Brent Key went into the Duke game with a simple mantra in several of his media appearances, "we can't beat ourselves.," or variations on that theme. Duke cruised to a 4-1 start following that same equation of playing hard, not turning the ball over and letting the other team make a mistake.
The Jackets came into the night down a starting WR Malachi Carter, a starting RG Joe Fusile, and then in the game lost their most experienced offensive lineman tackle Jordan Williams and their best guard this season Pierce Quick. Williams and Quick each played around 40 snaps out of 76 offensive plays missing much of the second half of the game. Leo Blackburn made his debut playing well in his first college game, but the Jackets needed more from the outside receiver position beyond Blackburn, EJ Jenkins and Ryan King who stepped up as well after not playing last week.
Key has the team believing they can win.
The offense is still a work in progress, but Jeff Sims was good at running the ball and threw well enough and avoided mistakes and turnovers. He is improving and playing hard and seems to be building a desire to win and play hard doing it that seemed absent at times over the last two years.
The big and really interesting piece to me however has been the defense now uncuffed from Geoff Collins and whatever he was doing behind the scenes. Whatever is going on, Andrew Thacker, Larry Knight, David Turner, Jason Semore and Travares Tillman have the kids playing hard.
Duke had one true full-field drive the entire game except for the final drive of regulation that was added by 43 penalty yards. Duke drove 67 yards and threw a red zone interception thanks to good pressure from the DL and LBs that was the lone turnover in the game.
Duke hit a pair of field goals on drives the defense pushed back on and other than the last drive of the game Duke was just 1-2 in the red zone with a FG. That is a far cry from where things have been defensively over the last 3.5 years.
We can talk about the officiating until we are blue in the face. I will tell you, I had other media members text me during the game that were watching who have no dog in the fight. People who don't even like GT who thought two of the calls were outrageous especially the one on Sylvain Yondjouen's roughing the passer.
Yes the punt coverage team screwed up and Shanahan out-punted his coverage and did so to the middle of the field as well. That was really the only mistake Tech made in the game.
There were still a couple of questionable head coaching calls by Key like the decision to punt at the Duke 36 where you gain just 36 yards. That is sort of a Nick Saban-ish/defensive coach strategy that I am not a fan of in no man's land, but I think they needed to dial up two plays there and really there should've been PI or a defensive hold on Blackburn on the third down pass that went incomplete anyway there. That is nitpicking as well.
The kids believe they can win, clearly, they didn't under the previous leadership and the more they talk the more apparent that is becoming as multiple SAs and even Key have been spoken about the expectation of something bad happening and you can't coach that way. That reminds me of Ted Roof's defense. You play to win and expect to win every time you hit the field. If you don't you shouldn't be playing. Key has restored that concept in two weeks. It will be interesting to see what he can do with 11 days of prep for UVA which Tech has owned in BDS historically.
Key is fighting for his opportunity at his dream job and he is building up momentum on that front. Tech sits at 3-3 now and are in 2nd place in the ACC Coastal at the midpoint in the season just behind 2-0 UNC. I'll write something I have not written since 2018, the Jackets control their destiny in the ACC Coastal right now. If they win out they win the Coastal. That is hard to imagine after that Ole Miss game and the UCF debacle.
Could it all fall apart tomorrow? Yes. Could this be the peak of the Key era? Sure.
UNC, FSU, and UGA are the only teams left on the schedule with a +.500 record today midway into the season. FSU is 2-2 in ACC play as well and scuffling after an embarrassing blown game at NCST yesterday. They are not seeing 6 top-25 teams for the rest of the year. GT is still thin and fragile, but if Key can keep winning it will make for a very interesting offseason for the new AD and leadership overall at GT.
