Greetings-
I’m going to have to join in progress, as they say. I’m on my way home and just realized I hadn’t posted. I’m interested to see what happens after Georgia Tech’s best (in my opinion) game of the season, if the Jackets can maintain the momentum and win a second game in a row.
Enjoy the game.
Georgia Tech will hire a coach from the Canadian Football League to be its new special teams coordinator. Dave Walkosky will fill the vacancy on the Yellow Jackets’ staff, the Calgary Stampeders announced in a Wednesday news release.
The hire was first reported by Canadian sports network TSN. Tech spokesman Dean Buchan wouldn’t confirm the hire but said the school hopes to make an announcement on the hire by early next week.
The move is an intriguing one by coach Paul Johnson. The coach has not had a titled special teams coordinator since arriving at Tech in 2008 and has gone to great lengths to defend and explain his rationale for not having one in the face of sub-par special-teams play.
“Our special teams were not very good again,” Johnson said Tuesday. “We may make a change there, we may look at doing it differently. I don’t necessarily think it’s scheme, but maybe it’s the way we’re approaching it or whatever. So we’ll take a look at that.”
There is also the matter that …
Georgia Tech will probably fill its coaching vacancy this week, coach Paul Johnson said.
The coach will replace co-offensive line coach Todd Spencer, who resigned Jan. 27 after violating NCAA rules banning text messages to prospects and their guardians or parents. Johnson would not offer more detail about the hire and did not specify which position he would coach.
“I have not offered anybody the job yet, but I probably will in the next day or two,” he said Tuesday.
Johnson did say that he did not foresee any more changes on the staff. He said he interviewed “three or four” candidates, and that he didn’t have a prior working relationship with all of them.
He laughed at the rumor that former Maryland coach and Tech offensive coordinator Ralph Friedgen had been a possibility.
“There wasn’t any truth to that,” he said.
Greetings-
Stephen Hill’s name is on the lips of draftniks after a blistering performance at the NFL draft combine Sunday. I spoke with the former Georgia Tech receiver Monday and have notes from the interview.
1. I’d say he was proud and excited for his strong showing in Indianapolis, but not at all surprised. He had said last week he wanted to run a 4.3 in the 40, and I suppose you don’t go around saying that if you don’t know you can already do it, which was the case.
“I actually ran a 4.3 two weeks ago,” Hill said.
Hill just needed to bring it out of himself again. (Interesting nfl.com story about Hill’s training.)
“Of course, I’m not a guy that’s going to brag and be about it, but I was just confident in what I was going to do,” he said.
2. The combine is often described as a strange, grueling process – a battery of job interviews with some of the biggest names in the NFL, hours’ worth of physical exams and then the strength and speed testing. Hill sound like he handled …
Continue reading Stephen Hill on draft combine performance »
Sept. 3 – at Virginia Tech
Sept. 8 – Presbyterian
Sept. 15 – Virginia
Sept. 22 – Miami
Sept. 29 – Middle Tennessee State
Oct. 6 – at Clemson
Oct. 13 – Open date
Oct. 20 – Boston College
Oct. 27 – BYU
Nov. 3 – at Maryland
Nov. 10 – at North Carolina
Nov. 17 – Duke
Nov. 24 – at Georgia
First observations – A well-placed bye, after the fifth game. … Six of the first eight games are at home, including four in a row in September, and then three of the last four are on the road, including at Georgia. … With three Coastal Division games in the first four weeks, Tech’s ACC titles hopes could well be in terrific shape, or dashed, before the end of September. … Duke plays Tech after its bye week, which I think it also did this past season. North Carolina will also get Tech after the bye.
Thanks for reading.
Thoughts?
With perhaps the largest remaining hurdle out of the way, the ACC could release its 2012 football schedule as early as Monday.
Georgia Tech finalized its schedule by securing an opponent for Sept. 8 late last week, associate athletic director Wayne Hogan said Sunday. That game was considered to be the last big piece of the 12-team puzzle. Hogan would not identify the team.
“There was a lot going on this year, a lot more than normal,” Hogan said. “We’re excited about [the schedule].”
The ACC schedule was expected to be released in early February, but two challenges delayed it. First, West Virginia canceled its Sept. 8 game at Florida State on Feb. 3 because of its impending move to the Big 12. As a result, FSU had to scramble to find a new opponent. Last Wednesday, the school announced it will play Savannah State in Tallahassee on the same date.
The other snag was caused by Tech’s agreement to play Virginia Tech in a prime-time Labor Day game Sept. 3 in Blacksburg, Va. The …
Continue reading Georgia Tech schedule done, ACC release soon »
Former Georgia Tech wide receiver Stephen Hill made good on his hopes to run the 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds at the NFL draft combine, turning in a time of 4.31 seconds Sunday, the fastest time thus far. More info from Falcons beat writer D. Orlando Ledbetter.
Greetings-
Hopefully some of you saw Georgia Tech’s 63-61 win over Maryland Saturday. I haven’t seen all of Tech’s games – basically only the ACC games – but it was probably the best I’ve seen the Yellow Jackets play. Tough defense, offense that was able to create shots and some good individual play. An apt summary from Maryland coach Mark Turgeon:
“Georgia Tech played well. They were really good. They made a lot shots they haven’t been making. They executed and they were tougher than we were.”
Some thoughts:
1. The defensive intensity was what made the biggest impression. The Jackets’ effort and execution in the second half on the defensive end won the game. Maryland, in part due to a number of its own failures but also because of solid one-on-one and help defense by Tech, missed 20 of its first 22 shots in the second half.
Asked if it was the team’s best defensive performance of the season, coach Brian Gregory said it was hard to evaluate, “but I thought the second half, …
Greetings-
We’re about 25 minutes from tip and I’d say there’s about 100 people in the Philips Arena stands. I trust it’ll fill up; crowds seem to have been late-arriving this season and traffic is a little busy. But former Wake Forest coach Dave Odom is here for his TV work.
Some thoughts on this afternoon’s ACC extravaganza. Some thoughts.
1. Maryland has been playing Nick Faust at point guard with Pe’Shon Howard out with an ACL. The move “gives them great size and an ability to make some dynamic plays because he’s a talent, there’s no question about that,” coach Brian Gregory said. Faust is 6-6 and more of a forward. He’ll be a tough size matchup for Mfon Udofia.
2. Maryland is 1-6 on the road this season, is 13-1 when it out-rebounds its opponent and 2-10 when it gets out-rebounded. In the first meeting between the teams, Maryland took 38 rebounds to Tech’s 36.
3. Jason Morris should be more mobile and explosive with three more days to heal his foot injury. He gave 17 …
Georgia Tech guard Glen Rice Jr.’s suspension will continue at least through the Yellow Jackets’ Saturday game against Maryland at Philips Arena. Coach Brian Gregory said Thursday that Rice’s suspended status remained the same but would not offer more detail.
Rice, the Jackets’ leading scorer and rebounder, has missed the past two games due to the suspension.
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