Everything From Georgia Tech Assistant OL Coach Mike Polly After the Yellow Jackets' Sixth Spring Practice

After getting back from spring break, Georgia Tech got back on the practice field today to continue spring practice with their annual White and Gold Spring Game less than three weeks away. After the Yellow Jackets sixth practice today, assistant offensive line coach Mike Polly, who is in his first year with the program, spoke to the media and here is everything that he had to say.

1. On how he ended up at Georgia Tech...

"I started my career when I got done playing. I started at Middle Tennessee as a graduate assistant, working for Coach Stock, he gave me my first opportunity. Left there and went to Murray State, an FCS school in Western Kentucky, which is where I met Coach Faulkner, our offensive coordinator here. So, Coach Faulkner, Buster was our Tennessee. Couple years later, I followed him to Middle Tennessee, worked with him again, where I was also with Geep. Geep was our O -line coach, Buster was our OC, and I was the running backs coach. Did that for three years. Geep and Buster both left the same year to go different places. Then I moved into the offensive line role, and I was there for another eight years until our head coach, Coach Stock, spent a year in the high school ranks this past season, which was that I never would have expected that I would have done but it was really good for me. Sometimes you kind of need that moment in your career just to step back and see everything. And in the meantime, Keylan Rutledge, one of my offensive linemen that I recruited at Middle and played for us and I got the coach for two years had come to Georgia Tech. Buster and Geep had stayed close friends and coach Key gave me the opportunity and it's it's been unbelievable since. I've been here since January. I tell people all the time and I'm living a dream, having the time of my life, and it's an unbelievable group of kids that I get to work with. I'm just honored to get to do it, to be honest with you."

2. On working for Buster Faulkner again...

"Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So he's still the same person. That's for sure. He's wild. He cares so much about it, which I think is what's really cool. And that's always what has drawn me to wanting to work with him as an assistant. When Buster left Murray State, I was like, I want to work with Buster again. When Buster left Middle, we almost worked together again for a short period of time at another school and now here. And it's just, you know, he's a great guy to work for, but he's just his mind and everything as an offensive coordinator and how he keeps the O-line in mind and how he calls plays and things he does and how he protects the offensive line which is obviously means a lot to me. But he also has grown a ton you know what I mean as a play caller and offensively and what we do here now there are similarities but it's a lot of stuff I've had to relearn you know it wasn't kind of like going back to an old playbook you know he definitely has grown and developed as an offensive coordinator."

3. On Keylan Rutledge...

"What makes Keylan Rutledge special is his mentality and his heart. Just to be honest with you, I don't know how much you guys know about him in high school, but Keylan did not play offensive line. So we had to take a chance on him. He had played tight end. I tell people all the time I went to evaluate Keylan during the season, watch him play. And I go to pre-game and he's catching routes. He's not blocking anybody. And I was like, okay. But man, he was a big kid that could run and could do stuff. And the more I got to know him, we had another assistant coach on our staff, one of our D -Line coaches who was from the same area that Keylan was from. So we knew a lot about him as a person and knew a lot of his high school coaches. And as I just got to know him more and more in the recruiting process. It became evident that people talk about it, like he just had it. And, you know, we got him and, you know, people were like, man, how'd you develop? Keylan developed himself and he's continuing to do that. Um, and that's what makes him so special. And obviously he still has a ton of room to grow, but, uh, man, it's, it was cool for me to, to be away for a year and come back and see like what which key and Geep and Buster and what these guys, how they had taken sort of what I felt like I had built inside, you know, as a parent when you see your kid year, you know, after they go away to college, it was like, man, look at how he's grown and developed. And so, but as a leader, you know, as a second year player for us at MTSU, he was a captain and then I come here, you know, he's only been here for a year and it's already, he's assumed that leadership role and that alpha role. And so, man, what a great a great kid, I'm excited to get to work with him again, for sure."

4. On trying to instill maturity in the younger players...

"Yeah, so the number one way that you mature is through experience. And experience is not something that you can just make up or something that you can just create. You have to go through things, like you have to fail. You have to you have to miss the the blitz pickup and the blitz walkthrough that we do so that you can maybe do it right during practice so that during the game you will do it exactly right and so the way that we develop maturity is through reps and that's that's mental reps that's physical reps that's also reps like you know in our Jacket drills that Coach Wade mentioned a few minutes ago those are like toughness reps you know, developing kids to be tough. And so we get so many reps here and walkthroughs and everything that we do, you're able to mature a guy's faster. And then I think a lot of it goes back to, I'm gonna say they because I wasn't here, but the way that they have recruited here, bringing in the right people, it's a lot easier to mature a guy who wants to develop and wants to grow than a guy who resists it."

5. On being a Co-Offensive Line Coach...

"Yeah, so it's it's definitely been a little bit different. You know what I mean? Like I kind of go back to my first day of spring spring practice here And like the first thing that I hear is coach keys voice behind me like, Mike back up, you know because I'm all up in there a little bit too much probably than I should have been but I mean it's been awesome the way that the rules have changed and what these guys allow me to do and the trust that they put In me to work with and help develop these guys It's definitely different, you know what I mean? But the good thing is like philosophically, mentality wise, like what Coach Key and Geep and Buster have built here, like I couldn't agree with more. So there's nothing that's, you know, I'm just pulling the rope in the same direction. I'm another dude on the rope pulling. And I feel like, you know, as the assistant O -line coach, it's really, one of my big jobs is to increase the development of these young kids. And I try to take that very personal and making sure that, hey, if Geep's having to coach this, maybe I'm standing with the young guy and saying, hey, do you see that? You see the older kid, you know, are you paying attention and just trying to be another set of eyes on those guys to really just increase the development of our young guys."

6. On his evaluation of the offensive line talent...

"Yeah, so I would say the first thing that I noticed was the mentality in the offensive line room. And it is such a good culture in there. And I think that starts from the top with it's the first time in my career I've ever gotten to work for an offensive line coach. Our head coach is an offensive line guy and I think that matters, you know what I mean? And obviously I've been an O -line in my whole life. I've coached O -line and it's pretty cool to get to work for a guy who thinks like you in every facet. But the mentality in the room, the culture in the room, and the talent in the room is good like Coach Wade mentioned like we're young but we're talented and now we have to develop these guys and you know talent only takes you so far you know you have to produce and so we have to just continue to work every day and get better and keep pushing and you know the goal every day is just to get better you know as long as you keep doing that then you know you have the right talent you brought the right guys in, you're gonna be fine."

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