Archive for the ‘Georgia State / CAA’ Category

Roddy White, Julio Jones and Matt Ryan hope to be doing this Sunday. (Curtis Compton/AJC)

Roddy White, Julio Jones and Matt Ryan are so excited because the the AJC has a new digital platform!

OK, not really. But we have moved. You can still find my old blogs on this site. But for the new ones, please go to ajc.com/weblogs/jeff-schultz.

Hopefully we can get through this transition period with a minimal number of hiccups. Also, please note that readers commenting on blogs now need to register first. Just go to my latest blog (about the Falcons) for all of the info.

Thanks for reading, Jeff

Continue reading I’ve moved — let me show you my new neighborhood… »

Welcome to the next-to-last BCS bowl season, or as we like to call it: “The mole in the middle of our forehead that the plastic surgeon said he can’t remove for another two years because the deals are in place, conference commissioners have been bagged, athletic directors already have used the free golf clubs, the booze cruise just left port, it’s too late to cancel the caterers, and, dang it, Mike Slive just took the last shrimp!” So we’re stuck.

After 15 years, it’s almost gone. After 17 years, it will be. (How did the BCS get to vote before it was 18?) We’re left with a palatable title game (Alabama-Notre Dame) but a nonsensical way of getting there and zero postseason drama.

BCS road map looks something like this.

Well, except this: (Promotion coming. I feel so dirty.) There’s still time to enter the “Sack Schultz” Bowl Special. We’re giving away $200 in gift cards to Marlow’s, which should buy a lot of wings. Don’t worry that some of the 36 bowls have been played because …

Continue reading Predictions: It’s time for bowls(!), contest (!) and BCS (ugh) »

Here's a screengrab from Western Kentucky's website: WKUsports.com. I think they forgot a few things.

(UPDATED: 6:15 p.m.)

According to Western Kentucky’s mission statement — which I suddenly found reason to Google — the university “prepares students to be productive, engaged, and socially responsible citizen leaders of a global society.”

So we’re left to wonder: Will Western Kentucky ask Bobby Petrino be teach a course in social responsibility, or will he be too busy being productively engaged with an athletic department underling?

Petrino is back in coaching. That was inevitable. On one hand, the man has so much personal and professional baggage that he needs a storage unit. But because he can coach college football, it figured to be a short time before one school’s administration declared, “To hell with morals and scruples! This is college football!”

Western Kentucky stepped up to the soul-selling window. This came after even three schools in the …

Continue reading Bobby Petrino finds a school willing to sell its soul »

Welcome back.

The Sack Schultz contest continues to spread good cheer and free food. It has been another great Uneducated Guessing Season, as we’ve given away tickets to the Georgia-Georgia Tech game, a stay at the Hotel Indigo in Athens, tickets to the Chick-fil-A Bowl, a $5,000 trip to Hawaii (yes, that Hawaii), gift cards to Marlow’s Tavern and Fat Heads (the product, not Ray Edwards).

About the only thing we haven’t given away is a coaching job for Bobby Petrino, who at this time next week will be on Groupon.

Now, we’re doing it again. Just go to AJC.com/go/sackschultzbowl2012 and it will take you to our bowl games pick page. Enter just like before and pick the winners of all 35 bowl games. The winner of the contest again will receive our admiration, as well as a relative Gorge-A-Thon. I define that as $200 in gift cards from Marlow’s.

Is shrimp and grits an acceptable appetizer …

There are two great things about this contest: 1) I live pretty close to a Marlow’s in …

Continue reading ‘Sack Schultz’ unveils Bowl Blowout (from Potato to BCS) »

Cheryl Levick hopes Trent Miles can jump-start Georgia State on and off field. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Georgia State held a news conference Monday.

Or maybe it was more like a pep rally.

There was pre-recorded, whip-up-the-crowd music blaring through arena speakers. There were cheerleaders and a mascot named Pounce and a pep band in the bleachers and maybe 100 folks, many in the employ of the university, who stood up and applauded as if on cue.

Just as well. Because the job facing Trent Miles as Georgia State’s second football coach isn’t merely to win games, it’s to make sure more than just friends and family of the running back and the long-snapper are aware that a game is even being played.

All new programs lose games. They lack athletes, tradition and an identity. The most troubling aspect of the fledgling Panthers is not that their win totals were only 6, 3 and 1 in the first three seasons. It’s that their attendance dropped from just OK to off-the-radar during that same span. …

Continue reading Trying to win is only half the problem at Georgia State »

According to various websites that I looked through while doing research for this final week of investments — not counting those that kept asking for a credit card number, age verification and automatically opened 27 new windows (Close! Close! Dang it, close!) while my wife screamed down to the basement, “Are you still looking at point spreads!?” — I came across some interesting statistics.

The chances of winning Wednesday night’s $579 million Powerball drawing were approximately 1 in 176 million. That was still far more likely than the odds of having a meteor land on my house: 1 in 182,138,880,000,000. Or about double that for the same meteor landing on the ACC championship game and hitting somebody.

Is that a meteor falling on me, or Dogs going to BCS?

Other odds I came across: 1 in 3 million chance of spotting a UFO; 1 in 11,500 of bowling 300 in a game; 1 in 649,740 of being dealt a royal flush; 1 in 20 million of being canonized; about even-money that one of those …

Continue reading Predictions: Georgia pulls upset, Tech goes down »

Can you hear SEC commissioner Mike Slive? "Yes, I am king. Are there any questions?" (AP photo)

While it’s easy to understand why any fan of a conference not named the SEC grows tired of hearing and reading about the SEC, the evolution of this year’s conference championship match-ups screams why the landscape is so lopsided.

This came home Monday when Miami announced that the football program was going to self-impose a bowl ban (hoping to beat the NCAA to the punch) and therefore would not accept a bid to the ACC championship game. This allowed Georgia Tech to back through the door as Coastal Division “champions.” The Jackets will face Florida State for the ACC title.

This isn’t meant to pick on Georgia Tech. It’s not the Jackets’ fault they have been given this opportunity, despite a relatively crummy season. But if you want to know why the SEC commands the attention it does, just look at how the ACC and other conference championship games compare.

Here are the conference …

Continue reading Wonder why SEC on top? Look at other conference finals (with video) »

In a bizarre turn of affairs — which should not be confused with anything that might be going on in a broom closet at the Pentagon with a CIA director, his smokin’ but psychotic biographer, a general (not that general, the other general), a Florida socialite, Snooki, Ashley Dupre, Donna Rice, Camila Parker (Duchess of Cornwall), Kim Kardashian (Duchess of … never mind), the UnReal Housewives With UnReal Enhancements of Atlanta, Anne Boleyn, King Charles VII, Bacchus (Greek god of Debauchery), probably a few Kennedys, Marilyn (duh), Fabio, the Thomas Crown Affair, An Affair to Remember, Family Affair (never trusted Mr. French) Glenn Close and that poor bunny rabbit, and, sorry, there’s just no room in here for Tiger Woods — Georgia Tech may play in a BCS game.

I'm just a hopeless romantic. (Art work via says-it.com)

(If you need to take a breath, re-read, digest, grab a snack, that’s OK. I’ll wait here. Still waiting. OK…)

Back to Georgia Tech-Duke, which isn’t nearly as …

Continue reading Predictions: Jackets, Dogs, Falcons and lust triangles »

Keith Appling celebrates with teammates after hitting late shot for Michigan State. (Curtis Compton/AJC)

Kansas, Michigan State, Duke, Kentucky. It was sort of like a Final Four, given the teams and the coaches and the blur of McDonalds and Parade All-Americans who for some reason chose not to attend Georgia or Georgia Tech.

Kentucky, Duke, Michigan State, Kansas. (Sounds great in any order, doesn’t it?) It was sort of like a Final Four, except without the deciding third game and the fact that it’s November, not April, and that probably not enough people in Atlanta were really paying attention.

Despite the marquee value of the teams, coaches and players, this “Champions Classic” didn’t create significant buzz on the Atlanta sports landscape in the past few days, smothered by all things Bulldogs, Falcons and … well, did you see that David Ross signed with the Red Sox?

What’s it going to take for college basketball to be picked up on local radar?

“It would certainly help if Tech …

Continue reading College hoops kings provide rare thrills for Atlanta »

Nick Saban and/or Mark Richt need some help for BCS title berth. (Jason Getz/AJC)

(Video added below)

Is it time for a rare dirge at SEC headquarters?

Not quite.

Three non-SEC teams — Kansas State, Oregon, Notre Dame — top the BCS rankings. This is the equivalent of a Big Foot sighting – or maybe three of them. But there’s still a possibility that the winner of the SEC championship game in the Georgia Dome between Georgia and Alabama will wind up in the BCS championship game.

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SEC schools have won six straight BCS titles. In short, two of the three undefeated teams ahead of Georgia and Alabama have to lose for a chance to make it seven. And that could happen.

Here’s how I see it breaking down:

No. 1 Kansas State (10-0).

Schedule: at Baylor (4-5), vs. BCS No. 15 Texas (8-2)

Recap: The Wildcats will beat Baylor. The Bears can score a ton of points but their defense can’t hold up …

Continue reading Will SEC get team to BCS title game? (answer below) (video added) »