Countdown to Kickoff: No. 38
Nick Rogers
The countdown to kickoff is officially on as Georgia Tech‘s season-opening matchup at Colorado on Aug. 29 is less than 100 days away.
Until then JOL will be counting it down with one Jackets’ player daily that wore the corresponding number of days remaining until toe meets leather in Boulder.
With it now 38 days until kickoff in Boulder, today’s focus is on No. 38 Nick Rogers, who played multiple positions on defense while on The Flats but was most well-known for his pass-rushing abilities at defensive end during his final two seasons at Tech in 2000 and 2001.
Rogers chose Georgia Tech over several other offers in the 1997 recruiting class following a stellar high school career at St. Pius X in East Point, Georgia, here he played both running back and linebacker. He didn’t see much playing time on the field his first two years with the Jackets, redshirting in 1997 and playing on special teams in 1998.
Rogers got his first real shot during the 1999 season when he played both defensive end and linebacker for the Tech defense and compiled 36 total tackles and 1.5 sacks.
That seasons set the table for his huge junior and senior campaigns when he started as the opposite defensive end from teammate Greg Gathers as the pair formed one of the most dynamic pass-rushing duos in Georgia Tech program history. In 2000 as a redshirt-junior, Rogers racked up 62 tackles, nine sacks and six forced fumbles and followed that up in 2001 with 64 tackles and six sacks. He was named Second-Team All-ACC both of those final two seasons on The Flats.
Rogers, who finished his Jackets career with 16.5 sacks which was top-10 in program history for many years, went on to be selected in the sixth round at 177th overall by the Minnesota Vikings in the 2002 NFL Draft. Now playing linebacker, he spent two seasons in Minnesota before playing for both the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts in 2004. He finished out his NFL career with a the Miami Dolphins in 2005.
In his four years in the NFL, Rogers played in 46 total games with 16 starts and had 84 total tackles (67 solo) with two sacks, seven tackles-for-loss and one forced fumble. He also spent a short time with the Colorado Crush of the Arena Football League in 2008.
Rogers tragically passed away back in 2010 as he was involved in a single-vehicle car accident near his home in College Park when his vehicle left the road and struck a power pole. He was only 30 years old and had recently married to his longtime girlfriend, Kia Jackson-Rogers, according to an article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
