Taking schedule and injuries out of the picture and looking just at talent, depth, and cohesiveness - how much better is this year’s team compared to last year? It seems as if we’re destined for a similar record as last year.
KQ- It is significantly better and you've seen that week-to-week. In the previous four games before Miami, they got decimated with key injuries and were competitive in each game and won several. They beat Miami with a QB who couldn't throw downfield playing 2/3s of the snaps and two RBs who were not in the rotation most of the season forced into action for the entire second half in Trey Cooley and Anthony Carrie plus you were down your best CB and your nickel against the best passing offense in the country.
They had a hard schedule, GT also screwed up early as the defense was struggling and they had some very bad mistakes in the Louisville game and the Cuse games. They could easily have two more wins but could also have more losses too. That shows how the team has grown IMO year over year.
Who did the Georgia tech rival site before you started and was it a difficult decision being a UGA graduate to start covering Georgia Tech?
KQ- I've answered this question a lot of times on here. First off, our UCF pub Brandon Helwig owned the site before I eventually got ownership of it, long story that isn't that interesting. I ended up owning the site a few months after taking over as the primary reporter. We had a handful of posts a day and very little content. Brandon was based in Orlando and did the best he could but even Rivals leadership at the time thought the site was a waste of resources.
I disagreed and thought there was a big enough fan base that I could come in and shake up the market especially seeing the players in the market and what was going on. History proved me correct on that.
As far as the UGA thing, yeah I went to UGA because it was free. My parents didn't have much money. I grew up in a very small house and later an apartment with a single mom after I was 8. I wanted to go to Boston University. It was at the time $25k for tuition and room and board. We couldn't afford that and I didn't want to be in student loan debt forever. I also had a chance to go to Penn, but it was a similar deal. I wanted to go to a J-school and I had two options, UGA which was in my hometown (my mom worked for UGA and was in charge of the reference dept at the library) or Georgia State. That was a pretty easy call because UGA had one of the top journalism programs in the country.
My mom disliked the UGA football program as she thought it was a waste of resources and took away from academia (funny given some of the discussions on here about that and GT). So we never went to a football game growing up. I went to one UGA spring game when I was a kid because Vince Dooley let the local YMCA pee-wee football teams come play at halftime of the spring game and I went to a UGA-Auburn game with my older brother when I was in high school. That was it until I started college.
When I was in school I started covering UGA football for radio and then online stuff, but once I got to know the people and worked in the sausage factory I didn't have much of a taste for sausage if that makes sense.
Covering GT my relationships run a lot deeper both with people on here and the people who work at the school and I sought out a different vibe and experience. I wanted to live in Atlanta and get out of going to a media avail with 14 beat writers and like 30 cameras and that is what UGA was turning into. I didn't like that and I like the more laid back thing we have going here. It suits me.
What made it difficult was the financial component of it and being a solo shop for many years and really leaning on some amazing GT people who helped me bridge the gap for the first three years financially to make it get off the ground and become viable as a full-time endeavor and I'll be forever in their debt for that along with everyone who has helped build this up and continues to support the site in various ways.
Whatever happened with Tobi Haastrup? From what I remember, the kid really values academics and he has done visits to BC and Vandy (among others). Seems like a good kid and is a WDE, which I think we need. Surprised I haven't heard more about him and GT. He's a 5.9 so I can't imagine we wouldn't want him.
KQ- He just OV'd to FSU and Vandy and is likely going to Oregon next. I think they are focused on other guys and that would be someone like Chase Linton.
Basketball had about as bad of a disappointing performance against North Florida than I’ve seen in quite some time. Not going to overreact, but did this loss bring up any red flags for you that weren’t there before?
KQ- Not really, I watch a good bit of CBB and see stuff like that all the time. North Florida beat South Carolina and got their sealegs going and will win their league if they stay healthy and be a pesky 13 seed. You lost to a NCAAT team. Forget that it is North Florida, that shit doesn't matter in CBB the way that people think it does. They played like shit and still had some chances to get back in the game, but missed a couple of key buckets when they got it down to single-digits or around 10 points and couldn't get it lower. This is a team that is still learning how to play together. It takes a few games. They had no clue at the time that contract was signed that North Florida would be that good either.
Do you expect King to be able to throw the ball further down the field this season or do you anticipate his injury hampering him the rest of the year?
KQ- I've explained this a few different ways, but the easiest way that most people who played any sport could understand is how you feel when you sprain your ankle. It takes time to heal and it feels bad when you try to run on it (aka throwing the ball). The more rest he gets the better it will feel and eventually it will feel much better, but that takes time. It could feel much better for NC State or worse. That is something we won't know much about going into the game in two weeks IMO.
Biggest learning opportunity the basketball team can take from the loss? Also thought Damon was working on improving defense with multiple defensive looks…what happened to that? Conditioning didn’t look great
KQ- I thought they looked tired and disinterested on defense. Luke O'Brien called out the guys for it after the game. Losing Jaeden Mustaf hurt because he is one of their stoppers and Damon could've used him to help some of the issues on D IMO. So that hurt as well.
