Brent Key on Georgia Tech’s New QB, Rebuilt Defense & 2026 Expectations | Sports Illustrated

Brian Fisher here for Sports Illustrated ACC Media Day joined by Georgia Tech head coach Brent Keen.

I know everybody's excited, but I, I would imagine you are more excited than anybody to get out and back on that field for fall camp.

And why not?

Why not?

It's what we do.

Yeah, I'm excited.

Uh, you know, it comes fast, it gets here fast, and, and I am, I'm excited to see, you know, how we've grown from the end of spring until now.

Um, excited to see how we've come together as a team, uh, you know, the retention of what we've put in and learned and, Uh, then can we, can we continue to uphold really what, what I see is the identity of this football team, you know, throughout training camp and then end of the season.

Finished in the top 25 for the first time at, at the end of the season for the first time in over a decade for you guys.

Started out really strong.

What do you look at though in terms of the back half of the year, uh, when you guys, uh, finished losing 4 out of 5?

Yeah, well, I mean, it's really holistically, you look at everything.

I mean, you look at from January to the end of the year, and we do that at the end of every year.

And look, I don't really personally think we were the 7th-best team in the country when we were that, you know, there's 5 plays could have been, you know, we could have been 3 and 5.

So, uh.

But getting the staff to understand that, the players to understand that week in and week out, that every week's a new week and, and you got to play up to, to the expectations of ourselves, not other people.

Losing ACC Player of the Year, uh, Haynes King, I know, I know it's gonna be tough, not walking around the facility and, and, and seeing his face, but, uh, you got Albert Roberto Mendoza.

What do we, what can we expect from him?

Yeah, I mean, look, he's a young quarterback.

He hadn't started a college football game.

We all know that we're not putting the pressure on him to go out and win every game for us.

Um, we need him to go out and be, you know, to, to run the offense, you know, protect the football, uh, make the throws he has to throw, and, and then when we have the chance to hit the big plays and get us in and out of the right plays for him to, to be able to go execute it.

And he's extremely smart, extremely gifted, quick release, accurate, you know.

All those things, but you know, we've also got a stable running backs to be able to help take the pressure off of.

Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you, you lose one Haynes , you, you gain another in terms of your, your running back there in the backfield.

What, what can we expect out of that?

And obviously you want to run the football a lot.

So how, how important is it for you to have multiple?

Well, I wanna, I wanna win the surest way, you know.

And if it, if it, if that takes throwing the ball 60 times, and that's what you have to do.

But, uh, you know.

I do want to run the football, um, but I also want to be able to throw it efficiently and, and, and throw it when we have to.

And we've got to improve that area of the, of the game and we've been working really since January to do that.

And, uh, but we've got a deep, deep, deep stable, uh, of backs.

And, you know, we brought 2 here with us today, but we also got 4 back home that are pretty good players as well and, uh, being able to put those guys on the field multiple different ways.

Use them in different ways.

I think it's gonna be important for our success this year.

New offensive coordinator as well.

Somebody who knows the place, uh, they're in the flats pretty well.

What, what can we expect just offensively in terms of any changes?

Yeah, I mean, we'll, we'll be a lot the same in a lot of things, but at the same time, be, you know, a little more, uh, matchup driven, um, you know, have some more wrinkles here and there and ability to get in and out of some good plays and bad plays, and, uh.

At the end of the day though, you got to get first downs, protect the football, and put points on the board.

So new defensive coordinator as well.

What kind of changes might we see on the, on the defensive side?

Yeah, I think the biggest change you're gonna see is just from a personnel standpoint.

Um, we added a lot of, uh, influx of talent on the defensive side of the ball, particularly on the defensive line.

Um, and then, you know, be able to play an attacking style of defense, you know, play multiple, uh, multiple fronts, multiple looks on the back end, but, you know, be good at your base and have that be, you know, really what you lean on and, and when, when the game's on the line.

Um, but I want our guys to play fast, play free, and play with confidence , uh, out there on the defensive side.

I mean, it did seem like that was kind of the, the emphasis in terms of some of your portal additions was just getting, getting some guys up front, especially to get that pass rush going, yeah, you know.

You know, be able to stop the run, generate pass rush, affect the quarterback, but also have depth, right?

And, and not just have one or two guys that can do it, but then it will spread the, the resources out for the acquisition to, to have, you know, 3 deep.

And right now I, I believe we have, we have 3 deep on the D line that can come in and play winning football for us.

I'm curious, when you do think about your defense, you know, some people think back to front, front to back , how, how would you kind of look about in terms of actually building your roster nowadays?

Uh, I mean, I'm always going to be a front to back guy, uh, you know, how do you, I was gonna say , how, how, how can you not, right?

Right.

But also, I mean, you know, you want to improve the play of the DBs, get pass rush, right?

You know, throw the timing off, uh, you know, they got to sit back there and cover all day.

That ain't gonna be a good day for the back end.

I don't care who it is.

It could be Deion Sanders playing cornerback there and, uh.

Well, well, you mentioned Dion, uh, he's obviously coming to town, right?

Uh, now, now he did say, he did say that his, his coaching staff would be the one with, with curfews.

Are, are you hoping at least maybe some of the team gets out there as well?

I could care less.

Atlanta is a great city.

I hope they enjoy it, but, uh, tough, tough opening schedule in terms of playing multiple power fives.

Uh, what's your scheduling philosophy though, uh, when you're talking with your ADs in terms of how, how you guys wanna play?

I wanna play the best teams every week, and we have a really challenging conference schedule in the ACC, and then.

Um, we've gone out and, and, and, you know, built an out of comfort schedule that is as good as anybody in the country.

And, uh, look, I mean, at the end of the day, when the season's over, there's one team standing.

Right.

And you're gonna have to beat the best teams to be able to get there, and that's what our goal is.

How much of, of the recruiting aspect has changed just given that, let's face it, there's, there's numbers attached to not only every player, but, but your entire roster now.

Yeah, I mean, you better be good with them.

I don't care like what your budget is, what's your roster budget, or, you know, you know, all any of those things.

Like at the end of the day, everybody's got a walking away point.

At the end of the day, you still got to evaluate, and I 100% believe.

All transactions are brought to with relationships.

The relationships what leads you to the transaction.

So it's still a relationship-driven game.

You know, people can blow things out of proportion if they're focusing on one side of it.

There's not a transaction ever happened without a relationship tied to it.

When it, when it comes to your, your guys coming out of spring ball, it's certainly a little bit different in terms of only one portal window this year, but that probably means you got a better handle on your team going into fall camp.

Yeah, he did a little more, a little more, uh.

You know, Just going through the spring, you know, you didn't have that air of like.

You know, kind of half in, half out, even though they weren't, but then maybe you never know, yeah, exactly.

So, uh, is, is there somebody that, uh, you know, maybe not, not necessarily that you brought around here, but, uh, somebody that we're maybe not talking about, uh, on your roster that come this fall, we, we certainly will be there in that, and I hope it's all of them, right?

I really do.

I mean, uh, we got some, some D-linemen we brought in.

I'm excited about Jordan Walker.

I'm really excited about, uh, I don't want to leave guys out, you know, Jalen Bakway on the back end, um.

You know, You know, on the O-line, I mean, Joe Iannata, you know, Ethan McKinney's played a lot of football for us at left tackle, but Joe's the guy that's that came in this year, uh, transferred in and be our center.

Uh, and I'm, I'm really expecting really, A good future for him as a center.

Yeah, I mean, you lost a lot of leadership too from, from last year's team, not just your, your quarterback.

He had a first round draft pick as well.

Who, who's stepping up?

Who, who's, who's gonna be those leaders for, for this year's team?

And leadership is like the buzzword this year, and that's like, that's like the big thing everybody says like leadership, leadership.

Let me ask you this.

If you had 100 people on the team, they're all leaders, would they all go the same direction?

Would they all go different directions?

Right?

So you need guys that can carry out the mission as well.

You know, a lot of those guys, you need a lot of, a lot of soldiers, right?

Head coaches, I mean, at the end of the day, it's our job to be the leader.

And you start forcing a square peg into a round hole sometimes trying to force leadership upon somebody.

Well, they just want to go play ball, you might take away both sides of it, right?

So, now that's not saying we do a lot of, we do a lot of leadership development, um, but that's going to become a natural thing for them, right?

Sometimes when you lose a guy like Haynes, who was such a.

You know, whether you say magnetizing or polarizing, you know, how he was, uh, that singular, singular leader on the team .

He leaves.

Well, now just by nature, naturally it kind of expands out to everyone else and it becomes better for that team.

Look, to have one singular leader on this team would not be what's best for our team.

Well, exciting times there on the flats.

I can't wait to see what you guys do this, this season.

Brent, thank you so much for stopping by here at ACC Media Days with Sports Illustrated.