Inside The Chart: Turned The Corner

Turned The Corner: As Georgia Tech’s program grew, Ahmari Harvey grew up. Now, a month after a potentially season-ending injury, the cornerback and his team are both back on their feet and determined to finish the year on their own terms.

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

He knew there would come a moment when his career would flash before his eyes, when the finality of his redshirt senior season would hit him with the same force as one of the many hits he’s delivered over the years.

Ahmari Harvey didn’t expect that moment to come here, writhing in pain on the Hyundai Field turf, his right foot twisted sideways.

“I just prayed. I’m like, please, my senior year can’t go like this,” Harvey recalls thinking in the fourth quarter of Georgia Tech’s 35-20 win over Virginia Tech on October 11.

This couldn’t be the last image of him as a Yellow Jacket – helmet off, pounding his fist in equal parts pain and anger, his teammates frantically motioning for Georgia Tech’s athletic trainers to tend to him. He had come too far, grown too much, endured too many highs and lows on Georgia Tech’s long, painstaking climb to prominence for that to end so cruelly and suddenly.

And yet, here is Ahmari Harvey now, staring contemplatively in the Georgia Tech team meeting room, a few days away from an opportunity even he couldn’t have fathomed as he lay there in Bobby Dodd Stadium.

“I didn’t have no faith,” he admitted. “I didn’t even think I was going to be able to play on Senior Day. It’s just a blessing to even be back.”

Ahmari Harvey (3) has returned from a severe ankle injury to help anchor Georgia Tech’s defense (Keith Lucas photo) 

 

Just a month removed from a dislocated ankle, the cornerback returned last week in the Yellow Jackets’ 36-34 win over Boston College, recording a crucial tackle on a third-and-one that forced an Eagles punt in the second quarter. A week after that, Harvey will walk onto the field – not in a cast, but in full uniform – for his Senior Day ahead of No. 15/12 Georgia Tech’s monumental ACC finale against Pittsburgh (7 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network).

A win against the same Pitt team that Harvey gained his first significant playing time three years ago would clinch a spot in the ACC Championship Game for Georgia Tech. Harvey’s one of seven remaining Yellow Jackets who played in that game at Acrisure Stadium, Brent Key’s first as interim head coach.

The coincidence isn’t lost on him.

“You’ve kind of got to be delusional sometimes about things. Three years ago, (if) you told me Georgia Tech has a chance to play in the ACC Championship, I’m not believing you,” Harvey said.

But as proud as he is of his own rehabilitation, Harvey is far prouder of the way he’s helped rehabilitate the Georgia Tech program, from down and moribund to competing for a College Football Playoff berth. The team’s growth has dovetailed with his own, from a volatile cornerback who was falling behind in class to a player Key calls “the most mature version of Ahmari yet.”

“I’ve been through so much even just being at Georgia Tech. Just seeing everything come together, everything we built … We’ve grinded for this game, to be in this position,” Harvey said.

He arrived at Tech in early 2022 seeking a fresh start. Ranked the No. 5 safety in the nation by ESPN coming out of Florida State University School in Tallahassee, Harvey originally signed with Auburn and spent a redshirt year there before transferring to Tech.

At Auburn, Harvey had already experienced the awkwardness of playing for a different head coach than the one who recruited him. Four games into his Georgia Tech career, he was now thrown into the uncertainty of yet another coaching change. He admits he had never talked to Key before he addressed his team for the first time as interim head coach; defensive backs and offensive line coaches don’t typically mingle.

Harvey took his seat in the team meeting room that Sunday, still trying to process everything that had happened.

“At first I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if I want to be here,’” he recalled. “But how I saw him take control over the team, and how he fought for his guys and being an alum, I knew he was going to take care of us. The love and passion I had seen him feed into the program, I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is where I want to be.’”

Harvey had made his Georgia Tech debut the weekend before, logging a handful of snaps on punt return in a loss to UCF. They were so forgettable that Harvey didn’t initially remember them this week, memory-holed perhaps by his frustration over still being on the scout team. The following week, Key put him on Georgia Tech’s punt return, kick return and kickoff units for their matchup against No. 24 Pittsburgh.

“When he put me on special teams, it was just so important to me. I just wanted to get on the field so bad. Before he became interim head coach, being told I wasn’t good enough to play on special teams, I didn’t believe that. And Coach Key really believed in me for special teams,” Harvey said.

Georgia Tech capped that trying week in triumph, upsetting the Panthers, 26-21.

“Nobody counted on us to win. We’ve got a new coach, they thought we had a sorry team, a sorry program, but that wasn’t the case. We came in, fought together. All the guys had each other’s back,” he said.

At season’s end, Key pulled Harvey into his office to discuss his future. He had just been promoted to permanent head coach, but the thought of re-entering the transfer portal still lingered in his head.

“He kept it real with me,” Harvey remembered. “I was like, ‘I’m either going to run from my problems or I’m going to stay here and work and earn my spot on the field.’ I didn’t want to just keep running from my problems. I stayed here and I went to work.”

He earned his first start at cornerback in Georgia Tech’s 2023 season opener against Louisville and logged five more starts that fall. He recorded his first career interception in Tech’s last-second shocker of Miami and delivered a vicious forced fumble that helped seal the Jackets’ 46-42 upset of No. 17 North Carolina. He turned in his best performance in Georgia Tech’s Gasparilla Bowl victory over UCF, finishing with a career-high six tackles two pass break ups and an interception in a 30-17 win. The outing earned him a spot on the Associated Press’ 2023 all-bowl team (and a far more memorable performance than his debut game against UCF a year earlier).

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Some cornerbacks thrive on having a live-wire intensity. Harvey’s emotion could be his undoing. Key talked with him constantly about not losing his cool, which would lead to breakdowns in assignment. He also admits to falling behind in class, which led to him slipping on the field.

The man nicknamed “Saucy” – ironically, for his smoothness as a wide receiver in middle school – knew he needed to humble himself.

“I knew that just wasn’t me. I just had to look myself in the mirror. I’ve got to get better and become a man. That was really important to me,” he said.

Harvey had finally combined that production and poise in his redshirt senior season, helping anchor the secondary for a Georgia Tech team that had climbed to No. 13 nationally when it faced Virginia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field on October 11. Earlier in the game, an official came up to Key and praised Harvey for keeping his composure as Virginia Tech players tried to rile him up with some trash talk. Now, on a fourth quarter pass play, Harvey tried to break up a deep cross intended for a Hokies receiver. When he planted to step in front of him, his right leg buckled.

As he lay on the turf, Harvey wondered why he didn’t jump for a potential interception. Then he looked at his foot.

“I thought my shoe had fallen off. Then I tried to put my shoe back on, I’m like, ‘Nah, that’s my foot hanging off like that,’” he recalled.

Georgia Tech’s athletic trainers rushed onto the field to stabilize his ankle. His mom, Diamond, jumped from the stands to join her son in the team’s medical tent. In an instant, Harvey was once again staring at a future in doubt.

“Me and my momma prayed. She wiped my tears. After that, I was like, ‘Let’s see what the X-rays (say). If that’s good, then we’re going to work. We’re not fitting to cry about it. We’re not going to sit here and complain. ‘Why me?’ Why not me. I felt like God put me in the position because he knew I could handle it,” he said.

Remarkably, the X-rays showed a clean dislocation of his ankle – no fracture, no tear, no tendon or ligament damage that so often accompany injuries like his. Key called it a 1-in-1,000 chance. When Georgia Tech’s medical staff told him the injury wasn’t necessarily season-ending, Harvey said he “lit up gold.”

They initially diagnosed a six-week recovery timeline – if he was lucky.

“I said I’m already lucky to even be walking. I’m aiming for about four or five (weeks),” Harvey countered.

By that Tuesday, he was already doing quarter squats with no weight on his shoulders.

He praised Brad Kimble, Georgia Tech’s Associate Athletic Director for Sports Medicine and head football athletic trainer, and assistant athletic trainer Jordan Adams for giving him the tools to continue his recovery at home. He went to treatment three times a day and lifted weights with Georgia Tech’s freshmen to rebuild his strength.

“I was just working all the doubt away,” he said.

That work culminated in his return in Chestnut Hill, where Harvey figured he had a few snaps in him. Instead, as the Yellow Jackets’ secondary scuffled against Boston College, he couldn’t hold back his hunger to play.

Said Key, “He walks up to me at halftime before it’s time to come back on the field and said, ‘Coach, put me in the game. I’ll change the game.’ It’s a credit to who he is.”

“This is my senior year. I’ve got to affect my team. I really feel like those guys look toward me for energy,” Harvey added.

The work will continue this Saturday when his mom, grandparents and uncle will all join him on the field for Georgia Tech’s Senior Day ceremonies. It will be a far cry from the last time Harvey stepped on the Hyundai Field turf, and an even farther cry from the Georgia Tech team that last played Pittsburgh in 2022.

Ahmari Harvey will have a chance to end his career on his own terms, with the coach who believed in him and the program he didn’t abandon, a player and team both back on their feet.

“Ahmari’s got a great future ahead of him. He really does. He’s special to this football team, he’s special to his position and his side of the ball, and he’s special to me,” Key said.

But not before he aims for one last special moment against the Panthers.

“We’ve broken it down on “championship’ (in) every huddle since January,” Harvey said.

“Even just speaking it into existence. I’m just ready to see all our work pay off.”

Full Steam Ahead

Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.

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