ATLANTA – With Geoff Collins entering his third football season in charge at Georgia Tech, words and concepts like rebuilding and reshaping may no longer be reasonable.
The Yellow Jackets have been dreadful in the first two seasons since option offense aficionado Paul Johnson retired as head coach, going 3-9 in 2019 and 3-7 last year. It being 2021, Collins and the program’s fans are looking for things to start turning around.
As with so many teams, youth should no longer be a concern with the NCAA last year granting an extra year of eligibility to every player due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yes, the Jackets have 25 true freshmen on scholarship. They also have several seniors taking a sixth season of on-field eligibility and 12 new players via transfer, several of them with college degrees.
The good news is their best two players – quarterback Jeff Sims and running back Jamhyr Gibbs, the former Dalton High School standout – are back after solid (borderline spectacular at times) but injury-speckled freshman seasons. Another plus is that several players who transferred in boast starting experience at other big programs.
The bad news is Tech returns several players from a team that last season was among the nation’s most penalized and fruitless in the kicking game, as well as substandard in almost all categories that exist.