we score per game, the number of points scored against us per game, our number of yards of offense per game, and the number of yards we give up on defense per game?

PPG: 33.5

DPPG: 24.5

OYPG: 445.5

DYPG: 225.5

Which ACC teams do you think could be dark horses for the ACC Championship?

Definitely Pittsburgh. They have a lot of young talent on the offense, and James Conner is a freaking beast. If Pat Narduzzi can work some magic with the defense, they could very well see themselves playing that first Saturday in December.

How do you think each ACC team will fare in their nonconference schedules this upcoming season?

For the purposes of this questions, I'm not going to consider Notre Dame a nonconference team. Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Louisville all have their nonconference rivals. Outside of those games, the ACC is facing a total of 11 power 5 schools. It will definitely be a challenge, but I think we have some good teams in the ACC that are ready to take on that challenge. Against P5 schools, I'll say that the ACC finishes above .500.

What is your over/under for the number of Miami and FSU player who may find themselves facing criminal charges at some point this season? Compare the number of players facing criminal charges with the number of players that have committed crimes and won’t be facing charges.

12.5 sounds like a good number for players actually facing charges. For those that don't actually face charges, that number would probably go up to 24.5.

How much do you think Gene Chizik will be able to improve UNC’s defense this season compared to 2014?

I wouldn't expect major improvements this season, mainly because it is Chizik's first season there, but I do think it can be slightly better. Give him a few years though, and there will be a noticeable difference (or he'll lose his job).

How many questions can I post because I’m bored and can’t wait for football season without being banned by FTRS?

I'm not going to lie. The first time I pulled up the article to look at the comments, there were 56 new comments. Now there's nothing wrong with that at all; that's why I'm here. It keeps me nice and busy.

How would you compare the strength of the Coastal and the Atlantic? Do you think that they are more even than most people give them credit for? Or maybe less so?

Normally, I'd say the Atlantic is the better division (at least at the top), but this year, I think it's a toss-up. Both divisions have some really good teams balanced all the way through.

Which game(s) are you looking forward to the most (besides Tech) in opening week. There are a ton of good ones this year.

There's two that I'm looking forward to. The first one comes on Thursday night. South Carolina v. North Carolina should be a fun one. We'll get a first look at Gene Chizik's new defense. At this point, I'm not expecting a lot, but we shall see. The other one will be on Saturday. Louisville v. Auburn will definitely be a great game. Auburn's got a good team, but I think Petrino will have his team ready for them.

CUTE UGA Gameday Wear
Show your Bulldogs Team Spirit
Tees Tanks Jerseys Skirts and more!
This was the ad that popped up on my FTRS home page. So my question is this. Regardless of what the internet claims my ad preferences are why can’t FTRS ban such obscenities from showing up on my page when I visit this site? And why is this not a Federal crime?

Look on the bright side. It could be much worse. There are other sites that are very similar to SB Nation sites in nature that have an absurd number of ads in comparison.

Over/under on number of games it takes for al golden to be fired?

It'll be the end of the season before it happens. If it happens. Brad Kaaya's got the chance to be a good one at quarterback. They just need to get some help around him.

Who leads the team in receptions this fall when it's all said and done?

I think packerman is getting tired of hearing about my man-crush on Ricky Jeune. Well I do think he'll lead the team in receptions.

At A-back, I think we'll see Qua Searcy lead the group in receptions. As a former receiver, he very likely has the best hands of the group. He just needs to block well enough to get on the field.

So the last time we finished the season 11-3, the next season we were 6-7. Do you think that this year is different? If so, why?

Absolutely! We have more talent coming back, a better quarterback and a better defense.

Does FTRS have part-time football writing positions available?

We aren't necessarily looking adamantly for writers right now, but you're more than welcome to send a resume to fromtherumbleseat@gmail.com if you're interested.

Notice that in SECSPN's Football Power Index rankings both Tennessee and Arkansas are ranked above Tech, and to date they have been bottom-feeders in the ESSEECEEE, and there are 8 total ESSEECEE teams in the top 20… When do you suppose that the ESSEECEE will stop being the recipient of all the hype, even though its teams have recently had fairly poor showings in nonconference and bowl play?

Until the SEC falls flat on their face, it's not going to stop. Might as well get used to it.