Mailbag 11/15

Yeller Bug: Does anybody care anymore about burning Philo’s redshirt?

Logan: Personally I don’t think redshirts mean as much as they used to in this college football landscape. People can transfer willy-nilly, so keeping an extra year of eligibility doesn’t mean the redshirted player will even be with the team next year. You might as well get what you can from a player while they are available. That’s my hot take, don’t even worry about redshirts.

Regarding Philo specifically, the redshirt is a tradeoff. I can’t see the future, but we are assuming Haynes King will be starting next year. If King is healthy all year then Philo will only have 2 years of eligibility remaining by the time he gets a chance to start. Philo has the potential to be a generational talent, so it would be a shame to only have 2 years for him to make a run with us. All of that is assuming he even stays with us if he doesn’t get some starts next year (there are clearly other teams in the state of Georgia that could use good QBs). The alternative is we clearly need him available now for the remaining games this season so lets just use him and take the best chance we have to win our remaining 3 games by burning his redshirt. So take your pick, do you want to have the opportunity to keep Philo around longer down the road with the potential of him having some big seasons or do you want to win now? I’m always in favor of winning now, we’ll see how Coach Key feels about it.

Ben: I could go either way on the redshirt. In this day and age of college football, we don’t often see a lot of redshirt-seniors. Would it be nice to have him redshirt? Yeah, but I think that Brent Key is going to do what he needs in order to try and win games. He doesn’t seem like the type to write off a game as an automatic loss, so I don’t expect him to just bench Philo unless Pyron is definitely ready to play or King is back 100%.

Partywaggin: I saw on Twitter/X that Tech has the fewest opponent penalties in the ACC. Something like 3/35 on average.

Does the ACC keep officiating crews together or do they assemble different crews every weekend?

Ben: If my understanding is correct, there are officiating crews who regularly work together, but they do have auxiliary or alternates that can fill in if needed.

GTalbatross: What is the rule for targeting? Does it need tweaking and should it apply if the offense lowers their helmet?

Logan: The rule is a little vague, not too much but a little bit, I assume the vagueness allow the refs to have some gray area to work with. The rule as written does apply for both Offensive and Defensive players. Paraphrasing a bit: targeting occurs when a player uses any part of their body, typically the helmet, to make forcible contact with an opponent’s head or neck area that goes beyond making a legal tackle or block. 3 factors are usually judged to make a targeting ruling:

1. Did the offending player launch into the defenseless player. So there is a difference between incidental contact and an active choice to make contact with the opponent.
2. Use of the crown of the helmet. While any part of the body can be used for targeting, the crown of the helmet is typically highlighted for targeting as the body part that can do the most damage to another person.
3. Forcibly hitting a defenseless player. This includes, but is not limited to, a receiver in the process of catching the ball, the QB after throwing the ball, a person receiving a punt or kick, a sliding player or player who has given themselves up for a tackle.

So all of that lays out some general rules, but is also not too specific so as to allow refs to make a decision based on the circumstances on the field. Personally I think the rule is generally well officiated, but like many things in football it can be difficult to interpret based on the circumstance. The reason the offense isn’t usually called for targeting is simply because they have less chances to make impactful hits, but you do see circumstances on punt returns where blockers use excessive force and are called for targeting.

Jellopacket98: Where was that will to run it down peoples’ throats even when they know you’re gonna run it with an injured QB and 5th string running backs during our losses?

Jack: A common factor in those losses were that Jamal Haynes wasn’t 100% healthy. He had an injury that was described as one he couldn’t make worse on the field, it just needed time. If you go back and look at his runs against Syracuse and Louisville, it’s obvious he does not look like the same guy. I don’t doubt the will was there, but it’s not apples to apples down the depth chart trying to replace what Haynes & Haynes can do.

Logan: Despite all the rush yards, we didn’t seem to “run it down their throats” all that much. We had some explosive plays up the middle but most of our successful runs were stretching the play to the outside and making the defense spread out to which let us get some blockers in 1 on 1 situations. Like Jack said, injuries played a big factor. I think the King injury was a bigger factor as he is more of the outside runner and we rely on Haynes to be the downhill force up the middle. I think you did see we consistently tried to run the ball in most of our games, but injuries affected us. I also think the play calling was more limited early on, not sure if there was a reason for that but it felt like we had less diversity in our run plays especially against Syracuse and Louisville.

Twilightalchemy + same question asked over email: What is the best and worst case scenario in terms of what bowl game GT could find themselves in? Thanks!

Logan: Bowl games for ACC teams are:

• Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa, Florida
• Birmingham Bowl in Birmingham (duh), Alabama
• Fenway Bowl in Boston, Massachusetts
• Pinstripe Bowl in New York City, New York
• Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando, Florida
• Military Bowl in Washington D.C.
• Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas
• Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida
• Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Holiday Bowl in San Diego, California

There are more at large bowls, but those are the ACC specific bowls. Since we won’t be in a playoff game, I think the best case and worst case kind of depends on your perception. We will be somewhere between 6 to 8 wins at the end of the year, most likely 7 wins, so most of those bowls are in play for us. El Paso is technically a higher ranked bowl game, but who wants to go to El Paso? I’m sure someone does, but it ain’t me. Jacksonville is also a higher ranked bowl, but I wouldn’t put Jacksonville as an ideal destination either.

I think the best case scenario for most fans would be for us to end up in Charlotte as it would be a quick trip for fans and Duke’s tends to put on some fun activities for the game. Charlotte usually isn’t in play though as they love picking North Carolina teams. I want the Pop-Tarts bowl personally because that bowl had some crazy antics going on last year and would be a nice destination for the team. Frankly I’d be fine with Fenway, Pinstripe, Military, or the Pop-Tart bowl.

The one I absolutely don’t want is the Birmingham Bowl. At least with El Paso you know you had a better record to end the season. Birmingham would be a bland destination, and we would probably end up there if we have 6 or 7 wins. I guess it should be easier for the fans to get there, but that’s the most positive thing I can say about it.

Ben: Logan, you’re wrong.

Georgia Tech has not been mathematically eliminated from the ACC Championship Game, so there is still a sliver of a chance that Georgia Tech is in the College Football Playoff, which would be by far the best case scenario. It’s just also an incredibly unlikely scenario.

jabsterjacket: Related to that, what is the pick order for ACC bowls?

Jack: Per this ACC guidance, there isn’t a set priority list, just a pool of options that are decided on by multiple factors or ESPN.

Logan: As Jack stated there is no guaranteed priority list, but typically ESPN wants better teams to be picked by bowls later in the year, which makes sense you want better ranked teams playing each other to wrap up the year and draw more viewers from the other events going on near Christmas and New Year. The list I added above is from earliest played bowl game to latest, so I imagine the bottom bowls listed will be picking first, but that is not a guarantee.

gtbadcarma: First, King delivered a gutsy performance. Second, I was astonished the two qb system worked. That never works right? that said how worried are you about Kings arm? The few times he did throw the ball he looked to be in pain.

Logan: The two QB strategy rarely works because it allows the defense to plan around which QB is on the field at a given time. It helped us that Philo showed he could both run and pass which seemed to keep the defense honest, and King is just a different kind of athlete when it comes to running and dodging tackles. I don’t know if it’ll work again, especially against uga, but we may keep using it if it’s the best option available.

Regarding King, he has gotten better from this injury before, and it does seem positive that he is actually throwing the ball. I’m not sure he will be fully healthy before either of our remaining games. I am hoping he is healthy enough to continue running the ball, but if he is not then (as noted above) I think our best shot is going to be using Philo and hoping he can carry us.

Ben: I, too, was impressed with how well the 2-QB system seemed to work. I think it helped that Key and Faulkner seemed to have a very specific plan for how to use each quarterback. It wasn’t like in 2012 when CPJ would trot out Tevin Washington for a couple drives, and then trot out Vad Lee, and then go based on vibes. Both QBs had something that they were able to do decently well, so Faulkner schemed around it. The question is will it work again now that it’s on tape?

As for King, I think he’ll be fine, but I don’t know that he’ll be 100% before the end of the season.