Jamal Haynes, Singleton & Rutherford (good news)

Techster

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Jacket05

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LargeFO said:
Eh I don't think anyone did. Just feels like Birr is a bit superior. Whereas to me there was no evidence that King was better than Wells. If he wasn't hurt last year I have a feeling Birr would've been the kicker already.
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Agreed. Birr is much more accurate but Gavin has the stronger leg. That is why the coaches had Gavin doing kickoffs and Birr doing field goals (at least until Gavin got hurt this year and lost some of the power).
 
CuseJacket

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Techster said:
Birr

www.espn.com

Gavin Stewart - Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Place Kicker - ESPN

View the profile of Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Place Kicker Gavin Stewart on ESPN. Get the latest news, live stats and game highlights.
www.espn.com www.espn.com

www.espn.com

Aidan Birr - Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Place Kicker - ESPN

View the profile of Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets Place Kicker Aidan Birr on ESPN. Get the latest news, live stats and game highlights.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
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LargeFO said:
Eh I don't think anyone did. Just feels like Birr is a bit superior. Whereas to me there was no evidence that King was better than Wells. If he wasn't hurt last year I have a feeling Birr would've been the kicker already.
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Birr played because Stewart failed
 
CuseJacket

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Techster said:
Stewart failed, Birr did well when it was his turn...Key continued with the guy who was playing well. You ride the hot hand...especially at FG kicker.

I know where you're going with this, but Collins never really gave Wells a chance. He attempted 1 FG for Collins and never saw another shot at a field goal again.
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So that proves Collins ruined him? Perhaps there was evidence in practice that suggests something happened?

Not going to belabor it either. My position is there's no proof that Collins ruined Wells any more than other kickers getting the rips. Folks disliked Collins - for good reason - and therefore anything that went wrong had to be his doing. It was a convenient narrative. I saw things with my own eyes - outside of game action - that suggested Wells wasn't capable that season, which in turn leads me to give Collins the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Remember the convenient narrative that Thacker was set free "once Collins stopped micromanaging"? Turns out our D improved due to the health of Keion White and LBs, and otherwise Thacker was every bit as bad as his prior performance.

I'm not Collins apologist. The obvious reasons he was bad were enough to justify his departure.
 
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CuseJacket said:
So that proves Collins ruined him? Perhaps there was evidence in practice that suggests something happened?

Not going to belabor it either. My position is there's no proof that Collins ruined Wells any more than other kickers getting the rips. Folks disliked Collins - for good reason - and therefore anything that went wrong had to be his doing. It was a convenient narrative. I saw things with my own eyes - outside of game action - that suggested Wells wasn't capable that season, which in turn leads me to give Collins the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Remember the convenient narrative that Thacker was set free "once Collins stopped micromanaging"? Turns out our D improved due to the health of Keion White and LBs, and otherwise Thacker was every bit as bad as his prior performance.

I'm not Collins apologist. The obvious reasons he was bad were enough to justify his departure.
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I get what you're saying, but I have also heard about Collins in practice from a source I trust, and some of the stories made it to press and was confirmed by Brent Key himself. Maybe Wells had injury that season (this was not what I heard or saw in warmups before the games), but to tell me a kid that was perfect one season, got one try at a FG under Collins, and never got another shot even though the other guy that replaced him was 3/7...well, you're welcome to believe what you want. Also, Wells leaving eligibility on the field during the entirety of Collins's tenure even though he was honorable mention All ACC his freshmen year? OK. I do not give Collins the benefit of the doubt on it, especially seeing what our special teams did during his tenure at the helm.
 

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CuseJacket said:
So that proves Collins ruined him? Perhaps there was evidence in practice that suggests something happened?

Not going to belabor it either. My position is there's no proof that Collins ruined Wells any more than other kickers getting the rips. Folks disliked Collins - for good reason - and therefore anything that went wrong had to be his doing. It was a convenient narrative. I saw things with my own eyes - outside of game action - that suggested Wells wasn't capable that season, which in turn leads me to give Collins the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Remember the convenient narrative that Thacker was set free "once Collins stopped micromanaging"? Turns out our D improved due to the health of Keion White and LBs, and otherwise Thacker was every bit as bad as his prior performance.

I'm not Collins apologist. The obvious reasons he was bad were enough to justify his departure.
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Techster said:
I get what you're saying, but I have also heard about Collins in practice from a source I trust, and some of the stories made it to press from and was confirmed by Brent Key himself. Maybe Wells had injury that season (this was not what I heard or saw in warmups before the games), but to tell me a kid that was perfect one season, got one try at a FG under Collins, and never got another shot even though the other guy that replaced him was 3/7...well, you're welcome to believe what you want. Also, Wells leaving eligibility on the field during the entirety of Collins's tenure even though he was honorable mention All ACC his freshmen year? OK. I do not give Collins the benefit of the doubt on it, especially seeing what our special teams did with him at the helm.
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Kickers are known as head cases, I remember CPJ saying he likes his kickers wacky and that was Wesley, so he let him do his thing. Wonder if Collins tried to interfere with his style/ practice and that caused him to fall off.
 
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Techster said:
I get what you're saying, but I have also heard about Collins in practice from a source I trust, and some of the stories made it to press and was confirmed by Brent Key himself. Maybe Wells had injury that season (this was not what I heard or saw in warmups before the games), but to tell me a kid that was perfect one season, got one try at a FG under Collins, and never got another shot even though the other guy that replaced him was 3/7...well, you're welcome to believe what you want. Also, Wells leaving eligibility on the field during the entirety of Collins's tenure even though he was honorable mention All ACC his freshmen year? OK. I do not give Collins the benefit of the doubt on it, especially seeing what our special teams did during his tenure at the helm.
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You and I watched different warm-ups, among other things here. I watched a guy who at times struggled with consistently getting the ball above the cross bar or within 10-20 yards of the uprights. It was appalling. As in wouldn't make a HS team bad. I shared my firsthand observations of this in the chat throughout the year. With that in mind, I absolutely would have tried the back-up regardless of their subsequent performance. And that's aside from a number of other things I heard.

Think about it another way. CPJ (not CGC) was struggling to find a kicker. He watched all of his kickers in practice all year. He tried two who failed before taking a shot with Wells. Infer from that what you want about how Wells practiced compared to the others leading up to his shot. I doubt CPJ observed anything close to Wells' perfection in practice.

Sometimes with kickers things click. And sometimes the opposite happens.
 
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CuseJacket said:
You and I watched different warm-ups, among other things here. I watched a guy who at times struggled with consistently getting the ball above the cross bar or within 10-20 yards of the uprights. It was appalling. As in wouldn't make a HS team bad. I shared my firsthand observations of this in the chat throughout the year. With that in mind, I absolutely would have tried the back-up regardless of their subsequent performance. And that's aside from a number of other things I heard.

Think about it another way. CPJ (not CGC) was struggling to find a kicker. He watched all of his kickers in practice all year. He tried two who failed before taking a shot with Wells. Infer from that what you want about how Wells practiced compared to the others leading up to his shot. I doubt CPJ observed anything close to Wells' perfection in practice.

Sometimes with kickers things click. And sometimes the opposite happens.
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We must have heard different things, and viewed warmups differently. BTW, sometimes overcoaching can hurt players...like how a golfer can mess up his swing if he goes to a different swing coach.

I'll leave it at this. Wells's history and Collins's history gives me confidence in one guy. It's not the guy that got paid $11 million not to coach for GT again.
 
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Techster said:
We must have heard different things, and viewed warmups differently.

I'll leave it at this. Wells's history and Collins's history gives me confidence in one guy. It's not the guy that got paid $11 million not to coach for GT again.
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Incredible that Wells was sitting under our HOF coach's nose, and he couldn't see perfection sitting right there until he had no other choice ;)

All of that is to say, it's easy to create a narrative either way. And I'm not going to die on a hill with Collins.
 
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CuseJacket said:
Incredible that Wells was sitting under our HOF coach's nose, and he couldn't see perfection sitting right there until he had no other choice ;)

All of that is to say, it's easy to create a narrative either way. And I'm not going to die on a hill with Collins.
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I guess you value practice, but I value game performance. Pressure makes diamonds! :cool:
 
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CuseJacket said:
I guess I have HOF values. I’ll accept that.
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LOL...we're totally beating a dead horse...

...BUT, you do realize CPJ eventually put Wells, who was a freshmen at the time, on the field, right? Wells then rewarded CPJ with perfection after that. There's a reason CPJ had HOF results ('cause you don't get there with practice results ;)).

We can both agree we're in MUCH MUCH better place now.
 
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