Tech’s first day report, more on McCoy
The Yellow Jackets' efforts to protect the ball began on the first day. JOHNNY CRAWFORD/jcrawford@ajc.com
Greetings-
I think most everything I learned Wednesday went into my notebook, starting with defensive lineman Denzel McCoy’s career apparently ending due to an undisclosed medical condition.
He had a chance to be a good one. He turned down offers from Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, Notre Dame, Penn State and Stanford, among many others, to play for Tech. It’s unfortunate, obviously, but I think he’ll be fine. We had a brief Twitter conversation in which he said as much, and from what I was told about McCoy, he has a great attitude and is a good kid. His best days are ahead of him.
“He came here to get a degree and he’s hopefully going to do that,” coach Paul Johnson said. “He’s got his whole life to live. He’s going to live a normal life, it’s just not in the cards for him right now to play college football.”
A couple things: Ultimately, it’s a good thing the condition that has sidelined him was discovered last summer before his Tech career began.
“No question,” Johnson said. “Our team doctors and training staff, they do a real thorough job and they detected it early, so he was never really put in any danger.”
McCoy will miss this season and “unless something drastically changes after a year or so, his football career is over.”
Second, Johnson said McCoy will remain on scholarship and work as an assistant to Liam Klein, the director of player personnel. The scholarship won’t count against the NCAA 85-player limit. That will put Tech three under the limit when his scholarship status changes. (The transfer of Ryan Ayers to Liberty and Albert Rocker’s decision to skip his final year of eligibility to take a job with Microsoft put the team two under.)
One may go to walk-on offensive tackle Tyler Kidney. Johnson said he’ll receive one at the end of the season if he wins the starting job. The other two may be held for 2012 recruits who want to enroll early.
A couple other notes:
- Players are staying at a nearby hotel. They checked in Tuesday. Johnson: “We’ve done that before. Last year, we didn’t do it because we had them all in the same housing here (on campus), but we couldn’t get them all in the same place, and I think it’s important in camp to have them all together.”
- The team started practice with punt and punt return, which is typical. “We work on it every single day,” Johnson said. “It’s big this fall. We’ve got to get much better in that area, no question.”
- Johnson on the incoming class. “Overall, there’s some big, lean, athletic-looking kids. Like I said when we signed them, we’re excited about them. It’ll be interesting to see if any of them can help us this year.”
- Another 3 p.m. practice Thursday and another Friday. The team will practice at 9:45 Saturday morning, followed by fan day at 4 p.m., and a kicking scrimmage Sunday. All practices are closed to the public.
- Photographer Johnny Crawford has an excellent photo gallery from practice, which you can see here.
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176 comments Add your comment
Supersize that order, mutt
August 4th, 2011
5:12 pm
macrotech, me too.
headley lamar
August 4th, 2011
5:33 pm
http://www.ajc.com/news/ex-georgia-tech-professor-1076105.html
Another day another Tech scandal.
For shame.
macrotech
August 4th, 2011
5:41 pm
Yeah headly…that asst. professor deserves to go to jail. In your feeble efforts to dump this in the lap of GT….you’ve missed the part about how it was GT that turned the dude in. A reasonable response to a dirty old man’s activities on a school computer…don’t you think? One man does not an institution make…Lord knows I didn’t think it was a uga thing when that professor went psycho and shot some people. Keep it real, holmes!
SC Tech fan
August 4th, 2011
6:00 pm
Headly 4 national titles to ONE for the gods, chew on that one dumb a..
macrotech
August 4th, 2011
6:00 pm
Born2Buzz…I have found that Dawg fans are very likable folk with good heads on their shoulders. They love their Dawgs and represent them well. They don’t get wrapped up in silly stereotypes and name calling, but they are “rabid” fans of their team. THEN, there are the mutts…they’ve latched onto a team and claim that they attended UGA and make millions of dollars every year. To them, we are ALL “nerds” (THIS always cracks me up as it suggests that we are smarter…I can live with this) and we’ll spend our lives opting to play video games and dying virgins. More than likely, instead of living in mansions…they live in modest homes (PLEASE note that I didn’t say ANYTHING about double wides) and live paycheck to paycheck. Dawg fans are reasonable and likable…mutt fans…they are to be pitied!
macrotech
August 4th, 2011
6:02 pm
Supersize…it pleases my soul to know that I am NOT the ONLY happy Tech fan!!!
BananaJacket
August 4th, 2011
6:28 pm
Would it be possible to have a sepatate blog site for the inane, juvenile garbage that goes on between those who just want to name-call, antagonize (this is NOT playful, good-natured bantering) and dominate the posts? Then, have a site where REAL fans can rationally discuss the topics(s)!! That way,the AJC could still get its readership from the lunatic fringe and the serious readers. What about it???
juvenal
August 4th, 2011
6:29 pm
sad-lots of those USN flyers served-Billy Lotheridge finished 2nd-Heisman named for a Tech coach, largely for what he did at GT-coaches trophy named for Dodd-at least our profs don’t shoot their exes-again, thanks for the hits(super, the bigots bother me more, it is not acceptable to rant against Asians)……
Supersize that order, mutt
August 4th, 2011
6:45 pm
juvenal, it is not acceptable to rant against any ethnic group. And yes, macro, I am a VERY HAPPY TECH FAN !!!!
Supersize that order, mutt
August 4th, 2011
6:46 pm
I’m outta here for a few hours. I hope Ken has a report on today’s practice when I return
JESSY
August 4th, 2011
6:51 pm
Enter your comments here
JESSY
August 4th, 2011
6:53 pm
KEEP YOUR HEAD UP MC MCOY GIVE IT TO GOD HE WILL FIX IT GOOD LUCK GA TECH
Old Tech fan in NC
August 4th, 2011
7:03 pm
Jackson evidently practiced…does he seem to have “good hands”?
GT93
August 4th, 2011
7:14 pm
perfect idea ‘BananaJacket’ … I’m all for it. And with required login info as well.
@’sad’ … many of GT’s military student-athletes involved with WWII were attaining officer level … meaning many were allowed to stay state-side, finish their engineering degrees, and begin issuing orders and strategy to the boys at war. A proven academy of leadership then and now.
Like it or not, they send the scrubs to the front-line in war-time situations … and between GT and UGA, guess where more of the scrubs come from??
During WWII, GT was one of only 5 U.S. colleges feeding the U.S. Navy’s officer program.
Old Tech fan in NC
August 4th, 2011
7:18 pm
Just saw the coaches poll…not too encouraging.
A. Bishop
August 4th, 2011
7:31 pm
In the spirit of apologizing that I read on here…I am sorry Supersize for my comment. I respect that you love your Jackets as much as I love my dawgs.
@headley- bringing up child porn no matter what school it is about is not appropriate on a football blog.
A. Bishop
August 4th, 2011
7:33 pm
Also props to the student athlete that left with a year of eligibility left to work for Microsoft. I think that is awesome.
GDBurdell
August 4th, 2011
7:38 pm
props to tek for cheating and also a child porn scandal, what a place
YellowJacket
August 4th, 2011
7:52 pm
I still have a job.
Can't read the forrest for the trees
August 4th, 2011
8:25 pm
Actually there are more appropriate words to have been used in my user name but, I prefer not to stoop to the level of many here. I am a women who is a Tech fan, my 13 year old son is a Tech fan, my husband attended Tech, my grandmother retired from Tech and so on and so on. I enjoy Tech football and I enjoy talking about Tech football. What I don’t enjoy is logging on to this blog and having to sift through so much junk to hear about my team. Please, if you are a UGA fan, go home, you have a blog. I don’t care for you, you don’t care for me so let’s call it even and walk away. You have your issues, we have ours. Many of you on this blog are WAY over the line. Ken – your fingers should be numb from all of the deleting you still need to do to clean this up this blog. I may not have seen all the posts by Supersize but the out and out name calling and taunting that have occured here today towards him are inappropriate and no, I am not his wife, mother, sister, best friend or daughter – I don’t even know him. The Georgia fans that post under multiple log on’s, do you not have anything better to do than be a bully and taunt people? Ken aren’t there some “rules” that people need to post by?
George Stein
August 4th, 2011
8:30 pm
Just ignore the clowns, engage the reasonable ones, and move on.
We’re dealing with people that have 8 or 9 handles…each!
JacketAlum93-PantherAlum98
August 4th, 2011
9:05 pm
GO Jackets, GO Panthers!!! Will be at both games, Bill Curry is AWESOME!!!!
Supersize that order, mutt
August 4th, 2011
9:08 pm
Thanks, A. Bishop and Can’t See…., I appreciate the comments. And Can’t See…., I’m glad my comment was deleted before you saw it. It WAS in jest, but it was totally classless, and I apologize.
Hal Nowell
August 4th, 2011
9:42 pm
I must have missed the earlier announcement regarding Ryan Ayers. Wasn’t he our top recruit from a couple of years ago?
A. Bishop
August 4th, 2011
11:42 pm
Apology accepted man, thanks and good luck this year.
PaulSan
August 10th, 2011
4:02 am
It’s a amazing site all regarding their sound, studio and recording techniques is there … I was so surprised myself and my band. I would definitely recommend these guys.
They really know what they’re doing. It is at more than the professional level. They made us a very good deal. http://www.v3sound.sk