Countdown to Kickoff: No. 39
Durant Brooks
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 39 days until kickoff in Boulder, today’s focus is on No. 39 Durant Brooks, who was a special teams weapon during his two-year stint on The Flats, writing his name into the Georgia Tech record books at punter before heading off to the NFL.
Brooks was a two-sport standout at Tattnall Square Academy (Ga.) in Macon where he played football and basketball. He helped the Trojans to a Georgia Independent Schools Association (GISA) state championship on the gridiron as a sophomore in 2001 before graduating in 2003 and choosing to pursue his college football goals at Georgia Military College in Milledgeville.
After completing two stellar seasons with the Bulldogs, averaging more than 40 yards per punt, Brooks chose to transfer to Georgia Tech to finish out his collegiate career and continued to excel in the punting role. He set a new Jackets’ program record with an average of 45.3 yards per punt in his two seasons (2006, 2007).
In 2006 Brooks led the ACC in average yards per punt attempt with a mark of 45.5 and led the FBS/Division-I in total punting yardage (3,596) and punt attempts (79) as he was named First-Team All-ACC, Second-Team All-American by the Associated Press (AP) and finished third in voting for the Ray Guy Award.
Brooks came back with a senior season in 2007 with similarly impressive production as he averaged 45.1 yards per punt on 65 attempts and won the Ray Guy Award along with again being named First-Team All-ACC. Additionally he was picked as a First-Team All American by Sports Illustrated and Rivals and Second-Team All-American by the AP.
The following spring Brooks was selected by the Washington Redskins in the sixth round (168th overall) of the 2008 NFL Draft. He proceeded to punt in six games the following season for Washington, averaging 39.6 yards on 26 attempts with a long of 60. He went on to spend time with the Green Bay Packers, Philadelphia Eagles and Jacksonville Jaguars over the next two seasons.
Brooks was inducted into the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame in the class of 2017 along with fellow Yellow Jackets Athletics standouts BJ Elder, Matt Wieters, Roger Anderson, Roberto Castro and Ashley Kidd. He credited former Tech special teams coach Charles Kelly as a huge influence on his success and mindsey on The Flats. He gave the following quote to writer Jon Cooper back in 2017 in a feature story about his Hall of Fame induction for the Georgia Tech Athletics website in reference to Kelly’s words of wisdom.
“One of (Kelly’s) biggest points to the team and to us was special teams can change a game, because there’s usually one big play that happens on special teams — you’re either kicking a game-winning field goal, getting an extra point, running a kickoff back for a touchdown, or a punt pinning them inside the five-yard line,” Brooks said. “He showed us statistics, for example, punting, if a team started inside the 20, their chances of scoring. It drastically decreased when they started inside the 10 and so on. He showed that to everybody. It makes a huge difference in the outcome of a game.”
