Everything From Head Coach Brent Key In His Tuesday Availability

Head coach Brent Key talked to the media on Tuesday. Here is what he said as the Yellow Jackets prepare to travel to Boston College.

Opening Statement….

“So coming off the bye week, now back out to practice, getting ready for a road game this week. Obviously, we talked about last week, talked about the previous game. But we gotta use those emotions and feelings to continue to push us forward. And look, I talked to the team on Sunday night about this. I said we work from the beginning of January, January 6th, really, when we first organized. Workouts and weight room training really to put everything together for the season, right? And you do all that in the hopes and the goals to be able to play meaningful games in November. And here we are, meaningful games in November, exactly what we want, exactly what we've been working for. Everything now really comes to a head in these one-game seasons we have left. So it'll be a lot of challenges this game going up to Boston. But our focus has to be 100 % on the task at hand. It's funny, Tim Salem told me a story yesterday, which y'all can imagine. It was a story of Bud Grant, the old Vikings head coach. I didn't think so. So anyway, in the off-season, I guess he worked on the Alaskan pipeline. They told a story about how the guys would go out there, and they had like five-minute shifts to go out there and have to come back in because it was cold. One day, it broke, one of the machines that ran it broke. So the repairman came in, and he went out in the cold, and he was out there 20, 25, 30 minutes and came back in. It's all prepared and it's all done, fixed. The coach asked him, How in the world did you do that? He said, Well, all my energy was focused on the task in front of me because I knew if that did not get fixed, that oil would be shut off, it'd be a chain reaction of what went on. And it's really a direct correlation to what we talked about on Sunday with the team about all your energy, all your focus going towards one thing. Really, that, you know, like a magnifying glass, laser focus down in, and that's what we have right now. We're excited. It's gonna be a big challenge for us. We're excited, and we're prepared to be up there and take these emotions and feelings that we have and put them to good use on Saturday.

On his relationship with Bill O’brien…

“So this really started when I came on my official visit here in 1995. One of the GAs is always responsible for driving you around in the van or whatever. Billy was the GA that drove me and my mom around when we came here on our official visit. Then in his first years, he was a grad assistant here, but he was one of those ones that even as a GA, you knew there was something different about him. He was treated as a coach, acted as a coach, acted like the job that he wanted, not the one that he had. When he was finished being a GA, he actually went back to his alma mater for like a week or something back to Brown. It was a weird deal because I was recruited by Brown coming out of high school. The coach that was recruiting me was one of his good friends. So that was kind of the relationship we struck up when I came here on my visit. Goes there for a week or two, and then we have a position open up, and he comes back down as a running backs coach, and a lot of really good coaches are on that staff when I was playing. That all heavily influenced me into who I am today and why I do what I do today. And then fast forward to being done playing, and I'm a grad assistant. It's his first year as the offensive coordinator here. He was blessed with the absolute worst GA in the history of the world. And that was me. I feel sorry for him. I apologize to him all the time for it. And then obviously the relationship has been strong for a long time. And so much respect for him. So many things that he's taught me and that are part of this program that he didn't even realize and doesn't even know, just from time going out and visiting him out in Houston or
Conversations. Heck of a football coach, great person. His wife Colleen, is amazing. The conference head coach's meetings my wife and her were able to spend some time together too. Just a great person, great to be around, terrific football coach. You turn the tape on, you see his identity all over the tape when it comes to the physicality they play with and how they play the game. The record is not indicative to anything you see on tape when you watch him play. So he's a competitor at the highest level. Can't say enough great things about him and how much respect I have for OB and the influence he's had on me as a football coach and as a person.”

On anything he tries to model after Bill O’brien ....

“Yeah. One of the things I talk about here all the time is how you define toughness by watching film, how you cover kicks, how you stop the run, how you run the football. That's something I picked up from him, just going out and visiting when he was at Houston and things he would talk about. And so there are several things that have been part of the culture or the identity of our football team that came from him. Learned a lot of football from him, too, a lot of football.

On what stands out about Boston College….

“The kicker's amazing and one of the best kickers in the country. The way they run the football, the detail they have in the run game. The complementary plays, the tackle over stuff with the tight end backside, a lot of things to create conflict in the run game. I've been super impressed with their tight end group. Mean, those guys come off and they will strike you off the line of scrimmage. They get movement at the point of attack, and they control the C area. We got to do a great job with our defensive ends this week. As much power and counter and duo as they run, the plays that compliment each other. There's detail in it, you can see that. Defensively,there's varying looks they're gonna give you. I expect them to line up and play low hat safeties and have eyes on and have extra eyes, extra hat on the quarterback in the run game. So we've got to play a complete game. ah Again, it's not indicative of what their record is. But they're well coached football team. They've had a run of bad luck with some things, but that stuff changes pretty quickly. So we have to be prepared. Have to use all of our energy focused in and going up and accomplishing what we have to accomplish.”

On Dylan Lonergan…

“Yeah, he uses his feet well. Dylan was really good player coming out of high school that we recruited here in my first year. Obviously the relationship with OB comes from their time over in Tuscaloosa. A really good arm; he's had some grace with the ball on the ground or a turnover, but he's got the arm talent. He's got the feet to hurt you in scrambling or design quarterback runs that they will run. A lot of conflict in what they do offensively now. It puts a lot of stress on the defense and there are a lot of things we have to, ah I'm pretty sure that we will try to expose early in the game. Things that we, whether we didn't do well in the previous game or different formation things or fits, imagine we'll see those early in the football game.”

On the struggles of the run defense….

“We've done a lot of things schematically. Then lot of it comes back to players, defeating blocks, getting off blocks, anchoring down, setting the edge. This is a game we have to set the edge, right? I'm not talking about contain. Contain can be from here to Marietta, right? And you still have to contain to be able to set the edge and violently set the edge and containing those things and forcing those balls to stay inside and not bounce.”

On how getting guys backs help the defense and the run game….

“It's probably the opposite, probably a little less aggressive, you'd say. mean, be able to play more technique, get guys back up front. Helps in that regard, you get guys on the back end now. It changes some of the coverages you can play, changes how you look to protect a certain guy here or there. But at end of the day, we've got to go out and we've got to perform, we've got to play good defense. We got to be able to stop the run and keep the explosives going over our head. And you can't bleed both ways, you can't do it. You have to be able to,
to take something away and then adjust the rest.”

On Malachi Hosley and his breakaway ability….

“That was a big thing at the end of last season. We had to build depth at that position (RB), and we did that. He's got really good balance and body control. He very rarely goes down the first time, whether he spins out of it, whether he puts a hand down and keeps his balance and keeps going. He's got really low center of gravity, where he plays with some power too. I mean, he's not afraid of collisions, he's not afraid of taking people on, but he's also got the ability to make people miss, and he's been good with the ball out in space as well. So a lot of schematically, he's got really good vision to be able to see the cutback lanes, but as a running back, you have to understand what the reads are, you're reading it, and be disciplined with your reads in order to able to then let your ability take over.”

On how the offense needs to play vs Wake Forest….

“We've got to continue to move the ball in the open area of the field, but when we get in red area, we need to score touchdowns, bottom line. Way too many field goals we've kicked and thank goodness we have a really good kicker. I have a way too many times we've gotten down there and I mean, we've had, I think I looked at it, 12 times we've been inside the 10-yard line this season or 27 to 39 touchdowns, I believe it is. 12 of those times and then. So many of them been down inside the 10. We've had three penalties that have brought us back. The disciplines have to maintain itself in the highest pressure moments. But you sit there and say We've got to do this, we've got to do that. This needs to happen; we can't do this. That's all a bunch of bull crap. We need to line up and we need to get the ball in the end zone, bottom line. If we want to continue to play meaningful games in the month of November, we need to score touchdowns.”

On the health of the team….

“We are very healthy this time of year. There's guys that have been banged up during the season. That's what the bye week are for is to be able to sharpen your edge this type of year, but also get guys healthy. Time is the best cure all. It is. So hopefully we'll know towards the end of the week what guys will be getting back and not getting back, they're all out there right now. I say at all time, player availability is the most important thing. But I thought Sunday's practice, when we came out Sunday, it was as fast and crisp and as much energy as we've had and carried over into today.

On why Georgia Tech has been having issues in the redzone....

“We had two fourth downs, we went forward and didn't get it. Those were execution, okay? Me and Buster sit down every Sunday and we go through all the different situational calls and it'd be something, man, I'm beating myself up on that. Was like, don't, yeah, you can always second guess yourself as a play caller, right? That's easy to have 20-20 hindsight, but we've to be able to execute as well. And that's what I love about him. He’s going to look at himself number one. That's what great coaches do. They look at themselves and we put ourselves in that position and say, What can we do better? It becomes the execution of the player. We've had three times that we had penalties that backed us up. So I think we're 27 to 39 with two of them being, is it 27-39 Mike? Am I right on it? Don't worry about it. You know, we've been consistent with the field goals, but my gosh, too many times inside the 10 yard line. The penalties have been huge. We had drops. I mean right there alone, that's four or five. Now you're looking at pretty good percentages. We've got a high percentage of scoring in the red area.
Three and seven is a big difference now, big difference. I think that showed up last week. You start stacking up threes instead of sevens. mean, that is a major, major thing. And now how you have to play the game going into late in the third and the fourth quarter.”

On his personal health…

“I appreciate you asking man. That makes that makes my day. I feel great. I’m just finishing a round of antibiotics and I've been, you know, had some IVs and probably be a questionable, questionable to probable. I feel good. I feel great. uh That's one of the greatest things about coaching and coaching college football is being around the kids, being around young guys and really being able to feed off of them and their emotions. If you've been in practice today for the entirety and seeing just the energy that they have right now, it really is contagious.”

On how competitive the ACC conference has been…

“Yeah, I don't know what type of recognition it gets and doesn't get. I've seen it with competitive league where anybody can beat anybody any given week. That's really a reflection of college football right now. Everybody wants to talk about rev share and NIL and transfer portal and all these things in a negative light. I mean, to me, it's been the greatest thing that can happen to college football. Have there been some bumpy roads with it in the start? Yeah, but I mean that's every 15 years or so there's a major shift and change in college football. If you go back and look at the last 60 years, probably, you can see those changes and shifts. And once you kind of weather the initial storm, they're usually always for the better. It’s not going anywhere, it's not changing. What it's done though, it's really leveled the playing field a lot. It's allowed teams to change rosters really fast. Now, just to change your roster is part of it. You also have to have them be able to fit into the locker room and culture of your team. But I mean, being able to sit down and watch some games on Saturday during the bye, man, it's exciting. It's really exciting. I would say probably in the last three years, college football has done almost a 180 and just the competitiveness of it. Every game is coming down to the wire. A lot of these meaningful games are coming down to the wire. You see really good players on teams that in the past be like, that doesn’t make sense. And you see teams in the past that were considered. You know these dynasty blue blood programs that are beatable every week, right? And it's awesome. It really is. I mean, that's what you do for. That’s why the NFL is built to be a competitive league, right? It's built where the first pick in the draft was the last-place team. So there's always that parity in the game, and college football is becoming that too. I think it's only going to make college football a better product as we continue to move forward with it.”

On if he sees any difference in his approach with the opportunity to be in control of its own destiny (Georgia Tech) despite loss to NC State...

“That was so long ago. You have a short memory. When I talk about emotions, there are two emotions that are felt right now by this team, and by everybody involved in this thing. Number one, there's an anger, a pissed off, hurt, mad emotion from the previous game. We've had two weeks to sit on that thing. Damn right I'm pissed off. Everyone is. But on the flip side, there's the excitement and the energy of what's in front of us. So we gotta be able to take those emotions, and football is, oh, we can't use emotion. No, you have to take your emotions and channel them into energy. That's what football is about. So, really, you have both ends of the spectrum with our team right now. And that's what we're using the channelling that energy. Now we've just got to channel it over the next three days, four days into that small pinpoint focus in the ability to go compete uh on Saturday.

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