You know what? If we beat UGA, it's an "A". But setting that aside, I think there is enough data to give the Key administration a fair grade for the season.
1. Professionalism - From the second he took over for Scooter, it was clear that the grownups were in charge. Not all of it was perfect - I am not claiming THAT - but from how he deals with fans and the press, inferring what KQ said about practices, it looked like I was following a legit outfit. Grade: A
2. Offensive Coaching - No real complaints. I wish the team were better down to down, but I think some talent issues on the OL made that difficult. The team was consistently dangerous offensively, and there was nothing about any Scooter team where you thought lightning could strike. In the passing game, the area between the hashes seemed like a no-fly zone - and I think some money is left on the table there. But again, how much of that is a "can't" vs "won't" I don't know. I wish the offense were a little more QB friendly - where King had more easy answers and outlets in the passing game ... ultimately QB play is what will allow a school like Tech to punch upwards. Grade: B+
3. Defensive Coaching - Key stayed with Thacker after last year, and that was a mistake. Now, I got sucked into the thinking too - but I'm just a rando commenter (granted, one who was on Jeopardy once) - not an FBS head coach. Key overrated the dead cat bounce that comes with a midseason firing as well as how much of the defensive turnaround required turnover luck. The defense decided to focus on taking away big plays - fine as far as it goes - but it also meant being gashed over and over again. Bend but don't break is a sound overarching philosophy, but you need more durable ways to get off the field. There should be big changes - but I kinda think there will be. Grade: D
4. Special Teams - I won't dwell too much on this, but the kicking and return games were fine, after some early season placekicking hiccups. At least they can block a punt reliably. It did not take much to upgrade this unit from the actively harmful one Scooter hath wrought. Grade: B
5. Game Management -Didn't love it. Key could get sucked into surrender punting, and clearly some of the timeout usage was up and down. But it is also new for him so I'm not going to worry too much about this for year 1. Grade: B-
6. Vibes - You know what? We are at the final game of the season - and it took this long for me to get to a game where I don't think we can win. So that's 11 games where I thought this team had some plausible pathway to a victory. Now some of those paths were narrow - you know, where you might give us a 15% chance of winning - but those are better odds than lottery tickets. I'll also add that - for the most part - the team was fun to watch with some fun players. And there will always be the Miami miracle. Perhaps my glasses are too rosy juxtaposing this with Scooter, but whatever. Grade: B
Overall, Key gets a solid B for this year. Let's hope for some bigger leaps going forward, but step 1 was ascending to consistent competence, and Key has more than held his bargain there.
Obviously this is the only correct POV - but if you HAVE to opine
P), what do y'all think?
1. Professionalism - From the second he took over for Scooter, it was clear that the grownups were in charge. Not all of it was perfect - I am not claiming THAT - but from how he deals with fans and the press, inferring what KQ said about practices, it looked like I was following a legit outfit. Grade: A
2. Offensive Coaching - No real complaints. I wish the team were better down to down, but I think some talent issues on the OL made that difficult. The team was consistently dangerous offensively, and there was nothing about any Scooter team where you thought lightning could strike. In the passing game, the area between the hashes seemed like a no-fly zone - and I think some money is left on the table there. But again, how much of that is a "can't" vs "won't" I don't know. I wish the offense were a little more QB friendly - where King had more easy answers and outlets in the passing game ... ultimately QB play is what will allow a school like Tech to punch upwards. Grade: B+
3. Defensive Coaching - Key stayed with Thacker after last year, and that was a mistake. Now, I got sucked into the thinking too - but I'm just a rando commenter (granted, one who was on Jeopardy once) - not an FBS head coach. Key overrated the dead cat bounce that comes with a midseason firing as well as how much of the defensive turnaround required turnover luck. The defense decided to focus on taking away big plays - fine as far as it goes - but it also meant being gashed over and over again. Bend but don't break is a sound overarching philosophy, but you need more durable ways to get off the field. There should be big changes - but I kinda think there will be. Grade: D
4. Special Teams - I won't dwell too much on this, but the kicking and return games were fine, after some early season placekicking hiccups. At least they can block a punt reliably. It did not take much to upgrade this unit from the actively harmful one Scooter hath wrought. Grade: B
5. Game Management -Didn't love it. Key could get sucked into surrender punting, and clearly some of the timeout usage was up and down. But it is also new for him so I'm not going to worry too much about this for year 1. Grade: B-
6. Vibes - You know what? We are at the final game of the season - and it took this long for me to get to a game where I don't think we can win. So that's 11 games where I thought this team had some plausible pathway to a victory. Now some of those paths were narrow - you know, where you might give us a 15% chance of winning - but those are better odds than lottery tickets. I'll also add that - for the most part - the team was fun to watch with some fun players. And there will always be the Miami miracle. Perhaps my glasses are too rosy juxtaposing this with Scooter, but whatever. Grade: B
Overall, Key gets a solid B for this year. Let's hope for some bigger leaps going forward, but step 1 was ascending to consistent competence, and Key has more than held his bargain there.
Obviously this is the only correct POV - but if you HAVE to opine
P), what do y'all think?
