Technical Tidbits 7/20

Georgia Tech baseball and coach Danny Hall got their best news of the offseason not because of anything that they did in particular, but rather as a result of the Baltimore Orioles' failure to sign second round pick and Tech commit Jonathan Hughes. Hughes, who did not reach a deal with the O's after being taken #68 overall, will instead enroll at Tech, where he will spend the next few seasons pitching on the Flats. This is huge news for the Jackets' depleted pitching staff which was so often abused by opposing hitters in 2015; Hughes should be a guy who can come in and start immediately. Though he was taken in the second round, the Orioles were likely not offering him anywhere near his slot value of $907,000 -- teams often take players earlier than they are projected to go in the draft for the purpose of signing them under slot value and saving their pool for the future, as Baltimore attempted to do with Hughes.

Recent Georgia Tech alumnus Ollie Schniederjans, the No. 1 amateur golfer in the world, joined some prestigious company over the weekend when he became just the third amateur ever to qualify for both the U.S. Open and British Open in the same year, joining Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.  Despite his historic accomplishment, Schniederjans was hardly greeted nicely at the competition; he drew a group that included former U.S. Open champions Graeme McDowell and Webb Simpson. He is currently tied for 42nd place at +7 with a number of well-regarded golfers, including Jim Furyk, and is well ahead of players like Phil Mickelson and Angel Cabrera.

Georgia Tech is now in the running for former Tennessee commit Emmanuel Bridges, a three-star linebacker from Newman who decided to decommit from the Vols back in February. As the article suggests, Bridges is as versatile a linebacker as you will find out of high school. He would be a great scheme fit for Ted Roof at Tech and, as the AJC suggested, could be in line for early playing time if he were to commit, especially given the expected lack of depth at the position in 2015. Bridges would join Jakob Brashear as a linebacker for the class of 2016 and would likely be one of the final linebackers of the class if not the last one.

Following a string of legal issues that came about as a result of players not keeping hands to themselves, Florida State will be taking the time to "educate athletes on behavior". The fact that a school has to spend time and money telling players not to hit people and break the law is very telling about the type of program that FSU runs and equally telling about the standard of people they give athletic scholarships to. Winning comes at a cost, and in this case that cost is the reputation of a university and the safety of the people around it. If sacrificing character for games in that win column is what FSU wants, then that's their problem.

How do you feel about Tech's 2016 class as it stands? How would a commitment from Emmanuel Bridges change that?