Bark Madley's 2009 Prognostications

Enuratique

Enuratique

Jolly Good Fellow
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http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-b...ll-2009-tech-wins-the-acc-georgia-loses-four/

OK, so I’m a big fat homer, but I’m an equal-opportunity homer. In last year’s long-range college football predictions, I picked Georgia to win the BCS title. This time I’m picking Georgia Tech …

• To take the ACC championship. I believe Paul Johnson when he says his stylized offense will be ever better, and I note the key game on Tech’s conference schedule — Virginia Tech on Oct. 17 — will be staged at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Because I think there’ll be some days when the Jackets fumble 10 times or it rains or something, I’m guessing they’ll lose twice. (At Florida State and, believe it or not, at Vandy.) But they’ll go 10-2 and beat FSU in a rematch for the ACC title.

• I see Georgia losing four games. If that sounds like a lot, recall that the star-studded 2008 team lost three, and — stop me if you’ve heard this already — Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno are gone. Joe Cox won’t be as good as D.J. Shockley was in 2005, but he’ll be OK. Replacing Moreno will be more problematic. And there’s still the Willie Martinez factor. The losses: At Oklahoma State and Tech, to LSU at home and (duh) in Jacksonville.
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• Tech’s Jonathan Dwyer will finish fifth in the Heisman voting.
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00Burdell said:
Lose at Vandy? :eek: I hadn't really thought about that.
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Honestly I don't think that's impossible. We might believe we've cinched the Coastal by then and might be a bit full of ourselves. Vandy and Duke are decent trap games.
 
We can't take a win against Vandy for granted.
 
I wouldn't rule out a loss to anybody (except Jacksonville St.), but it seems very unlikely that we would go 10-2 and lose to Vandy. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it is an irrational prediction and reflects very poorly on the judgement of the source. It's hard to take a columnist seriously when they try to predict such unlikely occurances.
 
That might be a bit harsh. I mean at one point last season we were 6-1 and we lost to Virginia (someone who on the whole was worse than Vandy last year). Though I agree if we can beat Miami, UNC and VT then I'd say we can't lose to anyone but FSU.
 
We almost lost at Vandy last time we were there save for the infamous "BALL IS LOOSE!!" play. Bobby Johnson is a pretty good coach, too, but I think Paul will be better. Not a given though.
 
gnats67 said:
We almost lost at Vandy last time we were there save for the infamous "BALL IS LOOSE!!" play. Bobby Johnson is a pretty good coach, too, but I think Paul will be better. Not a given though.
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so you're saying Paul is the better Johnson whenever Johnsons are called into question?
 
Paul > Calvin >>> Michael >>>>>> Bobby >>>>>... >>> Lil (aka cmr)
 
GTLiebs said:
That might be a bit harsh. I mean at one point last season we were 6-1 and we lost to Virginia (someone who on the whole was worse than Vandy last year). Though I agree if we can beat Miami, UNC and VT then I'd say we can't lose to anyone but FSU.
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We can definitely lose to UGA.

Losing to Vandy in Nashville in 2009 would be no more surprising than losing to BC at home in 1998. Esp if we have some injuries.
 
jacket67 said:
I wouldn't rule out a loss to anybody (except Jacksonville St.), but it seems very unlikely that we would go 10-2 and lose to Vandy. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it is an irrational prediction and reflects very poorly on the judgement of the source. It's hard to take a columnist seriously when they try to predict such unlikely occurances.
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Yeah, kind of like how a team as good as Florida could beat everyone, so there's no way that they would lose to a school like Ole Miss. Or a team like USC could be completely dominant, so there's no way they'd lose to a team like Stanford. Or Oregon State. And a team like West Virginia, poised to go to the BCS title game, would never lose to a basement dweller like Pittsburgh.

I'm not saying the things above are going to happen(oh wait, they did), it just seems to reflect very poorly on the knowledge of the source. It's hard to take a poster seriously when they forget everything that happened just the past two years.
 
GTWannaBee said:
And do we need to bring up App Stat again? No win is ever given.
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I don't think App State is really relevant to the discussion, if the discussion is about conditional probability. The real odds (not the vegas odds) of a winless Michigan team losing to a 1AA team (they were winless at the time) is different than a 10-0 Michigan team losing to a 1AA team.

The vegas odds of an App State victory were much lower than the actual odds. App State was a smaller upset than it appeared because Michigan was wildly overrated. The Alabama-Clemson blowout shocked at the time but Clemson was overrated and Bama was underrated.

However the Pitt game is a perfect example. As is the Stanford win. The losers were very obviously superior teams in those cases. There is no way to describe those games as anything but huge upsets.
 
jacket67 said:
I wouldn't rule out a loss to anybody (except Jacksonville St.), but it seems very unlikely that we would go 10-2 and lose to Vandy. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it is an irrational prediction and reflects very poorly on the judgement of the source. It's hard to take a columnist seriously when they try to predict such unlikely occurances.
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All demons cannot be exorcized in one season. Georgia Tech has a tradition of losing at least one game a year that defies all logic. For example, beat FSU and Georgia but lose to UVA. That will be a huge, huge improvement if we can get to where we reduce that mysterious upset loss to once every three or four years instead on 1 (or two) losses each and every year. I would also say UNC was a mystery loss last year.
 
Yukonwreck said:
All demons cannot be exorcized in one season. Georgia Tech has a tradition of losing at least one game a year that defies all logic. For example, beat FSU and Georgia but lose to UVA. That will be a huge, huge improvement if we can get to where we reduce that mysterious upset loss to once every three or four years instead on 1 (or two) losses each and every year. I would also say UNC was a mystery loss last year.
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the unc loss in itself... maybe not, they have a good thing going in chapel hill... but the margin of loss was definately a mystery
 
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