Technical Tidbits 5/3: Demetris Robertson, NFL front offices shun the East Coast

Former Georgia Tech target Demetris Robertson made a surprising college decision on Sunday, electing to commit to Cal over his other reported top choices of Notre Dame, UGA, and Georgia Tech. And so ends the nearly three month long odyssey wherein speculative rumor after speculative rumor regarding Robertson's supposed decision surfaced and descended; we are free at last. The result is obviously not ideal for Tech, but seeing Robertson leave UGA in the cold is rather hilarious, especially given that most media outlets had the school from Athens penciled in as the frontrunner since roughly 1997. It's also worth noting that the social media showing from UGA fans was nothing short of despicable. I can't even post most of what was tweeted at Robertson following his decision.

Head basketball coach Josh Pastner reportedly made his first assistant coach hire late last night, bringing on former Tech player and Georgia State assistant Darryl LaBarrie to fill a spot on his bench. LaBarrie, widely regarded as one of the best recruiters in the Atlanta area, will be an exceptional addition (or re-addition considering that he coached at Tech for two years under Paul Hewitt) to the staff. His network of coaches and players all around the city will almost certainly pay dividends for coach Pastner extremely quickly. Even Ron Hunter, his former employer at Georgia State, tweeted his congratulations to LaBarrie last night:

Congrats to my Assistant Darryl Laberrie on going back to his Alma Mayer Georgia Tech. Great man and friend.

— Ron Hunter (@coachrhunter) May 3, 2016

Though the 2016 NFL Draft was good to at least one Georgia Tech alumnus in Adam Gotsis, it was much harder on the conference as a whole. When it was all said and done, just 26 players -- 21 less than last year -- had been called to the stage by league commissioner Roger Goodell, a tremendous decline for a conference already regarded as an underdog in the current landscape of college football. Unsurprisingly, Clemson led the conference with 9 players selected while NC State came in a distant second with 3 draftees. Not even the ACC Defensive Player of the Year, Duke's Jeremy Cash, was selected. It was a strange draft overall, but not one that is too much of an indication of the future. There's still plenty of talent left in the talent for next year, including two potential first round quarterback picks in Clemson's Deshaun Watson and Miami's Brad Kaaya.