A pair of interesting news items came out of Georgia Tech’s time in the spotlight at the ACC Kickoff today.
As the ACC Kickoff is underway in Greensboro, Georgia Tech announced today that redshirt sophomore B-Back C.J. Leggett has been dismissed from the team for a violation of team rules. The nature of the violation is unclear.
Leggett redshirted as a freshman in 2014 and was in line to be the team’s starter at B-Back for 2015, before a torn ACL late in spring practice ended his season well before it could begin. He returned to the team for spring practice back in April, but was held out of the spring game as a precautionary measure. After Marcus Marshall’s performance as a true freshman, it’s unclear whether Leggett was in position to start in 2016, but he certainly would have received an extensive amount of playing time as a primary backup. With his dismissal, the B-Back starting role is likely to be filled by either Marshall or senior Marcus Allen, and the chances that we see Dedrick Mills on the field as a true freshman also increase noticeably.
The other tidbit of news that dropped during the media event is that, according to Kelly Quinlan of JacketsOnline.com, junior DE Antonio Simmons has returned to the team after not being in school during spring practice. Simmons is a very physically gifted pass-rusher who has played situationally and as a backup to KeShun Freeman over the last two seasons, making 18 tackles and a sack along the way. It’s still unclear as to why he missed spring practice, or if he’ll see any type of discipline as a result, but having Simmons on the roster undoubtedly boosts Georgia Tech’s depth and talent level at the pass-rushing WDE spot.