Updated notes: Tech fills 2013 schedule
1. Georgia Tech’s first-ever game against Alabama A&M will complete the Yellow Jackets’ 2013 schedule. Tech’s non-conference schedule will be comprised of home games with Alabama A&M, Elon and Georgia and a road game at BYU.
The FCS team will play Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium Nov. 23, a week before the Jackets play Georgia. Since the FCS level (previously known as Division I-AA) was created in 1978, this will be the first time that Tech has played an FCS-level team the week before the Georgia game. The Jackets have typically played an ACC opponent.
After the ACC voted to return to an eight-game league schedule in October from the nine-game plan instituted with the expansion to 14 teams, Tech sought home-and-home dates for 2013-14 with schools in the Big Ten, Big East and Conference USA.
However, due to the lateness of the search and the glut of ACC teams looking for opponents, school officials couldn’t find a potential FBS partner with openings or willing to create openings for the Jackets.
Alabama A&M is a member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, a league of historically black colleges and universities. The Bulldogs finished 7-4 this season, losing to Auburn 51-7 in its only game against an FBS opponent. Alabama A&M is coached by Anthony Jones, formerly a coach at Morehouse.
It will be the first time that Tech has scheduled two FCS-level opponents since 2008, coach Paul Johnson’s first season, when the Jackets played Jacksonville State and Gardner-Webb. The Gardner-Webb game was also a late addition, the result of Army canceling its game with Tech in Oct. 2007. Tech will be able to count only one win against Elon or Alabama A&M towards its bowl eligibility.
2. The Tech athletic department released a message on Twitter from coach Paul Johnson Tuesday thanking fans who attended the ACC Championship game in Charlotte.
“As we begin bowl preparations, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your support in Charlotte this past weekend. We came up short in our quest for the ACC Championship, but our players and coaches were overwhelmed by the fans that made the trip. We were energized by the Tech faithful in the stands, especially in the second half. At the end of the game, we heard many words of encouragement. It was a great reminder of who and what we represent every time we take the field.”
3. Tech will begin practice for the Sun Bowl Thursday and continue with practices Thursday and Friday. … Tech was a 10-point underdog to Southern California as of Tuesday evening. … The Tech ticket office put Sun Bowl tickets on sale Monday. The school has an 8,000-ticket allotment which will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets cost $50 and $60. … In the Tech media guide, a survey of team members revealed that five players named USC as the team they would most want to add to the schedule, including outside linebacker Jeremiah Attaochu. Ironically, 12 players chose Florida State, which the Jackets played in the ACC Championship game.
Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog
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145 comments Add your comment
dry dirt road
December 5th, 2012
5:55 am
it is about time Tech scheduled a team in Div 1-AA; Tech needs to switch to that conference; the better Div 1 teams can shut down Tech’s option offense when Tech runs the ball, and Div 1-AA schools probably would not be able to, but MT was able to, at BD(after MT lost to McNeese State this year); I don’t believe Tech has as much of a chance as a snowball in Hell of beating USC in the SB; could you imagine USC ever playing McNeese State and losing to them?
If do right, no can defense
December 5th, 2012
6:00 am
NOTE: We’ll be playing Clemson on the road again next season so as to fix the imbalance that results in having Clemson, VT, UNC, and uga all at home in odd years.
So, for 2013:
(Home)
Elon – FCS
Alabama A&M – FCS
VT – ACC
UNC – ACC
FSU – ACC
uga
(Away)
Duke – ACC
Miami – ACC
Clemson – ACC
BC – ACC
Virginia – ACC
BYU
If do right, no can defense
December 5th, 2012
6:03 am
Tough road schedule… it will be hard with all the road games against ACC opponents to become bowl-eligible, let alone compete for a championship.
straitroad
December 5th, 2012
8:20 am
Maybe Tech would be better off playing in the same league as Furman and Georgia Southern. That seems to be where Johnson is more comfortable and he could win 9 or 10 games there.
greg mcgarity
December 5th, 2012
8:28 am
our philosophy over here in athens is “as long as people are dumb enough to keep paying good money to see these blowouts, we’re gonna keep scheduling them” you see easy money and easy W
Jacket Detective
December 5th, 2012
8:42 am
Most teams cannot afford an out of conference loss to their won-loss record or to their team’s psychological makeup.
Auburn played Clemson tough to start the season according to my Clemson fan cousin.
So like us, their team quit.
The difference was our coaching managed to right the ship while Auburn continued to fall apart.
Auburn did have a more difficult schedule.
Did Chizik’s coaching appear to be better than it was due to a few great players (Cam) similar to what we experienced with Hewitt in a different sport?
One problem with paying a coach a very high salary is that it may not leave much to get top assistants.
Ralph Freigen was the highest paid assistant in the whole country at the time we signed him to get him back from the pros.
I’ve wondered if the signing was O’Leary’s idea or forced upon him because his first choice for O-coor was so predictable in his play-calling.
WnE
December 5th, 2012
10:06 am
re:
RambleOn84
December 4th, 2012
2:37 pm
Y’all have it all wrong. This is GREAT, and I’ve been saying we should do this for years.
Not necessarily playing two FCS teams, but playing one late in the season…
This is what most SEC teams do, and it’s part of the reason they have done so well in their inter-conference matchups late in the season. We basically get an extra bye week before Georgie.
Really smart scheduling. I do wish we were playing a better opponent earlier in the season, though.
______________
We usually play Dook before we play UGA, and they haven’t been strong in years, so that has been the same as a bye week for GT and it still hasn’t helped us vs. Muttville.
GT cannot afford to play D1-AA teams our Market is different than most CFB Programs, we aren’t the only game in town, we HAVE TO play games vs. teams that are from BCS conferences or at least D1-A.
UGA plays USCe, Florida, Tenn, Auburn, plus other teams from the SEC West on a rotating basis, in 2013. they I think they add LSU and maybe Texas A&M to their schedule with Clemson & GT OOC.
GT never schedules like that playing in a very weak ACC, so GT can’t afford to line up crappy D1-AAs like SEC teams do.
For a school that always brags about being the “smartest guys in the room” our Athl. Dept. sure does do a lot of really DUMB things.
WnE
December 5th, 2012
10:21 am
re:
Jimbo
December 4th, 2012
3:50 pm
1 4 GT has the only sensible comments in the entire thread. It’s pretty hard to schedule a decent OOC opponent this late in the season, especially if they think there’s a decent chance that they’ll lose. It’s that simple.
Anyone want to find out which FBS teams actually had this weekend in their 2013 schedules available as of October 2012? We can make a case after that.
____________
“Especially is they think there’s a decent chance that they’ll lose………”
You don’t go out and schedule opposition out of FEAR that you might lose to them so instead you pick easier teams.
That right there is a “Freudian slip” that proves that our HC is NOT the right man for the job and is NOT worth the $2.6MM salary he’s paid each yr..
Time to fire Pajamas and move forward.
BTW the only 3 BCS level schools to NEVER have played a crappy D1-AA team in the history of their school is USCw, UCLA, and Notre Dame, BTW all three schools are Academically ranked very close to GT’s #36 or 38 National Ranking.
GT should petition the ACC to go to 10 conference Games so that only 2 OOC games would be left up to GT’s crappy GTAA Administrators and with the UGA game taking up one of those games, that would leave only one game for our GTAA to screw up.
This would do wonders for GT’s attendance and would force Pajamas to earn his paycheck for once.
Alabama Jack
December 5th, 2012
10:47 am
Don’t any of you idiot negative posters understand. Tech tried to do better but no Big East, Conference USA, or Big Ten schools were available. Learn to read, learn to reason, learn to think. Oh wait, you’re probably doggie trolls, anyway. Never mind.
tobacco road
December 5th, 2012
10:53 am
@WnE
ACC administrators will NOT give you ten conference games. They won’t even give you nine. Make sense? The more teams the conference adds, the fewer of them you’ll get to play. At NCSU, we can play South Alabama 3 times in 4 years, ditto for Central Michigan, but we can’t play our oldest and nearest rival, Duke, even once during that 4-year stretch.
As for Tech’s schedule next season, the road games look a whole lot easier to me than those 4 home games vs UGA, FSU, VT and UNC. But fear not, the great Swofford and your AD will eventually come up with a GT home schedule that’ll look like BC, WF, Syracuse, Pitt, UVA, Alabama A&M and Middle Tennessee. Gotta even the score sometime, right?
WnE
December 5th, 2012
11:00 am
re:
tobacco road
December 5th, 2012
10:53 am
@WnE
ACC administrators will NOT give you ten conference games. They won’t even give you nine. Make sense? The more teams the conference adds, the fewer of them you’ll get to play. At NCSU, we can play South Alabama 3 times in 4 years, ditto for Central Michigan, but we can’t play our oldest and nearest rival, Duke, even once during that 4-year stretch.
As for Tech’s schedule next season, the road games look a whole lot easier to me than those 4 home games vs UGA, FSU, VT and UNC. But fear not, the great Swofford and your AD will eventually come up with a GT home schedule that’ll look like BC, WF, Syracuse, Pitt, UVA, Alabama A&M and Middle Tennessee. Gotta even the score sometime, right?
_____________
You are correct.
That being said, that is one reason why the ACC is among the worst Conferences almost at the same level as the Big (L)East.
The only way for the ACC to attempt to close the gap with the SEC is to go to 9 or 10 Conference Games, preferably 10 Conference Games due to scheduling being easier.
Our Conference will never close the gap with the SEC by scheduling OOC cupcakes.
Joe Schmoe
December 5th, 2012
11:42 am
The schedules others are posting are not correct.
Pitt will be in the Coastal, so they will be on the schedule. With only eight league games…..we will play VT, UVA, UNC, Duke, Pitt, Mia, and one out of division team. That is why the ACC has not come out with a schedule yet
Technically Correct
December 5th, 2012
11:53 am
If adding Alabama A&M was the first “test” for the acting AD, he just failed his interview. Next?
Booze Hound
December 5th, 2012
1:05 pm
Florida State, Clemson, Georgia, Virginia Tech, BYU…all likely losses next year. Please go ahead and fire Johnson before the bowl loss.
HJacket
December 5th, 2012
1:59 pm
A ship without a Capt? Right now I think the Wizard of Oz is running the place.
Yellow Jacket AJ
December 5th, 2012
2:49 pm
I figure we did the best we could because no good team would make an opening to play an offense they never see so late in the season not to mention subjecting their players to a bunch of cut blocking. It’s another artifact of the CPJ offense. No doubt the spread option is going to be more popular in the NFL and other top college programs eventually but it won’t be the main offensive scheme. We lack the athletes to run it and we lack the athletes to run a more balanced attack like we’ll see in the BCS Championsip game.
Tech Forever
December 5th, 2012
2:57 pm
I’m sorry but I find it amusing so many people poo-poo 2 FCS teams when we play in the ACC!!!! The whole ACC schedule is a joke b/c the ACC, including Tech, is a joke (compared to the SEC, Big 12, Pac 12, and Big 14). Short of FSU I’m not even sure a single ACC team will win their bowl game this year. Lets be honest about this…..if Baylor were in the ACC Coastal they would have won it and possibly gone undefeated in Coastal conference play….and I’m not so sure FSU or Clemson culd beat them at the end of the year either!!!!!
Don’t rag on the FCS teams when we play in a conference only slightly notched higher than the Big East….who incidentally is on the verge of losing their BCS AQ status….possibly after this season during the winter meetings.
Georgia Tech adds Alabama A&M to 2013 football schedule | Georgia Bulldogs Football
December 5th, 2012
3:45 pm
[...] Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets have finished out their non-conference football schedule for 2013 by agreeing to play the Alabama AM Bulldogs on Nov. 23 at Bobby Dodd Stadium. The game is scheduled [...]
big gt fan
December 5th, 2012
5:33 pm
well loose another bowl game because that high school qb will make sure of that and that brilliant head coach is going to make all the right coaching moves necessary to win. good job coach!
Toadster
December 5th, 2012
7:13 pm
“Our Conference will never close the gap with the SEC by scheduling OOC cupcakes.”
But scheduling Coastal Carolina, Buffalo, etc. will?
Don’t care about your response. You are a nabob of negativity. Why don’t you buy out Johnson and coach Tech football since you have all the experience and money? Did you not win the lottery? Again, I don’t give a flip about your worthless response…dog. GATA
Supersize that order, mutt
December 5th, 2012
7:58 pm
@ big gt fan…..I hate to pick on a fellow Tech fan, IF you are indeed a Tech fan, but “WELL LOOSE” ?????
1 4 GT
December 5th, 2012
8:45 pm
“nattering nabob of negativity”
1 4 GT
December 5th, 2012
8:46 pm
Toadster must be about my age to recall that phrase!
1 4 GT
December 5th, 2012
8:49 pm
Do you remember who used that phrase & who he was talking to when he said it? _____________________________________________________________________________________”Nattering Nabobs of Negativity”
Pitbull
December 5th, 2012
9:02 pm
And I ask yet again why tech won’t schedule Georgia Southern.
Is Tech afraid of losing face by losing the game? I think so.
We played both tech and Georgia Southern this year and Georgia Southern had the better team. I understand your reluctance but it makes you look scared.
Buzz2011
December 5th, 2012
9:51 pm
@boozehound.. You must be a Dawg or drinking too much booze…. We will win all of those
games including Your Dawgs.. You will love it!!
Centennial Rematch
December 5th, 2012
10:12 pm
What’s the word about a rematch with Cumberland on Friday night Oct. 7, 2016? Reports are some Cumberland alumni are wanting this game especially after MTSU whooped GT by 21 points this season. Anything to this?
Supersize that order, mutt
December 5th, 2012
10:53 pm
@ Pitbull……Tech HAS scheduled Ga Southern, but it’s not for several years yet. We wouldn’t have scheduled them at all probably if Johnson had not coached there. And the only reason UGA scheduled them was in tribute to Erk Russell. So get over it.
11 of 12
December 6th, 2012
12:12 am
I don’t think adding those teams to the schedule is a big deal. Every year both UGA and Tech play teams like these two. No big surprise and it will never change. Not sure it needs to either.
FORMATION 4 SUCCESS
December 6th, 2012
10:24 am
All of you are wrong about the ability to fill a schedule. Except for those who agree with what I am about to say. 1.You can only schedule a team that has an open date when you need to schedule them. 2. Tech is only willing to pay $250-$500K for the opponent. Other schools in the SEC and other conferences are willing to pay up to 1 million. So it makes it even harder to get better talent. 3. On the other hand there is no excuse for UGA they have the money. 4. DRad made the excuse that we have UGA on our schedule every year. With the exception of FSU and Clemson no other ACC school has a formidable opponent of that caliber on there schedule every year so they can afford to schedule up on the open dates. For us to do so adds undo pressure to win aned may cost us a bowl game. (This I may add was DRad’s biggest problem, playing it safe). I believe to turn around our program we need to schedule opponents that will sell tickets, make our program more attractive to better athletes and gives us a chance to climb the polls to position us to win another NC. Since UGA can’t win one we need to get back up there to give this state another chance.
11 of 12
December 6th, 2012
10:33 am
Formation: the last sentence you wrote literally had me laughing out loud at my desk. Keep the jabs coming but don’t forget the distance between the two programs and if u think UGA can’t win it remember that you are 42 – 10 behind. I hate to talk trash on here but felt that deserved a response.
Jacket Fever
December 6th, 2012
10:37 am
I just heard a rumor, I dont know how true it is that PJ is now the front runner for the Tenn job?????
old dog
December 6th, 2012
2:12 pm
@ my old buddy Supersize:
How the heck are you? Maybe the 2nd half of the F.State game woke ya’ll up. Alabama A and M must have been terrible to lose to Auburn this year, by the way. But, you gotta have a few like that. We get one or two, you know!
Hopefully your D-recruiting is looking good…………….
Technically Correct
December 6th, 2012
3:00 pm
Some of you may remember the campaign to get rid of former Tech coach, Bud Carson. With Tech’s current college president, Bud Peterson, seemingly doing everything he can to thwart Tech’s move to the Big 10 conference, don’t be surprised to see the “Fire Bud” campaign revived…
Booze Hound
December 6th, 2012
4:06 pm
Buzz2011,
Nope, I’m a Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern fan. You must be the one drinking (or maybe taking drugs) if you think the Jackets win all of those games next year with Johnson still at the helm.
Pitbull,
You might be right about Southern being better than Tech this year.
FORMATION 4 SUCCESS
December 6th, 2012
7:38 pm
@11 of 12 : That is exactly what I am talking about. In 1987 it was said that UGA and TECH’s program were worlds appart. In 1990-91 well you know. Since 1980 UGA has only been good on paper just not the on the paper that says National Champions. TECH losing to UGA is just a TECH problem. But UGA with all the greatest athlete’s year in and out is a just well… a problem. Here’s the distance between the TECH program and the UGA program. 1980 and 1990. 4 to 2.
Lenora
December 6th, 2012
9:58 pm
Alabama A&M is a fine historic institution, and I am appalled at the negative comments. This is 2012 people, and things are changing! We don’t have to tear other schools down to make our school look good. Go Bulldogs! I hope in the future ,we can play schools who respect us and want to play us.
Lenora
December 6th, 2012
9:59 pm
Enter your comments here
11 of 12
December 6th, 2012
10:13 pm
Formation: so when u lose it is just a tech problem and yet when we lose it is a a different problem outside of just being our own? Sounds like the logic of GT Bob. Just because we dominate u and have done so recently doesn’t mean u have to draw at straws and suggest not winning every game means UGA is falling itself like u have against us your biggest rival. Flattered that you think because we own u and put players into the NFL that we have no excuse for ever losing but all you are really doing is just trying to poke holes in a program that you can’t beat and that you want to somehow still feel inferior despite not losing to you.
Put the Gun Down
December 6th, 2012
10:48 pm
Man GT fans are a negative group. Sure you guys had a bad year but it is really Johnson’s first sub-par year(I don’t count the year that Nesbitt got injured because any team would struggle with their 2nd string QB starting over half the year.). I think a lot of this is because he had a hard time getting recruits his first year or two and they are the juniors and seniors on the team right now. But like any day the sun will come up tomorrow. GT returns every O-Lineman but one and it is assumed the transfer from Auburn can fill his spot. All the main back and WR’s are back except Smith but I think he is more a product of the system than an actually good back. Vad Lee and Justin Thomas are both better than Tevin and Sims has looked really good now that he is healthy, plus the Custis kid could come in and have an immediate impact as big and fast as he is. The defense returns 8 I believe and the 3 Tech loses are are probably the 3 worst they had on the defense. Tech just lost the ACC Championship by 6 points to the number 13 team in the country who is about to lose their QB and led every ACC game in the 4th quarter. Tech will be a lot better next year than people are going to give them credit for and the ACC is going to lose a lot of play-makers on other teams.
C'mon, y'all
December 7th, 2012
2:23 am
There is a difference between a forced fumble and poor ball security.
gt4ever
December 7th, 2012
8:22 am
@Put the gun down…
Why is is negative to state the true reality… ?
Yes, this is just football, and it really doesn’t matter in the big picture.. I have been very vocal about the short comings of this coach, as I like many others want a team that competes. Anybody that has an ounce of football IQ can see that our program is in a nose dive. We cannot recruit, can’t play defense or special teams, and we can’t consistently win in the worst football conference in the country. Negative statements… ? No,, just reality.
Swampwizard
December 7th, 2012
10:16 am
A micky mouse offence for a micky mouse schedule
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