Georgia Tech Football: Four walk-ons awarded scholarships

Four walk-ons on the Georgia Tech football team received scholarships from head coach Paul Johnson on Wednesday night.

Every year, FBS college football teams may only have 85 scholarship players on their team. For this upcoming season, the Georgia Tech football team had approximately 81 scholarship players for the fall semester. On Wednesday, coach Paul Johnson awarded the remaining scholarships to four walk-ons as seen in the video below.

While specifics are not known, chances are that the four scholarships awarded all for the fall semester only. With a new recruiting class coming in for next season and a few potential early enrollees it means scholarships will have to be opened back up. That being said, it should not take away from the accomplishment for these four men.

QB Chase Martenson:

The redshirt junior arrived on campus back in 2014 coming off a tremendous career at Marist High School. While Martenson has never seen the field for any action during the season, he did have a moment of glory in this year’s past spring game. During the fourth quarter in the final two minutes, Martenson connected with fellow walk-on Brady Swilling for a 61-yard touchdown to lead the Gold team to a victory.

DB Zach Matthews:

A linebacker in high school, Matthews made the transition to linebacker when he arrived on The Flats in 2014. Now a redshirt junior, Matthews has seen playing time in four games so far through his three years at Tech. In all four games, his appearances came on special teams but he has yet to record any stats while a member of the Yellow Jackets.

DB Josh Selembo:

A former team captain at Roswell High School, Selembo is entering his redshirt junior season on The Flats and is hoping to see his first action during a game this upcoming season. While he hasn’t seen time on the field, Selembo like many Yellow Jackets is an excellent student-athlete. Through his first three years on The Flats, Selembo has earned All-ACC Honor Roll selections every year.

B-Back Brady Swilling:

A redshirt senior, Swilling will get to spend his final season on scholarship. A product of North Murray High School, Swilling was a quarterback coming of high school before making the transition to b-back once he arrived on campus. While he didn’t see time during his first two years on campus, Swilling did have the opportunity to rush 13 times for 67-yards and a touchdown in 2015. Last season, he was a reserve quarterback for the team and saw no playing time.

The Yellow Jackets will begin their season on Labor Day against the Tennessee Volunteers at the newly built Mercedez-Benz Stadium. With just 18 days till game day there is plenty of work to be done on The Flats if the Jackets hope to pull out a victory.