Georgia Tech Football: Jackets could be “a force to be reckon with” in the future

Earlier this week, Athlon Sports released their annual anonymous coaches thoughts series and the thoughts on Georgia Tech are rather noteworthy.

Prior to every season, Athlon Sports does a series of articles where they post quotes by anonymous coaches on the teams within their conference. Their ACC based article was especially interesting across the board but especially for what coaches had to say about the Yellow Jackets heading into 2019.

For the most part, the quotes are what you would expect heading for the Yellow Jackets. Especially considering, the Jackets are in the midst of a massive overhaul from top-to-bottom and whenever you change so much including the base offense and defense of your program, there will be struggles.

However, one anonymous coach made a comment that will probably make Tech fans very happy. That quote was the following;

"“This job has always been a huge program waiting for the right guy. It looks like Geoff Collins is that guy. He’s a native and he can recruit like he’s in the SEC. He could make this team a force to be reckoned with four years from now, and he knows it.”"

(You can read the full article by Athlon Sports as well as the other thoughts on the program, here.)

This anonymous quote should make Tech fans very happy and should help some fans feel vindicated over their excitement of the Geoff Collins’ era so far and it’s a 100% true statement and we’ll explain why.

Sleeping Giant:

For the last decade, the Jackets were a consistent program but they’re peaks were too short while the lows could be quite extensive. That being said, the Paul Johnson era was an overall success but in the process, the Yellow Jackets as a program “fell asleep”. The Jackets were in no way a force on the recruiting trail and while the “triple option” was considered the great equalizer, they stood little chance at times to upset national powers due to their lack of overall talent. They were running a triple-option offense which does no favor in recruiting and were not taking advantage of being located in one of the hotbeds of football in the country. Additionally, the lack of star power and pipeline building of sending players to the NFL on a consistent basis also hurt the Jackets over the last few years.

Recruiting:

If the Jackets recruiting success so far is any indication, the Jackets on the recruiting trail are going to be a bigger player for top recruits not just in Georgia or the south but up-and-down the east coast. The Jackets are already on track to have their top recruiting class since 2007 and still have several notable top prospects left out there to possibly land in the upcoming weeks or months. While some fans may get upset about seeing three-star players coming in as they did under the former coaching staff, the solace should be in that the Jackets are adding better depth players than they did at any time before during the Paul Johnson era. The stars will eventually come but every top-notch program is built on depth and that’s where the Jackets should and are starting in this program overhaul

Now, while the Jackets are recruiting well, it’s hard to say that they’re recruiting like an SEC team. While they do have a top-5 class in the ACC, their class would be ranked ninth in the SEC. However, the potential is there for the Jackets to eventually take that step up into “recruiting like an SEC team.”

“Force to be reckoned with”:

Finally, there’s the ‘force to be reckoned with” comment. Now, this is surely a bold prediction as if the Jackets are going to be a “force to be reckoned with” within the next four years, a lot will need to go right for the Jackets both on and off the field. The Jackets will need to see continued success both on the field and the recruiting trail but there is no doubt that the potential is there for the program.

It won’t be an easy climb for the Jackets to fully wake the program up from their “sleeping” state but if there’s a coach who could do it, it would definitely be Geoff Collins. He’s one of the most passionate coaches in the country and is strong in both coaching and recruiting, a rather rare combination when it comes down to it in college football. A lot of coaches can coach but can’t recruit and a lot can recruit but not necessarily coach, but if you can do both, you already have your program in a better spot than most of the country.

It’s not going to be an overnight success for Georgia Tech and it won’t be easy, it could even be ugly at times but the vision for Georgia Tech is clear and like this anonymous coach said, the Jackets in a few years could be “a force to be reckoned with”.  Tech fans will now just need to be patient with Collins’ and his program as he looks to build the Jackets to where he believes the program can be in the future.