Shout out to Dontae Smith

takethepoints

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I want to thank Dontae for sticking with the program and for giving us such a charge in the running game as the season progressed. I don't know what the problem was for him early on, but when he came in all of a sudden we could run effectively between the tackles. That meant that the toss sweep began to work. It also meant that King could run the option effectively since everybody was closing in on Dontae. Same with the fake tosses; I couldn't believe Tech was able to sucker the Dwag D twice with that play for TDs. And, as some mentioned, Haynes began to play better as well. I think this was largely due to his learning how to be an RB, but having opposing Ds more conscious of our run game made a difference too. Also Dontae coming back meant a good deal to our OL as well; like I've said before good RBs make OLs look a lot better.

I wish Dontae could have gotten 15 - 20 snaps a game from the start. I don't know - and probably never will - why that didn't happen. He was always one of my favorite players.
 

GaTech4ever

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AlabamaBuzz said:
And loyalty. I believe a young man like this will be successful, but yes, it's always good if someone can help "kickstart" the opportunities.
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100%. I’ll expand upon my previous post to say Dontae Smith will be successful in life regardless of what GT alumni can do for him. But having us as a fallback (yes, even this rowdy bunch ;)) won’t hurt.
 

GaTech4ever

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takethepoints said:
I wish Dontae could have gotten 15 - 20 snaps a game from the start. I don't know - and probably never will - why that didn't happen. He was always one of my favorite players.
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Me too, on all counts. But one thing I wish posters here didn’t do when I continuously called it out was try to diminish Dontae’s play on the field and simultaneously talk up a clearly inferior running back who was playing in front of him. No one here should ever make up some BS about Dontae being an inferior player to justify a clearly touchy situation that was more than pure football ability.

It was 100% off the field stuff, politics, etc. because Key said Dontae was fully healthy weeks before Dontae started playing. It’s college football, it is what it is. And we should be able to speculate when a situation is obviously murky. Also, I’m not going to immediately take the side of a brand new running backs coach who’s giving significant snaps to #0 vs. a 6th year senior alum. We don’t lose to BGSU with Dontae Smith playing. In fact, I want a pissed off running back. Thank goodness we finally got to see the results.

Let us all just please remember this situation when some here claim that college football coaches play the best players 100% of the time. Do they make decisions based on what they think is best for their program? Sure. But those decisions are sometimes mutually exclusive. Sometimes, what’s going on is more than what meets the eye.
 

jgtengineer

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takethepoints said:
So do I. But it would have been Mason at BB. I was looking forward to that. So you think Tobias would have been an AB? Bold and defensible choice.
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Oh mason would have been there thats for sure but masons year would have been tobias at QB if covid doesn't happen mason is probably gone after that to the league. Yates would get the start as a sophmore.
 

takethepoints

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jgtengineer said:
Oh mason would have been there thats for sure but masons year would have been tobias at QB if covid doesn't happen mason is probably gone after that to the league. Yates would get the start as a sophmore.
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True. As with most of the population, I'm forgetting the pandemic.

Same thing happened with the post WW1 flu pandemic. Everybody wants to forget the disease, especially those who poo-pooed it while it killed over 1 million Americans. Ain't human nature wonderful?
 

jgtengineer

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takethepoints said:
True. As with most of the population, I'm forgetting the pandemic.

Same thing happened with the post WW1 flu pandemic. Everybody wants to forget the disease, especially those who poo-pooed it while it killed over 1 million Americans. Ain't human nature wonderful?
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There is a bit of a difference between spanish flu and covid but thats not a topic for this board but your right everyone was sort of in a haze for 3 years... we also had the worse coach in the history of football for that time.
 
Bogey

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I don't know and we will probably never know but I think the reasons why Dontae wasn't playing much was due to an injury initially and when he was healed enough for duty it was more of a political issue.
 
4shotB

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GaTech4ever said:
Let us all just please remember this situation when some here claim that college football coaches play the best players 100% of the time. Do they make decisions based on what they think is best for their program? Sure. But those decisions are sometimes mutually exclusive. Sometimes, what’s going on is more than what meets the eye.
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I am one of the old dinosaurs that think coaches should evaluate ALL things when deciding on who plays. I think playing the best athlete/player wihout consideration of off field behavior, academics, etc. leads to the type of toxic culture that is often found at the football factories. I am not going to name any specifically but a few pop into my mind when I think of this type of program and culture.

Do not infer that my comments in anyway reflect on Dontae and his situation. As many have already said, we do not know what happened and will never know. But back when we also had Gibbs and Mason, I thought that #4 was every bit their equal and if I am not mistaken, both are now getting paid(to play on Sundays. I think Gibbs was getting paid to play on Saturdays as well...I guess we are going to drop "getting paid" or "cashing checks" as a synonym for playing in the League. ;) )
 

CEB

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4shotB said:
I am one of the old dinosaurs that think coaches should evaluate ALL things when deciding on who plays. I think playing the best athlete/player wihout consideration of off field behavior, academics, etc. leads to the type of toxic culture that is often found at the football factories. I am not going to name any specifically but a few pop into my mind when I think of this type of program and culture.

Do not infer that my comments in anyway reflect on Dontae and his situation. As many have already said, we do not know what happened and will never know. But back when we also had Gibbs and Mason, I thought that #4 was every bit their equal and if I am not mistaken, both are now getting paid(to play on Sundays. I think Gibbs was getting paid to play on Saturdays as well...I guess we are going to drop "getting paid" or "cashing checks" as a synonym for playing in the League. ;) )
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Couldn’t agree more. I don’t expect the coach to play the best players. I expect the coach to play the players who give us the best chance to win. Sometimes there is a big difference, but when things are going right, they are one and the same.
It looks to me like things started going “right” as the season progressed.
Very happy that Dontae rose to the occasion and also that the staff recognized it and gave him the opportunity to do so. I’m taking it as a credit to this young man and a sign of good things to come for our program.
 

MWBATL

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takethepoints said:
True. As with most of the population, I'm forgetting the pandemic.

Same thing happened with the post WW1 flu pandemic. Everybody wants to forget the disease, especially those who poo-pooed it while it killed over 1 million Americans. Ain't human nature wonderful?
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Please stop with the political slights. Many who poo-pooed pandemic topics had valid reasons, as has been demonstrated since.

But this is supposed to be a football forum, not a forum where one can get in glancing political shots as they please (either way).
 
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