As Kelly updated earlier this week, it was quite a stumble out of the gates by the crew, with the bossman the only one of us four finishing above .500. Here are the records after Week 1:

Kelly 8-6
Alex 5-9
Sed 5-9
Bronston 4-10

Week 2 picks (No lines for BC, Miami and Stanford with those teams facing FCS schools):

BYU at SMU (-11.5)
BYU: Bronston, Kelly, Alex✅
SMU: Sed❌

Duke (+2.5) at Northwestern
Duke: Bronston, Sed ✅
Northwestern: Kelly, Alex ❌

Pittsburgh (+1.5) at Cincinnati
Pitt: Bronston, Sed, Kelly ✅
Cincy: Alex ❌

Jacksonville State at Louisville (-30)
Jax St: Alex ❌
Louisville: Bronston, Sed, Kelly ✅

California (+13) at Auburn
Cal:
Auburn: Bronston, Sed, Kelly, Alex ❌

Charlotte at UNC (-22.5)
Charlotte: Bronston ✅
UNC: Sed, Kelly, Alex ❌

Marshall at Virginia Tech (-20.5)
Marshall: Bronston, Sed, Kelly, Alex ✅
Va. Tech:

Virginia at Wake Forest (-1)
UVA: Bronston, Sed, Alex ✅
Wake: Kelly ❌

Tennessee vs. NC State (+10) in Charlotte
Tennessee: Bronston, Sed, Kelly ✅
NC State: Alex ❌

Appalachian State at Clemson (-16.5)
App State: Bronston, Kelly, Alex ❌
Clemson: Sed ✅

Georgia Tech (-3) at Syracuse
GT: Bronston (38-27), Sed (31-17), Kelly (31-24), Alex (38-23) ❌
Syracuse:

Wow, did not expect it to be that large. I thought around 31-34.

Who's taking GT? VMI lost by 34 to William & Mary in the first game of their season. Lost by 7 to Bucknell.

When was the last time GT was a 40+ point favorite? 😍

Since I was the bearer of some bad news today, I promise I will bring you guys some good news tomorrow. Just talked with Dalen Penson who is coming off his visit to Stanford this past weekend, and he updated me where he is in his recruiting process. Long story short, he's ready to be a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket. I'll have full story and quotes up tomorrow though. Covering practice for Kelly in the morning, but I'll probably have some time between media viewing of practice and player interviews after to get the Penson story done.

click here

Sorry link is fixed now

Will be posted a little bit later this afternoon.

We talked to Clayton Powell-Lee, Jordan van den Berg and Avery Boyd today after practice, and they all said things have definitely been more re-focused this week after the result in Syracuse. The common theme was focus on what is directly in front of them and right now that is VMI.

New feature from Game On Paper, and they use Tech as an example. Pretty good at-a-glance statistical radar. All kinds of cool stuff if you click through the link in the tweet.

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Officially off the board. Commits to LSU. I guess that's why he wasn't all that helpful to me in getting back in touch to talk about his official visit to Georgia Tech a few weeks ago.

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ATLANTA- Georgia Tech football coach Brent Key spoke to the media on Tuesday as the Jackets began preparations for VMI on Saturday afternoon in Bobby Dodd Stadium. Key spoke about the challenges facing his team coming off a tough and disappointing loss at Syracuse where they were dominated on the lines of scrimmage by the Orange.

"It was a disappointing result on Saturday and we get 12 opportunities a year to go out and play. Everyone's goal that plays this game is to win them all and we didn't accomplish that on Saturday, but now it is time to turn the page and move from the past. You want to learn things from what we didn't do well and treat it the same way you do after a win, correcting mistakes," Key said. "When you lose games games things become magnified, but we try to keep it whether we win or lose, you are addressing the things you need to get better at."

Key said the focus of this week is playing VMI and trying to get better as a team as the Jackets play their fourth game in four weeks.

"The challenge is ignoring external things and focusing on the process of what you have to do to improve as a football and that starts with myself and the coaches and the players," Key said. "We have an opportunity to go back out, prepare, practice and earn that opportunity this week with the challenge we have coming for us."

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Key opened his presser sharing his thoughts on the passing this past weekend of Waffle House CEO and GT grad Walt Ehmer. Key was very close to Ehmer who passed away from cancer last week and he talked about what a great man Walt was and how much he feels for his wife Kara and their children Gregory, Kate, and Lesley at this time. Key said that he would talk to him on Fridays before games and they had great chats and that he is in a better place now.

Key said the team is still lacking consistency throughout games and that has been an issue in all three games and they need to be consistent in practice and the play day-to-day. The goal of the staff is to shrink that transition from practice to the game field and they didn't do that well enough last week as a staff. They need to do better this week to get the output (a win) that they want from the VMI game.

Key said it Military Appreciate Day and he is excited to be in front of the fans and students for a great environment on Saturday for VMI.

He said that VMI presents a bunch of challenges when you watch them on tape especially against things GT has struggled with this season and they use that 3-down front and bring backers and safeties and they have to handle that.

He said that Danny Rocco has been very successful as a head coach throughout his career at multiple stops and they are a tough team that will try to establish the LOS and he knows how to build successful teams. He expects they will play a full 60 minutes.

Key said they need to establish the LOS and that goes across the entire field not just the front six, to the CBs and WRs on both sides of the ball, getting off blocks on D and sustaining blocks on O.

I asked about the status of LaMiles Brooks and Malik Rutherford for Saturday and Key said there is nothing concrete yet on if they will play. He said they are banged up across the team after three games and you can't complain about that, it is a part of football and you have to deal with it.

Key said on having played 3 games while most teams have played 2, he said they are monitoring what they are doing to keep guys fresh.

Key was asked about being 8-2 as a HC coming off a loss and why they've had so much success and Key said he wishes he could bottle that and use it every week. He said the DNA of a Georgia Tech SA is don't tell me I can't do something twice and they are going to show people and that mentality is part of the football program and the level of focus from the coaches and players and all that is a part of that. He said he hopes they continue that trend this week.

Key was asked about finding the Dontae Smith to compliment Jamal Haynes and Key said that they need somebody to step up from that group, but availability has been an issue (Trey Cooley and Chad Alexander banged up) so the S&C are working to get guys back and he hopes to see someone step up there.

Key was asked about finding consistency from his team and he said the mentality of player is one of the most complicated things to understand and the critical factor of mental toughness and having that right mentality is not something you can just write down. He said the big dogs that bite, bit as puppies. He believes you can get better and improve your mental toughness, but circumstances in your past play a larger factor in it too. He wishes he was a psychologist by trait sometimes as a coach and that is something they are evaluating when they dig deep on kids they want to bring here.

I asked about the lack of sacks and QB pressures through three games, Key said that they did a deep dive on the lack of QB pressures and sacks on Sunday as a staff and they have to affect the QB more on defense and also get the football back via takeaways and yeah the ball is coming out quick but that isn't an excuse for not getting pressure. When you lose that get magnified as well and it can turn into a blame game, but they do need to improve in that area and it hasn't been what he wanted so far production wise.

Key was asked about the lack of success running against Syracuse and he said they looked at a lot of the mistakes and why things didn't happen and he didn't think they ran it great in the first two games either. He said Jamal Haynes just put his foot in the ground and dead-legged some guys to make plays 12-14 yard runs out of nothing and they didn't do any of that on Saturday. Cuse played an umbrella behind the guys and we swarm tackling and getting 8-10 guys around the ball. They didn't get any explosives to back that off either. he said they are working on it.

I asked about the helmet comm evaluations and if there has been any paralysis by analysis going on trying to over complicate calls against looks before the 15 second window. Key said Saturday was the first time it worked as intended for the whole game without any issues. He said he feels like the tempo of the calls have been fine and they haven't had issues with getting them in. They do monitor that every week and go over the calls and the timing to make sure they are being efficient.

Key said that Taye Seymore has improved a lot and they had to lean on him when LaMiles Brooks went down, he is still struggling some with the communication part of playing that position and then going and making the play, but he is improving. They are pleased with his progression but would like to see him speed up the process of improving but you can't just inject that into a young player, guys have to mature into the game.

Key was asked about maintaining momentum and he gave a long answer, but I thought the most interesting part was something he often says Coach Saban and how you can't waste a loss. That is a failure if you waste a loss. He thought that they did a good job coming off the loss Saturday of seeing the team rebound and he said that A.J. Artis did a great job of getting them focused during their lift on Sunday and doing a hard reset with the team. He said they had to look in the mirror and be honest about who they are. He said it is hard as an adult to do that much less a young person because everyone takes pride in what they do. They want to work and win and the coaches want that and they have to position themselves to do that.

Key when asked about his team showing the fight to stage comeback against Cuse, he said the blocked punt is part of the consistency he is looking for because that is a 50/50 play. In the 2nd half they come out and it was either a touchdown or a 3 or 4 and out and that is the model of inconsistency. The fourth quarter of the game was them doing what they should be able to do for the whole game. They just didn't get over that hump in the middle 3rd of the game. That imbalance led to the result. He said a positive was the fact they played for all 60 minutes.

I asked him what he learned from the last 1/4 of the Syracuse game as a coach, meaning the decision he made down the stretch. He gave a very long answer.

He said that he monitors each drive as the game progresses and he said that they had four possessions in the first half and figured the second half would be similar as that doesn't usually change much. He went for the block on the punt before the first half because they wanted to get points there and try to steal a possession. They ended up missing the kick. Then halfway into the third he knew they were running out of chances so he told Buster Faulkner if it is 4th and 5 or less we are going for it so Buster can play ahead with his calls and when he said the moment that really stood out to him was the scrum for the ball with around 2:30 left in the game. He said he should've used a timeout there and saved more time for the defense to get a stop. Instead, 5-6 seconds ticked off as they sorted out the scrum and if GT gets the ball back there they'd waive the timeout off or it wouldn't matter.

He said they worked that exact scenario in the summer time and if you save 5-6 seconds there that maybe works out to 20-25 seconds when you get the ball back, it turned out they never got the ball back anyway, but it was something that stuck out to him.

Story from Sam

Been reading all the commentary on the loss, and I see a lot of misplaced blame. True, SU punched us in the mouth and we didn’t punch back quick enough, but our DC and OC let us down.

McCord was outstanding last week dinking and dunking it down the field. So naturally, our DC plays 3 down with a zone most of the game, which he cuts up to the tune of 400 yards. Had Santucci played the entire game like he called most of the 3rd and 4th, we win this going away.

SU made a point to stop the inside zone early on. We had success with HK outside and the 3-step pass. Instead we keep running inside and throw outlets to get 3-5 yards. When we needed it we gave HK the reigns and he lets it fly. I know Key wants to start with physicality, but against physical defenses the pass game sometimes opens up the run game.

Key is the man for the job, and I have full confidence in Santucci and Faulkner, but this was a poorly called game. I would argue the players made it close despite the calls, and that’s the silver lining.

I'm pretty beat from travel and then catching up on stuff at home today. I'll get on this tomorrow. Early morning tomorrow with practice.

Joe was not on the broadcast yesterday. Sean Bedford filled in and may continue to do so as a pinch hitter. Joe was not on 680 several days this week either. No comment offered by 680 to the AJC and GT referred them to 680 as they handle Joe.

Did some checking seems like it isn’t great news. Joe texted a buddy and said he is doing okay.

If you know anything about Brent Key the one thing he takes the most joy in is one of his players imposing their will on an opposing player. In his first season as a head coach at Georgia Tech, the Jackets held their own most of the time with the two toughest physical challenges coming at the end of the regular season in a narrow win over a quarterback-less Syracuse squad where Dino Babers was coaching for his job (he was fired the morning after the Tech game) and the Georgia game. Bowling Green and Boston College also dominated the lines of scrimmage at times in those losses, but the Jackets also had critical mistakes in those games (aka turnovers by Haynes King) that aided upset losses.

Key also talks about knowing how to win consistently and handle success.

Fran Brown acted like a clown and got his team fired up over some weird beef he tried to create with Brent Key, but there were a lot of players on that team led by two of their leaders LeQuint Allen the RB and TE Dan Villari who both played quarterback in that 2023 loss in Atlanta that had a big say in it as well.

Things started off poorly on the trip as the team spent more time on the tarmac at the Atlanta airport thanks to a fueling error by Delta that delayed their takeoff that had them arrive about an 1:40 minutes late to Syracuse. The vibe was weird before the game and it smelled of an upset to me. GT looked flat and Syracuse was fired up with a good crowd (credit to them for overhauling the JMA Wireless Dome with seatbacks to make it more intimate) and a boisterous atmosphere that fired up their team. QB Kyle McCord embraced the GT ain't shit mantra and fired up his team.

The GT defensive line often looked like DBs trying to blitz OLs getting swallowed up and held a lot. The offensive game plan was puzzling to me and Jamal Haynes looked off and was running into defenders instead of following his blocks.

This was a game where Tech needed to trade blows and they couldn't.

Key for all of his abilities is still a young coach and made two errors where he didn't trust his defense at all. The first was at the end of the first half where he admitted to me after the game in the presser they slowed down and were trying to eat the clock up instead of going into turbo mode trying to score. Aidan Birr missed the field goal and that ended up being the difference in the game at the end. Do they score if they go in turbo mode? Maybe not. I understand not wanting to give the ball back when your D wasn't stopping them at all, forcing just one punt in the first half, but I still think you have to try to score a TD there and suck the momentum back.

The other one was not taking the chop block. It is hard as hell to get 25 yards on three plays and eat the clock. He took the down over the yardage and then converted and then the game was basically over. If you take the yards you can perhaps also force McCord into doing something stupid or forcing a ball creating a chance at a turnover to win the game. I didn't like that.

The team has some holes in it, I've said that from the jump. The lack of a natural pass rush has been disturbing after seeing and hearing about how well Romello Height, Kevin Harris and Sylvain Yondjouen played in camp. They have one combined sack in 12 quarters of action from the three best pass rushers.

GT has been hanging at the edge all season even in the Georgia State game. They still don't have the margin that Brent Key wants to build, but people also need to chill the **** out. The ACC is still there in play. We learned that basically everyone aside from UGA and Miami isn't anywhere near as good as people expected. Teams are losing close games to worse opponents left and right. Alabama could've been in a tie game with USF had Byrum Brown been able to throw a forward pass in the fourth quarter of that game yesterday and Notre Dame lost to NIU in a game where they paid $1.4 million dollars to have a gimmie. Arkansas sucks and took Oklahoma State to OT, Penn State trailed by 10 at the half to Bowling Green before narrowly pulling out a 34-27 win at HOME. Oklahoma held on for dear life against a not great Houston team. Illinois beat Kansas, NC State got rolled in a game where they had a chance to tie it before the half and gave up a pick-six and never scored again.

The early part of the season is weird and GT's scheduling model makes it harder playing two league games in the first two windows and then playing ND and UGA.

Key has some new staff on defense and is overhauling that side of the ball after a woeful 11-12-year run of bad defenses.

Key is overhauling the entire culture of GT football post GC3. That won't happen overnight, there will be bumps in the road and I'm happy the bump was Syracuse and not Georgia State last week, but it doesn't change how disappointing the loss was for GT fans who had some top25 oxygen for the first time in a decade.

As my mom said to me today, "damn Kelly why can't they win these games. It sucks you went all the way to Syracuse to watch them lose again."

Thanks mom!

Is there anyone running with the 2’s or 3’s right now that we could see get a significant bump in snaps soon?

KQ- There are a few guys. I'll start on offense, Trelain Maddox and Anthony Carrie I expect will play a larger role as the season goes along. Luke Harpring at TE and Zion Taylor at receiver are two other guys on the cusp of getting some burn. I know Taylor has been frustrated by the slow go of things but the lack of playing time for Christian Leary so far really says a lot about the depth at WR.

On the D side, Tah'j Butler, Amontrae Bradford and Jordan Boyd are guys I'm keeping an eye on who could end up playing bigger roles.

What 2 teams (other than uga) does GT benefit from when they are bad? In terms of FB recruiting. If you had to name 2

KQ- Auburn is the next biggest one from my experience here and they have a ton of head-to-head recruiting battles. The other one would be Clemson.

Any idea how Key will utiliize the upcoming 125 man roster limit?

KQ- I think they are waiting to find out from President Cabrera and J Batt what the plan and budget are for that. Key told me over the summer they had different scenarios worked out for different numbers and with HOPE scholarship and NIL they can be a little more creative in how they do it to be budget-friendly if needed. Every team I've talked to is scrambling to figure out how to make this work. My assumption is they will not have over 100 guys on scholarship.

What impact does GT's success have on your job?

KQ- You guys are less miserable and people are more engaged so it improves our numbers and I make more money and can grow the site and my income.

How happy do you think is Paul Johnson with the new clock rules? I feel like he would love to take 9+ minutes off the clock on an offensive drive and score a touchdown

KQ- I'm sure he has enjoyed seeing the tempos slow down some and more physical running football return across the game.

Got a few:

✈️ 1) If I understand correctly the team flew in a specially outfitted plane to Ireland where ALL the seats were lay flat business class style. Is that right?

If so, do we have ability to fly in similar plane templates for longer trips (Cuse this week but also looking ahead to the California schools joining)

KQ- No they flew on an Aer Lingus charter jet that was taken out of service by Aer Lingus from one of their other flights to handle the GT and FSU charter. I'm not sure where you got that from. I spoke to Danny Karnik the GT photographer and he was sitting in a regular economy middle seat on the flight over with the team when I bumped into him in Dublin.

🏀 2) CDS put out some cool takes for the FSU game - the “Birrrr ice in the veins” Schtick was pretty great. Do you get the sense our coaching staffs are similarly close, more close or just good marketing with them supporting each other MBB/FB with regards to general P5 programs?

KQ- Not exactly, Damon and Brent cheer each other on and try to help, but I don't think they are having drinks in Brent's man cave.

😇 3) PrezAC seems to be serious about turning around the big revenue sports, and JBatt has been super responsive on detailed issues (like the security SNAFUs) while also having made some great hires and bringing in $[̲̅$̲̅(̲̅100)̲̅$̲̅]; obviously we want to sustain the large programs but do you see nonrev sports getting a “rising tides raise all ship” effect too?

KQ- All money is focused on football with men's hoops next, that is the driver.

🤼 4) The whole Sheamus thing has been fun, and a good reminder that having some celebrity fan support is cool. Do you think we’ll have more of this type stuff if we can keep the winning going? Always seemed like the movie/music scene in ATL could be a huge recruiting bump, like what CBK did with getting tie ins with TBS for kids with podcast/media content ambition. I know it’s more flash than fire for CBK and he is clearly motivated by/ focusing on different things than Ol’ ScootsMaGoots was, but I do think bringing some of the ATL flavor back to The Institute makes sense.

KQ- The Sheamus thing is a flukey thing that happened and wasn't manufactured, but yes you can do that if you win. I saw USF get in with a few rappers when they were winning under Willie Taggart as an example.


🎬 5) Seems like CBK has been purposefully communicating that we should/do/must enjoying the wins this last week. You mentioned he gets feedback from a variety of people about everything to do with being a HeadBallCoach™ so I was curious if you had inside baseball on if he’s being told to pull back a bit from the AngrySaban energy?

KQ- No

Also, seemed to me that we came out softer than expected at GSU. How much of that was caused by (in your opinion most to least):

• 🥵 Game 1 being in Ireland with 60s and low humidity versus Georgia heat and humidity for game 2
• 😴 Lack of seriousness in preparation when we thought we were playing an inferior opponent
• 📈 GSU being better than expected
• ⏰ Travel adjustments and jet lag
• 🧘‍♂️ Practice outweighing recovery time leading to weak bodies
• 🤕 Guys being dinged up and playing through / guys not cleared or ready to come back
• 🎱 Ofher factor TBD by you if I missed something.

KQ- I think they were tired and overlooking them a little bit.

Here are a few gifs i decided to breakdown to give an idea of what happened on field vs. Syracuse. These are used to give others a different perspective on how to watch football. I don’t do this to disparage players or coaches, but to give insight to GT enthusiast on what I’ve learned as a player and avid football fan.

Having an edge can do wonders on the field and off. Syracuse came into the game with something to prove and they did just that.

A lot of assignment bust in coverage whether man or zone in this game. Cuse came in with a cheat sheet bc it appears they had the answers to every question we presented to them.



The play action freezes Efford and he loses his man assignment for big gain down sideline




Jim Boeheim must designed the game plan for the OC bc we were picked, rubbed, and put into 2v1 situations a lot this game. Here we see the CB travel with the motion with is a man2man indicator. The WR uses the on line WR as a pick to get separation to score. Defensively, you would like to see the DBs swap WRs responsibilities.
The outside CB takes the outside route while the motion Db takes the inside route slant



2v1. Man free again. If you’re going to run this pinch defense, there must be a defender that’s scrapping over the top to take away the edges.
both Efford are on the line the TE with no chance to take this away. Either Efford needs to be stacked behind the DL or CPL is on the wrong side

Screen & roll


Same concept. Our DBs need to sell that illegal screen as well. Appear the WR is moving on the wheel to create the separation



Some positive plays!!!

Good job by Sylvain getting across the TE face to make the TFL

I believe a key to Haynes King low INTS has been his ball placement. Perfectly placing balls away from coverage



If this is out front or on the WR numbers, it’s a pick. Good throw and a great adjustment by Lane


Same here. Ball placed on outside shoulder away from the LB



And another one. Absolute dime to Singleton on the over route

Probably the best throw. We got man coverage for Syracuse and we are just going to the open space with our high- low read. We hitch at the goalline to open the space in the back of the end zone. If this throw is flat, the DB would be able to make a play on it. Nice touch pass and great job by Lane getting his foot down for the TD



One consistent issue with the defense has been LB zone drops. Here we have the defense in a cover 2. The MLB is zoning off the #3 receiving threat, if 3 goes vertical, he must run with him on his inside hip. For some reason, Efford decides to flip his hips and get his head back to the QB instead of running with the TE. Easy Td





This made me laugh. When it’s your day, it’s your day. You got the TE blocking while the ball is in the air and you have 2 OL downfield. Of course no flag is thrown



Another issue we are having 3 games in is Rush lane integrity. Initially, i thought the issue was primarily Height getting upfield and beyond the OT, but based on the blitz called, i believe Biggers suppose to be in that B gap. Personally, I’m not a fan of this blitz away from the RB if i know they are slide protecting away from where the RB lines up



Having an edge means more than just an attitude. We need to have an edge on defense so the ball won’t get outside lol. Appears both Tatum & Height eyes are in the backfield. It appears Tatum, gets too far inside and same gap as Height and allow them to convert the 4th down.




Here Tatum atones for his mistake. One of the few times, i saw guys fly to the ball. Gotta wrap



The effort on the game sealing power run play was atrocious!!! Guys retreating and not attacking blocks. Poor attempt of a tackle by Burrell that would’ve made it a yd gain.