Georgia Tech has found quite a match in McEachern High cornerback Jaytlin Askew.
The three-star cornerback has a fistful of scholarship offers from college football’s elite, said he has been attending a robotics camp at Tech since he was six years old and would like to study robotics in college.
“I’m thinking, there’s no better place to do it than Georgia Tech,” he said.
So it was that Askew and his mother were leaving campus after an unofficial visit last Thursday when he told her to stop the car.
“She was like, What?” Askew recalled.
Askew said he was ready to commit. A short speaker-phone conversation with family ensued, and then they drove back to campus, returned to the football office and informed coach Paul Johnson that he wanted to accept Tech’s scholarship offer.
“My whole thing is, I want to be successful,” he said. “So Georgia Tech is where I can’t go wrong, whether I go to the NFL (or not).”
Askew had fielded offers from, among others, Auburn, Clemson, Florida State, LSU, Michigan State and Oregon. McEachern coach Kyle Hockman said that Askew began to consider academic reputation and the quality of a potential degree more strongly in recent months.
“Obviously, he can make it as high as he wants football-wise from Georgia Tech, as obviously they have a lot of guys in the NFL,” he said. “But he also knows that if that doesn’t work, then he’s going to get a degree with a national reputation.
Hockman described Askew as an aggressive, physically strong, shutdown corner with great makeup speed. He has run the 100-meter dash in 10.8 seconds. Askew transferred to McEachern last summer from Douglas County High. Hockman said as many as 12 or 13 teammates at McEachern could sign Division I scholarships this upcoming year.
Askew doesn’t have ideal height at 5-foot-9, but “he does that man-to-man mindset,” Hockman said. “There’s not many guys out there that have that mentality. With that mentality and that speed and those academics, that’s a pretty good combination.”
Askew said he also carries a 3.75 GPA and took three advanced placement classes as a junior. He said his plan is to graduate in December and enroll early. His interest in robotics goes back to his childhood and the camp at Tech, where he learned, among other things, how to program robots. Askew said he built one robot that was a car with whiskers attached to the front. When the whiskers brushed against a surface, the car backed up and turned right. It was able to make it through a maze, Askew said.
“I like coding,” he said. “I like everything to do with the whole topic.”
Askew, who said he is done with his recruitment, would follow incoming freshman Ajani Kerr from McEachern, the Cobb County powerhouse that last year lost in the second round of the Class 6A state playoffs.
He is one of two cornerbacks who have committed, joining Dameon Williams of Norcross High.
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