As if reading from the same talking points, members of the Georgia Tech defense sounded a confident note Friday that the unit’s depth will be better than the 2010 season.
“We have a deep [linebacking] group,” outside linebacker Steven Sylvester said following the team’s third day of preseason practice. “We could put anybody in at any given time.”
The defense, under the direction of coordinator Al Groh for the second season, has five starters returning and 16 players who won letters last season. All three defensive linemen, ends Jason Peters and Izaan Cross and tackle Logan Walls, are returning starters, and end Emmanuel Dieke and tackle T.J. Barnes are established backups.
“We’ll be two-deep at every position on the line for sure,” Walls said.
The added depth would keep players fresher late in games. Last year, Tech allowed 153 points in the first halves of games, 175 points in the second. The Yellow Jackets ranked ninth in the ACC in total defense and scoring defense.
“I think that’ll be the key to the season, just making sure we have a good rotation and making sure that everybody that gets in does their part,” Peters said.
Among backups, redshirt freshman inside linebacker Quayshawn Nealy was one of the stars of the spring game. Outside linebacker Brandon Watts has drawn notice for his exceptional speed. In the secondary, Fred Holton, Jemea Thomas and Michael Peterson all will challenge starters for playing time.
Practice report
The third day of practice was the first with shoulder pads. With local heat indexes nearing 100 degrees in the afternoon, coach Paul Johnson moved the second half of practice into the team’s new indoor facility.
Peters said of the building, “I think it’ll be essential for us making it through camp.”
The heat and effort take a toll. Walls said he loses as much as eight pounds in a practice, requiring constant refuelings during the day.
“You just have to eat as much as you can every meal,” Walls, who has made peanut-butter sandwiches a staple, said. “It gets hard to eat when you’re hot all the time, but you just have to keep forcing it down.”
New jerseys
Fans attending fan day today will get a look at slight modifications to the jersey from last season’s model. The design is much like the 2009 version, which had a thin blue stripe across the chest and around the shoulder and a thicker, wedge-shaped gold stripe along the sleeve. Last year’s white jersey didn’t have the gold wedge, but had two thin blue stripes over the shoulder.
Tech will have two different white jerseys for road and home. The home version will have gold numbers while the road white jersey will have blue numbers, a feature players lobbied Johnson for.
“We’ve kind of had the same basic scheme for the past three years now since coach got here,” Sylvester said. “We just wanted to try something different, see how it looks.”
Fan day begins at 3 p.m. with festivities on Callaway Plaza. Players and coaches will be available for photos and autographs in Bobby Dodd Stadium from 4-6 p.m.
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