Thanks to our sponsor Inteleca for helping bring back Q's Take my weekly look at things around GT and college sports from my vantage.
Georgia Tech football wrapped up the second week of spring football with a scrimmage last Saturday in Bobby Dodd Stadium and by all accounts including Brent Key, he put the team through their paces and was pleased with the outcome. It is still early, but the foundational elements that Key has made a constant point of emphasis in his program appear to be sticking and resonating within the program. No one wants to win games at Georgia Tech more than Brent Key. No one expects more from his staff, players and support system than Brent Key, but ultimately the man holds himself the most accountable for the success and failure of his version of the Georgia Tech football program.
The offense should be good with 70% of the production returning and new pieces coming in like freshman running back Anthony Carrie or transfer tight end Jackson Hawes plus the return of a pair of injured receivers Chase Lane who basically around six quarters of healthy ball last year and Leo Blackburn who had zero with a second ACL injury. Seeing Leo run around healthy is a big thing and Lane showed flashes in his brief healthy playing time last year to take the pressure of All-Freshman WR Eric Singleton and the two returning slot receivers Malik Rutherford and Christian Leary. The O-line is back and healthy save for incoming starting right guard Keylan Rutledge who is recovering from a car accident-related foot injury. He will be back and help give Tech a likely 9-deep offensive line room or more come kickoff in Ireland against FSU.
New defensive line coach Jess Simpson and outside linebacker/rush coach Kyle Pope are earning rave reviews with Simpson's teaching having an early impact on veterans like Zeek Biggers, Horace Lockett and Makius Scott while Pope takes over an undermanned rush position with Kevin Harris and true freshmen Jordan Boyd as the lone full-time guys on scholarship at the moment at that spot. I expect the Jackets to be actively searching for additional rush ends in the portal post-spring to help take the load off Boyd who is raw, but very talented and Harris who has not been a full-time productive starter, but mostly a part-time starter and not as impactful as he would like.
Tyler Santucci has also injected new energy into the linebacker room that probably suffered from too much energy under Andrew Thacker and not enough under Kevin Sherrer. Santucci comes in somewhere in between those two with the coaching style of an old pro and also an understanding that he needs to tailor his system to the personnel and not ask Kyle Efford or Tren Tatum to do things they can't do or are not good at for the sake of a system. That has been the most interesting revelation so far of his addition to the staff and something that was desperately needed along with the development and expectations/standards for those linebackers to do their job and only their job at the highest level with proper technique. That was a huge issue over the years with the prior defense.
Looking at the secondary they have two veteran safeties back in Clayton Powell-Lee and LaMiles Brooks and then new faces or new options at the nickel like Omar Daniels who played some last year and transfer pickup Syeed Gibbs. Getting Powell-Lee and Brooks to return to their 2022 production will be a key aspect of the defense for Santucci and he will need help from backups like Taye Seymore as they aim to manage the workload better on the entire defense and not have guys play 70-80 snaps again regularly.
At the corner position, Rodney Shelley had a very nice scrimmage and they have a trio with Shelley, Ahmari Harvey who came on at the end of last season and Warren Burrell who all have good game experience under their belt but none have turned into top-level corners yet. The skills are there, but the production has to come with it and that will be interesting to watch.
The same man in charge of bringing up that group will handle special teams as well, Ricky Brumfield. He has a veteran group that should be one of the better special teams units in the country with the core four pieces, kicker, punter, snapper and kickoff specialist all back with starting experience plus several walk-ons on the team with some game experience.
Will this good momentum carry GT to a win in the opener? Who knows? That is a long way away, but right now things are going in the right direction, and using Coach Key's analogy from Saturday, the program has the bricks being laid down in the correct order to put up the walls for a future of success in the rebuild of Georgia Tech football.
Georgia Tech football wrapped up the second week of spring football with a scrimmage last Saturday in Bobby Dodd Stadium and by all accounts including Brent Key, he put the team through their paces and was pleased with the outcome. It is still early, but the foundational elements that Key has made a constant point of emphasis in his program appear to be sticking and resonating within the program. No one wants to win games at Georgia Tech more than Brent Key. No one expects more from his staff, players and support system than Brent Key, but ultimately the man holds himself the most accountable for the success and failure of his version of the Georgia Tech football program.
The offense should be good with 70% of the production returning and new pieces coming in like freshman running back Anthony Carrie or transfer tight end Jackson Hawes plus the return of a pair of injured receivers Chase Lane who basically around six quarters of healthy ball last year and Leo Blackburn who had zero with a second ACL injury. Seeing Leo run around healthy is a big thing and Lane showed flashes in his brief healthy playing time last year to take the pressure of All-Freshman WR Eric Singleton and the two returning slot receivers Malik Rutherford and Christian Leary. The O-line is back and healthy save for incoming starting right guard Keylan Rutledge who is recovering from a car accident-related foot injury. He will be back and help give Tech a likely 9-deep offensive line room or more come kickoff in Ireland against FSU.
New defensive line coach Jess Simpson and outside linebacker/rush coach Kyle Pope are earning rave reviews with Simpson's teaching having an early impact on veterans like Zeek Biggers, Horace Lockett and Makius Scott while Pope takes over an undermanned rush position with Kevin Harris and true freshmen Jordan Boyd as the lone full-time guys on scholarship at the moment at that spot. I expect the Jackets to be actively searching for additional rush ends in the portal post-spring to help take the load off Boyd who is raw, but very talented and Harris who has not been a full-time productive starter, but mostly a part-time starter and not as impactful as he would like.
Tyler Santucci has also injected new energy into the linebacker room that probably suffered from too much energy under Andrew Thacker and not enough under Kevin Sherrer. Santucci comes in somewhere in between those two with the coaching style of an old pro and also an understanding that he needs to tailor his system to the personnel and not ask Kyle Efford or Tren Tatum to do things they can't do or are not good at for the sake of a system. That has been the most interesting revelation so far of his addition to the staff and something that was desperately needed along with the development and expectations/standards for those linebackers to do their job and only their job at the highest level with proper technique. That was a huge issue over the years with the prior defense.
Looking at the secondary they have two veteran safeties back in Clayton Powell-Lee and LaMiles Brooks and then new faces or new options at the nickel like Omar Daniels who played some last year and transfer pickup Syeed Gibbs. Getting Powell-Lee and Brooks to return to their 2022 production will be a key aspect of the defense for Santucci and he will need help from backups like Taye Seymore as they aim to manage the workload better on the entire defense and not have guys play 70-80 snaps again regularly.
At the corner position, Rodney Shelley had a very nice scrimmage and they have a trio with Shelley, Ahmari Harvey who came on at the end of last season and Warren Burrell who all have good game experience under their belt but none have turned into top-level corners yet. The skills are there, but the production has to come with it and that will be interesting to watch.
The same man in charge of bringing up that group will handle special teams as well, Ricky Brumfield. He has a veteran group that should be one of the better special teams units in the country with the core four pieces, kicker, punter, snapper and kickoff specialist all back with starting experience plus several walk-ons on the team with some game experience.
Will this good momentum carry GT to a win in the opener? Who knows? That is a long way away, but right now things are going in the right direction, and using Coach Key's analogy from Saturday, the program has the bricks being laid down in the correct order to put up the walls for a future of success in the rebuild of Georgia Tech football.
