The Secondary has the most promise and new DBs coach Cory Peoples aims to help them reach their potential.
Georgia Tech’s secondary will be directed this year by Coach Cory Peoples who takes a quick jog past Centennial Park to arrive from Georgia State. Coach Peoples is part of the defensive overhaul and will take over for former Yellow Jacket Travares Tillman who coached the secondary the past two years.
Coach Key’s focus for the new staff has been coaches who have deep ties in the South with good reports among local high school coaches. Coach Peoples checks that box as he has coached for Georgia State for the past 4 years and a year with Georgia Southern and Albany State prior. His total coaching career at the college level spans from 2008 to the present, and all his stops have been coaching the secondary along with a year as defensive coordinator with Albany State.
This past week Coach Peoples was a contributor to the influx of recruits Georgia Tech received to vault them into the Top 25 on 247Sports Team Recruiting ranks. He is listed as the primary recruiter for safeties Rasean Dinkins and Fenix Felton who both rate as Top 100 players in Georgia.
His four years with Georgia State saw the secondary produce a good bit of turnovers with 47 INTs under his watch. Former Georgia State safety Antavious Lane shone under Cory Peoples’s tutelage at Georgia State earning 11 INTs before transferring to North Carolina. It speaks well for Coach Peoples that the production didn’t diminish after losing such a strong playmaker as the Panthers racked up another 11 last year.
Georgia Tech struggled all over the defense last year but the secondary was probably the strongest unit on the defensive side. Coach Peoples will have proven playmakers in Powell-Lee, Lamiles Brooks, and Ahmari Harvey all back in the secondary. One thing that should be a plus is Coach Peoples will have both safeties and corners under him. Last year it was split between Tillman coaching corners and Thacker with the safeties. Having Thacker bounce from defensive coordinator to just safeties probably didn’t help cohesion.
This is Coach Cory Peoples’s first year in a power conference, but he has built some solid secondaries in the lower ranks. While the level of competition he faces will be tougher he will also have more talented players at his disposal. Yellow Jacket fans will be excited to see if Cory People will help this secondary take the next step in being one of the better units in the ACC.