THE FLATS – Georgia Tech golf head coach Bruce Heppler has signed a five-year contract extension and the Yellow Jackets have officially named Jeff Paton and Evan Smith as assistant coaches, Tech announced on Monday.

Heppler’s contract extension runs through the 2028-29 season. In his 30th year as head coach, Heppler has led the Yellow Jackets to 14 Atlantic Coast Conference titles, 21 trips to the NCAA Championship finals and four national runner-up finishes – all unprecedented for any program at Georgia Tech. He has guided the Jackets to 26-straight NCAA regionals and 72 total tournament victories. In the last two years, Tech has finished second at the 2023 NCAA Championship and tied for third in 2024.

Individually, Heppler has coached three U.S. Amateur champions (Matt Kuchar – 1997, Andy Ogletree – 2019 and Tyler Strafaci – 2020, a British Amateur titlist (Christo Lamprecht – 2023) and two NCAA individual champions (Troy Matteson – 2002 and Hiroshi Tai – 2024).

“Bruce Heppler is one of the most decorated and successful head coaches in Georgia Tech athletics history,” director of athletics J Batt said. “His program has only gotten stronger in recent years, with back-to-back top-three finishes at the last two NCAA Championships, as well as three amateur major champions and an NCAA individual champion in the past six years. We’re looking forward to him continuing to lead our golf program to new heights.”

In addition to locking in Heppler to a contract extension, Georgia Tech has added two new assistant coaches in Paton and Smith.

Paton, who served as a volunteer coach at Tech since 2021, has worked as a self-employed PGA Tour coach since 2015, coaching top-level amateur players and touring pros at all levels. That followed a 32-year career as a golf professional at various clubs in the area, including two stints as director of golf at the Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta, Ga., the Yellow Jackets’ home golf course. The native of Lowell, Mass. has been honored as the Georgia Section PGA Teacher of the Year and Georgia Section PGA Merchandiser of the Year (twice). He has served as past president of the Georgia PGA Assistants division, the Georgia PGA North Chapter and the Georgia Golf Course Owners Association, and has served on the board of directors of the Georgia Section PGA. He is a certified PGA Tour instructor.

“Jeff has been part of our program in some way shape or form for almost 30 years and was instrumental in our getting a team membership at the Golf Club of Georgia in 1996,” Heppler said. “He was worked with many of our most successful alums through the years. It will be very valuable having his teaching skill set around our players on a full-time basis.”

With a decade of experience in the golf industry, Smith served as the head men's and women's golf coach at St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, N.C. in 2018-19, following a two-year stint as an assistant coach at Point University in West Point, Ga. and director of golf at Point University Golf Club (2016-18). In between coaching stints and his appointment at Tech, the Kennesaw, Ga., native joined the U.S. Army in July 2019 and graduated from the Army School of Infantry, earning the role of class first sergeant and overseeing the well-being and training of fellow trainees. At Tech, he will be involved in coaching and recruiting, fitness development during competitions, assisting with practice design and setup, supervising technology at Tech’s Noonan Practice Facility, assisting with fundraising and all other daily compliance and reporting responsibilities.

“Evan brings great energy and experience to the program as a former collegiate player and coach,” Heppler added. “His experience as a head coach will be very helpful as he assists with all of the day-to-day administrative aspects of the program as well as our fund-raising efforts. His five-year military career will also be of a great benefit as we organize our coaching efforts.”

Georgia Tech golf opened its 2024-25 season this past weekend with an eighth-place finish among an ultra-strong field at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate. The 11th-ranked Yellow Jackets return six letterwinners in 2024-25, including defending NCAA champion Hiroshi Tai and three others who competed for the Yellow Jackets at the 2024 NCAA Championship, where they advanced to the national semifinals.

Im hurting on this one
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Traveling today so the show will be tomorrow night. Drop your questions

Guys in prior years this would have snowballed into a huge loss. Like 41-17.

It didn’t happen because:

1. Ricky Brumfield is worth his weight in beignets as special teams are pretty good now
2. Haynes King is less gun slingery which means we didn’t get a backbreaking pick six or similar turnover to break the team’s morale completely
3. The defense did adjust in the second half and showed some signs of life

Anything else?

For the Rome Emperors, who open the SAL South Division Playoffs Tuesday at Bowling Green. They are back home at AdventHealth Stadium on Thursday for Game 2 at 7 p.m. and Game 3 will also be there Friday at 7 p.m. if necessary.

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With several Georgia Tech commits putting up big numbers once again.

You have made me feel better about our loss today lol.

Anyone who watches football knew Syracuse was going to be improved and that they would be a matchup problem for us. Did you all think we would be a 10 win team or something? We are a 6-7 win team with our schedule. If we played a shit schedule like Miami or Syracuse I think we will 8 but not with our schedule. I think we all need to be a little more realistic. We have been a .500 team since Key took over… it’s just a fact.

I told Kelly I took a few minutes to myself before writing this to make sure I didn't write it as an emotional fan. Haha. I think I got back into professional mode before I finished it. You be the judge. Moral of the story, the world's not ending at 2-1. But there definitely needs to be some improvement and changes in several areas.

Two Fridays ago the senior QB for my home town fractured his C6 vertebrae on a routine play. He initially could not feel/move anything from his belly down and lost some movement in his hands and wrist. He was emergently sent to Grady where he underwent cervical spine surgery to stabilize the vertebrae. The communities of Bremen, west Ga, and even schools around the state have rallied around him in multiple ways. He had regained some sensation in his stomach and vibration sensation in his legs. He hopes to transfer to Shepherd’s Center to begin rehab this week where two anonymous pro football players have paid for his rehab in full. The reason I’m posting this is his head football coach is Rooster Russell grandson of famous Erk Russell. Grew up a huge dawg. Both UGA and GT have reached out to support. Coach Key called up Coach Russell and invited him to practice last Thursday. He wasn’t expecting anything special just talking to the coaches and watching practice. Well while he was there Coach Key stopped the entire practice and had the whole team come up and listen to Coach Russell tell them about the character and work ethic of the young man in the hospital and all the captains signed a football for him. I think it really meant a lot to Coach Russell and the young man so I just wanted to share. Go Jackets!

A lot of you were surprised back in July when I picked the entire ACC schedule and I had Georgia Tech knocking off Florida State in the season opener. I'll detail this more in the JOL TV show tonight, but my reasoning was pretty sound in my mind. I thought Tech had a very good offensive line, the Noles were had a good defensive line and that running Haynes King would be the difference-maker on that side of the ball.

I also had plenty of experience watching DJU play quarterback. I watched a lot of Oregon State games in my hotel room on the road or the couple of Friday night games they played and I saw the same dude I saw play against Georgia Tech twice. He is a game manager and isn't an elite QB, but to run what FSU runs it really leans hard on the QB and we all saw that when Jordan Travis got hurt and really watching the development of Travis during his time there with Norvell. I learned everything I needed to know about FSU's trust in DJU in the second quarter when the Noles had the ball with 3:13 and they ran literally the worst-designed two-minute drill I've ever seen. They got bailed out by a strong wind assisting their talented kicker on a 59-yard FG thanks to a weak PI on LaMiles Brooks. My main question about the GT defense was stopping the run. I knew FSU didn't have the same WRs they had a year ago and that showed very clearly in the game as they basically just threw to the RBs most of the time on short passes or swing passes or screens. The run defense stepped up after the first drive and allowed pretty much nothing on the ground, 35 yards on 25 carries or something like that.

My prediction was further fueled by what I was hearing from the Flats, my observations of Brent Key and his reactions to his team and his confidence level and seeing two very capable coordinators going after each other every day in camp and spring ball. We all knew about Buster Faulkner and I had seen the work Geep Wade had done with that O-line and then I knew how Key felt about Santucci all the way going back to the hiring process after the season ended in December. All of my thoughts were backed up from sources based on what they heard/saw/knew and that gave me the confidence to make that pick of GT winning a close one.

I said before the game to some people I bumped into in Ireland and on here that the optimal scenario was to have a one-score game going into the final drive and GT has the ball.

Credit to Key and his staff for chewing the crap out of the clock and playing CPJ-style keep-away with long drives of bully ball. That annoys the piss out of every OC/play-caller in the country and was a classic trick CPJ and a the type of blue-collar football that is enjoyable to watch, grown-ass men imposing their will.

The hubris on the FSU side and even the national media also was a huge red flag to me. GT had their entire offense back with basically a couple of changes like Jordan Brown playing most of the LT snaps because he jumped the returning starter, especially with the run-heavy game plan and Big Red (Keylan Rutledge) replacing Connor Scagilione at RG which was an upgrade and Jackson Hawes as a very capable replacement for Dylan Leonard at TE. I knew that Chase Lane was an upgrade from Dom Blaylock as well who never impressed me as a WR, but was very good on PR.

Early games are weird and the first weeks of the season you are finding your team's identity and GT had a lot coming back to aid their transition there and the defensive expectations were so low that the bar was easy to clear with just competent run defense and some pass rush. The exceeded that greatly.

So that moves my thoughts to Ga State who will be playing their Super Bowl against the Jackets this week. I saw that Ben Moore dude already chirping after the game on X doing himself no favors trying to call this a trap game.

To me, this is a game where Georgia Tech needs to show they are entering that third phase of what Brent Key was talking about with good teams. First, you learn how not to lose (2022 after he took) and then you learn how to win some games (2023) and the next step is winning the games you are supposed to win and more. That is the jump you want to see.

We will find out on Saturday, but I can tell you I have not laughed harder about CFB in a long time than seeing pretty much everyone including UGA and Clemson fans being entertained by GT shutting down the problem child of the ACC Florida State after their complaining over the playoffs screwing them last year and then suing the ACC to get out.

They got what they deserved and if they aren't careful the GT game could mess them up on Monday night in Tally when they play the Notorious BOB and his BC Eagles in the Doak in front of what I would expect to be a lighter crowd than it would've been coming off a win over GT...

Here are a few of my favorites FSU jabs from this weekend on X



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Sad day for GT and especially a few mutual close friends. He was very helpful to GT over the years and was a good guy.

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Read the comments 🥴

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In 10 possession GT scored 4 TDs, missed a FG, had two 3 & outs, one 4 & out, one 5 & out, and one 7 & out. Of those 5 five fruitless drives, the 3 & out on the first series of the second half, that yielded 4 total yards, was most disappointing.

While the defense was getting sliced and diced for most if the game they only gave up 7 points in the second half. No doubt, the defense remains a huge liability, but the offense failed badly today. This team can't win consistently when the offense has five possessions that gain little to nothing and has a missed FG. Fair or not, if this is to be a bowl team the offense will have to be much more efficient to compensate for such a weak defense.

Calm the fvck down. That's it. Just breathe. Tomorrow is gonna happen and a life will go on. Good God, I now remember why I quit checking this site. This team is solid. One loss in week, "2" will not define them.

Noon Slate:

I am gonna be watching us run the ball on Cuse of course, but the other two games I'm watching will be Texas/Michigan and Arkansas/OK St. Say what you will about the tenets of B10 football, at least it's an ethos, I hope Michigan throttles Texas. I hope OK St beats Arkansas so bad that Petrino gets both his bike AND his mistress repossessed. I guess I may check in to Pitt/Cinci.

3:30 slate:

Iowa/Iowa St may be entertaining, especially since Iowa may have an offense now. I will probably watch that an California/Auburn.

Night games:

Virginia/Wake could be a good matchup, but I will be watching COlorado/Nebraska and Tenn/NCSt.


Any games or storylines I am missing?

Fire away

Tyreek Hill got arrested at the stadium. Lol