What will next month look like for our players? player driven workouts? QBs and WRs/RBs getting together? Will the whole team get together (with out coaches)?
KQ- Not sure what you are asking. Are you asking if the team gets allowed back on campus what happens? Are you asking what are the kids doing on their own? School is closed so they will not be on campus unless everyone green lights it like I've laid out before. If that happens it would initially be S&C work and not practicing for football. Hoops would be allowed to have individual workouts I believe in that circumstances.
Would you consider reaching out to Quincy Avery to get an honest review on Jordan Yates and his abilities? We’ve learned a lot about JY over the last year, but I’m curious as to how his athleticism and intelligence matches up against some of the other elite QB’s being mentored by Avery.
KQ- You think his QB coach will be the honest reviewer of his abilities? I've got a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn for sale if you are interested as well. Those position coach guys are not going to be who you would get something like that from. It is hard to get that from a HS coach. At best you might get what he has worked on and improved on, but that will still be pretty jaded. If it was a lineman or another position it would be more workable. QB coach dudes are interesting cats...
Given the situation of the pandemic putting the best possible scenario at games with fans social distancing (Ohio State only plans to have 20% max fan capacity), will there be a restructuring or a delay of the 5 year Mayhem @ Mercedes Benz Stadium deal whose whole point was to bring in more ticket revenue and national attention that was supposed to start this year? The AD went into debt over this leasing deal and with the current situation I don’t see a way we will even break even. If this happens will the ND game be moved to The Dodd or will we just find someone else to play this year?
KQ- You should be more worried about there being games period with fans or games at all. No one knows what is going to happen. How did the AD go into debt over the Benz deal? It is the exact opposite of that actually.
If there are students back on campus with SA’s, do you think SA’s will be isolated (all online, no in person classes for SA’s & only a specific dining hall) to prevent from any infections breaking out & games/practices/team events getting cancelled? One positive test I assume means the SA is out for a minimum of 2-3 weeks.
KQ- Again that is a far off deal, it would be impossible to isolate them and act exactly opposite of the reasoning behind opening the school. This is COLLEGE FOOTBALL not the NFL. They have to go to school like the rest. Giving them online only is an advantage and not much different than what UNC did or others did manipulating classes if they can't do the same as everyone.
Any updates on Edge Rice since last week?
KQ- On indefinite hold right now. I expect many of the financial commitments are being pushed back due to lost income from donors and GT is in survival mode right now. The economics of the GTAA are very different May 25th than they were March 1st or Jan 1st. Any major capital project like that won't happen anytime soon from what I'm hearing from my sources. So it is delayed like everything else.
Would the athletic department consider blocking off seating and only making x amount of tickets available for fans?
KQ- Certainly has been discussed on some levels. Here is the thing anything you can think of in regards to that has been discussed but freezing out tickets 100 days from kickoff is not wise given how much things can change between now and Sept 5th.
What the longest time you've had to wait to publish a recruit's commitment story?
RJ- Another one was three weeks, and another was two weeks, on one that I had to sit on quotes and everything from after deciding not to commit on both Christmas and New Year’s Eve AND Day.
On the flip side, there have been two times where I have been forced to publish a story before a recruit has gone public with his decision. On both occasions, another website “beat” me to the story by leaking it ahead of time. Those were two very hard times to hit publish ahead of time.
Five or six weeks? It was for Jonathan Mingo’s commitment, a WR from Mississippi.
KQ- I sat on a commit that never actually went public once. That was Nick Marshall committing to Georgia Tech in 2010. I was in Las Vegas with my newborn son (he was adopted at birth in Las Vegas with my first wife) and was stuck out there. His HS coach would not put him on the phone with me and at that time I had no additional staff to go down to Rochelle and track him down. My GT sources were going nuts because they knew something was afoot to flip him to UGA. His family was broke and didn't have a phone so I couldn't get a hold of anyone. A few days after I got back from Vegas in June he "flipped" to UGA but I caught grief because they denied they had committed to GT. Charles Kelly is still pissed to this day over what happened.
When comparing between similar recruits, does the staff focus on the recruit whose coaching staff could be in trouble at the end of the year. Or does the recruit's coaching staff's job security not factor into our recruitment strategy? Damn you odd-year Gus (Tate Johnson, Wesley Steiner, Desmond Tisdol, Kobe Hudson, etc)
RJ- I am assuming you are referring to a potential flip, and evaluating their situations? They absolutely look at the big picture when it comes to that kind of thing. They’re not going to push as hard for someone committed to Clemson as they are South Carolina, for example.
Seeing that story about Jaylend Ratliffe got me thinking about all of the "what ifs". It seems as though our program, in particular, has had horrible luck with impact players (or potential impact players) having their careers (or lives) cut short. Then there's the Stephon Tuitt thing, which could have been a program-changing statement for recruiting.
Here are just a few I can think of chronologically (and I'm not counting JC Lanier or Omoregie Uzzi who were just shells of their former selves when they graduated)...Stephon Tuitt, Julian Burnett, Denzel McCoy, Chase Roberts, Travis Custis, Chris Griffin, Jaylend Ratliffe, Dedrick Mills, AJ Gray, Brandon Adams, Bryce Gowdy
I know other schools have kids with high-profile flips, injuries, medicals, academic/rules violators, and even off-the-field tragedies. Are we any different than other schools, or does this seem worse because of our margin for error versus other programs?
KQ- To be honest it is not that unusual, the Adams and Gowdy things back to back in less than 10 months it not something I've ever dealt with but I've seen all kinds of chronic injuries knock out guys or academics like Custis or off the court injuries like Chris Griffin or Ratliffe. You forgot some other good busts like Jordan Woods the 4-star DE from Florida who never played a down or other busts like Steven Threet or DJ Donley or Jamaal Evans. GT has a disproportionate number of 4-star guys who've busted, but the other guys like Burnett or Roberts are pretty common. I've seen plenty of injuries both off and on the field. I remember covering UGA one year where they had two OLs who were in the two-deep medical out because of injuries lifting weights that blew out their shoulders permanently.
I know this may not be something you’re comfortable with and if not, no worries. But any way we can get a break down from the CGC era QB recruits (from Yates to assuming Peery at this point) as to who beat fits our new offensive system and who, from their high school tape, looks most poised to take us to the next level offensively?
KQ- I think it is hard to tell because Patenaude has altered his offense at every stop to the QB he had up until last year really. I think he may have been flummoxed by the fact that each QB had a totally different skillset and really only two Lucas Johnson and Jordan Yates actually fit what he was trying to do and both of them were not ready or in the first case able to compete at a high level. I think it is premature to break it down much. I saw Tucker Gleason in five practices and Jeff Sims in six basically learning the offense. I have not watched a ton of Peery film yet. I've seen Yates and Graham play well in what he is trying to run.
