For a couple of years and to anyone willing to listen, Joe Henry -- a former Florida A&M offensive coordinator who played his own collegiate ball at the University of Arkansas and now serves as right-hand man to Willie Simmons at FIU -- has been speaking about a rising young coach by the name of TJ Demas.
Turns out, folks in college football must have been listening.
Why? Sources tell FootballScoop that Demas is being hired as Georgia Tech's new assistant director of player personnel in Brent Key's Yellow Jackets program.
The impending move for Demas comes just a couple years removed from his own playing career at Florida A&M, one in which Demas helped the Rattlers win the Southwestern Athletic Conference Championship and HBCU National Championship under Simmons and Henry in 2023.
Medical issues forced Demas to retire from playing but he immediately transitioned into the role of student-assistant coach.
As Simmons departed to spend a year on the Duke Blue Devils staff of Manny Diaz before becoming head coach at Florida International prior to the 2025 season, Demas worked closely with the Rattlers offensive line alongside Henry and under new head coach James Colzie.
When Henry transitioned to join the first-year staff of Simmons at FIU, Demas soon followed and spent the 2025 season as a graduate assistant working with the Panthers tight ends as well as also assisting in FIU's recruiting department -- a move that laid the groundwork for Demas to land the Georgia Tech job this week.
Since taking over the Tech program on a full-time basis following the firing of Geoff Collins, Key has guided the Yellow Jackets to 23 wins in those three full seasons -- highlighted by this past 2025 campaign in which they raced into the top 10 of the national rankings before a rough closing stretch still left the program with its first nine-win season since 2016.
With the departure of record-setting quarterback Haynes King, the school's all-time leader in total offense, among other categories, Georgia Tech is transitioning into an important offseason as Key, awarded a contract extension and raise, seeks to continue the program's upward trajectory entering Year 4 at the helm.
Georgia Tech opens its 2026 season against the Colorado Buffaloes of Deion Sanders Thursday, Sept. 3, in a primetime TV broadcast.
The Yellow Jackets then face Southeastern Conference program Tennessee nine days later, before battling a Mercer Bears Football Championship Subdivision program coming off a 2025 FCS Playoffs berth but transitioning under a new coach.
Tech then begins ACC play on Sept. 26 at Stanford.