Everything From Brent Key's Tuesday Press Conference Ahead of Week Two Game vs Gardner-Webb

After defeating Colorado on the road in week one, Georgia Tech is preparing for their home opener against Gardner-Webb on Saturday. The Yellow Jackets were back on the practice field today and afterward, head coach Brent Key spoke to the media. Here is everything that he had to say.

Opening Statement

"All right, guys, lead off here saying what I said after the football game on Friday night, as far as thanking our fans for coming out there, you know, talking to, talking to players and coaches. I mean, it was super motivating. Not that you need motivation to go out and play, but it just, it helps, the encouragement, it helps guys. It helps the, helps them sustain the energy. You know, but it, the biggest thing is it just shows the support and the care that these people have for the, and our fans have for our players. And our players, players really feed off of that. So I just want to thank then for that, really want to see everybody out this Saturday, Bobby Dodd, we need everybody out.

This team is a team that works hard. They do what's right on the field, off the field in the classroom. They represent Georgia Tech the right way and would love to see as many people as we can get, let's pack the stadium and get people out here this weekend. So with that, we'll move on to the next opponent from last week. We're happy to win and again, we didn't play great to start by any means. And So now it's time to correct those things and move forward to Gardner-Webb, a team that was down 35 to seven against Western Carolina, who was a ranked team last week and ended up 52 points, almost 650 yards total offense.

Explosive football team and led by two players that offensively their quarterback transfer from Liberty. really second week in a row now that we have a Liberty transfer and he's a big kid, he's 6'6, two hundred forty pounds had you know he can run the football he can throw the football stat -wise and he had four hundred yards total offense himself so you know the dual -threat guy 260 throwing 130 on the ground and they're committed to using him and and making making the game go with him.

Defensively, Jamari Young, you know, second year guy there, he came from East Carolina, but you know, you're looking now, he was a conference player of the week last week, the quarterback was national player of the week last week, so you got some good football players, come in here they're gonna, they're gonna be prepared they're gonna be ready and they're not gonna back down by any means and it's gonna be a, it's gonna be a big challenge for us and what we do this week so like we always talk about it It's about what we put into this week. It's about, they're all right, they're all right. They're just, they're kids.

So, but it'll be about us and the focus we have. And when we have to focus on the things that are the most important to the game of football and our focus is on the ball, protecting the ball, getting the ball. And then, you know, eliminating mistakes or you know penalties that they can become big for you. So those are what our focus is. We got to maintain the things you do well and you got to correct the things that you didn't do well there that you made mistakes on. So that's what practice is about. Their head coach you know Cris, Cris Reisert, I'm saying that right.

You know second season at Gardner-Webb has been head coach now for seven years and had a really successful run at Tiffin, where he was the head coach, he's an offensive guy. And I think 32 and 4 was his record at his previous stop. And now taking over Gardner-Webb, expecting them to continue to rise and be a really good program. So it's a big challenge for us as it is every week. And it's what we do between now and then in the game time that's determine what the outcome of that football game is."

1. On the injury report...

"Yeah, I mean, it's like any game you're playing up after football games. Guys are day -to -day, and expecting to have guys back ready to go for Saturday. So the one Rodney, I think Rodney is probably one more week. But he was out practicing today, so it's good to see A .J. was out there today. It was good to see. But again, time will tell when the full time frame comes, it's going to be 100%. So that's one thing we're not going to do.

We're not going to put guys out there that aren't 100 % healthy ready to go."

2. On Haynes King and the hits he took on Friday...

"Yeah, I mean he's, he's a, he's a rare breed, he really is in yeah there's, there's, extreme, extreme amount of empathy when it comes to that but he's one of the few players that age that can truly understand the separation of expectation and empathy and a lot of people want to make that one pie I guess you would say and and split off the percentages of it and if you've got things going on in your personal life it's going to take away from the expectation on the field and we expect it to be a hundred percent in both right you know there's a hundred percent empathy when things are going on in these kids lives or the coach's lives there's also a hundred percent expectation on the field and not intertwining those two and he does an unbelievable job of keeping those two things separate but also giving everything he has into both."

3. On the team's depth...

"Yeah, it's not up to me, it's up to the players and how they develop, how they continue to come along. We wanna play as many people as we can, but at the same time, it's not the YMCA, just because you're on the team, but I mean, you have the opportunity to do out there and play every week. So you earn that privilege to go out and play on Saturdays. And we have a lot of guys that work extremely hard and they might not just be ready from a maturity standpoint. And then we have guys that are ready to have to work harder. So it was really two there and when the time comes there's there's no waiting around and waiting your turn here. I don't believe in that. I believe when you're ready to play, you're going to play.

4. On facing another dual-threat quarterback...

"Yeah, well, we've got a lot of things clean up from last week now. I mean, we were we were very fortunate to win the football game versus, versus a good a a good team on the road. And we've got to clean a lot of those things up. But the advantage is our defense does go against a dual-threat guy every day."

5. On not wanting to have Haynes King take many hits...

"Yeah, look, in football, no matter what position you play, you're going to be subjected to hits. But we don't look at it as absorbing hits. We look at dishing out hits. There's two ways to look at that, right? So, you know, this old adage hammer in the nail. And he sees himself as a hammer. I can guarantee you that. But we've got to continue to get other guys involved, all right, offensively. And we will continue to get other guys involved offensively. Whether it be running backs, receivers, tight ends, whoever it is, we've got a lot of really good players on our offense."

6. On how to focus on cutting down on turnovers...

"Yeah, it doesn't matter what week it is, what practice it is. Ball security, we work ball security every single play of every day. I don't know if you could work more of it than we do, okay? And when you look at the serious events that happened, we had a bad snap that snapped over the head with the new center in there. Then, well, the first one I think was the ball exchange. And if you look at Haynes and Jamal, I mean, how many times have they done that over the course of the last three seasons? Thousands and thousands and thousands of times, right? And even watching the film, talking to those guys, it's one of those things. It was a little bit of an angle here, a little bit there.

You get into the first game. Things are obviously sped up a little bit. If you'd asked me to write down 100 things, I thought, you know, issues that can happen, and you're trying to think, you know, before first game, you know, things that could come up, that wouldn't have been in my top 500, it really wouldn't, but so the detail and the focus that takes place in practice, right? But we've also got to continue to work those things full speed, right? You can't have half speed.

You can't have, you know, You can't do half speed reps when you're practicing whether it's QB center exchange, whether it's QB running back exchange, whether it's 7 -on -7s, whatever it is. Someone said that is the first time a teams won after doing that since 2010, 16 seasons. So it's not something you want to make a habit of by any means. I, the percentages will win it as low as they possibly go when that takes place. We were very fortunate that our team kept the right frame of mind. After the third turnover, our defense goes out there and gets a three and out, great play by Cayman (Spaulding) on the far sideline. To get him to fourth and fourth and short and they ended up kicking and we were able to get in a little bit of a rhythm then."

7. On his message to the team after the three turnovers at the start vs Colorado...

"I don't know if I can say it publicly. Look, I am happy we won the football game but you are looking at something that was a one, two percent chance of happening when you have that string of events so that is not a good start by any means to us. You're happy with how they overcame the adversity in the game on the road. Shows character of a football team, but that shows you have a good team. And if you want to have any opportunity or chance of having a great team, you cannot do those things. So we got a lot of work to do, started on Sunday when we were in here. And it'll continue to go."

8. On the two centers...

"A little bit. But I mean, you say young guys, they're new guys. They're not young. They've been in the program. The expectation is we put you on the field. It's to be able to go out and do your job. And when you enter that position, you touch the football every play. I mean, that in the quarterback. I mean, we talk about the ball, the ball, the ball. When someone touches at every play, we've got to make sure we're taking care of it. I thought Tana settled in as the game went on. But then at the end of the game, I thought Tana settled in as the game went on. But then at the end of the game, And you had those two at the very end. So look, that's something we work on every single day. We put a premium on it, a lot of emphasis and, you know, when you get into a first, that's why I always talk about elevating practice and enclosing that gap between the two, between practice and in games. But it is impossible to emulate or imitate, I guess you would say, what a first game is on the road in a really good, what they had was a really good environment to play college football in.

So continue to work on it, continue to prove it. You might have to tweak a few things here and there, but I've got full confidence in those guys. It's been our center, full 100 % confidence. And my confidence comes from their willingness to work and know that they have to fix something."

9. His assessment of Blake Gideon's play-calling...

"Yeah, I thought he did a good job calling the game. I thought he was calm, and that's something I want to sideline it. You talk all the time about calm breeds calm. To have the defense ready to go, three consecutive drives where a turnover occurs. And you know, they scored on the first one, and they get a stop and come back and then out to the third one. And I mean, the players came up to me and they're like, almost smiling. Coach, we got this, we got it, we're good, we're good. It's about a calming effect for me. JJ said it, and Ahmari said it, they were ready to go play. CP said it, they just went out and played. So that's a credit to Blake for doing that.

We've got a lot of things we got to correct, clean up some of our fits, some of our gap fits, some of our alignments and then communication, which I thought we had really good communication leading up into the game. I thought we had good communication, not great, but at the same time we want to play a lot of football players. We want to play a lot of guys and those guys you play that might be their first time out or new guys and we had a lot of those on defense. It was their first time playing in the Georgia Tech uniform and they're only going to be better from week 2, week 6."

10. On the perimeter tackling in the Colorado game...

"Yeah, I, think we ended up with nine missed tackles in the game, which nine is nine too many. But for a first game, that's a lower number than, lower number than I've seen in the past. But again, like I said, zero is what is perfect, and that's what our expectation is. We got to continue work on using our hands, delivering blows, getting off of blocks on the perimeter, knocking guys back, and setting the edge. And when we set the edge, not letting it get, keeping it constricted, not letting it get widened out and opened up just because you set the edge. So I thought they did a good job, but again, we're for the ability to go out and play, to play great football."

11. On Aaron Philo...

"Yeah, I think it's been a really good camp for Aaron. Aaron had some things in the preseason camp where you're seeing new coverages for the first time, You're seeing different types of coverages, different rotations, different tweaks within and out, things. So you've only seen so many, as a freshman, you've only seen so many sunrises and sunsets. And the more reps he can get in practice, the more reps he gets in games, I mean, the better he's going to be. He's a tremendous talent, tremendous talent, and really excited for his future, and excited we have the guys in the quarterback room we have."

12. On the drive at the end of the first half...

"From our standpoint, from my standpoint, I don't think we dominated them at all. It was an extremely close game. They played good football. We played good football in spurts, but we made way too many mistakes that made it a close game, and that's on us. But I was pleased with the guys going before half. We practice those things every single day, so it's become second nature to We were able to use the timeouts in good timing to leave us an opportunity. And then the slow clock that Haynes did to burn the rest of the time off the clock in order for us to kick the field goal. So the operation, I thought, was really well, but it was a credit to the way they practice and the way that they understand situation football."

13. On Malachi Hosley...

"Yeah, look, good football players are good football players. And yeah, I'd love to have big backs. But if you tell me, if you ask me what Jamal is, Jamal's a big back to me, I mean, the way he runs, You can run with power. He's elusive. He can do it all as well. It's how much dynamite you got inside of you. And he's got a ton. But I thought Malachi came in. Really, three -way, I mean, three -ways. He comes in, he runs the football well. He was a good receiver out of the backfield. He made some really key blocks. Just a tough kid, You know, homegrown guy from Columbus, you know, went up to the Ivy's, had a really, really good year last year and he's going to continue that. He's a good compliment, but we've got other backs there, too, that we'll see. And we'll get on compliment, but we've got other backs there, too, that we'll see."