University of Georgia Athletics
Quick Chat: JT Daniels
April 07, 2021 | Football, The Frierson Files
By John Frierson
Staff Writer
JT Daniels is a determined young man. Other than traveling for games, the quarterback, a native of Irvine, Calif., has been in Athens since transferring to Georgia from USC last June. The last time he took a vacation? He doesn't recall.
Daniels eats, sleeps and breathes football. His curiosity for the sport grows and grows, and one of the benefits of transferring to Georgia was the chance to learn from coaches, particularly offensive coordinator Todd Monken, with ideas and perspectives that he hadn't heard before.
Once the 6-foot-3 and 210-pound Daniels got on the field last season, starting the final four games, he played at a very high level. We all remember that Bulldog debut, throwing for 401 yards and four touchdowns against Mississippi State, and for the season he completed 80 of 119 passes for 1,231 yards, with 10 TDs and two interceptions.
During a Quick Chat after practice Tuesday, Daniels talked about moving to the South, staying focused on football, food back home, and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: Since you've been in Athens, in the South, have you picked up any Southern phrases? Are you throwing "y'all" around from time to time?
Daniels: Slang-wise, I have for a while. Since I've been out of high school, every coach I've had, that's had any involvement with me, is from the South. At USC, my quarterback coach first year was Bryan Ellis, who's from Georgia. Tee Martin was my offensive coordinator, and the next year we had Graham Harrell, John David Baker, a whole staff from Texas, and then Coach (Clay) Helton, who went to Auburn.
Literally, since I've been out of high school all I've had is Southern coaches, so I have a couple of things that I've noticed that I say. I say "golly" a lot and I've said "gosh darn," something I never heard growing up. And now that I'm actually in the South, the coach that's most connected to me, Coach Monken, is not Southern. [Monken was born in Wheaton, Ill.] It's weird that once I'm actually in the South I don't have a Southern coach.
Frierson: Since you've gone back home in your time here ...
Daniels: I haven't gone back home. I think the only time I've been outside of Athens is for away games.
Frierson: How weird does that feel?
Daniels: Not at all. Athens really, really feels like home since I've been here. My parents actually moved to Texas to be closer. The only direct family I have left [in California] is my sister, who's in northern California.
Frierson: Growing up in Irvine, does that feel like part of L.A., or is that a world apart?
Daniels: Irvine/Orange County is definitely a world apart from downtown L.A. Toward the end of high school, we lived in Long Beach, which is in L.A. County, and then for the last two, two-and-a-half years I lived in downtown L.A., South Central, which is USC.
Frierson: Do you miss In-N-Out Burger? Or is there another L.A.-area place that you really miss?
Daniels: I miss Hawaiian barbecue — Aloha Hawaiian BBQ, Ono, all the Hawaiian barbecue places. I haven't found any Hawaiian barbecue places around here and it's so good. Those are really my favorite foods, sushi and Hawaiian barbecue.
Frierson: I'm a pretty good foodie and I've eaten all over the country, but I don't really know Hawaiian barbecue.
Daniels: It's barbecued beef, mac salad, cabbage, chicken katsu — it's all so good.
Frierson: What do you make of Southern food?
Daniels: It's just bigger. Bigger portions, for sure. J.D.s [Jordan Davises] grow on trees out here. That's probably the biggest thing, there's just more of everything in general.
Frierson: Including sugar and fat.
Daniels: The size of everything, really. The size of athletes here is ridiculous when you compare it to where I'm from. California has a lot of great athletes, there's just so many in the South that it's just crazy.
Frierson: What other sports did you play growing up?
Daniels: I wasn't allowed to play any other sports in high school. I played basketball growing up, I'm a huge basketball fan, and I'm a huge soccer fan, too. I never played soccer but I always loved soccer.
My high school coach was not up for it, not a huge fan of me playing basketball. I kind of wanted to but that didn't go over well. I was the varsity quarterback as a freshman at Mater Dei, so it was all football all the time.
Frierson: When did you know you were good? When did you know that you had a future in football beyond playing at Mater Dei?
Daniels: I wouldn't say I had great confidence until my junior year of high school when I really started to feel like I was picking things up. Freshman and sophomore year, I had a lot of offers and I was highly rated, and I knew I could throw the ball well, but the game moved fast for me at that point.
I felt a step behind even though you wouldn't really see it on film, but watching myself and how I played, I didn't pick things up. I was accurate and I could throw the ball far, but I wasn't consistently on time as often as I could have been. I was never a natural with good pocket movement and pocket awareness, that was something I really put a lot into going into my junior year of high school. That's when I noticed that the game was slowing down and I had a better feel for things.
Frierson: If you could travel anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go and who would you take with you?
Daniels: That's a really tough question because I haven't been on vacation since before high school. Mater Dei is a very serious football program, so you're there all summer and all spring. I was almost as busy at Mater Dei as I was at USC and Georgia.
Frierson: So you have the whole world out there waiting for you to explore, which is kind of a beautiful thing.
Daniels: I don't know anything about anything outside of what I do. We once went to Jamaica when I was younger but I don't even remember the family vacations that we had because I was so young. We counted college visits as vacations whenever I took one.
Frierson: How do you avoid burning out on football?
Daniels: It's just what I love to do. I don't do it for any reason other than that. I think that if I played the game for any reasons other than it's just what I want to do, I could see myself burning out. But I've never even come close to burning out. I really have experienced the opposite the more I do it.
Frierson: You're more invested in it, you're more curious about it.
Daniels: Curiosity really is the best word to use. The more I play it, the more things start to present themselves, and then that opens up new things for me to try and learn.
Frierson: I would imagine coming to Georgia and working with Coach Monken, where you're going to get new voices and new ideas, that's probably feeding your curiosity.
Daniels: I've definitely learned a lot under Coach Monken. I never saw the game or understood it the way he does until I started talking to him. There were a lot of similarities in the way that we thought but coming from a pure progression Air Raid, and it was a little different from my freshman year at USC, to how we do it here, it's really interesting to see how NFL, true passing concepts are taught and read. The importance of certain things that I haven't used in the last two years because that's just not how we were coached.
Frierson: Do you see yourself coaching one day?
Daniels: With how much I enjoy the sport, I could definitely see myself doing it. I haven't planned it out or thought it out, but I could see myself doing something with offense.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day, just to experience it, what would it be?
Daniels: I would be a 7-3 big man that could shoot. I would love that. If I could be 7-3 and athletic and can shoot, I would never touch a football.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Staff Writer
JT Daniels is a determined young man. Other than traveling for games, the quarterback, a native of Irvine, Calif., has been in Athens since transferring to Georgia from USC last June. The last time he took a vacation? He doesn't recall.
Daniels eats, sleeps and breathes football. His curiosity for the sport grows and grows, and one of the benefits of transferring to Georgia was the chance to learn from coaches, particularly offensive coordinator Todd Monken, with ideas and perspectives that he hadn't heard before.
Once the 6-foot-3 and 210-pound Daniels got on the field last season, starting the final four games, he played at a very high level. We all remember that Bulldog debut, throwing for 401 yards and four touchdowns against Mississippi State, and for the season he completed 80 of 119 passes for 1,231 yards, with 10 TDs and two interceptions.
During a Quick Chat after practice Tuesday, Daniels talked about moving to the South, staying focused on football, food back home, and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: Since you've been in Athens, in the South, have you picked up any Southern phrases? Are you throwing "y'all" around from time to time?
Daniels: Slang-wise, I have for a while. Since I've been out of high school, every coach I've had, that's had any involvement with me, is from the South. At USC, my quarterback coach first year was Bryan Ellis, who's from Georgia. Tee Martin was my offensive coordinator, and the next year we had Graham Harrell, John David Baker, a whole staff from Texas, and then Coach (Clay) Helton, who went to Auburn.
Literally, since I've been out of high school all I've had is Southern coaches, so I have a couple of things that I've noticed that I say. I say "golly" a lot and I've said "gosh darn," something I never heard growing up. And now that I'm actually in the South, the coach that's most connected to me, Coach Monken, is not Southern. [Monken was born in Wheaton, Ill.] It's weird that once I'm actually in the South I don't have a Southern coach.
Frierson: Since you've gone back home in your time here ...
Daniels: I haven't gone back home. I think the only time I've been outside of Athens is for away games.
Frierson: How weird does that feel?
Daniels: Not at all. Athens really, really feels like home since I've been here. My parents actually moved to Texas to be closer. The only direct family I have left [in California] is my sister, who's in northern California.
Frierson: Growing up in Irvine, does that feel like part of L.A., or is that a world apart?
Daniels: Irvine/Orange County is definitely a world apart from downtown L.A. Toward the end of high school, we lived in Long Beach, which is in L.A. County, and then for the last two, two-and-a-half years I lived in downtown L.A., South Central, which is USC.
Frierson: Do you miss In-N-Out Burger? Or is there another L.A.-area place that you really miss?
Daniels: I miss Hawaiian barbecue — Aloha Hawaiian BBQ, Ono, all the Hawaiian barbecue places. I haven't found any Hawaiian barbecue places around here and it's so good. Those are really my favorite foods, sushi and Hawaiian barbecue.
Frierson: I'm a pretty good foodie and I've eaten all over the country, but I don't really know Hawaiian barbecue.
Daniels: It's barbecued beef, mac salad, cabbage, chicken katsu — it's all so good.
Frierson: What do you make of Southern food?
Daniels: It's just bigger. Bigger portions, for sure. J.D.s [Jordan Davises] grow on trees out here. That's probably the biggest thing, there's just more of everything in general.
Frierson: Including sugar and fat.
Daniels: The size of everything, really. The size of athletes here is ridiculous when you compare it to where I'm from. California has a lot of great athletes, there's just so many in the South that it's just crazy.
Frierson: What other sports did you play growing up?
Daniels: I wasn't allowed to play any other sports in high school. I played basketball growing up, I'm a huge basketball fan, and I'm a huge soccer fan, too. I never played soccer but I always loved soccer.
My high school coach was not up for it, not a huge fan of me playing basketball. I kind of wanted to but that didn't go over well. I was the varsity quarterback as a freshman at Mater Dei, so it was all football all the time.
Frierson: When did you know you were good? When did you know that you had a future in football beyond playing at Mater Dei?
Daniels: I wouldn't say I had great confidence until my junior year of high school when I really started to feel like I was picking things up. Freshman and sophomore year, I had a lot of offers and I was highly rated, and I knew I could throw the ball well, but the game moved fast for me at that point.
I felt a step behind even though you wouldn't really see it on film, but watching myself and how I played, I didn't pick things up. I was accurate and I could throw the ball far, but I wasn't consistently on time as often as I could have been. I was never a natural with good pocket movement and pocket awareness, that was something I really put a lot into going into my junior year of high school. That's when I noticed that the game was slowing down and I had a better feel for things.
Frierson: If you could travel anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go and who would you take with you?
Daniels: That's a really tough question because I haven't been on vacation since before high school. Mater Dei is a very serious football program, so you're there all summer and all spring. I was almost as busy at Mater Dei as I was at USC and Georgia.
Frierson: So you have the whole world out there waiting for you to explore, which is kind of a beautiful thing.
Daniels: I don't know anything about anything outside of what I do. We once went to Jamaica when I was younger but I don't even remember the family vacations that we had because I was so young. We counted college visits as vacations whenever I took one.
Frierson: How do you avoid burning out on football?
Daniels: It's just what I love to do. I don't do it for any reason other than that. I think that if I played the game for any reasons other than it's just what I want to do, I could see myself burning out. But I've never even come close to burning out. I really have experienced the opposite the more I do it.
Frierson: You're more invested in it, you're more curious about it.
Daniels: Curiosity really is the best word to use. The more I play it, the more things start to present themselves, and then that opens up new things for me to try and learn.
Frierson: I would imagine coming to Georgia and working with Coach Monken, where you're going to get new voices and new ideas, that's probably feeding your curiosity.
Daniels: I've definitely learned a lot under Coach Monken. I never saw the game or understood it the way he does until I started talking to him. There were a lot of similarities in the way that we thought but coming from a pure progression Air Raid, and it was a little different from my freshman year at USC, to how we do it here, it's really interesting to see how NFL, true passing concepts are taught and read. The importance of certain things that I haven't used in the last two years because that's just not how we were coached.
Frierson: Do you see yourself coaching one day?
Daniels: With how much I enjoy the sport, I could definitely see myself doing it. I haven't planned it out or thought it out, but I could see myself doing something with offense.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day, just to experience it, what would it be?
Daniels: I would be a 7-3 big man that could shoot. I would love that. If I could be 7-3 and athletic and can shoot, I would never touch a football.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
Players Mentioned
QB
/ Football
DL
/ FootballKirby Smart All Access SEC Championship vs Alabama - 2025
Monday, December 08
2025 SEC Championship Trophy Presentation
Saturday, December 06
Georgia Football SEC Championship vs Alabama Highlights
Saturday, December 06
Georgia Football – SEC Championship vs Alabama – Postgame Press Conference
Saturday, December 06