Kenyatta Watson Sr. said he’ll always be indebted to Florida State coach Mike Norvell, who last year gave him his first job at the college level. But the newest addition to Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins’ staff – his title will be special assistant to the head coach and he’ll have a major role in scouting and recruiting – couldn’t wait for the next step in his career.
“I’m excited, thankful,” Watson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday after news of his hire had broken. He was, in fact, driving to Atlanta from Tallahassee, Fla., as he spoke by phone. “There’s nothing like being home.”
It is a homecoming on different levels. One, Watson left his home in metro Atlanta in July to become director of player relations at Florida State and is returning. Two, Watson is deeply connected to high-school football in Georgia. Three, Watson’s son Kenyatta Watson II is a cornerback for the Yellow Jackets.
“That piece to it right there is invaluable, just being able to have a chance to watch my son play,” Watson said.
There’ll be a bit more to the job than that. Watson’s key contributions will be in evaluating and recruiting high-school and transfer-portal prospects and then serving as a liaison with NFL scouts. He had a similar role at Florida State.
“There’s not a person that knows Georgia better than me,” Watson said.
Before Florida State, Watson was the recruiting coordinator at powerhouse Grayson High 2014-19, helping almost 120 Rams players sign scholarships. But his eyes were on a job at the college level. Watson said that was why he stepped down from the position at Grayson. In 2017, the NCAA instituted a rule preventing college teams from hiring people closely associated with a prospect (such as a high-school coach, trainer or family member) to support-staff roles for a two-year period before and after the prospect’s recruitment to prevent colleges from hiring those individuals to gain a recruiting advantage.
Watson began running football camps for middle-schoolers across the state and got involved in organizing all-star games for middle-school players nationwide.
“And what’s crazy is, now all of those middle-school kids, they’re highly rated four-stars in the class of 2024 and things like that,” Watson said. “You meet them in the fifth, sixth grade, time goes and now they’re all grown up. It’s kind of cool how all that works out.”
Watson, who grew up in south Florida and played at Boston College, knows perhaps as well as anyone the volume of talent in Georgia.
“I want to be careful how I say this not to offend anybody, but put it like this,” Watson said. “Georgia high school football is one of the top three states playing football. It’s loaded with talent.”
Through Kenyatta II, Collins and Watson have a relationship. When Collins was hired in December 2018, one of his first recruiting visits was to Grayson to see Kenyatta, then a prospect committed to Texas. He had hoped to convince him to join him at Tech, an effort that was unsuccessful before Watson ultimately transferred to Tech from Texas.
Watson arrives at a time when his evaluation and recruiting ability will be immediately called upon. It appears that Tech stands at 75 players on scholarship, including incoming freshmen and transfers, which is 10 shy of the 85-player limit. Collins direly needs to add depth through the transfer portal in coming weeks. Further, Tech does not have any players committed for the 2023 recruiting class.
On the heels of three consecutive three-win seasons, Collins is in need of a momentum boost and help in the recruiting department. General manager Patrick Suddes left Tech in February to take a job at North Carolina as an assistant athletic director/general manager. The recruiting office also lost former Yellow Jackets offensive lineman Errin Joe, who had served as associate director of player personnel but left in January to be the director of recruiting at Connecticut. (Joe was hired away by Alabama to be its assistant director of player personnel, a job he began Friday, coincidentally.)
Watson, who will begin Monday, is eager to make an impact.
“Getting kids on campus, selling the program, selling Atlanta, selling the culture, all of that stuff, it’s invaluable,” he said.
Watson said he accepted the job only after getting a sense of what sort of team Collins has assembled.
“I studied the roster intently before I made the decision, and they’re not that far away,” Watson said. “They’re really not, and I think the roster is a lot better than people think. That was one of the most intriguing things about it.”
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