Technical Tidbits 12/29: Former Jacket Adam Smith shines in Italy, plus TaxSlayer Bowl picks

Vegas is looking relatively confident in Tech’s chances against Kentucky this weekend, giving the Jackets a 4.5-point advantage on what figures to be a pretty neutral field down in Jacksonville. Four of the seven CBS experts who provided their input see Kentucky coming away with a victory, but the extent to which anyone should be called an “expert” at predicting a football game is dubious. I seem to remember at least a few other experts doubting or supporting Paul Johnson’s teams over the years, with many of them being proven wrong either by walkoff touchdowns against FSU or unspeakable occurrences against Middle Tennessee State. Hopefully the three who picked Tech to come out on top flipped the coin correctly this time around.

Tech also released another video of the early parts of the football team’s week, including yesterday’s buffet and some other shots of everyone enjoying themselves and getting ready to finish up the season.

Former Georgia Tech sharpshooter Adam Smith is having quite the inaugural season of professional basketball, averaging over 25 points per game for the Mec-Energy Roseto Sharks over in Italy. Smith, who transferred from Virginia Tech to Georgia Tech to play as a graduate transfer last year, was an instrumental part of Brian Gregory’s most successful season of basketball on the Flats. A premiere three-point shooter even overseas, he’s unquestionably still working towards and NBA opportunity and very well could receive one in the coming years if he keeps up his impressive offensive totals while honing in on some of his less-developed skills. He may have already made such improvements, but Euroleague basketball is hardly accessible around the United States. I’ll leave it to the professional scouts to determine that.

Pittsburgh ruined the ACC’s perfection yesterday afternoon, falling by a final score of 31-24 to the Northwestern Wildcats in the Pinstripe Bowl. They very well could be one-upped by Miami, whose game against West Virginia is still in progress, but for now it’s just a disappointing reminder of what could have been. Farewell, 12-0. It was murdered by Pat Narduzzi and indirectly by Pitt kicker Chris Blewitt, who has finally played his final collegiate game after:

1. Missing a 20-something yard field goal in 2014 that would’ve sent Tech to Charlotte a few weeks earlier.
2. Kicking a school-record field goal to beat Tech in 2015.
3. Beating Tech at the end of regulation on a field goal this season.
4. Having a name we never got to make fun of because he never freaking blew it against Georgia Tech.