Everything From Georgia Tech DL Coach Jess Simpson After Thursday's Practice

Georgia Tech defensive line coach talked the newest additions, development of the young guys, and one true freshman who has caught his eye. Here is everything he had to say.

On new guys fitting in and the additions to the defensive line this past offseason..

“Yeah, it's been fun. You're right, we lost four D tackles that probably played 75, 80 % of our snaps a year ago. So added some new pieces through high school. Obviously, a couple kids through the portal. What's fun is the culture of the room is still the same, a bunch of really good kids. Wanna be coached, wanna be told the truth, wanna be coached hard. Really interested in player development. Appreciate each other, play well together. They've been fun to work with so far. Been excited about the two older guys, Tawfiq Thomas and Vincent Jackson, both come in and done a really nice job. You can see the experience there. Then the young guys. Tim Griffin's come in and done good and he's starting to learn what we do, how we do it, the language, all that, it's brand new to him. Christian Speakman, as a young guy coming in, has done a really, really nice job. He's done a really, really good job on first and second down. He's got a lot of potential and a big upside.”

On stopping the run and the difference in scheme….

“We're definitely going to be very different. I think we're going to be very aggressive, which is exciting to me. You know our ends are going to be a lot more aggressive and what we ask him to do schematically. I think the way we play our interior guys is a lot of the same as a little bit different. I think people like our style of play, and how we play, and how we hit blocks inside. I think it's hard to deal with at times. Tose guys are learning and growing in how we play and how we play together. Obviously the front eight. We're getting guys and we're loading boxes. But so far, man, I've really been pleased with our development. Certainly like miles to go nowhere near where we wanna be. But it's fun to watch the detail, the intent that competes in the tuss that these guys can show like they wanna play the game the right way. The details of how we play up front, our pad level, how we hit blocks. Our eyes, our hands, our hips, what our footwork looks like, there's so many details. Then understanding ball, understanding situationally, understanding backfield sets, understanding tight end alignments, taking a picture pre-snap, trying to learn to be more than a line on a paper, just in a playbook. You see some of these young guys starting to connect the dots, and all of those things go into being better at everything that we do. To your first part of your question, I really am excited about the scheme and how it's gonna feature our guys and what they do best.”

On the benefits of going to a single gap scheme…

“I always say, I think it can take the hesitation out of your game. Your goal as a player is to put hesitation in the guy across from you. Your goal as a player is to always say when you know you go, when you think you stink. I want these guys to go, but I want them to go with fundamentals. I want him to go with the technique. I want to go with toughness. I want him to go with knowledge. This is going to be a go-mode type front. All SD line coaches talk about base mode and this and that. That's a part of who we are and our identity, and what we do. A big part is where we find ops to really be vertical up front. I think the way we're gonna feature these ends, the way we're gonna feature our three techniques, I think that can really come to life for us.”

On Christian Garrett and his development…

“Yeah, it's been fun. Christian is probably really 100% healthy. First time, he's been at Georgia Tech, coming off a high school injury. I think that's a big deal. Christian's body has completely changed in the last four or five months. I think a year ago this time he was in 250s and he's gained a lot of muscle man. He's a good looking kid. Obviously he's had a position change. We're playing him inside and he is a big man who's an athlete and those are the guys that I like. I love his athleticism. His ability and understanding to how to play on the interior. Playing inside is very different than playing on the edge. The blocks that you get, where the blocks come from sitting on 600 pounds of a double team like there's some, we got a lot of hard jobs that we do inside. He has not resisted that he is owning it. Every day you can just see like he took a step today. It's just, fun to watch. Like he, you can tell the look in his eye. He wants to be great. He wants to be better every day. He's not perfect. You know, it's ebbs and flows with like every young player, but man, you know, he is on the right trajectory. His arrow is up right now. I'm excited about it.”

On true freshman Christian Speakman…

“It was a very interesting eval. It's just, really, an athletic kid. Has great eyes. His hands, his hips and his feet follow his eyes like he tracks blocks really well. He's big and he's strong in the weight room naturally. He understands how to anchor and fight pressure probably naturally. These linemen probably don't get credit for the athletes and the coordination they have to have. But understanding how to feel and fight pressure is a big deal because of the hard jobs that you have to do. He has some natural instinct getting off blocks, finding the football. I don't know if you're gonna see Christian Speakman starting on the third down package, but I'll be shocked if you don't see him on first and second down some. That's his goal. He's pushing guys. I am so excited we took him, man. I think he's got a high ceiling and a big upside.”

On Jason Moore coaching with the Yellow Jackets after playing with them..

“We joked about it on the board as a player. Most of you guys know JMo's story. Came here as a walk on offensive lineman, and last year probably ended up playing, I don't know, played 25, 30 snaps a game. A self-made man, made himself a player. He's always been quote unquote GAJ mode. I literally could walk out of the room and hand him the clicker as a senior in our room, and he could run a meeting and coach guys is hey, this is how we do it. This is what we should be doing. This is our communication. So I secretly obviously hope the whole time that he would wanna do this. I was smart enough to know that this guy's got two degrees from Georgia Tech and he's probably not dumb enough to be a football coach. We talked in December and January, and I said, " Hey, man you're natural and gifted at this. Whether it's good at football, smart at football, great relationally, great communicator. The guy's loving, the guy's respecting, he can say hard things to him. It's been fun to watch him. He's got a lot to learn, a lot to grow like any young coach. But he's way ahead of where I was when I was his age. He's one of those guys, he's so consistent and so disciplined. You know what's important to him and you know every day he's gonna bring it and it's fun to have him in the room. I think it's a real level of comfort for our former players. I think he's doing an unbelievable job of speaking into the new guys of this is who we are. This is our culture. This is how we do things. This is how we work. That's not good enough. This is what it's supposed to look like. So as a coach, you always want somebody to be able to come behind you, and it's a different voice saying the same things, maybe in a little different way, but getting the same message across, and he's really excited.”

On how he gets veterans guys to come in and help younger guys…

“I think it's the art of teaching and coaching. It starts with connection. It starts with everybody in that room knowing that you care about them more than what they can do for you. You're in it for more than just ball, like we're gonna do life together. This is a hard game. We're gonna have some hard days together like that. That's what this is. I think it's a credit to the guys that have been in the room. Shymeik (Jones), Landen (Marshall), like those guys are great dudes, embracing them, bringing them in, like teaching them what we do and how we do it. Not being afraid of competition. I can imagine a lot of rooms around the country that I don't want you here. That isn't the case at all here at Georgia Tech. These guys have embraced these new guys. I'm a high school coach, and my sons played for me. We have a locker room full of guys that you want your kids to be around. That's the kind of guys we have. And you can't fake that. Kids walk in, and they see it, they smell it, they sense it. You can't fake it. It is what it is. And that's what we have here at Tech. That's what makes it so much fun. That part has been easy. And not that you can ignore it and just hope it magically happens. You have to be strategic. When the right people are in the room, it's not as hard as you might think.”

On where he wants to see the defensive line at the end of spring…

“The destination for me is just we're better. The destination is those guys beginning to see the greatness that I see in them and what they can be and go, oh my job is to give them a vision for what it can look like. It's their job to own that standard and go get it and realize how far it is we have to go. Their hope every single day that we can get to where we say we're going. That's the goal for me. When you walk in, you know. The standard for us and what we wanna be is way, way out there. What did we do today to get an inch closer to the end of that and where we wanna be? That's the beauty of coaching. When you stay in the moment, and the kids believe that, and they see a vision for what it can be, they watch each other. We have as much fun; these guys compete every day to create what we call teach tape. Who's got the most teach tape? And we go back and watch, hey, watch your brother do this. Watch this effort, watch this guy play this double. Watch this guy twitch up here in move mode. Watch this guy get off on this you game like, and they celebrate each other. I think when you have teammates and brothers celebrating each other, then also learning from each other. I tell my guys all the time, I learned as much in the NFL from the players as I ever did from the coaches. They learn from each other, from their good and from their bad. It ain't all good for sure. Right? Then it's a room of, man, harder, easy, truth or lie. I want to room this, gonna pick the hard every single day, and gonna pick the truth. We talk about that. There's a bunch of truth tellers in that room, and it's gonna be honest, and it's gonna be hard, but we're gonna act like men. That's how we're gonna grow. So that I am in such a great environment, I get to teach and coach in. Just being honest, being selfish, man, I'm here at home in Atlanta. I'm near my kids, my grandbabies, and my mom. This is a dream for me. I pinch myself every morning. I'm in a great spot with great kids at my stage in my career.

On Jordan Van Den Berg and the type of player he is….

“So what JJ brought to us is the essence of when you walk into our room, there's a competes and tough chart. Your urgency, your strain, the detail in your work, your physicality. He literally tried to embody, and he wasn't perfect at it, but boy, he raised the bar for a tough guy, what a worker is, his physicality was real. He was a guy that was for everybody else, too. He was a guy that's gonna pour it out. Georgia Tech forever will show highlights of JJ Van Den Berg running down, being a stack monster, finding the ball in the perimeter, and doing stuff like that. And it's fun to watch. When you have guys play that way, it's so much louder than what I say as a coach or what we say to each other. It's watch the tape. That's who we are, that's how we play. Everybody in the last two years saw what he did, and good for him, man. He deserves everything he's about to get, and I think something really good is gonna happen for him.