Georgia Tech: Justin Thomas turns on the jets

Practice report from Tuesday afternoon:

1. Georgia Tech put on the pads for the first time Tuesday. Among the standouts was freshman quarterback Justin Thomas.

“There were some kids that did some good things,” coach Paul Johnson said. “Justin Thomas had a couple long runs for touchdowns, so that was good.”

In his next breath, Johnson played down the possibility of him playing this year. With Tevin Washington, Vad Lee and Synjyn Days ahead of him, a redshirt seems likely.

“He’s lost right now,” Johnson said. “But he’s very quick and fast. He’s got ability like we thought.”

Tuesday was also the first opportunity for coaches to see how Days, who has also been taking snaps at A-back, could block. Johnson said Days took more reps Tuesday at quarterback than A-back and didn’t watch him that much.

“It wasn’t glaringly bad or it wasn’t anything that caught my eye,” he said.

There wasn’t a great deal of full-contact work, defensive end Izaan Cross said, mostly formation recognition work. The most contact was in an option drill.

“We’ve got a ways to go,” Cross said, “but a good start.”

After four practices with no pads or just shoulder pads, “everybody was ready to hit,” said nose tackle T.J. Barnes, who hailed the play of cornerback Louis Young. “I was impressed by what I saw [Tuesday], but we’ve still got to get better.”

Defensive coordinator Al Groh’s assessment of the freshmen: “A lot of them are like a ball in high grass. You know what that is? Lost.”

2. Groh’s breakdown of defensive end Anthony Williams, who is pushing for playing time behind ends Cross, Emmanuel Dieke and Euclid Cummings. “This is Anthony’s third year. He’s certainly got some muscles on him that he didn’t have two years ago, (and) a better sense of the techniques that he plays. That’s the key thing, the development of the techniques, because they’re all fairly similar from defensive scheme to defensive scheme. … In the early going, added on to the 15 practices of the spring, you can see some progress in that area.”

3. It’s been a good camp so far for kicker David Scully. The junior, who came to Tech as a walk-on, was placed on scholarship on Monday. He has taken an early lead in the competition with kicker Justin Moore. And he likes new special-teams coordinator David Walkosky. While he is spending more time with the specialists, Scully and his fellow kickers are actually kicking less.

“He makes it a point not to over-kick us,” Scully said. “I know this time last year, we were all (spending time in the) cold tub, sore, stretching, just dying. And he makes a really good point to make sure, when we start getting fatigued, he shuts us down. Just really kind of taking care of us in general.”

4. Cross’ roommate at the team hotel is walk-on freshman A-back Isiah Willis. It’s seemingly the ideal situation for a senior like Cross to pull rank. He said he has yet to do so.

“I just want to go to bed when I get back to the room,” he said. “I’m exhausted after Coach Groh’s meetings.”

5. The team will have its first double practice session on Wednesday, going at 9:30 a.m. and again at 5:15 p.m. The Jackets have a scrimmage scheduled for Saturday morning. It has not been determined if it will be open to the public.

Thanks for reading.

Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog