Inside Slant

The Sports Xchange

November 13, 2018 at 9:44 pm.

Redshirt freshman Swilling living up to family name

During one of the many television timeouts, Georgia Tech took the opportunity introduce many of its legendary players who had returned for the annual White Out game. Among them were Pat Swilling and Ken Swilling.

As they broke up the momentary adoration, Tre Swilling walked to the enclave and gave out a couple of hugs — one to his father, Pat, a first-team All-American and the school’s all-time sack leader, and one to his uncle Ken, who played at Tech from 1988-91.

Then Tre, a redshirt freshman, went out and tried to live up to the Swilling legacy.

He came pretty close. Swilling was credited with a pair of pass breakups, thwarting a couple of deep passes that could have resulted in scores.

“We struggle playing the deep ball some, so you know they’re going to test you and they did,” coach Paul Johnson said. “They have some good receivers and they have some tall guys. They were max protecting some and running some deep routes, but I thought overall for the most part our guys did pretty good.”

Swilling got burned once early, but afterwards was a rock at cornerback.

In the second quarter on third-and-8, Miami’s N’Kosi Perry fired deep for Jeff Thomas on a post, but Swilling knocked the ball away.

Later in the second quarter, Swilling made a play to defend a pass headed toward Lawrence Cager.

“They have very good receivers, athletic, fast, and I had to stick to my strength,” Swilling said. “The first time I gave up an easy catch and after that I wanted to be able to compete and challenge every route for every receiver.”

A year ago Miami won the game when the Tech secondary was victimized by a lucky bounce that wound up putting the Hurricanes in range to kick a game-winning field goal. There was little doubt that the matter was addressed this week during preparation, leaving the defensive backs with a more satisfied feeling.

“Really satisfying,” Swilling said. “Last year they threw the fade ball that was tipped around and finally caught and they went on to win the game. That kind of stuck with us.”

Swilling is already starting to become one of the team’s leaders, even though he’s only a second-year player. Through 10 games he has 17 total tackles and one sack, with one interception, four breakups and one hurry.

He’s made strides toward adding to the Swilling legacy. Afterwards he talked about walking into the stadium and seeing pictures of his family members on the wall. Now he’s making a name for himself.