Jaylend Ratliffe had size, speed, power, strength, toughness and confidence on a football field. One teammate marveled, "He looked like he was Jesus running." His high school coach still uses him as an example to his quarterbacks. "This," he tells them, "is what being a quarterback is all about."
When Georgia Tech assistant Bryan Cook first watched the tape, he saw a quarterback perfectly suited to run the triple-option. Cook went to watch Ratliffe play as a junior in 2013.
"When you watched that game, there was one guy on that field," he recalls. "Everybody in the stands, all the little kids had their Ratliffe jerseys on.