Mailbag 9/16

How excited are you for “DUNE 2021”?

1. I’ll risk the Rona for a mask-less Thursday Midnight IMAX premier with all the BigBangTheory fanboyz
2. Cool, Timothee Chalamet gets the Kyle MacLachlan Oscar for purty hair
3. Meh, Sean Young>Zendaya, I’ll wait for cable
4. Nah, I holding out for a mid-80’s Wierding Module ‘cause my FTRS handle is a killing word.
5. Hell no, I’d rather pull my hand from Tre Swilling’s box of pain and have his Dad hit me with a Delayed Backside Gom Jabar.

Ben: I’ve never read the novel, but everything I’ve heard about it makes me that much more excited about it. I’d say that right now, it’s probably the movie I’m most looking forward to see.

Akshay: The novel was a bit before my time, but the movie does look really fun. I just don’t foresee a theater visit in my future for it, given, you know, [gestures widely at everything outside].

Jake: Josie’s back. She wants to say she is excited. I have no opinion. Lol. Something about eclipses? I dunno guys, I’m out of my wheelhouse. Seems like some big names, though. Let’s make it an average of 2.5 between us.

Carter:

Chau: Uhh, yes.

Wima13 is 1- 0 in his prediction

Ben: Since you have given an answer, should I reply with a question?

Jake: Congrats!

Carter: sir do you have a question, if not i’m going to have to ask you to return to your seat

Have you bought your CFP tickets yet?

Ben: True fans bought their tickets this time last week.

Jake: I’m still licking my wounds from missing the Final Four, really.

Will we see Bruce again as a Yellow Jacket? Where was Antonneous Clayton this first game? Is it true Tre had to sit out the FSU game due to going clubbing?

Ben: I’m honestly not entirely sure. He certainly benefits from this year not counting toward his eligibility. With Tech’s depth at running back, he’s not in a great place to crack the line-up. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him move on to a G5 or FCS school after this year. As for Clayton and Tre, see Jake’s answer below.

Jake: If we’re as weak at RB this week as some people seem to think, we might even see him on Saturday. But I’m not sure. Clayton, meanwhile, had a dust-up, looking like left leg injury, and he’ll (apparently) be back in 2-3 weeks. And for Tre, I hadn’t heard that. We’re at peak Message Board Speculation Season. I saw someone comment on Facebook asking if Gibbs had a broken ankle. You get the drift. Some Big Thing is up, it’s hard to tune out the interference.

What’s the current status of each ACC team regarding coronavirus?

Carter: Virginia Tech — bad! Everyone else — ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jake: Seems like most are hanging in there, and then the VPISU boys are all out...doing wha, exactly? It’s not like there’s a MARTA for them to be riding around a bunch of other people, or something.

Akshay: We’d be able to report on this more accurately if coaches treated COVID more like a public health crisis than an injury report line item and actually released positive test numbers again, but alas. Carter has the right idea, at least based on what we know right now.

What is the Hill/GTAA’s current position regarding tailgating for UCF?

Akshay: Well, this one’s easy — GTAA is not allowing tailgating for the Central Florida game. However, Sugiura does note at the end of the article that “Tech announced it will continue to monitor the situation as the season continues,“ so keep an eye out, I guess.

Jake: :( <- this is how their position makes me feel. Sad.

Carter: They’re against it, but there’s nothing stopping you from tailgating outside my house. (Note: do not under any circumstances attempt to tailgate outside my house.)

How will the offensive gameplan change for UCF?

Ben: UCF’s defensive line isn’t half of what FSU’s is, so if Jeff Sims is our leading rusher again, I won’t say I’ll be disappointed, but I think it would be a missed opportunity.

Jake: Based on their defense, running it up the gut might not be a horrible idea, but I’m also not too sure we need to do a massive overhaul, either.

Will we have more blocked/missed field goals or successful 4th down conversions?

Ben: That’s assuming Geoff Collins ever goes for it on fourth down.

Akshay: This analytics nerd really hopes it’s the latter and not the former.

Jake: screams internally

What crazy 2020 event will occur before kickoff that will cancel the game?

Ben: checks the weather uhh.....

Akshay: Central Florida is going to get bailed out by a hurricane again.

Jake: That would be funny if it weren’t so accurate.

I was just reading that Kelley was the HS National Kicker of the year. Do kickers never get scholarships? Why is he a walk on if he won this accomplishment? If he was the best kicker in the nation, why did he receive interest from ONLY Furman and Marshall? Glad he hit the last one, obviously, but more curious about how kickers are recruited.

Chau: Resident kicking expert here. Most kicking recruiting services only rank the guys that actually come and attend their camp - so he's not necessarily winning that award over the entire country, just guys that attended the same camps he did. I will say though, Chris Sailer (the kicking service he won) is pretty respected in this world, so it's not some participation award.

As far as kickers getting scholarships - don't ask me I'm the wrong guy for that.

Jake: I seem to remember it was a Big Deal we offered Bulovas or whatever his name was that flipped to Alabama. Sidenote - lot of good that did him...

Will GT Fans be as bad as FSU fans at wearing masks for the game on Saturday?

Akshay: I would hope not, but these are college students we’re talking about... [ignores that he just received his degree not so long ago]

Carter: I’d like to think your average Georgia Tech fan is taking this kind of thing a bit more seriously than your average Florida Man. But given how many people I’ve seen around town not wearing them, I don’t feel great.

Jake: Campus has a pretty universal mask wearing rate among students and staff. It’s all of the rest of the people rolling in from who knows where (including more dang Floridians) that have me nervous. I was always on the “only let in student” bandwagon, though...but that’s probably a spicy take for another time.

What do you think we’re most likely to see Dave Patenaude add to his base offense for the UCF game (in addition to calling the base offense from the FSU game)?

Ben: I think you’ll see more action with the running backs, especially if Gibbs is playing this week.

Where is Jahmyr Gibbs? Is he injured or something?

Carter: Early rumors were he hadn’t made the trip to Tallahassee, but he was seen on the sideline, not in pads. It’s a mystery! *spooky ghost noises*

Will the Big Ten jump right into polls, knocking us out?

Ben: I don’t think they’ll jump right in, but after a week of actual play, I could see some teams (at least Ohio State) knocking others out.

Akshay: Probably — with full respect to our performance Saturday, we’re probably only that far up both the Coaches and AP polls because there are currently 54 teams not playing.

Carter: We all know the pollsters are a bunch of Georgia Tech HATERZ.

Jake: I’ll believe they’re back when I see it. Also, Carter jokes but look at the media vs. the coaches. Once again, the coaches put more respect on the Jackets.

I was very excited by the results of the game Saturday. I was worried after our initial year of transition from the flexbone that it would take many years for Geoff Collins to build a competitive team. While I still view Georgia Tech as developing I am happy with the performance I saw, especially from Sims at QB and the Defense in general, against FSU. I winning around 6 games could be a possibility this season with our schedule, hopefully we get a similar showing against UCF to validate the hope our fans are feeling right now.

Anyway, my question is who killed Tupac and why would someone do that? It’s really messed up.

Jake: Killing anyone is bad and sad and all of those things. Did you know Jim Boeheim once ran a guy over? That was bad, too. Really a shame whenever anyone goes too soon. Tupac sure has a lot of strange rumors about his continued, uh, existence, though.

Akshay: What are you talking about? Seems like Tupac is still pretty alive to me.

Any idea on injuries from the game? What’s the status of Swilling?

Ben: Just like any athletic association, Georgia Tech is pretty tight-lipped on injuries, so nothing has been confirmed for most of the players that were injured on Saturday. The only confirmation I’ve seen is for TK Chimedza, who is confirmed to be out for the entire season: