If all goes according to plan, Jaylend Ratliffe, his mother, his twin brothers and his grandmother will pile into the car on January 10 and make the roughly 5 1/2-hour drive from their home in Laurinburg, N.C., to enroll him at Georgia Tech. Of course, plans are subject to change, and that is at the heart of Ratliffe’s journey.
Two years ago, he was a hot-commodity high-school quarterback, eventually giving his commitment to play for the Yellow Jackets. A year and a half ago, an ATV accident caused a brain injury, left him near death and put his wellbeing, to say nothing of his football career, in peril.