KeShun Freeman’s explosiveness and relentless drive have caught the attention of the ACC in his freshman season. The most important attribute of the Georgia Tech defensive end and his remarkable season may be a less obvious feature — his ears.
“I always listen to my coaches and I try to be coachable because if you’re not coachable, you’re not really going to go far,” said Freeman, the reigning ACC defensive lineman of the week after his box score-filling performance Saturday against Virginia. “But being coachable, anytime they say, ‘Hey, you need to fix this,’ I try to work on it and try not to make the same mistake twice.”
The mistakes will presumably continue as Freeman pushes through to the end of his first season. But the plays may be accumulating at a faster rate. Freeman is tied for the team in sacks with 3.5 and leads in tackles for loss with eight. Both numbers also lead all freshmen in the ACC. His 34 tackles are the most among Tech’s defensive linemen.
“He’s getting more comfortable,” coach Paul Johnson said. “He’s playing faster and he’s got some explosion and he’s a good athlete. Plays hard. I think he’s got a bright future if he continues to work and continues to improve.”
Against Virginia, he was credited with five tackles with one sack, a forced fumble and a punt block to earn the ACC honor. On a zone-blitz play, he impressively draped himself over running back Taquan Mizzell in pass coverage as Mizzell ran a route out of the backfield, helping force a near interception.
Freeman was particularly proud of the way that he improved his hand techniques, fighting off offensive tackles’ attempts to get their hands into his frame, to speed past them toward the quarterback. Freeman said a light bulb came on in the North Carolina game when he kept trying to use power moves to drive back tackles instead of attempting to evade them.
“And after a while, I said, ‘Hey, maybe if I kind of used my hands and kind of got around them, I can make a sack or something,’” Freeman said.
It speaks to his desire to improve, both on his own and through coaching. Defensive coordinator Ted Roof revels in his willingness to receive instruction.
“With most freshmen, you’ve got to tell ’em somewhere in the teens,” he said. “He usually gets it after two to three. It’s a good thing. He’s such a great kid. I’m so happy for him and happy for us that we got him.”
Freeman is the sort of player that the Yellow Jackets are hungry to lure to campus — talented enough to draw scholarship offers from almost 30 schools, including Stanford and Tennessee, and academically oriented enough to want to be challenged by Tech’s rigors. Freeman graduated in the top 5 percent of his class at Callaway High.
Freeman tackled his first chemistry class over the summer and wants to become a pediatric anesthesiologist.
His career choice was inspired by his youngest brother Landon, who was born at 26 weeks and was hospitalized at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.
“Kind of being around those kids and meeting some of the doctors and everything, it kind of made me think, ‘Hey, I want to do that one day,’” Freeman said.
There is likely plenty of football left before that day. Freeman is having his success despite weighing less than 235 pounds, a little more than 10 pounds below his preseason weight. Johnson believes his 6-foot-1 frame can handle about 250 pounds. There’s also the fact that Freeman, who enrolled at Tech in January and turns 19 on Monday, was playing against high schoolers last season.
Talking with his parents after receiving the ACC honor, Freeman said, “I was like, Wow, I’m actually in college, I’m doing pretty good. I’ve just got to keep working.”
Back on the field: Tech's MVP for the week may be sports medicine director Jay Shoop and his staff. Three key injured players, defensive lineman Patrick Gamble, B-back Zach Laskey and A-back Charles Perkins, returned to practice Wednesday, along with linebacker P.J. Davis and nose tackle Shawn Green.
“They all practiced today,” Johnson said.
The official injury report will be released Thursday, but their return to practice is an indicator of their availability for the Jackets’ game against N.C. State on Saturday. It would be a considerable boost for Tech. Gamble turned in a solid performance at defensive end against Virginia, in his first career start, before he suffered a left-leg injury late in the game. Laskey has missed the past two games with a shoulder injury after rushing for 595 yards in seven games. Perkins, who sat out the Virginia game after injuring his knee against Pittsburgh, is the team’s best blocking A-back.
Davis and Green’s injuries are unspecified.
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