Greetings everyone.
Alex Farrer starts tomorrow as our new recruiting writer/team writer and he will be handling a lot of what RJ did as well as quite a bit of old-fashioned stories like we used to do on here and I haven't had the bandwidth to handle of late. I'm looking forward to having him onboard and getting him fully up to speed over the coming weeks. He will be at home GT games with me as well and helping on that front as well as with some basketball and baseball stuff.
Alex will be with me at practice tomorrow so I can show him the ropes.
On to the stuff you came here for. I was planning to do a WAR ROOM this weekend, but I decided to punt that back until next weekend due to a flurry of media avails this week. We are doing something every day but Sunday this week and then the team will shift into a game week schedule with only a handful of media opportunities before they leave on August 21st for Ireland.
I'll get more into what's going on with the team in that WAR ROOM, but I can say I am impressed with the work AJ Artis and his staff have done with the team. It is interesting to me to see how well AJ and his guys are doing because they had some real S&C issues at USF when he was there, but clearly a lot of that was the head coach Jeff Scott and the lack of accountability in his program there. Alex Golesh has actually sorted all of that out. The S&C coach has a huge role, but the head coach sets the tone at most places and Key is very clear with everyone what the expectations are and makes sure his staff have the resources they need and the players are doing what they are supposed to be doing as well and it is cool to see how fit the team looks and how much guys have grown physically over the course of a full year plus eight months now under the program.
The new guys that Key brought in via the portal look like legit CFB players you would see anywhere whether it is J.J. van den Berg, Romello Height, Keylan Rutledge, Jackson Hawes, Jayden Davis or Zachary Tobe. It is funny the one guy who looks so different though is Thomas Gore who is just built like a fire hydrant and I can see why he has success playing inside on the DL as just a big down with a low center of gravity and a lot of power. There has been a considerable transformation of the team physically even with guys like Zach Pyron or Evan Dickens who are skill guys you wouldn't think about getting real cut that have put on good weight and look physically stronger and appear to be physically stronger when you watch them.
I'm still impressed with how organized Tyler Santucci and the defense looks out there and the amount of coaching that is going on there. It is light years different than what I saw in 2019 or 2020 at a practice. Every teachable moment is being taught in real time to kids and then Key has the staff reinforce those moments in the film room/classroom with the guys. It is the difference between someone being focused on the details and teaching and some before him just focusing on EVERYTHING but the main thing. Key wants to coach football, he wants to recruit good players and win football games. Those are his priorities and then guys getting their degree and his life outside of football are the others. He isn't talking to me about binge-watching a show on Netflix like other people who coached here.
I have no idea how the team will do and they are just one scrimmage into things, but I think the trajectory is in the right position and the arrow is pointing in the right direction fully for the first time since maybe 2014 for the whole program and even then it wasn't because the HC and leadership were not fully aligned like J Batt and Key are now.
I'm encouraged about the season and what everyone will see on the field.
Alex Farrer starts tomorrow as our new recruiting writer/team writer and he will be handling a lot of what RJ did as well as quite a bit of old-fashioned stories like we used to do on here and I haven't had the bandwidth to handle of late. I'm looking forward to having him onboard and getting him fully up to speed over the coming weeks. He will be at home GT games with me as well and helping on that front as well as with some basketball and baseball stuff.
Alex will be with me at practice tomorrow so I can show him the ropes.
On to the stuff you came here for. I was planning to do a WAR ROOM this weekend, but I decided to punt that back until next weekend due to a flurry of media avails this week. We are doing something every day but Sunday this week and then the team will shift into a game week schedule with only a handful of media opportunities before they leave on August 21st for Ireland.
I'll get more into what's going on with the team in that WAR ROOM, but I can say I am impressed with the work AJ Artis and his staff have done with the team. It is interesting to me to see how well AJ and his guys are doing because they had some real S&C issues at USF when he was there, but clearly a lot of that was the head coach Jeff Scott and the lack of accountability in his program there. Alex Golesh has actually sorted all of that out. The S&C coach has a huge role, but the head coach sets the tone at most places and Key is very clear with everyone what the expectations are and makes sure his staff have the resources they need and the players are doing what they are supposed to be doing as well and it is cool to see how fit the team looks and how much guys have grown physically over the course of a full year plus eight months now under the program.
The new guys that Key brought in via the portal look like legit CFB players you would see anywhere whether it is J.J. van den Berg, Romello Height, Keylan Rutledge, Jackson Hawes, Jayden Davis or Zachary Tobe. It is funny the one guy who looks so different though is Thomas Gore who is just built like a fire hydrant and I can see why he has success playing inside on the DL as just a big down with a low center of gravity and a lot of power. There has been a considerable transformation of the team physically even with guys like Zach Pyron or Evan Dickens who are skill guys you wouldn't think about getting real cut that have put on good weight and look physically stronger and appear to be physically stronger when you watch them.
I'm still impressed with how organized Tyler Santucci and the defense looks out there and the amount of coaching that is going on there. It is light years different than what I saw in 2019 or 2020 at a practice. Every teachable moment is being taught in real time to kids and then Key has the staff reinforce those moments in the film room/classroom with the guys. It is the difference between someone being focused on the details and teaching and some before him just focusing on EVERYTHING but the main thing. Key wants to coach football, he wants to recruit good players and win football games. Those are his priorities and then guys getting their degree and his life outside of football are the others. He isn't talking to me about binge-watching a show on Netflix like other people who coached here.
I have no idea how the team will do and they are just one scrimmage into things, but I think the trajectory is in the right position and the arrow is pointing in the right direction fully for the first time since maybe 2014 for the whole program and even then it wasn't because the HC and leadership were not fully aligned like J Batt and Key are now.
I'm encouraged about the season and what everyone will see on the field.
