Freshman Focus: David Shanahan

It was a leap of faith on all sides during a pandemic that led Ireland native David Shanahan to leave his country and come to Georgia Tech to punt. Geoff Collins and the Jackets' staff also took a leap of faith believing in the strong leg of Shanahan without the benefit of being able to work him out personally. With some help from ProKick Australia, the Jackets now look to replace Ray Guy Award Winner Pressley Harvin III with the ultimate college football newcomer in Shanahan.

JOL caught up with the punter prior to his arrival in Atlanta to get an idea of the player with a very different background from the rest of the 2021 freshmen. Shanahan talks about battling to work out during the pandemic and how he spent two months in Utah earlier this year preparing for life at Georgia Tech.

What is your favorite food and will you be able to get it in Atlanta?

"I'd say probably steak and yeah that shouldn't be too hard to find."

Do you have a celebrity crush?

"I'll go with Megan Fox."

Are there any players or schools you are looking forward to matching up against?

"Definitely a couple of guys that I trained with over in Australia that we have on our schedule over the next couple of years like Ole Miss, Boston College, and Louisville. There are a couple of other guys around the ACC so that will be really fun."

What are your expectations for your freshman year?

"I want to be really good, consistent, and a reliable punter. Obviously, I can't know until I'm actually there taking live snaps, but I feel like I'm definitely ready to step in on day one and have a positive impact."

What made Georgia Tech the place for you?

"I'd say it was the combination of it being a Power-Five school with great academics in a really cool city. I don't think there is another school that hits those three things like Georgia Tech does."

What is a piece of advice you would give a player going through the recruiting process now from what you learned?

"I'd tell them to try your best not to be taken by just one aspect of the school, try to take every factor into account before you make a decision."

What was a day in the life of David Shanahan like during the last year as you've been waiting to play?

"I guess it was different throughout the year. I committed to Georgia Tech last May, I had a pretty normal summer really just in the gym and punting a lot. I was just hanging out with my school friends. I basically live in the countryside of Southwest Ireland so we probably had a little bit more freedom than people who were in the city. Then around September restrictions got pretty tight and all the gyms got shut down and socializing wasn't allowed so things got pretty boring. I had a job in a Vinyl records store from October to January. I really wanted to get back to Melbourne to train with ProKick again, but Australia were not letting any internationals into the country so I wasn't able to go back.

I stayed in touch with my coaches in Australia the whole time and they suggested that I try to get to Utah and train with a guy called Tom Hackkett. Tom is an Australian who punted at Utah a few years ago and I think he won the Ray Guy Award. He coaches kids around Utah a little bit, but the issue there was the US was not allowing in any visitors from Europe and they had this long list of countries you could be in the previous two weeks before entering and for some reason, Serbia was on it that list so me and this other kicker from Ireland who worked with ProKick figured if we spent two weeks in Serbia and flew to America they'd let us in. So we spent 15 days in Belgrade and then flew to New York and fortunately it worked out so I trained in Utah for all of February and March.

I trained with a couple of guys from ProKick Australia who are at a bunch of different colleges so that was a lot of fun. Then I came home at the beginning of April and since then I've just been working on everything I learned in Utah and I have a little gym in my garage that I built with my brother. So I've been there and I had to go to Madrid to get my US VISA but then I was all set to go to Atlanta."