Georgia Tech Football: Snarky Preview - Louisville

(Author’s note: a few years ago it fell to me to organize football watch parties for the Los Angeles alumni group, and to amuse myself I started writing up snarky previews of each week’s game and opponent in the Facebook invites that went out. Some folks in that group enjoyed it, so... here’s the first 2023 edition for a broader audience.)

Join us next Friday evening as we welcome college football back in style with Tech’s 2023 season opener against one of our alleged new blood rivals: Louisville.

The ACC has dictated that Louisville will be one of Tech’s three annual rivals. Who could argue with that? These longtime enemies have faced off a number of times, including—(checks notes)—hm. That can’t be right. This says they’ve only played twice ever, with both happening in the last five years.

Why would the ACC pair up these two teams out of every possible combination? That’s about as logical as the Atlantic Coast Conference adding teams from California. And surely our beloved conference would never do something like that.

Louisville, like Tech, is heading into the season with a new coach who’s also an alum. That coach is Jeff Brohm, who is better known for playing through a concussion in the original XFL than anything he’s done as a coach. Brohm replaced Scott Satterfield, who spent most of his four-year tenure openly trying and failing to leave Louisville for another job before finally succeeding this offseason. Satterfield replaced Bobby Petrino, who [REDACTED — see Appendix A for a 572-word rant wondering how it’s possible for a person to somehow disappoint absolutely everyone]. And Petrino replaced Charlie Strong, who got hired away by Texas but flopped so badly there that they once had to kick off in both halves of a football game.

So it’s been a weird decade-ish for Louisville in the coaching realm. But they seem plenty happy with Brohm, who had a good run at Purdue of all places and is now back home at his alma mater. Maybe they’ve finally looped in a true keeper. It’d make it that much funnier if said keeper opened his career with a loss.

Tech, meanwhile, heads into this season fully committed to the man known only as Bront, who takes the helm after unexpectedly winning four games as the interim coach last year. With a newly minted starting quarterback, a dozen-plus transfers stepping into important roles (including the QB), and a full offseason to work with his staff, this season will tell us a lot about his true abilities as a head coach.

The good news is that Bront knows how to motivate just about anyone to run through a brick wall for him. And no matter how he does this year and in the years ahead, at least Bront doesn’t seem to have a Twitter account specifically for his shoes, like his predecessor [REDACTED — see Appendix A for a 572-word rant wondering how it’s possible for a person to somehow disappoint absolutely everyone]. But enough about people we don’t need to think about anymore.

Whatever happens in this game, Tech football is finally back, with all the joy and sadness and excitement and heartburn that it brings. Let’s enjoy it together.