Georgia Tech begins bowl practice
Greetings-
Some notes, including coach Paul Johnson’s response to rumors/speculation about freshman quarterback Vad Lee transferring after Monday’s practice. Some other stuff first.
1. The team began a full week of practices on Monday. There will be three practices next week, two the week after that and then players will be released Dec. 20 and go to El Paso for the Sun Bowl Dec. 26. There will be 15 practices total.
2. The first stretch of bowl practices is mostly about working on fundamentals. Out of about 20 periods in Monday’s practice, only about six involved scout teams. That means that for most of the practice, all of the players, including the redshirt freshmen, were getting repetitions in Tech’s offense and defense.
3. Johnson said he doesn’t have any plans to make any changes on the staff. That would mean a second offseason in a row without any turnover. Defensive coordinator Al Groh said “for sure” he intends to be back for the 2012 season.
4. Johnson doesn’t expect any players to miss the bowl game because of grades, “but you never know,” he said. “That won’t be for a couple weeks.”
5. Johnson said he’d heard “a lot of really good things” about the Sun Bowl and is looking forward to it. Johnson went to El Paso when he was an assistant coach at Hawaii as Hawaii and UTEP were in the same conference.
“It’ll be a good game against a real good opponent,” he said. “Utah’s real good. Especially defensively, they’ve been good for awhile.”
6. Finally, Lee. At the risk of giving this more attention than I sense is worthy, I’ll provide the Q&A from the post-practice scrum with Johnson and let you draw your own conclusions.
Q: How was Vad Lee at practice today?
A: He’s fine. No problem. He worked hard. I coached the quarterbacks today. Coach (Brian) Bohannon wasn’t there today. He worked hard. All of them did.
(Bohannon was out recruiting, which is pretty typical for early bowl practices. Several questions later, the topic returned to Lee.)
Q: Is there any reason to think that he wouldn’t return?
A: Oh, I don’t know. I didn’t see anything today that made me think he was leaving. But guys could leave tomorrow. I don’t know. It happens all the time.
Q: Has he talked to you about it?
A: I talk with Vad every day.
Q: But has he talked with you about transferring?
A: I’m not going to get into what I talk with the players about. You’d be surprised sometimes. I talk to them about a lot of things.
Q: Homesickness seems to come up with players, particularly those from out of state. Do you have a particular way you address it with players?
A: It’s part of growing up. Everybody gets homesick. It’s part of it. You know what 18- and 19-year-olds are like. It’s something different every day. It is what it is. Just move on.
A couple points of note. I’m guessing it might read that Johnson was being defensive or curt, but he was at ease. I’d say he was trying to downplay the matter but obviously he didn’t say nothing is happening, perhaps to some degree because it’s not for him to say.
That said, if something were really moving forward with a possible transfer, I think Johnson would have answered questions differently. The fact that he’s practicing isn’t a guarantee of anything, but it would indicate that he’s not exactly packing up his boxes.
I’ll say this: Players considering transferring because they’re homesick is not uncommon. You may remember I wrote that David Sims went through the same thing as a redshirt freshman quarterback. I dug back into my notes and found a quote from Bohannon in August regarding the matter.
“I’m sure that goes through a lot of their minds,” he said. “When you deal with these young men who are the life of their town and their school and all of the sudden, they come to college and all of the sudden, they’re just another guy in the mix, it’s a tough adjustment.”
All this to say – I’d take all this with a grain of salt.
Thanks for reading. I’ll have something up Wednesday morning. (I’m off this week, technically.)
Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog
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296 comments Add your comment
The Grinch
December 6th, 2011
9:20 am
GT GRAD
December 6th, 2011
9:17 am
What has been reported of Lee’s development during practice? Has he been lighting it up?
JJ
December 6th, 2011
9:22 am
GT favored by 3.5. We really need to win this game.
Cantwell
December 6th, 2011
9:23 am
And I should add that the offense is already productive.
The Grinch
December 6th, 2011
9:26 am
JJ
December 6th, 2011
9:22 am
You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but I do think GT will win the bowl game.
DawginLex
December 6th, 2011
9:32 am
Grinch
You really need to give it a rest
Ragging on someone’s niece and calling somebody Sandusky crosses a big line.
go to Vegas and get some new material or just STFU
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
9:36 am
Ken, esp. appreciate the way you form questions from our posts in a diplomatic way, would guess CPJ can be a little gruff-still more worried about who the NTs are, next year, than the QB……what happened to the italics?
Gorilla Biscuit
December 6th, 2011
9:42 am
Morning ladies, have ya’ll bought your tickets to El Paso yet? From your hotel you should have a clear view into Ciudad Jaurez. Sorta reminds you of your view out of your dorm room.
RambleOn84
December 6th, 2011
9:47 am
I once had a neighbor who was in the closet. He spent much of his time calling other men “ladies” and insulting them to try to make himself appear manly.
He eventually was outed and is now much happier that the charade is over.
It takes a little longer for some than others.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
9:55 am
Lex, appreciate your civility..again, almost never post on your side, not that interested, & chip reposted on crowell’s hat after i pointed out the difference in A’s without so much as a thank you after i kept him from looking like an idiot, if he remembers me i doubt that it is fondly……
GT Man
December 6th, 2011
10:02 am
We will need Vad to get us some points since Groh will be back I expect the defense to give up alot of points, especially against Georgia.
GTJason
December 6th, 2011
10:13 am
BigTime, don’t forget Fred Holton. He will be back and had the starting job before his injury. Won the title of Teammate you’d least like to get into a fight with. If he hits harder than Jamea we’re in for a treat.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
10:16 am
what was so funny, in his first post he even included the site you could buy the same braves hat-but it did not have the top knot…….
Yurtle_the_Turtle
December 6th, 2011
10:22 am
As a Tech fan, the fact that GT is practicing for their Bowl Game is…..meaningless. This team is on the treadmill of mediocrity. GT, home of the High School offense and crappy defensive play. We’ll probably aspire to the Sun Bowl again next year. I’m not traveling for this team nor am I traveling for Paul Johnson.
William Casey
December 6th, 2011
10:24 am
@Grinch: where did you get your coaching experience? As my Dad used to say: “You speak like a man with a ‘paper you-know-what.’” Thanks. Hadn’t thought of that phrase in 20 years.
Ken Sugiura
December 6th, 2011
10:25 am
pws – for what it’s worth, Justin Moore was recruited and offered a scholarship out of high school.
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
10:40 am
First thanks for the great coverage Ken.
Second if Vad leaves it will suck, but not the end of the world. This rumor spread quick and took hold after he made a remark before the UGA game and then canceled his twitter account.
Dennis Andrews is enrolling in Jan. which tells me he wants to play and appears to have the skills to compete for the starting role and GT is still in position to get Devin Fuller and I believe Bohannon was visiting Bilal Marshall after he opened his recruitment back up. It’s a wait and see like every year.
I will say GT and CPJ need this bowl win and I hope the players and staff are taking Utah seriously.
Grinch, what would you have had CPJ say about the SEC before the games were even played? As far as all the those teams being ranked only Bama, LSU, Ark., USC, and UGA deserve to be in the top 25, which is still plenty to prove the SEC is still tops in CFB, but Auburn in no way deserves to be in the top 25 and would not be there if not for preseason ranking.
BigTimeTechFan
December 6th, 2011
10:42 am
@ The Grinch
Returing starters
Offense = 9
Gone
R Jones keep in mind B back rotate in and out a lot so other B-Back played a lot
T Melton
Defense = 8
Gone
R Reid – But his backup J Thomas made more plays this year, played a lot
Peters
Walls
El Paso at the border
December 6th, 2011
10:46 am
The old Marty Robbins hit comes to mind. The bad guy comes in the door and the good guy goes out the back window. This will be the case when the drug lords from Jaurez come into the diners and bars of El Paso and the GT folks scram from the cantinas.
Remember, Obama and Holder have been running guns down there and the stray drug dealer’s gunfire from over the border is prolific and wild. DUCK !!!
Do not go out at night and wear Kevlar clothing.
This is a long way to go for a puny $2.2 mill pay out. I guess GT needs the dough. It sure ain’t for prestige with UGA getting twice or three times that amount AND in a NY Day (Jan. 2 ) bowl vs December 20th at 4 AM.
Wear Kevlar. Be safe and do not open your hotel door for anyone !!!
BigTimeTechFan
December 6th, 2011
10:50 am
@GTJason
Oh yea, Fred Holton. I totally forgot about him. GT is loaded at DB next year
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
10:56 am
and Justin only had 1 out of 3 kick-offs returned in HS….
GTJeff
December 6th, 2011
11:00 am
El Paso D-bag, the Sun Bowl is a New Year’s Eve bowl.
1 4 GT
December 6th, 2011
11:04 am
Gorilla sounds like a really good name for him. He quite obviously knows nothing about El Paso. Juarez can’t be seen from the airport or the stadium, and most hotels are close by the airport. Plus, you can rest assured that most Norte Americanos have enough brains to not venture into Juarez, even poor ol’ Georgie mutts, even those that go by Gorilla———!
blazer
December 6th, 2011
11:17 am
could tech move Perkins to A-back and Drummond back to B-back
Lanier back to defense?
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
11:32 am
Blazer I too would like to see what Perkins could do at ab and I starting to think Lanier is one of those bust recruits.
Doom and gloomers relax a little the o-line will be actually experienced next year with some actual depth and QB and BB are the question right now. The defense will have a good secondary and as already mentioned Holton and Noble will be in the mix. The LB look solid and a lot of depth recruited for the 3-4 will be available. The d-line will be the big question but hopefully Green will be healthy and ready to go.
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
11:36 am
Why do some UGA fans keep telling GT fans to watch out in El Paso
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
11:38 am
Enter your comments heredamn smart phone. Was going to say that they always tell us about the thug, drug dealing, rapists that GT has and would think we would be use to it.
1 4 GT
December 6th, 2011
11:39 am
Could it be because they or someone close was dumb enough to cross over the Rio Grande and had problems? Just Asking?
Birmingham Jacket
December 6th, 2011
11:43 am
I’m less and less impressed with Paul Johnson.
He can’t/won’t recruit, and seems to even enjoy the opportunity to try and win with Div-II players, wearing it like a badge of honor.
Clearly, his allowing Groh another year to try to run an defense that we don’t have the players to run is poor leadership. 2 years and our defense is still as bad as when Womack left.
If Vad Lee leaves, we’re screwed. Washington and Days are not impressive, at all.
Technically Correct
December 6th, 2011
11:51 am
Sorry to post about recruiting in this thread, but, Michael Carvell only reports on UGA’s recruiting, so, Ken, you are it. Does anyone know what is going on in our recruiting? Consider the RB position. If Miles Jones spent the weekend at Tech, as reported, and since he said he would commit right then, if offered a scholarship, and since I haven’t seen any indication of a commitment, I assume he was not offered. Carvell has written about 50 pieces on whether or not Keith Marshall would sign with UGA, but it’s like listening to crickets when we’re waiting to hear how Tech is doing with recruiting. There is a reason that UGA thinks it rules the state – it’s because UGA does rule the AJC.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
11:57 am
looked at Schultzies’ post,don’t see the uggahs that haunt here posting over there, almost no Techies-Marshall should see what happens to kids that don’t turn out to be HershelII…..
Athens Tech
December 6th, 2011
12:21 pm
Would love to hear something about Miles Jones visit
GT Rich
December 6th, 2011
12:29 pm
Vad has spent all fall practicing with the 1st and 2nd teams, giving him a jump start on competing next spring. Unless grades are an issue, I can’t see why he’d jump ship.
Looks like the team gets an immediate chance to prove how good/bad 2012 will be with a competitive BYU (9-3) team coming to Atlanta on Sep 1. Would be nice to get the bowl losing streak over with to set the right tone for 2012.
My biggest concern for next year is D-line. We need some freshmen D-line recruits (or perhaps a JC transfer) who can start from day one. Not many out there good enough to do so…
Stumpknocker
December 6th, 2011
12:34 pm
What would be wrong with extending an offer to the big white kid (triple option QB) out of Fla that is supposedly committed to Ga? Richt and his bunch are never embarrassed to offer a kid whether he’s previously committed or not.
Lavette4066
December 6th, 2011
12:35 pm
BigTimeTechFan – Embry Peebles is also a senior. I think you are overstating the weight of our o-linemen. Agree that McRae should start over Finch. Will need some of the Freshman d-line to step up and Shawn Green to emerge from obscurity. Hopefully Holton will be healthy enough to unseat I. Johnson. I don’t trust him at free safety.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
12:37 pm
Ken, Carroll going to do any basketball blogs?
Stumpknocker
December 6th, 2011
12:38 pm
-Reference to previous post; If the kid (triple option QB) from Fla wants to play QB, he’s stand a better chance at GT……….all Ga would do with him is make a Rb or TE out of him….or worse, he would be relegated to special teams.
Maze
December 6th, 2011
12:41 pm
Tek is a joke just like their pathetic conference.
Norht Ave Killer Beez
December 6th, 2011
12:56 pm
STICK WITH IT VAD, Catn’t wait to see you on the feild. Worst case scenario if Vad leaves. Demontevious Smith looked pretty impressive at QB He should be in the mix no-matter what really.
Buzzman
December 6th, 2011
1:02 pm
CPJ needs to give time to Van Lee during the bowl game, what is he going to lose, another bowl game!!!. Maybe it will wake up Washington, oh well there is always next year with BIG AL. ugggggggggggg
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
1:02 pm
Birmingham Jacket, Do you really think CPJ does not want to sign 5 star guys? GT rarely gets these top recruits and he is fighting two battles. One is the media and other coaches when it comes to his system and the other is kids actually wanting to come to GT with the degrees that are offered. The defense is lacking when it comes to the d-line but otherwise I think Groh has done pretty good with only one recruiting class so far as he was late to the show in 09. I have a friend whose son is currently being recruited as a o-lineman. He has heard from Dabo and Spurrier that he cannot make it past college if he chose to play for GT. This is untrue as we all know, but if you are 17-18 and you and your parents are relying on these men to be up front and trustworthy then it’s going to influence you.
kpw
December 6th, 2011
1:02 pm
Good report but I must admit I am sad to here we another another year of defense under Groh. VT loves playing against him whether he is a head coach or defensive coordinator.
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
1:07 pm
Buzzman, Why would CPJ burn a redshirt for one game and why would Vad agree to do it? I could understand burning it back in October, but it would make no sense now. If Vad were to leave then I really expect Dennis Andrews to push for playing time as he is an early enrolle and obviously wants to compete. Vad had the same oppurtunity and chose to enjoy his full senior year, which I can’t blame him for,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGTlezdRPv4&feature=related
All Cupcake Conference
December 6th, 2011
1:10 pm
I think Grades scare more off from Tech than homesickness.
Why would grades scare anyone off ???
Most Tech players don’t graduate anyway and Tech has a long tradition of using ineligible players.
NY Jacket
December 6th, 2011
1:18 pm
THANK YOU KEN for your tremendous work this year. Your quality of writing and reporting has been outstanding. You’ve made following the Jackets here in NY so much more enjoyable than in previous years. The AJC should give you a raise! You can tell your boss that I said that. Looking forward to your continuous updates.
Ramblin Man
December 6th, 2011
1:24 pm
headley he means the drop out rate is pretty high. Something like 37% do not make it past thier freshman year at GT. That is total student body. I know facts mean nothing to you just thought I would enlighten you.
Birmingham Jacket
December 6th, 2011
1:33 pm
@Ramblin Man
I think CPJ probably comes off to a lot of recruits as “I’m gonna’ win with or without you kid”.
I say this bc of his policy of pulling the offer if recruits visit other schools— a policy which he has humbly but wisely abondoned.
I can certainly never see him going the extra mile to stroke a kid’s ego like Mark Richt calling a kid on his birthday. Maybe that’s beneath guys like you and him. But this is a new generation of athlete, and you’ve got to kiss up to them.
Or you can sign classes of players whose only offers are Furman, Duke, etc…. and get used to more Saturday’s like Nov 26.
As for your tolerance of Al Groh…. That makes me wonder if you’ve even watched a Tech game the past 2 years.
Maze
December 6th, 2011
1:42 pm
6 bowl losses in a row coming up.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
1:47 pm
headley, what do you think of the Crowell situation?
Techmate
December 6th, 2011
2:08 pm
For the Lee kid, he has a terrific opportunity at Tech. He now knows the system as well as the school as well as his teammates. Atlanta, too, is not so shabby a place to be in school either. If he transfers, it will take him longer to get his bearings at a new school. There are very few Cam Newtons, and really, Newton stepped into a very good situation with a ton of good players – it wasn’t all Cam.
So, Vad, life is about making choices. Be smart. Whatever you decide, do your best to back up those choices. Tech would love to keep you. But in the end, we are all replaceable. Make your mark as best you can.
juvenal
December 6th, 2011
2:08 pm
saw a couple of folks on Schultz use italics, did not look like your work………biscuit knows how to find an uggha blog!