As Georgia Tech begins to prepare for its third season running Buster Faulkner’s offense, one would think the Yellow Jackets would hit the ground running this week with visions of setting offensive records and new benchmarks for production in 2025.
But Faulkner, speaking Thursday after Tech’s second practice of the spring, explained that’s not necessarily the case because of a few factors.
“We’re really kind of back to square one with all the new pieces,” Faulkner said. “Really the biggest thing with us offensively, when you look at overall, is we gotta be better fundamentally across the board. We’ve relied a lot on scheme, and we’ve gotta get back to the basics of being really good fundamentally at every position. That’s something we’re really handling this spring. Cut down a lot of offense to try to be better at that so the kids aren’t thinking as much, then obviously we also got a lot of new guys.”
Faulkner, making $1,050,000 this season and under contract until Jan. 31 as Tech’s offensive coordinator, has directed an offense that has been one of the better units in the ACC over the past two seasons. In 2023, Tech led the league in rushing, ranked second in third-down conversions, third in total offense and fourth in scoring. Last season the Jackets ranked second in rushing offense, fourth in red-zone offense and only allowed nine sacks in 13 games.
The mission for the third season in the Faulkner era is for Tech to start putting it all together up and down the stat sheet.
“The next progression for us is we’ve done a good job of running the football the last two years. Statistically I wanna see us be more consistent,” said Faulkner, a former Parkview High School and Valdosta State quarterback. “We’ve had games where it’s 260 (rushing yards), and then we’re right around 100 (the next game). I’d rather be at 190 every week.
“Then I wanna see the passing game take off. That’s gotta be the next step. Did a lot of studying this offseason and critical evaluations of us an offense and then also positionally. We basically took the four best records in each league and where (did they rank in) passing? For the most part everybody was in the top six.”
Tech’s offense has plenty of weapons to help Faulkner’s unit reach new heights. Quarterbacks Haynes King and Aaron Philo are back, as is leading rusher Jamal Haynes — and Haynes now has a lot more help with returners Anthony Carrie, Chad Alexander and Trelain Maddox and newcomer Malachi Hosley (a transfer from Pennsylvania) and freshman J.P. Powell.
Malik Rutherford, Isiah Canion and Bailey Stockton lead a new-look receiving corps that includes Florida International transfers Eric Rivers (who Faulkner said won’t fully participate this spring) and Dean Patterson and South Carolina transfer Debron Gatling.
Getting all those players to perform at a consistent level is the main focus this spring, King said Thursday.
“If you look past the past two years, we’ve played really, really high, or really, really low,” he said. “Just to hold that level of confidence, that level of maturity, that level of leadership and pushing everybody and just holding it at that level and it doesn’t get higher, and it doesn’t get lower.”
Tech’s offense is scoring 29.8 points per game since Faulkner became the program’s offensive coordinator before the 2023 season. That average took a small hit in 2024 when King was hurt and missed games against Notre Dame in Virginia Tech and the Jackets mustered a total of 19 points in those two outings.
The Jackets have been held under 20 points only one other time during Faulkner’s tenure, a 31-19 loss at Louisville in September. That type of production has made Faulkner’s name a popular one during the past two offseasons when it comes to coordinator — or even head coaching — positions elsewhere.
But Faulkner is back for at least one more season in white and gold, and he said Thursday he remains happy to be so.
“I’ve said it before, I’m from here, my family’s from here. It’s a place I think you can win football games, so I’ve excited to be here,” he said.
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