Georgia Tech Postgame Quotes That Matter From Brent Key After Loss to Tennessee

For the first time since 1989, Georgia Tech has started a season 0-2.

The Yellow Jackets dropped tonight's game against Tennessee 45-24, and Brent Key's team is still looking for its first win of the season. There were times when they could have closed the gap and made Tennessee sweat a little bit, but they could not make the critical plays to do so.

After the game, head coach Brent Key spoke to the media about his team's performance and here are the most important things that he had to say.

1. Updated the status of Jaylen Mbakwe

During the second half, Georgia Tech cornerback Jaylen Mbakwe suffered a scary injury and had to be carted off the field. After the game, Key took time to address his status:

"He was moving when they moved him off the field. He was talking, responsive. So, obviously, I'm not going to speak anything medically about it. Excuse me, because I don't know. As soon as I walk out of here, that's where I'm going is to check on the guy. But he was talking, he was moving and whatnot when they cleared him off, and that's all I know at this point."

Jaylen Mbakwe was responsive coming off the field and moving, per HC Brent Key. He is going to check on him after the press conference.
— Kelly Quinlan (@Kelly_Quinlan) September 13, 2026

2. On the Tennessee defense giving Alberto Mendoza different looks

It was not the best night for Georgia Tech QB Alberto Mendoza. He finished 26-for-40 for 221 yards and played better in the second half, but two crucial first half interceptions, including one returned for a touchdown, were costly for the Yellow Jackets. Key broke down Mendoza's game during his post-game presser:

"Yeah, they played, they went to more of a, not the entire time, but. a good portion of the time, played a three down front to be able to change up their gaps in the front, but also to bring the edge pressure. And that's what was happening a couple of times, some of the balls that were batted down even as well. And then when you're doing that and they're showing and they played a floater-type guy in the middle that's a down lineman that's playing in a linebacker-type stance, and they're dropping different guys into coverage.

Especially the underneath coverage. And I think after the first couple of drives, when they saw we were getting the ball out quick and hitting some of those underneath routes, they started popping guys out and popped right in the window. One of them, we were committed to throwing RPOs this game, which is what we've been really building our offense behind for the last eight months. And one of them was a RPO, and they got jumped up in the window and took it back. That was a big... Big play by them on their part."

3. Identity of this team through two games...

Georgia Tech has struggled big time on the offensive side of the ball through the first two games of the season and have not been able to run the ball with a lot of success and impose their will. Key talked about his team's identity after the game:

"Yeah, you know, you don't really expect anything. You don't live in that type of world. You know, I guess you say you do it. There's what you want. There's the standard that you have, right, and that you play to. I will say this, last week was nothing close to a standard, an identity, whatever fancy word, you know, culture, whatever word you want to put up on social media. It was not even close to it. It didn't even resemble anything. I thought a lot of times tonight it was a lot closer to what we want to be. But, again, you know, it's a complete game you've got to play doing an I don't question effort out there. I thought we made a lot of strides in our – You know, the pre-snap stuff, the discipline, some of the acts that took place last week's game, you know, those have improved. But, like I said, in the beginning and the end of the day, one, you know, was not good enough to go out and get a win."

4. Rush defense

Georgia Tech struggled to stop the run last week against Colorado and that carried over into their game against Tennessee tonight. The Vols ran for nearly 300 yards tonight against the Yellow Jackets and Key talked about his team's performance on that side of the ball:

"It was almost, you're right, like 299, like right there. Two of them are those big ones at the end. I mean, what, 35-40, something like that. But it was just similar, but some differences than last week. I thought we made some good plays inside. I thought the D-line made some good plays. They did. I mean, I thought we had good production there. But then some of those ones that they start in and everybody sucks in and they bounce out, and now your support element's not there. I mean, they... Start clipping off, you know, 12, 10, 8, 14 yards, those add up fast. And there's a couple of them on third down again, which is something we've got to address. You know, get off the field on those down distances."

5. Second half offense...

Georgia Tech did not score an offensive touchdown in the first half against the Volunteers, but they seemed to be more in a rhythm in the second half, though it was not good enough to win the game or really threaten Tennessee. Key talked after the game about the performance for that unit in the second half:

"Well, I mean. I thought Alberto was in a pretty good rhythm. Obviously, I know he had the two turnovers, but, you know, he'll grow from those. He'll learn from them. But I thought the ability just to – we were spreading the ball around on the perimeter, you know, throwing some quick game, throwing some kind of intermediate-type stuff, and then kind of made a couple adjustments in the run game when they – seeing what they were playing.

And some of those worked. I mean, some of those were good things. And we were able to take advantage of some of the things that we're doing. So just all in all, I mean, an offense is going to be better when you stay on track, when you stay efficient, when you're in manageable D&Ds. If you're sitting there playing at second and 10, second and 12, the whole game, it's going to be hard to ever have a functioning offense. But we stayed ahead of the chains, I thought, better tonight than we did last week for sure."

Georgia Tech will be back at home next Saturday for a matchup against Mercer at 12:00 p.m. ET on ACC Network.

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