Virginia coach Al Groh on Georgia Tech's offense

“I was trying to think of a good analogy the other day, but space flight has come a long way since the first launchings, but it’s a lot more sophisticated and lot more intricate and we can do things with those rockets and go to the moon now. Heck, all they were trying to do with the first one was do a couple of orbits. Now we’re sending people to the moon, but it’s still rocket flight. You know this is still wishbone-based offense. It’s just a more sophisticated, more souped-up version.”

Al's a heck of a communicator isn't he. Leaving aside the point that we haven't been to the moon sense 1972, the space shuttle is a totally different method of getting people into space than the early rockets. The space shuttle is to the Run and Gun offense, as the triple-option is to the Apollo rocket. Think about it.

On another note, I had no idea it was "souped-up". I would have guest something closer to "suped-up", as in to be more super or supercharged. So where did souped-up come from? I've found a few suggestions. One, "Soup" was slang for a stimulant injected into race horses. A horse that was injected with the stimulant was said to be "souped-up". I've also herd it said that "soup" was criminal slang for nitroglycerin.

Although I've found no support for it, couldn't "souped-up" be related making soup? Soup's origin probably goes back to someone needing to make a meal out of a few scraps of food. To make soup is to expand the capabilities of the original ingredients by boiling it in water and adding herbs and spices. When finished, a few scraps of food that would barely suffice as a meal for one person has been expanded to belly filling bowl after bowl of warm goodness.

The meal has in effect become souper-charged, and when you think about it, isn't that what a good coach does, takes desperate elements and turn it into something great.