No one is 100 percent in football at this point in the season and a lot of credit goes to Zach Pyron for even playing in the game on Saturday. He played through a throwing shoulder injury for the last two weeks and then injured his clavicle on the run before the flea-flicker in the game and he is out for the rest of 2022 per sources. Going to your third quarterback is never going to be a good thing at almost any program and you guys actually saw Miami go through the exact same thing GT did with their star quarterback Tyler Van Dyke instead of Jeff Sims getting hurt, struggling coming back to play through it, the Canes turned to the wrong backup QB lost and then turned to the right one and got their offense going in Jacurri Brown. The Canes were fortunate that they did not have Geoff Collins coaching them early in the season so they actually won games they were supposed to win and have a shot at going bowling.
Sims is injured and has two different things going on with his foot per my sources. Could he play? Yes. Why didn't he go in? It was a personal choice, everyone there wanted him to play and he was medically cleared but he opted to not go in when Pyron was injured. There have been reports about what happened with his family and all that in some other threads. I was not there so I have nothing to offer on the subject other than the Sims family are great people and Jeff is a great young man. He would've been playing in pain to go in and with limited mobility per my sources. That is a tough situation for most people.
The want and drive to win is something you need at the quarterback position and the singular focus is something we all saw watching guys like Joe Hamilton or George Godsey or Josh Nesbitt or Justin Thomas or even less gifted players like Tevin Washington or TaQuon Marshall or Tobias Oliver in the past. Pyron has that and you can't coach that piece of it and it is exciting to see his future.
I think Sims will move along after graduating in the offseason. He did his part for GT football and people shouldn't give him grief if he feels like he can't play. You don't want him on the field if he is afraid or uncomfortable, that will lead to something bad happening IMO.
The downside of Pyron's first injury was his throwing was off and you could see that in all the swing passes and some of the things they tried to do that are harder throws for him. I think the cold weather wasn't helping that prior to his second injury and that was a killer in this game.
Miami like FSU with all due respect to my counterpart at CanesCounty has plenty of talent and they just were not playing well mainly because of issues at the QB spot this season. Like FSU, it was a worst-case scenario because they found something with their offense, got confidence early, GT didn't respond after an early score and the momentum when Miami's way just like FSU. The game was close though until Pyron went out so that needs to be something to remember going ahead.
My concern now watching the team is what happens the next two weeks and can GT avoid a repeat of the 2021 final two games when they got smoked by ND and UGA. This time they run into a juggernaut of an offense against UNC at night on the road without GT's two best QB options and then head to Athens in a complete mismatch against the team favored to win the Natty again (that sentence is as hard to write after years of covering GT as it is for you to read).
Unfortunately for Brent Key his odds of getting the head coach job are diminishing some with the results on the field, but there are still some other factors I'll get into later this coming week with the search that could help him. Key also has some blame in this as his OL's inability to run block has led to some of the issues as well including GT having to lean on Pyron running the ball so much. If Key had been the DL coach, I think there would be more support for him based on his performance getting the head job right now. Those are the breaks and some of it was out of his control as he followed Geoff Collins' instructions on building the OL room and Collins hired the S&C staff and pushed for portal guys as well. Some are just missing in recruiting on kids as the OL is the hardest part to pick and develop whether you are UGA, Bama or GT. Bama has similar OL problems as GT and that is Bama!
I would not be shocked to see some Taisun Phommachanh action this week against UNC or even Sims try to go at some point again. At this point, I would mind seeing Brody Rhodes if they cannot protect Zach Gibson and he doesn't value the football and have pocket awareness when he is in the game.
I'll go back to what I've said all along on Gibson, he is a backup QB. He is a guy who could come in and make a few throws and maybe win a game off the bench. I said that in the spring of 2022 and I think folks need to remember that. The mishandling of the QB recruiting was entirely on Geoff Collins and his former OC Dave Patenaude. They picked the guys, they screwed up a lot and they opted to not bring guys in who would push Jeff Sims like Emory Jones who wanted to transfer to GT from Florida or Davis Mills who wanted to come from Stanford when the Pac12 was waffling on playing a season in 2020 or several other guys and their inability early on to attract decent QB options other than hitting on SIms and Pyron out of the four possible cycles of QBs. That isn't Brent Key's fault either or Chip Long who was only here for the addition of Phommachanh who was an insurance policy take with a low risk (limited eligibility time remaining) and some upside.
