Inside The Chart: Closing Shot

Closing Shot: After an emotional 2024 season, tight end Brett Seither will aim for an unforgettable end to his Georgia Tech career in front of family and friends at the 2025 Pop-Tarts Bowl in Orlando

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

The pictures are packed up now, ready to head home to Clearwater, Fla., the day after the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Soon after he’ll move to Knoxville, Tenn., to start training for the NFL Draft.

For the moment, Brett Seither won’t see the images that became a mainstay at his apartment in Atlanta. For the past two years, they were side-by-side reminders of glory and grief, of what he caught, what he lost and what he’ll always have. A tangle of emotions, all knotted and twisted together, but all ultimately leading to gratitude.

Assistant coach Nathan Brock gave a folded picture frame to his tight ends as a Christmas gift two years ago, each one containing photos specific to that player. On one side is Seither, Georgia Tech’s seventh-year senior tight end, hauling in the first of his two touchdown catches in the Yellow Jackets’ 46-42 upset over No. 17 North Carolina at Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field. The other side originally featured a picture of Tech Tower, but Seither replaced it with a picture of him and his mom, Beth, standing on the field after the North Carolina game, smiling amid the frenzy of a field storming.

“Everything you go through kind of makes you stronger. I’m thankful for it. It’s also tough, but it’s life, and you grow from it, and it’s part of it,” Seither said.

Georgia Tech gave him some of his greatest moments. Georgia Tech helped him through some of his toughest times. And perhaps it’s fitting that Seither will get rewarded by playing his final game against No. 12 BYU at Camping World Stadium in Orlando (3:30 p.m. ET, Georgia Tech Sports Network), an hour-and-a-half from where his family relocated before his junior year of high school.

“You’d think after four years of college that you know everything and you’re ready to go attack the world, and you get here and you realize three years later [that] I didn’t know everything,” Seither said, reflecting on his career after Georgia Tech’s first practice in Orlando.

“I’ve come a long way. This university has given me a great opportunity to get another degree. I’m super proud of that, thankful for that. It’s given me a lot of lifelong friends here,” he added.

He appreciates that Tech fans have embraced him too, even though he acknowledges he came from “the other school.” Seither only caught four passes across four seasons (one redshirt) at Georgia and didn’t record any statistics in 2022. He caught a touchdown on his first catch as a Yellow Jacket, on a third-and-goal in the 2023 season opener against Louisville at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The 6-foot-5, 240-pounder became a favorite red-zone target of quarterback Haynes King, with four of his first five catches in ’23 going for touchdowns. He became the first Yellow Jacket tight end with multiple touchdowns in a season since J.P. Foschi in 2003, and he helped Tech roll to its first bowl win since 2016.

He wouldn’t have a chance to reprise those moments in the picture frame. Seven days into Georgia Tech’s 2024 preseason camp, Beth passed away unexpectedly while visiting family in Wisconsin.

“She was just an awesome lady who could unify any room she was in. She was friends with everybody. She could put a smile of anybody’s face,” Seither said.

Jarring as that loss was, the field could at least be a sanctuary, a place to temporarily set aside his grief. Instead, 16 days after his mom’s passing, Seither tore his right ACL in Georgia Tech’s second preseason scrimmage.

Losing a parent can be difficult enough to cope with. Now that was entwined with the frustration of a season-ending injury. Seither leaned on his football family to help him get through it.

“I had one of my best friends in Ryland Goede come back to the program that year. Jackson Hawes became another one of my great friends that I could lean on. The coaches, obviously, they were there for me the whole time,” he explained. He also credits Georgia Tech director of rehabilitation Michael Ainbinder for guiding him through the slow, mentally taxing grind of rehab.

“It was a lot of great pieces around the building that I could lean on and talk to. It felt like home, for sure,” he added.

His knee slowly got stronger. The loss of a parent never truly goes away, but the heaviest veil of grief slowly lifted. Through it all, Seither graduated with his master’s in international securities in December. And though it came under circumstances he wished he had never experienced, the NCAA granted him a medical hardship waiver to play a seventh season, which allowed him to contribute to a Georgia Tech team that started 8-0 and climbed as high as No. 7 in the national rankings.

“I think as the year started off I was a little bit iffy on it and not feeling right. But I think once November hit, I started hitting my stride,” he said.

The numbers bear him out: Seither recorded a career-high 73 receiving yards in Tech’s Nov. 1 matchup at NC State, and he caught eight passes over the Jackets’ last four regular season games.

“I wish we had a couple more months to play, but that’s what we’ve got Saturday for, and we’re going to go out and attack it,” he said.

He’ll do it front of roughly 30 family members at Camping World Stadium, where the Yellow Jackets will aim for their first 10-win season since 2014. His sister’s whole family plans on coming to the Pop-Tarts Bowl. So will his brother and his family, along with aunts, uncles and a host of friends.

It’s not lost on Seither that his last touchdown came in that North Carolina game two years ago, the night that ended with a picture he can’t duplicate but will always treasure.

An hour-and-a-half from home, his family in attendance and his Georgia Tech teammates beside him, Brett Seither will aim for one last closing shot.