The VandySports 100: No. 44, Justin Geisinger
Justin Geisinger was a four-year starter at left tackle for Vanderbilt's football team. He checks in at No. 44 in our list of the 100 greatest VU athletes we've covered. Here's a link to that list as we count down to No. 1.
Honors and awards: 2001 Freshman All-Southeastern Conference
2004 second-team All-SEC
2005 Senior Bowl
2005 NFL Combine
In the VU record book: Geisinger does not appear on any VU leaderboards.
Before VU: Started at right tackle and defensive tackle for Pittsburgh's Mt. Lebanon High. Was second-team 4A all-state by the Associated Press. Led team to an 11-2 record and the state playoffs. Started at left tackle in the Pennsylvania-Ohio Big 33 Classic. Made the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Fabulous 22" and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review's "Terrific 25." Was his region's Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year as a senior.
Freshman (2001): After redshirting, Geisinger started nine games and was named to the coaches Freshman All-SEC team at left tackle. Season ended when he broke his foot vs. Kentucky. Gave up three sacks that year despite going up against defensive ends Charles Grant (Georgia), Kalimba Edwards (South Carolina), Alex Brown (Florida) and Dennis Johnson (Kentucky). Credited with 81 knock-down blocks,
Sophomore (2002): Started all 12 games at left tackle. Played every snap in nine games. Was named the team's Offensive Lineman of the Week four times. Gave up just one sack all season and had 99 knock-down blocks.
Junior (2003): Started all 12 games and was team captain. Did not allow a sack all season. Was Vanderbilt's Offensive Player of the Week after the Georgia Tech and Tennessee games. Suffered a painful hamstring injury vs. Florida in Week 10, but started the final two games, anyway. Had 103 knock-down blocks.
Senior (2004): Started nine of 11 games, all at right tackle and was again a team captain. Did not play in games 3 and 4 (Navy, Mississippi St.) due to a knee strain. Allowed three sacks that season, two against Tennessee, the other vs. Georgia, and made 72 knock-down blocks.
Post-VU: Buffalo took Geisinger in Round 6 (No. 197 overall) of the 2005 NFL Draft. He never played a down for the Bills, but, played two games for the Titans in 2006, and four for Washington in 2008. He's now the football coach at Hendersonville's Pope John Paul II.
Final thoughts, and why I ranked him where I did: Geisinger played just two years within our coverage period, well before Pro Football Focus graded players week to week, and before the explosion of information on the Internet. Throw in the fact that Geisinger wasn't exactly playing under a microscope as a part four two-win teams, and it's hard to write about him 15 years later.
Remarkably, I found this, which does a terrific job of evaluating Geisinger's career on a game-by-game basis. In short, it paints a picture of a left tackle who almost always held his own, and often physically dominated his opponents.
The problem with Geisinger was that he was slow--he ran a 5.4 40--and that's what limited him on the professional level. But he overcame that in college because of his size (he measured 6 3 1/2, 322 pounds at the Combine) and strength. Geisinger bench-pressed 600 pounds, which allegedly was an SEC record at the time. He also benched 225 pounds 43 times at his Pro Day in 2005.
It's also hard to elevate a guy whose teams won eight games in two years too high on the list. But It's also hard to find players who play 85-90 percent of left tackle snaps over four years (which, I'd estimate, is about what Geisinger did) and play it as well as he did (seven sacks allowed his whole career). It's a career that didn't have a lot of value in terms of winning, but the production and durability were special being a two-time captain points to him being a good leader.
Again, linemen are hard to quantify, but No. 44 feels fair given all he did.