Georgia Tech football practice notes and quotes 10/19
ATLANTA- Georgia Tech football continued preparations for Virginia on Tuesday as head coach Geoff Collins and his coordinators Dave Patenaude and Andrew Thacker met with the media after a week away from the spotlight with a bye. Collins as a head coach is 4-2 coming off bye weeks including winning both games in 2020 off byes.
Collins said they spent the first part of last week in self-scout mode and then started working on Virginia late in the week.
“Our graduate assistants, analysts and QCs did a really good job from the time we landed back in Atlanta late Saturday night all the way until Tuesday morning they were just poring over the data and then we spent two really good days on offense, defense and special teams poring over every bit of data and things we are doing really good and things we need to improve upon,” Collins said. “We got a lot of young guys reps out here Tuesday and Wednesday and obviously with as much respect as we have for Virginia, we went ahead and got an early couple of days on them toward the end of the week. They have one of the top offenses in the country and they’re spinning the ball around. The quarterback does a great job and they are long and physical and play really hard on offense. Defensively, they're multiple and they just pitched their first shutout of the season. You can see them getting better and better throughout the season so we’ve got to do everything we can to get ready to play at a high-level on primetime on the ACC Network on Saturday night.”
Collins also announced that tight end Dylan Deveney will miss the rest of the 2021 season. Deveney has been limited to just two games of action this fall and he did not travel to Duke two weeks ago. The sophomore tight end had season-ending surgery, but he will be able to take a redshirt because he has not redshirted in his three seasons on campus.
“Dylan had season-ending surgery and he is in good spirits, but everybody please keep him in your prayers. He is a great player in our program and has been battling some stuff and he just wanted to go ahead and have the surgery to get him ready to come back healthy next year at a high level,” Collins said.
Dylan Leonard has started five games this season at tight end for the Jackets while battling his own injuries while Deveney has been limited to a backup role when healthy. Jack Coco started the one game that Leonard missed and he and freshman Billy Ward will aim to fill the void left by Deveney’s absence as the number-two tight end.