2022 GT Football News Thread

Buzzbomb

Buzzbomb

Mello Yellow-Jacket
Messages
12,014
slugboy said:
It was one of the two most important games that year, but I think it was just the best bowl available for us at the time. Like other fans, I remember thinking we'd been shut out. Colorado and Notre Dame were in the Orange bowl, which signed the teams early as a rematch of the previous championship game.
The Citrus Bowl lucked into GT because the bowl dance cards filled up too early. It ended up a mismatch between a great GT team and a #19 Nebraska team.
The Rose Bowl was the Pac10/Big10 game, and although it was a big bowl, it often wasn't an important game in the 80's and 90's.
The Sugar Bowl was a big bowl, and it was set to match the SEC champ + another team, and they picked UVA.
Miami played Texas in a top-5 matchup in the Cotton Bowl.
The right matchup was GT vs Colorado in the Orange Bowl, but the Orange Bowl committee picked too soon, went for a #5 Notre Dame and a big gate, got themselves a championship game but not an undisputed championship game.
We weren't going to bump Texas out of the Cotton Bowl and choosing between Miami at #3 and GT at #2 was a tough decision. We were recovering our ranking at the time that bowls got set too. The end of year win over UGA bumped us up a bit.
The other matchup that should have happened was GT vs Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl.

I'll stick with my opinion that the Citrus was a tier-2 bowl in general.
Click to expand...
Bowl tie-ins were also a factor. I believe Nebraska was ranked right around 10th coming into the game. Tech just blew them out, 45-21. It was one of only 3 bowl games with both teams being top 10.
 
Techster

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,386
Buzzbomb said:
Bowl tie-ins were also a factor. I believe Nebraska was ranked right around 10th coming into the game. Tech just blew them out, 45-21. It was one of only 3 bowl games with both teams being top 10.
Click to expand...

People often forget how rigid the bowl system was back then. There wasn't much wiggle room to put the "correct" matchups in place....which ultimately led to the BCS and eventually playoffs. It's not like today where the #1 and #2 teams will for the most part be matched up with each other and the biggest controversy is who the #3 and #4 team should be or why a non P5 team might deserve to be in the playoffs. If the #1 and #2 teams played in a bowl game back then, it was a lot of chance and a LOT of finagling among the conferences/bowls/schools to make it happen.

National Champions back then were more on the AP and coaches poll...so it became a bit of a dog and pony show with split national championships not uncommon.
 
Buzzbomb

Buzzbomb

Mello Yellow-Jacket
Messages
12,014
Techster said:
People often forget how rigid the bowl system was back then. There wasn't much wiggle room to put the "correct" matchups in place....which ultimately led to the BCS and eventually playoffs. It's not like today where the #1 and #2 teams will for the most part be matched up with each other and the biggest controversy is who the #3 and #4 team should be or why a non P5 team might deserve to be in the playoffs. If the #1 and #2 teams played in a bowl game back then, it was a lot of chance and a LOT of finagling among the conferences/bowls/schools to make it happen.

National Champions back then were more on the AP and coaches poll...so it became a bit of a dog and pony show with split national championships not uncommon.
Click to expand...
If you read my initial post and comment to @slugboy this morning, I said exactly the same thing you are repeating. 1990 was one of the reasons that led to the BCS and a playoff format.
 

augustabuzz

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,412
slugboy said:
The Citrus was a good bowl, but it’s not the Orange or Sugar or Rose Bowl. It’s the next tier down.
Our GAME was major, but the bowl wasn’t a big bowl.
Click to expand...
Once Notre Dame got involved, our poll position was held back one week to force us to the Citrus instead of the Orange Bowl. The "true poll" came out the next week and gave the national championship game to the Citrus.
 
GT_05

GT_05

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,370
chewybaka

chewybaka

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
910
GT_05 said:
Sorry, Birr. Terrible for him, bad for us.

Man, I don’t think I fully realized how valuable Butker was and how important he was to the team.
Click to expand...
Great kicker, punter and defense per old school thinking willl keep you in every game (if you don’t fumble or give up picks-ie Sims), seems in today’s thinking that has been abandoned…for a team like tech to compete, that approach might be revisited as we can’t offensively compete with OSU, Ga, etc…a recruiting focus. Everyone focuses on the quarterback recruit while the linebacker is by comparison in the shadows…PS Clemsons in a”terrible” year won 10 games and had the 2nd rated defense to Ga. Showing a good defense can neutralize a horrific offense….
 
Top