Am I going to be happy or sad at the end of this, @Russell Johnson

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THE FLATS – Georgia Tech women’s tennis will begin the 2024 spring slated ranked No. 20 as the Intercollegiate Tennis Association announced its preseason top 25 coaches poll on Wednesday.

The Yellow Jackets are coming off a successful fall campaign in which they competed in four tournaments. Tech returned six letterwinners from last season’s squad, including Kylie Bilchev, Alejandra Cruz, Mahak Jain, all-American Carol Lee, Ruth Marsh and Kate Sharabura, while welcoming three newcomers that all saw collegiate action in the fall.

Highlighting the fall slate was the ITA Southeast Regionals that witnessed Lee advance to the semifinals and Bilchev secure a quarterfinals spot. Bilchev finished the fall season with a 7-4 singles record, while Sharabura went 6-3 overall in singles.

Georgia Tech finished last season going 16-10 overall and 7-6 in Atlantic Coast Conference play. The Jackets advanced to the ACC Championship semifinals after defeating No. 6 Duke in the quarters and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament in their 23rd consecutive NCAA appearance. Tech finished the season ranked No. 20 in the final team rankings.

A strong women’s tennis conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference boasts six teams in the top 25: North Carolina (1), NC State (9), Virginia (12), Duke (15), Georgia Tech (20) and Miami (21). The next wave of team rankings will occur on Jan. 17, while the first set of spring individual rankings will be released on Feb. 7.

Georgia Tech gets the spring season underway at the Michigan Invitational, Jan. 12-14, in Ann Arbor.

To view the complete top 25 rankings, please click here.

Has officially received an offer from Georgia Tech. Indiana was thought to be the front runner, but this is a big offer for the Overtime Elite G.
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Decided to do four for basketball and six for football.

The weird thing about this is that there isn't currently a "top" QB target in the class, due to Luke Nickel's early commitment to Miami and what appears to be a down year in the state of Georgia at the position.

I look forward to covering all ten of these recruitments in-depth in the next several months, and continuing to show on a daily basis why this is THE place for any Georgia Tech fan, alum, or both, to be.

HOOPS
2025 Holy Innocents F Caleb Wilson
2024 Overtime Elite G Daquan Davis
2025 Overtime Elite G Tyler "Hype" Jackson
2025 Osborne F Akai Fleming

FOOTBALL
2025 Fellowship Christian OT Josh Petty
2025 Douglass CB Jontae Gilbert
2025 Milton WR CJ Wiley
2025 Rabun Gap TE Marshall Pritchett
2025 Greene County DT Kevin Wynn
2025 Warner Robins DE Isaiah Gibson

@Kelly Quinlan is there any chance for GT to talk to Jim Leonard former DC at Wisconsin? I mean in his 5 years as DC they were top 10 4/5 years. He is currently an analyst for Illinois. Seems like a potential homerun hire for a couple years at least 🤷🏻‍♂️. Fingers crossed we get someone aggressive who doesn’t rush 3 people consistently and especially on 3rd and longs.

This is a 2-8 bball team with pastner. We may not make the ncaat this year - but sure is nice to have a chance going into January.

Batt deserves a lot of credit for sticking his neck and making the 2 most consequential personnel moves in his first 6-9 months on the job.

Complete 2023-24 schedule | Purchase Single-Game Tickets | Purchase Mini-Packs | Media Notes (PDF)

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GEORGIA TECH (8-4, 1-0 ACC) vs. FLORIDA STATE (6-6, 0-1 ACC)​

Wednesday, January 3, 2024 | 7 p.m. EST | Tallahassee, Fla. | Donald L. Tucker Center

Television: ACC Network (Announcers: Anish Shroff, Debbie Antonelli)

Radio: Georgia Tech Sports Network by Legends Sports (In Atlanta: 680 AM/93.7 The Fan) | SiriusXM channel 383

Other ways to listen: SiriusXM app | Listen Online | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets App | TuneIn

Announcers: Andy Demetra, Randy Waters

Live Stats: Statbroadcast.com



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THE FLATS – Finishing off a stretch of five straight games away from home, Georgia Tech resumes its Atlantic Coast Conference schedule at 7 p.m. EST Wednesday night against Florida State at the Donald L. Tucker Center in Tallahassee, Fla.

The FSU game ends a nine-day break for Tech (8-4, 1-0 ACC), which dropped a 72-64 decision to Nevada on Christmas Eve to finish as the runner-up at the Diamond Head Classic. The Yellow Jackets had won four in a row prior to that, including victories over Massachusetts (73-70) and host Hawai’i (73-68) to reach the championship game in Honolulu. Tech also defeated No. 7 Duke (72-68) and No. 21 Mississippi State (67-59) in the month of December.

Florida State (6-6, 0-1 ACC) enters the New Year on the heels of a 78-75 homecourt loss on Saturday to Lipscomb, which snapped a three-game winning streak. The Seminoles earned key wins over UNLV and Colorado to win the Suncoast Classic in November, and lost their ACC opener at North Carolina, 78-70, on Dec. 2, which was part of a four-game skid that included losses to Georgia, South Florida and SMU.

Wednesday’s game will be televised live on the ACC Network with a live stream available on the ESPN app. Radio coverage is on the Georgia Tech Sports Network by Legends Sports and flagship station 680 the Fan (680 AM/93.7 FM). The Tech broadcast is also available on SiriusXM channel 383 and the SiriusXM app.

THE TIP-OFF

• Georgia Tech’s win over Duke Dec. 2 marked the Yellow Jackets’ first win in an ACC opener since the 2018-19 season. Tech has not won its first two ACC games since 2005-06 (Virginia, Boston College).

• Tech has seen its NCAA NET ranking leap from No. 162 following its loss to Georgia on Dec. 5 to No. 110 after its runner-up finish in the Diamond Head Classic.

• Tech concluded its non-conference schedule 7-4 against a slate that included six teams that won 20 or more games in the 2022-23 season, four of them post-season teams. Tech’s four non-conference losses came to teams that currently have a combined record of 43-10.

• Tech is 3-3 against Quad 1 and Quad 2 teams this season, with a Quad 1 win over Duke and Quad 2 wins over Mississippi State and Massachusetts. The Jackets have 10 Quad 1 and four Quad 2 opponents remaining on its schedule. Tech was 3-14 last season against Quad 1/2 foes.

• Tech has lost its last five games in the Donald L. Tucker Center. The Jackets last defeated the Seminoles in Tallahassee on Feb. 17, 2016 (86-80).

• Tech head coach Damon Stoudamire faced Florida State as a senior at Arizona. He scored a game-high 25 points (9-19 FG, 2-5 3pt FG, 5-7 FT) with 12 assists to lead his Wildcats to a 96-78 win over the Seminoles at the McKale Center in Tucson.

• Tech does not play at home again until Jan. 6 vs. Boston College. That’s 27 calendar days between home games, the most for the Jackets since the 1986-87 season, when they went 43 calendar days between home games (Dec. 1 vs. Penn to Jan. 14 vs. North Carolina A&T). FSU is Tech’s fifth straight game away from home, a stretch that has included trips to New York Dec. 16 to play Penn State at Madison Square Garden, and to Honolulu, Hawai’i to compete in the Diamond Head Classic, Dec. 21-24.

• Freshman forward Baye Ndongo has won the ACC’s Rookie of the Week honor three times this season (Dec. 2, Dec. 18, Dec. 26), most for a Yellow Jacket since current NBA star Josh Okogie did so during the 2016-17 season.

• Tech has started two freshmen - Ndongo and point guard Naithan George - in its last eight games, winning six of them. The Jackets have not had two freshmen in its regular starting lineup since the 2018-19 season (Michael Devoe, Khalid Moore), and have not had a freshman regularly start at point guard since Jose Alvarado in 2017-18.

• Miles Kelly, Tech’s leading scorer in 2022-23 at 14.4 points per game, is Tech’s leading scorer again this season at 14.8 points per game. The junior guard leads three Jackets averaging in double figures with freshman forward Baye Ndongo (11.9 ppg) and junior forward Kowacie Reeves, Jr. (11.7 ppg). Five other Jackets average between 5.1 and 8.0 points per game.

• Tech’s returning scholarship players - Kelly, Dallan “Deebo” Coleman and Kyle Sturdivant - have accounted for 42.4 percent of Tech’s points this season. That number has diminished somewhat as freshmen Baye Ndongo and Naithan George and sophomore transfer Tafara Gapare have taken on greater loads.

• Senior guard Lance Terry, Tech’s second-leading scorer last season, has elected to red-shirt after missing the season’s first nine games, as well as pre-season practice, with a leg injury. He has been cleared to practice.

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Which direction do you think Key will go for our DC hire?

Tucker Gleason playing well for Toldeo in his first start of the year

Besides drain them dry on legal fees. No idea is too petty!

1) No favor scheduling. For example back to back bye weeks.
2) Noon kicks galore (ESPN should want their viewership mimimized)
3) Frontload hoops schedule
4) ACCN Special: “Criminoles at Free Shoes U”
5) No FSU honoree at ACC-CG
6) Garbage hoops travel schedule.

Happy 2024 JOLers.

Since we're at year's end:

• Favorite Tech-related moment in 2023?

KQ- Probably the bowl win because that cleared a lot of frustration leftover from the past five years and really going back to the Gator Bowl. The most memorable moment was the Miami game of course.

• Favorite JOL-specific meme in 2023?

KQ- The wolf of wall street one the other day. I can't remember the context but it made me laugh.

• Three words to describe the 2023

KQ- Hope for 2024

• One reasonable prediction for 2024

KQ- Georgia Tech will go to a second straight bowl game for the first time since 2014

• One flaming hot take for 2024

KQ- There will be a major push for the P5 to create a super conference with an NFL-type TV deal pushed by congress (gulp)

How does GT Bball feel about our chances with Oswin Erhunmwunse? Is it just 25% (one of the 4) or is there a leader?

KQ- @Russell Johnson

Every coach in the country is having to "play the game" that is the insanity of college football right now with HS recruiting, the portal, conference realignment, etc, even if it's gotten out of control well beyond many coaches' comfort levels. How many of them honestly feel like "this isn't what I signed up for". It is what it is, a lot of it had been going on under the table for years, but it's reached an insane level that seems to worsen and spiral further and further each year. Is there a point where the coaches might say enough is enough and demand change? If not the coaches, then who? Obviously the coaches benefit from the insanity by way of more lucrative contracts, but when does it reach the point that they are doing so much more than coaching football that enough of them come together and say something has got to change, this has got to stop. Wes Durham insinuated on X a couple of weeks ago that the coaches hold the power to bring about change and when we start listening to them, we might be able to get all this mess fixed. Do you see a day coming when coaches rise up to fix college football?

KQ- As I said above, I think we are at an inflection point with all of this and I think there will be some realignment with the P4 banding together and creating their own way of handling shit outside of the NCAA. How that looks, I am not sure. But everything that is happening is chipping away at fandom sort of like the 1994 baseball strike. They need to get ahead of it.

Bet a coke.. Is there still an ACC 5 years from now?

KQ- My gut says yes, but it will be different than what you are thinking, see my above comments.

Follow up from a mailbag a few weeks ago:

How do flyovers for games get coordinated? Is that something GT requests and pays for? Who decides what gets flown and from what branch?

KQ- I'm not really sure. I think they are requested by the school and then coordinated with the closest military base. Usually, there are some fans or connections within the base. If you've noticed when GT does it there will be a GT alum or a lifelong GT fan who is one of the pilots they bring back at halftime to stand on the field.

Could we see a list of the FB transfers (to Tech) for next year. Thx.

KQ- By position

TE- Ryland Goede (Miss State), Jackson Hawes (Yale)
OL- Keylan Rutledge (MTSU)
DE- Jack Barton (Furman)
DL- Ayobami Tifase (FSU)
LB- Jackson Hamilton (Louisville)
LB- E.J. Lightsey (UGA)
CB- Warren Burrell (Tenn)
CB- Syeed Gibbs (Rhode Island)

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Tifase is the transfer portal recruit who visited on Sunday prior to the dead period after leaving his OV at Wisconsin.

STORY- https://georgiatech.rivals.com/news/georgia-tech-beats-out-wisconsin-others-for-fsu-dl-ayo-tifase


More coming.

Entries in no particular order. Put an "other" entry too in the likely case that I left someone off.

Was anyone else aware we were had this high an on-line percentage? Not exactly in the best company to be keeping on this graph.

I knew we had a lot of on-line graduate students, but not this high.

Maybe @GTDSP has some insight.

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@Russell Johnson or @Kelly Quinlan, I know a lot of the focus has been on the defensive side of the ball but do you think any school comes after Weinke and offers him an OC position with the ability to call plays?

Just popped open the Blanton’s my in-laws gave me for Xmas.

Cheers to all of you bastards for the info, laughs, cries and banter in ‘23. Looking forward to ‘24.

Go Jackets!

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.




As I sit in my hotel in Los Angeles preparing for the CFB Playoff game tomorrow between Alabama and Michigan I am reminded of other big moments and games I've covered at Georgia Tech including a pair of Orange Bowls and three ACCCG appearances as well as two NCAA Tournaments. I missed the prime basketball era of Tech with Bobby Cremins and Paul Hewitt's good teams by a few years. I think Brent Key is in the right track to get football where it needs to go. With a 12-team playoff a couple of PJ's teams would've been in there and at least one of O'Leary's squads as well in 1998.

It was great covering a bowl game again, but the level of attention, media coverage and the energy that a big game brings for the fan base is something I would love to cover again for the program I have dedicated so many years of my life to now. I know it goes without saying the people reading this feel the same way.

With basketball, my excitement was actually much higher when I started covering Georgia Tech because of the recent basketball history. I had seen plenty of successful football teams covering UGA including multiple SECCG and big bowl games, but the basketball team was not great and it started well my first year and then no tournament for like 12 years or whatever it was and then it wasn't even the real thing because it was a bullshit covid year and Tech had to play without their best player and a team that should've won two games in the NCAAT was bounced in the first round.

I think Damon Stoudamire has figured out how to find and land talent, the development piece will be the key for him getting back to the Cremins/Hewitt level of being a team expected to compete in the top half of the ACC and getting to the tournament regularly again as well.

I hope everyone has a great New Year and it is a great one for the Jackets. I'm keeping this a little short because I'm a bit under the weather after some bad food. I did include some photos from this week for your enjoyment.

This is from the Lawry's Beef Bowl at Lawry's Prime Rib in Beverly Hills. It was tremendous





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I know it is no surprise that the AJC continues to lick UGA's balls, but this is audacious even for them. Front page article on the Orange Bowl, where the takeaway is nobody cares about it. Just in case you wondered, there was no front page mention of the Gasparilla Bowl last week (neither game warranted front page status for sure).

Fire away

It appears that GT is getting behind the athletics programs again with another 2.5 Million pledge match for the CDI 2.0. They will match 2.5 Million donated between now and the end of the year. Let's go men!