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Articles by Mark Bradley
Mark Bradley: Georgia Tech shouldn’t beat Georgia, but does Tech know that?
ATLANTA - Georgia Tech folks will remember this season. To bleed seven wins - including two major upsets and three last-gasp victories - from a stacked schedule, and to have done it despite a significant injury to its most significant player … well, who could ask for more? Um … Let's be clear. Tech shouldn't win in Athens on Black Friday. But what if it did?
Mark Bradley: So how good is Georgia, really?
ATLANTA - The College Football Playoff committee dropped Georgia from No. 3 to No. 12, which is worse than it sounds, given that the 12th-ranked team gets bumped to make room for the fifth-highest-ranked conference champ. That's the bad news. Here's the good: The playoff doesn't begin today. For Georgia, next week's rankings will tell the tale. Beat No. 7 Tennessee and they'll hold wins over three of the committee's top 20 teams.
Georgia is an SEC giant; Florida was an SEC giant
ATLANTA - Steve Spurrier left Florida to coach Washington's NFL club in January 2002. The Gators are on their sixth head coach since. That's more than Vanderbilt over the same span. Heck, it's more than Auburn. Only Ron Zook, who succeeded Spurrier, and Will Muschamp, who followed Urban Meyer, could be labeled flops. (And Zook was 2-1 against Georgia, and Muschamp's Gators went 11-2 in 2012.) Meyer won more national titles in Gainesville than Spurrier had.
At 2-2, the Falcons' glass is more than half-full
ATLANTA - The Falcons need not - and will not - apologize. After the Week 1 fizzle against Pittsburgh, 0-4 seemed more likely than 2-2. But here they sit, having endured four games over various days and times and networks, all decided by one-score margins. Here they sit, and they're in decent company. Other 2-2 NFC teams: San Francisco, Green Bay, Dallas, Philadelphia, New Orleans. (The latter two have the Falcons to blame for not being 3-1.) Maybe you think the Falcons are lucky to have won twice.
Mark Bradley: After a close call in Kentucky, what should we make of Georgia?
ATLANTA - Georgia's first road game saw it go 48 minutes and 39 seconds without a lead. Its first six possessions went punt, punt, punt, field goal, end of half, field goal; its final two possessions went punt, punt. It mustered one touchdown against a team coming off a 30-6 home loss to South Carolina. It was outgained by a team quarterbacked by Brock Vandagriff, former Bulldog. On the plus side, Georgia did win. At last check, winning is preferable to losing.
College football is ridiculous, but wasn't it always?
ATLANTA - On Oct. 12, Texas and Oklahoma will renew hostilities in the annual Red River Shootout. As ever, the game will be staged in the Cotton Bowl, smack in the middle of the Texas State Fair. This part is new: In 2024, Texas-OU will be a Southeastern Conference game. On Nov. 23, Stanford will travel to Berkeley to meet Cal in the latest installment of what's known as The Big Game.
Mark Bradley: By changing its playoff format, MLB changed everything
ATLANTA - From 1903 through 1994, a team had to finish first in something to have a chance at winning the World Series. That held until the 1993 Giants won 103 games but went nowhere, having been edged by the Braves on the season's final day. Thus was MLB moved to reward teams that didn't finish first. Owing to the players' strike, the ‘94 World Series wasn't played. The first wild cards were dealt in 1995. Over the next 17 seasons, a second-place team won the World Series six times.
Mark Bradley: An expanded CFP only enhances Georgia’s title chances
ATLANTA - Without a game being played, Georgia is again No. 1. It tops the AP poll for a second consecutive August. Preseason polls haven't always counted for much - we recall 2008, when the hyped-to-the-heavens Bulldogs started No. 1 and straggled home 13th - but the new era of college football stands to benefit the "haves" more than ever. No program has more than UGA. In the cold light of hindsight, the four-team playoff did Georgia no favors.
Mark Bradley: Pigskin pickin’ - Georgia reigns again
ATLANTA - For the fourth year running, yours truly is picking Georgia to win the national championship. Even I - Bark Madly to non-UGA fans - concede that such a run might seem excessive, but it's not as if I've been way wrong. The Bulldogs have won 66.7% of the past three titles, meaning I'm batting .667. Georgia over the past three seasons: 42-2. Georgia in regular-season games: 36-0. Georgia in regular-season conference games: 24-0. Georgia in playoff/bowl games: 5-0.
Mark Bradley: 28 years later, we recall Atlanta’s 17 Olympic days
ATLANTA - We Atlantans awaited the summer of ‘96 with enthusiasm - we'd spent thousands of dollars on Olympic tickets, some involving sports for which we had limited familiarity - and dread. How would traffic be? How would MARTA do? Would the world come to our city and hate what it saw? If you were here then, you remember those 17 days and have the pictures to prove it. If you weren't - and it was 28 years ago, and Atlanta did see a post-Olympiad population boom - here's how it felt, at least to me.
Mark Bradley: Does it makes sense to build around Trae Young?
ATLANTA - Six years after opting to build around Trae Young, the Atlanta Hawks have apparently decided to keep building around him. That's their prerogative. But is building around Trae Young such a great idea? He just finished his sixth professional season. He'll be 26 when the Hawks next play a game. He has made the All-NBA team once – in 2021-22 as a third-teamer. He might make the list of the league's top 20 players: Hoops Hype had him No. 17 last fall. He also might not: ESPN had him 29th.
Mark Bradley: Draft’s done. Now the real Hawks’ summer begins.
ATLANTA - The Hawks have added Zaccharie Risacher, a player they deemed the most talented of his draft class. Thus concludes Part I of the club's reset summer. Part II officially begins Sunday. That's when free agency hits. That's when big deals get made. The Hawks haven't been very good at winning - they're 120-126 over the past three seasons - but they aren't a team that expects Risacher to be their best player soon. On paper, the Hawks should have been better than their tepid record.
Mark Bradley: Grass or no grass, Atlanta is a big-time soccer city
ATLANTA - The 1994 World Cup didn't swing by Atlanta. Nine U.S. cities - New York, L.A., D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, Detroit - got games. We did not. It was no great loss. That World Cup set records for attendance, but the event itself stirs no fond memories. The final ended when Roberto Baggio - the Divine Ponytail - sent his penalty into the Rose Bowl stands. It remains the only title match to end without an actual goal.
Mark Bradley: We don’t know Hawks’ plan, but they’d better have one
ATLANTA - The NBA has finally gotten around to staging its finals, leaving the local club well and truly on the clock. The draft is June 26 - and June 27, the hoops league having gone all NFL on us. The Hawks hold the first pick. The Hawks also hold the two players most apt to be traded. NBA free agency, usually the best part of every NBA year, commences June 30. LeBron James could again be available. As of June 30, he'll be six months shy of his 40th birthday.
Mark Bradley: Take it from an expert - Braves’ Ronald Acuña will be A-OK
ATLANTA - I'm not a doctor, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I do know the smartest guy who writes on the medical side of sports. He's Will Carroll. His Substack newsletter is titled, "Under The Knife." We spoke Tuesday. Cutting, pun intended, to the chase, Carroll believes Ronald Acuña Jr. will be fine, even after tearing the ACL in his left knee not three years after tearing the one in his right. Carroll's database runs deeper than my Google search.
Mark Bradley: ESPN asks why the Falcons didn’t hire Belichick. Here’s why.
ATLANTA - The first time you read it, ESPN's recount of Bill Belichick's failed job search expresses more than a dollop of incredulity. How could any team - the Falcons having been the only club to grant him an interview, this mostly means them - be so silly as to leave the greatest-ever NFL coach unhired? The second time through, it leaves you with a different question. Where did the oft-erring Falcons find the wisdom to get this right? We see from the story that the Falcons were tempted.
Mark Bradley: So Clemson wants out of the ACC, too
ATLANTA - The other shoe just dropped. Clemson is also suing the ACC over the conference's exit fees. Clemson hasn't joined Florida State's lawsuit - this is a separate filing in a different state - but it has the same effect. The league's two best football-playing schools want to play football elsewhere. We stipulate that such litigation could come to nothing. It's possible no court will grant Clemson and FSU any relief.
Desmond Ridder, Arthur Smith and what might have been
ATLANTA - The Falcons were 8-9 in games started by Desmond Ridder. Over those two seasons, they were 6-11 in games started by another quarterback. His completion percentage was better than Marcus Mariota's in 2022, better than Taylor Heinicke's in 2023. Ridder is a Falcon no longer. He was traded Thursday to Arizona, which has Kyler Murray but has managed one winning season since 2015.
Mark Bradley: The Braves rebuilt around pitching. Where’d it go?
Ten years ago, the Braves fired - "terminated," to invoke John Schuerholz's merciless term - Frank Wren and set to rebuilding the Braves Way, meaning around pitching. The rebuild lasted four years. The Braves have since won six consecutive division titles and a World Series, which suggests that something worked. And yet ... All that lovingly assembled young pitching has dwindled to Max Fried, who mightn't be a Brave much longer, and Ian Anderson, who's coming off Tommy John surgery.
Mark Bradley: Nate McMillan’s out. Can anyone coach these Hawks?
ATLANTA — Between Christmas and New Year’s, word began circulating that Nate McMillan was so thrilled to be coaching these Hawks that he offered to resign. The report was denied by the Hawks and McMillan, but it left its mark. Once a team believes its coach is a lame duck, it ceases to view him as its coach. Why worry about pleasing someone who’s all but gone? McMillan is out now, for which he should be grateful. What had he done to deserve this gifted-but-mismatched bunch?
Almost everything we’d come to believe about college basketball has been proved wrong. We recall the 2015 Final Four. Kentucky, then 38-0, lost in the semifinals to Wisconsin, which lost to Duke in the title game. Those Blue Devils started three freshmen, same as Kentucky had in 2012, when the Wildcats took the title. That was the formula: Sign the nation’s best recruiting class and win it all. John Calipari took his mostly-one-and-done Big Blue to four Final Fours over five years.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile Wisconsin's Brad Davison (34) is fouled by Penn State's Myreon Jones (0) as he goes up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Indianapolis.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile ATLANTA — At the 2018 Final Four in Glendale, Ariz., the NCAA brass offered its corporate thoughts on the issue of the day — the fallout from the Feds' shoe-company investigation. We thought back then that the NCAA's response would turn college basketball inside-out. We know better now. Arizona got around to firing Sean Miller only this month.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile ATLANTA — At the 2018 Final Four in Glendale, Ariz., the NCAA brass offered its corporate thoughts on the issue of the day — the fallout from the Feds' shoe-company investigation. We thought back then that the NCAA's response would turn college basketball inside-out. We know better now. Arizona got around to firing Sean Miller only this month.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile Wisconsin's Brad Davison (34) is fouled by Penn State's Myreon Jones (0) as he goes up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Indianapolis.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile Wisconsin's Brad Davison (34) is fouled by Penn State's Myreon Jones (0) as he goes up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Indianapolis.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile Wisconsin's Brad Davison (34) is fouled by Penn State's Myreon Jones (0) as he goes up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Indianapolis.
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile
Mark Bradley: In college hoops, the transfer portal has become a turnstile Wisconsin's Brad Davison (34) is fouled by Penn State's Myreon Jones (0) as he goes up for a shot during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game at the Big Ten Conference tournament, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Indianapolis.
Thank you Roy Williams: Three NCAA titles yet somehow underrated
Roy Williams announced his retirement Thursday. For someone who worked hard to portray himself as Just Plain Folks, he had an uncommon number of detractors within his industry. Some of this was because of jealousy. His career as a collegiate coach went from North Carolina to Kansas back to Carolina, which was the hoops equivalent of a Rockefeller marrying into the Kennedy family.
Mark Bradley: Roy Williams: Three NCAA titles and somehow underrated
Mark Bradley: Roy Williams: Three NCAA titles and somehow underrated Head coach Roy Williams of the North Carolina Tar Heels celebrates as he cuts down the net after defeating the Duke Blue Devils 90-83 to clinch the ACC regular season title at the Dean Smith Center on March 4, 2017 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images/TNS) Streeter Lecka/Getty Images North America/TNS Mark Bradley, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Roy Williams announced his retirement Thursday.
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