Score Atlanta's Around the Dial and a Falcons debate

The following is this week's Around the Dial, followed by Paul Mac's thoughts on the Falcons 9-7 season, with my rebuttal. Enjoy!

The football season has officially come to a close for the 2009-10 season in the state of Georgia and one team is happy, one team is thinking it is happy and one team is hoping that a new defensive coordinator will make its fans happy. While Georgia still searches for a defensive coordinator (as of Wednesday 1/06/10 the team had not filled the position), the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets hope to carry over the momentum of an ACC Championship as well as a berth in the Orange Bowl into the 2010-11 season. The Jackets faced off against the Iowa Hawkeyes in a bowl game broadcasted on two local radio stations including the flagship of Georgia Tech, Sports Radio 790 The Zone as well as one of 680 The Fan’s smaller stations west of the city. 680 made a big push with Georgia Tech coaches, players and even the AD late in the game to try and steal some listeners away from The Zone’s coverage, which is weird, considering usually 680 is mostly talking about the University of Georgia with former Dawg QB Buck Belue in the afternoon. I understand that the station is jumping on what is hot and what folks are talking about but people are smart enough to see through a bangwagon jump, especially when the flagship station is the main rival. If anything, tell people to watch the game on TV instead of listening to the radio, but to try and say, “Oh listen to the game on our sister station as we’re the EXCLUSIVE HOME of the BCS bowls!” Come on. That’s not true. The Zone had the Orange Bowl, so I guess 680 isn’t the exclusive home, especially since you pawn it off on a sister station.

FOX’s coverage of the BCS Bowls has been interesting to say the least. For the Sugar Bowl, color man Brian Billick openly admitted that this was his first ever college game in the broadcast booth. Meanwhile his play-by-play partner Thom Brennaman was slurping the Tim Tebow kool-aid for the entire game and actually seemed irked when Billick broke down film of Tebow to show his long throwing motion and analyzed that, as of RIGHT NOW Tim Tebow would have trouble adjusting to the quarterback position in the NFL. It was interesting to hear how Brennaman was questioning a man that directed one of the top offenses in NFL history with the Vikings. Brennaman was saying that the Super Bowl winning coach didn’t know what to look for in a potential NFL QB? Really? Tebow did do wonders though for FOX as the ratings for the Sugar Bowl between Tebow’s Florida Gators and the Cincinnati Bearcats received a 8.5 rating and a 15 share, up 9% from last year’s Sugar Bowl between Alabama and Utah. The New Years night game was also up 57% from 2009’s New Years night game between Virginia Tech and Cincy in the Orange Bowl. Ahhhh the power of Tebow and the Urban Meyer drama.

Hey did you catch the Fiesta Bowl? Oh, don’t worry. No one else did either.

I like the stance that the Falcons brass is taking on this past season. 790 The Zone was able to grab Thomas Dimitroff for a recap last week and, while he was pleased with a winning record, you could tell he wanted more and was chomping at the bit to get to the combine and to the draft. Falcons coach Mike Smith shot down some of the praise from 680’s morning show, instead insisting the foundation was there to do better things. I like that the brass isn’t happy with just a 9-7 record and back-to-back winning seasons. This team missed the playoffs and that is why you play the games. I heard too many people on the radio, both callers and hosts, who seemed thrilled about the Falcons simply getting off of the back-to-back schnide. Oh, congrats, you’re better than the Texans. You play to win championships. Let’s stop celebrating this small victory. The Falcons brass has its eyes on the big prize. As fans, we should too.

The late Braves broadcaster Skip Caray has been named a finalist for the Ford C Frick Award for baseball broadcasting excellence. Caray, who passed away during the 2008 Braves season, is one of 10 finalists for the award. The winner will be announced February 1 and will be honored this July during the Hall of Fame weekend.

Finally, kudos should be sent out to a few local Ultimate Frisbee teams. The Inman Middle School team finished the season 6-0 and won the inaugural metro-middle school tournament held recently at the Paideia School’s Pyton Park. The tournament also featured the Galloway School, Sutton and Henderson. Head coach Paddi White said that this was her best team since the school started the program three years ago. And the Atlanta men’s team Chain Lightning took home the 2009 Ultimate Players Association National Championship. The four-day tournament took place in Sarasota, Florida late in 2009.