I have no idea whether J Batt has made a decision on who he wants to hire or where he is in the hiring process for Georgia Tech's next football coach because all I hear is conflicting information, but what Brent Key and his makeshift coaching staff did with this group of young men on Saturday night in Chapel Hill is nothing short of one of the best coaching jobs I've ever seen. The plan, the execution of the plan and his ability to get a decimated roster to believe in the plan and execute it at a high-level, show me that he deserves a job somewhere as a head coach in my opinion. That should probably be at Georgia Tech, but that is not my call.
The plan was a simple one, play keep away, limit your mistakes on offense play ball control and defensively squeeze the pocket on Drake Maye. It worked and it worked really well after a slow start defensively, the D settled in and despite losing the field position game at times, the Jackets kept shutting down UNC.
Tech got one of the first lucky breaks of a pretty much luckless 2022 season when Josh Downs dropped a go-ahead touchdown in the 4th quarter, but the way the offense and defense played was inspired.
Offensively at times the Jackets were down to QB3 or QB4 with Zach Gibson and Taisun Phommachanh rotating, playing without their leading receiver Nate McCollum and on the final drive without the starting left guard and center as Pierce Quick went down with what looked like a serious leg injury and Weston Franklin who was rotating with Will Lay got banged up.
Even on defense depth was tested as they've played most of the season without veteran safety Jaylon King who was having a breakout season prior to his injury, forcing a true freshman Clayton Powell-Lee into action, and then KJ Wallace the starting nickel goes down and they end up sliding guys around bringing Derrik Allen in and moving LaMiles Brooks over and then Allen went out and Rodney Shelley Jr. had to play his first career snaps and didn't miss a beat. Shelley was only out there for a play or two, but they had two true freshmen DBs on the field against the best passing QB in CFB this season.
The biggest thing to me though is Key, whatever is happening in the game, he keeps his cool on the sideline. He never seems flustered or bothered or concerned about the score, he is just focused on the game and that calmness and confidence spreads out among the staff and players and they have a quiet confidence that has been lacking since Paul Johnson retired. With Key, the players feel like they have a chance every week.
So that is now where all eyes turn to Batt who will be hearing an earful from powerful boosters who are all on the Key train now and given the financial picture at Tech and now solid sample size of Key's work it seems like giving him a chance to run the program would be a prudent move for the program. It would also buy Batt time to get his fundraising and capital projects lined up and improve his cash flow.
There is not a special sauce hire that is going to move the needle enough to sell the number of season tickets they sold in 2018 outside of Deion Sanders who according to my sources is not in the mix. No one else on the board is going to move the needle enough to make that argument make sense to me either.
Key will take a GT favorable deal, he will require that they invest in staff with the savings on his salary and invest in the program and that will put Tech on better footing in the next search. As I look at the landscape for this hire outside of Jamey Chadwell there isn't anyone that moves the needle for me. You can't go an hire Willie Fritz who is three years younger than the coach who just retired in 2018 and will be 62 next season. He isn't Urban Meyer and won't move that needle enough. Mike Houston is an interesting hire, but he hasn't turned the corner enough at ECU either. Chadwell makes sense, but it is a gamble as well and people are already up in arms about the perception of his offense.
To me no one has done a better job coaching in college football the last few weeks than what this staff has done. Tech has a talented group of players on defense and they have made some strides offensively but they still need more playmakers and need to continue developing the ones they have like Jamie Felix for the future. They need more Nate McCollums and Felixes.
Key knows the roster, he knows what they need and he also has the connections to help raise the NIL money to make that happen in a faster manner to build the program around Zach Pyron in the future.
It makes too much sense to hire Key. No one will work harder to make Tech successful than Brent Key.
As a side note, I have to give some serious props to Zach Gibson who did exactly what I've told everyone he is capable of doing. With a clean pocket and a game plan that makes sense for him, he can come in and win a game. He looked comfortable and they build up his confidence early. His internal timer was better and he seemed confident in the game plan. Gibson has been a victim of being the odd duck in terms of style of the four or five including Brody Rhodes quarterbacks as he is a pocket QB. He runs okay, but he is a solid passing quarterback. The game plans have leaned on having a running QB so when he has had to go in suddenly that can be hard to adapt to, so hopefully, people have learned a bit of a lesson to not blow up the young man. He like any QB has strengths and weaknesses in his game and credit to Key, Chip Long and Chris Weinke for figuring out how to use Gibson and switch in Phommanhach to make the offense work, especially in short yardage and goal line. I'm thrilled for Gibson that he was able to erase the end of the UVA game in fans' minds as well. That win at UNC will be a story he tells people for the rest of his life.
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