Board Mood, Georgia Tech Week: Blissfully unaware of whatever danger awaits in Atlanta.
REDACTED spent the week discussing LSU’s expulsion, Lane Kiffin’s suspension, Donde’s Inferno and her House of Cards routine, and whether Tennessee fans were entitled to know anything going on inside the program. It also discussed Florida State taking a run at Josh Heupel, Jeremiah Telander’s position and Glen Elarbee’s lack of an offensive line. Georgia Tech was seriously an afterthought.
Florida State’s interest in Heupel opened a separate ownership dispute. The Board doesn’t always like Heupel. It does not permit anybody else to want him either.
The game threads looked like picked-over estate-sale furniture. Boarders who could be bothered to choose a winner mostly picked Tennessee. Almost none explained why beyond we’re Tennessee and they aren’t.
Clearly, the Board had forgotten there was a game this week. Georgia Tech was somewhere below LSU drama, Heupel rumors and arguing with each other.
This was strange because Tennessee fans had spent the previous two weeks studying Georgia Tech fans. They crossed enemy lines (Message Boards), collected screenshots and returned with evidence that Tech people were nerds, keyboard warriors and timid little men who would stare at their shoes if confronted by big, bad Tennessee fans in Atlanta.
BodyFarmVol had Georgia Tech solved.
Not watched. Solved.
By Tuesday he had the fronts, the transfers, the personnel packages, the coordinator tendencies and whatever the hell else Tennessee apparently forgot to ask him about.
BodyFarmVol posted it all for UTAD. Somebody over there reads the Board. Everybody knows that.
By game week, however, the Board had run out of scouts. Then KUBSMC56 & Old Coach rolled in to rally the troops and point them back toward Georgia Tech.
“Good afternoon folks.”
Old Coach pronounced that Tennessee was headed to “HOTlanta” to face the Ramblin’ Wreck. The capitalization established the weather and his complete authority over it.
What followed was billed as “quick thoughts.”
Unfortunately, they were not quick.
Old Coach had already survived one Board e-credential confrontation.
RyanKarl44 believed he had coached with Mack Brown at North Carolina and Texas, searched both staff directories and found nothing. Old Coach reduced his résumé to “a washed-up football coach” from McMinnville and kept diagramming inside zone.
Old Coach divided his preview into offense, defense, personnel and several matters apparently requiring a security clearance and a need to know. Tennessee needed to run inside zone, attack Tech’s 4–2 defensive front, isolate the middle linebacker, work Davis and Brame through the middle and prepare Faizon Brandon for his first real road start in a hostile environment—even though Tennessee fans were expected to occupy 60 to 70 percent of it because Tech fans were nerds.
On defense, Tennessee needed to maintain its rush lanes, control the run and pressure the quarterback.
Old Coach predicted Tennessee, 37–17.
Then he signed it:
Old Coach.
This is how a man on a Tennessee message board lets everyone know the headset remains close to the TV tray.
The post went dormant almost immediately.
EricBerries called it a statement game and hoped Tennessee would win by four or five scores.
BigOrangeColt corrected one detail and predicted 45–14. EDS called Mendoza “a pretty solid quarterback.”
AlmightyOtto reduced Old Coach’s briefing to four bullet points and an “Overall” section, the message-board equivalent of turning a field manual into a PowerPoint presentation.
Then came:
“Nice prediction, Old Coach.”
“Bump. Nice job, Old Coach.”
Old Coach had prepared for Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech was not prepared for Old Coach.
Jim Bob Cooter warned that Tennessee was “in for more than a battle than most think.”
The sentence arrived wounded but still alive and kicking.
Then Rifleman89 entered the fray from the opposite direction. Tennessee, he announced, was going to rush for somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 yards this season. Faizon Brandon would pass for 3,000 yards, enter the Heisman discussion and lead Tennessee to two upsets. David Sanders would return to his previous form as one of the ten best players in America.
“Please, y’all, I beg y’all get excited for Tennessee football.”
Nothing builds excitement like assigning annual yardage totals before Week Two.
ArmyVol predicted a 45–10 win. Another predicted thunderstorms in the area. thrashers announced that the game had officially sold out. UTChuck54 decided rain would produce a 24–14 Tennessee win. Without rain, Tennessee would win 35–17.
The forecast had its own point spread.
REDACTED Predicts the Game
VFF: “We win 38–20. Put Telander at Mike and leave him the hell alone. One reverse fools him, and half this Board starts measuring his forty time again.”
MaryvilleVol: “The reverse isn’t why people are concerned.”
VFF: “LOL. It never is.”
bluetick88: “We win 42–20. They can’t stop us unless we start stopping ourselves.”
Fantastic comment, bluetick88.
MaryvilleVol, the Board heel, went the other way:
“We lose 30–27. First road game with a freshman quarterback and an offensive line that couldn’t protect a fart inside a brown paper sack.”
ThirdAndChavis: “We run for 250 if we stay patient. Vols 38–24.”
Cromptons3rdRead: “We win 34–31, and we’ll bitch and moan like we lost the ballgame.”
OldBullsGapVol: “If we get off the field on third down, we win. If we can’t, we’ll just have to run another play. Vols 27–24.”
Then WBYA, the Board troll, took Georgia Tech by eleven and briefly stunned the room.
“Tech 31 Tennessee 20. Freshman quarterback on the road. Not a good recipe.”
Then EastTNVol74 revived a preseason argument that had already outlived its quarterback:
“We don’t stand a chance. Mendoza is a Heisman quarterback, and our defense couldn’t stop a determined blind squirrel from crossing Neyland Drive.”
Someone mentioned Tennessee had rushed for 350 yards against Furman.
Jim Bob Cooter came off the top rope:
“That was against Furman.”
Someone mentioned Georgia Tech had lost to Colorado.
George Cafego: “They’re gonna be mad.”
Every answer helped WBYA. Tennessee’s good numbers didn’t count. Georgia Tech’s bad numbers made it more dangerous.
Finally, Jason22 arrived:
“Vols 44 tech 17. God didnt make bumble bees to tackle.”
The rural theology went unanswered.
WBYA: “Well, we’ll see about that, preacher boy.”
Having predicted every reasonable outcome, The Power T reopened the Board’s lodging investigation:
“Does anybody know where the team is staying?”
The question had history.
Cromptons3rdRead pulled an old e-receipt from MurfreesboroVFL:
“I bet they don’t even have hotel reservations in Atlanta. They’ll load everybody onto three yellow buses, stop at Buc-ee’s and run plays in the parking lot.”
This had introduced the possibility that Tennessee’s greatest weakness was not defensive preparation but Travelocity.com.
The Power T was not looking for autographs. He was closing an open Board grievance.
“I’m staying downtown at the Marriott Marquis. I was just curious.”
He had booked a room downtown and assumed responsibility for confirming Tennessee had done the same.
Jaybird1 recommended the La Quinta in College Park and attached a “REALLY NICE” GIF. VirginiaVol responded with a man peering through shrubbery.
Volburger: “They stayed at the Omni for the Syracuse game last year. Maybe there.”
Nobody produced a room number or a bus manifest.
The Power T remained in Atlanta.
The e-investigation remained open.
So this was Georgia Tech week: LSU’s expulsion, Lane Kiffin’s suspension, the center’s DWI, entitled fans, Donde Plowman and Frank Underwood taking people down, Old Coach’s game plan, several thousand projected yards, a weather forecast that moved the spread and a request for the team hotel.
Almost nobody had started a football thread.
Share: WBYA picked Georgia Tech by eleven. Jason22 answered with rural theology: “God didnt make bumble bees to tackle.” Then REDACTED went looking for Tennessee’s hotel.
REDACTED had not forgotten Georgia Tech.
It only needed the hotel, the weather and 1,500 words explaining why.
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