So I assume Baye is staying at this point and that the signees are all still coming. I’ve seen reports that Sylla has signed not no confirmation. What do we think we know about the basketball roster right now?
KQ- They are still missing a piece or two, namely an experienced point guard to help bring along Eric Chatfield and the new commit Remagen and Mustaf. From there it is just possible pieces they can add. I know they are going to lean on Baye and Sylla a lot as well. Adding Craft helps a lot with the shooting and with Kowacie expected back that kind of counteracts his defensive limitations. They should be decent, I think a lot will ride on how the pieces fit together though.
What do teams from low Altitudes prepare to play teams in high altitudes like Colorado? I know it’s a long way away, but still
KQ- Generally, you are going to max out your roughest weather practices where it is hot as hell. They'll have oxygen on the sidelines, which they typically would have anyway, and they'll roll the bigger players more than in a normal early season game IMO.
Who’s been the most impactful spring portal addition so far? Which departure hurts the most? What do we still need to add?
KQ- They did not lose a single player that they wanted to keep to the spring portal. It was an amazing job by Brent Key and his staff to keep it together and a credit to some of the young men as you saw that story on CP Lee who saw through some agent bullshit. I was talking to USF's coach privately on Saturday and he had a bunch of stories like that and they lost a key DL guy to be a backup at LSU and a CB who is probably going to Miami and both are just depth pieces and USF has decent money comparable to a lower tier ACC school but still got poached. GT did not because Key was really proactive and got the money raised that they needed to hold serve.
As far as additions, Akelo Stone and Malachi Carney are the two most important pieces because they fill the two major needs, a rotational DT and an expected starting right tackle.
The main thing they need to add is a long snapper right now.
With the summer workouts do players have to set up sessions by themselves to work together or do coaches set a schedule? I am referring to different groups such as when QBs and receivers get together to run routes and practice throws
KQ- This has changed in recent years and they now have controlled OTAs to do a lot of that stuff though they cannot actually have formal practices with a ball. Do they still throw 7v7, yeah that would be on Haynes King, Aaron Philo and Graham Knowles to set up and they typically use the indoor for that.
Here is a story on how that works.
Why the idea of bringing OTAs to college football is a complicated one
There's a scene in the movie Argo where the CIA's braintrust sits around debating options of how to covertly extract a group of American foreign service workers secretly holed up a
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- I'll get more into this later in the week with a WAR ROOM. But the WR is stacked and they had some guys just sit out with the most minor of nicks and brusies in the spring game like Dean Patterson and Malik Rutherford. The big name I keep hearing about this spring though, is E.J. Lightsey. The
came on. It will be interesting to see how they roll the LBs this year because they are now five-deep six if you count Jackson Hamilton at that position for the first time since probably Tenuta era.What’s the deal with Sylla. Has he signed or not.
KQ- He doesn't have to sign for one and two the school has not announced it so I do not believe he has signed though I know one of the three networks is listing him as signed.
Most surprising (in a good way) thing you’ve covered here that you thought was going to be bad? Why did it succeed?
KQ- Probably Key's first game as interim head coach. They were going on the road to play Pitt and I thought they'd keep Geoff around to get through that game and then fire GC3 either before Duke or after the bye following Duke. That was a ranked Pitt team that was pretty decent at home at night. They dropped multiple interceptions in the game that Jeff Sims threw and it was just completely improbable that they won that game.
Also the wins up at VT with the backup QBs also are up there.
Most surprising (in a bad way) thing that you’ve covered here that you thought was going to be good? Why did it fail?
KQ- The entire GC3 era. I thought he would be dead ass average like he basically was at Temple where the team was kind of up and down. Instead they were much worse than that and I knew things were completely ****ed when I watched that Citadel game play out. It was everything that was wrong with his program encapsulated.
I remember CPJ texting me after that one and asking me if GC3 knew he didn't get draft picks for tanking!
It failed because of ego, namely Collins and a bad series of staff hires as well. He micromanaged himself into unemployment. The dude cared about way too many things that you should be focusing on when you have the program rolling like in-season having meetings over musical cues played on the jumbotron or whatever. He also made everything about himself with the team and he wasn't Nick Saban or some super successful coach so he'd tell them I never had a team do this or that, it rang hollow with the players.
Nice guy, seemed like he was in way over his head.
1 being Sasquatch State, 5 being the Birmingham Bowl, and 10 being Georgia - how good of shape is GT Football in financially for ‘25-‘26?
KQ- They are in pretty good shape. Key has been extremely proactive from the jump in raising what he needed to compete at this level on top of what GT was doing behind the scenes and he would help close as needed. That is why you are seeing very different outcomes between football and men's basketball this offseason.
1 being Sasquatch State, 5 being the NIT, and 10 being Duke - how good of shape is GT Mens BB in financially for ‘25-‘26?
KQ- No one really can give me a straight answer on this. J Batt isn't in a situation where he can just pour resources into hoops to compete financially with Duke or NC State or UNC or Louisville. The numbers just don't make sense and football is the bell cow and they are on the path there and making progress. The basketball arena has too many empty seats to justify going further into debt to spend the money they need to there IMO. They are not at the bottom of the league but there is a big gap between the top four or five programs and the rest of the ACC and GT is in the rest of category at the moment.
After this week's transfers, do we now have the RT and DT that we need?
KQ- Yeah I think so, you have competition as well which is just as important. If you just have one RT you are screwed the moment that guy gets rolled up. This whole spring portal cycle was about adding depth for GT more than anything else.
I thought there would be more portal and roster questions for you this week. But since there are not, I'll ask a guitar question. Do you own a classical guitar? or just nylon string?
KQ- I did for many years, have an Ibanez classical guitar, but I hate having long fingernails and just didn't play it much, and it was a victim of broke divorced dad syndrome circa 2013-14. I started out playing classical music on the double bass when I was seven or eight years old.
Were there any major re-negotiations this week due to the portal/impending offers?
KQ- I'd have to check around on that and make sure the parities involved were cool, but Tennessee made a pass at King and many other players less famous than King had similar passes made at them both in the winter and last week.
