Georgia Tech Football: Yellow Jackets add 3 more coaches, Director of Applied Sports Science

With the addition of three more coaches, Geoff Collins’ inaugural coaching staff is nearing its completion!

All four of these new assistants are joining Collins from his time at Temple.

Larry Knight most recently served as the outside linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Temple. Prior to that, Knight was the OLB coach for the Georgia State Panthers just up the street. Knight’s resume also includes stops at Tennessee and Cincinnati.

With the Yellow Jackets, Knight will be coaching the outside linebackers and defensive ends, which presumably means that he’s going to primarily be working with the pass rushers. At least, that’s the way that reads. If you go back and watch some Temple film, the defense uses plenty of stand-up rushers on the line.

Speaking of the defensive line, Jim Panagos will be coaching the rest of Georgia Tech’s defensive line, though I presume he’ll also have some input on the defensive ends as well. Panagos is one of the more experienced names that Collins has hired. He’s been in the business for 26 years, which is longer than I’ve been alive.

Having coached for a long time, Panagos has a number of stops on his resume, including Rutgers, UCF, the Minnesota Vikings, and Maryland. During his time at Temple, Panagos was nominated for the Broyles Award (best assistant coach) during the 2017 season. That year, Temple’s defensive line put up 39 sacks and 92 tackles for loss.

Speaking of coaches who were nominated for the Broyles Award, let’s talk about the next coach. Yesterday, we learned about Tech’s new defensive special teams coordinator , and today we’ve got the offensive special teams coordinator (and tight end coach), Chris Wiesehan.

Wiesehan is another experienced coach, having been in the business for 25 years, and he has coached almost everywhere on the offensive side of the ball. In his time at Temple, Wiesehan served as the offensive line coach, which is the one position Tech has yet to fill. The one position group Wiesehan has not coached is quarterbacks. He has worked at the college level, as well as the NFL and the CFL.

And now we’ve got one of the most Georgia Tech-y sounding positions of all time with the new Director of Applied Sports Science Ryan Horton. Horton will be working with Lewis Caralla who is Tech’s new head Strength and Conditioning coach. Horton has plenty of S&C experience himself.

In this position, Horton will be assisting Caralla in “applying scientific and innovative methods to the Yellow Jackets’ strength-and-conditioning program,” per the press release. Honestly, this just sounds really cool and much needed.

As it stands, here is Tech’s coaching staff (I’ll even include the off-the-field staffers that have been hired for those nit-pickers):

Head Coach: Geoff Collins

Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach: Dave Patenaude

Running Backs Coach: Tashard Choice

Wide Receivers Coach: Kerry Dixon II

Tight Ends Coach/Offensive Special Teams Coordinator: Chris Wiesehan

Co-Defensive Coordinator/Linebackers Coach: Andrew Thacker

Co-Defensive Coordinator/Safeties Coach: Nathan Burton

Defensive Line Coach: Jim Panagos

Defensive Ends/Outside Linebackers Coach: Larry Knight

Cornerbacks Coach/Defensive Special Teams Coordinator: Jeff Popovich

Head Strength and Conditioning Coach: Lewis Caralla

Director of Applied Sports Science: Ryan Horton

With all of this, Tech still needs to hire an offensive line coach. With all the announcements we’ve heard in the last week, I feel pretty good in saying that we’ll probably get an announcement on the O-line coach before too much longer.

Welcome to the Flats!