Special teams coaching? Absolutely pitiful!

G

GT Ace

Jolly Good Fellow
Joined
Dec 3, 2001
Messages
1,853
What the heck's happened to our placekicking? GT's taken an A-A & turned him into a divII kicker. Manget's 3 for 7 & not one has come over 45 yds, certainly makeable for Luke. Burnett's 0 for 2, missing 2 easily makeable FGs. Very hard to believe we're 3-9, leaving 18 pts on the table. The dropped xpt vs Clem really HURT.
Who's teaching our punt coverage to back into the EZ before downing the ball? It happened for the 2nd time Thurs nite. That's awful! We're allowing much too much on PRs when they field the ball.
The ONLY decent return GT's had on a punt or KO all year was Daniels' 59 KO return vs WF & it hurt that he didn't go all the way, as we got 0 pts from it. Only ONE all year.
Tech has the worst Special Teams in the ACC & I really haven't seen any improvement. Something has GOT to be done about this.
 
There is a simple explanation for this.

The GTAA called in the opening for a Special Teams coach to the Employment Office, using a non-Sprint phone. The lady heard "Special Ed" instead of "Special Teams."

But, that's OK, we can use the Special Ed coach to help the players and coaches count to 11 to avoid the illegal participation calls. ;-)

Seriously, you are doing a fine job of documenting the obvious, as usual, Ace. :-) The next iced tea is on me. ;-) The ST coach will be cleaning out his desk and locker right after the Duke game. He's lucky I'm not HC, or he'd be gone already.

He's not accomplishing the job he was hired to do, as spelled out in this article:

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/sports/gatech/0802/15gtfoot.html

Meanwhile, UGAG's STs continue to excel. Just plugged a Vandy punt (had two blocks vs. UT and 4 on the year). Too bad they don't need an ST coach, as our ST coach is a UGAGrad in Animal Science (and they sure have some animals on their team):

http://ramblinwreck.ocsn.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/raye_tommy00.html

To those of us on the newly formed (unofficial) Gailey Probation Committee, the scariest thing in what CG is saying is that we are going to "stay the course" (an old Bush the Elder phrase), when it's SO OBVIOUS we're not on the right course.

Wake Up, Chan, and smell your coffin. We need CHANGES and NOW!
 
U r so right, boardmeister!!

I am trying to think of at least one area of football at which we excel......hmmmmm....help!!

Actually, this whole program, esp. staff, looks like the keystone cops. The more they try to dig out of the hole, the deeper it gets.

If rumor is true that CG had his eyes set on Falcons after Reeves, hahahahahahah,heheheheh.
 
Question still is-why is Manget & Burnett so messed up? Is Tommy Raye the only one working with our kickers? This has been a season long problem that is not getting any better & is costing us dearly.
Raye's bio, taken from G'timers' post Raye's bio shows him to have ZERO experience with anything to do with Special Teams or the kicking game. Gailey messed up very badly by hiring this LB coach to take over STs. What is Gailey doing with this unit or is he taking any interest at all? All kickers were O'L's personal playground & he made them mentally tough. Why has it slipped so badly?
I don't mind paying a ST coach, but Raye is making us awful in this area & he should be gone from GT TODAY!
 
To be fair, I believe that T. Raye was Special teams coach at Navy last year and they excelled. I seem to remember them having one of the top special teams units in the country. I know they had a top returner before they played us last year.

As for Luke and kicking. I remember he had some bad games last year too. He missed SEVERAL against NC State. Was WAY off to the right or left in that game and a few others if I'm not mistaken. Seems like he doesn't know where he's gonna kick it before he approaches the ball. He was SO wide right the other night, I almost thought he didn't look at the goal posts before the kick. That's basic stuff. I'm at a loss about our field goal kicking. Kickoffs have been pretty good and punting (except for the coffin corner stuff) has been good too.
 
If Tommy Raye was the special teams coach at Navy, they did not excel. That team was 0-11 and gave up several big plays in the Army game that caused them to lose.
 
I know an eigth grader over at Marist who kicking well - 10 straght extra points. He can probably qualify for early admission.
 
The sp teams play has been a FLAMING example of poor coaching.NO part has improved from last yr.
I still can not understand why we can't pooch a kick to the 10 yd line and not worry about getting to the 1 yd line.Pathetic!
 
According to the Media Guide, Tommy Raye was not the special teams coach at Navy last year. He was working in private business in Atlanta at the time.

He was hired as Navy's linebackers coach in December 2001 by Paul Johnson, but left there to join Chan two months later.

He was previously Navy's linebackers coach from 1995-1999. Before that, he coached special teams (along with outside linebackers) at TCU from 1993-1995.

No disagreement from me on the performance of our special teams, just providing some facts on Raye's background.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top