Dontae Smith is Prepared to be a Leader for Georgia Tech in 2022

Dontae Smith talked about his goals this offseason and being a leader for the team

Dontae Smith is the next man up for Georgia Tech this season at running back and it is something that he is comfortable with now. Smith is having the tall task of trying to replace star running back Jahmyr Gibbs but Smith seems to be embracing his new role on the team and has been working hard to get better and stronger this offseason. 

I talked with Smith about his new role as a leader and what he is expecting out of the offense this season. He seems confident in the new offense and the changes that have been put in place this offseason. 

Brett Davis-USA TODAY SportsWilliam Howard-USA TODAY Sports

Brett Davis-USA TODAY SportsWilliam Howard-USA TODAY Sports

Brett Davis-USA TODAY SportsWilliam Howard-USA TODAY Sports

When I asked him what it was like to be the new leader of the running back room, Smith seemed to be ready for the challenge. "It's a little different, because before I had JP Mason be the leader of the room, so it was different, but watching JP lead, I got the idea of how to be the leader of that room and that person that leads people and that helps the younger people in the room. So, me having a good leader when I was young has helped me be a good leader to the rest of the young guys."

Smith spoke about what he has been doing to improve his skills this offseason and what he is working towards this season. " One of course was to get stronger, which I did a pretty good job of. Coach Lew is a great strength coach, he has a great program, so I definitely got stronger. Skill-wise, it has been lateral movement, I worked hard on that. Jeff (Sims) made it an initiative to make sure we were throwing and catching a lot so I definitely worked on catching. I have just been dabbling in all aspects to try and get better and I did it with a lot of the other running backs too, so we have all put in the work to try and get better and I am ready to see where it will take us."

I asked Smith about what was different with this offense under Chip Long and previous offenses that he has been in. "He is direct about what he wants. He wants fast, he wants hard-hitting and his offense has a lot of pieces and if you're on defense you don't know what happened. It's a lot of different things that go in our offense. The defense can't figure out what we are doing based on one formation, there is multiple things that we can do off of certain stuff so I think it'll be harder for people to pick up on what we are doing. Honestly. the playbook is bigger and we have a deeper bag to dip into when we are playing."

Smith said some of the main goals for the offense are just keeping the mistakes to a minimum. "We want minimum penalties, we want good ball security, and we want to score. We left a lot of points on the field last year as an offensive unit, so we have to make sure that doesn't happen this year. When that doesn't happen, that results in us winning. So we want to be a fast offense, but we want to be hard-hitting and we want to score."

Smith has waited for his turn to be the lead guy in the Georgia Tech backfield and this year seems to be his opportunity. I expect him to have a breakout year in 2022 and be one of the best players on offense. 

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