Technical Tidbits 8/18: Football updates as season approaches

In this article, Georgia Tech football head coach Geoff Collins noted what he perceived as improvements in quarterback Jeff Sims’ decision making and how this has affected his passing game. This is the kind of news you like to read about as it is always preferential to have your team’s head coach speaking positively of the team’s quarterback — easily the most important position of the team.

Having an effective leader at the quarterback position will be crucial to Tech’s success. Sims seems to be up for the job and has the required skill set to be just that leader. The transition to a more pro-based system hasn’t been easy for the Yellow Jackets, and the offense has had its struggles. With Sims being more comfortable with offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude’s scheme and able to perform well, making better decisions, there is no reason the offense can’t improve over its performance from last season. The Yellow Jackets do have talent at other skilled positions like running back and wide receiver. Of course, the offensive line will have to hold its own as well.

Certainly, there are a lot of players at key positions that will draw intrigue from Tech fans this season. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s some key defenders on that side of the ball that fans will be looking to to be difference makers. However, the quarterback position will be the most important in determining how well the offense does this season. And hopefully enough pieces fall in place so that the offensive unit can make significant strides in year three of the Collins era.

The preseason conference rankings are always among my favorites of the polls and rankings and other hype articles leading up to the NCAA football season. This article focuses on the Atlantic Coast Conference, so naturally, I had to include it for today’s Tidbits. There’s not much in-depth analysis or a lot of team insights provided in the piece. It mostly gives a quick overview of the justification for each ranking.

With that said, Georgia Tech is ranked 12th according to the article. It cites head coach Geoff Collins’ third year and the pressure to produce a .500 win season as what can be interpreted to be motivation for the Yellow Jackets. The two teams ranked lower than Tech are Duke and Syracuse at the 13th and 14th spots, respectively. Understandably, Clemson took the top spot. One oddity is that Notre Dame is not listed among the ranked ACC schools. Am I missing something? From what I’ve seen on the ACC website, ND is still considered part of the conference.