Everything From Brent Key On Tuesday Ahead Of The Matchup Vs Pittsburgh

Opening Statement:

“All right, big week in front of us now. We're here and it's a great opportunity in front of us. Great opportunity Saturday, and very thankful that this game is at home, and here we go with the elevator again. The ghost of Bobby Dodd Stadium. Here we go. But we're playing a very good football team for an opportunity to play for the conference championship. So this is a championship game in its own right. That's the way we're viewing it, the way we're approaching it. And it's on everybody to get the job done. That starts with me, then it's the coordinators, it's the assistant coaches, and it's the players. It is everyone here to be able to. Be at a high, high level of focus this week, a high level of energy, a high level of detail in our coaching, our teaching, detail in the way we practice and doing it full speed, right? To the point where we went live today in practice, right? Live tackling, right? Cuz that's what this is, right? We're playing a tough physical football team. It has an explosive offense. They have a very good defense that runs around. We gotta be at our best. We gotta correct mistakes that we've made. We've gotta improve in certain areas. That starts with me, and be ready to play Saturday night when the ball is kicked off, and we will be.”

On the defensive performance and potentially changing personnel…

“You can't change things this late in the season, right? With the same breath to sit there and think you're going to do the same thing and get different results is not good, that's a good word to say, right? So yeah, we'll make some tweaks in different ways and not give game plan things away by any means.

On Pittsburgh run defense and Pittsbugh head coach Pat Narduzzi …

“It starts with good players. It starts with good players who are very active. They're extremely athletic. They penetrate and get up the field. They played in the same system for you know, since Pat has been there. His whole career. There'll be little tweaks here and there each year, but I mean, it's nine hats on the football. It is nine hats on the ball; they're disruptive up front. The amount of different six-man pressures they bring and play, void zone coverage in the back end, forces you to get rid of the ball fast and make decisions. But they're active, they get off blocks, and they finish the football. It'll be a huge challenge for us. It's the DNA of Pat (Narduzzi). I mean, Pat is a hard-nose, old-school coach. I got a ton of respect for him. How he coaches his football team is how his football team plays year in and year out. The consistency that they play with. He's done a great job, and a lot of respect for him in his program.

On the balance of understanding the magnitude of the game and also treating it like any other game…

“We go into each week and talk about, hey, this is the next game, right? But you get into this part of the season, and they are different. I don't shy away from that.I don't talk about the opponent; I call the opponent by name. We don't talk about winning, but everybody understands that the mission this week, right, is to be our absolute best on Saturday versus Pitt, right? That's who we're playing. That's what it's about. That's what our mission is.”

On what he has appreciated about the team this season…

“The response they've had to ups to downs hadn't always been perfect. As I've said all the time, we're searching for perfection in an imperfect game. We’re going to strive every day to be a perfect version of a football team, knowing that that's not gonna happen. But the response they've had, whether it's the response from one game to another, whether it's a response from one half to another half, response when they're down, response when the ebbs and the flows of the game change. The response of them, that really goes back to character and the commitment to each other. You're not able to win games like we've won in close games or come back and be able to do those things if you're not tight as a football team and close in that locker room.”

On the Malik Rutherford play and Haynes King being first in the endzone…

“If y'all hadn't seen it, you ought to. He throws a little screen out, and he's kind of waiting to see, you know, get ready to his eyes to the sideline and whatnot, and Malik breaks it. You see Josh Beatham kind of full speed running down the sideline. You see Ethan McKinney full speed running. You see Red on top of another guy about 20 yards downfield. You see Malachi comes running up from behind. And then you see lightning come out of nowhere. I mean, he had like an all-time top speed. No, I'm serious. It was like 21 miles an hour, like 21.67. It was crazy speed that he hit. I showed the team just to say, This is what I'm talking about by being 100 % all the time. When you get into championship weeks and championship football in late November, that's what it takes. That's what it takes.”

On going live today in practice a result of what happened on Saturday…

“It wasn't a response to that. We do that every now and then during the season. We've got to shore up some tackling, right? And the only way to do that, I mean, I'm not a genius by any means, and the only way I know to get better at something is to do it. So that's what we did. We've done that before in the past. We've got a really good football team we're playing, and they're a physical team, and I thought it was indeed, and look, we didn't go the whole time. But we had situational times we did and I thought it was needed. I thought the response from our team was really good for them.”

On it being senior night and seniors playing their final game at home…

“That is the game, though. I know it focuses on the game; this is the senior day. The seniors are a huge part of our program where we're at right now. We talked about it after practice. I had them stand up and said, These guys have done a lot for us. Guys have been here one year, guys have been here two, guys have been here three or more. Guys have been here three more years, 13-3 in that stadium. 10-0 in the last two seasons in that stadium, right? That's a far cry from where we're the ones that have been here four years and five years have come from. And it's because of them. Look, this is about the players. It is about the players here at Georgia Tech. It's always been about the players, and it always will be about the players here. All right, the players are the ones out there in the arena going at it.
The respect I have for these players, the good times, the bad times, the ugly, it doesn't matter. To be a Georgia Tech football player, you're part of a very unique club, a privileged club. To honor these guys Saturday night in their final game here, and the way we prepare, and the way we go out and play, is only the right thing to do.”

On where the confidence stems from the team….

“There's definitely no asterisks in the record books. They're either L's or there are W's. So no matter how you get them. It goes back to the resiliency of this team and the closeness of this team. It's not any one player. Yeah, Haynes is a great player, but we have a lot of great players on this team. We have great players on this team that have never played it down this year, right? Because they're valuable to what we do as a football team. A collection of great players has never won anything. It's great teams that win things.”

On what the environment will look like on Saturday at Bobby Dodd…

“Yeah, there's no maybe what it may look like. There's no probably. In this program, we eliminate any grey area. There's not almost, there's not kind of, there's not maybe, and it's not going to kind of be full. It's not going to maybe be full. Bobby Dodd Stadium is going to be rocking on Saturday night from 7 to about 10:30 at night. It is the greatest venue in the country to be able to play a night game here at Bobby Dodd. I cannot wait to see the people in the stadium and how loud they'll be. We're gonna need them all and have that 12th man advantage.”

On how he would describe the season of Haynes King and the country starting to become fans..

“I don't know if I've been on a team where the leader of total offense in the country on the leading total offense in the country. He's been the same. I mean, I think that says it all. He's the individual leader in the entire country. The response players have to him whether it was that touchdown early in the game, and him sprinting. The command he has of the team on the field. He's special, and it's hard to put it into words. Turn the tape on. See, all the time our resumes are what we put on tape, right as a football player. But to know Haynes as an individual is probably what's even cooler. You know, the times we have sit-downs, we meet and we talk and just share so many different things. It's not just him. There are a lot of guys on the team. I mean, we try to meet with so many guys all the time. You know he's been special in this time. The legacy that he leaves here, hopefully, will be continued with other players on the team. I got a feeling that if it's not, he'll be back here in a minute and make sure that it's done the right way once he's gone. So I'm just excited for him, excited for his family, excited for all the seniors. It'll be a special moment on Saturday night.”

On if he has taken a moment to see his vision come to fruition…

“Have you taken a moment to yourself to just kind of think about where you're at, where this program's been gotten in, like, your vision that you had from the jump and starting to see that come to fruition? No, I watched the tape from Saturday night, and there are too many things we have to get better at. Ain't one second to sit back and reflect. Not one bit. Am I excited? Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited we get a chance to play a play-in game here at home.”

On if he sits down with defensive coordinator Blake Gideon on Sundays…

“We have a process where we have a whole form of a sheet we fill out with the good, bad, ugly preparation errors, things we got to do well, things we didn't do well, things we got to continue, how we're going to work in practice, run, pass. I mean everything, goals, all those things. The process is no different on Sundays. We come in, it's identifying the issues, and that was the really frustrating thing in the game, Saturday was, you sit in front of the press and like, I was really speechless. I really was, I mean, you come off a bye week and you expect to see improvements and corrections and things and to see things that aren't. So then you come back in and look through it, and you try to find out why. Immediately, you're going back and you're looking at practice to see how we did it there, how many times we got it called in practice. We did it right in practice, now you start to justify things. Well, justification is nothing more than an excuse. You gotta take ownership of these things. And if I don't take ownership as the head coach, the coordinators aren't going to, and the players aren't going to. So we worked through the whole process and got together with the players at 3:30 and started with them.”

On what the response has been this week…

“We'll find out Saturday. We had a good week or a good day today. But obviously didn't have any bearing on Saturday. These guys have got to have confidence reinstilled in them. Bottom line. Let's not forget now this defense also what they did against Colorado.What they did when they got a big turnover versus Clemson when they went down the field. Same thing with Duke, Clemson game, we're playing ball, against Syracuse, we're playing ball, second play of the game, we fumble. And then they hold them to a field goal right there in a true sudden change situation. So I looked at the defense and told them, said, y'all need to pick your heads up. Get your heads out of your butt. Stop acting like you're not very good and go play like you're capable of playing, right? Not waiting for things to happen. Going and making things happen. Not waiting for the bad to take place. I got after them pretty good in that, but telling them that you're good. You're a good player. Let's fix it and go play that way. You can't be tentative and wait for the other person to do it. Mean, just go play, go cut it loose. Remember what this program's built on: the toughness, the discipline, the commitment to each other, the confidence to go execute.”

On how important will the pass rush be against Mason Heintschel…

“Yeah, it's going to be really important. mean, look, about the back end of the defense. What makes the back end better? Pass rush. Pass rush. All right, so we've got to get guys, whatever it takes, by any means necessary. All right, we're in championship football right now. Whatever it takes to get the job done must be done. So we got to find a way.”

On what stands out about Pat Narduzzi and his ability to play spoiler…

“They're consistent really they are. They've been consistent for so many years, and how they play, and you know, every year, you know, there are a couple of players here they're away from really you know being a competing championship football team. A lot of that's driven at the quarterback position, and they got a young guy right now, and he is spinning it, I mean, he can move, he does not play like a young guy at all. He's got an established program and an established culture that people expect. When they walk in the building, you know what to expect there. That's what we want to have. That's what we're working towards. Do they have some bad games? Yeah, but the consistency and the expectation haven't changed there, and that's why you're able to see these guys come in and win games.”

On if he has taken anything from Coach O’Leary and Coach Saban for moments like Saturday…

“Tons of things I've taken from those guys. You know, understand that if you do the things right in your preparation leading up to the whole year, you continue to do it right. There's things that don't have to change. To say that we understand what the mission is, playing this weekend, that doesn't take away from what the individual process is, from what our process as a team is, for what we do to get ready. That's just understanding that it's a one-game season right now. It is truly a one-game season. But if you're doing things right early on, you don't have to change things. You don't have to make them bigger than they are. That is when you get out of whack. Is it a big game? Yeah, it's a big game. Are things riding on it? Yeah, there's things riding on it. You wouldn't want it any other way, right?
So whether I sit there and say it's a big game or not, you guys are make it out to be. So might as well go ahead and meet it head on, right?”

On the memories with all his seniors, especially the walk ons…

“I'd rather hold that till Thursday. So I was planning on talking about those guys on Thursday. But just look at the guys that started out as walk ons and now have turned into such valuable pieces of the program. Um, the guys that probably no one's ever heard their name that, I'll hold it on Thursday because I'll be honest, that's something I'll get emotional about now. I mean, I'm close with these guys. These guys have been here the whole time. We've been through a lot together. We've been through a lot, and that builds bonds that are tight and that last a long time. Got some special ones, really do. The greatest gift those guys can be given is everyone else rising up and playing for them. The greatest gift they can give us is to leave that legacy and that culture that they've created.

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