Jerry Howard and Antwan Owens earned their degrees from Georgia Tech this past weekend and now move on to new campuses to continue their pursuit of the NFL.
Howard, who played running back and linebacker for the Yellow Jackets, will play at Towson, an FCS school near Baltimore. Owens, who played defensive end and tackle for the Jackets, is headed to Jackson State, an FCS school that has won attention for its new coach, Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. Both announced their decisions over the weekend. Both members of the 2017 signing class, each has one season of eligibility remaining.
“My goal is to help the team out as much as I can, do my part,” Howard told the AJC. “But my dream is to get to the NFL and get my real-estate business started.”
Owens said that he initially wasn’t considering schools outside the Power Five conferences. But, he said, coaches who were recruiting him in the transfer portal told him that they wanted him as a defensive tackle or end after he played both at Tech. Jackson State coaches, on the other hand, were offering a different opportunity to showcase himself, he said.
“At Jackson State, it was more, ‘We want you to be a dynamic defensive lineman for us,’” Owens said. “‘We’re not going to put a label on you.’ I’m not a true (3-technique defensive tackle). I’m not a true end. It’s like that versatility helps shape my game, so I didn’t want to limit myself to one position or the other.”
Owens played in 35 games over four seasons (starting seven in 2019), with 53 tackles. He said that he left coach Geoff Collins’ team with no ill will.
“It was just more of a matter of understanding the direction that coach Collins and the program wanted to head in,” he said, referring to what he said was a plan to get younger players on the field. “It was just a mutual thing between both of us. I felt like I just wanted something more. But ultimately, it was God’s will.”
Owens extolled Sanders, hired in September 2020.
“He’s a great guy,” Owens said. “Outside of the NFL Network and what the media perceives of him, he’s a great guy. He’s a great coach, great football mind. Not only just football. Just talking to him, he truly understands what it means to be a student-athlete.”
Owens joins a roster that already has no fewer than seven transfers from power-conference schools who signed with the FCS school following Sanders’ hire. Owens estimated that he fielded around eight or nine scholarship offers and said that the interest was strong enough that he was able to take his time in making his decision to go into the portal in January and use his extra season of eligibility elsewhere.
“I knew it doesn’t matter where you go, where you play (to make it to the NFL),” he said. “Definitely having coach Deion, coach Prime Time on your sideline, that makes a big difference. That makes a gigantic difference. I ultimately felt like it was the right move.”
Playing at an HBCU also was appealing.
“I feel like in today’s society, a lot of the HBCU programs are up and coming, rising and putting talent out there,” he said.
Howard, who rushed for 858 yards and seven touchdowns on 156 carries over four seasons, made an impressive late rush to earn his business degree. He took 21 credit hours in both the fall and winter semesters (six classes each term) to graduate this past weekend.
“I would say with COVID, it got easier because I guess I had more time because it was virtual and I was at home,” he said.
Howard said he chose Towson over Mercer and Eastern Kentucky. Towson appealed to him because of the relationships he developed. Towson coach Rob Ambrose recruited Howard out of high school, Howard said, and he developed a connection with one of the assistant coaches, wide receivers coach Justin Harper. Howard said he was looking for a new environment.
“I’ve been (at Tech) for four years, but had two different coaches two years,” he said. “I’ve definitely seen both sides of competition. I just want to bring the competition to another place, the leadership that I learned and all the skills that I learned over the last four years.”
After going into the portal in January, Howard said at first he was scared about other players committing more quickly and taking his place. The number of players who have gone into the portal has created a heavy supply for teams, who can afford to be selective. But the interest in Howard came quickly and was deep enough that he could research and take time to decide. He said some coaches from Power Five schools wanted to gauge his interest in playing linebacker, where he played the 2020 season.
“I told them, I’m not a linebacker,” he said. “That was just to get playing time. It didn’t work out, so I’m not a linebacker. I’m just a running back.”
Now, he’ll be a Towson Tiger.
“I like Towson,” he said. “I think it’ll be a new environment, a nice fit.”
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