Technical Tidbits 2/13

Georgia Tech baseball finally begins today at 4:00 as the Jackets take on St. John's in the Atlanta Challenge. The Atlanta Challenge itself should be a bit more interesting than the Battle in Midtown last season (which featured Old Dominion, Radford, and VCU) -- St. John's and Fordham will make the trip to Atlanta to face off with the Jackets for a three-game series (including a double-header with Fordham on Saturday). I'm extremely excited for the season to begin and highly recommend watching some beesball if you need to ease the pain of basketball season; the outlook for the Jackets this season is great and they very well may outscore the basketball team a few times in the near future.

Mike Pelton, the Georgia Tech defensive line coach who was brought on by Ted Roof two seasons ago, is interviewing for the same job with the Oklahoma Sooners. Pelton has done a tremendous job during his brief tenure on the Flats, putting out current NFL players such as Emmanuel Dieke and Jeremiah Attaochu while also bringing some nice mixed looks in an effort to generate pressure last season even with the depleted defensive line group. Losing him to Oklahoma would obviously be a big blow, but it would be relatively easy to overcome as well -- the current class of defensive linemen plus the guys currently on roster should be more than formidable this season.

For Justin Thomas, the second half of the 2014 season proved more than fruitful -- the rising junior owned the seventh-best adjusted QBR in the nation from week seven forward. That was also tops in the ACC, higher than the likes of Jameis Winston, Brad Kaaya, and Marquise "how may I kill you today" Williams. I fully expect that success to carry over into the 2015 season where Thomas will hopefully lead the Jackets to an even more successful campaign; the schedule gets tougher, but the team gets better as well.

Star quarterback Vernon Adams, who has played his career out at Eastern Washington but recently decided to transfer to Oregon, has been banned from training at EWU facilities by the school's salty athletic department. While I can understand frustration at Adams, arguably the best player in EWU's recent history, kicking the guy out of training facilities and telling him to hit the road is just a little bit extreme. The only real case that EWU has in terms of justifying the decision is that they play Oregon week one and for that reason it does make some sense to get him away from the team. That doesn't, however, make it right to completely ostracize him. What he's done for the program deserves thanks rather than anger.

Is EWU right to kick Adams out of training facilities?

Have a great weekend and a happy (?) Friday the 13th!