Georgia Tech Football: Everything From Brent Key's Press Conference After Win

What did interim head coach Brent Key have to say after the win over Duke?

Jackson Caudell | Oct 9, 2022

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Georgia Tech secured their second straight win on Saturday in an exciting overtime win over Duke. It moved interim head coach Brent Key to a 2-0 record as the leader of the program and gets the team to 3-3 and 2-1 in the ACC.

Key spoke to the media after the emotional win and here is everything that he had to say after beating the Blue Devils.

Opening Statement:

"We were able to go out and get a win this afternoon. We put in a lot of preparation in this week to give ourselves a chance to win the game and we knew it was going to be a four-quarter game and you never know how that is really going to go down and what kind of four-quarter game. Some of the key things I thought going into the game , emphasizing, to be able to be in the game and have a chance there at the end were turnovers and turnover margin and we did not have one so that is a plus and penalties, the penalty margin between the two teams and being able to make up about a five yard difference per possession statistically of where they are at and where we are at."

"You know, going into the final drive of the game, we were sitting at five penalties, which are correctable things that we can't have. We had five penalties and on the last drive, we had three. I won't say anything else about those. We'll have a chance to watch the tape and see how we can coach our guys. You know, three penalties that keep drives alive on the last drive of the game when the team has no timeouts, we have to really look at that and see how we can eliminate those from situations. Review the tape and see exactly what happened. It was a team win for sure, where all three phases, the team had ups and downs in the game and had momentum shifts and I thought when one side of the ball had one, the other side, or the other portion of the team had to step up and help overcome it. We won the football game guys but we have a lot of work to do and a lot of things to correct. I am happy for these kids and I am happy for Georgia Tech as a whole. It is a positive when you see you can make some of those mistakes and still come out with a win and continue to have success on Saturdays and Thursdays. We gotta clean some of these things up across the board in all three phases."

"Obviously, you guys know that we changed our punt team last week in only a matter of four days and really trying to force the protection part of it and the coverage is something that we knew we were going to have to work on. David (Shanahan) kicked it, a good long kick down the middle and kinda outkicked his coverage, they doubled the gunner and we lost leverage on the ball from the inside. That is what happened and we can't allow that to happen. You lose leverage on the ball, you have to have guys coming out of their contain lanes and being able to swarm the ball and not get caught up on blocks. That is something obviously, moving into this bye week, we will address and continue to work on the punt team, punt return, you know, all phases of special teams."

"At the end of the day, it was a good win. A win is a win. Super, super excited for these kids, super excited for the coaches, who have worked extremely hard these last few weeks and I can't say how proud I am to be a Yellow Jacket."

1. On what was going through his mind on the final possessions...

"Somewhere, some football gods have some love for us. Karma comes around and I know it sounds like coach talk but you have to play until the clock hits 0:00. You have to play as hard as you possibly can, you have to play for the next play, you can't look in the past, you can't dwell on a play and that was the one thing regardless of the ups and downs of the game, I thought the coaching staff and the players, I don't think there was ever one sense that we did not think we were not going to win the game and be able to win it there at the end, regardless of how we won it. To walk in that locker room and see those guys enjoy us again and happy for the work they put in in the last week. We are to the point now where we are learning how to win and that is a huge point. It went from trying not to lose to and now we are learning how to win and that is a valuable lesson that these guys will take to the next game."

2. On the play of the secondary...

"As a whole, they have been practicing that way. Jaylon (King) went down last week and Clayton (Powell-Lee) stepped in and as a true freshman, did a heck of a job of getting in there and filling a big void in the back end and those guys are taking their coaching during the week, Travares (Tillman) has done an excellent job with those guys and Thack, from the top of the defense, from putting those guys in position to not only make plays, but to know what they are doing, to be confident in their preparation through the week and to not go out there and play on their heels, waiting for something to happen in front of them and to anticipate the routes that are going to happen in front of them and going to match the different route concepts that they have and the different concepts and tendencies that the offense we are playing has. When you can know tendencies and be able to anticipate through you preparation through the coaching you are getting it makes the game a lot easier and lets those guys play faster."

3. On Jeff Sims...

You kinda see him grow out there in front of you each week, the sense of confidence that he has right now, throughout the entire week, it's really starting to be a night and day thing with him. The confidence in running the ball and you talk about a momentum shift for our team when you see him pull one of those first runs down and drive his back leg through and keep moving the pile and not taking a slide, running slap over somebody and be able to bring his back leg and continue to have that momentum and I think that is what everyone has been looking for in Jeff and we have been asking him to do and to do that and show how bad he wants to put the team on his back when he has the ball in his hand and that really boosts the confidence of everyone playing around him. When you have confidence in your quarterback to put the team on his back, that elevates everyone else's play around him."

4. On if he got what he expected from Leo Blackburn and Ryan King...

"We were missing a lot of guys in a lot of spots as the game kind of went on and credit to everyone in those positions to be able to step up and the people behind them to be able to step in and play winning football. The receivers obviously had some things occur during the week and other guys had to step up and they did. The thing we challenged them during the week was to get aligned. If you are not aligned, you can't run the play correctly. Being able to go out there and get aligned and get set and then have the confidence to go out there and run the route and then Jeff to pull the ball on them. We obviously have a lot of things that we have to clean up across the board and once we catch the ball or get the ball, work our guys and making one guy miss and keeping our balance as we go across. We have a lot of work to do there but it is extremely confident to learn some of those young guys stepped in and were able to deliver some big plays."

5. On the confidence that the team is gaining...

"I know I keep saying the same thing but confidence comes through preparation and when you can prepare the way these guys have done, whether it be the coaches or the players, it elevates your confidence when you can prepare the right way and we need to continue to grow and everyone to continue to raise their game because as much as you want to play the underdog role, be able to sneak up and play a game on somebody, those tides are going to turn and people are going to start looking at us as a viable opponent I hope and I said last week that success is the enemy of success. I told the guys in the locker room, as messed up as this sounds when I say it but, enjoy the win, but tomorrow, forget it. and let's go back to knowing what it is like to be the underdog."

6. On the offensive line...

"Obviously there is going to be an impact when things like that happen. For the first time in a long time, it was not an impact that was to the detriment to the entire team and it goes back to the preparation that those guys put in during the week and the growth and early in the season when you take an opportunity to put a Jakiah Leftwich in the game for 12-15 plays early in the season, in the game of college football, five guys on the offensive line rarely ever stay healthy throughout the entire season and to have Jakiah and his name called and him have 60, 65, game reps up until this point and he goes out there at a meaningful time and when he has to play the rest of the game, it is not new to him. He has seen the speed of the game and he is not big eyed so what we were doing earlier in the season was able to pay off in the right way."

7. On trying to run the clock down at the end of the game...

"That is something that you want to be able to control the game in those times but there is nine minutes left in the game and they have three timeouts so it is not a time where you just line up and wait for the clock to go down and giving them the time they need. You know, you saw that time running down is a valuable thing. Do we need to continue to work on that? Yes. We do. For us to be able to run the ball successfully and to be able to do that earlier in the game and at a critical time to be able to have a plan to go in with. We get positive yards, we had some things that worked earlier, some sideways runs and some perimeter runs and got knocked back a bit on those. Obviously, you know what people are going to do, you run the ball and you win and the defenses are going to start pressuring you and bringing safeties down and doing different things so to be able to have a plan and to be able to push us through the rest of the season."

8. On how he plans to prepare for the next game on the bye week...

"We will come in tomorrow and get back to work. Watching this game tomorrow afternoon, let the coaches get out and spend time with their families, watch a little NFL football or whatever they do. Then be back in on Monday morning and watch the game with the players and put it to bed. Have player meetings, workout, lift, and we will get right to work, self-scouting ourselves and doing a lot of things, individual player things that they have to do, what they are doing well and what they have to improve and overall, schematic, offense, defense, special teams on the latter part of Sunday and into Monday and working on self-scout and really break the tendencies that we have and continue to progress. Then halfway through the day on Tuesday, we will shift gears and initial game planning and players will have a couple of practices here and there, it is a short week and next Friday is actually Sunday compared to game week so that is the way we will go once Friday gets here and be in our minds."

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