NCAA Football Georgia Tech Football

Another in a moderately long list over the past few years:

Georgia Tech cornerback Jerrard Tarrant has been charged with rape and has been suspended from the football team.

The alleged victim said she was raped at an on-campus dormitory April 25 and reported the incident to police that morning, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Monday.

Tarrant was released on $40,000 bail and has received the standard indefinite suspension from new Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson. A redshirt freshman, Tarrant was battling for a starting job this fall.

After seeing mixed success as a head coach for Georgia Tech, Alabama, and Kentucky, Bill Curry found a home at ESPN. The former NFL offensive lineman and longtime coach spent ten years with the Worldwide Leader, serving primarily as a college football game and studio analyst.

The itch to coach, however, has returned for the 65-year-old Curry, and he's going back. Curry will be named the first head football coach in Georgia State history Thursday. The Atlanta-based school is starting up a football program in 2010. They'll compete in Division I-AA (er, FCS) and play home games at the Georgia Dome. Similar to the Atlanta Falcons, GSU will probably fail to sell the place out most weekends.

Curry has a familiar face helping him start the program. Dan Reeves, the former NFL player and head coach, has helped raise over $1 million for the startup program. He has given his endorsement to the reported hire.

Reeves said he was not part of the selection process but said "I can tell you this, I think that is a heck of a choice, a great deal for Georgia State, if that is the case.

"I think Bill will do a super job. He's got a great reputation. You couldn't ask for anyone better to start Georgia State's program. He's got college experience, he has recruited and he lieves in Atlanta. I think that's fantastic."

Remember Joe Hamilton? Diminuitive quarterback par excellence at Georgia Tech a few years back. Heisman Trophy runner-up. The last known relevant Georgia Tech season was played under his command. Then he disappeared into football obscurity because the No Fun League has no need for guys that good.

Anyway.

Hit and run DUI, folks. Aaaaaaand our football God returns just in time to beat a hasty retreat.

Former Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton resigned from his position at the school Wednesday, a day after he was charged with marijuana possession, driving under the influence of alcohol and hit-and-run.

The charges came about a week after the 31-year-old was hired as the school's assistant director of player personnel.

"Today, I sadly accepted Joe's resignation," said Georgia Tech football coach Paul Johnson.

YouTube of the good times below (on the right side of the law) in lieu of further commentary.

This offseason, two quarterbacks found themselves sca-roohed by coaching changes: Michigan's Ryan Mallett and Georgia Tech's Taylor Bennett. Both are square-peg pocket passing battleship types virtually guaranteed starting jobs until a QB-run-mad head coach came in with a bunch of round holes; both said "screw you guys, I'm going home."

But while Mallett has to sit out at Arkansas next year, Bennett has been given the go-ahead to play this fall for Louisiana Tech. Why? How? What? Well, remember that one year the NCAA allowed anyone who'd picked up an undergraduate degree to transfer without penalty?

Yeah, that rule was repealed after coaches complained, but by "repealed" we mean "not repealed." The above-linked article on Bennett:

[Myles] Brand and the NCAA created a workaround. The waiver process Bennett used to be able to play at Louisiana Tech has been used successfully by about 30 Division I athletes since July 1, 2007, NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson told me. That's actually more than took advantage of the graduate student transfer rule in the one year for which it applied.

"For any individual who has legitimate academic reasons to transfer after graduating, we will grant it," Brand said.

Mike Knobler, the author, takes a properly skeptical tone about "legitimate academic reasons," saying there is some "fiction at work here," but is generally approving of the move. And you know what? He's right.

When Paul Johnson was hired at Georgia Tech, he assured fans, players, recruits and the media -- and anyone else who'd list -- that he'd adjust his triple option offense to the ACC and throw the ball. With the departure of yet another Yellow Jacket wide receiver Johnson may not have any choice. Even if he wanted to throw the ball, there's no one to catch it.

The latest pass catcher to leave, James Johnson, didn't blame the new offense as his reason for giving up his final year of eligibility. He simply said he was just tired of football. Tech's depth chart at wide receiver now includes one freshman, two sophomores and one walk-on.

Johnson's offense only averaged 5.6 completions a game last season. Yet, the Middies scored at will averaging 39.9 points per game and more than 440 yards of offense per game. If Johnson can get his new QB and running backs to pick up his system quickly, there is no reason why Georgia Tech can't compete in the ACC without throwing. However, the necessisity of running in Year 1, will probably undermine his ability to recruit WRs and passing QBs down the road. But no one will care if he wins...and beats Georgia.

That's a picture of an AJC.com sports story yesterday (click HERE for a larger version) announcing the commitment of running back Joseph Kerr to Georgia Tech. Unfortunately for the AJC, they didn't follow their own advice to beware of April Fool's jokes - as Joe Kerr was a spoof made up by the Georgia Tech recruiting and fan site The Hive.

We all know that much of the mainstream media and large newspapers view the shady and occasionally distasteful world of college recruiting with some form of disdain and don't invest a lot of resources into covering it. They also realize the huge amount of traffic that recruiting can drive for their sports sections, and in the internet age their eagerness to get information up on their own sites as fast as possible leads to them often ripping off internet sites dedicated to recruiting and/or falling hard for internet rumors (such as the Wally Yappo fiasco a few years - another totally fictitious recruit). But on April Fool's Day? For a recruit named "Joe Kerr"? The AJC.com sports page isn't exactly known as a bastion of accurate reporting, but this was especially brutal.

It was all good just a week year ago. After four years of Reggie Ball and his unorthodox approach to quarterback, Georgia Tech was finally to have some sort of stability in the form of Taylor Bennett, a statue of a dropback passer who had looked more than competent in the chances he got to sub in. Whether it's due to the loss of Calvin Johnson, I'm not to say, but the Yellow Jackets somehow managed to have an even worse passing game in 2007, with Bennett sporting a sub-50 completion rate and a 7-9 TD/INT ratio. Still, that was good enough to earn GT a chance to get worked something horribly by Fresno State in the Roady's Humanitarian Bowl, and hey- maybe with another year, he'd get the hang of it.

But that's before Paul Johnson took over for Chan Gailey (enjoy, KC- really) and promised to apply his spread-option offense from Navy pretty much verbatim. Some recruits understandably jumped ship, including QB prospect Sean Renfree, who eventually ended up at Duke. The latest casualty is Bennett himself, who is planning to transfer to an unnamed number of schools. Mind you, this is the second team in the ACC Coastal Division that lost their starting QB for 2008 for reasons other than graduation or injury, the other being Virginia (Jameel Sewell). Can't say I blame Bennett on this one, even if he'll need a waiver to play D-I football after using his redshirt season. Ben Mauk at Cincinnati may have set a precedent for seemingly lost campaigns to get back up and running, but he might get two seasons as a Bearcat. Bennett might find himself lucky to get a season in at any DI-A school, let alone as a starter. But hey, I know a school in Charlottesville that's looking for a solid backup.

Irish fans, I'm guessing most of you have a fancy bottle of scotch laying around somewhere, undoubtedly a gift from a client a few years back that you just haven't gotten around to opening because there's never really been an occasion to do so (plus straight scotch tastes icky and burns your throat, you big girl). Well, son, dive into that cabinet with pots and pans in it, crack open the blue label, and take a big hearty slug from it, because it's a damn good day for the Fighting Irish.

Completely out of nowhere, the Irish have hired Jon Tenuta, the moody genius behind Georgia Tech's perennially awesome defenses, to replace the retiring Bill Lewis as defensive backs coach.

Yeah, you read that correctly.

The same Jon Tenuta that held the vaunted 2006 Irish offense to its season-low 14 points, the same Jon Tenuta that somehow managed to turn the Yellow Jackets into a consistent bowl team despite having Reggie Ball at quarterback and a completely nonexistent offensive scheme. One of the prized defensive coordinators on the market picked the Irish as his next project.

Details are still hazy, but I think it's safe to assume his hiring comes with an assistant head coach title, oversight for the woeful Irish special teams, and a truckload of money. At any rate, go out and get drunk tonight, Irish fans, and spend your hazy blackout sleep dreaming about exotic blitz formations, two-star Yellow Jacket players making it to the NFL under Tenuta's tenure, and a brilliant defensive mind on the Irish coaching staff that can foist against Charlie Weis to improve the offensive scheme. Prost!

Okay, so maybe the whole Terrelle Pryor to Duke thing is a monstrous (crack) pipe dream, but I wasn't foolin' when I said that they'd get themselves a potential stud sooner rather than later with David Cutcliffe at the helm. They found one, and on the rebound, no less.

Most college graduates, in the event they have any wisdom to pass on, usually say something along the lines of "make sure you go to a warm weather school. Trust me, brah." Sean Renfree ain't havin' that, though. Rated as the #10 QB in the country by Scout.com, he was originally committed to Georgia Tech, but that was before Paul Johnson was hired to rejigger the offense to a scheme that would give him approximately zero chance of showing his skills for the NFL. Cutcliffe, Mannings, you know the story by now. So, Renfree gets his wish of plying his wares for an academic rigorous ACC school where all the hot girls are at least within driving distance.

Everyone lambasted the Hawaii schedule for being so easy and especially for having two 1-AA opponents on their schedule. Who knew they were just ahead of the curve.

Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Virginia Tech are all struggling to find one more home game. All of them already have a 1-AA team on the schedule. It appears that all four may have to resort to having two 1-AA home games for the 2008 season.

The problems are the usual: last minute buyouts/cancellations, wanting the game to be relatively safe (read, patsy), not wanting to provide a return game, "needing" another home game and/or not wanting to pay the premium price that 1-A guarantee games now cost.

Of course, those were the same problems Hawaii faced. I'm sure the other teams will get the same sympathy and understanding as the Warriors received for their scheduling issues.