Technical Tidbits 7/18: Media Picks Jackets to Finish 3rd in Coastal

With ACC Media Days in the rear view mirror, the ACC’s preseason media poll was released on Monday. A panel of 167 media members selected Georgia Tech to finish third in the Coastal Division behind Miami and last year’s Coastal Champion, Virginia Tech. The voters predicted a very competitive Coastal Division; every team in the division had at least 4 first place votes with the lone exception of the Virginia Cavaliers. Overall, Florida State was named the conference favorite, with 118 votes picking them to bring win the ACC Championship. Clemson and Louisville were the second and third most popular champion picks, leaving just 7 ballots that featured a team from the Coastal winning the conference. In addition to team standings, the media also gave their pick for ACC Player of the Year which, predictably, went to Louisville QB and reigning Heisman winner Lamar Jackson in a landslide.

For the Yellow Jackets to surpass preseason expectations and make a run at the conference title they will have to break a cycle of continuous ups and downs and build on 2016’s 9-win season. No one knows this better than DE KeShun Freeman, who recently gave a PowerPoint presentation to the team detailing the program’s history of inconsistency. By now it’s a well known trope within the Tech fan base and college football nation at large that Georgia Tech is a difficult team to project, swinging wildly from year to year. A 11-3 breakthrough in 2014 followed by a 3-9 disaster in 2015 followed by a 9-4 comeback last season has caused many prognosticators to throw up their hands in frustration when predicting Tech’s fortunes in 2017. The first step to fixing a problem is recognizing that there is a problem that needs fixing, so Freeman and the Yellow Jackets are off to a good start in their mission to improve on the 2016 season.

Over the summer, many players from Georgia Tech’s baseball team have found themselves playing and having a great deal of success in collegiate summer leagues across the country. Two of Tech’s relief pitchers were recently named to the Alaska Baseball League All-Star Team. Rising junior Micah Carpenter has been working as both a starter and reliever and sports an ERA under 3.00 for the Anchorage Bucs. His classmate Robert Winborne has been even more successful, coming out of the bullpen with a 1.62 ERA and over a strikeout per inning. Star catcher Joey Bart had been playing in the Cape Cod League but stepped away from his team to participate in the USA Baseball training camp and try and earn a spot on Collegiate National Team. Best of luck to Joey and the rest of the Yellow Jackets in their summer endeavors.