How can Georgia Tech grow in the shadow of the mighty Dawgs?
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Harry Lyles Jr., ESPN Staff Writer
ATLANTA — GEORGIA TECH football coach Brent Key’s office looks out onto Bobby Dodd Stadium, with part of the Atlanta skyline in view as well. One of the buildings visible is the old Equitable building, now owned and operated by Georgia’s Own Credit Union, which has a 174-foot long digital sign around the top.
With that as the backdrop, Key was asked recently if the success of two-time defending national champion Georgia gives him extra motivation to right the ship for the Yellow Jackets.
“Kirby [Smart has] done an unbelievable job,” Key said of Georgia’s head coach. “He’s done a great job. I give him all the credit in the world. But we’ve known each other since college. And I respect him as a coach, I respect him as a man, and I respect the job he’s done. For me to worry about what goes on down there, I got way too much to do here to worry about that.”
He continued, “Now, when I walked in this office building [in January] of last year, and it was dark out, Georgia’s Own building right there said, ‘Congrats, Go Dawgs!’ Did that piss me off? Damn right it did.
“Did I call [strength coach] A.J. Artis up on the phone and tell him I want every single kid on our football team, when they’re done with workouts to come outside and do stadiums to the very top of the stadium and stare at it? You damn right I did.
“But to worry about what’s going on over there? I don’t have time to do that.”
THIS IS THE job Key has always wanted. When he was bumped up from offensive line coach to interim head coach after Geoff Collins’ firing four games into last season, Key told ESPN he wasn’t acting like it was a temporary seat at the table. His instincts were correct, and the interim tag was removed after the Yellow Jackets went 4-4 to close the campaign.
While Key, who played at Georgia Tech from 1997 to 2000, might have wanted the job, it clearly has its challenges. Tech hasn’t made a bowl game since 2018, its longest drought since 1992-1996. Collins, who was hired to replace Paul Johnson, never won more than three games during his three-plus-year tenure. In trying to attract talent, the school contends with some potential roadblocks, including higher academic standards than many big-time programs and an urban campus.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Jackets’ in-state rival roughly 80 miles to the east is aiming to become the first team to pull off a national title three-peat in almost 90 years and has won 18 of the past 21 meetings between the teams, including the last three by a combined score of 134-21.
After his playing days, Key was a graduate assistant at Tech for two years before a stop at Western Carolina, then a decade at UCF with his old head coach, George O’Leary. He spent 2016 through 2018 at Alabama before he returned to Atlanta as an assistant in 2019. He’s fully aware of the perceived complications of the job, and said he doesn’t buy into them.
“People say, ‘[The] school is hard, you have to take calculus.’ Look, I graduated but I never took one calc class in my life. So I’m like, what are you talking about? I didn’t take calculus.
“Now, I failed the hell out of chemistry.
“Other people talk about being in Atlanta — look, Atlanta made me who I am. Atlanta is an unbelievable city, the culture, the diversity, the things you learn, it creates a little bit of an edge to you.”
One of Key’s biggest priorities in trying to turn things around is to make sure his team has an identity. He has a spreadsheet mapping out every hour of every day from the start of camp to the Georgia game on Nov. 25 in Atlanta.
For every day through camp, the top of every sheet had a goal of establishing the identity of the team.
“That’s what this camp has been about,” he said. “And people talk about playing to a standard and our standard. We have no standard. There’s none. We have to create it. Nick Saban didn’t have a standard in 2006 at Alabama, he had his personal standard. You have to create those things.
“So what is our identity? We will be disciplined, we’re going to be tough as hell. This team is committed to themselves, number one, and they’re committed to this football team. And then when the number is called, we’ve got to execute.
“You got to expect good things to happen as opposed to bad things. It’s one thing to say, ‘Well, if you believe it, you say it, we’re gonna talk it into reality.’ Yeah, you got to believe, but you got to work your ass off in between. … That’s what I want our team to be. They say that there’s no greater compliment than a football team to take on the identity of the head football coach. That’s what I want.”
KEY ISN’T THE only new coach trying to restore old glory at Georgia Tech. Damon Stoudamire was hired in March to shape the men’s basketball program, and his mission — and approach — is similar to his football counterpart’s.
Stoudamire played at Arizona under the legendary Lute Olson and went on to play 13 seasons in the NBA, most notably with the Portland Trail Blazers. He came to Atlanta after being an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. This is his second gig as a college head coach, having been at Pacific from 2016 until 2021.
Georgia Tech had a basketball team for many years, but Bobby Cremins turned it into a program in the 1980s and accumulated 354 wins over 19 seasons in Atlanta. The success continued to some degree under Paul Hewitt, who took the Yellow Jackets to a Final Four in 2004.
But since Hewitt’s departure, Tech has made just one NCAA tournament appearance after a surprising ACC tournament championship in 2021.
Like Key, Stoudamire talked about wanting to build a standard, which he said begins with toughness.
“I want to be the physically and mentally tougher team,” Stoudamire said. “I just think that wins games. We could talk about X’s and O’s and all those different things. But those two things there, and then the relationship part of it. I’m big on customer service, that’s what I like to call it. I just think that if you don’t have relationships with your players, you don’t have relationships in the workspace and different things, you can’t win.
“I’ve never really wanted to look at coaching from a coaching standpoint because I’m big on the relationship part of it, and I think if a player feels good, he plays good.
“So what does that mean? If a guy misses three in a row and he looks over, and the bench is like, ‘Keep shooting, keep shooting.’ I don’t react, I try not to at least, because I don’t want anybody to play on how they see me react. I want them to understand that Coach is calm, poised and staying in the moment.”
As far as reenergizing the fan base, Stoudamire believes in the only solution known to work anywhere and everywhere.
“I just think you got to win,” Stoudamire said. “We can get gimmicky, we can do different things, but I think you got to win. And I think people buy in. I just think it’s pretty simple.”
THE CHANGES AT Georgia Tech aren’t limited to the football and men’s basketball coaches. On the south end of Bobby Dodd Stadium is the Wardlaw Center, which itself is representative of the athletic department’s fresh start.
Georgia Tech’s athletic staff is moving into the building, which despite being part of the stadium for decades was occupied by the Institute Development and Institute Communications departments.
Settling into a new office is athletic director J. Batt, himself only about 10 months into the job. He replaced Todd Stansbury, who was AD from 2016 until his firing in 2022.
There are still some frames that need to go up on the walls in Batt’s office, which overlooks the field at Bobby Dodd Stadium. His most prized one, given to him by Homer Rice, lists the original qualifications of the award named for Rice, given annually to an athletic director who has made a significant impact on their profession and intercollegiate athletics.
Batt came to Atlanta from Alabama, where he had been since 2017, establishing himself as one of the country’s top fundraisers as executive deputy director of athletics, chief operating officer and chief revenue officer. But he’s familiar with ACC athletics. He grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and was a goalie for the North Carolina soccer team, helping win a national title in 2001. He also worked at Maryland as the school transitioned from the ACC to the Big Ten.
Georgia Tech is Batt’s first swing as an AD, and returning to the ACC was an immediate draw for him. But Batt saw the potential for success because of institutional alignment, the history of Georgia Tech, “and then a group of alums and fans that care.”
“[President Angel Cabrera] stepped forward and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to make athletics as good as the academics of this institution.’ And that was truly a huge part of it for me,” Batt said. “This brand, this program — four national championships, I mean, who else has Coach of the Year Bobby Dodd, Assistant of the Year [Frank] Broyles, AD of the Year [Homer] Rice, Player of the Year [John] Heisman,” referencing the namesakes of national awards who have Georgia Tech ties. “There’s no other program with that incredible tradition.”
But the opportunity boils down to a top-down commitment to athletics, which appears to give Batt — who has seen college programs run at the highest level in Tuscaloosa — a sense that he can be the one to fix Georgia Tech.
“This guy’s walking the walk,” Batt said of Cabrera. “He is literally providing resources, he’s providing access. I mean, look at this building. This is a building that’s been in the football stadium for 30 years, athletics has never occupied it. Truly taking a step forward, and prioritizing athletics. Moving us forward with our $85 million Student-Athlete Performance Center. That project is on a fast track to get done as soon as we possibly can.”
The need for a fresh start, both on his team and in the athletic department as a whole, and the importance of the financial commitment was echoed by Key.
“That’s no different than the offensive line room needing an O-line coach that was completely different than I was,” he said. “So that the line walked in every day and it was new, it was different.
“Because when the interim has become the head coach, I’m sure there’s that fear of, ‘Well, what if some of it is the same? What is going to be different?’ … Thankfully, the alignment with J and Dr. Cabrera has allowed a lot of these things to take place, knowing that those things matter.”
One of those things is the revamped football facility.
“People have a vision of what Georgia Tech is,” Key said. “They think engineers and architects and numbers and all this nerdy stuff, and old, and the industrial age of all those things. I said, ‘Well, guess what?’
“Imagine the old locomotive going through the tunnel and it busts out the other side, and it’s one of those bullet trains coming out going the speed of sound. That’s my vision of what Georgia Tech was and is. People walk in here, I don’t want to think the old things. I want it to look like an Apple store.”
Along with the new performance center and increased revenue through business partnerships, Batt had two critical hires to make in his first six months on the job.
“We’re looking for partners,” he said. “You know, stepping in as the new AD to Georgia Tech, the president stepped forward and linked arms with me and said, ‘Hey, we’re building this back.’ I think it had us looking for people that were going to build it with us.
“Brent and Damon, no strangers to hard work, right? These guys are tremendous competitors with tremendous passion to build it back. And so I was looking for a partner and both of those coaching hires, and certainly found it in both.”
With the new beginnings, there’s a sense around Atlanta that better days are ahead. Rather than worry about what has gone wrong, the focus is on what can be done right given everything Batt, Key and Stoudamire believe Georgia Tech has to offer.
“Since I’ve been here, we talked about alignment,” Stoudamire said. “I’ve always preached that. I think football, basketball, with the president and AD, I think all that aligns. I’ve always had a saying when one thing wins, everybody wins. And I think with football and basketball, what a tremendous opportunity that we all have here.”
Key has a notebook that he started back in 2009 in which he wrote down everything he wanted as a head coach. “One thing I never would have planned on was having a boss like J. Batt,” Key said. “He’s amazing.”
“To have a guy that’s just as driven, to have a guy that does his job like football coaches do their job. It could be 9 or 9:30 at night, and you’re here doing work, and to have an administrator just pop in and say, ‘Hey,’ because they’re working, too.
“To know what that position looks like at the most successful program in the history of college football, and they know what the most successful coach looks like, and how he goes about his business, but also to be able to allow those things to occur, and then give the resources and to help those things. And if the resources aren’t there, he gets out on the street and gets things done.
“A lot of people come up with a lot of ideas and sayings and all this kind of crap. He gets things done. He works. And when your boss is working that hard, it keeps you rolling now.
“You know everyone’s on the same page.”
The 2025 Little League World Series is underway, with some of the best young players around the country competing in Williamsport — all with the hopes of eventually making it to the major leagues one day.
And a few of them will make it … as evidenced by all the Little League alumni in Major League Baseball today.
This year’s MLB Little League Classic between the the Seattle Mariners and New York Mets will feature a number of MLB players who have played little league baseball in one way or another, either with local teams in their home countries or with Little League specifically. In fact, Seattle manager Dan Wilson played in the 1981 Little League Baseball World Series with Barrington (Illinois) Little League.
As the Mariners and Mets face off at historic Bowman Field in Williamsport on Aug. 17 — which you can watch on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast at 7 p.m. ET — let’s take a look at “then” and “now” photos of notable players on each team that played little league.
More: Little League World Series: Results, schedules, more
Watch every game: LLBWS
Mets first baseman Pete Alonso played for Tampa Bay Little League in Tampa Bay, Florida.
J.P. Crawford, SS, Seattle Mariners
Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford played for Lakewood Little League in Lakewood, California.
Edwin Diaz, RP, New York Mets
Mets reliever Edwin Diaz played for Miguel Luzunaris Little League in Humacao, Puerto Rico.
George Kirby, SP, Seattle Mariners
Mariners starting pitcher George Kirby played for Rye Little League in Rye, New York.
Francisco Lindor, SS, New York Mets
Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor played little league baseball in Caguas, Puerto Rico.
Jeff McNeil, 2B, New York Mets
Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil played for Goleta Valley South Little League in Santa Barbara, California.
Cal Raleigh, C, Seattle Mariners
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh played for Great Smokies Little League in Sylva, North Carolina.
Julio Rodriguez, CF, Seattle Mariners
Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez played little league baseball in Loma de Cabrera, Dominican Republic.
Kodai Senga, SP, New York Mets
Mets starting pitcher Kodai Senga played little league baseball in Gamagōri, Japan.
Juan Soto, RF, New York Mets
Mets right fielder Juan Soto played for Banco Central Little League in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Bryan Woo, SP, Seattle Mariners
Mariners starting pitcher Bryan Woo played for Alameda Little League in Alameda, California.
All childhood photos courtesy of the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners.
Sports
Arch Manning is finally Texas’ starting QB! Coaches and scouts on his expectations and draft status
Arch Manning needs no introduction to the college football world. From the moment the sophomore quarterback committed to Texas in the class of 2023, the grandson of Archie Manning and nephew of Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning and two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning has been in the public eye.
After a redshirt season in 2023 and serving as a changeup to Quinn Ewers last season, Arch Manning will get his opportunity to be the face of the Longhorns — and potentially college football. He won’t get the chance to ease into the starting role, as top-ranked Texas will play at defending national champion and No. 3-ranked Ohio State in its season opener on Aug. 30.
As Manning readies for the 2025 season, we had our NFL draft and college football experts dive into all things Arch. Heather Dinich looked at how Manning could change Texas’ offense this season, and Adam Rittenberg talked to opposing coaches to get their initial impressions. Jordan Reid broke down Manning’s game from a scouting perspective, and Matt Miller talked to NFL evaluators about what stands out about the young QB and when he could enter the draft.
Let’s begin with Reid’s breakdown of what Manning has put on film to date.
Jump to a section:
Scouting report | Texas’ offense
Opposing coach perspective
NFL scouts talk Arch
What does Manning look like from a scouting perspective? What stands out most, and what does he need to work on?
Two starts and 95 career passing attempts provide too small a sample size to assess any signal-caller, but the early returns on Manning are positive. He has immense potential, but his starts came against 2-10 Mississippi State and 5-7 Louisiana Monroe. At 6-foot-4, 222 pounds, Manning has prototypical size and a well-built frame. He finished last season with 939 passing yards, nine touchdown passes and two interceptions over 10 games, and he has picture-perfect mechanics. He throws from a strong platform and seems to always play on balance from the pocket.
Manning also has a quick, over-the-top delivery that helps him get the ball out effectively. He has the necessary arm strength and confidence to drive the ball into tight windows, but one of the more impressive parts of his film was his success as a downfield thrower. He averaged 10.0 air yards per attempt last season, and 15 of his 61 completions went for 20-plus yards.
Manning finished last season with seven completions on throws of 20-plus air yards, and three of his nine touchdowns came on downfield passes, which was an element mostly missing from Texas’ offense when Ewers was quarterback. Manning will help the offense generate more explosive plays downfield because of his touch, arm strength and comfort on deep-shot plays.
Unlike his uncles, Manning can also turn into a reliable running threat on designed QB runs or when plays break down. His frame and mobility allow him to string together positive plays outside the framework of concepts.
But Manning needs refinement on true multistep progressions from the pocket. He has a habit of sticking to his primary read too long, so he must learn when and how to move on to his next options quickly. Too many times last season, he stared down his first read, hoping the receiver would get open.
Manning can also improve on using his mobility to his advantage. His internal clock in the pocket was inconsistent. During several plays, he could have hurt defenses even more as a running threat instead of hanging in the pocket too long. — Reid
How will Texas utilize Manning, and how will things look different with him instead of Ewers?
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian told ESPN that his offensive system won’t change, but it has evolved with the strengths of different quarterbacks — just as it did when Sarkisian was the offensive coordinator at Alabama and transitioned from Tua Tagovailoa to Mac Jones late in the 2019 season.
“The beauty of it for us right now is we have two years with Arch of working with him every day and have a really good understanding of the things that he’s good at, and so we can focus and tailor things around what he does well,” Sarkisian said.
“Probably the most natural thing is his athleticism to where he’s a threat. When he runs the ball, you have to account for him because there’s a speed component to the way he runs, and there’s a physical component to the way he runs. And so some of the things that we’re able to do in short yardage may be a little bit different than where we’ve been in the past.”
Sarkisian said that the Longhorns have added the quarterback run in short-yardage, third-down situations and in the red zone — while also allowing Manning to recognize his strengths.
The Longhorns were middle of the pack in the red zone last season, as their 63.8% touchdown percentage ranked 55th in the FBS. Texas was 49th in third-down conversion percentage (42.1%). Manning could boost both categories. He averaged 4.3 yards per carry last season (25 carries for 108 yards and four touchdowns), a marked improvement over Ewers’ minus-1.4 yards per carry in 2024 (57 carries for minus-82 yards and two touchdowns).
“We may not change so much, but his ability to use his legs on third down in the red area to create plays when people are in man coverage and people are blitzing and there’s voids to go run, I think would be another component to that as well,” Sarkisian said. — Dinich
What do opposing college coaches think of Manning, both good and bad?
Most opposing coaches have a better sense of Manning off the field than on it, but they like what they’ve seen.
“He’s getting a lot of publicity, but he seems like a pretty level-headed kid,” a coach who will face Manning this fall said. “It doesn’t seem like he bought into the hype.”
An SEC coach added: “You’ve got a ton of respect for the kid, handling what is an insane situation.”
However, Manning’s limited game experience (11 career games, including 10 in 2024) creates doubt about whether he can reach the elevated expectations he’s facing as a first-year starter.
“He’s going to be a good player,” another SEC coach said. “The hype that it’s been, it’s impossible to reach.”
Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby, who faced Manning in his only conference start last season, thought the quarterback’s command and composure stood out. Manning completed 26 of 31 passes for 325 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, while adding a rushing touchdown, in a 35-13 Texas win.
“You’ve got to find ways to get him off platform,” Lebby told ESPN. “For a guy who hadn’t played a ton up to that point inside that game, man, he was really, really calm. He had great demeanor, and he had command of what Sark and his staff was trying to accomplish.”
2:19
Arch Manning dazzles with 5-TD performance vs. UTSA
Arch Manning replaces the injured Quinn Ewers and tallies five total touchdowns in Texas’ win vs. UTSA.
Several coaches who studied Manning noted his athleticism, which showed on a 67-yard run against UTSA and runs of 26 and 21 yards against Mississippi State and Georgia, respectively. Texas used Manning primarily as a running threat when Ewers returned from injury.
“Any time a quarterback can make all the throws and has enough ability to run the ball, they’re usually pretty f—ing good,” an SEC defensive coordinator said. “But I’m sure he’ll force some stuff and make some mistakes.”
Manning’s run threat certainly will be part of his repertoire, but how much? Coaches say a lot depends on Texas’ confidence in projected backup Trey Owens, who had only four pass attempts last season, because the more Manning runs, the more he opens himself up to injury.
“Sometimes, that comes into play, what your backup’s like,” a coach who faced Texas last season said. “I don’t imagine there will be a lot of designed runs. It will be Arch doing it on his own.” — Rittenberg
What do NFL scouts and evaluators think of Manning, and what are they looking to see from him this season?
Based on conversations I had with scouts, Manning is arguably the nation’s most discussed player. I spoke to 20 evaluators, and each was excited to talk about Manning. But not one evaluator polled is sure when they’ll scout the third-generation star as an active NFL draft prospect.
As a redshirt sophomore, Manning is draft eligible for the 2026 draft but also has three years of college eligibility remaining. No one I talked to thinks he’ll use all three years, but scouts aren’t ready to commit to him as a 2026 prospect, either. Grandfather Archie Manning, who has been more hands-on than Arch’s famous uncles, told Texas Monthly that he doesn’t expect Arch to enter the 2026 draft. But scouts are doing the legwork just in case.
“We’re evaluating him, while at the same time knowing he probably goes back to school [for the 2026 season],” an AFC scouting director said.
NFL scouts typically say 25 collegiate starts is the minimum any incoming quarterback should have before entering the draft. Manning has only two. A long playoff run this season could get him to 18 starts. But if the family agrees that more starts are better in the long run — Peyton started 45 games in college, and Eli had 41 — then it’s unlikely Arch will have a one-and-done starting season.
“People in the league want him to come out. Fans want him to come out. But I really feel like he’s in no rush, given his support system,” an NFC West scout added. “The family is going to care where he goes and who has the first pick when he does enter the draft.”
That sentiment was echoed by other scouts, and there’s precedent. The Manning family determined Eli’s landing spot in 2004, as Archie and Eli told the San Diego Chargers not to draft him coming out of Ole Miss. The Chargers picked Eli but traded him to the New York Giants, his preferred destination.
“The situation is going to matter,” an NFL general manager said. “With NIL money and his family situation, there is no rush to get to the league. So, they’ll wait and see what the environment is before making a decision.”
One NFC scouting director predicted that the Manning decision would come close to the mid-January deadline for underclassmen to declare for the draft. “They’ll want to see which team has the No. 1 pick and if they’ve fired their coach — which is pretty common — [and] who the replacement is before jumping into the draft,” the scouting director said.
Would Manning and the family consider an earlier entry into the 2026 draft if a team with the right appeal, be it an emotional tie to an organization or the right football fit, were in position to draft him? Potentially, but after conversations with scouts, this is an unknown.
Online speculation that the Manning family wants him to land with the New Orleans Saints, where his grandfather played, or maybe the New York Giants to follow uncle Eli, has been rampant. But one thing is for certain — Arch will go his own way. He didn’t go to Tennessee or Ole Miss and try to live in the family legacy. Overconnecting the dots between where his uncles played hasn’t been a smart bet.
If he enters next year’s draft, Manning wouldn’t be the guaranteed No. 1 pick. Cade Klubnik (Clemson), Drew Allar (Penn State), LaNorris Sellers (South Carolina) and Garrett Nussmeier (LSU) are also receiving first-round attention.
Manning is the most hyped quarterback coming out of high school since Trevor Lawrence, but arguably under more pressure and with more attention.
“We’re still talking about a guy who has two starts, right?” an AFC South area scout said when asked to break down Manning’s game. “He’s big, he has a strong arm and I love the flexibility in his throwing motion. And he can move much better than his uncles ever did. But he’s very raw, and last year, the game was way too fast for him when he got in against Georgia and looked overwhelmed.”
Manning was a fish out of water too often when thrust into action last year. On film, there were a lot of “one-read-and-go” situations when he would take off as a runner if the fast-throwing option wasn’t there, which was referenced by several scouts. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian will develop his eyes and his pocket patience, but that’s the jump scouts need to see this season for him to live up to the generational quarterback label. — Miller
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