Seedy K’s GameCap: Georgia Tech

In the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred Sixteen, the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech under the mentorship of one John Heisman -- yeah, the award namesake -- was the victor in the most lopsided game in the history of college pigskin.

Against the woeful Cumberland College Bulldogs, Tech scored 63 points in the 1st Q, 63 points again in the 2d, 54 in the 3d, and a mere 42 in the 4th.

Final score Georgia Tech 222, Cumberland 0.

Even though Georgia Tech scored only 66 last night at Cardinal Stadium before an increasingly irritable gathering of Cardinal faithful, this nationally televised embarrassment of a beatdown sure felt like the most lopsided L in U of L history.

Louisville could not stop Georgia Tech.

Not figuratively.

Literally.

Other than when the visitors got the ball back with :28 to play to run one play and get the thing mercifully concluded, Georgia Tech had the ball for nine possessions.

They scored on all nine. Eight TDs. A field goal.

And, as an exclamation point, with 2:18 left, scrub Tech safety Juanyeh Thomas scampered unimpeded 95 yards for a Pick Six.

Georgia Tech 66, Louisville 31.

To invoke a bit of irony, an old sportswriter’s trope, the game wasn’t nearly that close.

Coach Bobby Petrino: “”I did think that we competed extremely hard in the second quarter.”

Which leaves 45 minutes of action when U of L hardly competed, if at all.

There were a couple of bright spots, at least on offense. Puma Pass showed some improvement. Tutu Atwell put his gazelle like speed up for show. Jordan Travis showed some flair.

There may have been a few other positives, but, frankly, so numb am I the morning after, when fashioning this, I can’t recall. And my eyes are too blurry to read my notes.

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My apologies for the lack of more game breakdown here.

There simply doesn’t seem any need.

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Not that he hasn’t already tiptoed through some minefields in his still young stint as Louisville AD, Vince Tyra, understand this is where the rubber meets the road.

You some decisionin’ to do.

If we didn’t already know that Bobby Petrino II wasn’t going to come close to being as successful as Era I, we did on the first drive of the evening, when he yet again fell prey to his default aggressive play calling on 4th and 1 at midfield. Instead of relying on his OL to carve out a 1/2 yard hole for a sneak by his neophyte QB still searching for his confidence, Petrino gambled.

In the context of the entire situation, it was arguably as egregious a choice as he made last week.

So, like I said, Vince Tyra has got a decision to make.

Need I iterate what it is?

Despite a smattering of successful moments through the decades, U of L is not a school with a grande football tradition.

Like, say, Texas A&M, there isn’t a phalanx of good ol’ boy former walk ons who made it big in tech or coal or oil or bourbon who live and die Cardinal football who can be called upon to gladly cough up the millions of pocket lettuce necessary to buy out Bobby Petrino and bid him a fond adieu.

The question is how long U of L fans will be stuck with Petrino and his cast of generally incapable assistants? I mean, we now know, right, why Brian Kelly fired retread Brian Van Gorder literally midseason, figuratively along the sideline during a game.

It’s hard to conjure more than a victory or two the rest of this campaign, short of a miraculous turnaround. Or bargain with Lucifer, like Robert Johnson is alleged to have made at a crossroad in the Delta to become a blues guitar master.

What a woeful mess this is.

-- Seedy K