[14] - Sweet Home Alabama 🐄

Intro:

Hello everyone it is 🍆🪵, bringing the boom for the last time of the 2024 football season. It’s been awhile since we saw our Yellow Jackets in action so to spare my sanity and urs we will bypass a recap of our last game. Instead, we will focus on the transfer portal additions and losses thus far as well as our upcoming BOWL GAME in Birmingham, AL against Vanderbilt. Tech finished the regular season at 7-5, one game better than last year and 5-3 in the ACC. Overall good season that I myself am very satisfied with. Even when Haynes King went down with an injury in the middle of the season, the rest of the team persevered and we were able to upset UMiami with Philo+King. If you are local I highly encourage you to make the trip out to Birmingham to support our Yellow Jackets. A Bowl win would solidify exactly what Tech is building as a program. GO JACKETS!

TWITTER NEWS & MEMES:

STRAIGHT FACTS:

• WHO ARE WE PLAYING AGAINST: Vanderbilt Commodores

• WHERE IS THE GAME: Protective Stadium (Birmingham, AL)

• TIME: 3:30pm

• WHERE TO STREAM IT: ESPN

• Career Series against the ‘dores: We actually have a rivalry against Vanderbilt, where we play for the Gold Cowbell. Our record against them is 20-15-3, largest victory is 83-0 GT.

• Spread: GT -2.5

• Over/Under: 54.5

• SHOW UP AND SHOW OUT!!

Early Transfer Portal Recap:

Returners:

• note these are only people that have announced on socials that they are coming back (i think i got most of them but just since they aren’t here doesn’t mean they won’t be back)

• Haynes King - heisman 2025?

• Aaron Philo - heisman 2026?

• Malik Rutherford - banana man is back baby! entered the portal for a couple of days but ultimately decided to stick with Tech

• Clayton Powell-Lee - key part of the secondary, will return for his senior season

• Omar Daniels - played a lot in the secondary down the stretch for the Jackets, player with lots of upside

• Kyle Efford - who doesn’t love a middle linebacker with a neck roll, straight out of the 90s

• Harrison Moore - Brent Key loves this dude so much. OL who will likely be one of the first men up if someone gets hurt

• Keylan Rutledge - All American Offensive Guard, nicknamed Big Red, this dude is amazing super happy he is back

• Brett Seither - key tight end for the Jackets in 2023, tore his ACL before last season so he has decided to return for his last season, he must be so damn old at this point

• Jordan Van de Berg - STUD.

Departures (these guys will not be playing in the bowl game):

• Eric Singleton Jr. - committed to Auburn, this one stinks but GT has hit WR hard in the portal

• Romello Height - committed to Texas Tech, this will be his 4th team in 4 years, interesting choice

• Jordan Brown - committed to Arizona, probably wasn’t going to play a ton this upcoming year, he teetered in and out of the lineup last year

• Corey Robinson II - committed to Arkansas, he was one of our best OTs last year so this one stinks, wish him the best

• Zach Pyron - committed to Minnesota, also wishing him the best, likely didn’t see a pathway where he would play so decided to go somewhere else, LETS GO PYRON

• Leo Blackburn - unknown?, not a huge loss

• Christian Leary - committed to Western Michigan, not a huge loss

• Taye Seymore - committed to Auburn, also stinks pretty bad bc Seymore was young and just starting to flourish

Additions (the next weekly preview chair will go more in depth about these guys):

• Melvin Jordan - LB from Oregon St. - hard hitting linebacker who will pair great with Efford

• Dean Patterson - WR from Florida International (FIU), WR with some damn size, he has a 6’2’’ build which will be super helpful for the Jackets who always seem to lack size at the WR position

• Eric Rivers - WR from FIU - this is a huge pickup, accumulated over 1200 yards last year as WR1 at FIU, with King as his thrower the sky is the limit

• Andrew Rosinski - OT from UNC

• Debron Gatling - WR from UofSC - runs track supposedly, may be a shot at replacing some of singleton’s production

• Kelvin Hill Jr. - DB from UAB

• Daiquan White - DB from Eastern Michigan

• Cayman Spaulding - LB from Tennessee Tech

• Ronald Triplette - Edge Rusher from UTSA

• Matthew Alexander - DL from UCF

• Harry Lodge - TE from Wake Forest

• J.T. Byrne - TE from Cal

*please text me if u want more specifics or have any questions about anything transfer portal - im happy to explain

Vanderbilt Profile:

• Record is 6-6, 3-5 in the SEC

• best win for Vandy is Alabama duh

• Bama was the number one team in the country and Vandy shut all the Roll Tide homers up with one spectacular game

• Vandy beating Alabama was a top 10 result of the year for me

  • first time vanderbilt had ever beat a top 5 team and first time they had beat Alabama since 1984

• Diego Pavia (QB) is the heart and soul of the team (will talk about him more later)

• they finished their year off not great (3 losses) but were to all good quality opponents

• they also came close to upsetting Texas and Missouri which would have been the icing on the cake

• Notably lost to GSU at the beginning of the year

• Clark Lea - Vandy HC

  • played baseball at Birmingham southern where he won a NAIA national championship as a freshman

  • Then went to Belmont to play baseball and then eventually went to vanderbilt

  • played fullback from 2002-2004 at Vanderbilt - shoutout every fullback out there!

  • started coaching right after playing in college and coached all around the country mainly on the defensive side

  • went from being a linebackers coach at ‘Cuse to ending up at Notre Dame as the DC eventually

  • When the Vandy position came open he decided to go back home to his alma mater

  • currently has a 15-33 record as a HC but the Vandy program seems to be on a upward trend

    

• Diego Pavia QB #2

  • Pavia is the heart and soul of ‘Dores nation this year

  • first a little bit of background on who he is

  • he went to new mexico military college for one year (JUCO)

  • he then transferred to NMSU for two years

  • with NMSU he led them to two bowl appearances

  • second year at NMSU he passed for 26 TDs and 9 INTs and led the team to a 10-5 record

  • His HC at NMSU was named Jerry Kill and he joined the vandy staff as a consultant for 2024

  • Pavia entered the portal and after looking at multiple schools decided to commit to Vandy

  • Pavia is a dual threat quarterback having over 2100+ rushing yards in his three seasons in FBS

  • Pavia played terrific at Vandy throwing for 17 TDs and only 4 INTs with 700 rushing yards and 6 TDs

  • He led the team to an incredible upset over #1 Alabama and inspired many across the nation

  • He sued the NCAA following his season with Vandy wanting another year of eligibility bc of his Juco season. The court ruled in his favor and he will likely be the QB 1 of Vandy next season

  • His game and Haynes King games are strikingly similar and it’ll be very fun to see them go up against each other in the season finale.

  

NO MORE WEEKLY PREVIEWS FROM ME 😢