Most college students raced home for the holiday break eager for some home cooking and hoping someone would do their laundry. Jordan Conant couldn’t wait to get back to Winthrop so some bumps and bruises could heal.

Conant, the former Winthrop quarterback who walked on to a spot on the Georgia Tech scout team this fall, took a well-deserved break for a week after a couple of weeks of intense preparation for the Yellow Jackets’ Jan. 5 Orange Bowl matchup with Iowa. He started his freshman year as a quarterback on the scout team, but he’s become more versatile as the season has progressed.

“I’ve been having a blast running fullback and tight end stuff,” he said. “It’s definitely a little more contact than I’ve been used to in the past, but I’m loving it. I always complained to my coaches in high school that I wanted to get some contact. You know what? I’m definitely getting it now.”

The scout team’s job is to replicate the Yellow Jackets’ upcoming opponent each day in practice. They study the opposition’s plays and tendencies and try to replicate them as much as possible on the field during practice.

Conant said the practice squad’s job is even more  important during bowl preparations because it can help the rest of the team stay focused, even when the game is weeks away. 

“We’ve been working just as hard, if not harder,” Conant said. “Since school got out, we’ve been having longer practices, we’ve been having more practices. And the scout team guys, they’ve been asking us to make sure we give 100 percent on every play because we’ve got one shot at this.”

He said the Jackets have approached practice with an extra sense of urgency because they were routed by LSU last year, 38-3, in the Chick-fil-A Bowl

“They really don’t want that to happen on a national stage again,” Conant said. “So we’re getting prepared for Iowa.”

Conant’s reward for his hard work is a trip to Miami for the game (plus some tickets for his family and friends) and, he hopes, a chance to suit up for the game. He was on the sideline for two regular season contests, against Wake Forest and rival Georgia, but only in his jersey and shorts. Conant would like to be in full uniform for the bowl game.

“I believe everybody dresses for the bowl game, everybody pads-up for that. So I am ecstatic about that,” he said.

Conant still has dreams beyond being a spectator. He’d like to take the field some day, and continuing to work hard on the scout team is his ticket there, he said.

“It’s easy being on the scout team for a lot of guys to say ‘No one’s watching me. Nobody really cares what I’m doing over here.’ But the coaches are watching you. They are paying attention to see who is giving 100 percent and who isn’t,” he said. “But more than that, it’s a matter of character. Even if no one was watching, I’d want to give it 100 percent, just to be true to myself.”

“I’ve told them, ‘Whatever you guys need from me, I’m willing to do it,'” he added. “I think that they really appreciate that. I don’t want to take any of this for granted.”

Jordan Conant, a former stand out quarterback for Winthrop High School, will suit up for the Orange Bowl January 5th as a Georgia Tech freshman walk-on.