College football is going to be amazing this weekend. Here are seven reasons why (all times Eastern)

1. Michigan at Notre Dame (3:30 PM, NBC): Will Notre Dame falter this week, or wait until sometime later in the season? I wish they wouldn’t wait, but something inside of me is telling me they will. I think it’s the same something that made me doubt every time USC was down at the half last year.

2. Nebraska at USC (8:00 PM, ABC): Is Nebraska really back? My guess is no. This will be yet another chance for the media to tout how wonderful John David Booty/Pete Carroll are at what they do. Of course USC is still the best team of all time; do not question their superiority!

3. Oklahoma at Oregon (3:30 PM, ABC): Some kinda middle-of-the-pack Top 25 showdown! I’m don’t think this game actually matters, but if I were going to be home and it was on TV, I would probably watch it.

4. Miami at Louisville (3:30 PM, ABC): Miami sometimes falters against big teams (see FSU), while Louisville is usually solid against a terrible schedule (see Louisville’s schedule). A great “defense vs. offense” matchup, maybe.

5. Florida at Tennessee (8:00 PM, CBS): Rocky Top is about to get rocked, but this time by a team from a respectable conference. Seriously, what self-respecting SEC team almost loses to a service academy?

6. LSU at Auburn (3:30 PM, CBS): The SEC West has been decided by this game five of the last six years. The home team has won all six of those meetings. Since the game is in Auburn, and John Vaughn learned how to kick this summer, I’m gonna pick the Tigers (non-Bengal variety).

7. Michigan State at Pittsburgh (12:00 PM, ESPN2): The marquee matchup of the weekend? Hardly. What has me interested in this game is whether or not my girlfriend will watch any of it. Only time will tell whether she does or not.

Bunch of thoughts here, as it’s been awhile since I posted.

-You may’ve noticed that I didn’t post the day of the ND game or after. I was kinda bummed out about the game. We had a really good chance to upset ND, but we just couldn’t make 3 scores. If you had told me that we would’ve held the vaunted Irish offense to 14 points, I’d tell you we had a really good chance to win. (I predicted they’d score around 28 points.) I’m still bummed out thinking about it, honestly.

In Tech circles, a lot was made a helmet-to-helmet call against us on Brady Quin. It was definitely a bad call, however, listening to some folks you’d think the refs walked over to Charlie Weis after the play to recieve their payoffs. The fact of the matter is that there was around 7 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, and I have a hard time believing any call made with that much time left can seriously impact a game.

-We played Samford last weekend. I stayed the whole time (I hate leaving early), which was mostly interesting because got to play nearly 70 players. Even #55 David Brown got in at right tackle, which is mostly notable because he is one of a handful of people at Tech who went to my high school. (I still wish he was on the d-line, though, he doesn’t have the right size or build to be an offensive lineman, in my opinion.)

-While we were taking care of the other Bulldogs of the South, FSU had their hands full with the Troy Trojans, who we play this Saturday. I think as long as Tech doesn’t turn the ball over 4-5 times like FSU did, they should be fine.

-The Braves were mathematically eliminated from division title possiblities just recently. In my years as a Braves fan, this is something that’s never happened, and it’s difficult to come to terms with it. The last time the Braves were probably not going to win the division they got bailed out by a strike, which doesn’t look like is happening this time. Anyone who tries to tell you they’re still realistically in the wild card race is probably delusional, by the way.

That’s about all I got for now.

This is it. It’s Saturday. Sure, we’ve had a few games so far. But today is it. Today’s first filled slate. From noon to late, there will be college football on somehow, somewhere.

That’s why I love this. As explained below, I grew up in the South, which means that college football is something of a religion and is thus everywhere. Being in Atlanta makes it even better – in addition to the weird, 50th-tier SEC game of the week, we also get the crappy 50th-teir ACC game of the week. In fact, here’s my schedule for today (games involving DI-A teams only, sorry Grambling @ Hampton; also, network shown is network on GTCN, your mileage may vary):

Before noon: If I’m really motivated, I’ll go to the Gameday set. I was on SportsCenter last night, I’ll post some pics from the 10pm SC below.
11:30 – Western Kentucky @ UGA (WB)
12:00
–Montana @ Iowa, ESPN
–Vanderbilt @ Michigan, ESPN
–North Texas @ Texas, FSN
3:30
–Rutgers @ UNC, ABC
–Florida Atlantic @ Clemson, ESPN
–Akron @ Penn St., ESPN2
–Lousiana Tech @ Nebraska, FSN
5:30 – California @ Tennessee, ESPN
7:00 (realistcally, I’ll be at the stadium by now, but I like this TV listing vibe so I’ll roll with it)
–UAB @ Oklahoma, TBS
–Virginia @ Pittsburg, ESPNU
–Utah @ UCLA, FSN
7:45 – Washington St. @ Auburn, ESPN2
8:00 – NOTRE DAME @ GEORGIA TECH, ABC
8:45 – Southern Cal @ Arkansas, ESPN
10:15 – BYU @ Arizona, TBS

Now, some pictures of GameDay’s setup at GT, as well as their shoot for Friday (click for a larger view):

Facing southwest, towards the student center. Took this during the afternoon when they were still setting the whole shebang up – notice the screen isn’t there. You can also see the top of the Shaft Campinile in the background.

View from Skiles of the Yellow Jacket Park area – this photo faces northwest.

My ultimate destination after the afternoon shots I took. I’m entirely convinced that if everyone on Earth could try a Junior’s chicken finger basket, we would finally achieve world peace – they’re that good.

This is during the shoot for the 6:00 SportsCenter, when I was actually in the crowd.

I stepped out of the fenced off area for the 10:00 SportsCenter and ESPN Motion takes. If you look closely, you’ll notice that Corso is the only one that actually wears a full suit – Fowler is wearing jeans, and yes, Hebie is wearing shorts.

For the 10:00 SC (actually broadcast after the Nevada – Fresno St. game), I did get on TV. I have the screencaps to prove it.

If you want to try to spot me, try opening up the full size version. Good luck.

For now, enjoy the games folks!

Just imagine though if we could’ve had Wickman all season.

Indeed! In an overly optimistic analysis, let’s say he doesn’t blow any saves this season. The Braves have blown 22 saves this season, tied with Kansas City for the worst in baseball.

So instead of 52-61, they would be 74-39. Which is good for the 2nd best record in baseball behind the Tigers and 5 to 6 games ahead of the the Mets.

More realistically, they’d probably be around 65-48 if Wickman made that much of a difference. But the bullpen has simply killed us.

Update!
So I actually did some research, and this is what I came up with. Essentially, 12 of the bullpen’s 22 blown saves went on to be losses. So assuming those all became wins, the Bravos would be 64-49. A more realistic scenario with the Braves still not winning a few of those still puts them well in the wild card hunt and within striking distance of the Mets.

Also, as Rob Neyer pointed out today (Insider subscription required), the Braves are doing a lot worse than one could expect them to, given the runs they’ve scored. (Like him, I will decline to lay blame solely on Jeff Francouer’s mighty .282 OBP.) They’ve scored 583 runs and allowed 574, which comes out to around 57-55, which is a much better position than 52-61. This 5 game disparity is mostly a function of luck, but nevertheless it seems to me that a better bullpen would’ve made up for some of that.

So if I’m going to do this thing, I should have a page about my sports background, as a sort of introduction to myself.

I grew up in a suburb of Huntsville, Alabama. Despite what you might think, I did have indoor plumbing, and why yes, we do have computers. (As evidenced by this post.)

At any rate, this had two important effects. Due to the total saturation of the Braves by TBS, their success during my formative years in the early 90’s, and their relative geographic proximity, I became a staunch fan. There are probably few people that watch more innings per year than I do, or at least did, because my time in Barcelona the past couple of months for a study abroad program sort of made it difficult to watch them.

Also during this time I became aware of the Iron Bowl and the trappings of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry. Since my 3rd grade teacher was an Auburn fan, I became an Auburn fan, and remained so until my junior and senior years of high school when I was looking at college and found Georgia Tech.

This means I cared mostly for baseball and football. The only strong loyalty either of my parents had at the time was to the Redskins via my Dad, so I picked that up for the NFL. I remain a ‘Skins fan to this day, but my interest in the NFL waned with the ‘Skins with the late 90’s and as my interest in college football picked up in high school. It also doesn’t help that it’s really hard to Redskins games here in the south.

I don’t care much for the NHL, and I almost dislike the NBA. I started to become interested in college basketball late in my high school years, but thanks to Georgia Tech’s 2003-2004 campaign during my freshman year I became hooked. (Funny how that works.)

Otherwise, I tend to root for underdogs in games. I’ll also root for colleges some of my friends go to, like UAB and Vandy, but I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of them. Teams I dislike: Notre Dame, New York Mets, surely others. Teams I hate: New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, the Alabama Crimson Tide (despite not really being a huge Auburn fan anymore, my dislike of the Tide still lingers), probably others. And, of course, to Hell with Georgia.