Who’s on your best of 21st Century athletes?
Frodo Swagginz: Spring ball has began and the Jackets have been hard at work getting better than the dwags (Which they already were and if it weren’t for some blatantly terrible calls, well).
With Gideon taking over as DC and GT reloading on the defensive front, do you expect the defense to be better against the pass this year and worse against the run? When TS took over, there was a marked improvement in run defense, something that he emphasized and was likely hired based on. As a result, it seemed that our pass defense suffered. I’m just curious if expectations should be that our run defense will take a step back our a pass defense steps forward.
Logan: The struggle with predicting this is that both rush defense and pass defense are impacted by the D-line and our D-line is probably the biggest unknown on the team right now. At the moment we have gained significant young talent for the secondary so I do expect improvement there, but it is also dependent on how quickly the players can adjust to the new environment. We seem to have more speed across the board, but we still don’t have many big players who can push the O-line around. At the moment things are too foggy to accurately predict, but I’m hoping the spring game clears things up a bit.
Jack: Logan put it well. We’re in a period where there are going to be unknowns with what specifically this defense is going to look like, and who even wil be the impact guys. Getting a look at the spring game will certainly help.
Skiles85: Thoughts on the ACC/FSU/Clemson settlement, and predictions on what conference realignments might take place in the 2030-2032 timeframe? Big 10 and SEC TV contracts expire and ACC exit fees are greatly reduced at that time. If the ACC collapses, is the trajectory of Georgia Tech’s football team / TV ratings along with the Atlanta market and academics strong enough to warrant a Big 10 or Big 12 invite? Further down the road, could there be a super league of 48 to 70 teams funded by private equity with Georgia Tech included?
Logan: I think this is the period where GT needs to show they are talented enough for another conference to grab. The future of the ACC is going to continue to be in question barring some serious improvement by schools in all sports over the next few years. I don’t want to say the ACC is dead, but at there is a lot of work ahead if the conference plans to stay afloat. For GT we just need to show our worth and win games just in case the ACC falls apart. We have reasons the SEC and BIG10 would want us, but we have to keep showing we are competitive and driving up viewership to make those conferences see us as being worth their time to add us in.
Jack: What our finances will look like in 5 years to tell if we could afford any kind of buyout is of course very unknown, but it’s unlikely in any case that we’d buyout of the conference at that time.
Right now, I think we are setting ourselves up well to be included in whatever superconference gets formed in the 2030s, assuming college football remains on that path. The moves J Batt has done to vault Georgia Tech athletics forward have all been in the mindset of putting us back in the top flight of collegieate sports and to prepare us for whatever the landscape might be that we are competing. There isn’t any part of Georgia Tech that isn’t appealing right now. In an era where many colleges are struggling, Tech is thriving just about as well as any higher education institution in America, and they’ve done the work to ensure athletics thrives with the rest of the Insitute.
DressHerInWhiteAndGold: I asked this question 5 years ago when we were 20% of the way thru the 21st century; re-asking now that we are almost 25% of the way thru…
In 1999 Sports Illustrated published their list of the 100 greatest athletes and others related to sports for the 20th Century. Ali, Jordan, Babe Ruth top three. It was pretty well accepted, however putting Mantle one spot above Mays was a ding against the list.
What athletes from the first quarter of the 21st Century should be included when the list is generated in 75 years?
I recall a strong push for Ohtani last time; I don’t recall the others.
Thinking that Scottie Scheffler, Cooper Flagg, and whoever programs the first AI driven March Madness picker that wins 95% of the time would be new to the list since 2020.
Jack: Scheffler’s 2024 season certainly should be up there for now. It’s truly remarkable how he can have a bad week and still finish one click off the leaderboard.
The other I’d defintely put on is Nikola Jokic. No one’s played better basketball than him in the last three years and is inventing new kinds of triple-doubles. He may not win the MVP this year, but those that know the NBA know he’s the best player we have right now.
I’ll throw a curveball here: Armand Duplantis. He’s reset his own pole vault world record 10 times in a row, currently sitting at 6.27m which he set last month France.
Cooper Flagg has at least multiple elite NBA seasons to go before even sniffing a list like this. Beating up on Boston College and Notre Dame in basketball is not impressive.
Submitted via email: Which basketball seniors (if any) will be seeking medical shirts for this year?
Jack: I have to imagine both Luke O’Brien and Kowacie Reeves would qualify. We haven’t heard anything official from the team on that front but the Boot Crew stalwarts hopefully can get another run at it next year. If the NCAA ends up granting a 5th year of eligibility perpetually this offseason, they’d be good to go either way.