The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Coleman: National title ‘pretty soon’
Assistant confident Collins’ system will lead to big things.
Georgia Tech legend and defensive ends/outside linebackers coach Marco Coleman was on the last Yellow Jackets team to win a national championship. Speaking on coach Geoff Collins’ weekly radio show Wednesday night, he spoke with confidence he’ll be on the next one to do so, too.
“We’ll be getting a national championship pretty soon,” Coleman said unprompted on the “GT:60” radio show. “Because of the way coach Collins has us working. Iron sharpens iron.”
Coleman made his prediction as he spoke with Tech broadcasting voice Andy Demetra about improvements he has seen throughout the team.
“We do a lot of things where the good is going against the good,” he said, referring to practice drills where first-string players on offense and defense play against each other.
“So we show up on Saturdays, we’ve already played against players that are just as good, if not better than, the competition. The process and the things that coach Collins is taking us through are definitely going to lead to some huge benefits very soon.”
Collins has not been shy about sharing his vision for Tech to be an elite program, as it was when Coleman was a two-time firstteam All-American who helped lead the Jackets to the 1990 national championship. It perhaps goes without saying an elite team would be in position to win a national championship, but Coleman’s declaration of belief that the Jackets will take the ultimate step to win a national championship — pretty soon, no less — put a finer point on it. Teams such as Georgia, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon and Penn State, for example, could also be considered elite, but none has won a national title since 2000 or longer.
This season, the team picked to finish last in the ACC already has surpassed expectations by upsetting Florida State in the opener. While the season is only two games old — Tech lost 49-21 to No. 13 Central Florida last Saturday — the team does appear considerably improved upon the 2019 Jackets because of the development and experienced gained among returnees and the infusion of a freshman class rated in the top 30 nationally. Coleman certainly didn’t need to be convinced of that progress.
“The guys that are coming in and are adapting to the culture, you can see their growth,” he said. “A lot of them are young. Even the guys that were here before that may not have gotten a lot of playing time but now are playing more, the way that things are going now, the trajectory is definitely heading high.”