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It’ll be hard to top literally the most decorated Special Teams season in Georgia Tech history (just punting - don’t look up FG %’s - we don’t make that joke anymore).
Gone is His Grace Pressley of House Harvin, Third of His Name, King of the Punters and the Football Men, Lord of the Coastal Division and Protector of Field Position.
The duties of following the reigning Ray Guy Award Winner will fall upon one of three worthy disciples of His Grace. Those being Steven Verdisco, Austin Kent, and 2021 commit David Shanahan, who is our first profilee.
Extremely excited to announce that I have been offered and accepted a full scholarship to play football and study at Georgia Tech in 2021. Huge thanks to @CoachCollins @Coach_Conner @PatrickSuddes @CoachPopovich @JohnnyPKA @ProkickAus #4the404 #meGaTron21 pic.twitter.com/1uaK1Rk9ih
— David Shanahan (@David_Shanahan_) May 15, 2020
Shanahan hails from St. Patrick’s Secondary School in Castleisland, Ireland. But he comes to us by way of ProKick Australia, which is a powerhouse for punting production. 9 of the 10 ranked players from Australia in the 2021 class are a product of ProKick Australia, with David being ranked 5th among those. If you’d like to get some more insight into David’s journey, I’d recommend this interview he did with the Master of None podcast.
As for who will be lining up 15 yards behind the long snapper come September, your guess is as good as mine. My money would be on Verdisco, but coming off of a knee surgery, it’s still unclear as to when he will be back up to full strength.
On the opposite end of the 4th Down Options spectrum, you’ll find our next newcomer. Brent Cimaglia hails from Franklin, Tennessee (20mi South of Nashville) and spent his first four seasons at The University of Tennessee. With a career FG percentage of 74% on 62 attempts, Brent’s arrival will be highly anticipated by Yellow Jacket fans.
Honored and blessed to receive this opportunity. Proud to be a yellow jacket, big things to come! @CoachCollins @CoachPopovich pic.twitter.com/i1bAnuVTUt
— Brent cimaglia (@bmancimaglia) February 14, 2021
For a little more background on who Brent is as a person, Tennessee did a pretty good profile on him just before the start of his most successful season, where he went 23-27 on FG attempts and 35-35 on XPs.
For this coming season, my hope is that both the Kickers and Punters hit them straight and far. Anything beyond that is just gravy. It would certainly improve my heart health to have to not worry about our special teams on a consistent basis.
Best of luck to our Special Teams newcomers, and don’t let a certain part-time blogger sitting in the Upper West get in your head if a kickoff/punt goes tumbling out of bounds. Deep down I love you unconditionally, it’s just your actions I sometimes don’t love.