Caution fled the scene the moment Fred Holton returned to action.
The first day of Georgia Tech's spring practice two weeks ago served as the first practice for the safety since he tore his Achilles tendon in a preseason scrimmage last August.
"I kind of forgot I had the injury," Holton said. "Guys started saying, ‘Fred, slow down.' I was like, ‘Nah, I'll be alright.'"
Holton's full-speed reinsertion into the mix at secondary bodes well for the Yellow Jackets. The graduation of Rashaad Reid leaves an opening at safety beside Isaiah Johnson, and Holton, a sophomore from Thomasville, is penciled in the starting lineup. In Saturday’s scrimmage, he paired up with Johnson at the first-string safety spots.
"He doesn't want to be babied," secondary coach Charles Kelly said. "He just wants to play."
Last August, Holton was offering a brisk challenge to both Reid and Johnson for a starting spot. He had played special teams as a true freshman and, after prodigious work in the weight room, was going to give Kelly and coach Paul Johnson a tough decision to make between their three safeties.
"He would have had a chance to be one of the starters," Kelly said.
However, while backpedaling in an Aug. 13 scrimmage, Holton heard a pop that he compared to a gunshot. Holton even looked behind him to see what the sound was.
"As I tried to walk, I was not able to put any pressure on my foot," he said. "It was just hanging."
Holton's torn left Achilles tendon left Tech without much depth at safety and bereft of one of its biggest hitters. It also left Holton unable to recoup a return on all the weight-room work that had made him, at 209 pounds, one of Tech's strongest players, pound-for-pound.
"I thought maybe when I got back healthy and [if] I continued to work, maybe the work that I did before, I'll still have some of that in me," he said.
With the encouragement of his parents and teammates, some of whom paid homage by adopting his shaved-head look prior to the opener against Western Carolina, Holton tried to stay positive. Having played as a freshman, he looked at the redshirt season as an extra year to earn his degree, learn the defense and continue to gain strength.
"It benefited me in a lot of ways, but it hurt to my heart, though," he said.
With strength and conditioning coach Neal Peduzzi, he continued to develop his upper-body strength. However, his leg muscles had atrophied considerably by the time he was cleared to do lower-body weight work around the first of the year.
Before the injury, “Fred’s legs were as strong as they come for anybody, much less a safety,” Peduzzi said. "You’d be surprised how fast it did come back.”
Holton's goal for the spring is to master defensive coordinator Al Groh's scheme so that he won't have to think in order to line the defense up or recognize his assignment.
"I want to know why you're doing this, I want to know who goes in what position," he said.
He has already showed that the pop hasn't left him. In the team’s first scrimmage, inside linebacker Quayshawn Nealy said that Holton delivered the biggest hit of the short scrimmage, pounding B-back Charles Perkins.
"He's strong as an ox," Nealy said. "He's not the fastest, but, boy, he brings that physical part. He'll square up and hit you."
After a season away from the game, Holton apparently doesn’t want to baby anyone else, either.
About the Author
