CNHTH said:
In all honesty; and obviously I'm leaving milk and cookies tonight for the self jinx god that haunts us…but how can you watch todays games and not like our chances?
This is…
Umm yeah.
These were supposed to be the class of the conference this year.
bearsandgiants said:
Also, how does Nevada just let a huge tight end roll 30 yards downfield, wide open, over and over? WTH?
bearsandgiants said:
I know our DBs are better this year, but can the guard a 6'4" 240lb receiver with speed? SMU may win the acc when all is said and done. They spend the $ and have the talent. Just need to coach it up and this game seems to have brought them together.
SMU is HUGE. Size all over the place. Smh. They should have lost this game but Nevada panicked and their coach did nothing in the second half to inspire.
OneKeg said:
Yeah SMU and FSU didn't look great. They looked like good teams could beat them. But is Cal a good team (including coaching)?
Wilcox and his handpicked OC got beat at home by Nevada a couple years ago.
I like what Sebastabear and major NIL donors have done for the collective, without which I think Cal would be a 3-9 type team this season with Wilcox in charge. With the NIL talent infusion, I think Cal is better than that 2021 team that lost to Nevada, but I still don't know that the Bears beat any of the three ACC teams we saw today.
They might (well probably not GT, since Cal doesn't play them). We'll see.
No sweat - we love long thoughtful posts. never hesitate on lengthstinger78 said:
Thank you. Again, I apologize for the length of that prior post. No one wants a fan of another program to come in and clutter up their board. I hope it was informative, though. All the best this season and again, welcome to the conference!
Yeah, if they can't consistently win against Nevada it's going to be tough sledding in a P4 conference.golden sloth said:bearsandgiants said:
I know our DBs are better this year, but can the guard a 6'4" 240lb receiver with speed? SMU may win the acc when all is said and done. They spend the $ and have the talent. Just need to coach it up and this game seems to have brought them together.
SMU is HUGE. Size all over the place. Smh. They should have lost this game but Nevada panicked and their coach did nothing in the second half to inspire.
I dont know, the lines didn't seem too big or impressive to me.
CNHTH said:OneKeg said:
Yeah SMU and FSU didn't look great. They looked like good teams could beat them. But is Cal a good team (including coaching)?
Wilcox and his handpicked OC got beat at home by Nevada a couple years ago.
I like what Sebastabear and major NIL donors have done for the collective, without which I think Cal would be a 3-9 type team this season with Wilcox in charge. With the NIL talent infusion, I think Cal is better than that 2021 team that lost to Nevada, but I still don't know that the Bears beat any of the three ACC teams we saw today.
They might (well probably not GT, since Cal doesn't play them). We'll see.
That was an air raid Nevada team that finished 8-4 and had Carson Strong and something like 80 percent returners and despite Garbers having a qbr in the 30s and we still only lost by 5.
I'm sorry but SMU was going up against a Nevada team that lost 75 percent of its entire roster and was fielding a brand new head coach. The idea that Garbers years were decent in any way and that our offense was even close to what it is now is erroneous.
Further, Nevada was in a soft cover 2 all night and SMU couldn't do anything outside of their tight end in the flats and one long pass to him. We will be in man more often than not with a far better secondary than Nevada's.
Many experts who say we're the worst team in the acc also had SMU challenging FSU who by the way had 3.2 ypc against a GT defense that in all honesty nobody knows anything about. But given last year I think it's safe to say they aren't as good as people think they are after 1 game.
I have high hopes for this year because I watched 2 practices and a scrimmage first hand and I know what I saw with my eyes.
We have a special team. The rb room is the top of the conference, the line looks serviceable, the receiver room looks like it's probably best in conference. The d is playing with emotion and looks quick and deep and experienced.
And tbh from what I've seen from the rest of the acc so far in these first games and in camps I feel safe saying we go 9 and 3 regular season at least.
From my vantage point our defense and our skill positions have looked a helluvah lot bigger, faster, and with a crap ton more talent than anyone else I've seen in conference so far.
Time will tell but I've already wagered 500 on us winning the acc and after tonight I want to throw down more.
Apathy and believing in jinxes has blinded us all to what this team is and I refuse to allow it to convert me to pessimism and believing that Wilcox will somehow sabotage what we have with bad coaching.
If you can't tell I'm all in on the 2024 Bears. Only a few weeks until we know if I'm right.
Thank you for the detailed answer. I just took a look at the GT football roster and was amazed at the number of Civil and Mech Engineering majors (albeit mostly freshmen, so I hope they can stick it out) including one grad student in a PhD program. By any standards, those are tough majors, let alone trying to balance with an NCAA athlete's schedule. Impressive!stinger78 said:
Pardon the length of this epistle, but I found your question to be an important one and wanted to answer fully.
When I was at GT years ago, every major had to take at least 2 terms of Calculus, 2 terms of lab science, and two terms of a second non-lab science, plus an assortment of other courses such as computer science, linear programming (one of the harder courses I took), engineering surveys (for non-eng students), etc. There was no way around it. Of course, the engineering and science majors had to take more math/science than psych, management, and architecture majors. This went for athletes, too.
I think this is still the same though several newer majors have been added in a college of "liberal studies," though each major focuses on technical approaches in that area. They are not "athlete majors."
Now the GTAA did and does have a well developed tutoring program to assist athletes. I find this fair as they spend so much time in practices, meetings, etc.
All to say that you will find a magnitude of difference (probably multiple) between GT and the large state schools in the SEC. The exception would be Vanderbilt which takes academics quite seriously. There are many good schools there, but athletic budgets will tend to tell you what their priorities are.
As for the ACC, most all are strong academically and many are members of the AAU. You will find this at GT, Miami, UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake, UVA, VPI, Pitt, Syracuse, and BC. Add Cal and Stanford and I don't think any other conference can match up in terms of academic rigor. However, most of them do have an assortment of lighter majors where athletes can hide, there is still generally a higher rigor. For all but a small handful of ACC schools academics are the driver of the bus.
I am sensing that commitment to be in the crosshairs in the new iteration of college football. However, adding Cal, Stanford, Pitt, Syracuse, Boston College, etc., and the inclusion of Notre Dame (except football) in our last three expansions leads me to believe that the commitment to academics is still forefront. I find that reassuring.
Finally, please resist the urge to lump the ACC as a whole in with the large state universities of the SEC. We are very different at the core.
You tell the story!CNHTH said:OneKeg said:
Yeah SMU and FSU didn't look great. They looked like good teams could beat them. But is Cal a good team (including coaching)?
Wilcox and his handpicked OC got beat at home by Nevada a couple years ago.
I like what Sebastabear and major NIL donors have done for the collective, without which I think Cal would be a 3-9 type team this season with Wilcox in charge. With the NIL talent infusion, I think Cal is better than that 2021 team that lost to Nevada, but I still don't know that the Bears beat any of the three ACC teams we saw today.
They might (well probably not GT, since Cal doesn't play them). We'll see.
That was an air raid Nevada team that finished 8-4 and had Carson Strong and something like 80 percent returners and despite Garbers having a qbr in the 30s and we still only lost by 5.
I'm sorry but SMU was going up against a Nevada team that lost 75 percent of its entire roster and was fielding a brand new head coach. The idea that Garbers years were decent in any way and that our offense was even close to what it is now is erroneous.
Further, Nevada was in a soft cover 2 all night and SMU couldn't do anything outside of their tight end in the flats and one long pass to him. We will be in man more often than not with a far better secondary than Nevada's.
Many experts who say we're the worst team in the acc also had SMU challenging FSU who by the way had 3.2 ypc against a GT defense that in all honesty nobody knows anything about. But given last year I think it's safe to say they aren't as good as people think they are after 1 game.
I have high hopes for this year because I watched 2 practices and a scrimmage first hand and I know what I saw with my eyes.
We have a special team. The rb room is the top of the conference, the line looks serviceable, the receiver room looks like it's probably best in conference. The d is playing with emotion and looks quick and deep and experienced.
And tbh from what I've seen from the rest of the acc so far in these first games and in camps I feel safe saying we go 9 and 3 regular season at least.
From my vantage point our defense and our skill positions have looked a helluvah lot bigger, faster, and with a crap ton more talent than anyone else I've seen in conference so far.
Time will tell but I've already wagered 500 on us winning the acc and after tonight I want to throw down more.
Apathy and believing in jinxes has blinded us all to what this team is and I refuse to allow it to convert me to pessimism and believing that Wilcox will somehow sabotage what we have with bad coaching.
If you can't tell I'm all in on the 2024 Bears. Only a few weeks until we know if I'm right.
stinger78 said:
Anyway, you know your AA has been buying signage in ACC cities? There's a couple along I-75/85 right next to GT. Great idea, but leave our recruits alone! It's hard enough prying them away from all the SECheat teams around here. Ha!
ducky23 said:stinger78 said:
Anyway, you know your AA has been buying signage in ACC cities? There's a couple along I-75/85 right next to GT. Great idea, but leave our recruits alone! It's hard enough prying them away from all the SECheat teams around here. Ha!
Hey Maude! Maude! Get in here. You gotta read this. Some GT fan thinks our athletic department is competent enough to run a billboard campaign! Haha
No reason you would know this (and of course, only at Cal would this be the case) but those billboards were written, funded, and negotiated with the billboard companies exclusively by a group of Cal fans. Our marketing department had nothing to do with them. If that seems insane, it is because it is.stinger78 said:ducky23 said:stinger78 said:
Anyway, you know your AA has been buying signage in ACC cities? There's a couple along I-75/85 right next to GT. Great idea, but leave our recruits alone! It's hard enough prying them away from all the SECheat teams around here. Ha!
Hey Maude! Maude! Get in here. You gotta read this. Some GT fan thinks our athletic department is competent enough to run a billboard campaign! Haha
It was definitely an ambassadorial move. Wanted to introduce ourselves to a new fanbase. But we did also want to thank you and the other schools who gave our athletic department a new lease on life. We realize it's a short one and we have no one but ourselves to blame that our admission was even remotely contentious. We need to invest in our revenue sports in a way we simply haven't done before to prove this was a smart move and many of us are pushing our administration to do just that.stinger78 said:
Thank you for the correction. That's awesome! Right or not, I took it as an ambassadorial move as you all marked your entry into the ATL market. They were well done and classy, quite unlike the media we typically see at the hands of SECheat programs.
sycasey said:
Seems like, leaving aside the loud FSU complainers (Clemson folks seem quieter about it), most Cal folks are enjoying interacting with other ACC fans. There are definitely some cultural similarities between these schools (again, FSU aside). Might be temporary, but it's not a bad temporary home.
