Thanks to our sponsor Inteleca for helping bring back Q's Take my weekly look at things around GT and college sports from my vantage.
We are currently in the weird time just before OV season and camp season get into full swing and while spring football evaluations are going on. This is always a strange time of year and may be one of the few decompression points for those of us who cover college football and basketball. The portal closed without much drama for Georgia Tech.
On Miles Kelly's probably departure, he would be taking a pay cut and a reduced role to stay. It seemed like it wasn't working so I can understand why he would want to explore his options. Playing pro ball at this point is a bit of a pipe dream so he needs to go be the 4th guy somewhere. Maybe he can land at Arkansas or UK or something like that, but I'm unsure of what his market looks like. It sounds like the door isn't completely closed on him coming back either, but as I've said I would be very surprised if that happened at this point and they have his position pretty well covered between the new additions like Javian McCollum who can play the 1 or the 2, Lance Terry coming back who can also play both spots and guys like Luke O'Brien who they just added who can play 2-4 on the court and Kowacie Reeves who can also play 2-4 and the newcomer Jaeden Mustaf. Mustaf is probably the guy who benefits the most from Miles leaving.
Overall, GT Hoops lost 6 players assuming Baye Ndongo withdraws from the draft which is what I've been told to expect and the Jackets added six players with two spots left to fill or not fill via the portal. They are still looking for a big and a possible additional piece elsewhere with the final spots, but they are getting outbid on most big men so far. The market is truly nuts for even unproven guys like Sean Stewart from Duke who the staff felt good about at one point. Damon is being picky with his final spots because of team chemistry and fit.
On the football side, Brent Key avoided any surprise Akelo Stone-type departures. It was mostly guys either third-string or worse or guys who are grad transferring out to hopefully get a chance to start or pla real snaps elsewhere like Khari Gee. Out of all the guys who left since December/January, Kyle Kennard was the biggest loss and they replaced him with Romello Height who has essentially had pretty much the same production at the same spot. I think they upgraded from Kenan Johnson with Warren Burrell from what I've seen and heard both on and off the field at CB and really the only other starter-type guy who left was KJ Wallace who was very hot and cold at the nickel spot and who I liked but never really was a major playmaker there. That is probably the biggest upcoming position battle of fall camp. Losing D'Quan Douse also hurt, but that guy did his full four years of playing ball at GT so I look at that as time served for him and he has his degree as well. I look at Douse and Wallace leaving as normal CFB business now if they finished school up. Good for them to have a different experience because neither are likely NFL prospects IMO.
Key has done a really solid job of filling out his roster and adding experienced pieces and a few younger prospects to backfill some recruiting misses and the transfers out.
This summer both football and hoops will have summer camps in June and lots of prospects on campus and JOL will be all over that action. I think both are in good hands at the moment and it is an exciting time for GT sports in the two money makers.
We are currently in the weird time just before OV season and camp season get into full swing and while spring football evaluations are going on. This is always a strange time of year and may be one of the few decompression points for those of us who cover college football and basketball. The portal closed without much drama for Georgia Tech.
On Miles Kelly's probably departure, he would be taking a pay cut and a reduced role to stay. It seemed like it wasn't working so I can understand why he would want to explore his options. Playing pro ball at this point is a bit of a pipe dream so he needs to go be the 4th guy somewhere. Maybe he can land at Arkansas or UK or something like that, but I'm unsure of what his market looks like. It sounds like the door isn't completely closed on him coming back either, but as I've said I would be very surprised if that happened at this point and they have his position pretty well covered between the new additions like Javian McCollum who can play the 1 or the 2, Lance Terry coming back who can also play both spots and guys like Luke O'Brien who they just added who can play 2-4 on the court and Kowacie Reeves who can also play 2-4 and the newcomer Jaeden Mustaf. Mustaf is probably the guy who benefits the most from Miles leaving.
Overall, GT Hoops lost 6 players assuming Baye Ndongo withdraws from the draft which is what I've been told to expect and the Jackets added six players with two spots left to fill or not fill via the portal. They are still looking for a big and a possible additional piece elsewhere with the final spots, but they are getting outbid on most big men so far. The market is truly nuts for even unproven guys like Sean Stewart from Duke who the staff felt good about at one point. Damon is being picky with his final spots because of team chemistry and fit.
On the football side, Brent Key avoided any surprise Akelo Stone-type departures. It was mostly guys either third-string or worse or guys who are grad transferring out to hopefully get a chance to start or pla real snaps elsewhere like Khari Gee. Out of all the guys who left since December/January, Kyle Kennard was the biggest loss and they replaced him with Romello Height who has essentially had pretty much the same production at the same spot. I think they upgraded from Kenan Johnson with Warren Burrell from what I've seen and heard both on and off the field at CB and really the only other starter-type guy who left was KJ Wallace who was very hot and cold at the nickel spot and who I liked but never really was a major playmaker there. That is probably the biggest upcoming position battle of fall camp. Losing D'Quan Douse also hurt, but that guy did his full four years of playing ball at GT so I look at that as time served for him and he has his degree as well. I look at Douse and Wallace leaving as normal CFB business now if they finished school up. Good for them to have a different experience because neither are likely NFL prospects IMO.
Key has done a really solid job of filling out his roster and adding experienced pieces and a few younger prospects to backfill some recruiting misses and the transfers out.
This summer both football and hoops will have summer camps in June and lots of prospects on campus and JOL will be all over that action. I think both are in good hands at the moment and it is an exciting time for GT sports in the two money makers.
