True story: At the end of one of the media sessions on Monday, a writer asked Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey if punter Durant Brooks was injured or AWOL or something else undesirable.
Gailey couldn’t think of any reason, then understandably asked why such a question would be asked.
Turns out Brooks, last year’s first-team All-ACC punter and a legit Ray Guy Award candidate this year, was omitted from the nominees list for the preseason all-conference team.
“Somebody start a write-in campaign for him,” the understated Gailey said of a player who produced better numbers last year that Maryland’s Adam Podlesh, who wound up a fourth-round selection of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Well, that didn’t work, at least not for now. Despite his fine record last year, Brooks wasn’t among the preseason picks released on Wednesday by the conference.
(For the record, Maryland was represented by electrifying wideout Darrius Heyward-Bey and sturdy right guard Andrew Crummey; Boston College QB Matt Ryan was the preseason player of the year.)
In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn’t participate in this exercise. But it’s also interesting to point out 14 of the 24 players listed were also in attendance at the ACC kickoff event -- including ALL NINE of the offensive and defensive linemen.
There was one particularly discouraging aspect of the balloting. Only four quarterbacks were nominated, including Ryan. The others: Virginia Tech’s Sean Glennon and Wake Forest’s Riley Skinner, a pair of second-year starters coming off solid (but not dominant) seasons, and Duke’s Thaddeus Lewis, a great kid who survived his baptism by fire as a true freshman but still has to earn the job in camp.
Still, for the sake of entertainment, a handful of those guys or even someone else needs to emerge (Jameel Sewell? Taylor Bennett? Kyle Wright? Drew Weatherford?) to make the offensive side interesting in the conference this season.
