Everything From Head Coach Brent Key In His Final Media Availability Ahead Of The Matchup Vs NC State

Georgia Tech is gearing up to play against NC State this weekend, and head coach Brent Key met with the media one final time. Here is everything he said.

The Latest On Injury Report...

“Ahmari is still out making good improvement. He'll still be out this week. Uh (Myles) Forristall and Savon (Riley) Questionable. And what was the other one after that? Probable. Okay. I know probable. Harrison (Moore) Malik (Rutherford). Yes. Yes. Harrison Moore. Malik Rutherford, probable. All right. And then questionable, we have Jy Gilmore, questionable, and Matt Alexander, questionable. So that's it. Didn't miss anybody. Even forgetting my sheet, I was good. So thanks, Mike. All right. We want to make sure we're doing right on those things. Doing right by the kids, number one. That's the biggest thing.”

Opening Statement….

Two days out from a really big game. This is a huge challenge for us playing a night game up there. They've got a great fan base. Uh, expecting a night, really good crowd, Halloween weekend. Expecting a lot of emotion packed into the stadium and, uh, they're a tough physical football team and have been for a long time. That’s the MO of not only their program but of the head coach. Um, and they've got good players. They've been explosive on offense, have explosive players. We're looking for a really big challenge. We've had a good week of preparation up to this point. Team's excited and excited to go compete against a good ACC opponent.”

On Jason Moore….

Did you see that little belly dance thing he did after? Yeah, he talked about it. I made him during the team meeting the other day when he came in. I was trying to learn it, trying to teach myself, and I don't have the wiggle. Yeah. You know, JMo, I think it was gosh, it was probably when I had just come back here and we had a camp, summer camp, and then he came in, it was a you getting ready to go into his senior year and play an offensive line. I just thought, you know, he would have been an outstanding candidate to be able to get here as a walk-on and, you know, he made that decision to come here, and he was on the offensive line for a little bit. We needed some help on the other side of the ball, and we moved him over there and really found a home there, and you know, I mean, you're talking about a guy that's worked multiple jobs to support himself.

While he was a walk-on paying his way through school, he just affects everyone on the team in such a positive manner; everybody pulls for him, and now he's really carved out a good role in this football team on the defensive line for a couple of years now. He was on some special teams three years ago and worked his way into, you know, playing a little bit and then playing more and then, you know, in a starting position on the defensive line, and he's earned that. It's not by default. It's what he's earned and, you know, to go through that journey that he's been through and be able to have success that he's had. A really, really bright future for JMO.

On Ethan MacKenny….

“He's been playing good football, really good football. Ethan's special to me just because of the length of time that I've known him. Obviously, I know his mom. You know, we were in school together here. She was an outstanding basketball player, and he's got an entire family of athletes. He was probably 215 lbs first time he came to a game and I think he finally got about 235-237 and I remember I told him I said that if you can get to 250 say you'll have a chance and came to camp and comes back to camp again and I've still got the picture on my phone of him you know me and him standing next to each other. I think he might have been 245 at that point was just a really good skill set and offered him. As we went on he he committed and didn't take any other visits, and then you know, towards the end of his senior year, he really started blowing up a lot, and you know we go in that first game, I think it was Louisville what three years ago, had some rough spots with the guy that was in front of him. We throw him in the game, and you know, as a freshman true freshman playing O line, you know, specifically left tackle, you're really just going off of ability, you know, athletic ability, and you really don't know what you're supposed to be doing. Just stay in front of the guy and move the guy, right?

Well, then you start to learn more and more about the game and the position you play now, you really realize how much you don't know, and then it starts to slow you down. I think he started seven, eight games as a true freshman at left tackle. I knew then he had a really really bright future and then last year he got banged up and you know missed some time early. Now the mental things start to happen, you know you start to weigh on you. He worked hard to work through those things, and fortunately, we're able to redshirt him last year, so now he's really playing in his second full year and really third year overall as a sophomore at left tackle. He’s been playing really good football. Been super consistent all year. Run and pass have just been a rock there for us. The mentality he comes out with every day. He's matured so much. Love Ethan. Love what he's about. Love his family. He's going to continue to have a bright future because he's going to continue to improve a lot.”

On Interior of the defensive line…

“I mean, it's something we've been working on a lot. I think everybody knows the work we've been putting in to get those, and whether it's uh you know individual techniques and strain and effort, or you know schematic things. At the end of the day, you have to be able to get sacks. It's not just about giving effort, it's about the second efforts and the third efforts and the strain. I mean, it's not easy to pass rush, and that's something that takes a lot out of those guys, especially when you're working bull rushes inside and different things. We've been able to be more effective with it.

We've been able to affect the quarterback. We've still got to improve it. We still have to improve our containment of the quarterback. We've worked really hard on that. Muddying up those gaps up front, and I've been I've been really pleased with those guys with their improvement, and I still feel like we have a long way can go. Akelo has been a real force with being out, you know couplegames. I think three games. I think production-wise for, you know, for a defensive tackle production wise with with pass rush sacks, TFLs, I think he's still one of the one of, if not the top of the top of the position right now. So excited that he's back. He's excited that he's back. He's been in such a great frame of mind this week, just knowing he's got a chance to come back. He said he was able to sit back and do a little reflecting when he's out, and sometimes that's really good for guys, really good. I'm expecting a really good game Saturday night from him.”

On the secondary being banged up and who is stepping up…

“The same guys that have been playing. I mean, we've been pretty good. Savion went down in the first game, so we didn't get much out of him, and he's getting close, guys, I mean, to being back. So he's out there starting to get reps now and do things, but the safeties have been pretty much the guys that they are.It's part of it's part of football part of the position. I mean, Ahmari will be down another week or so. And who else? You know, Rod (Rodney Shelley) has stepped up and had to play. We talked about him last week. Uh, Daiquan, you know, Dalen's right there. Dalen's right there on the cusp of being ready to play a lot of football for us. We started working with him in about a month ago on special teams, playing a lot of special teams. Zach (Zachary Tobe) has been playing pretty solid out there. It's good when you usually don't call a corner's name. You know, corners and tackles, offensive tackles are like the same thing. I mean, out there on the islands, and if you're not calling their name, they're probably doing their job. We had a scare with him last week, and thank goodness he's good to go. Jon Mitchell is another one that's been getting a lot of valuable reps, learning from his mistakes, improving things. I mean, he's been a sure tackler for us when he's been out there. You know, he had a couple last week where he stuck his head where he shouldn't have, and the ball ends up spitting. But, you know, he'll learn from those things and continue to grow his a young redshirt freshman. I think, like I said on Tuesday, that's why we play a lot of guys early in the season. Um, a lot of guys are getting valuable reps and we're going to need all of them.”

On Chad Alexander…

“I'd like to compliment you on doing a good job of the guys that are no longer on the injury report by asking questions about them, but we'll see Saturday night. Excited he's back.”

On the turnover margin and havoc rate….

“We talked about it on Sunday when I showed them those numbers, and you know we've improved, but the improvement's still this. From the first game to now yeah, if you want to look at it like that as a whole yeah there's improvement. It’s not every week you're going to get lower lower higher higher higher. They're going in the right direction. A lot of it depends on the plays played right well, that's as a percentage. That's why it's not just total. That's the thing I like about it and why I like using it because whether you play 60 plays in the game, 55 plays in the game, or, you know, 95 plays in the game, it's going to give you a true look at that. I look at that in production on defense, production on offense, too. I don't care how many, you know, TFLS somebody has or many pass breakups. Well, how many plays are they playing? You know, what's the percentage of time they're out there that they're actually impacting the game? Then we put it all together in the offense, defense, havoc, and the margin of error. We've improved on it. think that's pretty obvious by the turnovers in the games. We've improved on our turnovers, but we've got to continue to improve on the takeaways because we're looking at the overall margin turnover margin for a team. It's not just one side of the ball that you win games with. I don't believe in that. It's complimentary football. It's playing a full game in all three phases. We got to continue to work on that, you know, getting our hands on the football. Getting takeaways, getting the ball out, protecting the ball on offense.

We had a couple last week that could have been turnovers. They were, you know, ball spit out, and we can't have those. I think defensively, the pass breakups have improved over the last really three weeks. We're still kind of hot and cold with the TFLs. The TFLs are what really increase or decrease that number because you can look there and say, "Okay, well, you know, on offense, we didn't give up a sack this game, but we had, you know, five or six TFLs." Well, that category it's the same. It's sacks and TFLs combined. It's plays made behind the line of scrimmage. You might have two or three sacks in a game, but you don't get any TFLs, right? It's about getting those guys to go the other way and us not going that way on offense. So, you know, they've improved over the year. I think you probably guessed I'm never going to be satisfied with it until it's consistently zero.”

On how important Haynes King has been to the program and trickling down to the team…

“He's the quarterback, so there's going to be more stories written about him. There's going to be more things said about him because he's the quarterback. It's the nature of that position, right? 50 60 other guys on the team you could write about and talk about that are the exact same, you know, as far as their mindset, their toughness, their will to win, putting the team first, all those things that we talk about with him. He just happens to be the quarterback and be the, you know, the tip of the spear, I guess you'd say, for what we are. I mean, and deservingly so. Deservingly so. I think the first words that come out of everybody's mouth when they talk about Haynes are toughness and grit. That's a given. We know that, right? It's time people start talking about, you know, what a complete quarterback he is, too. Ability to run, throw, lead, and get everybody set. You know, the number of times that, you know, I'm looking at the clock every play and that thing's ticking down. I'm standing right there by the official four, three, and it was about two years ago. I think we were playing we were playing Miami, and I'm sitting there, and it gets to one, and I bang the timeout, and he comes to the sideline. He goes, "I was going to snap it." So now I sit right there and I'm like and sure enough, I mean I'm like boom there's the ball. I'm like, so there's a sense of comfort that goes hand in hand, right? You know your players, the players know you, you know your coaches, your coaches know you. That’s what continuity does. That's what you know, keeping players in your program and retention does. It allows you to build that rapport with guys, and now when you're on the field playing, it's truly everybody playing together as one, right? Cuz you feed off each other. It's no different than a guard and a tackle playing next to each other for a lot of games. Same with the head coach and the quarterback, and how you have to manage the game.

On the defensive line as a whole…

“I think early in the season, a lot of people were saying, well, you know, we got to get more sacks. We've got to get more TFLs. I agree. I want those, too, right? I also want to stop the run. I want to be able to do this. I want to be able to clog up the gaps. We were very hot and cold early. We weren't good, then we were, you know, good, then, but I've seen the last three weeks consistency. That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for consistency. I'm looking for how they play every play. How they use their hands, how they get off blocks. I think that's what it was early on. I don't think I know. I mean, there are a lot of times we would be where we're supposed to be, right? Playing the block the way we're supposed to play it. Where's the overlap in the defense? You know, we're getting off the block and shedding the block, getting to the ball carrier, so there's more than one person. If we're in our gap, but that gap's getting expanded and getting widened, and now it's the one person that has to fill the gap, there's there's a lot of room in there. Being able to constrict those areas, the running lanes, being able to compress the pocket, they've made an improvement. Again, every week needs to, you know, continually see an improvement, right? You're either getting better or worse, and that's as a football team, that's by position, that's by side of the ball. You are not just going to stay the same, as they've been good, you know. So that's why I'm always saying, well, it's either this or it's this or it's this. You don't just stay the same. You're always getting better or worse. I think the position as a whole is improving right now at the right time.”

On the slow road starts this season as team…

“Battery charger. And if that didn't work, it was going to go to a what? Cattle prod. Cattle prods have been used. Cattle prods have been used. It's by no means do you go into a game and say, "Hey guys, let's play it safe. Let's conserve our energy. Let's go out there and just make sure we can last and make it to the fourth. Don't give too much early. We'll come in at halftime and give you some gummy bears and some PowerAid and get you some energy, and then we'll go. Not at all. I want to start fast. Yeah, I want to play fast in the second quarter. Yeah, let's come out in the second half and play fast. It’s very interesting, though, when you look at the season as a whole, which quarters we actually have played the best in. If you start out fast or not if when you start out fast, inevitably, the next week the question is going to be how do we continue to keep it going in the second half? All right, how do we finish better? So, but look, from my standpoint, every quarter, every half, every drive we have should be better than the last. I want to start out fast in that second drive. I want to be faster than that, right? I want to be better than that. Same on defense. I mean, I think in first quarter, we've given up 16 points in the first quarter this year. All right. So, we've started fast on defense. So, what's the reason for that? We've given up 16 points. Within the second quarter, we got to play better in second quarter. So, as a whole, as a football team, there are ebbs and flows. That's always going to be the case. Even though, as a coach, you don't want it. You coach to not have those. But at the same time, it's complementary football. I keep saying that, right? There's going to be times, and I hate to say that the offense might come out and the defense has good players, too, or the defense has good coaches. You know, maybe it's not mistakes. You know, the first game of the year was on us. Second game of the year, that was on us, right? Can we execute better at times? Yes.

Other times, they have good coaches and schemes they've put together. A couple of those games, you know, the opponent we were playing had a bye week the week before. That's been a very big thing when you look at it. You look at the bye weeks that come in front and then the execution. You've got to ask him. He's about to break the door when he went out. It was red. So that's a big part of it. So, how do we go and say, "Okay, well, the team we're about to play had a bye week the week before. They had a little more time to uh for their players to get repetition on what we're doing." Well, how do we combat that? That's something we've looked at and say, "Okay, it happened twice now. So, we got to have an answer for the next time." Uh, long answer probably didn't answer what your question actually was, but how do we combat it? Battery chargers, cattle prods.

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