July 24, 2017
Matt Winkeljohn | The Good Word
Clinton Lynch put up numbers to talk about last season for Georgia Tech and while the speedy and elusive A-back is not one to speak about himself, he’s quite happy to help spread the word about the Yellow Jackets. So, he has.
Last Friday, the fourth-year junior finished an internship with FlexDev, a full-stack agency that helps brands, businesses, entrepreneurs and startups with website design and mobile app development.
His primary task was to help construct a website that will run parallel with the Georgia Tech Athletic Association’s ramblinwreck.com as a companion site that opens a window into the football program and its student-athletes, coaches, strength and conditioning program, academic advisors and more.
It figures to be quite a recruiting tool for the football team and other athletic programs at Tech.
“I ran social media sites for them and some of the companies they represent. We reach out to other companies if we see that their websites aren’t up to their competition,” said Lynch, a fourth-year business administration major who is on track to graduate next May.
“I sat in on a couple meetings at Ponce City Market and actually worked on a project with the Georgia Tech football recruiting app. I gathered all that information.”
It’s just like Lynch to be modest; he just about never says much about himself and rarely speaks loudly. One might say he lets his numbers do the talking.
Last season. he rushed 37 times for 415 yards and two touchdowns while catching 16 passes for 490 yards and six scores. His rushing average (11.2 yards per carry), receiving average (30.6) and average of total offense per play (17.1) easily led Tech and the entire ACC.
That wasn’t something new, either, as the 6-foot, 190-pound Norcross High graduate averaged 9.5 yards per carry and 24.8 per reception while scoring eight touchdowns as a redshirt freshman in 2015.
Soon after FlexDev co-founder Justin Grant told Georgia Tech director of football operations Mike Huff that his two-year-old company was looking for a summer intern, Lynch became the man.
“When he did his onboarding here at Tech Village [in Buckhead] . . . he comes in to get his key card for access to the building and the security guard said, `I Googled your intern and his highlight reel is awesome,’ ” Grant recalled.
Lynch sure wasn’t going to boast about himself, but Huff told Grant, “if you give him a project, he’ll put his head down and get it done.”
Soon after starting with FlexDev back in the spring, Clinton was off and running.
“His big project was the Georgia Tech football website that I think will be targeted to recruiting and visitors,” Grant explained. “When recruits come, they can see who the coaches are, their backgrounds and things like that. A lot of his time, effort and thought has gone into that and he’s kind of told us what he evaluated when he chose Georgia Tech.
“It was the perfect person to give us the ideas and stuff to appeal to possible future student-athletes. He probably researched five other sites that could be like this site, asked his teammates, visited with the recruiting department, met with [GTAA officials] and flew the 3-D drone that makes you feel like you’re in Bobby Dodd Stadium.”
Video footage shot by the drone will appear on the website, as will many more examples of the tools made available to Tech student-athletes.
“One of the keys was making [the site/app] mobile-optimized,” Grant said. “The . . . mobile optimization resonates with high schoolers and students who are evaluating Georgia Tech.”
Lynch is busy sharpening his tools for the upcoming season. He and teammates are working out three and four times a week and drilling on the field in small groups ahead of the Aug. 4 start of fall practice.
He likes the Jackets’ chances in the Sept. 4 season opener against Tennessee in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Jackets are riding the momentum of wins in six of their final seven games, including second-straight triumph at Georgia and a victory over Kentucky in the TaxSlayer Bowl.
The offense has eight starters back from a team that went 9-4 and Lynch is confident that whomever wins the quarterback competition from among Matthew Jordan, TaQuon Marshall, Lucas Johnson and Jay Jones will do quite well.
“I’m very confident. I feel good, very confident, very excited,” Lynch said. “It should be interesting. Everybody is good at at least one particular thing.”
Grant is excited for Lynch and the Jackets.
The Minnesota native played baseball for the University of Tampa and his FlexDev co-founder, Israel Machovec, was the 2011 SEC shotput champion for the University of Georgia.
As former college student-athletes, they’ve become fans of Lynch and the Jackets.
“After we cracked him, got him talking a little bit, he’s funny. I think he was a little hesitant because he hadn’t had much work experience in the past,” Grant said. “My co-founder went to Georgia and I had a Florida State shirt on that I used to heckle him. He began to heckle us back. It was a fun.
“Having Clinton kind of made me a natural fan. It’s always more fun to watch people you know in sports and now we know Clinton.”
