ATLANTA- Georgia Tech football kicked off the drive toward the 2023 season opener with a two-plus hour practice on Tuesday afternoon. First-year head coach Brent Key also celebrated his 45th birthday with his wife and daughter after practice and the team sang "Happy Birthday" to him to wrap up the first day of action.
"Now it's good to be back out here and really kind of start to put together all the work we've been doing in the summer and really what the first day does is it gives you a baseline of where you are at in relation to the last practice of spring," Key said. "So we have a chance to come out here and really get this evaluated, be critical. It's like I told the team I said, 'you know, really our number one goal for this camp is to establish our identity and establish who we are as a football team.' That's we've got to come out of this camp with is a true identity. What we hang our hat on not play wise, not scheme wise, really just our mentality as a football team."
Key spoke with the media after practice and gave some injury updates and his thoughts on day one of camp. He credits both the hard work of his players and the new strength staff led by A.J. Artis for how healthy his team was to open camp.
Of note, Key gave several injury updates. The team enters camp relatively healthy with wide receiver James BlackStrain back in action after missing much of spring ball. Two other receivers, Leo Blackburn and JuJu Lewis are out for all of camp. Freshman defensive tackle Bryston Dixon is also out for fall camp.
"It speaks to A.J. and his staff and what they've done but also credit to the players and the way they've come out in the summer and attacked it because you could kind of slop through and go half in the summer and you're not gonna have that baseline of health that you need. So we've got a couple of guys that are out are gonna be out as well, Leo, Juju, and Bryston Dixon, It was good to see James BlackStrain back out there today and starting to move around a little bit, but he is still no contact, but getting back moving in the group. It's good to see him out there. We're relatively healthy and hopefully, stay that way going forward."
The Tech staff had plenty of new receivers in camp to help fill the injury void at that position with a pair of SEC transfers Chase Lane (Texas A&M) and Dominick Blaylock (UGA) both making their Tech practice debut on Tuesday as well as speedy freshman Eric Singleton who drew praise from Key and his players for his work in summer workouts and the highly rated Zion Taylor.
"We've got some older guys who haven't played a lot and then we have an influx of new guys both transfers and young guys. That's a position of durability. When you are practicing in the summer and running the way you do, the high school kids run track and do all those things, that doesn't prepare you for the amount of reps and the wear and tear on your body. They will learn pretty quickly how to take care of themselves and be ready for the next day. We've got some guys who can run and some speed. I want to see when we get the pads on, who can break someone down one-on-one and turn a short play into a big play," Key said of the receiving room."
---------------------------------------------------------------
Key opened up the entire practice for the media for background only. They are in hats and shorts so there isn't much worth reporting. The players are knocking off some rust and so I agree that it is sort of pointless to say player X did this or player Y did that at this juncture. I'll have more in-depth stuff to share as they scrimmage and ramp up from sources.
Key noted part of the thought process with moving practice from the morning for just fall camp to the afternoon isn't just toughness but also the schedule. In week two they will have an afternoon kickoff against South Carolina State at 1 pm.
Key said the first day is about being organized and getting guys lined up where they want them to. They ran two huddles most of the day with split groups and he said that is in part due to a change the ACC made allowing them to have 120 players in camp instead of 110 so they added 19 walk-ons this offseason including some very talented recruited ones that had offers from FBS programs. He said one of his first goals was to ramp up the walk-on program and that is something that Tim McFarlin has spearheaded since joining the staff.
Key joked that he didn't watch the QBs today, but he said they have 3 guys all with experience starting games at the college level and he has no plan to name a starter or make a public decision on the QB thing until kickoff of the Louisville game most likely.
Key said he thinks the defense will be determined by the LB play, he said it is hard to tell anything with those guys until the pads are on.
Key said he is excited about Eddie Kelly the DL transfer from USF caught his eye today with how he moved and in the backend Ahmari Harvey and Omar Daniels both flashed to him out of the guys who didn't play last year. Key also shouted out Horace Lockett and Zeek Biggers and how they look now compared to a year ago.
Key said he could care less where GT was picked in the ACC Preseason Media Poll. He said if he wasn't a football coach he would care about that stuff, but it does not matter at all to him or the team.
I asked Key about OL depth and he said they feel like they finally have 8 guys they can rotate and play with. He said that a lot of guys have really stepped up and he used Corey Robinson as an example and how he changed his body completely from last year to now.
Despite it being pretty hot, Key noted it was actually cooler today than other days and the were able to engage the AC system in the indoor that apparently hadn't been used in some time. He wants his guys to face some adversity from the heat while trying to be safe at the same time. He said the hydration and nutrition staff are doing a great job of helping with that.
sports.yahoo.com
