Post Game Reactions
Evan: Tech’s offense played well for a half. Hint: It wasn’t the first half. In the second half, J’Mar look as good as he has all year. He completed some clutch throws into tight windows. He was 12 for 17 with 1 TD and 1 INT (in garbage time; an ill-advised throw, but I like the decision to take a shot). The Receivers caught passes, the running backs hit lanes. Whatever we were doing in the second half offensively worked. The defense looked pretty decent all night. According to the broadcast team, they haven’t allowed a 300 passer all year. In C-USA, that’s pretty damn impressive. Let’s hope it holds up!
Nathan: Every now and again, J’Mar will make some throws that make you question all the hate he gets. The receivers helped the junior QB on a few occasions, but J’Mar made some huge plays right around the time Tech was starting to feel the heat from a Rice team that wouldn’t go away. But then you also remember an overthrown bubble screen pass or two earlier in the game.
Daniel S: Tech Defense was the highlight of the game even though Ferg didn’t get a sack. Turnovers but the defense in bad spots a couple times but they were able to take care of it. Offense still completely baffles me with their inconsistency.
Josh: This video, but replace every instance of “practice” with Rice:
Did Tech Die?
Evan: Nope! I died a little inside watching the offensive performance in the first half, but I was resuscitated by that throw from J’Mar to Hardy in the third. This one: https://twitter.com/ConferenceUSA/status/1061441237859745793
Nathan: Yes. Tech’s goal going into this year was to take over the world win Conference USA. With UAB’s OT win over USM, that goal is no longer attainable. Tech was already at six wins, and Tech may end up at the same bowl game if they end up at 9-3 or 6-6, so the win over Rice doesn’t trump the feeling from the door to the Championship closing.
Player of the Game
Evan: Hardy. He had 10 receptions for 160 yards, and provided a much-needed spark in the second half for the offense.
Nathan: Jaqwis Dancy. Scoring 3 TD’s tends to get you that designation.
Tech Record Predictor
Contest Recap
This week’s contest was full of drama! It was a low-scoring affair, as each of the 25 participants had trouble scoring full points. In fact, no one scored 5 points on a single question this week.
The winner this week is Nathan, who won a tie breaker breaker question, but more on that later. We had three players tie with 13 points for the lead this week, our lowest winning score of the year so far. Nathan has the distinction of being the first gtpdd member to win a week!
This was also the last week before the top four players embark on their playoff journey. Without further delay, the inaugural playoff participants are: 
I actually had to use the tiebreaker question to determine the matchups, because both JC and SteveyTI currently have 123 points. But JC was closer on the tiebreaker this week, so he gets the honor of being the #1 seed in the playoffs.
So Dom Brown will take on JC, and SteveyTi will take on Daniel Adams. I’ll send them their special contests on Wednesday of this week!
Here’s the rest of the top ten, along with the reason the Playoff Committee didn’t feel like they were a top four team:
- #5 Nathan: He couldn’t overcome two poor performances, one in conference and one against a tough out of conference foe.
- #6 Mikey Spikey: His strength of schedule just wasn’t high enough. He ain’t played nobody PAWWWL
- #7 Reece Aultman: After a hot start, he couldn’t get over ten points for four straight weeks. Those mid season doldrums got to him.
- #8 Hayden Hicks: He only scored one more point than Tech did against MSU in the Week 9 contest, and it hurt him bad.
- #9 Wild Card: She didn’t sign up for the email list and it was her own downfall. The back-to-back week winner couldn’t overcome missing a week.
- #10 Contest Czar: Tech wasn’t the only one to not show up against UAB. Also, he spends far too long writing recaps that no one reads and not enough time thinking of how to cheat on the questions.
Let’s get to the questions!
Questions 1&2: Who will win, and by how many points?
Answer: Tech won by 15! Surprisingly enough, no one picked Tech by 14, 15, or 16, which would’ve been enough to pick up 5 points here. Everyone picked Tech to win, and 18 of 25 entrants were close enough to score at least some points.
Question 3: How many yards will be gained while teams are playing towards the DAC?
Answer: Tech played towards the DAC in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, while Rice played towards the DAC in the 1st and 4th quarters. While Tech played towards the beautiful end zone facility (which is totally better than the Hill), they picked up 119 and 140 yards. Rice apparently wasn’t as inspired by the architectural masterpiece, and only picked up 57 and 66 yards in their two frames. That’s a total of 382 yards. Only five players picked up points here, with most people being way too low on the prediction. The closest was #6 Mikey Spikey, who guessed 369 nice yards.
Question 4: How many total yards of offense will Running Backs account for in the game?
Answer: Rice’s running backs Austin and Aston Walter factored pretty heavily into the Owls’ offense. Along with Juma Otoviano, The Rice RBs contributed 187 yards on the night. Dancy, McKnight, Henderson, and Tucker added 118 yards through the ground and in the receiving game. That’s a total of 305 running back yards. Yet again, no one picked up 5 points, but three players got 4: #5 Nathan, #3 Daniel Adams, and #7 Reece Aultman.
Question 5: Which team will have more points scored by kickers?
Answer: Tech had four extra points, Rice had two field goals and an extra point. Believe it or not, only one player picked Rice and got this right, #1 JC. That’s what it takes to be the best.
Question 6: Which of the following will be true:
- Rice will score first in either half
- J’Mar will have the most passing yards
- There will be at least one quarter with no penalties
- Announced attendance will be at least 15,000
All of the above were true. Rice scored first in both halves, J’Mar had 314 yards, there were no penalties in the fourth quarter, and announced attendance was 15,283. Two players got all four right: #3 Daniel Adams, and #23 Stephen.
Bonus: Defensive players harvest rice at a rate of 10 kg per tackle. Offenses mill rice at a rate of 1 kg per 5 seconds of possession time. Which team will have the most leftover unmilled rice at the end of the game?
Answer: Rice had 66 tackles, and therefore harvested 660 kg of rice from Aillet Stadium. Their offense possessed the ball for 1,748 seconds (or 29:08), meaning that they processed 349.6 kg of rice, leaving them with 310.4 kg leftover.
Tech had 68 tackles, and therefore harvested 680 kg of rice. Their offense possessed the ball for 1,852 seconds (30:52), meaning that they processed 370.4 kg of rice, leaving them with 309.6 leftover.
What a close one! The correct answer was that Rice would have more rice at the end of the rice harvest at the end of the Rice game.
Tiebreaker 1: Predict Tech’s total kickoff return yardage in the game.
Answer: Tech had two kick returns for 26 yards. SteveyTI guessed 68, which ended up costing him not only a sticker this week, but also the #1 overall seed in the playoffs. JC, who is tied for first overall with 123 points, guessed 27 yards, and won that first overall seed. Nathan and Daniel Adams also had 13 points this week, and they both guessed 45 yards, which means there will have to be a:
Tiebreaker 2: In Sunday’s Dunkin’ Dogs game, predict the field goal percentage of Tech’s 4th leading scorer.
Answer: Nathan predicted 50.2%, Daniel predicted 48%.