My brother-in-law forwarded this video to me. I could not believe what I was seeing and at first was trying to find evidence of this being one of those viral videos. No, apparently, this really happened during the college football game between University of South Carolina and Louisiana State University on October 18th, 2008. How crazy does this look?
Admittedly, I think some angles make it look worse than it is. For example, the camera angle actually on the field in slow-motion does undoubtedly make it look like the referee pushed himself toward Garcia. The normal TV camera doesn’t make it look as bad. In the end, I think it’s all about the referee’s position as an umpire. According to wikipedia:
The umpire (U) stands behind the defensive line and linebackers, observing the blocks by the offensive line and defenders trying to ward off those blocks — looking for holding or illegal blocks. Prior to the snap, he counts all offensive players. … As the umpire is situated where much of the play’s initial action occurs, he is considered by many to hold the most dangerous officiating position.
So according to that definition of an umpire, it looks like Hackett is out of position but on the other hand it could have been because he thought the play was developing to his left and stepped to the right and didn’t realize that Garcia would counter the run to his side. On that same token though, this is not the first time I’ve seen a run that was originally supposed to develop to one side and instead the running back or quarterback tries to make an adhoc play of its own. Anyway, I’m a huge football fan and it’s the first time I’ve seen this type of thing happening except for in this Buffalo Wild Wing commercial.
Don’t comment telling me I’m wrong because I am talking metaphorically and the title was for rhetorical purposes. In reality, Tech got the W today and are 5-1 overall now but it’s very difficult to consider today’s win a victory because it could have easily gone either way and came down to a barely tipped field goal that prevented the game from going into OT. Were we playing a team in the ACC? Nope. Tech played Gardner Webb, a Division I-AA team that our program scheduled because Army pulled out of a home-and-home contract last year.
If you are a Gardner Webb fan, I don’t mean to say that just because GW is a Division I-AA team that it has no credibility or chance to beat a I-A team (for example, Toledo beat Michigan today) but let’s not pretend that this is the first time you’ve read this game should have been an easy game for Tech. Because, it should have been. Even after reading somewhere that GW was a great rush-defense team, I admit that I didn’t think much of it and wouldn’t have been able to believe that they would be able to hold our rush-oriented offense to 79 yards on the ground.
Now for Tech fans, let’s not use the “but it’s our third-string QB” excuse because that doesn’t explain why we only had 79 yards rushing. That doesn’t explain why Calvin was sacked two times and he was the leading rusher at the end of the game with 35 yards rushing on 19 carries. I am going to be blunt here so be prepared for that: our offensive line just plain sucked. Coach Paul Johnson said in his radio show last week that they were working a lot on their punt-return team but did he let the offensive line take a week off or something? CPJ also said after last week after Duke’s game that the offensive line needed to play lower and launch off of the line of scrimmage… but did they instead lay down on the ground and play dead? I wasn’t able to watch the game since it wasn’t televised but I did listen to it live on radio and I just could not believe that our blocking was so bad that our running game couldn’t even muster 80 yards; don’t forget 35 yards came from Calvin who is more of a pocket-passing QB.
What’s even worse is that after reading this column from Terence Moore at the AJC, it seems as if 80% of our offense failed to show up for this game because aside from our non-existing offensive line, our wide receivers were running wrong routes. Seriously? Out of any of the games that the wideouts could be running the wrong routes, they do it on a day that Calvin finally starts a game. Calvin, who is so easy to root for because of he is so team-oriented and unselfish? Come on!
In my mind, Coach Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech football team lost today. They are 4-2 in my book. We can say a win is a win all we want but we all know Tech coaches, players, students, and fans were disappointed by our lackluster offense today and know that our offense can do better than they did today. Tech didn’t take GW seriously today and it’s going to hurt the team’s credibility.
How about the glass half-full stuff? Our defense played decent which is better than piss poor. This can be used as a good learning experience for our young team so hopefully this game will make them stronger and more focused.
When Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate, I gave the McCain campaign the benefit of the doubt. I thought to myself, hey- considering how many people work for and advise John McCain, surely Sarah must be highly qualified. Even earlier this week, when I read news articles about Tina Fey’s ability to portray Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live, I thought the articles were ridiculing SNL’s ability to parody Sarah’s interviews. To my horror, I have been completely wrong. Go on YouTube and watch some of Sarah Palin’s actual interviews. Keep in mind, they are not secondary sources and they are straight from the horse’s mouth.
I have to say that I’ve never felt so bad about a grown women before in my life but I feel so sorry for Sarah and her family. I feel like she jumped into this without realizing how deep the muddy political well is and she only thought about the positives of being the Vice President of the United States and neglected everything else. I feel sorry for her because she probably thinks that there is no way out now considering she is already in the spotlight and taking the backdoor out of the spotlight will make her look like a quitter.
On the other hand, after watching the debate between Joe and Sarah, I was surprised that she didn’t make any ridiculous mistakes and I applaud those that planned and coached her for this debate because they clearly had a plan. Oddly enough, she basically stated her plan within the first few minutes of the debate; she said that she may not answer questions as the moderator or Joe would like her to answer. She did exactly that. Sarah rarely responded directly to the questions at hand and instead made the points that she wanted to make. This is smart for two reasons. First, it forces Joe to be on the defensive side of the fence because he wants to respond directly to her answer which may not be the same thing that the moderator had asked. Second, due to the fact that she forming her responses regardless of the question asked most of the time, highlights of the debate to be played over and over again until next Tuesday’s second Presidential debate will portray her in a better light than this past week with her interview with Katie Couric.
So who do I think won the debate? Well, let’s see… if there was a rubric of all questions asked as rows and two columns for Senator Biden and Governor Palin, I think I would have more relevant notes jotted down in the Biden column while I would have more questions marks on the Palin column. If you cut out each candidates replies and replayed them randomly without the moderator’s question, I think both did a good job of getting the point across that their Presidential candidate would have liked them to get across but I still would give Biden the edge.
In the end, why even bother reading this? I’m sure it’s on YouTube by now so go watch it and make your own decision.
