Two Freshmen In the Secondary Who Might Be Playing Sooner Rather Than Later For Georgia Tech

It is not easy to get on the field as a true freshman, no matter the postion.

But when you look at Georgia Tech's roster, particularly at safety, it feels inevitable that freshmen are going to be asked to contribute and perhaps early on.

At safety, Georgia Tech is losing Clayton Powell-Lee and Omar Daniels, who started and played the majority of snaps at the position. Tae Harris is back and should assume a starting position, while Fenix Felton, who got to play over 80 snaps in the final two weeks against Georgia and BYU, should be a factor as well. After missing most of last season, Savion Riley returns as the veteran of the group, but behind those three is a lot of inexperience.

At cornerback, the story is a little different. Yes, Ahmari Harvey, Jy Gilmore, and Rodney Shelly are all gone, but Zachary Tobe (418 snaps), Kelvin Hill (408), Daiquan White (288), Jon Mitchell (122), and Elgins Sessions (40) are back. There is still room for a true freshman to contribute though, especially when it is the highest-rated signee from Georgia Tech's 2026 class.

Jaedyn Terry and Chris Hewitt Jr are entering their first fall camp with a chance to earn some playing time on a Georgia Tech defense that is hoping to be much better than it has in recent seasons. While it will undeniably be tough for them to see the field as freshmen, don't count them out, even early on according to Yellow Jackets defensive coordinator Jason Semore:

"It's a difficult task. Football at this level is hard. There's a ton of preparation that goes into it.The higher level of football that you play, the less talent matters because everybody's talented. So it all comes down to... kind of habits do you have to prepare? What kind of identity do you have, right? I feel good about both those guys and the way they're investing and things like that, right? Obviously, we know that we have a lot of good young secondary players, right?

But nobody's going to care if we're busting assignments and dropping the football and all those kind of things, right? We expect Georgia Tech to have a championship -caliber defense in three weeks, not 10 years from now, right? So those dudes, they have to develop in a lot of different ways. All that requires is investment. If you want to develop faster, more investment is required. Those guys know that. I'm pleased with what they're doing and the effort that they're putting in, right? And I think they're going to be able to contribute sooner rather than later."

Semore also took time to praise the guys coaching them, Kobie Jones (cornerbacks) and Vinnie Sunseri (safeties):

"You know, talking about that young secondary, you also have... young coaches back there teaching them. How has that gone, and how are they communicating with each other and developing their players? Those dudes are elite. They're really good coaches. They know lots of schematic ball. They're really good teachers, really good developers. I'm really excited about what this staff can do with this group this year in terms of youth and age and all those kind of things.

I mean, there's certain things that you learn throughout coaching football a long time. Right. But really, there's this talent involved in this profession, too. You know what I mean? In terms of how you teach and who you naturally are, identity wise as a person. And those guys are big time in that regard, in my opinion."

I think that Hewitt Jr has a clearer path to playing time than Terry, but I think Terry has the make up of a future high-level ACC starter. It might start out as contributing on special teams, where most freshmen at least begin to contribute, and then they can continue to push the guys in front of them.

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