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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
What Dunmon’s departure means
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Colin Peek, D.J. Donley, Taylor Bennett and now Trey Dunmon. Those are the players who have transferred or are transferring from Georgia Tech’s football team since Paul Johnson and his staff took over.
It’s not the end of the world. You will find no implication here that either the players or the coaches are to blame, or disloyal, or in any way wrong.
Think about it this way: You have a job, and a new boss comes in and changes things, and you decide it’s not the job you signed up to do. That doesn’t make the new boss wrong for making changes, and it doesn’t make you disloyal or wrong if you decide the job is no longer right for you.
(Yes, I’ve been told that Donley’s departure wasn’t about the changes in the staff. But there’s still this quote from his high school coach: “He had a really good freshman year, and he has a lot of confidence that he can play the wide receiver position, and the comment he made was he really wanted to see how good he can get.”)
Dunmon did tell me he had some issues with the new staff, but he characterized them as minor and mentioned them late in our conversation. The first thing he said when I asked him why he was transferring was: “Just style. It’s not my favorite offense. This is a big difference [from what Tech was doing on the offensive line].”
Dunmon, unlike the others, went through spring practice. He told me he didn’t think the new offense was for him but he wanted to see for himself. He said he’ll probably wind up at Georgia Southern, where he knows the coaches. Georgia Southern has something else going for it, too; because it’s Division I-AA, Dunmon could play there this fall. He probably couldn’t do that in Division I-A, and he already has used his redshirt year. (As far as I know, the NCAA hasn’t ruled on Peek’s waiver request. He’s got an argument: He’s a tight end, and Johnson doesn’t use tight ends.)
Is Dunmon’s move about playing time? He might have started at center, though from practices and conversations I had it seemed the coaches liked Dan Voss there. He said the coaches told him he would play at Tech, and I think he might have had even more playing time than he had last fall, which was considerable for a non-starter. Dunmon’s departure leaves Tech very thin at center, but that doesn’t mean he owed it to anyone to stay.
When we talked Tuesday evening, he had finished his two finals and had two term papers left to hand in. He’ll probably go from being a science, technology and culture major at Tech to some kind of advertising-oriented major at Georgia Southern.
“I am going to miss my teammates,” he said.
When I spoke at the Lunch Bunch a week ago, I was asked if there’d be any more defections, and I said I didn’t think so, that I didn’t see why anybody would go through a full spring of practice and only then, after all that work, decide it wasn’t for him. Guess I was wrong.
But I don’t see these transfers as any sort of blotch on Tech or the staff or the players who leave. I just see this as the normal fallout from a big-time change in philosophies. And everybody — those who stay as well as those who leave — usually is better off when people who aren’t sold on the new way find a better fit.
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Tech’s path to a repeat national title
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I just got off the phone with Bryan Shelton, whose Georgia Tech women’s tennis team opens defense of its NCAA championship next Friday, May 9, at noon against Alcorn State. If Tech wins that match (and it would be like a No. 1 seed losing to a No. 16 seed in basketball if Tech doesn’t), the Yellow Jackets’ path toward a successful title defense projects like this:
—Illinois or Tennessee in round two, at Tech, and then on to Tulsa for the rest of the tournament.
—Florida State. Tech won 4-3 in Tallahassee this season.
—Florida or Vanderbilt, perhaps. Tech beat Vandy 4-3 and didn’t play Florida.
—Georgia, UCLA or Southern California in the semis.
—Northwestern, Stanford, Baylor or Cal in the title match.
We’ll be covering every match from here on in.
Shelton projects his typical mix of confidence but not cockiness. After last year, there’s obviously no doubt his team can win it all, but after last week (a loss to Clemson in the ACC semifinals) there’s a recent reminder Tech can lose, too. That said, the Jackets rank as heavy favorites to advance to the round of 16.
Tennessee has had injury problems (it had to forfeit No. 6 singles because it didn’t have enough healthy players in its second-round SEC tournament loss to Auburn). Illinois finished the season strong but has struggled against Top 25 teams, losing those six matches by a combined score of 31-4.
