Everything From Brent Key Ahead Of Matchup With No. 1 Georgia
In this story:
Brent Key is getting his team ready for their biggest challenge of the season.
Clean, Old Fashioned Hate is this weekend and it is a game that Key is plenty familiar with being a player in this rivalry. Georgia Tech is a 33-point underdog this weekend, but that is not going to mean much to them.
Georgia Tech has not beaten Georgia since 2016
This team has outperformed expectations under Key and being a big underdog is familiar to them.
Key spoke to the media today ahead of the rivalry game in Athens this weekend and here is everything the interim head coach of the Yellow Jackets had to say.
Opening Statement:
"We had a really good practice today after the win on Saturday night and it was good to see the guys come back out and have good focus and good energy going into the game this week after a really good game on Saturday. These kids played their tails off the entire game truly a 60-minute football game, you know to have the ups and downs within the game, it is really a testament to those kid's character and how hard they want to play for each other and how much they love playing for Georgia Tech and be able to get the ball their at the end and close the game out, that is the way you are supposed to end a football game. It was a really satisfying win and I am really, really happy for those kids and the success that they are able to have.
It's onto a new one this week. We have a huge challenge in front of us. We are playing the No. 1 team in the country in their place, you know they have a solid football team all around, he has done a really good job of recruiting and developing talent there. They have a good staff, they are coached well, they are in the right spots, good players and it will be a really good challenge for us. Excited to continue to get ready this week and get ready to go over there Saturday and play a football game."
1. On if the team played the physical brand of football against North Carolina he has been looking for...
"I think so, There were spurts in the game where they showed they were a physical group of guys and that is something we have challenged our guys with the last two months, is to become a physical football team. Not just on the line of scrimmage, but the way we run the football, the way we stop the run, the way we cover kicks, the way we block on the perimeter, the way we shed blocks in the secondary. All of those things, the way we finish on the quarterback, the way we finish on the ball carrier on that side of the football, that is something we have been really demanding of our guys and they have taken it on.
There have been spurts, up and down on the season, but they showed some consistency on Saturday and there are a lot of areas we have to improve upon. There is a laundry list of things we had on Sunday that we pinpointed and brought up to the guys, got back to work today to really correct and show the guys and improve on a lot of things."
2. On if he has taken a step back and what this experience has been like for him...
"No. We have to face the No. 1 team in the country on Saturday.
3. On if he has learned anything about himself as a coach...
"Yeah, you learn every day. I have been a coach for 22 years and you self assess and that is one of the hardest things to do in life is self assess and be honest with yourself and to be able to do that every single day as a coach and a person and it carries over to the rest of your life, Being a husband, being a son, being a father. Be able to self-assess and admit when you have made mistakes and learn from your mistakes. All of the same things we ask our football players to do, we have to do it as coaches as well and if you don't, if you don't do those things, you are just being a hypocrite so you have to be able to take on challenges the same way you ask your players to because it is the right way."
4. On what sticks out about Georgia...
"They have a lot of good players. But it is not just a collection of good players, it is a collection of good players playing good football. They play sound, they play together, they do a good job of game planning and scheming week-to-week against a different opponent. Offense and defense, they are really sound on special teams and have a good kicker, able to control the vertical field position with their kicking game.
Offensively, they have some really good weapons on that side of the ball that are unique to, that are really unique to college football nowadays, rarely do you see a group of tight ends that explosive and able to block and do the things that they are able to do. A good collection of running backs and they have some receivers that can hurt you."
5. On Jalen Carter and Georgia's defense...
"He is a tremendous player. You can put him in any scheme you want. He can play the block, he can go around the block, he can get caught in run down thinking it is pass or vice versa and still be able to make plays so he just has an uncanny ability to find the football and be around the football. He has a lot of God-given ability, but they do a good job of developing those guys as well within the program.
Defensively, they are going to line up and they are going to do what they do. They are going to mix up between their mint front and their four down front, they are going to keep you honest by the way they stem the front and move presnap so they are going to keep you honest by the schemed four down runs or mint runs. At the end of the day, they are going to play sound football on that side of the ball."
6. On how the coaches have been able to try and get the most out of their players...
"Well, individual awards don't mean anything unless the team is having success. As happy as you are for the individuals that got those awards, it is really more of a congratulations to the entire team, it is a view of how the entire team is playing because you can have some great players on a team but if you don't get them together, those guys are not going to get those honors."
7. On the rivalry with Georgia...
Yeah I mean, 20, 30, 40 years, it is a rivalry now. It is two instate schools that have a chance to play on Thanksgiving weekend, that is what rivalry weekend is created for. There is a reason there is so much history behind it, between the legendary coaches that have coached in this game, the legendary players that have played in the game, from Coach (Vince) Dooley on their side to Coach (Bobby) Dodd, moving forward to Coach (Bill) Curry and Coach (Bobby) Ross, there have been legendary games that have come down to the end and just the history involved in it is probably something that people in our age get caught up in because we are old, but anytime you get the chance to play somebody on a Saturday that someone on the team, at some point in their life has grown up playing against each other, whether that be high school or Pop Warner, whether it be the recruiting trips that these kids get to know each other on, there is a huge sense of pride going into this game and compete against each other.
It is a game where... it is easy to say that this is the next game on the schedule, but its Georgia and we are Georgia Tech and that is why you come to school here to play in this football game and to be able to sit here and be able to coach in this football game, its an honor and I am dadgum excited to get these guys out there and playing on Saturday."
8. On how Andrew Thacker has gotten the defense to improve since the coaching change...
"He has done a good job of scheming up and putting game plans together, attacking the weaknesses in certain offenses, in different parts of the offense, taking different players out of the game, given the plan throughout the week. He does a really good job of that, of taking the message of the coaching staff and the message I give them on Sundays that we want and filtering that through the team, that is where Thack does a great job and he's really, really smart. He understands what hurts certain things from a defensive standpoint to the offense.
The thing that I have seen up close and personal for the last eight weeks... when you can take a certain player out of the game like last week but then you know when you do that, you have someone else that is one-on-one the whole game, you have one or two people that will be one-one-one the whole game and you know you are going to give up some play, you are going to give up some plays in certain aspects because you are either going to be lighter in the box or one-on-one to the boundary in coverage but being able to challenge those guys that have those responsibilities and coming up with a plan to help those guys as well and not put them in position to fail, he has done a really good job of that."
9. On getting the players to focus on the task at hand with the outside noise about playing the No. 1 team in the country...
"You know, it is just ten spots higher than last week. It is not hard. It is challenging, but it is who we are and what we do. It is the way you are supposed to do it, you can't look forward. That is our message every single day. One play at a time for 60 minutes and once that play is over, you can't do anything but learn from it, you can't sit back and dwell on something that happened in the past, and you are wasting a lot of time where you could be doing something for the future and that is the way we go about everything.
That is how I try to live my life, that is how the coaches try to live their lives and when you can be the example to these young men, doing what you tell them to do, there is going to be a lot more buy-in and it is an everyday thing now, it is an everyday way of life that we live here and when you can live every aspect that way and preach and ingrained into you core belief system, then you go out on the field and it happens.
Now, it is not an overnight thing believe me, but that is the only way to play, it is the only way you can play and have any sort of sustained success. Yeah, you might have something here or something there, a good play here, a good play there, a good quarter here, and a bad quarter but inevitably, you are never going to play a perfect quarter every game. You are never going to have everything perfect go your way so you have to be able to put the bad things behind you and put the last play behind you, every play has a life of its own and you have to live it that way and be able to move on to the next."
10. On if he has talked with athletic director J Batt about the full-time coaching job...
"No, I have not. I am getting ready for Georgia. We have the No. 1 team in the country and it is the biggest challenge of my life taking these group of men over there to Athens at 12 O'Clock on Saturday."
11. On his relationship with Kirby Smart...
"Me and Kirby have know each other for 20-25 years. We played against each other, we were in school at the same time, him at Georgia and me here at Tech. We had played against each other and had mutual friends at the time that became friends. On the road recruiting against each other, together over the years and times over the summer where families would be together in the same area, same spots, same places so it goes back a long way.
He is a good football coach. He has done a heck of a job at his alma mater and looking forward to going out there and going against him on Saturday. I have gone against him a bunch as an offensive line coach so you know... the things I have learned from Coach (Nick) Saban is an endless list. The organization, the accountability, the work ethic, the drive, the ability to put a lot more hours than you think you can into a day.
But to do that, you have to be very organized, you can't be all over the place. You have to trust people, you have to trust the people on your staff, you have to have structure and then how to build a tough, physical, football team. All of those things are things I have learned from the coaches that I have worked for in the past."
12. On how the players have followed his messaging since the coaching transition...
"I told the players... it was very short. very quick was No.1, I was going to be extremely black and white with them. Very direct and very honest. Then, I wanted them to have ownership on this football team and with ownership, they need to understand what comes with ownership. Player ownership comes with two things. No. 1 is accountability and if you are going to be accountable for it, you have to be responsible for it and accountable for the good and the bad and you have to have player buy-in like to have ownership in the team. They understand that responsibility now when things go well. whether it is on the field, off the field, in the classroom, that they are accountable for it.
It is one thing just to say it, but another to let them live it and have a part of that and they think it is all fun and games until things do go wrong and now it comes at the self-responsibility and they have to be accountable for it. Whether it is the extra sprints at practice after a false start or up-downs for a fumble or whatever else it might be for missing class. Accountability goes along with ownership and it becomes a two-way street and when you have that buy-in, you start to flip the mold from the coach-led, player-driven to now you have a player-led organization.
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