Week Four: Bad Advice, Bold Prediction and Something Else

(Stating the obvious: This guy needs to show up on Saturday)

Week Four offers an interesting matchup for the Jackets, who would have been playing for a BCS bid last December if not for the thumping they took in Chapel Hill some weeks earlier. Georgia Tech moved the ball fine between the 20s in that game, but turnovers and red zone struggles meant the score was an ugly 28-7 by the game's end.

Paul Johnson's crew get the Tar Heels at home this go-round, and if they're the team they said they could be, then they'll be coming out of the tunnel with something serious to prove.

A win on Saturday-particularly of the convincing kind would lay down a marker to the rest of the ACC, saying that the Jackets are, in fact, who we thought they were (can we go ahead and just induct that into the sports cliche-tionary now?). Lose by any margin, and a once promising season is declared all but void.

So let's get started, shall we?

Bad Advice

It's been pointed out in various places across this worldwide web that one of the things that makes Miami's offense so good is new coordinator Mark Whipple's ability to give quarterback Jacory Harris matchups he can exploit—size on small, speed on slow, etc.

Georgia Tech pretty much sat down and let him 10 days ago in Miami, but the Jackets cannot do that on Saturday. Dave Wommack's defense has to be simultaneously able to react to any such schemes and turn the same on North Carolina, forcing the action with matchups favorable to the defense.

Georgia Tech certainly has some playmakers defensively, and North Carolina definitely doesn't have the weapons Miami did. But Butch Davis is no slouch; far from it, and he has two weeks of tape showing Tech's defense giving up big play after big play. That can't happen this week, that should be the Jackets' greatest defensive concern.

Bold Prediction

The Yellow Jackets ran up 326 yards on the ground in last season's meeting with little to show for it. So naturally, the talk around the North Carolina camp has centered on stopping the run this year, because surely the Heels can't hope for such sloppy red zone play twice in a row, can they?

Well, Everett Withers' defense comes into Saturday's action ranked seventh in the country against the run, having allowed a playbook-numbing 157 yards on 85 carries through three games.

That's 1.85 yards per carry.

Tech's offense struggled against Miami to the tune of less than 100 rushing yards, which seems almost impossible for a Paul Johnson team. Jonathan Dwyer has a point to prove after an alarmingly slow start and having missed the second half at Miami with a shoulder stinger.

Now with all respect to Withers and the UNC defense, wins over East Carolina (weaker than we thought), UConn (as bad as we should have expected) and the Citadel (just plain awful) don't really add up to an impressive resume.

Each of these teams has a point to prove in this particular battle, but Tech's point is far larger, as should be their motivation. Bold prediction: It's a "run rampant" kind of day for Georgia Tech (See prediction below).

Something Else

Many a Georgia Tech fan has grown up on Saturdays listening to the dulcet tones of Wes Durham, who's been with the Jackets since '95. What few may know is that his father, Woody, is beloved by the enemy—the elder Durham has been the voice of the Tar Heels for nearly 40 years.

Obviously, this has next to nothing to do with the outcome of the game, but both men ought be recognized as perhaps the last of a dying breed-the hometown radio voice.

With Internet and cable/satellite television's naissance over the last 10 years, it seems, sadly, that the Larry Munsons and Al Ciraldos of the world are giving way to former Heisman Trophy winners and recently-resigned coaches who offer plenty of insight into the use of a telestrator but mostly fail to tell us about the game the way we want to hear it—us vs. them, like the world depends upon it.

Saturday offers a chance to pay due respect to two of the business's finest, hopefully theirs will not be a profession soon forgotten.

(For more on this, read here from a Q&A the AJC did with Durham earlier this week)

Finally, a prediction

Had to roll this one around in my head for awhile (unlike the Miami game, which I always thought the 'Canes would take comfortably).

North Carolina seems a team on the rise, and the Yellow Jackets quite the opposite. Plus the run defense, which is obviously a key battle.

But there is absolutely nothing exciting to me about North Carolina's offense, aside from memories of big plays Hakeem Nicks made last year. Maybe the Heels will prove me wrong on Saturday, show me what they can do with the football in their possession.

But proof is 9/10ths of the law, or something. And the Jackets want this one and need this one for sundry and obvious reasons.

So I'm going with Tech, and I don't think it's gonna be close: Yellow Jackets 35, Tar Heels 20.