ATLANTA- Georgia Tech returned practice field after a mandatory day off on Monday to begin preparations for Georgia State. Head football coach Brent Key spoke to the media after practice and shared some thoughts on his team going into the first of two in-state tilts coming off an emotional win over #10 Florida State in Ireland.
The Jackets come into game number two a little banged up after losing backup running back Trey Cooley on the opening FSU kickoff of the game. Projected starting defensive tackle Horace Lockett arrived in Ireland with a cast on his arm from an undisclosed injury and was dressed in Ireland, but did not play. Beyond that Key said his team has a lot of guys dinged after a very physical game with the Noles.
"We are banged up," Key said. "It was a physical football game and that is going to happen week in and week out. A lot of guys weren't able to go today so hopefully we will get them back tomorrow and hopefully by Thursday I can address a little bit more of where we are at as a team as far as injuries go. We are hoping to get them all back, but it is highly unlikely we will so we've got to prepare everybody."
One of the core principles of Key's program has been building a solid three-deep on both sides of the ball and he said he is confident that he will have options if key players are out or unavailable on Saturday.
"The reason why we practice the way we do is to be able to have the twos and threes get work. Guys who weren't able to play on Saturday will play, but we are not going to force somebody back sooner than they can be. We are banged up now and a lot of guys who played and finished that game are kind of walking wounded right now," he said.
Tuesday's practice was an opportunity for some of the second-string and third-string players to get reps with the first team offense and defense.
"It was good today to have guys out there that had been taking a lot of reps with the twos and threes and sometimes special teams reps. Those can become game reps and help. The depth is important and we've continued to increase our depth by the acquisition of talent, but then you truly increase your depth by also developing those guys and that is what we have done over the course of the last eight or nine months," Key said. "When one person goes down, you want to have that mentality on the team that it is the next man up and you are not going to miss a beat."
--------------------------------------------------------
Key shared that he knows the FSU game was a big win for the Georgia Tech family but this is a new week and a new opponent. He appreciates all the attention the win over FSU brought and exposure to the CFB world and it was a great opportunity for the school and the program and the fan base, but this is a new week and that game is over.
He said that winning that game creates a new challenge for the team and seeing how they react to that will be a big tell on the program. They enjoyed the win, but it is time to move on and he told the guys that on Sunday when they started to work on Georgia State. He brought up his three phases of growing as a team, learning how not to lose, learning how to win and learning how to win consistently and the challenge this week he told the team on Sunday is the latter. Key said that if they had lost in Ireland the challenge would be easier this week, but that is not the way they want it and that is not what they are working to do. Success and failure can both be a distraction if you let them, the mental makeup of being a good football player and a good football team is not letting distractions in. They are not there yet, but they are striving every day to get there and momentum is not created by a win, momentum does not carryover from last year to this year, momentum is created by how they practice and how they prepare for each game. He said that is why the windshield is a lot bigger than the rearview mirror on a car. If you get distracted looking in the rearview mirror while driving you will crash and they've all been in a crash caused by that in the past.
They want to win a state championship and a conference championship and all of that is still ahead of them. He thinks it will be a good environment on Saturday night and he wants all the GT fans to come out. He said the students did a great job in the second half of last year coming out and making an electric atmosphere and he hopes they will do that again.
On the LT rotation with Corey Robinson and Jordan Brown, Key said it was 60/40 on snaps and they both did some things really well and it is hard to rotate at every position but that is always his preference to rotate guys. Corey got hurt early in camp and Jordan Brown played in the game the same way he practiced all of camp, he is a Steady Eddie out there, but they both have things they can work on.
Key said he would love to play more OLs, but this isn't the YMCA so they are only going to play the game who earned the opportunity and deserved to play. Both Corey and Jordan showed they deserved to play.
On Jordan Williams, Key said that he has all the ability and has played 50 games here and he is held to the same standard as everyone is and he has played a lot of football and Key called him in the team meeting and asked him to tell his teammates the one thing he is going to work on this week to improve upon and that commitment is something he is looking for from his whole team. He said they all hear 100 things a day that they can improve upon but focus on one thing that day and suddenly you have 6, 7 or 8 things you got better at and it compounds over the whole team and it goes for the whole team down to the scout team.
Key was asked about Haynes King mentioning that he had moved on to Georgia State when the team arrived back in Atlanta on Sunday and he said asked how many in the media pool have the mindset to truly live in the moment and not think about the past or the future, it goes against Human Nature to be in the moment and that is why there is anxiety and stress and pressure. It is multiplied way worse now with twitter and social media and he preaches to his team to focus on what you are doing in the moment, the bench press, running a 40, whatever the technique is on the field, live your life that way. He said he struggles with it every day and he can be a hypocrite to these kids, but you have to focus on the task at hand and you can't do anything about what already happened and you have to eliminate external distractions as much as possible. Every kid has girlfriends or school or whatever going on, you have to focus on that moment and you are either getting better or getting worse.
I asked Key if the focus was there today given the past setbacks against teams from the G5 in the last few years. He said no one in the building is blind to what happened in the past but the focus has to be on what they are going to do and not what they aren't going to do. It is about taking a step forward and taking ownership of this team and he trusts them and you can't change the script on August 27th and telling them on Jan 4th what the standard is. This is the biggest game of the year and practiced indicated that and they are banged up and hurt and he told other guys he needs them to step it up.
Key said his job is to make sure they stay focused on the goals ahead for the 120 guys in the locker room and the 40-50 support staff and coaches. Momentum is created by preparation and it is all about the family in the locker room going out there and doing it. He liked how they practiced today.
Key said what he learned about his team in Ireland is they played hard for 60 minutes and overcame obstacles and stuck together as a family while executing the plan on defense, offense and special teams. Now what do they need to improve upon and you are getting better or worse every week if you are not improving. That is the standard to improve each week.
On Haynes King cutting back his interceptions, he could talk about that for two hours, but it is about learning from the past and not living in it. Being honest with yourself is the hardest thing and he has understood that and the maturity Haynes has shown and the development from the beginning of last year to now really shows up when it needs to.
I asked him about recruiting and he said they expect a loaded group of Georgia kids and local players for the game on Saturday night and he wants to recruit the best players to come help Georgia Tech win football games and graduate from Georgia Tech.
Key said this is kind of a neat opportunity to play two season openers with no film and it is similar to last week because you don't know what Georgia State will come out with. They have an idea of what they will do based on personnel but you don't know for sure, so you try to not overcomplicate anything and be simple and make adjustments and the example of that is the defense in the FSU game from drive one to drive two. There was no fussing or pointing fingers after FSU scored on the first drive and they were calm and collected coming off the field and Tyler Santucci was upstairs and made the adjustments and they played well after that. This is a game of uncertainties.
The Jackets come into game number two a little banged up after losing backup running back Trey Cooley on the opening FSU kickoff of the game. Projected starting defensive tackle Horace Lockett arrived in Ireland with a cast on his arm from an undisclosed injury and was dressed in Ireland, but did not play. Beyond that Key said his team has a lot of guys dinged after a very physical game with the Noles.
"We are banged up," Key said. "It was a physical football game and that is going to happen week in and week out. A lot of guys weren't able to go today so hopefully we will get them back tomorrow and hopefully by Thursday I can address a little bit more of where we are at as a team as far as injuries go. We are hoping to get them all back, but it is highly unlikely we will so we've got to prepare everybody."
One of the core principles of Key's program has been building a solid three-deep on both sides of the ball and he said he is confident that he will have options if key players are out or unavailable on Saturday.
"The reason why we practice the way we do is to be able to have the twos and threes get work. Guys who weren't able to play on Saturday will play, but we are not going to force somebody back sooner than they can be. We are banged up now and a lot of guys who played and finished that game are kind of walking wounded right now," he said.
Tuesday's practice was an opportunity for some of the second-string and third-string players to get reps with the first team offense and defense.
"It was good today to have guys out there that had been taking a lot of reps with the twos and threes and sometimes special teams reps. Those can become game reps and help. The depth is important and we've continued to increase our depth by the acquisition of talent, but then you truly increase your depth by also developing those guys and that is what we have done over the course of the last eight or nine months," Key said. "When one person goes down, you want to have that mentality on the team that it is the next man up and you are not going to miss a beat."
--------------------------------------------------------
Key shared that he knows the FSU game was a big win for the Georgia Tech family but this is a new week and a new opponent. He appreciates all the attention the win over FSU brought and exposure to the CFB world and it was a great opportunity for the school and the program and the fan base, but this is a new week and that game is over.
He said that winning that game creates a new challenge for the team and seeing how they react to that will be a big tell on the program. They enjoyed the win, but it is time to move on and he told the guys that on Sunday when they started to work on Georgia State. He brought up his three phases of growing as a team, learning how not to lose, learning how to win and learning how to win consistently and the challenge this week he told the team on Sunday is the latter. Key said that if they had lost in Ireland the challenge would be easier this week, but that is not the way they want it and that is not what they are working to do. Success and failure can both be a distraction if you let them, the mental makeup of being a good football player and a good football team is not letting distractions in. They are not there yet, but they are striving every day to get there and momentum is not created by a win, momentum does not carryover from last year to this year, momentum is created by how they practice and how they prepare for each game. He said that is why the windshield is a lot bigger than the rearview mirror on a car. If you get distracted looking in the rearview mirror while driving you will crash and they've all been in a crash caused by that in the past.
They want to win a state championship and a conference championship and all of that is still ahead of them. He thinks it will be a good environment on Saturday night and he wants all the GT fans to come out. He said the students did a great job in the second half of last year coming out and making an electric atmosphere and he hopes they will do that again.
On the LT rotation with Corey Robinson and Jordan Brown, Key said it was 60/40 on snaps and they both did some things really well and it is hard to rotate at every position but that is always his preference to rotate guys. Corey got hurt early in camp and Jordan Brown played in the game the same way he practiced all of camp, he is a Steady Eddie out there, but they both have things they can work on.
Key said he would love to play more OLs, but this isn't the YMCA so they are only going to play the game who earned the opportunity and deserved to play. Both Corey and Jordan showed they deserved to play.
On Jordan Williams, Key said that he has all the ability and has played 50 games here and he is held to the same standard as everyone is and he has played a lot of football and Key called him in the team meeting and asked him to tell his teammates the one thing he is going to work on this week to improve upon and that commitment is something he is looking for from his whole team. He said they all hear 100 things a day that they can improve upon but focus on one thing that day and suddenly you have 6, 7 or 8 things you got better at and it compounds over the whole team and it goes for the whole team down to the scout team.
Key was asked about Haynes King mentioning that he had moved on to Georgia State when the team arrived back in Atlanta on Sunday and he said asked how many in the media pool have the mindset to truly live in the moment and not think about the past or the future, it goes against Human Nature to be in the moment and that is why there is anxiety and stress and pressure. It is multiplied way worse now with twitter and social media and he preaches to his team to focus on what you are doing in the moment, the bench press, running a 40, whatever the technique is on the field, live your life that way. He said he struggles with it every day and he can be a hypocrite to these kids, but you have to focus on the task at hand and you can't do anything about what already happened and you have to eliminate external distractions as much as possible. Every kid has girlfriends or school or whatever going on, you have to focus on that moment and you are either getting better or getting worse.
I asked Key if the focus was there today given the past setbacks against teams from the G5 in the last few years. He said no one in the building is blind to what happened in the past but the focus has to be on what they are going to do and not what they aren't going to do. It is about taking a step forward and taking ownership of this team and he trusts them and you can't change the script on August 27th and telling them on Jan 4th what the standard is. This is the biggest game of the year and practiced indicated that and they are banged up and hurt and he told other guys he needs them to step it up.
Key said his job is to make sure they stay focused on the goals ahead for the 120 guys in the locker room and the 40-50 support staff and coaches. Momentum is created by preparation and it is all about the family in the locker room going out there and doing it. He liked how they practiced today.
Key said what he learned about his team in Ireland is they played hard for 60 minutes and overcame obstacles and stuck together as a family while executing the plan on defense, offense and special teams. Now what do they need to improve upon and you are getting better or worse every week if you are not improving. That is the standard to improve each week.
On Haynes King cutting back his interceptions, he could talk about that for two hours, but it is about learning from the past and not living in it. Being honest with yourself is the hardest thing and he has understood that and the maturity Haynes has shown and the development from the beginning of last year to now really shows up when it needs to.
I asked him about recruiting and he said they expect a loaded group of Georgia kids and local players for the game on Saturday night and he wants to recruit the best players to come help Georgia Tech win football games and graduate from Georgia Tech.
Key said this is kind of a neat opportunity to play two season openers with no film and it is similar to last week because you don't know what Georgia State will come out with. They have an idea of what they will do based on personnel but you don't know for sure, so you try to not overcomplicate anything and be simple and make adjustments and the example of that is the defense in the FSU game from drive one to drive two. There was no fussing or pointing fingers after FSU scored on the first drive and they were calm and collected coming off the field and Tyler Santucci was upstairs and made the adjustments and they played well after that. This is a game of uncertainties.
