College football is almost back, and Georgia Tech is heading into the stretch run before Week 0 with plenty still unsettled. The Yellow Jackets open against Colorado in nearly a month, and over the next four weeks they’ll be sorting through a roster that has new faces all over it.
Some of the obvious questions are already out in the open. Georgia Tech doesn’t have a quarterback on the roster who has started a game.
The wide receiver group is young. Three new starters are expected on the offensive line.
And the top three cornerbacks are headed to NFL training camps this summer.
But one spot that deserves more attention is safety.
That doesn’t mean Georgia Tech lacks talent there. It means the room is built on a lot of inexperience, and that always makes things a little more fragile.
Tae Harris looks like the headliner. The former Top 100 recruit played a little over 200 snaps and graded out as one of Georgia Tech’s best defenders on PFF. He looks primed for a big season and should be one of the top players on that side of the ball.
The bigger question is what comes behind him. Savon Riley brings experience from Vanderbilt and Colorado, but he also had trouble staying healthy last season. Georgia Tech needs him to be a steady veteran presence, and whether he can do that is a key piece of the puzzle.
After that, it becomes a matter of how quickly the younger players can handle real snaps. Fenix Felton got some run late last season and showed why the staff liked him as a 2025 recruit. Now the question is whether he can take on a larger role with a new defensive coordinator and a new safeties coach.
There are also three true freshmen who could force their way into the picture, at least on special teams and maybe more. Kealan Jones, Chris Hewitt Jr, and Kymani Morales will all be in camp competing for defensive snaps. Jones and Hewitt Jr were both major recruiting flips late in the process, and Brent Key was especially complimentary of Jones during the spring, which points to him being a real factor for the secondary this season.
Morales is another name to watch. He was recruited as a linebacker, but the official roster now lists him at safety.
So no, this isn’t a declaration that Georgia Tech has a bad safety room. It is, though, a position loaded with unknowns, and that makes it one of the most important groups to keep an eye on as camp begins.
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