Georgia Tech Football: Five Impact Players - WR Deandre Smelter

Deandre Smelter, Senior, Wide Receiver

Yesterday was a little rough. Anthony Autry (and a couple of other guys) were dismissed from the team, which means we lose a guy that a lot of people expected to come in and start (or at least be one of the first guys off the bench), but this article is not about him so I'm going to stop talking about him.

Deandre Smelter decided to play football at the beginning of last season after taking time off from the sport to focus solely on baseball (a little ironic that he ended up doing the opposite). Because of the hiatus from football which he took, no one was really expecting Smelter to do what he did: dominate. He played in all 13 games, while starting 8 of those. In those games, Smelter caught 21 passes for 345 yards (16.4 yards/reception) and 4 touchdowns. Now, that doesn't really sound very impressive until you go and watch some of the passes that he actually caught. That one against Pittsburgh comes to mind.

Smelter was a four-star recruit at WR coming out of high school and had the talent to go wherever he wanted to. Thankfully, he decided to come to Georgia Tech to play baseball. A lot of success in the passing games of Justin Thomas and Tim Byerly will likely depend on if Smelter can reproduce (and even play better than he did) last season.

Do you see Deandre Smelter as an impact player this fall? Will he do better, worse, or about the same this season?