ATLANTA- Georgia Tech football players had to rest quickly after a long Monday night game against Clemson. The Jackets returned to the practice field on Wednesday for a quick turnaround before Western Carolina returns to the Flats for the first time since 2011. Tech's head coach Geoff Collins played for the Catamounts from 1989 to 1992 and he played in this game twice for Western Carolina.
Tech will face off against WCU head coach Kerwin Bell who was the offensive coordinator for USF when the Jackets beat the Bulls in 2019 holding Bell's offense to just 10 points. The Catamounts scored 52 points and had 616 yards of total offense in their season-opening win over Charleston Southern. Collins said he was impressed with what he saw from Western Carolina's offense on tape.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect for their coaching staff and players," Collins said of WCU. "Once you see them play, they've got really good players across the board and we have a very big challenge in a short amount of time to get everything ready for to play at a high level on Saturday night."
Collins said they spent a lot of time today working on special teams, punt protections and also pre-snap penalties that killed them in the Clemson game. Today was the first time he got to meet with the team after the Clemson game because they had an NCAA-mandated day off yesterday. They put Clemson to bed and started working on WCU.
Collins was asked about having the 17 transfers plus freshmen playing some ball for the first time on Monday and he said that was a new experience for a lot of the players and the environment in the Benz was different than many experienced at other places so they learned a lot and he expects major improvements in week two after the first live action of the season. He said it was a great opportunity to play a great opponent in an amazing venue though.
Collins said the first blocked punt happened because they did not cutoff the backside and the Clemson player made a great play as well as he find his way through there. They spent a lot of time working on that today. The punt protector did not use proper technique and fundamentals.
Collins said they would like to get the run game established more this week and they like to start with the run game and coach Long and coach Key want to establish the run and be more physical on the LOS. He said coach Key spent a lot of time working on pre-snap things with his OL to avoid the drive-killing penalties.
I asked Collins about the PI on Zamari Walton that was the game-changing play where GT was down 14-10 with momentum, Clemson had two guys jump on their OL with no flag and Walton gets the PI. Then Charlie Thomas gets ejected a few plays later and that swung the game Clemson's way. Collins said they did send that play into the ACC office, but Walton also has to use his technique and fundamentals and not draw the flag there either. He said they also sent in Thomas' targeting play because he wants to know what he is suppose to teach guys relative to player safety and doing the right thing there because he thought Thomas did what he is suppose to do in a bang-bang play.
Collins said that he likes WCU's QB, OL, TE and their RBs and they have talent and speed and use a lot of formations so that will be challenging defensively.
I asked him about why decided against hiring a special teams coach during the last offseason, Collins said that was a fair question and he really wanted to add David Turner because he brings tremendous value to the defense and was someone he knew could really help the DL and the run game D. He said they added Chris Weinke as well because of the need for better development at the QB spot for guys like Jeff Sims and then they split the special teams duties between Mike Daniels and Jason Semore and he is heavily involved in that as well. He said they have to clean up the mistakes there. He did say he was really pleased with Gavin Stewart and his kickoffs and how that saves guys on kickoff coverage when they can get the touchback.
I also asked him about the weather that is supposed to be lousy on Saturday night and he said that they went outside as much as possible when it was raining and there was no lightning during fall camp and fall practices because he wanted them to have some experience dealing with the weather even though they have the indoor. He wanted to bank some reps in weather and they do have to adjust some things scheme-wise if it is raining on both sides of the ball and they will have that in the game plan.
OF NOTE:
Today was a really modified practice in Bobby Dodd Stadium in shells and they basically did part of a Tuesday and Wednesday practice smooshed together. They cut some of the periods and changed up what they normally do as well to adjust for the lost day due to the short week. The practice was also 30 minutes earlier than normal.
Our viewing period was very brief just special teams and indy periods today.
Tech will face off against WCU head coach Kerwin Bell who was the offensive coordinator for USF when the Jackets beat the Bulls in 2019 holding Bell's offense to just 10 points. The Catamounts scored 52 points and had 616 yards of total offense in their season-opening win over Charleston Southern. Collins said he was impressed with what he saw from Western Carolina's offense on tape.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect for their coaching staff and players," Collins said of WCU. "Once you see them play, they've got really good players across the board and we have a very big challenge in a short amount of time to get everything ready for to play at a high level on Saturday night."
Collins said they spent a lot of time today working on special teams, punt protections and also pre-snap penalties that killed them in the Clemson game. Today was the first time he got to meet with the team after the Clemson game because they had an NCAA-mandated day off yesterday. They put Clemson to bed and started working on WCU.
Collins was asked about having the 17 transfers plus freshmen playing some ball for the first time on Monday and he said that was a new experience for a lot of the players and the environment in the Benz was different than many experienced at other places so they learned a lot and he expects major improvements in week two after the first live action of the season. He said it was a great opportunity to play a great opponent in an amazing venue though.
Collins said the first blocked punt happened because they did not cutoff the backside and the Clemson player made a great play as well as he find his way through there. They spent a lot of time working on that today. The punt protector did not use proper technique and fundamentals.
Collins said they would like to get the run game established more this week and they like to start with the run game and coach Long and coach Key want to establish the run and be more physical on the LOS. He said coach Key spent a lot of time working on pre-snap things with his OL to avoid the drive-killing penalties.
I asked Collins about the PI on Zamari Walton that was the game-changing play where GT was down 14-10 with momentum, Clemson had two guys jump on their OL with no flag and Walton gets the PI. Then Charlie Thomas gets ejected a few plays later and that swung the game Clemson's way. Collins said they did send that play into the ACC office, but Walton also has to use his technique and fundamentals and not draw the flag there either. He said they also sent in Thomas' targeting play because he wants to know what he is suppose to teach guys relative to player safety and doing the right thing there because he thought Thomas did what he is suppose to do in a bang-bang play.
Collins said that he likes WCU's QB, OL, TE and their RBs and they have talent and speed and use a lot of formations so that will be challenging defensively.
I asked him about why decided against hiring a special teams coach during the last offseason, Collins said that was a fair question and he really wanted to add David Turner because he brings tremendous value to the defense and was someone he knew could really help the DL and the run game D. He said they added Chris Weinke as well because of the need for better development at the QB spot for guys like Jeff Sims and then they split the special teams duties between Mike Daniels and Jason Semore and he is heavily involved in that as well. He said they have to clean up the mistakes there. He did say he was really pleased with Gavin Stewart and his kickoffs and how that saves guys on kickoff coverage when they can get the touchback.
I also asked him about the weather that is supposed to be lousy on Saturday night and he said that they went outside as much as possible when it was raining and there was no lightning during fall camp and fall practices because he wanted them to have some experience dealing with the weather even though they have the indoor. He wanted to bank some reps in weather and they do have to adjust some things scheme-wise if it is raining on both sides of the ball and they will have that in the game plan.
OF NOTE:
Today was a really modified practice in Bobby Dodd Stadium in shells and they basically did part of a Tuesday and Wednesday practice smooshed together. They cut some of the periods and changed up what they normally do as well to adjust for the lost day due to the short week. The practice was also 30 minutes earlier than normal.
Our viewing period was very brief just special teams and indy periods today.
