News broke last Wednesday that Georgia Tech had received its 7th commitment (and 3rd O-Lineman) of the 2013 class in offensive tackle Chris Griffin. Griffin is from Crawfordville, FL (directly South of Tallahassee, near the coast), and measures in at 6'6", 270lbs -- he has some weight to put on, but at the end of the day I think he'll be comparable in size to UCF transfer Phil Smith, with lots of athletic ability and mobility. Hopefully he shows all of this potential and makes use of it on the Flats.
Griffin was recruited mainly by Coach Andy McCollum, and loved the vibrant personality that McCollum possesses (if you've ever met or been around Coach McCollum, you know what I'm talking about...he's quite the character). He was on his first visit to campus with his mother, grandfather, brother, and niece, and loved it so much that he was prepared to commit on the spot. These "spot commits" don't have too good of a record as those who deliberate for a while, but there's reason to be confident in that he's cancelled visits to Clemson and Louisville among others, saying that "nobody can possibly offer a student athlete more than Georgia Tech". Seems that Griffin is a great kid with a quality head squarely on his shoulders who will fit in and prosper very well at Georgia Tech.
Another couple of notes and a discussion after the jump!
He joins Jeremi Hall and Shamire Devine as O-Linemen to commit to Georgia Tech for the 2013 class, and it's looking like we've hit our quota, barring any absolute blockbusters looking to come. It's good too because we've got each slated for a different position -- Devine at center, Hall at guard (I think of those two like the Pouncey twins at Florida), and Griffin now at tackle. Griffin comes from a high school program that ran an offense nearly identical to that of Georgia Tech, meaning he brings experience and technique and should need little to no time to get accustomed to playing in such an unorthodox system.
Between the class of players who will be freshmen this fall and the class of players that we're working on in anticipation of this coming February, there's a lot of excitement in the fan base surrounding this program. I personally do not think that there's reason to have a major jump in expectations in the next year or two, but it's very comforting seeing the program on a consistent positive trend. We're not improving by leaps and bounds under Johnson, but we've only had one season of digression in his time, and it followed the loss of 4 players to the NFL (2 to the first round of the draft). In all of my years as a Tech fan, I've had to learn that the Kool-Aid of this team can only be taken so strong before I set myself up for disappointment. Let's just say that in the next few years, I expect that Kool-Aid threshold to become even stronger as such a great coaching staff continues to pull in better and better athletes. What say you, FTRS readers? Excited about what the future holds for this program? Is the sky the limit?