By: Colin Lacy

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The past calendar year in mid-town Atlanta has been encouraging for Georgia Tech with Coach Brent Key having the interim tag removed and being named the full-time head coach.

He is capping off a 7-6 2024 season with a Gasparilla Bowl championship for the first bowl victory since 2016.

Even with so much positivity including their first winning season since 2018, everyone hopes it’s just the beginning of what is to come for the Ramblin’ Wreck.

Less than a month into the off-season, changes have already been made by Coach Brent Key on the defensive side of the ball, especially. Key announced earlier in the week the additions of former Duke & Miami assistant, Jess Simpson, and former Memphis defensive line coach Kyle Pope to the defensive staff. The Jackets plan to wrap up the additions to the defensive staff by month’s end.

Like everyone in the “new age” of College Football, Georgia Tech has made the most out of the transfer portal. Still 7 months away from the start of the 2024 season, Tech has added 23 new players with 10 of those being transfer portal additions.

Of the 13 high school players added to the White and Gold, the Wreck added one of the highest rated recruits in Tech history in wide receiver Isiah Canion out of Warner Robins.

In addition to the new blood, the Jackets have an impressive core returning, including quarterback Haynes King. King threw for over 2,800 yards and twenty-seven touchdowns while running for over 700 yards and ten more scores.

King transferred to Atlanta from Texas A&M and was a huge addition to the 2023 Jackets club setting the Georgia Tech single season record for touchdowns responsible for (37), which snapped the previous record of 35 set by Joe Hamilton in 1999.

Along with King, GT also will see how Jamal Haynes follows up the 128-yard performance in the Gasparilla Bowl and Gasparilla Bowl MVP in 2024.

The Jackets also return four of the five starting offensive line that helped GT average 204 yards per game on the ground and only allowed fifteen sacks on the 13-game season.

Jordan Williams, Weston Franklin, Ethan Mackenny and Joe Fusile all return to anchor the offensive front for offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner.

While the defensive staff is being re-tooled, Tech will retain their leading tackler from the 2023 campaign as Kyle Efford returns for the 2024 season to anchor the linebacking core.

Ahmari Harvey, Clayton Powell-Lee, and Rodney Shelley all played vital roles in the secondary for Brent Key and return along with veteran safety LaMiles Brooks.

The Jackets will retain the majority of the defensive front as well along with the boost in the return of Sylvain Yondjouen after missing most of the past year with a knee injury.

While the last year and some change since Brent Key took over on the Flats have been an incredible rejuvenation of the Jackets program, I still think the best days are ahead.

Between the emergence of young blood in the program (on and off the field) and the sheer passion that Brent Key exudes for college football and especially Georgia Tech football, the 2023 season was a year of gaining confidence.

Boy, did it grow with each passing game and may have been sparked by a last second touchdown at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami after the Hurricanes didn’t kneel the clock out; Tech forced a fumble and Haynes King drove the length of the field to give the Jackets an unimaginable comeback win.

While Miami Coach Mario Cristobal would like to forget that game, that’s a game that the White and Gold will never forget and showed many people that the Wreck was back on the tracks.