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Good teams have confidence. Even if a few things don’t go their way in a game, they don’t get flustered. They shrug it off and keep on chugging. Sadly, I don’t think this year’s Georgia Tech team has that much confidence – the Yellow Jackets fell to Virginia 28-23 on Saturday. Granted, two of Virginia’s touchdowns were the direct result of Tech errors – one inexplicable interception return for a touchdown and one muffed punt reception deep in GT’s own territory. But still, you can’t win games when you give the ball up twice deep in your own territory. I watched the entire game and just felt… “meh” by GT’s performance. This is Virginia, folks. They supposed to be one notch above UNC and Duke, for God’s sake. And they put GT on the ropes. My heart skips a beat when I think of what GT’s record would have been had they played real teams. It makes me glad that Tech left the SEC so many years ago. Next week: Clemson, a team that always seems to have GT’s number. I (sadly) predict another loss.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, on the other hand, seemed to be firing on all cylinders. The offense is still anemic in the first quarter, but thankfully Pittsburgh’s D is good enough to not make this an issue so far. In fact, I’m really liking the Steelers’ schedule so far this year. The first four games are against weak teams, and maybe this will give Big Ben a confidence boost. He’s actually looked pretty good so far this year: while he hasn’t been the huge playmaker he was in his first two seasons, he’s also not making stupid mistakes like he did last year. Something one of the game commentators said yesterday that I hadn’t thought about: Ben admitted recently that he spent almost all of his pre-season time last year getting into shape. He had almost no classroom time before the start of last season. Physical issues aside, this explains a lot about his performance last season, and the extra hours he’s spent studying this year seem to be bearing fruit. Also, it was good to see touchdowns from all Steeler teams yesterday. The 49ers enjoyed their 3-0 lead for about 14 seconds yesterday, as former Atlanta Falcon Allen Rossum returned SF’s ensuing kickoff 90+ yards for a touchdown. And late in the game Bryant McFadden picked off a SF pass and returned it for a TD that made the score 30-9. The Steelers almost kept their opponent in the single digits for the third game in a row… except for a SF TD with 2:22 left in the game, deep into “garbage time”. All in all, a *great* performance from the Steelers; I look forward to next week’s game against Arizona and their new head coach – former Steelers OC Ken Whisenhunt.

Carolina Panthers fans got something to cheer about yesterday after dismantling the Falcons 27-20. But, to be honest, the Panthers didn’t “beat” the Falcons as much as the Falcons imploded… which is hardly surprising, given Joey Harrington’s performance. To show you how bad it was, the Panthers got their decisive touchdown on a drive where the Falcons defense was penalized 67 yards on that single drive. The Falcons are a disgrace to football, and it actually makes Carolina look bad that they didn’t beat them more decisively. But before I move on to other games… a brief question about the “I-85 Rivalry”… namely, who decided that there even was a rivalry between the Falcons and Panthers? When I was a kid, I liked the Steelers and Falcons equally. And in those days, the Falcons’ one and only rival was the New Orleans Saints. To this day, I still can’t call them anything but the “Ain’ts”. And that’s the way I likes it.

Continue reading “GT Falls (Again!); Steelers Beat Up 49ers”

Better late than never, right?

Georgia Tech was riding high after easy victories over creampuffs Notre Dame and Samford. I know it’s easy to say this now, but I was really uneasy about the game against Boston College. And it turns out that I was right: BC walloped the Jackets 24-10. Don’t let the score fool you though; the game wasn’t even as close as the score implies. Tech didn’t score until they punched in a touchdown at the start of the 4th quarter; by that time, of course, the game had long since been decided. Tech has their work cut out for them this week too: although Virginia isn’t the powerhouse it once was, you can never take an ACC opponent for granted… especially now that you’re 0-1 in conference play. Useless trivia alert: there are only five Division-1 schools that don’t have the word “university” in their official title. The service academies make up three of them, and the other two are… Georgia Tech and Boston College.

On a happier note, the Steelers walked all over the Bills 26-3 this past Sunday. Part of what made this post so late in coming was that I wanted to watch the game in full before reporting on it (and it was a slooooow download). And all I can say is… wow! It’s true that the Steelers didn’t put it in the endzone until the second half, kicking four field goals in the first half for a 12-0 lead – but in this case, the score doesn’t tell you how close the game wasn’t. The Steelers controlled the game in all aspects, relying on the running game to dominate time-of-possession. Although Big Ben still looks a bit rusty in the passing game, it’s good to see him not making stupid mistakes by trying to force things that aren’t there. The O-line looked really good (yaaaaa!) and the defense was brutal as usual. The Steelers outrushed the Bills 239-50 in the first half alone… and that’s as much to do with how good the Steelers looked versus how crappy Buffalo might have played. All in all, it was a great game! It’s far too early to crow about getting into the playoffs, but if the Steelers can get it together as a team in the easier first half of the schedule… other teams should look out for them in the second half! Lastly, I’m probably alone here… but I actually liked the Steelers throwback uniforms! They’re not “genuine” throwback uniforms, they’re actually a hodgepodge: jerseys based on the 1940s design, the 1962s helmets with the 1963+ stickers, etc. But since the Steelers have used their current uniforms for 40 years, it’s hard to do a true “throwback” uniform that will comply with current safety specifications.

Continue reading “GT Gets Spanked; Steelers Roll”