LaMiles Brooks
Football - S
LaMiles Brooks played his high school football at Trinity Christian Academy. He was named freshman all-America in 2016 and broke up 16 passes and racked up 88 tackles over his final two prep seasons. He helped lead Trinity Christian to 36 wins over 4 seasons, including Florida 3A state championship as a freshman and state semifinals as a junior. Over his high school career, Brooks earned 4-star recruit ratings from ESPN and Rivals.com, and a 3-star rating from 247Sports. He chose Georgia Tech over offers from Florida, Alabama, Auburn and more.
In his freshman season in 2020, Brooks saw just 4 games of action and recorded one tackle. Due to COVID and his limited playing time, Brooks retained his eligibility. In 2021, he saw action in 12 games contributing off the bench on special teams and as a depth safety. He recorded 9 tackles and was a good presence off the bench for the Yellow Jackets.
Brooks began to draw attention to himself once he earned the starting role at safety last season for Georgia Tech. He broke out in these 12 games that he played (10 of which he started). He recorded 52 tackles including 2.5 TFL. He also had 10 passes defended and 3 interceptions. He solidified himself as one of the best safeties in the ACC and as a very important piece of the Yellow Jackets’ secondary. Brooks has continued this success into this season, starting 11 of the team’s 12 games and has tallied 62 total tackles, 7 passes defended and 1 interception.
Brooks has tremendous size for the safety position at 6’2” and 188 pounds, with long limbs and high end ball tracking skills. This allows him to knock passes away and create turnovers. He is great in zone coverage and Georgia Tech also used him off the edge in safety blitzes fairly often over his career. He is not afraid of contact and has the ability to disrupt the backfield.
However, Brooks possesses slightly below average speed for the secondary, and this contributes to his struggles in man coverage at times. He finds it difficult to keep up with the receivers with high end speed and route running ability and also possesses pedestrian strength at just 188 pounds. This is why most of his use comes as a zone defender or a defender over the top.