Everything From Head Coach Brent Key In His Final Media Availability Ahead Of Matchup Vs BYU

Head coach Brent Key talked to the media one final time ahead of the matchup against BYU on Saturday in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Here is everything he had to say to the media in his final session.

Brent Key Opening Statement….

“I just want to thank the FCS for having us here and the the wonderful time we've had this week. Um, it's been a great event. I know our players, our staff, and our families have all enjoyed being in Orlando. My family's still enjoying it today. They just left to go over to one of the parks, and you know the kids had a great experience last night, what they did. So we're really excited to play really excited to play BYU. A team that I've said now numerous times is a team that really should have been in the playoffs this year when you look at their body of work and what they've done. And so it's a great opportunity for us at Georgia Tech to be able to go to compete. That's what we want. You know, competitors want to compete, and that's what we have. We have two teams of competitors. I'll go ahead and address some of the injuries for our team. Right now, just to clear the water on anything, Clayton Powell Lee, safety, who rolled his ankle in the last game of the season. He'll be out. Brayden Manley, defensive end, had surgery right after the last game to go ahead and repair a shoulder. The same thing last year. You have a shoulder, do it now. Now you have a chance to get him back by spring practice. So went ahead and did the surgery. Chad Alexander, who came back from an ACL this year, you know, he's just going through kind of the scar tissue, whatever. So it's nothing, nothing serious with Chad. He's probably doubtful, I would say, right now. I wouldn't go ahead and rule him totally as out, but he is doubtful. Again, it's nothing serious with him. Just something that, you know, probably a weak type deal. We tweaked it a little bit. Savon Riley, hamstring. Isiah Canyon receiver. Uh, he's got a little issue that, uh, he's got to get worked on and, uh, hopefully able to get him for spring ball as well. That's what the injuries want to clear the air with that. At this point, other than guys who might have made a decision to leave the football team, we have 100% participation with the guys on the team playing in this game. So, really excited for that. Uh, excited to be able to compete uh tomorrow.”

Key on the opportunity to win 10 games…

“Yeah, I mean that 10-game threshold it's big just from an external perception from going out on the road in January. We've taken great steps over the last you know three years in the program of what we've been able to do and accomplish, and this is one of those, you know, kind of glass ceilings, I guess you would say that you're always looking to get towards. The one thing we know is we cannot control the outcome of a game, right? All we can control is what goes into the right? How we prepare, how we compete. We can't control the outcome. All right? We're not an outcome-based organization. We are about being in the moment, being where your feet are, playing the play that you have. When that play's over, it's done, right? The same thing with the game. So, uh, it's important. It's big for the program. Nine wins were big, too, right? Now, right? And then 10. And then, you know, it's always you're always wanting to improve and get better and better and better. So, look, I don't care if you got zero wins or 12 wins. You play that next game. Competitors want to compete, right? Again, we're not outcome-based. We're about competing.”

Key on the offensive staff making adjustments and Chris Weinke….

“The days of having five coaches on offense and five coaches on defense are so far gone. When coaches come and go and that's going to happen, right? They're going to look for different opportunities. They're going to look for elevation, what might be in their mind elevation or not. Um you know, they're going to look for different, you know, whether sometimes it's family reasons. You can't control those things. I learned a long time ago, you can't control other people's thoughts, wants, desires. My focus is on our team. So we've got plenty of people on that offensive staff, believe me that are doing a heck of a job. Chris's leadership has been, you know, he's been unbelievable these last three weeks, from the time that I brought the offensive staff in and told him what my plans were. He's taken the bull by the horns. It's a great experience for Chris to be able to to call it. The calling it part of it that's such a small part of being a coordinator right it's the organization the leadership, the management of people, holding people accountable that's what being a coordinator is about right and that's what you look for in coordinator is leadership. To know Chris externally is not to really know who he is, you know, when he's in the room with everyone and, you know, he's a strong personality, right? He's very determined in what he wants and what he believes in, but when he sits down with the staff, it is it's a complete collaboration of everyone. And that's what it's been for the last three years. Kelly, you know this offense was put together three years ago. And, you know, you're going through these, you know, different, you know, this time of year where you're talking to different, you know, guys and, you know, about possibly joining your staff and whatnot. You know, you say, "Hey, well, you know, what do you call this formation?" Say, "Oh, it's, you know, XYZ or whatever. Well, that that's that's double. That's double formation, right? We put this thing together. There's 165 people in our building know what that formation is. We're not changing it for one person.So, then that that's that's a that's an overall team philosophy. That's building a program, not just a team for a season. Chris has been able to step into that role, do an unbelievable job. I continue to want to, you know, put Chris in those positions. The judgment on how someone does in that role, right, has very little to do with the outcome of the game, right? It has to do with the preparation and the collaboration that goes into it. I've been more than pleased with Chris. As as a lot of people know, Chris has been by my side since the very very beginning of this. I trust Chris Weinke with everything I do within the program. He's going to tell me the truth. He's not a yes man. He's going to tell me what I need to hear. I respect him for that. Our relationship goes all the way back to 2000 when we were both seniors and went to the ACC media days and we were both there. Now, of course, I was 22 and he was about 35 then, but it's senior year. He was over there hanging out with all the Sports Illustrated and ESPN people when me and all the other guys were sitting there like, you know, just hanging out at the bowling alley. Wink is a great man. He's a great husband, great father. I love Chris Weinke. I'm excited for him and his future and what he's able to continue doing, what he's going to continue be able to bring to our program.”

Key on the current state of college football…

“I think the state of college football, college football's in the greatest place it's ever been, right? The fan experience, the viewership, and the engagement of college football's at an all-time high. I mean, just the the amount of people that are watching games, watching playoffs, the amount of people that wake up on Saturday mornings and watch game day, maybe it's for all of Nick's cussing, but you know it’s just overall I mean, you look you look from, you know, whether it's Thursday night, whether it's Friday night, Saturdays, college football is a way of life in so much of the United States, right? I think college football is at the the interest in it is at an all-time high. Okay? Now, when you look at the other things, I mean, and I say this all the time, there was a time when there were no face masks on helmets, right? And that changed. There was a time when they started out, and there was, you know, vote on who the national champion was. And sometimes it was a split national championship. The last time Georgia Tech played a bowl game in the stadium, right? So, times change. If you look at college football, about every 15 to 20 years, there's a major overhaul in college football, right? And sometimes you don't even recognize that it's happening until it's just part of the game.

We're going through one of those right now, right? We have been for the last probably 18 months to two years. Right? It is a change in college football. Well, massive changes like this don't just happen overnight. The final way to do it, or the best way to do it, doesn't just happen. When you sit in these meetings like we have to and you hear people talk, well, yeah, it might sound like a great idea to change the date on the calendar, but then when you start digging in and all the things that go along with that. All the things that affect, right, at the end of the day, right, our job is to graduate players from college to give them opportunities that a lot of them would not have had to go to college to get a degree and change their lives, create generational change in families. We do that through the avenue of football, right? I'm speaking to myself. I had no business going to Georgia Tech. Zero. Zero. The game of football provided the opportunity to me to go to Georgia Tech. Right? It changed my life. It changed my family's life. It changed the trajectory of a lot of things, right? I look at this every day, like Kalani just said, yes, we are judged by the scoreboard, by the wins and the losses, right? But I put my head down at night knowing I've done my part to put better young men in this world. Right. And that has not changed. That will not change. That will not change at Georgia Tech. We just had the highest GPA in the history of our program in 133 years. I think it is 3.17. I have 62 players on the team whom I've signed an appeal. Means they had under a 2.55 in high school. They have a collective 2.86 GPA at Georgia Tech. 20 out of 24 freshmen who came in made the dean's list at Georgia Tech. All right, those values have not changed in what we're really out here to do, and that is to create better young men to change the lives of young men that come in at 17 and 18 years old. All right, and some of them that come in and through transfer and they're there for six months. All right, but when you get that stamp that GT stamped on your life, all right, it changes it. Are there things in the calendar? Yes, there are a lot of things that we could go through, but every second I spend complaining or every second I spend saying, "Oh, this it should be like," right? I'm wasting time trying to figure out how to be better. All right? Let everyone else complain about it. Let everyone else waste their time saying that it could be better or should be like this or should be like that. All right? And I'm going to pass their a** All right? And we're gonna find a better way to do it.”

On Coach O’Leary…

“You talk about coach Edwards all the time and it's crazy the similarities that my experience with George O’Leary as a player and then as a young coach, we were talking about him just a minute ago. How coach O’learyi is still, you know, now Coach O’leary nowadays will call me sometimes and be like, "Hey, uh, make sure you go downstairs and tell the staff to get out of here early tonight and, you know, go spend time with their families. I'm like, "Huh? What? What' you say? Is this is this George O’leary?" Uh, but you look at the coaches I was around as a player. Um, you know, my position coaches, Matt McCorder, Doug Marone, you know, Billy O'Brien was our Bill O'Brien was the GA (graduate assistant) at Georgia Tech. They drove me and my mom around in a van on my official visit. Then he was our running backs coach. And then my first year as a GA, it was his first year as a coordinator. Lance Thompson, Ted Roof. We come down here to UCF. All right. The gas to start out here at UCF was me, George Godsy, uh, Ryan Silverfield, Ed Manowitz, who's an agent now. I mean, we were all GAs together here at UCF for Coach O'leary. So, you just look at the people and kind of the progression of how, you know, I go to Georgia Tech and Doug, and Billy were the were Ga’s and um then kind of as you go up and then you become a GA, you see where those guys have gone. But a lot of that is because the mentorship that we had from those men that we play for and that we've worked for.”

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