Georgia Southern’s Summers ready for second season

Tyson Summers admits that his golf game isn’t very good.

The Georgia Southern head football coach was in Macon on Wednesday speaking to boosters, and the first part of the day was spent playing golf at Idle Hour with around 20 local boosters, followed by a caravan event later in the evening.

“I think the first time I ever played golf was when I was about 25 years old and a graduate assistant at Georgia,” the 37-year-old Summers said. “I had never hit a golf ball in my life and I didn’t hit it very well that day. I play a few times a year now and I enjoy getting out with alumni and Georgia Southern supporters, and it is a very casual way of getting close relationships with these people. I love being outside and competing, and it makes for a very nice day.”

Georgia Southern is coming off of a 5-7 season in Summers’ first year as a head coach, and he feels like he knows what has to be done to have a better second year.

“As we finished up and started to move forward, everything was about how we can advance our program,” Summers said. “We have made adjustments to our staff, advanced our talent pool by having another strong recruiting year, and hopefully, we as coaches did a better job of teaching during the spring.”

Perhaps the biggest change was bringing in a new offensive coordinator, Bryan Cook, who served as the quarterback and B-backs coach at Georgia Tech last year.

“We will start out of the shotgun running the option, but we will also go under center and run some flexbone,” Summers said. “I just don’t know if you can survive today without having the ability to get big chunks of yards in a single play, and we are looking for some explosive plays, but we also want to be efficient on offense.”

The quarterback job will be wide open when practice starts again.

“We were very happy with Shai Werts, Seth Shuman and LaBaron Anthony in the spring, but the competition will get even more interesting when JUCO transfer Kado Brown and true freshman Jaalon Frazier join the group,” Summers said. “All three of the guys we had in the spring have similar skill sets, but all three bring something different.

“Last year, we had two seniors and two freshmen at quarterback, but this year, we are spread out a little more. We are really excited about all of them.”

Georgia Southern opens up at Auburn on September 2, and Summers said the Eagles will go into the opener with the same attitude they do every game.

“I don’t care if we are playing the Tift County middle school team or Auburn, we will go into the game with the belief we can win,” Summers said. “We obviously have a great deal of respect for Auburn, and I am sure that they respect us as well.”

Summers, who grew up in Tifton was open about where he wants to coach.

“The Georgia Southern job is always the job I wanted,” Summers said. “My wife, Beth, is a South Georgia girl, and along with my three sons, Statesboro is where we want to live, and Georgia Southern is where I want to coach.”

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 8:35 PM with the headline "Georgia Southern’s Summers ready for second season."