Caravan Tour

BuzzMD

BuzzMD

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Last night the caravan tour was in Macon. For those who were not there, if the caravan is coming to your town, or nearby, go!!! It was a lot of fun. Coaches were very approachable and personable. The tour starts with a hour cocktail hour, and then each coach (and Wes and Dan) give a 5 minute speech and then they open the floor up to Q & A.

Will give my impression of what was said, but was not taking notes, or recording, as I had my 2 sons with me--so could be misquoting -- so if anyone else was there, they give their thoughts as well.

All the speeches were good, but no great surprises, in my opinion. All talked about their past seasons and the upcoming seasons. To be honest, thought Coach Joseph gave the best talk and was excited with her views of how exciting Women's Basketball can be with her team playing pressure defense as it does.

Questions from the audience were good as were the responses. A couple of different questions were about attendance at games--both basketball and football. Season ticket sales for football right now are about where they were last year, which is good, since not many great teams coming to BDS this year. We are in discussion with Clemson and possibly UGA to get schedule changed, as right now VT, Clemson, BC and UGA come on odd years and are away on even years--and this causes season tickets to sway a bit--with the even years being down years. In regards to BB, and the empty seats, one thing Radakovich said that I did not know was that Atlanta is the city where 11 of the 12 ACC teams have the largest alumni associations. Only BC does not have its largest alumni association in Atlanta. So Rad wishes he had a way to fix the problem with empty seats, but does not have a solution.

Then some crazy fool decided to ask CPJ about the Spring game and whether he was surprised by the number of TO's he had. He gave a quick joke at first, but then said a few things that I had not heard before. First, if he had wanted us all to feel great, he would have put the 1st stringers against the 3rd string and everyone could have gone home completely happy with a 50-6 score. He actually said the spring game may have tempered some of the enthusiasm out there (paraphrased). Secondly, the OLine was young playing against our best strength, in his mind. CPJ stated a few times how our DLine was the strength of our team right now. Also, if this had been a real game, Dykes would have been playing QB, and he explained a few of the series where there were mistakes by Nesbitt and company.

All in all, a wonderful caravan tour. I hope this is the start of a yearly thing, as it was wonderful to see the coaches in person.
 
BuzzMD said:
Also, if this had been a real game, Dykes would have been playing QB, and he explained a few of the series where there were mistakes by Nesbitt and company.
Click to expand...

Que? Is Dykes going to be our starter?

Good post.
 
TechinItEasy said:
Que? Is Dykes going to be our starter?

Good post.
Click to expand...

He would've been if we had a real game during the spring scrimmage. He has had twice the number of practice reps Nesbitt has, and he can run this offense better than Booker.

The idea is, though, that by the time fall rolls around Nesbitt will have practiced enough he can start and not make as many mistakes. I hope that's the case come Aug 28th.
 
TechinItEasy said:
Que? Is Dykes going to be our starter?

Good post.
Click to expand...

I will trust Paul Johnson. Dykes will be the starter if he is executing the best. I suspicion that if he said that he meant it, or is practicing some Coach-speak to Nesbitt. My impression so far is that Paul Johnson rarely opens his mouth without first analyzing how his words are going to be perceived by everyone who hears them. I think Shaw will get a look, but will probably be red-shirted unless the other three are just completely stinky in fall practice.
 
BeerNutts said:
He would've been if we had a real game during the spring scrimmage. He has had twice the number of practice reps Nesbitt has, and he can run this offense better than Booker.

The idea is, though, that by the time fall rolls around Nesbitt will have practiced enough he can start and not make as many mistakes. I hope that's the case come Aug 28th.
Click to expand...
Gotcha.

I trust PJ as well. If Dykes outperforms Nesbitt I will be surprised, but excited as well...We all know what Nesbitt is capable of.
 
Ouch. my apologies. CPJ said that if Spring ball had been a real games, Dykes would have been 1st team. However, he did not state that Dykes is now the starter; in fact, he said (again paraphrasing) that Nesbitt was with the 1st team despite his limited practices at that time because he is the starter. Sorry for my poor words earlier. Do not want you all to go out and state that Dykes is now the starter--because that is NOT what CPJ said...just maybe what this idiot may have typed.
 
Link to article on macon.com

All of those quotes and stuff, I do not remember any of those coaches talking about that on stage, so think all of that was private interviews. The reporters did not mention any of the public stuff we in the audience heard.
 
I really enjoyed the way Dan, Wes, and PH joked with each other with the stories...as well as the Miami Baseball game updates. I actually knew we gave up the lead in th 9th when I saw Dan mouth to Hewitt that someone had homered with 2nd and 3rd and one out.

Very enjoyable couple of hours. Definitely go if its in your area!
 
Here's what I can remember:

D. Rad - Son is starting Tech in the Fall. Said he would make him graduate in 4 years. (Good luck on that one D Rad!) Was questioned about so many opposing fans at BDS and AMC. Said that Atlanta has the largest alumni population of 11 of the 12 ACC schools. He has talked to Tech grads who purchase corporate tickets about the situation but also understands that when their biggest client who is a grad from an opponent calls for tickets that they'll feel obligated to give them some. Gave a pitch for the Tech fund. One contributor gave $50 G's last night. Said he'd like for the caravan to be an annual event. Someone made a comment about ugag arrest troubles and D Rad sad that he does not revel in other's misfortune because he knows that we are just one phone call away from suffering the same fate.

CPH - Likes the team for next year. Thought that Mo Miller and Peacock played the best last third of the season. Mentioned playing the 2nd overall hardest schedule nationally. Joked about D Rad liking ZP and trying to get CPH to play him more. Said D Rad would stick his head in his office and call out "Free Zack Peacock!" Brad Sheehan is playing with a college all-star league in the Bahammas. His coach has reported that he started slow but has come on in the later part of the season. Wants Lance Storrs to do a similar league. Thinks he will be a player in the future. Loves D'Andre Bell and thinks he'll be a leader on this team a la C Moore. Depth will depend on Storrs and Sheehan. Talking to a transfer and a "freshman" (I took that as meaning a recruit) about coming to Tech. Will play Mercer on November 22 in Macon.

CMJ - Talked about the team's youth and how they have come along. Has had 2 top 10 recuiting classes. Is excited about a 6'5" freshmen center (from Ga, IIRC) coming in and a top 25 player from Fla (again, iirc). Past successes were beating Maryland and ugag. Avg 15 steals a game. Won an NCAA tourny game first time in Tech's history. Have only beaten ugag 3 times in our history and she vowed to even that record if she has to coach until she's 90. Will play UConn and UT in the next few seasons. CPH gave her a jab about a tough schedule. In turn, she jabbed back about D Rad might start telling her who to play if she doesn't win 20+ games. Asked that we all come out to the ugag game on Dec. 5. She wants a home court advantage and wants the AMC rocking. Said that there was a common kinship among the coaches and the overall expectation of excellence and high standards that Tech places on their students is felt by the coaches as well.

CPJ - A lot of the same stuff that we have already seen on the net. Started with a ugag joke. Told the story of the HS kids wearing the ugag clothing. Strength is DL. Wasn't real concerned about the O's performance based on the Spring game. Wanted Nesbitt to get as many snaps as possible, who of course was injured fro a lot of the spring. That and going against a very good D led to fumbles. Said that if it had been a real game that Dykes would have started since he is further along on the learning curve. Respects ugag and the antichrist who coaches them but is NOT afraid of them. Never had so many young players at the skills positions (Nesbitt, Dwyer, Jones were mentioned) but that they are talented. Mentioned with Perriloux transferring to Jack St, that it would make the team more excited about playing them. He said we'll do fine unless the LSU O-Line transfers with him. Someone asked about Luallen and he was acted surprised that we knew about it and said that he couldn't comment. Did say he thought we might get 2 other qb's of equal or greater talent. He may get 4 or 5 qb's because of the best athlete thing. Mentioned his Hawaii team that had 5 HS qb's starting at the skills positions (qb, bee-back, both a-backs and wr).

Wes was his usual hilarious self. Talk about at unc how CPH joke about Woody being the varsity and that Wes was the JV. Said the old man brings that up constantly. Another side note, CPJ talked about being even par w/ 4 holes to go at Idle Hour. It's not that hard of a course from my understanding, but still the man can play. If I can remember anything else, I'll update.
 
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Damn, gtmann--you remembered it much better than I did. My apologies for my poorer job compared to gtmann. As I was reading his, I was saying oh yeah, that was said.

So his was much more accurate than mine. Should have waited for him to post.
 
Same w/ your recap, BuzzMD. I'd forgotten about D Rad talking about the schedule changes and CPJ talking about how he could have played the 1's vs the 3's.

Was one of your boys the 6 yo that Wes asked his age?
 
Oh yeah, Gary Lanier was there also. Got a chance to thank him for that '76 ugag game.

Also I sat by James Liipert's family. Very nice people.
 
Yes, that was one of my 2 boys that was the 6 year old. I was also the one who did not look at the raffle ticket. Boys had the ticket at the time.
 
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