Inside The Chart: Back to Back

Back to Back: How Jamal Haynes and Chad Alexander took parallel – and unconventional – paths to production in the Georgia Tech backfield

Inside The Chart | By Andy Demetra (The Voice of the Yellow Jackets)

As an upperclassman at Grayson High School in Loganville, Ga., Jamal Haynes never lost to Archer High, their region rival 10 minutes down the road in Lawrenceville. But as he idled on the sidelines, he couldn’t help but notice the speedy running back for the Tigers, making life miserable on his Rams defense.

“I knew what Chad could bring to the table,” Haynes recalled.

The rest of the ACC now does, too. Haynes and Chad Alexander – the repurposed slot receiver and former walk-on, respectively – have taken their talents from opposing sidelines in Gwinnett County to the same backfield at Georgia Tech, where they’ve grown into a formidable tandem on the ACC’s top-ranked rushing offense.

When “former slot receiver” and “sophomore walk-on” are your top two running backs, it often carries bad connotations. It makes a backfield sound makeshift. Or weak. Or worse.

For Haynes and Alexander, the numbers haven’t matched up to the narrative. With bowl eligibility now a win away, both have had career highs in rushing yards in consecutive weeks to help rejuvenate Georgia Tech’s running game. On the same week he was awarded a scholarship by head coach Brent Key, Alexander, a sophomore, ran for a career-high 61 yards and his first career touchdown in Tech’s 41-34 win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Haynes gashed the Tar Heels for a career-high 170 yards and a pair of scores, including a stunning 68-yard touchdown with 16 seconds left. The performance earned the redshirt junior his first career ACC Running Back of the Week award on Monday. Together they’ve helped Tech, after a September lull, roll up 616 rushing yards in the past two games.

Reports of the Yellow Jackets’ run game demise? Greatly exaggerated, as Duke and North Carolina can attest.

“It was definitely electrifying, especially being the first touchdown of the game, setting the tone, kind of running through somebody to get there,” said Alexander, whose full name is the far more aristocratic-sounding Chadrick Alexander, Jr.

For his part, Haynes had a premonition about his teammate – both the scholarship and the playing time.

“I even told [Chad] during the summer, hey, you keep going, man. You’ve got a really good chance of being successful this season,” he said.

“We just know how much hard work he puts in, how much he comes in day in and day out, just being the character guy that he is. We’re just so very happy for Chad. We want him to keep going for sure.”

And with it, Haynes and Alexander’s stories continue to unfold in similar fashion, complete with many of the same grace notes: jet-quick players, reared in winning local programs, with nearly identical body types, who took unconventional paths to stardom in the Tech backfield, their production unexpected to almost everyone, perhaps, but themselves. Even their games this year have had a similar ebb and flow.

“Our job as coaches it to play the best players. Recruit the best players and get the best players in your program, and then create competition so the best players go out there and play,” said Key.

Haynes’ background is well-known: a 5-foot-9, 180-pound receiver with zero offensive snaps his first two years, he embraced a position switch in the spring of 2023 and became an all-ACC player for first-year coordinator Buster Faulkner. Months after moving into the running backs room, Alexander joined him, a preferred walk-on who had been identified by Georgia Tech director of high school relations Tim McFarlin. His background didn’t fit the mold of a typical non-scholarship player: the 5-foot-9, 185-pounder, who also ran a 10.72 100-meter dash at Archer, was originally committed to Army. He also charted an FBS offer from Western Kentucky, as well as the rest of the military academies and “all of the Ivies.”

He instead opted to walk on at Tech, called to the challenge of Tech’s academics and proving himself in Power-4 football.

“HOPE helped,” Alexander laughed, referring to the financial aid program for high-achieving in-state students.

The decision to forsake a scholarship wasn’t taken lightly.

“It was definitely a risk, just betting on myself, but that’s something I’ve been doing my entire life. It wasn’t anything I wasn’t a stranger to. I just knew exactly what I had to do. I was going to come in, work every day, and just make it hard for them,” he said.

Alexander’s speed separated himself on Georgia Tech’s special teams, where he appeared in nine games as a freshman and recovered a muffed punt against Wake Forest. With Haynes battling injuries in fall camp, Alexander got more reps – and drew more attention from his head coach.

“He can absolutely fly. He’s improved so much at the running back position,” Key said.

“I keep going back to this one play in a scrimmage in the stadium over the summer where he finally got the ball in his hand and he hit it full speed. And I pulled him out of it then and told him, ‘That’s it. We finally saw it.”

But getting on the field is one thing. Getting on the field in a high-pressure situation is another. Alexander got his chance in Georgia Tech’s season opener against Florida State, after Trey Cooley went down with an injury on the opening kickoff. Haynes did his part with 75 rushing yards and two touchdowns, but as Tech pressed into field goal range on its final drive, Key also entrusted Alexander to grind out the tough yards.

“I didn’t anticipate it, but I was definitely ready for it,” Alexander said, adding that while Haynes is a shiftier back, he tries to run forcefully and powerfully. After not appearing in a single offensive snap in 2023, Alexander finished with 41 rushing yards against the No. 10 Seminoles. That included three carries for 12 yards and a crucial third down conversion on the last drive, where he split snaps with Haynes.

“That was not something that happened by chance. He earned that,” Key said.

Their story arcs were intertwined again in the following weeks. Nagging injuries limited Alexander for most of September. Haynes felt the toll of those hits as well: against Syracuse, VMI and Louisville, he only ran for 79 yards on a somewhat startling 2.6 yards per carry (Haynes ranked second in the ACC in that category last year).

Five games into the year, Tech’s rushing offense ranked 10th in the ACC. Not anemic by any stretch, but short of the lofty standards they had set for themselves.

Haynes and Alexander both used the Jackets’ late September bye to get healthy and do some introspection.

“Everybody just really took some accountability and took it up themselves to really hone in on the details of alignment and assignment,” Haynes said. Individually, he said,

“I feel like I was getting a little bit anxious to try to do too much right when I get the ball. Just being calm in the backfield and getting back to being the regular Jamal Haynes that you all know.”

The regular Jamal Haynes roared back against Duke, where he celebrated his 22nd birthday with a career high-tying 128 yards in Tech’s 24-14 win over the Blue Devils. In addition to getting healthy, Haynes got a hobby during the bye week, finally indulging a long-held curiosity to try golf. A former teammate at Grayson invited him to his club in Milton, Ga., to knock some balls around.

Haynes quickly became hooked. He’s already asked Key about installing a golf simulator in the Jackets’ refurbished football building.

“My first couple of swings were not that great, but when you finally get a good swing, it definitely feels like a home run,” he said, a statement that could have easily applied to his breakout night against Duke.

Alexander looked refreshed as well, chipping in a career-high 59 yards against the Blue Devils. Key had already planned on awarding him a scholarship after the Florida State game, but Alexander’s injuries scuttled those plans. His return to form against Duke finally gave him an opening.

The following Tuesday, “we were in the middle of practice, going through 7-on-7, and police officers pull up with the lights going on their cars so everyone just stopped what they were doing and were just kind of like, ‘What is going on?'” Alexander said. “And then (Coach) Key brought the whole team up, and he just announced to everybody that I was on scholarship.”

SCHOLARSHIP Earned 🔒@ChadAlexanderJr #StingEm 🐝 pic.twitter.com/1zz3ZGSVAa

— Georgia Tech Football (@GeorgiaTechFB) October 8, 2024

He and Haynes will look to keep their production in stereo when they face No. 12 Notre Dame at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (3:30 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network). They know they’ll face a vaunted defense – the Fighting Irish rank 11th nationally in total defense, and they held Stanford to less than three yards per carry in a 49-7 win last week.

Then again, plenty could have stood in Haynes and Alexander’s way on their parallel paths from Gwinnett County to the Georgia Tech backfield. Coming off back-to-back career highs, they have no plans on slowing down now.

“I’m extremely hungry. Forever hungry,” Alexander said. “It’s a long season. Me and Jamal, we plan on running it up, toting that rock.”