First, let’s start with the Calvin Johnson comparison. Not that the former Georgia Tech receiver even plays the same position as Jahmyr Gibbs, current Tech running back. But, if Gibbs breaks out like all the world expects, the two will occupy a similar stratum. That of most preposterously skilled player in his own locker room, the alpha athlete around whom fans and teammates revolve.
Tashard Choice played with Johnson (2004-06) and now coaches Gibbs at Tech. Choice is such a true friend of the former that he traveled to Ohio for Johnson’s Hall of Fame induction in early August. And if Tech’s running backs coach doesn’t hesitate to compare, why should we?
“They are very similar for the simple fact, they just work. Calvin didn’t want any attention. He didn’t want to talk – I did all the talking,” Choice said with a grin.
“(Johnson) was a quiet assassin. Jahmyr is very similar. Very competitive. They work very hard. They don’t want any recognition, and they stay so humble. Jahmyr’s grandmama calls him the ‘Humble Beast,’ and I think that’s what both of them are.”
Now, let’s move to the Alvin Kamara link. Here’s a running back built basically to the same scale as Gibbs, who’s 5-11 and 200 pounds after a big meal with extra gravy. Kamara is the perennial Pro Bowl running back for the New Orleans Saints who ruins opponents running the ball or catching it. It’s said Gibbs is addicted to watching video of Kamara in the way old ladies watch “Matlock.” He’s begun mixing in some Christian McCaffrey to his binge watching – because the Carolina Panthers back also represents the kind of dual-purpose talent he’d like to emulate.
A highlight of Gibbs’ year so far may have been meeting Kamara in Atlanta for a little dinner and a little football talk. “I was asking him about how does he win all his one-on-one matchups?” Gibbs said. He puts the answers to work starting Saturday against Northern Illinois.
All the while Gibbs is channeling the Atlanta-born Kamara, his coach is planting other seeds.
“I get the Saints tapes and break down Alvin Kamara for him so he can watch him run the football, run routes, show his attention to detail, how well he plays,” Choice said. “That’s good for Jah because you want to have somebody you’re aiming toward.
“But when you aim toward that guy you want to aim even higher. I’ll say, ‘Man, you can look at Alvin Kamara, but I want you to be better than him.’”
Nobody, you see, is comparing Jahmyr Gibbs with a plowhorse or chopped liver or plain vanilla. Expectations are far more exotic than that.
His first season was so tantalizing. His first time touching the ball on the opening kickoff against Central Florida resulted in a 75-yard return. He went on to rush for 60, catch for 60 more and score two touchdowns in his debut.
Credit: Georgia Tech Athletics
Injury limited him to a little more than 60% of the 10-game COVID-19 season, yet, still he finished as Tech’s leader in scoring (seven TDs) and all-purpose yards (968) and was second in rushing (460 yards). If he can stay relatively well for a full season ... well, the imagination dances.
Gibbs has lived in the company of high anticipation just about since he was old enough to run. Growing up in North Georgia, the Dalton area, he was raised largely by his grandmother and grew up largely on the fringes of poverty. The constant in his young life was his foot speed. Elementary PE teachers were giving the then-high school coach at Dalton, Matt Land, a stream of scouting reports, mostly around the same theme: “Just wait, something special is coming your way.”
“Jahmyr is certainly one of the best I ever coached,” said Land, now in the midst of a coaching sabbatical. “What makes him so special is he’s the marriage of the kid who has elite talent and the kid who has the elite work ethic. He works as if he doesn’t really know how good he is.”
His high school career was studded with breathtaking performances – such as rushing for 182 yards as a sophomore against a Harrison team led by Justin Fields, or the ridiculous 420-yard, eight-touchdown game against Ringgold as a senior. But what first caught Choice’s eye was Gibbs’ temperament during one Dalton spring game, with the way he competed and his insistence upon playing both ways, never leaving the field.
That trait hitched a ride with him to the Flats. “I think I’ve always been that type of person. I don’t take anything for granted. When it’s time to work, it’s time to work,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs has taken his competitive drive to the weight room, and then to the dining hall, adding a bit of necessary bulk and even turning the scales into a playing field. “We’ll go out for lunch and then Jah will grab me from in front of my locker and say come on let’s go weigh in, let’s go weigh in. We’ll watch each other weigh in and compare,” running back Dontae Smith said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
“He’s got traps and he’s got a chest and he’s got triceps,” Yellow Jackets offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude said of his feature back. “He’s got muscle where he never thought he had muscles. So, we’re not afraid to roll him inside the tackles at all. Because he’s learning how to run with his pads down and pound the ball.”
Patenaude this season faces the good kind of trouble, finding sufficient ways to involve a player who is equally dangerous as a runner and a receiver. You land your highest-regarded recruit in more than a decade, that is just the kind of issue you’re asking for.
And now, we’ll have to wait until game day for Gibbs truly to express himself. If you’re wanting to hear his version of all his special skills, better get used to the sound of crickets.
“He is very quiet. He is very humble. He is not a guy who bangs his chest, who walks up there and says look at me. Although his play does. His play grabs everyone’s attention,” Land said.
Goals for 2021? “Really, mainly, win,” Gibbs said. “I don’t like losing.”
“He wants to be the guy you’re depending on to win the game,” Land said.
If, as hoped, Gibbs can act as the fulcrum that lifts the Geoff Collins version of Tech, who do they compare him to then? Or might he then verge on the incomparable?
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