On Sabres and Stingers

It's an interesting time to be a Wahoo on the Georgia Tech campus right now. UVa just happens to be the opponent in this weekend's football game. I've been on the GT campus for other UVa games but GT has never made a big deal out of UVa before. This time, though, it's homecoming and Georgia Tech cares very much.

Three weeks ago, when the window was closing on my opportunity to get student tickets, it didn't look like it was going to be a very good game. UVa was on their third string quarterback and missing several other significant players thanks to a slew of troubles and injuries. Things didn't go so well for the Cavaliers. We lost to Duke, perennial joke of the ACC, in a crushing defeat that was, frankly, humiliating. So the thought of sitting in the Georgia Tech student section to watch the Cavaliers line up against the Yellow Jackets (a team with a significantly better reputation than Duke) was not particularly appealing to me. I made a mistake. I let the tickets go.

Now things are looking a little different. That third string quarterback has learned quickly and UVa today is a different team than it was three weeks ago. Diehl has more to say about our troubles and transformations here. The short of it is that UVa is coming off a three game winning streak that includes a Maryland shutout and the defeat of 18 ranked UNC in overtime. Georgia Tech is still favored for this upcoming game, but not quite as certain as they once were.

And now the students here are getting into it. Signs are appearing all over campus, cheering for GT and occasionally villifying UVa. I've never been on the wrong end of such propaganda before. Oh sure, Jeremy likes to send us pictures of the Virginia Tech mascot doing things to the Cavalier that should, given the definition of a hokie, be anatomically impossible, but that's just when he's feeling blue. Here there's a full-on campaign under way and they all assume I'm in on it. It's a little surreal (especially the bit about walking over chalk outlines of Cavaliers on my way to class).

Fortunately, I've got a Virginia shirt for every day of the week.