Georgia Tech Football Promotes Brent Key to Head Coach, per Sources

The Yellow Jackets will stick with their interim coach after a 4–4 finish to the 2022 season.

Georgia Tech is promoting interim head football coach Brent Key to the permanent head coaching position, sources tell Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger

Key, who was given the interim role after the Yellow Jackets fired Geoff Collins following a 1–3 start, showed promise in eight games at the helm. Georgia Tech went 4–4 down the stretch, boasting wins over Pitt, Duke, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, ultimately finishing the year 5–7. 

Key is also a former team captain and All-ACC offensive lineman at Georgia Tech, where he started 44 games from 1997 to 2000. He returned to his alma mater in 2019 as an assistant under Collins, serving as the assistant head coach, run game coordinator and offensive line coach prior to being named the interim head coach.

When asked by ESPN’s Andrea Adelson in October whether he wanted the full-time head coaching gig, Key said he was focused on doing a great job with the position that he already had.

“I’m an alumni from here. I really hold this place in super high regard for the lessons that I learned,” Key said, per Adelson. “But this is not one bit about trying to get a job. This is about doing a great job with the job that we have.”

Key is the first hire for new Georgia Tech athletic director J Batt, who arrived from Alabama in October. An official announcement is expected in the near future.


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Zach Koons
ZACH KOONS

Zach Koons is a programming editor at Sports Illustrated who frequently writes about Formula One. He joined SI as a breaking/trending news writer in February 2022 before joining the programming team in 2023. Koons previously worked at The Spun and interned for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently hosts the "Bleav in Northwestern" podcast and received a bachelor's in journalism from Northwestern University.