Post Game Reactions
Nathan: UMass looked so bad Saturday night that even the refs tried to draw some embarrassment away:
Evan: While I didn’t get to watch this game, I did get to listen to it on the radio. My goodness is Dave Nitz’s voice soothing. Tech absolutely destroyed an inferior opponent. It felt like the 2012 game against Idaho (which was coincidentally the only time Tech scored 28 points faster than this game, according to Teddy Allen). Also, my fiance had a couple of gems along the way: “THERE’S STILL TEN MINUTES IN THE FIRST HALF?!?! IT’S GONNA BE 70-0 AT HALFTIME!” and when Nitz said “That kick return shows why Rogers is one of the best in the country,” my fiance said “Then why does he play for uMass….?” That’s right, I picked a winner!
Josh: Ahem: NICE. That was a great performance against an inferior opponent, which is exactly what should happen. Amik getting a pick-6 when Tech only had 10 men on the field on the second play of the game set the tine perfectly. The only complaint I have is that special teams play is still not good at all. Tech spotting them around 40+ yards on kick coverage + a muffed punt led to two easy scores for the Minutemen. Can’t afford to make those mistakes in conference play going forward.
Did Tech Die?
Nathan: lol no
Evan: No, but what in the absolute hell happened on that… onside kick? Straight whiff? What…? Nitz tried to explain it to me, but even his mastery of words couldn’t paint the picture.
Full disclosure, I’m still not sure what happened.
Josh: Tech was the one doing the murder this week
Player of the Game
Nathan: How can it be any other than Henderson? 137 yards and 4 total touchdowns on a night where he only touched the ball 13 times.
Evan: Amik. He set the tone right from the first series as he quite literally jogged into the endzone. Also shout out Tech’s depth and young guys getting in on some action: Tahj Magee and DeAndre Marcus in particular had nights to remember!
Josh: I’m giving it to Connor Taylor purely for that heads up INT he had off a tipped ball. Good awareness.
Record Predictor
Contest Recap
This’ll be a little more brief than usual, since we’re late putting this post out already! As always, head to the Standings page to see how you did.
This week we had 43 players, including 2 newcomers. The big winner was JC, who scored 17 points! The winner of the Rice game was Michael, who put up 14 in a down week for scoring.
Here’s the current top 10:
- #1 Caleb Basinger (85)
- #2 Taylor Young (83)
- #3 Carson Basinger (80)
- #4 Brian Basinger (79)
- #5 Dawgbytes (76)
- #6 SteveyTI (74)
- #7 Genghis Khan-test (73)
- #8 Chase P (72)
- #9 VADawg (71)
- #10 Joey Smith (70)
As you can tell, there’s a little bit of separation at the top, but not too much to make up in the coming weeks. We’ve already had some shuffling in the first place slot!
Let’s get to the questions:
Who wins, How much?
Answer: Tech won by 48 points. Sheesh!
Results: All 43 players picked Tech to win (yay), but by an average of 24 points, which is obviously way lower than what actually transpired. Only two players had enough gumption to pick Tech by enough to score points: #23 Brent Newton, who said Tech would win by 55, and #25 Jonathan Ruppel, who said they’d win by 38.
What’ll happen on the third punt?
Answer: uMass’s third punt was downed at the 33. I had to take some liberties here, because my two choices were “a fair catch” and “a return.” Obviously neither of those happened, but “a fair catch” is the closer of the two that happened, so that’s the right answer.
Results: 29 players got this one right and scored two points.
How many total yards will J’Mar have in the game?
Answer: J’Mar had 239 through the air and 69 (niiiiiiiiice) on the ground. That’s 308 total.
Results: The average answer here was 338 yards, which would’ve been enough to score one point on this question. As it stands, 18 of 43 players scored at least one. The closest answer was 309 yards, which came from #22 JC, who won this week.
What will Tech’s average yards to go on third downs be?
Answer: 6.2 yards
Results: Only two players didn’t get within the ten yard range (1.2 to 11.2) required to score at least one point. (S/o Jonny Coe, who hilariously predicted 93). Amazingly, we had 9 players score 5 points by being within a half yard of the actual yardage. Two players, #20 Dom and #4 Brian Basinger got it exactly right!
True or False
Answer:
- Tech will score in every quarter. TRUE (77% correct)
- uMass won’t throw an INT. FALSE (100% correct lol)
- Tech will sack a uMass QB. TRUE (100% correct lol)
- Both teams will possess the ball for at least 27 minutes. TRUE (19% correct)
Results: Three players got all four right: #27 JOSH, #5 Dawgbytes, and #39 Jonny Coe
Will Tech have more yards on the first play of every drive than penalty yards?
Answer: Yes. Tech had 179 yards on their first plays and only 35 penalty yards. In fact, they had one single play (DeAndre Marcus’s run and subsequent fumble) that went for 39 on the first play of a drive. So this one wasn’t even close.
Results: 31 of 43 players got this one right and picked up two points.