Weston Franklin at the center of Georgia Tech’s resurgence

That scholarship offer came from Tech five years ago, a different time for the Yellow Jackets’ program and a formative time for Franklin before what was to become a different world altogether. Now, ahead of Tech’s game at Syracuse at noon Saturday (ACC Network), Franklin is the heartbeat of a new era of Tech football, one that has the Jackets ranked 23rd in the country using a smash-mouth, unforgiving style of play.

It’s a style that fits Franklin’s blue-collar, daily attitude.

“Just go to work. Somebody’s gotta do it. Just show up and work and get the job done and think about it after,” he said. “That’s just kind of my mindset going into playing football, just go out there and work and get the job done and fix the mistakes and go back the next day and do it again.

“I fully believe (coach Brent) Key’s got that mindset across the whole team. Everybody’s ready to go after it. People are working and getting better.”

A 6-foot-4, 310-pound senior on Tech’s offensive line, Franklin began playing football around the age of 6. Because of his above-average size even then, he said he always played against older age groups and, even though his father asked if he wanted to play flag football, Franklin politely declined and said he preferred tackle.

He continued to excel on the football field in middle school, even lining up at quarterback, something middle school rival and then high school teammate Trevin Wallace, a 2024 third-round NFL draft pick out of Kentucky, won’t ever forget.

“I’m telling you, (Franklin) was a boss,” said Wallace, now a linebacker for the Carolina Panthers. “His skills were excelled in middle school. You would think (Franklin) was a high schooler the way he was playing ball, how smart he was.

“He’s so smart. And he knows how to build chemistry with people. He’s a great leader. He’ll make anybody better. He’ll push you to be better than him, and that’s a great leader.”

Franklin knew going into high school he had a shot to be pretty good and maybe even play college football one day. As a high school freshman, during a baseball game no less, Southern Mississippi called. Franklin recalls sitting in a church parking lot and receiving his first scholarship offer from Southern Miss.

But the early notoriety didn’t slow Franklin when it came to the hard work. It’s a mentality that comes from his father, a longtime Georgia Power electrical lineworker, and mother, who now does a long list of tasks for the Wayne County Parks and Recreation Department. Franklin also took inspiration from his older brother, a former Wayne County High standout athlete in his own right, and grandfather Glenn Franklin, who served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict and received a Good Conduct Medal.

“Up until the day he died (in 2022), no matter what it was — he had a lot of health issues he had to battle through — but didn’t matter what day it was, how he felt, he was always getting up and gardening and doing something,” Franklin said of his grandfather. “The doctors told him to slow down, but that’s just kind of the mindset he had.”

As Franklin continued to work on the football field, scholarship offers began to trickle into his inbox. There also was a unique offer to leave the comforts of Jesup for the first time when IMG Academy out of Bradenton, Florida, contacted the budding offensive lineman and asked if he’d be interested in playing for one of the nation’s top high school programs.

Franklin and his family took what amounted to a recruiting trip to IMG, and he decided to play for the Ascenders his junior season. That turned out to be the only recruiting trip he took.

“For me, growing up, my dad always wanted me to go to the biggest camps possible just to compete. We always wanted to compete. It didn’t matter where it was at, just wanted the opportunity to compete against some of the other top-ranked guys across the country. Being from a small town, it’s kind of hard to get noticed,” Franklin said. “Really enjoyed my time down there (at IMG). Decided to move back for family purposes. But learned a lot, and it helped prepare me for college.”

When the calendar turned to 2020, the year of Franklin’s senior season, COVID-19 wasn’t far away. A spring and summer that should have afforded Franklin the opportunity to take official recruiting visits meant he had to rely on the multitude of unofficial visits he had taken before.

Some of those visits had been to Tech, where Key, then the team’s offensive line coach, offered Franklin a scholarship after a prospect camp (even though Franklin did not participate because of a broken finger). Franklin also visited Tech simply as a fan, buying regular tickets like any other patron and sitting inconspicuously in the stands intently watching how the Jackets went about their business.

When it came time for Franklin to pick a college, he still had that that elephant in the room to address, that moving-to-a-big-city part of the equation.

“Once I finally decided that Tech was one of the top schools, I said, ‘If I choose Tech, I’m just gonna have to bite the bullet for four or five years and just put myself out there and just make an adjustment.’ I knew it was gonna be hard,” Franklin said. “We ride dirt roads and hang out at the lake (back home). It was definitely a big, big adjustment for me. I’m still adjusting. I’m not mad that I did it. I’ve learned a lot being here and definitely enjoyed my experience so far.”

Over the past three-plus seasons, Franklin has played in 32 games for the Jackets and started the past 27. He’s played more than 1,700 offensive snaps, all at center, during a journey that started in the fall of 2021, when he had to run from the scout team to the second team because of injuries and lack of depth on Tech’s offensive line.

It was during that fall of 2021 that Franklin’s already-strong bond with Key got even stronger.

“We both understood each other. We have a lot of similarities. Just wanted to go to work and be the best at what we do, and that’s what we’re trying to do every day,” Franklin said. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

Franklin, on the Senior Bowl watch list at season’s outset, is on track to graduate with a degree in business management. He’s not quite sure how he’ll utilize that degree when his playing days are over, mostly because he hopes it will be a long time before he hangs up the cleats.

As Tech’s second-best run blocker and second-best pass blocker among offensive linemen in 2023, there’s a good chance that will be the case if Franklin continues to trend upward.

“(The NFL is) definitely on my mind for sure. It’s always been my dream as a kid to play in the NFL. Hoping to get the opportunity to make it there,” he said. “I know it’s a very small percentage that does,” he said. “If it happens, great. If it doesn’t, I’ve had a great football career and accomplished a lot of goals that I had set out for myself when I was very young. I still have more to accomplish, and the journey is not over yet, so we’ll see.”