Clark Atlanta starts over with prized quarterback, veteran coach

One year removed from an appearance in the conference championship game, the Clark Atlanta football program is starting over again.

The Panthers went 3-7 last season, dismissed head coach Teddy Keaton and brought in veteran voice Terry Sims to run the program. He wasted no time in scouring the transfer portal for talent and imported 40 transfers and 20 high school prospects to line up on the red turf at B.T. Harvey Stadium.

Sims, who grew up in Jesup, has a proven record of success at Bethune-Cookman, a historically Black university in Daytona Beach, Florida. As head coach there from 2015-22, his teams went 34-21 in their conference and won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference title in 2015, when they were ranked 25th in the Football Championship Subdivision. Sims was drawn to the Clark job as soon as he learned it was open.

“It’s an academic institution where you can challenge young people to be true student-athletes,” Sims said. “And, to be honest, we’re in Atlanta. Who wouldn’t want to be in Atlanta? I think it’s an attractive recruiting tool and it’s something we can look forward to week in and week out, having a great group of alumni come in and support us.”

It wasn’t easy in the spring, when there were only 43 players at practice. But Sims said the mentality changed during those weeks and the players bought into his plan for the program, which prioritizes running the ball on offense and stopping the run on defense.

He was also able to keep quarterback Xzavier Jackson, the SIAC Freshman of the Year in 2025 who threw for 2,103 yards and 18 touchdowns in seven games.

Coach Terry Sims was drawn to the Clark Atlanta job as soon as he learned it was open. “It’s an academic institution where you can challenge young people to be true student-athletes,” Sims says. (Stan Awtrey for the AJC)

“Him being from Florida, I would see stuff online about how he played every week,” Sims said. “I knew when I got the job, he was the No. 1 that I had to keep, because there were a lot of people after him.”

It helped that Jackson jumped in during the spring and embraced the new staff and the new philosophy.

“It was rough on all of them the first couple of weeks,” Sims said. “It was a tough situation, but they got the hang of it. I asked them, ‘What are you willing to exchange to be successful?’”

Jackson accepted the challenge in the spring and emerged as a stronger player. The rest of the league believes, too; he was voted the first-team quarterback on the preseason All-SIAC team.

“Coach Sims has really emphasized work ethic and discipline and what you do on the field carries over off the field,” Jackson said. “All that matters.”

It especially matters on defense. The Panthers struggled to slow the opposition last year, allowing 37.4 points and 410.8 yards per game. They held only one opponent to fewer than 21 points.