Tech adds veteran defensive assistant Jess Simpson

Georgia Tech football coach Brent Key has been building out his defensive staff. While he has not hired a defensive coordinator yet, he is adding one of the top defensive assistants in the ACC to his staff for 2024 in former Duke defensive line coach and co-defensive coordinator Jess Simpson. Simpson will join the staff in a role to be announced later as a defensive assistant coach.

Simpson's defensive line racked up 22 sacks in 2023 illustrating how effective he was as a defensive assistant in Durham. Tech's entire defense only recorded 21 sacks this past season with only 13 coming from defensive linemen. In 2022, Simpson's defensive line produced 20 sacks.

Sources told JOL that Simpson picked Tech over a chance to follow former Duke coach Mike Elko to Texas A&M and an offer to join the Florida Gators staff in recent weeks.

Joining the Tech staff will be a return home for Simpson who grew up in Marietta and was the head coach at Buford HS from 2005 to 2015 before jumping into the college and then NFL ranks as a defensive line coach. He worked for Georgia State, the Atlanta Falcons twice, and the Miami Hurricanes twice prior to heading to Durham to join Elko's staff in 2022.

Simpson also played college ball as a tight end at Auburn from 1990 to 1992 after leaving Marietta HS where he was a star player.

Key's search for a defensive coordinator remains ongoing, but landing Simpson will help bolster his staff as he aims to revamp a Tech defense that finished in the bottom half of the ACC in 2023.

Prior to the Gasparilla Bowl former defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker and defensive backs coach Travares Tillman were reassigned leaving Marco Coleman (DL) and Kevin Sherrer (LB/interim DC) on the staff for the game against UCF. Both Coleman and Sherrer remain on the staff at this time and Sherrer could be in the mix for the full-time defensive coordinator job as well.