D-Line & coaching going into 2023

[TromboneJacket]

I’ve been thinking about next season and the roster we’ll have. The transfers at LB will go a long way towards shoring up that group, and the guys returning in the secondary should make it a strength of the team. That being said, I think the DL will be an area of concern. Scott and Douse stepped up at DT and have some talent behind them in Biggers and Stone, but it seems to me that with Keion White and Sylvain Yondjouen leaving, we’ll be weak at DE.

I keep waiting for the guys we have at WDE to have breakout seasons, and it just hasn’t happened. And we don’t seem to have much if any depth at SDE to replace the guys leaving. Do we have any 3-tech players who might be able to move outside to SDE? Do we have anyone we expect to break out or come in and produce at WDE? What are y’all’s thoughts?

 

[5277hike]

I’ve been thinking about next season and the roster we’ll have. The transfers at LB will go a long way towards shoring up that group, and the guys returning in the secondary should make it a strength of the team. That being said, I think the DL will be an area of concern. Scott and Douse stepped up at DT and have some talent behind them in Biggers and Stone, but it seems to me that with Keion White and Sylvain Yondjouen leaving, we’ll be weak at DE.

I keep waiting for the guys we have at WDE to have breakout seasons, and it just hasn’t happened. And we don’t seem to have much if any depth at SDE to replace the guys leaving. Do we have any 3-tech players who might be able to move outside to SDE? Do we have anyone we expect to break out or come in and produce at WDE? What are y’all’s thoughts?

Has Yondjouen said for sure he is not coming back? If so, I missed it. He really came on at the end of last year (as several others did after the coaching change) and I think could be a force next season. I do share your concern though.

 

[Ibeeballin]

Y’all always talking about development but never let anyone grow into their position

Kennard, Collins, Josh Robinson have logged major snaps and have been productive. Grey Carroll will have been in the program 3yrs. Time for them step up

 

[slugboy]

Here's our 2022 roster from ESPN, sorted by class, and filtered to just the DL. It doesn't split out the DEs/EDGE/DTs/NTs from each other. It hasn't been updated for graduation or the transfer portal. We have some freshmen coming in, but I think our DL next year is mostly our DL this year without Keion White.

Keion White was special this year, and he'll be missed.

Sylvain Yondjouen graduated, and I don't know if he's staying for another year. So far he doesn't seem to be in the transfer portal. There are some good names in the Freshmen and Sophomores on this list. Even if Yondjouen is gone, there are 19 players on this list for next season--that's nearly 4 deep.

Grey Carroll is listed as a R-Freshman. I don't know how much COVID factors into the class for each player.

Note: Hey, just supplying what the DL roster kind of looks like so that y'all can look at it, see who we have, and start to have an idea of what we can do with it. We stayed pretty true to the 4-2-5 last season, but maybe LB is stronger in 2023 and we use more 3-3-5 than this past season.

This is the first offseason that the defensive coaches can get together without TFG and figure out what they want to do with their players. Maybe they add some tweaks. We were much more interesting on the DL in 2022 than we were the year before.

If a total stud or two want to transfer here and wreak havoc, I'd be glad to have them, but I think we have some good-looking players here.

Also, I can probably dig up a lot of 2021 posts about how disappointing White and Yondjouen were, and how we'd be terrible after our best two DL transferred out. We could have used them, but I think our defensive coaching staff is good.

NAME	POS	HT	WT	CLASS	BIRTHPLACE
Christian Burkhalter 31	DL	6' 4"	236 lbs	FR	Mobile, AL
Grey Carroll 49	DL	6' 3"	255 lbs	FR	Alcoa, TN
Horace Lockett 55	DL	6' 6"	337 lbs	FR	Atlanta, GA
Jalen McDonald 91	DL	6' 1"	220 lbs	FR	Fayetteville, NC
K.J. Miles 56	DL	6' 4"	280 lbs	FR	Orange, NJ
Jason Moore 95	DL	6' 2"	291 lbs	FR	Hampton, GA
Jaaymen Rochell 93	DL	6' 4"	290 lbs	FR	Duluth, GA
Chase Sippola 94	DL	5' 10"	259 lbs	FR	Carrollton, GA
Akelo Stone 97	DL	6' 2"	280 lbs	FR	Savannah, GA
Ty Thompson 92	DL	5' 11"	224 lbs	FR	Acworth, GA
Zeek Biggers 88	DL	6' 6"	341 lbs	SO	Salisbury, NC
Noah Collins 43	DL	6' 5"	243 lbs	SO	Loganville, GA
D'Quan Douse 99	DL	6' 2"	282 lbs	SO	Savannah, GA
Kevin Harris 11	DL	6' 4"	241 lbs	SO	Loganville, GA
Kyle Kennard 9	DL	6' 5"	240 lbs	SO	Atlanta, GA
Josh Robinson 27	DL	6' 6"	259 lbs	SO	Douglasville, GA
Makius Scott 8	DL	6' 4"	295 lbs	SO	Gainesville, GA
Daniel Carson 90	DL	6' 4"	287 lbs	JR	Kansas City, MO
T.K. Chimedza 5	DL	6' 3"	335 lbs	JR	Dacula, GA
Sylvain Yondjouen 32	DL	6' 4"	257 lbs	JR	Ruisbroek, Belgium
Keion White 6	DL	6' 5"	286 lbs	SR	Garner, NC

 

[iceeater1969]

Wasn't there a non scholy player named" Moore"? who got a few good rushes. Iirc was said to be one of strongest in weight room.

Opps - there he is 95!

 

[slugboy]

Just for grins, here are some raw stats on tackles and turnovers. We're losing our top three producers, but seniors are often top performers and they tend to graduate.

Assuming Yondjouen doesn't come back, we're losing about 38% of our tackles from last year and keeping about 62%. The lion's share of that is from Eley and Thomas. We're losing a 53% of our tackles for loss and 56% of our sacks. Eley and Thomas were responsible for 27% of our tackles for loss and 20% of our sacks.

Honestly, I expect our defense to be as good or better next season. It's a challenge for our defensive coaches and our players, but I think we can get better.

Now, our OFFENSE was a train wreck last year. I'm trying to figure out how we turn that around.

I'm less worried about defense, but I'd really like to see us pull in more highly regarded (4*, 5*) players that we like there.

			Tackles					Def Int					Fumbles
Rk	Player	G	Solo	Ast	Tot	Loss	Sk	Int	Yds	Avg	TD	PD	FR	Yds	TD	FF
1	Ayinde Eley	12	57	61	118	9.5	3.5					3	2	0	0	4
2	Charlie Thomas	12	71	41	112	10.5	2.0	2	28	14.0	0	2	2	114	0	2
3	Keion White	12	29	25	54	14.0	7.5					1
4	Miles Brooks	12	34	18	52	2.5	0.0	3	37	12.3	1	7	1	0	0	0
5	Clayton Powell-Lee	12	31	17	48	1.0	0.0	1	1	1.0	0	2	3	0	0	0
6	KJ Wallace	11	28	17	45	2.0	1.0	1	0	0.0	0	1
7	Myles Sims	12	28	15	43	1.0	0.0	1	1	1.0	0	3
8	Zamari Walton	12	24	12	36	0.0	0.0	1	-8	-8.0	0	6
9	Kyle Kennard	12	19	17	36	4.5	2.0
10	Jaylon King	5	19	13	32	1.5	0.0	1	-4	-4.0	0	1				1
11	Zeek Biggers	12	19	13	32	1.0	0.0					1
12	Trenilyas Tatum	12	18	13	31	2.5	1.0									1
13	Derrik Allen	12	14	15	29	0.0	0.0	1	0	0.0	0	1
14	DQuan Douse	12	10	16	26	5.5	3.5									2
15	Sylvain Yondjouen	12	11	12	23	5.0	2.5					1
16	Makius Scott	12	5	17	22	2.5	1.5						1	0	0	0
17	Noah Collins	11	10	6	16	2.5	0.0					1	2	0	0	0
18	Kenan Johnson	11	7	6	13	0.0	0.0					1
19	Akelo Stone	12	4	8	12	4.0	1.0					1
20	Kaleb Edwards	9	3	8	11	0.0	0.0									1
21	Jason Moore	10	4	5	9	2.5	2.0					1				1
22	Demetrius Knight II	4	5	4	9	0.0	0.0
23	Rodney Shelley	10	4	3	7	0.0	0.0
24	Kenyatta Watson II	10	4	3	7	0.0	0.0
25	Sirad Bryant	8	5	1	6	1.0	0.0

Provided by CFB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 1/2/2023.

 

[g0lftime]

I’ve been thinking about next season and the roster we’ll have. The transfers at LB will go a long way towards shoring up that group, and the guys returning in the secondary should make it a strength of the team. That being said, I think the DL will be an area of concern. Scott and Douse stepped up at DT and have some talent behind them in Biggers and Stone, but it seems to me that with Keion White and Sylvain Yondjouen leaving, we’ll be weak at DE.

I keep waiting for the guys we have at WDE to have breakout seasons, and it just hasn’t happened. And we don’t seem to have much if any depth at SDE to replace the guys leaving. Do we have any 3-tech players who might be able to move outside to SDE? Do we have anyone we expect to break out or come in and produce at WDE? What are y’all’s thoughts?

Next year we will find out if Thacker is a decent DC or not.

 

[swarmer]

I think we’ll look for a DE transfer after spring ball. Otherwise I like the D. We have depth and experience at DT for the first time in forever, retooled at LB, and what should be our best and most experienced secondary on quite a while.

 

[AUFC]

Honestly, I expect our defense to be as good or better next season. It's a challenge for our defensive coaches and our players, but I think we can get better.

That's ambitious. Our defense statistically performed pretty well last year, and that's after you account for the fact that the offense/special teams went 3 and out or put the defense in a short field a good chunk of the time. We've lost the 3 best players from that squad.

I thought the same thing about our MBB team casting the underclassmen into the fire after losing Mike Devoe and Jordan Usher this season but it hasn't come to be at all. Their presence on the floor and ability to create opportunities for the younger guys has been sorely missed. Maybe guys will step into Eley/Thomas/White's roles well, but if not, expect less hurry-ups, knockdowns, and sacks and more time in the pocket for QBs next season. That should translate into more passing yards allowed.

Those 3 guys were special and each were gamechangers/will be hard to replace. One of the most fun GT defenses I've ever rooted for.

 

[GT33]

It's a very important year for Thacker. Another good showing under his belt and he can blame 100% of the poor results on C & Thacker comes out of this smelling like a rose. If that happens he should start to make inroads recruiting wise and that half of the ball should be a strength going forward. Not many were guessing that would be the case, but here we are. It will also make Key's job easier only having to fix the offense and special teams instead of all 3.

 

[stinger 1957]

Listening to our DL coaches over the last 12 mos or so, the one that seems to have the biggest upside but it hasn't materialized seems to be Noah Collins.
Just wonder if we're not looking for a DL in the portal that has the potential to be a wrecker, but then so is everyone else looking for that same guy.

 

[slugboy]

That's ambitious. Our defense statistically performed pretty well last year, and that's after you account for the fact that the offense/special teams went 3 and out or put the defense in a short field a good chunk of the time. We've lost the 3 best players from that squad.

I thought the same thing about our MBB team casting the underclassmen into the fire after losing Mike Devoe and Jordan Usher this season but it hasn't come to be at all. Their presence on the floor and ability to create opportunities for the younger guys has been sorely missed. Maybe guys will step into Eley/Thomas/White's roles well, but if not, expect less hurry-ups, knockdowns, and sacks and more time in the pocket for QBs next season. That should translate into more passing yards allowed.

Those 3 guys were special and each were gamechangers/will be hard to replace. One of the most fun GT defenses I've ever rooted for.

All three of those guys were special in 2022. But here's our top 12 from 2021. We lost 2 of our top 3 and we lost 8(?) of our top 12 from 2021, and we got better. (I used 12 instead of 10 because I saw Djimon Brooks and felt bad about leaving him off the list, but 11 is a weird number). Keion White had two tackles in 2021. College football teams lose players.

Losing production hurts. Do we have players that can step up? On the DL, I think we're pretty good. At LB, it's more interesting since we lose two seniors, but I think we've got a good coach and some younger players.

Rk            Player
1       Quez Jackson
2        Ayinde Eley
3     Juanyeh Thomas
4     Charlie Thomas
5    Tariq Carpenter
6      Wesley Walker
7    Jordan Domineck
8       Tre Swilling
9         Jared Ivey
10       Jaylon King
11     Djimon Brooks
12        Myles Sims

Provided by CFB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 1/2/2023.

Edit: we can absolutely get worse. With a good defense , there’s more room to regress than to improve. We don’t have any incoming star players.
We do have an off-season to put together a good defense with who we have, though

 

[TromboneJacket]

After looking at some stats, I feel that I may have been a bit harsh on Kyle Kennard. Aside from sacks, his stats are pretty comparable to the career progression of Anree Saint Amour, who was pretty solid for us. If he can keep progressing, he’ll be a good starter next year.

 

[GTRambler]

I’m very hopeful that the new strength and conditioning staff will greatly improve the physicality of the D-Linemen next year.

And the O-Linemen, too.

 

[Papa Foxtrot]

 

[danny daniel]

Wasn't there a non scholy player named" Moore"? who got a few good rushes. Iirc was said to be one of strongest in weight room.

Opps - there he is 95!

yes and Moore is a strong bull rusher and made some good plays this past season.

 

[GTBandit22]

Keion will be tough to replace. Not only did he get home, but his pressures and moving the QB around can’t be quantified on a stat sheet.
The other side looks better. We have guys at rush end that should be ready to break out. Just need that war daddy on the other side

 

[iceeater1969]

Keion will be tough to replace. Not only did he get home, but his pressures and moving the QB around can’t be quantified on a stat sheet.
The other side looks better. We have guys at rush end that should be ready to break out. Just need that war daddy on the other side

For the 5th time I apologize to Larry Knight. Little real DL coaching experience and lastvguy on staff. Some how we are deep - even with NIL cheap engr

 

[GTHomer]

We were also able to redshirt 2 4* Dlineman (Rivals) this past season in Lockett and Miles. I 'hope' that was partially due to the depth we had with Dlineman this 2022. Assuming that they progressed in the S&C program, this could likely be one of our positions of strength with respect to depth.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I never understand the thought process of “these guys gotta step up“ when you are talking about guys who don’t get snaps. How can you produce if you don‘t get snaps? White was a solid player who produced. He produced because he was in the game. If he had gotten hurt early everyone would be saying he was a transfer who was a bust. We have ballers but only a few can play each snap. It’s like the McCollum thread. McCollum was a best offensive producer because he rarely came off the field. Whoever plays the slot will also produce because the only way you catch a pass is to be targeted on a play. We are losing our 2 starting LB’s. But that doesn’t mean our LB’s will stink next year because we lost 95% of production. If you havent noticed LB’s make tackles by the nature of the position so whoever is there will make tackles. Curry did it for years then Thomas did it. We will be fine. Our 2023 season depends on what we get from our OLine and the QB. That’s it. If we score more points we’ll win more games. Defense matters very little in this era. The top 4 teams in the country had to score 40plus to win so the days of defense are over.