As prep stars at Lamar County High, Lance and Lawrence Austin were quite literally overlooked. Their ability stood out on game video, but their height (5-foot-8) gave college coaches pause.
“You kind of look at them physically, and they kind of get underestimated because of their physical stature, but what can’t be judged is what beats behind their sternum,” said Franklin Stephens, who coached the Austins at Lamar County and now coaches at Ware County High. “They have a very, very competitive nature that you don’t find in a lot of athletes anymore.”
The last few weeks of Georgia Tech’s regular season turned out to be a testimony to Stephens’ assessment. Saturday, Lance Austin made the game-tilting interception of Georgia quarterback Jacob Eason to set up the Yellow Jackets’ go-ahead score in their 28-27 win over the Bulldogs Saturday in Athens.
Two weeks ago in Blacksburg, Va., Lawrence Austin contributed two interceptions and a forced fumble (recovered by his brother) in the Jackets’ 30-20 win over then-No. 14 Virginia Tech. In last week’s win over Virginia, Lance locked the game down with an interception return for a touchdown in which he juked four would-be tacklers and had the final yards cleared out by his brother’s textbook cut block.
Saturday in Athens, moments after Lance’s interception of Eason, Stephens’ joy was doubled when A-back Qua Searcy – a classmate and buddy of the Austins’ at Lamar County – scored on the six-yard run with 30 seconds left that vaulted the Jackets over the Bulldogs.
“I said, ‘Oh, he’s going to jump over the top,’” said Stephens, who knew well Searcy’s football savvy and his high-school experience in the high jump and long jump. “I’ll be danged if he made it.”
Throw this in, too – Stephens sent B-back Dedrick Mills to Tech from Ware County. In the final 6:30, Stephens-coached players scored both of Tech’s touchdowns and made the biggest defensive play of the game.
“It has nothing to do with me,” Stephens said. “It’s genes and the good Lord and their parents.”
Another commonality – neither Austin brother, Searcy nor Mills were offered scholarships by Georgia. While Mills and Searcy had other major schools offer them, Tech was the only power-conference school to earnestly pursue the Austins. Stephens recognized the recruiting challenges that Tech faces – starting with its academic rigor – in competing with the SEC and ACC for the state’s top recruits and that the Jackets often end up with players that “may have gotten shunned by those universities.”
Saturday’s outcome was evidence, once again, that Tech can compete with those hurdles with players like Stephens’ quartet.
“We keep playing,” coach Paul Johnson said Saturday. “This team doesn’t get a whole lot of respect, nor does the program, so you just keep playing. I think that they’ve done a really good job of doing that. We don’t listen to anybody. We just play.”
Johnson praised the team and his coaching staff for the improvement shown over the final weeks of the season, even after the Jackets had been eliminated from the ACC championship race. He extolled his team’s grit, belief and unwillingness to give in.
“That’s the kind of teams I’ve always coached, whether it was at Georgia Southern or Navy or here or whatever,” he said. “It’s teams, hard work, nobody’s worried about who gets the headlines, nobody’s worried about that. Just keep playing.”
The Austins are a fitting example. Because of their size, opposing quarterbacks haven’t been shy about throwing at them this season. But they came through when it counted most. Lance Austin, of course, may never be forgotten in Tech lore for his game-winning touchdown off a blocked field goal against Florida State last season. Stephens said he was ecstatic for the recognition they’ve gotten in the last couple weeks. In back-to-back weeks, Lawrence and Lance were named the ACC’s defensive backs of the week.
Stephens said they can serve as an example to underrecruited prospects to seize opportunities when presented.
“They’re making the most of that opportunity,” Stephens said, “and I’m sure they’re very thankful that Coach Johnson took an opportunity and took a chance.”
In the glow of the defeat of their archrival, and at the end of an expectation-surpassing season, a lot of Tech fans would probably want to add their gratitude.
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