When Georgia Tech defensive tackle Djimon Brooks was given the opportunity to play a second senior season, he apparently didn’t need much time to mull it over.
“When we found out last year that they could come back, I don’t even think I put a period on the end of the sentence, and he was like, Yep, I’m back. I’m coming back,” defensive line coach Larry Knight said Thursday. “And that was that.”
Knight categorized Brooks’ return for the season granted to all fall- and winter-sports athletes by the NCAA because of the impact of COVID-19 as “huge.” In Brooks, the Yellow Jackets have back the defensive lineman with the most career starts in the group (12) but also someone with an example worth following.
Brooks arrived in 2016 as a walk-on from Washington County High and played in one game in his first three seasons. After the hire of coach Geoff Collins, Brooks earned a spot in the rotation and played in all 12 games (with four starts) in 2019 as a junior, making 27 tackles.
In July 2020, he was put on scholarship and awarded the No. 0 jersey, emblematic of his lack of FBS and FCS scholarship offers and status as a “zero-star” recruit. (The NCAA approved the usage of the No. 0 jersey beginning with the 2020 season, making Brooks the first to wear the number in team history.)
“That was a big deal for us, who was going to wear that number for us,” Knight said.
This past season, after playing in all 10 games (starting eight) and leading the defensive tackles with 30 tackles (three for loss), he was named a permanent captain for the season. He became Tech’s first former walk-on to be voted a captain since P.J. Daniels in 2005.
“It’s not even much to even be said when you see someone that put in that type of work and you see those type of actions,” Knight said. “You know, I hear what you say, (but) I trust what you do. And so, they trust what he does because of what he’s shown them in the past. He’s proven himself and everybody follows just because of that.”
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