Last Saturday featured several high-profile, intense matchups. I missed some of them (like most of the AU-LSU game) because I was at our game against Troy.

We play on Thursday this week against Virginia, an opponent we haven’t beaten since I’ve been here. The Hoos probably aren’t half as good as they were last year, and they weren’t exactly national champions. Additionally, they will probably start a freshman QB – if you want to know how well first time QBs (much less freshmen) fare against our defense, well, just ask Brandon Cox and Kyle Wright. Also, we’ll be in retro Old Gold jerseys with white helmets (although I’m forced to think that back then, we probably still wore white at home, but I don’t know this for sure). (And to be really out of date, they’d need some sleeves.)

I’ll have a full writeup Friday, but some of the games this weekend are rediciulous. Check out Colorado @ UGA: The Buffs will bring their buffalo, but they could probably forget to bring the team and do just as well as CU is 26.5 point underdogs. (Nonetheless, I’ll be watching and hoping for a miracle.)

ABC will have Iowa St. @ Texas and Penn St. @ Ohio St. I have no idea which they’re going to show here, but neither contest should be close. Also at 3:30 on ESPNU: Rice @ FSU. Are you kidding me? Rice is a 30 point ‘dog. 7:00 is the “watch Sun Belt teams get owned by Big 12 teams” hour, as Troy goes to Nebraska and MTSU goes to Oklahoma. (I hope they both win, though.)

Due to the lack of a nationally appealing game, ABC also has a split 8:00 telecast: ND @ Mich. St. and USC @ Arizona. The former should be the better game, though only the latter will have any Song Girls present. Meanwhile, on the other Disney networks, you can watch Florida dismantle Kentucky on ESPN and watch as Chuck “Clown Boy” Amato continues to try to get fired at Boston College on ESPN2.

The SEC matchups were so bad this week CBS scraped up Alabama @ Arkansas. Right now Arkansas is a one point favorite, so this may end up being one of the best games of the day. I’ll like it the best if Alabama loses, that’s for sure.

Also, since I never formally did so, I’d like to point out that a friend of mine from high school, Kenneth, has joined the site. You should probably call him Tito, though. Since he goes to Auburn, hopefully we’ll get some non-GT perspectives in here.

Saturday was interesting. I got really sunburned at the Troy game, but it was good to finally see Tech do some interesting things on offense (reverse to Calvin!). We need to beat the tar out of UVA this Thursday, but I’ll explain more on that later.

Auburn managed to pull out a victory against LSU in a contest best deemed a “defensive struggle.” But they have the inside track to winning the SEC West, and perhaps the whole thing. What was weird, though, was the strange “announcing the penalty and then reversing the call” thing that happened on LSU’s last drive. I still don’t know if the ball was tipped before the interference occurred. That play is reviewable (I’m pretty sure) but I don’t recall one being announced.

Stranger still was the review at the Oklahoma-Oregon game where the ref said that video provided conclusive video evidence that an Oklahoma player touched the ball first on an onside kick by Oregon, when replay showed that there was conclusive video evidence that an Oregon player touched the ball first. I’m favor of replay, but generally when you have it you should get the call right and not make things worse for yourself. That was the worst thrashing I’d heard officials take on-air since the Alamo Bowl debacle last year, though. (Speaking of this – refs need to take elocution classes or something. These guys are horrible at explaining what they mean on these reviews.)

Florida-Tennessee was good, but even better was FSU-Clemson, especially for what will probably be the most memorable half-time interview this year. (Though it will be difficult to top the Mich. St. coach’s “AND THE COACHES ARE SCREWING IT ALL UP” from last year.) If you haven’t heard, Clemson had a FG and extra point attempt blocked in the first half. When Tommy Bowden was asked about this, he said something to the effect of, “That’s it. We’re not kicking any more. Not for the rest of the game.” And he stuck it, too, execpt for the go ahead score near the end of the game, where they got off a successful extra point.

The ACC just sucks right now. UNC barely beat Furman, NC State lost to Southern Miss, Maryland got destroyed by West Virginia, and Virgnia lost to Western Michigan. I never thought beating Troy and Samford handily would make us look good. We could have 3 or 4 coaches get fired this off season.

The non-exhaustive list (all times Eastern):

• Troy @ GT, on in select parts of southern Alabama, 1:30: Well, I’ll be there.
• LSU @ Auburn, CBS, 3:30: Tigers win! Seriously, though, an interesting matchup between the two best teams in the SEC West. Slight edge to AU due to not being in Baton Rouge. I’ll be rooting for AU, due to childhood loyalties.
• Miami @ Louisville, ABC, 3:30: Old Big East vs. New Big East! Either Miami’s defense dominates or the final score will be 50-45. (I don’t think Louisville has a good defense, and I don’t think Miami is as bad as they were at FSU.) So if Miami fails to dominate definsively, the team with the last possesion wins.
• Clemson @ FSU, ESPN, 7:45: I probably wouldn’t ordinarly be interested in the Bowden Bowl, but this has conference implications (though both teams are not in Tech’s division). A true test for both teams – if Clemson wins this game, they’re on the inside track for their division, I’d say.
• Florida @ Tennessee, CBS, 8:00: So CBS is getting into this primetime act, eh? Beats the pants off ABC’s game – I saw Bill Callahan on ESPN Thursday night and he looked down right depressed talking about his game. I think UF or UGA is on the inside track for SEC East, but Tennessee can make a statement here (in terms of the SEC, they already beat down Cal).
• TAMU vs. Army, ESPN2, 9:00: Dad went to USMA, and Bobby Ross is their coach. (FYI: He coached Tech to their 1990 National Title.)

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.