Georgia Tech has a few good legs to stand on in 2016

KirVonte Benson, redshirt freshman, Marietta: Redshirted last year, recovering from high school knee injury. Said Paul Johnson: "We have guys who can break away for sure. KirVonte Benson might be the fastest out of all of them."

Marcus Allen, senior, Hilliard, Fla.: Moved from linebacker to B-back in the spring of 2015, gained 166 yards on 35 carries, two touchdowns.

Dedrick Mills, freshman, Waycross: An early enrollee who showed great promise in the spring game, carrying 11 times for 47 yards with no turnovers.

Quaide Weimerskirch, redshirt freshman, Pace, Fla.: Early enrollee last year, redshirted after suffering a foot injury in the spring. Benefitted from a year getting acquainted with the offense.

A-Backs

Isiah Willis, senior, Marietta: Former walk-on who started 10 games last season, gaining 169 yards on the ground and catching six passes for 101 yards.

Clinton Lynch, sophomore, Norcross: Converted wide receiver who makes good use of his hands (11 catches, 273 yards, three touchdowns last season). Started six games, finished third on the team with 457 rushing yards.

Qua Searcy, sophomore, Barnesville: Gained 76 yards through first three games of last season before losing the rest of the season to an injured ankle.

Lynn Griffin, senior, Jacksonville, Fla.: Another converted defender who was thrust into the backfield last year in the fifth game. Started against Clemson. Ended with 113 rushing yards.

J.J. Green, junior, Kingsland: Sat out last season after transferring from Georgia, where he was a running back as a freshman and a defensive back as a sophomore.

Nate Cottrell, redshirt freshman, Knoxville, Tenn.: Speedy back who figured to get playing time last season as a freshman before tearing an ACL in the preseason. Quarterback Justin Thomas reports he looks as quick as ever now.

In 2015, a year that the average tech-savvy fan at Georgia Tech would dearly love to delete from the college football mainframe, the Yellow Jackets did finish in the top 10 in one important category.

Of the 127 FBS programs that handed off or pitched a football that season, Tech was No. 8 in average rushing yards per game. A 3-9 team managed to grind out 256.2 yards per on the ground, eighth best in all the world. Not too shabby, eh?

“It wasn’t up to our standards. It was real disappointing to me. We need to do better than that, and I think we will,” Jackets coach Paul Johnson said, here on the threshold of another season.

Hey, if you are Paul Johnson and you’re going to have seven whole teams out-gain you on the ground, you might as well install the spread. Such is the absolute devotion to the run in Johnson’s triple option, such is the unshakable belief in the sledgehammer effectiveness of his oft-scorned system, that anything less than total domination of the land is considered a failure.

As one looks back on the themes of that ugly 2015 season, with a hopeful eye toward what might bode better today, it is Tech’s alphabet-coded running game where a key difference resides.

Very simply, if the A-backs don’t fall out like extras in a Die Hard movie, the Jackets have a legitimate chance to right a good many of the wrongs of 2015.

And if the B-backs return to a level of productivity expected of those in this high-profile position, perhaps a close game or three — Tech lost five a year ago by a touchdown or less — tilts its way this time.

It is as easy as A, B, and see how Tech turns it around.

More than just a football staple, the run game is the soul of Georgia Tech. It is the beating heart and heaving lungs of this team. And so shall it be as long as Johnson keeps pulling plays out of his ear in the fall.

Those who choose to run the ball at Tech — and their numbers are legion this season — accept that the position comes with heavy responsibility, beyond even the chore of cut blocking. Being eighth in the country in rushing isn’t good enough by a darn sight, not when that amounted to a nearly 90-yard-a-game drop-off from a year ago and the lowest rushing average since Johnson dropped anchor at Tech in 2008. Not when the risk-reward of the option tilted more toward the first (36 fumbles last season, 14 lost).

This is a position, after all, that takes it upon itself as a group to supply the team with many of its emotional needs, and throwing the wet wood of a sub-standard performance on that fire simply won’t do.

“We talk among each other, say how we have to have the energy within the group and bring other teammates with us,” sophomore A-back Qua Searcy said. “We try every day to come out with a good positive attitude, try to come out with emotion. If somebody is having a bad day we at least have to bring that emotion, got to keep a positive attitude.”

“We take pride in being the energy-setters of the team. The offense runs off us — besides the quarterback. We bring the energy, try to bring it to the highest level possible. The rest of the offense usually follows with us,” said sophomore Clinton Lynch, another A-back.

Through no fault of its own, the mood set by this group last season was often one common to a hospital emergency waiting room. Yes, injury is an unavoidable consequence of tackle football. But the way that aspect of the game zeroed in on the Jackets backfield seemed to suggest either a curse or a conspiracy.

Their two top B-backs were lost to injury in the spring. Another A-back blew out a knee in the preseason. Then the serious football began. Searcy suffered a season-ending injury to his ankle in the third game. The one returning A-back with significant experience, Broderick Snoddy, missed a good chunk of time with a broken hand. And when quarterback Tim Byerly tore up his knee, that not only deprived Tech of a short-yardage situational runner, but also required Johnson to shift another of his A-backs to backup quarterback.

Johnson points to 2015’s fifth game against North Carolina — by which time a promising start against inferior competition was unraveling like a garage-sale sweater — as testimony to the trials of his depleted running attack.

“We were playing with two walk-ons,” he recalled (also a freshman starting his first college game and a defensive player moved to offense that very week).

“We’re pitching it to them and they’re chugging down the field for six or seven yards where you’d hope to be able to get a little more than that. I’m not knocking them because they’re great kids, they’ve given us what they had. But it’s far different than what we’re used to being. Anybody who lost that many guys at one position is going to struggle a little bit.”

The mood to start this season is much lighter, as close to downright hopeful as Johnson ever allows himself to wander. Everyone is healthy; the difficulties of last season at least lent some players some hard-earned experience; there is a depth that can serve them if the injury thing doesn’t go all apocalyptic again.

“I just think we have more kids who have played,” Johnson said. “It could all end in fall camp, but right now coming into the (season) it’s a far different thing.”

And one of the real benefits of more Tech-like rushing attack in 2016 would be a more Justin Thomas-like Justin Thomas. Along with his team, Tech’s quarterback took a big step back last season, some of it blamed on the fact there was no continuity behind him and that he tried to over-compensate.

Some predictability and production from his friends in the backfield “makes my life a lot easier,” Thomas said.

“As long as they do what they’re supposed to do it helps me do what I’m supposed to do. It keeps the defense off-balance. As long as we go out and do our jobs, we’re hard to stop.”

“This year I think there will be a little more familiarity with the skill guys around him,” Johnson said. “We’re still going to be young, but they’ve got some experience. Thomas is only going to be as good as the guys around him. As gifted of an athlete as he is, as good of a player as he is, he can’t do it all by himself. He has to have some help.”

The options within this option offense are intriguing. And multiple.

Keep one eye on Searcy, fully recovered and back to full speed. “Qua is going to be a big breakout player for us,” senior A-back Isiah Willis said.

Or maybe Marshall, whose 654 yards a season ago led Tech and was 300 yards more than his brother Keith — drafted by the Washington Redskins — gained in 2015.

“This year I definitely got the offense down,” Marshall said. “Coming in a second-year guy. it’s a lot less stressful. You know where you’re going and you can play faster. I’m not thinking as much, not worried as much about making mistakes. I’m just playing football and having fun with it.”

Or it could be one of a host of others — “There are a lot of athletes in that (meeting) room,” Marshall said. At this moment, the depth chart reads like a novella.

There will be no shortage of carries nor lack of competition for the ball nor motivation to do something with it once it is placed in an eager set of hands.

“Everybody’s really hungry now,” Lynch said.

Hey, guess what — surprise, surprise — Tech is going to run the ball a lot again. Maybe this time even to a standard that will partially satisfy their coach.

It will require at least that to put adequate distance between themselves and the trauma of 2015.