Everything From Georgia Tech OL Coach Geep Wade After Yellow Jackets Tuesday Practice (8/5)

Fall Practice rolled on for Georgia Tech on Tuesday, and the Yellow Jackets are now less than four weeks away from their season-opening game against Colorado. After practice, Georgia Tech's offensive line coach Geep Wade met with the media, and here is everything that he had to say:

1. On bringing the new guys in after spring...

"You know experience, we're young in some places with the young kids so they, the experience really matters. Every college rep matters. It's amazing over time. And with all the new portal additions and the new portal stuff, there's a lot of teams that are younger. I mean, a lot of teams are going through, OK. Even though they're portal guys, they're still new to our system, new to how Coach Key does things, new to how I do things, new to how we do Indy, how we watch film how we meet and so but, but the maturity level brings a little bit of calmness to us that we needed coming out of the spring you know being young and some you know not, not, not necessarily with the ones but just with the with the, with the you know we want to we want to get a top eight to ten so that's what we're trying to do every day."

2. On Jameson Riggs....

"I have you know, with him, It's like I with Jameson. It's just you know never have played right so it's just a confidence of playing and letting it loose you know, you know being violent is what we talked about. I'm just trying to find the right words that I could say but like just, just let it loose have fun and you know play like we play at Georgia Tech and then it will all take care of it. I thought he had a really better day today. You know we're kind of moving them around a little bit. I moved around a little bit too early like day two or three and I thought I hurt his progress personally as a coach so I didn't do that so we're trying to hone him in a little bit and get a little comfortable of where he's at."

3. On the center battle...

I love it. And let's be honest, Harrison played half the game, the last four to five games of the season, and played well. It's a great competition, and guys, honestly, it's a great problem to have from the standpoint of, you've got two centers and they're very position flexible too. So that's the, and right now, honestly, they're just going back and forth. You got this series, you got this series, you got this series, you got this series. So there's no rhyme or reason right now to it. Right now in camp, we're trying to worry about Georgia Tech. We're trying to worry about Georgia Tech's o-line. We're trying to just have base fundamentals, base rules. And that's what we're focusing on every day for the next seven, eight, nine days."

4. On the young linemen...

"You know what, very, very excited about that group. You know, I was talking to Coach last night. And you drive home at night, and they're going all the twos. And we're seeing all this stuff. And it's this, the Blitz period to third down, the team run, the goal line, the short yardage. And it's amazing kind of what they've done with Petty, and Peyton, and Jimmy, and Kevin Peay, they're all rolling in with the twos and the future by those kids. It's just we need, we won't, it's like we tell them every day. You've got to treat the practice out there like it's a game rep. Every rep matters, and that's the only way, but there's no secret sauce up front. It's, did you hit your landmark? Did you stay square in your set? Did you drive your feet? And then do you have that little instinct about you to finish? And that's how we're preaching right now."

5. On finding the right eight to ten guys in the rotation...

"No, and with Coach Key, we talk about it for the season. Not me, before the game of how we're going to play the players. And honestly, the last two years, we've gotten better as we play more people. Like last year, Ethan and Corey split time, Harrison split time with Joe, and it made us a better team. It made us a better line. So we're looking to do that. Don't know if we can do that yet. We are deeper than we have been here. It's just that spots that the youth is a It's a good problem, but it's my job and all these offensive coaches to make them gain light reps against our defense, which I think is really going to help us out."

6. On Benjamin Galloway...

"Dang right, he's had a great camp, very proud of him, very, very proud of Ben. He's a guy that it's just you know, everybody's different on the o-line, you know, some coaches say it takes two years. I don't believe in that, you know me, I knew when Harrison Moore walked in the building last year that he could play football, you know, it's you know, we try to find the guys that are wired right, Ben's wired right and I'll tell a bit the truth, there's games last year I saw Ben during the season where the game looked big for him now It's not, very proud of him and he's he's taking the Right step, but the way he's doing it. It's every,it's he's being physical, he's finishing it's every rep and it matters to him right now. That's the good thing about this group, and really, this whole team coach, he's got it where it matters to everybody in this building and you know, you know, they're always in here talking and you hear him talking on the sidelines, that hadn't been like that everywhere I've been and you know first couple years here."

7. On Keylan Rutledge's ceiling...

"You know what? I want what's best for him. He is a Georgia Tech guy through and through. He is unique. We talk about in our room, to be different, you got to be unique. To be the best, you got to be unique. It's easy to say that you're going to do this or just through that, Keylan lives by that. And the great thing about Keylan, and he's tight with Jordan Williams, they still talk every day, he makes Jordan better. He makes me better. He makes those young kids better. And there's times in meetings he'll say, "Hey Peyton, you see what coach's talking about right there? "Get the second step." And he's just different. And we want guys here that are different. And he epitomizes Coach Key, he is Georgia Tech and he epitomized what we want as an offense with Coach Faulkner and myself just yeah he's he's the truth you know I mean just the mentality of it now he's got things to work on he's not perfect but it's like when I, when I knew he broke his foot last year I had to sit here and told y 'all y 'all can say you broke his foot but he's good he's different he's gonna play you know I'm saying so even if he had nine toes he'd play stuff that was scarred with tissue, he's still going to play, you know?"

8. On what he wants to see when Fall Camp is over...

"When fall camp is over, I want to see improvement daily, you know, with fundamentals, with pad level, with hand placement. I want to see the young guys gel together, And that's really it. And then you get the game planning and stuff. But I just wanted to have confidence. I think the big thing past couple of years, we've played with confidence. And this group, I want to play with confidence, have a chip, have an edge. And that's really it. I want them to have an edge. I want to be fresh going into the season."

9. On Ethan Mackenny and Joe Fusile...

"Yeah, I think Ethan's made strides. I think there's a lot of strides still left for him. He's, for him, he came in and played right away. Didn't even come mid -year and we threw him in the fire And he had a wall. And then last year, he wasn't over that. And he has really grown up. And I'm proud of Ethan. He's brought some stability to us. He's got a long way to go. But he's brought some stability to us. We're challenging him now. You're the guy. You haven't been the guy before, but now you're the guy. And you've got to bring your A game every day. He now realizes that. And Joe's just a great leader of the room, You know, being the tough mule and just so glad that he's back and can provide some leadership to these young guys."

10. On the two seniors on the interior and what that means for the run game...

"I mean, there's a lot of things that Red brings to the table. And there's some things that Red does good and Joe does good. So we're going to try to do things that they can do well. And bottom line, we're going to try to get the best five on the field. And that's our job this year. So, and that could change week to week right now or, you know, and that's a good problem to have that we've got some options for the top five. You know, and so I think, you know, there's a lot of competition left to the camp. And then even when school starts before we go play so and it's like I tell the guys O-Line competition every day until the, to the last practice you practice for the bowl game and you know so so that's something that you know we know both their strengths and weaknesses and we'll try to play to that great, great I told the group today I appreciate them, I appreciate the hard work it's funny is as a coach I mean, it's fall camp, but I've never had this much fun. Like, I don't know why, you know, I think Coach Key's having fun. I mean, it's hard. I mean, we're tough on all that, but I look forward to practice. I look forward to meetings. I look forward to being around my guys. And I thank them for that today. You know, I appreciate them being on time, you know, taking notes, being attentive. I don't have to worry about things that I've worried about in the past. And I truly enjoy doing the practice out there with these guys, with this whole group, with this team really."