Tech drags through 13th practice

Notes from practice. More Wednesday.

1. Georgia Tech’s 13^th practice of fall camp brought little good fortune.

A day after a double session and in afternoon heat, the Yellow Jackets dragged through a full-pads practice Tuesday that elicited the ire of the coaching staff.

“I hope that’s not our best,” defensive coordinator Al Groh said. “You have to keep moving forward all the time. If you stall, you’re losing ground. Some players [moved forward], but not enough.”

Coach Paul Johnson said that practices have for the most part been decent, but that the team “hit a doldrum. You have to push through.”

The Jackets will have two more practices Wednesday.

After 13 practices in 12 days, inside linebacker Quayshawn Nealy said that many players’ legs are heavy, “but that’s no reason not to push through, so we’ve got to come back [Wednesday] with our minds set to push through and get better at practice.”

2. A bronze statue of former Tech coach Bobby Dodd is scheduled to be unveiled Sept. 14 on Callaway Plaza outside the stadium that bears his name. A group of Dodd’s former players led the project to honor Dodd, one of only three people to be elected to the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and coach. The bronze sculpture, which will portray Dodd in his familiar kneeling position, will be dedicated the day before the Tech-Virginia game. At that game, Dodd’s 1952 team, which went 12-0 and shared the national championship, will be honored.

“Not many times in your life do you get to do something like this, and it’s really been very meaningful to all of us,” Tech Hall of Famer Taz Anderson said.

3. Wide receiver Jeff Greene and cornerback Rod Sweeting returned to practice Tuesday after being held out with injuries. Other than that, the list of players out remained the same, Johnson said. That would include B-backs David Sims and Charles Perkins and offensive tackles Ray Beno and Morgan Bailey. Johnson deflected a question about a possible cutoff date for Sims, recovering from surgery to repair a stress fracture in his shin, to return by in order to play against Virginia Tech Sept. 3.

“He can’t practice until he’s healthy,” he said. “We’ll figure it out when we need to figure it out.”

4. Wide receiver Anthony Autry’s play in camp has made him a strong candidate to play as a true freshman. Autry, from Norcross High, is competing with freshmen Travin Henry and Micheal Summers and four returners for spots on the depth chart.

“We’ll decide here after Saturday who’s going to play and who’s going to maybe sit right now,” Johnson said. “I’d say he’s on the probably-going-to-play bubble.”

Thanks for reading. More Wednesday.

Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog