Everything From Brent Key's Media Availability Ahead of Game vs North Carolina

Georgia Tech faces North Carolina on Saturday at 8:00 p.m.

Today was the first chance that Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key got to meet with the media ahead of the matchup on Saturday against North Carolina. Georgia Tech is hosting the Tar Heels for homecoming and the Yellow Jackets will be trying to bounce back from a tough loss to Boston College. 

Here is everything from Key ahead of the matchup with the Tar Heels. 

Opening Statement: 

"Had a chance to get back out on the field today, disappointing loss on Saturday and we went through the team meeting, position meeting, individual meetings, all of those on Sunday to look through it and the message is you can't look in the rearview mirror, you have to look forward with those things because one thing can lead to another and we have had examples of those things this year where you have to put that past and have short memories and move on. Like anytime, you gotta know what put you in a position to win a game, what put you in a position to be where you were in the fourth quarter and you have to know what you did that did not allow you to win the football game and eliminate those things, improve those things and really the difference this week in the team meeting, went around the room and players talk it out and say those things. Obviously they were correct in what was said, the good and the bad things coming after their meetings with the offense, defense, special teams and in their position meetings, having gotten the corrections. 

The kids are very aware. After the fact of knowing them, we have to take those things to give during the game and prior to them and I don't think anyone would tell you that they don't understand those things prior but then pushing through and working through those things to get to the end is what we have to push forward with and the consistency. Its a deal where you look and say, well if you totally did not know how to do it, that is one thing. But when you have proven to do it numerous times to compete the entire game , then you have to take that and make it consistent. That is what we are working towards and what we are doing. 

Congrats to Boston College, we knew that it was going to be a four-quarter game and we were not able to come out the way we wanted to in the fourth quarter and we have to play better football in the fourth quarter and be in a better place to be able to sustain an edge and a toughness that we have to be able to in those situations. 

Looking forward to the game this weekend, we have a good opponent coming in. Credit to Coach (Mack) Brown and what he has done his entire career and where UNC is this year. They had a tough loss last week and I know they will be coming in hungry and ready to play too. Excited to get going this week, excited to be back out there again today, and excited to be back out there on Saturday."

1. On the second half run defense...

"If you look at the end of the third quarter, we allowed 155 yards rushing. At the end of the game, it was just under 310 yards rushing. You're talking doubling the rushing total in the fourth quarter. Does that mean that things were done differently or called differently? No, it is the ability to execute in the fourth better than the first, second, or third and it is attributed to a lot of different things and we have to continue to work and get better at. We are aware of it and it is something that we talked about Sunday with the team."

2. On the substitution issues on defense and if the switch to Kevin Sherrer as defensive coordinator attributed to that...

"It can be attributed to a combination of both. That is the first team we have played this year that had the sort of substitutions that they did. So you are talking from going to three wide receivers and one tight end to seven or eight offensive linemen and one receiver then two back and six offensive linemen so the matchups were different there and to line up in a 4-2 nickel defense that you would play in a three wide receiver, 11 personnel team and now all of a sudden there are seven offensive linemen and two tight ends in the game, you are not going to do that so that is something that is unique in the team that we played, it was not like it was something that we were practicing for the last six, seven, or eight months. That is something weekly that you have going in and when you go to a jumbo or hippo type of package, you are not putting in smaller bodies, you are putting in bigger bodies. 

Say one person tweaks an ankle or one person is a sub and he is out and does not hear it... there is just a lot of moving parts there where we have to do a better job of during the week of creating those situations to be exactly like they are during the game. Bottom line. It is not like it caught you off guard, it was something they did, we knew that they did it and we had the right plan for it, but when you get caught off guard there, it goes back to the week of preparation and that goes back to how we practice them and replicate them in real-time during the week."

3. On what has allowed the team to bounce back from losses this season...

"I wish that it was a light switch that I could flip on and off and tape up with duct tape and leave it on, but that is not the case. They have bounced back, but really more it shows what the team is capable of consistently. Yeah, there is that bounce back but why are we so happy with a bounce back, but so deflated with, would you call it a bounce down I guess? A deflation I guess? It is the consistency that we are looking for. That is the thing, the team shows that they are capable of doing it and we have to continue to do it consistently and get that done. I really wish there was a better concrete thing to say than a bounce back but there would not be a bounce back if there was not a down game."

4. On why his team plays better as the underdog than the favorite... 

"First off, its illegal in NCAA to look at lines for games and to even talk about those things. That is something that is made up and talked about in the world and those are external things that take place. Whose the favorite, whose not the favorite, who is supposed to win, what games are you supposed to win to get to this or not supposed to win... those are all external things that are fabricated without looking at tape, without looking at the other team, without looking at both teams, without looking at the matchup, so that in my mind is one of the biggest problems that we have. For whatever reason, I say it all the time guys, there are so many external things that these kids, coaches, adults, that they see everyday and whether we like it or not, they get engrained in people's heads. If you can shut off the social media for a week, if you could force everyone too, but it is almost human nature to flick through and look at it. 

And it is not just social media or friends or family, it is all over and that is human nature, that is the way the world is and has been ever since I have been involved in football, but we have to continue to block those things out and have the mindset that the only thing that matters is the message that takes place in the building or the message of the knowledge of your opponent based on what you see on tape, how you view them, how they matchup with you and how you matchup with you, your plan, your trust in your plan and the trust in the players around you to execute the plan and that is something that we continue to work on every day and work with every day from mindset factor and having the right mindset every game. 

Was the mindset good going into the game? Yeah, it was a good week of practice and I will flat out say that it is not. But then that mindset throughout the game when you get tired in the third quarter, when it is a key play in the middle of the second quarter when you don't know if it will have an outcome on the game. There are only about five or six plays that will have an impact on the outcome of a football game and the beauty of college football is you don't know when that is going to happen."

5. On the value of having those team meetings after the game...

"We have a team meeting after every game on Sunday. We go through the same process, start at 3:30 and going through position meetings, unit meetings, special teams meeting, dinner, team meeting, scouting report overview and then practice on Sunday nights. The process is the same, the approach we take into the team meeting is pretty routine, it changes per the previous game and the next game. Having players speak up, that is not something unique or new but I did want to hear their opinions and moreso... its one thing for us to say it, it is one thing for me to say it, it is one thing for someone to say something to their kids, but when they repeat it back to you and you make them say it it ingrains in your head a little bit more I think and now all of a sudden you hear your peers say the same thing unprovoked, I think that has a bigger impact on the other guys on the team.

6. On Haynes King forcing some throws down the field...

"Like I have said before, we gotta continue to play around Haynes in all three phases, we really do. He is such a competitor and that is what you want in your quarterback position, you want a competitor, you want someone who will put it on their back and put it on their shoulders to go and win the football game but unfortunately it does not happen every time and sometimes they press and try to make up more ground or do those things and the ball goes in a tighter window and look, there is some of those that he is hitting through tight windows and been great plays this season and have been great plays we have needed but there are things that I know Chris (Weinke) and Buster (Faulkner) both are very cognizant of that and he is cognizant of that, when you are a quarterback, you understand you are under the microscope all the time and you understand exactly what you do right and wrong and his ability to coach through even the good plays and things he has to do better and that is why he has made such improvement and I fully expect Haynes to make that improvement and to get better and continue to eliminate the things that are hurting."

7. On what makes defending this UNC offense so tough...

"Their quarterback. They have good skill players, they added a skill player a couple of weeks ago that is a dynamic and explosive player that added a lot to it. They are able to get their running backs going but it goes through Drake (Maye), it is pretty obvious. They have a lot of experience up front on their offensive line, their coordinator and play caller is doing a good job of doing stuff that Drake is comfortable with and playing through or calling the game through his eyes. They are a well rounded team and the quarterback is what makes it go and his ability to get the ball out and get it to his playmakers."

8. On how to get the running game going...

"It is big little. It really is. You get a big run here and a lot of the things that we are doing now are quarterback driven and got some plays where it is allowing Haynes to make some reads and pull the ball and get on the perimeter but you can't look at a statistic and we talk about stats all the time and that is where stats and analytics are different. Analytics really drill down and if you are really analytical about things and really look and take some of the big out of there and that is where some of the inconsistencies show up and me and Buster (Faulkner) talk a long time through Saturday night and Sunday. 

It is tough to call plays when we get a 10-yard run or a 12-yard run or an 8-yard run within the games. Now the last two run calls we have had, maybe it was a one-yard gain, a two-yard gain and now you are sitting at second and nine and well everything in the world tells you that you need to run the ball. Just, you have 20 seconds in there, really 10 seconds, to make a full decision between the last play being called and the next one and like, the last three times they did it, it was a six-yard gain so we have to do a better job offensively of running the football and take that off the coordinator and the play calling so now there is an ease and there is a flow because that affects everything. It affects the defense being on the field, it affects the field position and the game, which that was a game where we needed to win the field position battle, I think it was a plus or minus one yard, so it was dead even field position, that was one of the key factors we needed to win so that consistency running the football is something that has to improve. How it is going to improve there will be several things this week that we will do to change a couple of things up and try to open those things up for those guys running the football."

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