Rarely does a 35-10 loss bring out any sort of optimism from me, but I left the Georgia Dome late Saturday night feeling a lot better about this team than I did on Saturday afternoon.  That’s because of two things: a great defense and a seemingly improved running game.

The Defense

Let’s go over some of the defensive accolades, though there are so many that I’ll probably forget some:

1: Tech held Alabama to 96 yards rushing and 206 yards of total offense.  Throwing out last year’s Western Kentucky game in which Alabama surely didn’t even show up, the closest anyone came to holding Alabama’s rushing offense down was Texas A&M.  The Aggies held the Tide to 122 rushing yards, but that was basically because they got an early lead and forced Alabama to pass.  The Tech defense had no such luxury.  No opponent last season held the Tide below 300 yards.  LSU was closest at 331 yards.  Again, that throws out the Western Kentucky game.  Somehow they held Bama to 103 rushing yards and 328 total yards, but Alabama likely didn’t try.

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