I’m tired of the broken record, but...

For as long as I remember, with the exception of the memorable 2008 season, Tech has had a sub-par defense, and even that’s being nice. I think that’s something everyone can pretty much agree on. We hate to say it, but it’s true. Believe me, I hate saying it as much as the next Tech fan, but we have to simply admit it and hope we can improve during the next season.

Anyone who knows me knows that I may be the biggest Tech fan ever, especially when it comes to football, basketball is a close second. However, come mid to late August every year as the upcoming season looms, there is one thing that I can’t stand. People bashing the Tech defense.

I get it, our defense sucks, and it has sucked consistently for quite a while now. Tell me something that I don’t already know! It’s like telling me that ostriches can’t fly, we know, everyone and their mom knows that, and for some reason we still see a need to report on it.

I know what some of y’all are probably thinking. Yes, I am a slight hypocrite, because I did write an article about Tech’s defense just a while back. I don’t have any clever ways of digging out of the hole that I put myself in, I’m just gonna have to swallow my pride for a bit and move on. In my defense (no pun intended), my article was not bashing the Tech defense, it was simply saying it was going to be the make or break reason for our season.

Now, allow me to clarify something. There is only one situation where, for me, I’ll spend some time out of my day to read about Tech’s defense. That time being any point after the season actually starts. Why then? That’s when you actually have new things to write or talk about, anything before that is just simply speculation, and speculation can only go so far.

Speculation is all about assumptions. That’s why I never read an article about a major event like a shooting until about 4-6 hours later, because before then nobody has any real answers, it’s all about making the most eye-catching headlines.

That may seem like a odd correlation, but here me out. The final college football game of the season is played in early January, after that, we don’t have any more games til early September. That leaves us with 8 months out of the year to just sit and wait. My point being, a lot can happen over those 8 months. Players can transfer, players skills can increase, players can get injured, a new coaches can be hired, and so on. So why do we make assumptions about Tech’s defense when there is so much time for so many things to change? We could literally go from the league’s worst defense to the leagues best defense, and even then I would bet people would still be bashing our defense come this time of year. I honestly can’t stand that, because you have nothing concrete to write about until the season actually starts. Come week 1, Tech could only give up 10 points, and completely rewrite the narrative, at least until week 2. Any and all defensive predictions hold next to no water until we actually see the team perform through-out the season.

However, in order for people to stop using our defense’s reputation against us, at some point we have to turn things around. Every Tech fan reading this right now just responded to that with a collective “Duh!”. I get it, it’s the most obvious thing to say. It’s like a rap battle. I have made a few strange correlations in this article, but here comes one more. In order for something to stop being used against you, you have to take it out of their arsenal. Will it take another Colby Whitlock or another Brandon Carter to change the story? A good defense is what it is going to take for us to break the bubble into the upper tier of the league. Unless we can consistently put up 70 points a game, that is what we need if we don’t want to settle for any more 8-4 seasons.

As much as I hate reading articles about Tech’s defense (except when it’s from VTM), there is still a part of me that shrugs my shoulders and has to say “Well, yeah, they have a point.” It sucks, but it’s true. I can’t wait until the year where I see a headline that says “Can Tech’s offense match the power of Tech’s defense?”. Who am I kidding, that’s probably never going to happen. One can always dream.