Disagree about A&M's trend, but you follow them more than I do so I won't argue. But from my perspective, A&M was painfully close to advancing over what turns out to be a pretty salty Miami team.
Agreed on offense. It has been a surreal year for me as a Tech fan. I graduated from Tech in the late 80s and have been a fan since the mid-70s. Spike put together a few decent defenses, but nothing like what we watched this year. I've never been able to cheer for a defense that could literally win games by itself.
I knew Tech's defense was special this year, and it played out even against Oregon to be an elite unit.
But I also bought into the farce that Tech's offense was pretty damn good. Turns out that it was in fact the beneficiary of a schedule that hadn't seen a really great defense, and Oregon's defense is really great.
Morton's performance in the Orange Bowl was literally the worst QB performance I can remember from a Tech QB, ever, and Leftwich's offensive play calling was offensive. Morton looked like he hadn't taken a snap in 3 months, and the playbook looked like Leftwich was scared to try a vertical attack. Joey needs to own that as well. Kudos to Oregon's defense, for sure, but there's no polishing that turd. I've said elsewhere that Morton was our Achilles heel and that Joey should have spent some money on a QB. And he should have benched Morton at halftime against Oregon. But water under the bridge.
Tech has HUGE shoes to fill on defense with the departures of four starters (and maybe 5) on defense that will play on Sundays. And on offense it looks like we will be starting from scratch.
Tech's schedule in 2026 is embarrassingly easy. But if Joey doesn't solve those problems we will be right back where we were this year... undefeated, or nearly so, and a heavy favorite to make the CFP, but I'm less confidence in the playoff performance next year than I was this year. The portal will be interesting to watch.
Bring on basketball.