ATLANTA- Mother Nature offered some relief from the warm weather for Georgia Tech's third practice via a heavy rainstorm over the city of Atlanta during the afternoon session. After practice, defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker spoke to the media for the first time since spring ball and updated the depth chart for the defense as it stands early in camp, and offered some thoughts on seeing his unit in shells for the first time this fall.
The biggest area of concern on paper comes from the linebacker position for the Yellow Jackets. Ayinde Eley and Charlie Thomas combined for 230 tackles, 20.5 tackles for a loss and 5.5 sacks last season as well as six takeaways. Thacker said those two left big shoes to fill, but he likes the variety of options they have brought into the mix to fill that void plus a returning face last year's third linebacker Treniylas Tatum.
"Kevin Sherrer (linebacker coach/co-DC) is doing a phenomenal job with that position group and really taking ownership there. The one who gave himself an advantage through spring practice was Trenilyas Tatum. Number one was availability which is a pretty thing to play the linebacker position and he was available for all 15 practices and I thought he was a better version of himself than last year," Thacker said. "If you remember last year Charlie Thomas had two targeting non-starts this past season and so Trenilyas has some starts under his belt to have some real experience, but last year we really relied on Charlie and Ace Eley. Trenilyas got his feet wet but he hasn't made it through a season as the guy."
Tech added a trio of transfers, Braelen Oliver (Minnesota) and Andre White (Texas A&M) this spring and this summer Paul Moala (Idaho/Notre Dame) via the portal to create competition and depth according to Thacker.
"The worst case scenario is we feel like we have competition and depth with Andre White, Braelen Oliver and then we brought in Paul Moala after spring practice and we have a small sample size of what they can do here at Georgia Tech," he said. "All of those guys have played real downs at their previous universities. We have seen what it looks like when they make plays and we value that and we brought them here, but (Oliver and White) had limited action in the spring and we are on day three here and coach (Key) surprised us with shoulder pads after two days in just underwear so I'll have to watch some tape to get more context on them."
Behind Tatum and the three senior transfers the Jackets have a few other players that could fit into the mix like redshirt freshman Kyle Efford, true freshman early enrollee Ashton Heflin and veteran Tyson Meiguez who was healthy for the first time last season and limited to mainly special teams.
"Other guys of note in that position group are Kyle Efford and Ashton Heflin as a freshman of note and then Tyson Meiguez has been around for some time and they should be able to compete at that position.
