Technical Tidbits 1/19: Tech commit Oliver seeks starting QB gig, ACC Coastal looks like tossup

Despite his knowledge that there’s no dearth of options for Paul Johnson to choose from when it comes to replacing the outstanding Justin Thomas, Georgia Tech commit Tobias Oliver is headed to the Flats with one thing on his mind: winning the starting job in year one. Coach Johnson is indebted to no one when it comes to this job; whoever is the most qualified will start on week one. If that happens to be a true freshman like Oliver, we should all be very excited because it would mean that his ability to run the offense would’ve already bypassed that of veteran Matthew Jordan. Will it happen? It very likely won’t. If it does, however, it would likely signal the rise of yet another excellent option quarterback.

Speaking of quarterbacks, that very position just went from one of strength to one of mystery for just about every school in the ACC Coastal. Of the division’s seven teams, only Duke returns its starting quarterback from a season ago — and even then, Duke’s starter was a freshman this season. You could technically count UVA along with Duke because their starter for the first half of the season is back, but even he was benched for Matt Johns — who started against Tech — later on in the season. That’s just one of the many factors that will make Coastal so unpredictable this go around, but it will be an interesting storyline to follow nonetheless.

The University of Oregon is currently rocking one of the more unique scandals we’ve seen in recent years after being forced to discipline newly-anointed strength and conditioning coach Irele Oderinde for working his players to the point that hospitalization was required. The university was scrutinized at the end of the regular season for the way it handled the firing of head coach Mark Helfrich, the catalyst for a coaching search which eventually ended with the hiring of former South Florida coach Willie Taggart and, subsequently, Oderinde. All three athletes who were hospitalized are in good condition and expected to recover fully, but it certainly seems like the groundwork for a lawsuit similar to the one referenced in the above article stemming from a similar incident at Iowa. The athlete in that case will receive $15,000 for his hospitalization.