ACC coaches speak anonymously about every team ahead of 2023 season.

[Jim Prather]

Like I’m pretty sure these are not actually ACC coaches saying this. I just think the journalist writes their own narrative.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to feel like that. About halfway through the article, I thought the "quotes" started sounding exactly like something written by a sportswriter/sports blogger. At the end of the article, I thought to myself that the writer initially started interviewing coaches then ran out of time and just made up the rest.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to feel like that. About halfway through the article, I thought the "quotes" started sounding exactly like something written by a sportswriter/sports blogger. At the end of the article, I thought to myself that the writer initially started interviewing coaches then ran out of time and just made up the rest.

Yeah, or he ran out of time and spoke to assistants and said, “Would you say that the challenge for (fill in the team) is whether or not (describe a fairly obvious issue) and this will probably relegate them to (such and such a position) in the coming season?” And the assistant said, “Sure.”

 

[CEB]

Yeah, or he ran out of time and spoke to assistants and said, “Would you say that the challenge for (fill in the team) is whether or not (describe a fairly obvious issue) and this will probably relegate them to (such and such a position) in the coming season?” And the assistant said, “Sure.”

The nice thing about quoting anonymous sources is that the anonymous source can’t challenge your quote.
Don’t quote me on that.

 

[slugboy]

The nice thing about quoting anonymous sources is that the anonymous source can’t challenge your quote.
Don’t quote me on that.

Yeah, but if you’re making up quotes, you can make up more and spicier quotes than that.

Why not say “no one can stand Narduzzi”? Why not “it’s between Pitt and BC for who has the best fullback, but that’s just because none of us use them anymore”? Why not say “we hated Collins and we’re glad he’s gone. Our job got tougher with him gone, but Key still has a tough job”?

I think the writer either didn’t talk to as many assistants as he should have, or no one is giving good quotes.

 

[CEB]

Yeah, but if you’re making up quotes, you can make up more and spicier quotes than that.

Why not say “no one can stand Narduzzi”? Why not “it’s between Pitt and BC for who has the best fullback, but that’s just because none of us use them anymore”? Why not say “we hated Collins and we’re glad he’s gone. Our job got tougher with him gone, but Key still has a tough job”?

I think the writer either didn’t talk to as many assistants as he should have, or no one is giving good quotes.

It’s a “puff piece” that ran its course... or maybe we’re giving it a collective shrug off because it’s the first time we haven’t been the brunt of the joke for a while.

Making stuff up would be a lot more fun and drive more clicks

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Was that written in a journalist class interviewing other classmates?

 

[jacketup]

This article lost credibility with the "only a couple of players returning on offense" comment. The entire starting OL is back, something we haven't had in years. We also have a little bit of depth on the OL, again, something we haven't had in years. Jeff Sims isn't back, but I don't view that as a negative. Typical shallow media analysis that only looks at the QB and bases its entire view of the team on that one data point.

In short, what the hell are they talking about?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

This article lost credibility with the "only a couple of players returning on offense" comment. The entire starting OL is back, something we haven't had in years. We also have a little bit of depth on the OL, again, something we haven't had in years. Jeff Sims isn't back, but I don't view that as a negative. Typical shallow media analysis that only looks at the QB and bases its entire view of the team on that one data point.

In short, what the hell are they talking about?

I am guessing they were referring to skill position players.

4/5 OL starters returning from a severely underperforming (OL) season in 2022. Question mark at QB. Minimal WR production returning. TE will be a question mark at GT until proven otherwise. Other than the RB position, there are no proven players on our offense.

While i am positive we have playmakers on the team and will see improvement, I can completely understand why teams aren't high on us just yet.

2022 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE LINE STATS | Football Outsiders

Updated through end of season, 1/10/23

www.footballoutsiders.com

 

[slugboy]

I am guessing they were referring to skill position players.

4/5 OL starters returning from a severely underperforming (OL) season in 2022. Question mark at QB. Minimal WR production returning. TE will be a question mark at GT until proven otherwise. Other than the RB position, there are no proven players on our offense.

While i am positive we have playmakers on the team and will see improvement, I can completely understand why teams aren't high on us just yet.

2022 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE LINE STATS | Football Outsiders

Updated through end of season, 1/10/23

www.footballoutsiders.com

On the other hand, if Key's comments about the OL not getting any physical practice at speed until he took over at coach are true, then we should expect our OL to at least approach "middle of the pack" this season.

Overall, these numbers are about the bottom quartile of college football. We say things like "get the OL and front 7 up to 'average' and we're looking good", and that's hard, but if an OL HC can't improve this, then we have issues.

Offense

Avg. Line Yards

Rk

Std. Downs Line Yards

Rk2

Pass. Downs Line Yards

Rk3

Opp. Rate

Rk4

Power Success Rate

Rk5

Stuff Rate

Rk6

Sack Rate

Rk7

Std. Downs Sack Rate

Rk8

Pass. Downs Sack Rate

Rk9

Georgia Tech

2.51​

100​

2.28​

119​

2.78​

83​

0.474​

73​

0.619​

108​

0.212​

113​

0.087​

107​

0.087​

123​

0.099​

94​

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

On the other hand, if Key's comments about the OL not getting any physical practice at speed until he took over at coach are true, then we should expect our OL to at least approach "middle of the pack" this season.

Oh, I agree. Just pointing out why other coaches might not be high on our team.

 

[slugboy]

Oh, I agree. Just pointing out why other coaches might not be high on our team.

I do often say that with decent coaching our week units should at least get up to NCAA average. After years, our defense finally stepped up last year, but our offense didn’t. Special teams didn’t get average, but did stop being a disaster.
For all I’ve said “decent coaching should at least pull us up to mediocre”, I saw that not happening for a decade+ on defense.
Let’s hope that things are different this year

 

[jojatk]

I think the quotes are probably real. However, I think the definition of "coach" can be pretty loose at times and doesn't always mean an on-field coach. Also I suspect some of those quotes came from other interviews and just general discussions with staffers from around the ACC as the writers go to meetings and on campus for spring practices and things like that where they might be standing on the sideline or in the locker room or the interview room just asking the closest football staffer what they think. It could also be comments made when just talking about their schedule. For example, "Hey what do you think about your schedule?" and then a general conversation could ensue and one or two quotes might come up from Coach XYZ from UNC saying one thing about GT and Coach ABC from Cuse saying one thing about FSU, etc... So they may have talked with 50 different coaches and gotten one quote on GT.

 

[DeepSnap]

I think the quotes are probably real. However, I think the definition of "coach" can be pretty loose at times and doesn't always mean an on-field coach. Also I suspect some of those quotes came from other interviews and just general discussions with staffers from around the ACC as the writers go to meetings and on campus for spring practices and things like that where they might be standing on the sideline or in the locker room or the interview room just asking the closest football staffer what they think. It could also be comments made when just talking about their schedule. For example, "Hey what do you think about your schedule?" and then a general conversation could ensue and one or two quotes might come up from Coach XYZ from UNC saying one thing about GT and Coach ABC from Cuse saying one thing about FSU, etc... So they may have talked with 50 different coaches and gotten one quote on GT.

Many moons ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, legendary GT SID Ned "Bevo" West supplied such info to Street & Smith, Athlon, etc.

I doubt much as changed as most college FB coaches are too darned busy to have quotes released for such trivial articles & the sources are all anonymous to protect the guilty.

 

[Lil G]

Sports journalism as spiraled more and more into clickbait I think. Views = money so just being mildly controversial (aka purposefully wrong, or just outright lazy) is all it takes. If you follow any social media sports accounts, it’s just “hot takes” with no in depth reasoning, just causing stirs in the comments because comments = better algorithm. I saw one the other day that just showed a picture of bama’s schedule and just said “ 9-3?”…

~Actual~ journalism is getting closer and closer to this by the year in my opinion. There’s no comment sections to alter any algorithms, but if they can get the same people who just want to argue in their head over something to keep coming back, they get more money.

I can hardly read any articles anymore because of the brutal lack of research and interviews and evident tendency to spin things.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

This article lost credibility with the "only a couple of players returning on offense" comment. The entire starting OL is back, something we haven't had in years. We also have a little bit of depth on the OL, again, something we haven't had in years. Jeff Sims isn't back, but I don't view that as a negative. Typical shallow media analysis that only looks at the QB and bases its entire view of the team on that one data point.

In short, what the hell are they talking about?

I would not worry about it too much. They have to fill pages and they can rightfully claim (Athlon, I mean) to have been the first to dig up, make up, throw together, other coaches comments and pretend that it was real. I am not as concerned about what other coaches say about our team as I am what our coaches really think and what our players really think and if they are smart they won't share it with the likes of overage keyboard warriors with nothing better to do than speculate in early summer based on lies, damn lies and statistics with apologies to Mark Twain.

 

[jojatk]

Many moons ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, legendary GT SID Ned "Bevo" West supplied such info to Street & Smith, Athlon, etc.

I doubt much as changed as most college FB coaches are too darned busy to have quotes released for such trivial articles & the sources are all anonymous to protect the guilty.

Yeah there's no way most of those quotes came from individual discussions with head coaches. Those feel to me more like snippets from other discussions with various football staffers over a beer.

 

[Techfan02]

I am guessing they were referring to skill position players.

4/5 OL starters returning from a severely underperforming (OL) season in 2022. Question mark at QB. Minimal WR production returning. TE will be a question mark at GT until proven otherwise. Other than the RB position, there are no proven players on our offense.

While i am positive we have playmakers on the team and will see improvement, I can completely understand why teams aren't high on us just yet.

2022 COLLEGE FOOTBALL OFFENSIVE LINE STATS | Football Outsiders

Updated through end of season, 1/10/23

www.footballoutsiders.com

If last season mainly the half with Coach Key as underperforming you have to have the one's with collins as a word from the times of pharroh's that have to be translated with the rossetta stone.

 

[RonJohn]

Sports journalism as spiraled more and more into clickbait I think. Views = money so just being mildly controversial (aka purposefully wrong, or just outright lazy) is all it takes. If you follow any social media sports accounts, it’s just “hot takes” with no in depth reasoning, just causing stirs in the comments because comments = better algorithm. I saw one the other day that just showed a picture of bama’s schedule and just said “ 9-3?”…

~Actual~ journalism is getting closer and closer to this by the year in my opinion. There’s no comment sections to alter any algorithms, but if they can get the same people who just want to argue in their head over something to keep coming back, they get more money.

I can hardly read any articles anymore because of the brutal lack of research and interviews and evident tendency to spin things.

Not sports related, but WSJ and NYT still do have plenty of in depth - long form stories. Still have to be skeptical of information and potential motives of the authors, but the stories and the depth of journalistic research in some of the stories is still top notch.

For sports, I don't know where you can get that. I guess maybe the typical sports fan isn't interested in such things as opposed to the typical WSJ subscriber.

 

[orientalnc]

Sports journalism as spiraled more and more into clickbait I think. Views = money so just being mildly controversial (aka purposefully wrong, or just outright lazy) is all it takes. If you follow any social media sports accounts, it’s just “hot takes” with no in depth reasoning, just causing stirs in the comments because comments = better algorithm. I saw one the other day that just showed a picture of bama’s schedule and just said “ 9-3?”…

~Actual~ journalism is getting closer and closer to this by the year in my opinion. There’s no comment sections to alter any algorithms, but if they can get the same people who just want to argue in their head over something to keep coming back, they get more money.

I can hardly read any articles anymore because of the brutal lack of research and interviews and evident tendency to spin things.

Read Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. It's behind a paywall as is most of the best writing. If you aren't able or willing to pay for the quality journalism that has the depth you seem to want, you stand to be disappointed. The good stuff ain't free.

 

[BeeRBee]

I would not worry about it too much. They have to fill pages and they can rightfully claim (Athlon, I mean) to have been the first to dig up, make up, throw together, other coaches comments and pretend that it was real. I am not as concerned about what other coaches say about our team as I am what our coaches really think and what our players really think and if they are smart they won't share it with the likes of overage keyboard warriors with nothing better to do than speculate in early summer based on lies, damn lies and statistics with apologies to Mark Twain.

People's cynicism really gets to me sometimes. From listening to him on the Split Zone Duo podcast, I'm pretty sure these features on Athlon are reported by Steven Godfrey and while I don't know the man from all indications he's a good and honest journalist.

I've heard him discuss these quotes and his process on the podcast, and while I don't remember the details my impression is that he sets out contacting coaches (I'm sure assistants) to ask about other teams and then puts together quotes supporting the themes that emerge. I do think I remember him saying that if he gets multiple quotes about a team making the same point, he might composite them in order to get a clearer point across.

Of course, the fact that these quotes are real don't mean that the coaches know what they are talking about relative to other schools, but it should give you an idea of the perceptions that are out there.

If you want to see some of Godfrey's other work, go read "Meet the bagman" on the old Banner Society website, or watch "Foul Play: Paid In Mississippi" on Vox Media which I think pretty much torched his relationship with his alma mater (Ole Miss.)