Live from Tech: The best team in Ga. makes its debut!

The state's finest football squad makes its extremely noisy entrance. (Photo by M. Bradley)

Yeah, I know. I meant the headline to be, as we say in the trade, a grabber. But I believe Georgia Tech will again be the finest college football team in our fair state this season, and if I didn’t say something semi-provocative up top you wouldn’t have much cause to participate in a live chat off Tech-Jacksonville State, would you?

I’ve hung around Tech long enough to know that the first thing the Institute’s Old Guard checks on entering the stadium is this: Are the Jackets wearing gold? (Taz Anderson is a stickler on this point.) And my early answer is: I think so, but I’m not certain. Because all I can spot at this moment are Jackets warming below clad in white football pants and gray T-shirts.

I assume they’ll be wearing shoulder pads eventually, but you never know. Paul Johnson likes his teams to be tough, and maybe he has decided to measure that commodity by having his men go pad-less.

Pretty good crowd outside on Bobby Dodd Way (see above extremely professionally shot photograph), although traffic wasn’t an issue, at least for the Prince of Evasive Action. (That’d be me.)

Today’s route: Northside to Howell Mill to 14th to Hemphill — stop at McDonald’s for sausage biscuit — to Ferst to my new assigned parking lot, which is, I believe, located in Fulton County. Though I’m not entirely certain, and neither was the GPS on my iPhone. (That’s my way of saying: The longer I stay in this business, the farther away I have to park.)

Things to watch for? Well, I’m not Mr. College Football, so I’m not very good at this keys-to-the-game stuff. I’m guessing Tech will win by about four touchdowns, but I also note that one betting site has the Jackets favored by 41 points. (The same site also has Tech favored by 24 1/2 points — in the first two quarters. Bet with both hands.)

I’m shooting low because I figure Tech will start fast and then ease up, and when you run the ball — you probably know this already — the clock tends to move. And I can’t imagine PJ the HC will be worried about running up the score when there’s a bigger game in five days.

But that’s just me. For all I know, this thing could wind up 222-0. (The line on that game had Cumberland a 197-point ‘dog.) Or Tech could fumble 17 times and keep the Gamecocks in it. (Ryan Perrilloux, of whom you’ve heard, isn’t playing, as you’ve also heard.)

And I believe I’ve just set an NCAA record: Seven parentheticals in nine paragraphs. (For the heck of it, let’s make it eight in nine.) I’ll be here all day to see if I can do a sans-steroid Barry Bonds on that new benchmark — put it way out of reach — and I’d be obliged if you’d join me in the attempt.

Update: Tech has appeared and is wearing gold. Gold pants. White jerseys. Taz can relax.