any idea who the captains will be this fall or is that something we will learn later?
KQ- They vote on captains during the season and several of the older players each take turns being captains for games throughout the season and then they vote on it. There is a team leadership council that Key put together that does sort of the captain/leadership piece throughout the year and a bunch of players are on that and in the past some underclassmen have been on that. I'm not sure who is on leadership at the moment.
what group do you think has improved the most since last year
KQ- Probably the linebacker room. It is night and day from last year where a guy like Jackson Hamilton who had to play significant snaps last year will probably have a harder time scratching out game playing time. Tah'j Butler has really come on as has EJ Lightsey and they added two really talented guys in Melvin Jordan and Cayman Spaulding to that room.
How many bonafide starters will we land in the portal this weekend?
(Ducks!)
KQ- It is so funny to see how some fanbases are trashing what they currently have and want all these high profile guys who aren't really even in the portal to come to their school. The spring portal is about filling out depth and you maybe find one piece. In GT's case they are looking for a RT and some depth at DT and some secondary pieces. They got a couple of decent secondary pieces in the fold now so they can focus a lot more on RT/older OL depth and DT depth. Key is trying to build up a program by keeping the pieces that work and then filling in around those. It is not massive overhauls every time the portal opens up.
What would the baseball team have to do in order to get a regional?
KQ- Being in the top 16 would secure it because Atlanta is an easy location and there are 16 bids to host. If all things are equal and GT is right around that range they will probably host just due to location and ease of travel.
How does CDS appear to you as reacting, handling & responding to the craziness of the portal & NIL this off-season?
KQ- I haven't seen Damon since the loss to Duke. I've texted with him a couple of times but it is not like we are boys hanging out and smoking cigars. He is busy trying to recruit. He seems to be very busy trying to put together a team. None of this is a surprise to him, by the way. He knows how this stuff works and has been very clear since he got here about how the door swings both ways with the portal and money.
Apologies if missed in another basketball thread but are there any serious recruits remaining from an international standpoint? Hard to tell what’s real or not on twitter
KQ- I haven't seen much on this. Like you said the international recruiting piece is kind of weird. That is how you have Ibrahim Souare or Ibrahima Sacko just randomly pop up in like June and they are on campus two months later. Those type of kids are pretty much impossible to track because if you are Stoudamire you are going to keep it as quiet as you can and many of them just don't have easy ways for media to contact or track them either.
With UT being announced for 26 I think everyone’s expectation is for it to be at MBS. Is J Batt doing some 3D chess work in the background to lock in another strong guarantee by telling them the MBS game will be CU or someone else?
KQ- I have explained this a few times, but this is a huge financial win for Georgia Tech. The Colorado game was going to be in the Benz as they still owed them a game and GT was going to play a road game at Georgia State. Instead of that, you will get Colorado in Bobby Dodd Stadium so an additional home game and then a huge gate on Tennessee in the Benz which will be much bigger than Colorado (no offense to the Buffs fans). Maybe we will get to see Ralphie run on to the field at BDS as well. I met the Buffalo many years ago when they played at UGA. For J Batt this is likely a swing of 7-10 million dollars in GT's favor for the cost of $1 million and fans get another home game in BDS they wouldn't have had especially in a year with a weak home schedule with BC, Duke, Louisville, Wake and Mercer as the other home games.
What typically happens in these NIL deals when a star player say blows out a knees the first week of fall camp?
Since they aren’t an employment contract like the pros, are the schools obligated to pay? Is there maybe some type of renegotiation?
KQ- It depends on the school and the collective and the "contract" language signed. I've heard of kids not getting paid and in most cases they've still gotten paid. Supposedly, you cannot put in performance-based language in these deals so they should technically have to live up to the deal even if say it was a deal like Leo Blackburn had, where he blew out his knee in fall camp. If the Tech Way had a deal with Leo they'd still have to pay him unless he was no longer on the team or got medical'd or something.
What players are Key and staff sandbagging on by not talking about them or “injured” during the spring game. If you can’t name them, can you name the position group?
KQ- Ask me this next week after the portal closes. There are staff from other schools whose job it is to skim boards like these and others looking for stuff like that. People think I'm sounding paranoid when I say this but I know people who had that job at other schools. Hell at UGA there were two people assigned to just read message boards all day when I covered them back in 2005-06 and that was just in house checking!
Compare and contrast what you've seen thus far between Gideon and Santucci on the practice field.
KQ- Santucci was kind of like a mini-Key. He was quick to jump on guys to fix anything he saw wrong even during 11-on-11. Gideon is more of an observer at times and watching the whole thing. He is a little more of a high-energy guy as well. The kids like him. Santucci was a little more intense, would be the way I would describe it. Gideon is very locked in, but he seems more calm if that makes sense.
I have tried to research this w/o boring you with NIL questions regarding the pending “settlement” being ironed out in court but the articles I have found create more questions for me than answers. Do you (or anyone reading this) have a good link to a comprehensive article on the subject?
The “ cap” that is being discussed- is that per school or per player or for all of College football? Will all rostered players in the future be scholarshipped ( I.e. no more walk-ons)?
KQ- So a couple of things. One is the cap is for any school and they can give up to that amount or less. On top of that schools like GT or Bama or UGA will still have their own side NIL projects like the TechWay that will still give out money as well. That is the dark secret in all of this that everyone hasn't picked up on. That is why you are seeing some insane stuff going on with the college basketball portal right now. Some schools could be in the $40 million+ range all in between NIL and rev share.
The NCAA and schools are going to pay back money to SAs from 2016-2024 in damages and then the schools are allowed to spend up to $20.5 in revenue shares with SAs. On top of that SAs can still earn NIL.
It seems like every basketball player in the transfer portal that visits Tech ends up committing somewhere else (except Craft). I believe you said we are in reasonably good shape with available NIL funds. Can you explain the lack of portal commitments? Does Damon have any new transfer portal players on his radar? Is GTMBB taking a step back?
KQ- Those are a lot of questions. GT has a budget, much of it has been allocated on Baye Ndongo and the freshmen coming in and whatever other returning players there are. Like last year, Stoudamire had specific areas he wanted to spend on. He has been outbid on a few kids and in some cases, he punted on guys where the price tag didn't make sense because it would negatively impact his ability to put the rest of the team together (like Nait George and Duncan Powell both getting overpaid). The point guard thing is the main issue at the moment, just because there are no point guards this cycle. That is why Nait George got probably 2x what he was worth, and guys like Eliot Caudeau (Michigan) or the Hargress (Colorado) kid who just visited are also getting overpaid. There is a fun catch to all of this and that would be if the NCAA grants the five-for-five thing. Then that puts a bunch of guys back on the market who are in the portal right now waiting to see if they can get another year.
I'm also curious where GT stands with NIL with men's basketball and what the rev share will look like as well. I know where football is at and have a rough idea of how the rev share will work there as well (no I'm not going to go into details on that on here because I was told in confidence) but with hoops it is very vague.
