January 27, 2017
In This Issue
______________
~
Recruiting Reset ~ Commitments Have Georgia Tech's
Final
2017 Class Taking Shape
15 days ago (on January 12), I told you a lot of things regarding where things stood in Georgia Tech's recruiting. The time since has been awfully eventful. Here's what's happened:
Later that day, WR Harland Howell II and DB Meiko Dotson, both reserves at their respective positions, announced their respective transfers.
On January 16th, Tennessee RB
Jordan Ponchez-Mason became commitment #16.
Two days later, rising junior OL
Trey Klock announced his intent to transfer.
This past Sunday morning (January 22), DE
Kelton Dawson became commitment #17.
Hours later, DB
Avery Showell became commitment #18.
Later that afternoon, LB
Jaquan Henderson flipped from Tennessee and became commitment #19.
Around lunch time on Monday (January 23), K
Joseph Bulovas announced his decommitment from Georgia Tech after 7 months of being committed. That dropped the recruiting class back to 18 members.
Monday afternoon, DL
Antwan Owens flipped from UCF and became commitment #19.
Monday evening, the Jackets replaced Bulovas just hours after his decommitment when K
Brenton King became commitment #20.
Needless to say, it's been an incredibly eventful couple of weeks on the Flats. Here's an updated look at the status of the Yellow Jackets' recruiting efforts.
Georgia Tech Basketball: Yellow Jackets Have A Rising Star in Josh Okogie
Saturday is Annual Letterwinner's Game At McCamish vs Notre Dame With More Than 50 Alumni
Twenty-one games into his freshman season, Josh Okogie has shown that he's a rising star and the sky is the only limit for the Snellville, Georgia native and Georgia Tech basketball.
In the 2016 college basketball recruiting cycle, there were 27 current ACC freshman rated higher than Okogie. A few dozen games into the season, very few of those 27 recruits have had as much of an impact on their team as Okogie has had for the Yellow Jackets this season.
While North Carolina State's Dennis Smith Jr will probably walk away at the end of the season with the ACC Rookie of the Year award, Okogie should very well be in the argument. So far, Okogie is the ACC's second highest scoring freshman only behind Smith Jr, who's averaging over 19 points per game. Nationally, Okogie ranks 12th in freshman scoring, not too bad for a player who received just three college offers.
Okogie's last game against sixth ranked Florida State is without a doubt his best game to date as a Yellow Jacket. The true freshman showed he could do it all, scoring 35 points while bringing down 14 rebounds and finishing with five assists. He's shown this season he can score from all around, whether it's from right under the basket or from beyond the arch. He's also been money from the charity strike of recent, making 79% (31-of-39) of his free throws over the last five games.
FSU women edge
Georgia Tech in Atlanta
The (6) Florida State Seminoles (20-2, 8-1 ACC) defeated the Yellow Jackets (13-7, 2-5 ACC) 69-63 in Atlanta to remain in first place in the ACC.
Shakayla Thomas scored 17 points,
Imani Wright added 14 as No. 6 FSU won its seventh straight game.
Sophomore guard Kaylan Pugh finished with 23 points and junior forward Zaire O'Neil had 12 for Georgia Tech (13-7, 2-5). The Jackets have lost three straight and five of seven.
The Seminoles trailed for just one possession and improving to 8-0 on the road.
O'Neil's layup gave Tech its only lead of the game, making it 50-49 with 8:36 remaining, but FSU coach
Sue Semrau immediately called a timeout, and
Chatrice White followed with two quick baskets for a three-point lead.
Wright had a three-point play to make it 56-50, and Ama Degebon scored inside for a 60-52 lead.
Ivey Slaughter had 11 points and six rebounds for Florida State.
Thomas' free throw gave the Seminoles their first double-digit lead at 43-33 with 4 minutes left in the third quarter.
FSU missed 11 of their first 15 shots of the game, but finished the first half shooting 50 percent and led 30-23.
The GT three-game slide includes a 40-point loss at Louisville and an overtime loss at Wake Forest. Tech dropped to 1-4 against ranked teams.
The Jackets head to Clemson on Sunday for a 2 p.m. tip off on ACC Network Extra.
The Georgia Tech Sports Website
Georgia Tech Express Official Website
|
Georgia Tech Express Sports
770-596-6451
|
|
News & Information on Georgia Tech Team Sports
along with News from the Atlantic Coast Conference
|
|
Philip Wheeler felt right at home Sunday evening, smiling as broadly as possible in a locker room full of impossibly happy men. After helping the Atlanta Falcons whip the Green Bay Packers, he took a moment to reflect on his pending trip to the Super Bowl -- the second such journey of his nine-year NFL career.
The former Georgia Tech linebacker is breathing rare air and he knows it. Many NFL players come and go without even making it to the playoffs. Many more never play in a Super Bowl.
"It's amazing," he said after the Falcons' 44-21 win over Green Bay in the NFC Championship Game, the final contest ever in the Georgia Dome. "This is wonderful. Just a fantastic feeling."
Wheeler made it to the Super Bowl in his second season, after the 2009 campaign and one year after the Colts selected him in the third round of the NFL Draft. He's not saying this trip is better than that one, but if the Falcons (13-5) manage to beat the Patriots (16-2) in Super Bowl LI on Feb. 5 in Houston, it surely will top the list.
Former Yellow Jacket Shaq Mason will have other plans. He's a starting guard for New England, making Georgia Tech one of only 12 programs with former players on both teams competing in this year's Super Bowl.
The Colts lost to the Saints in his first trip to the NFL's mecca, so Wheeler is pausing before making a bottom-line comparison. This hasn't been the same, though, in some notable ways.
Chiefly, it's been amazing the way Falcons head coach Dan Quinn has created a culture allowing "this to be a player-led team," as wide receiver Julio Jones said.
So much has been made of this team's "Brothership" -- a term coined accidentally by fullback Patrick DiMarco in merging the concepts of brotherhood and friendship -- and it's real.
Wheeler's having a blast and loving the ride as a reserve linebacker. As for the how it compares to his first Super Bowl journey with the Colts, it's hard to quantify, at this point, at least, "because the team was different, the environment was different, the chemistry was different," he said. "I feel like it wasn't better, either one, just different."
The Falcons' offense pulls most of the headlines for this team, leading the NFL in scoring with Jones making one amazing play after another. Quarterback
Matt Ryan is expected to be named MVP of the league the day before the Super Bowl.
On Sunday, the defense did more than its fair share of work, tightening down on Green Bay quarterback
Aaron Rodgers to make him look mortal. The key, Wheeler said, was, "The way we pressured him. We didn't get to him all the time, but we corralled him."
Wheeler, who played at Tech from 2003-07, led the Jackets with nine sacks as a junior and, as a senior, paced the squad with 89 total tackles. He closed his career with 11 tackles against Georgia and another 11 against Fresno State in the 2007 Humanitarian Bowl.
|
|
2017 Football Season Tickets On Sale
With one of the most anticipated home schedules in school history on tap, 2017 Georgia Tech football season tickets went on sale to the general public on Thursday.
Georgia Tech's seven-game season-ticket package not only features the Yellow Jackets' full six-game slate at Bobby Dodd Stadium (highlighted by matchups versus North Carolina, Virginia Tech and archrival Georgia) but also includes the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game versus Tennessee at Atlanta's brand-new Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Labor Day evening. All seven games included in the Jackets' 2017 season tickets come against teams that advanced to the postseason in 2016.
Season tickets start at just $300 and include benefits such as access to the same great seat for each home game, savings over single-game prices, Buzz Memories credits, priority entry to Fan Day, an interest-free four-month payment plan and a personal account representative. Additionally, purchasing season tickets is the ONLY way to guarantee tickets from Georgia Tech's allotment for the season opener against Tennessee at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
|
A Closer Look at the 2017 Slate
As Georgia Tech's full football schedule rolled out Wednesday, the 2017 season lay before eyes to produce stock and shock.
The Yellow Jackets have a rock-solid slate with six home games in Bobby Dodd Stadium, another doozy in downtown Atlanta and 10-of-12 opponents having gone to the postseason in 2016.
The beginning and end were already known.
Tech's season opener against Tennessee in Mercedes-Benz Stadium sports a great vibe already, as the first meeting with the Vols in 30 years promises quite the Labor Day evening treat in one of Atlanta's two new sports palaces.
"It's always cool to open up with some competition like Tennessee," said rising junior wide receiver Brad Stewart. "We're just eager to get back out there and get double-digit wins."
Should the Jackets surpass their 9-4 mark of last season, which included winning six of their final seven games in a campaign where they went 3-0 against the SEC, they'll want to stay busy after the opener versus Tennessee. Just five days later, Tech will open Bobby Dodd against a Jacksonville State squad that finished 10-2 and was ranked among the nation's top three NCAA Division I FCS teams in 2016, then travels to the land of Disney to play 2016 Cure Bowl participant UCF the next week.
These games were already on the books, so to speak, the same as the regular-season finale at home against Georgia. No need to say anything about that one.
It's the middle of the schedule sandwich -- the ACC run -- that prompts new emotion.
Before looking at who's new to the conference schedule -- Wake Forest -- there's the troubling business about the Jackets for the second season in a row drawing a league-high three ACC opponents who will be coming off byes or off weekends in Clemson, Wake and Miami.
Click Here For The Full Story and More on Georgia Tech Football
Click Here For The Full 2017 Georgia Tech Football Schedule
|
|
Former Yellow Jackets in the NFL
Georgia Tech football's Philip Wheeler and
Shaq Mason will meet in
Super Bowl LI
Super Bowl LI has been set for Feb. 5, 2017 in Houston, Texas and it will include a pair of #ProJackets in Philip Wheeler (OLB GT 2003-02) and Shaq Mason (OG GT 2011-14) who will lineup on the opposing sidelines for the 6:30 p.m. EST kickoff.
Wheeler and the Atlanta Falcons' defense shut down the high-powered Green Bay Packers' offense to pick up a 44-21 win in the NFC Championship on Sunday afternoon in the final game of the 25-year history of the Georgia Dome.
On the other side of the field, Green Bay safety Morgan Burnett (S, GT 2007-09) recorded seven tackles, five solo and two assisted, and a pass defended in the loss to the Falcons.
The Patriots reached their ninth Super Bowl this season with a 36-17 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship game. Mason helped the Patriots' offense to its second straight 30-plus point game in the 2017 playoffs.
Click Here For The Full Story and More on
All 17 Former Yellow Jackets Currently On NFL Rosters
Click Here To Go To Our NFL Page With Links To The Official Websites Of Every National Football League Team
|
2017 ACC Baseball Preseason Coaches
Poll Announced
Georgia Tech baseball was picked to finish fourth in the Coastal Division in the 2017 ACC Baseball Preseason Coaches Poll, which was unveiled on Wednesday.
The Yellow Jackets garnered a total of 59 points and had one first-place vote in the poll.
North Carolina (86) was predicted to finish first in the highly touted Coastal Division followed by Virginia (84) and Miami (77). Duke (40), Virginia Tech (26) and Pitt (20) rounded out the Coastal Division predictions.
Overall, Florida State was projected as the overall ACC champion, receiving 10 of the 14 votes to win the conference tournament, which is scheduled for May 23-28 at Louisville Slugger Field in Louisville, Kentucky. The Seminoles (93) were also predicted to win the Atlantic Division, placing ahead of Louisville (79), Clemson (66), NC State (64), Wake Forest (38), Boston College (26) and Notre Dame (26).
A total of eight ACC teams are ranked nationally in various top 25 preseason polls, including Georgia Tech who is ranked No. 21 by Baseball America.
Georgia Tech opens its 2017 slate on Friday, Feb. 17, versus BYU at 4 p.m. at Russ Chandler Stadium. The Friday afternoon contest will be the first of three games on opening weekend, as the Yellow Jackets also host Marshall (Feb. 18) and Western Michigan (Feb. 19) as part of the Atlanta Challenge.
The Yellow Jackets will host a total of 31 home games at Russ Chandler Stadium in a challenging 2017 slate which includes contests versus seven 2016 NCAA Baseball Championship participants in Miami (Fla.), Virginia, Clemson, Wake Forest, Duke, Louisville and Western Michigan.
Season tickets will are on sale now for as low as $125. For less than $4 per game, fans can enjoy premier college baseball at Russ Chandler Stadium, which is annually ranked among the best ballpark experiences in the nation. Fans interested in season tickets can
CLICK HERE.
Click Here For The 2017 Georgia Tech Baseball Schedule
|
Keep up with everything that's going on with Georgia Tech sports by subscribing for Free to this newsletter.
The latest stories on Yellow Jackets football, golf & baseball, women's softball & volleyball, men's and women's basketball, swimming, tennis, track & field & cross country.
Tell your friends about it.
|
|
| |
|
