Having some friends who played football at GT under Paul Johnson, I hear often that they feel disappointed that fans, boosters and the current administration refer to them as lesser quality players or recruits. Basically if you didn’t make the NFL out of those years, you are not valued..
Have you heard of any efforts by the current administration to embrace the PJ players and welcome them back? I know there is legends of the flats day, but curious if other opportunities exist for those guys to get involved, be around, give back to the current players
KQ- I guess by current administration you are talking about coach Collins and his staff. I don't think ADTS or his people have commented publicly or done anything negative toward PJ-era guys. On the Collins front, it was a two-fold thing out of the gate. You had Collins trying to sell his vision and what would be a major changeover on the roster and also Collins looking at the roster and seeing some of the weird/odd reaches on the roster and being like why is this guy on scholarship and that sort of coloring things. There were quite a few reaches or guys signed who shouldn't have been in the last two or three cycles under CPJ that still had some good players but you also had some OL who were not even FBS players IMO and that undercut the roster and I think some of the comments were in response to that. Hell, I like most of those kids and if I was in Collins' shoes I would've been trying to get at least 10 guys to leave however I could because they didn't belong at an ACC school.
From what I've heard from the former players I know who were both successful and unsuccessful during the CPJ-era who have reached out to the current staff they are welcomed, appreciated and so forth. If anyone is having a specific issue, feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to talk to someone on their behalf.
COVID has also limited a lot of the ideas that coach Collins had to involve former players, hopefully there will be some things brewing when things get better eventually.
With the reference to triple option Tuesday made in order to get the team ready for KSU, has TO spent any reps under center replicating any of the feel for the scout team? I'd assume he'd be locked in at CB but didn't know if he'd help provide feel for this one occasion.
KQ- I can't really comment on what they are doing to prepare for the triple option in practice. I like being able to go to practice. That is an interesting idea, however he is also vying for a starting job so I'm not sure you'd pull him away to play QB for the scout team.
What would be your game plan with this roster against Clemson to give us the best chance at the upset?
KQ- Pray and slow it down and keep them in front of you on defense. I'd take a page out of Ted Roof's book and let them drive the field some but keep everything in front of you and then hope to disrupt things in the smaller red zone areas of the field and get aggressive there. Offensively I'd have a mixture of plays designed to keep the D off balanced, but also high-percentage passing and getting the RBs on the edge as much as possible. You aren't going to push them around inside.
What are the biggest keys between a 5 win season and a 7 win season (besides staying healthy?
KQ- Limit mistakes like penalties and turnovers that you can mostly control (everyone once in a while someone will make a great play on D and you live with that). The defense has to trust each other and tackle in the open field, I think that has been a huge issue with guys getting their eyes in the wrong spots and opening up lanes to get gashed with. Get Gibbs and the other RBs the ball in enough space to get a head of steam whether that is running straight ahead, screens or long handoffs or whatever.
This has probably been asked an insane number of times, so please forgive me. How do the pups manage to schedule a cupcake almost every year before playing GT? Seems like they would try before the gators or something similar.
KQ- The whole SEC generally has cupcakes games before Rivalry week except for those who played them in week one or two and what TV wanted for a few games. Here is a look at that week across the SEC
UGA v Charleston Southern (FCS)
TAMU v Prarie View (FCS)
LSU v LA-Monroe
UK vs New Mexico State
Miss State v Tennessee State (FCS)
Tenn v South Alabama
The only real games that week are the ones they needed for TV rights Ark v Bama, UF v Mizzou, Vandy v Ole Miss, AU v SC
Can either of you explain why factories with top 5 classes each year have a lack of depth and have to go to the portal or pry for no injuries. Examples Clemso…….n QB & O-line, uga DB, QB (almost every year).
They bring in talent but always seem to lack depth, is this something that is noticed by recruits?
KQ- How many times have the NY Jets had a top 10 pick in the draft? The answer is all but one season since 2003. They still suck even with professionals making those choices because evaluation is an inherently difficult process and the factors that go into a player being successful or not are harder to quantify.
Do you have any knowledge of any conference working to get out of their regional contract with Bally Sports. Since they bought fox sport etc.? they’ve priced themselves out of multiple contracts and are seem on very few platforms versus when these contracts were signed. Same goes for the NBA/MLB.
KQ- I do not, I'm not a big TV contracts breakdown guy. What do they still have these days? A few random ACC basketball games and the odd football game. They seem to have what Raycom lost only worse games.
Kelly, this is admittedly a nerdy question, but CGC recently piqued my 'inner-Ga-Tech-Industrial-Engineer. CGC was effusive the other day about how last Friday for the team meal at Maggiano's 85 Tech players plus others were in and out in 30 minutes! Lol, how exactly does this work? The Friday team meal take-out? Is it pre-ordered? Surely this can't be a 'sit down', order ala carte situation---or can it? How do team meals work at Tech?
KQ- No I believe this is a eat at the place thing I think. They also do takeout Maggianos as well, but the way he mentioned it made it sound like they went in the catering room and ate in 30 minutes. It would be already picked out food. They do the same thing for all the meals these days with COVID and really even in the past they get what they call supplemental meals so sometimes it is a box of BBQ or Outback Steakhouse or whatever. They are really dialed in on feeding people quickly and efficiently.
I think you mentioned before that there have been some under-the-radar players you noticed and might give a coach a heads-up to check the guy out.
Am I remembering that right?
Did any of those players get picked up by those teams?
Can you say who they were?
KQ- I can't on here, ask me if you ever meet me in person and I'll tell you. There have been quite a few funny stories regarding this, but they are not for public consumption.
Formatted question coming. I'm curious on how y'all think we compare to everyone else based off your best guesses/temperature of the program. Grade the position group starters 1-5. (QB, RB, WR, OT, OG/C, TE, DT, Edge, LB, CB/NB, S).
5 - NFL draft ready. Sky is the limit.
4 - on par with competitive bluebloods
3 - better than most P5 counterparts
2 - it's a P5 group but it's not necessarily better than most other P5's
1 - really green. Unknown
KQ-
QB 2
RB 4
WR 2
TE 2
OT 3
OG 3
C 2
DT 2
DE 3
LB 2
CB 3
S 4
NB 3
How do our catapult numbers compare to other programs best as you can tell?
KQ- There is like zero chance I'll research this and get you an answer. Maybe if someone put me in the room with the catapult guy I could help. I'm just not super interested in this topic, maybe someone else on the board will look it up, but no offense it just isn't a rabbit hole I'm going down.
KQ, I love your show.
Something I’m pretty nervous about bc kickoff is in one week and I have not arranged a backup plan…
Will Comcast carry ACCN and Bally Sports this fall?
I’ll hang up and listen.
-GTDGN04 in Woodstock
KQ- I appreciate your call and I would say you better get a spot on the patio at Taco Mac or Three Dollar Cafe because my guess is mid-September for ACCN. Comcast has Bally's Sports right now, I can watch Braves games on it unless something changed in the last few weeks.
What does your normal gameday schedule look like? Are they allowing any more access for gameday compared to last year or still somewhat restricted for you?
So typically I like to get into the stadium about 2 hours before kickoff. For a night game at home I'm probably going to order or cook up some wings and watch the noon slate and some of the afternoon games and then head down to BDS 4-4:30pm.
Once in the stadium I'm generally grabbing a drink and maybe some food and then watching warm ups for several things and going through my depth charts and checking for injuries with both teams and anything amiss.
During the game doing the social media thing and whatnot. After games this year we will be in-person so however that works logistically I'll do that and then I go back up to the box and I usually upload audio and some notes and then I book it home to work more and I'll write stuff. Typically a few close buddies will hit me up and we will text or chat about the game a little.
If there are recruits I'll ping RJ and see what is going on there.
On the road it is similar except I go to the hotel and usually get more work done because it is a hotel and there isn't much to do, I'll flip on the night game and watch it.
