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For all intents and purposes, this is year one under Brent Key. It is not year zero, it is not a continuation of the 2022 season either. The team has specific flaws and many I pointed out going all the way back to the spring including linebacker on defense and running back where they just don't have a consistent needle mover akin to the backs of Tech lore or even recent memory. They have a lovely shifty back in Jamal Haynes who is a great kid and a very talented guy, but he is not an every-down back who can give you 25 touches if you need to ride him on a tough night.
Quarterback Haynes King has cooled off, but by the standards of the previous era is still playing pretty well though that was more Jeff Sims than Haynes King last week in most ways.
BC isn't a bad team, they are mediocre to decent. Georgia Tech is in the same boat and most of the ACC above GT like UNC or Miami are decent to above average except for FSU. GT fans in their drive to be excited about turning the corner skipped over the 31-29 game with the highly-ranked Noles back in September. The Eagles are not Bowling Green or SC State.
Brent Key is a first-time head coach and you can see he is learning his way and Saturday was a massive setback for him and the fans who desperately want to see a winner in Bobby Dodd Stadium.
It is not the end of the line nor the final chapter or anything or the writing on the wall or whatever other cliche you want to use. It was a loss and this team has closed some margin even compared to the second half of last year. The defense just isn't as good without the two linebackers and Keion White/Sylvain Yondjouen duo. If you had that defense and King this year you'd be looking at a team with a 5-2 record IMO despite some of the issues at times.
Right now no one knows if Key is the next Bill Curry, Bill Lewis, Bobby Ross, George O'Leary or Chan Gailey. It will take at least another full 12 months to have a real idea of what kind of progress he is truly making reimagining the program into what Key's version of GT football is.
That doesn't make things any easier for fans or even people like myself who have to cover games each week having no idea which team will show up and if they will be the good GT or the bad GT and how long. Key has to fix that as well, but even that takes time.
A look at some other similar coaches might help shed light on different possible outcomes.
WORKED OUT:
Dabo Swinney is the most obvious non-GOL one. Dabo went 4-3 as the interim after Tommy Bowden was fired midseason in 2008. Dabo won 9 games the next year and lost to GT twice including in the ACCG. He fell to 6-7 the next year and then he hired Chad Morris replacing now Florida coach Billy Napier as OC and found the first part of the coaching duo that made him very successful. The next year he dumped Kevin Steele and found Brent Venables and Dabo/Venables really was the core of their run along with Morris' offense called with various generational QBs. It took Dabo several hires to get to the correct staff though. Clemson was never short on talent in any of those seasons either.
George O'Leary (GT) O'Leary returned to Tech after a brief NFL stint as DC for the hapless Bill Lewis before taking over a fractured Jackets' team in 1995. Tech went 0-3 with him as the interim HC, but he was given the green light to run the program and the Jackets went 6-5 and 5-6 his first two years yielding a 11-14 record before things started to turn around in 1997 when he brought back Ralph Friedgen to be his OC and things started rolling.
Kyle Whittingham (Utah) This is one of those weird situations where he got the job when Urban Meyer bounced for Florida in that December and coached his first game as the interim coach in the bowl game in the Fiesta Bowl in 2005 and they beat Pitt soundly in the game and he has never looked back. Whittingham is 160-75 at Utah with 3 Pac-12 titles and three other PAC12CG appearances.
Phil Fulmer (Tenn) He took over an ailing Johnny Majors in 1992 going 3-0 before Majors returned and the Vols faltered some, Majors was forced out after the regular season, Fulmer coached the bowl game also a win and never looked back winning a Natty for Rocky Top and coaching there for 16 years in total as the HC.
JURY IS OUT:
Sam Pittman at Arkansas is another example of this and an OL coach like Key. He went to Pittsburg State not Arkansas though. Pitt Boss went 3-7 in year one with hot shot OC Kendall Briles who Geoff Collins originally wanted as his OC, but Briles went to FSU to work for Willie Taggart who got fired at the end of 2019. Pitt-Boss won 9 games in 2021 and went 7-6 last year before falling back after Briles left for TCU and he is having a tough year at 2-5 now having fired Briles' replacement Dan Enos just seven games in. Enos was a bad hire. Arkansas like Georgia Tech also suffers from scheduling blues with the SEC West gauntlet. Pitt Boss didn't start as an interim or take over from a staff he was already on, but he is sort of the middle ground of the OL coach as a HC.
FAILED:
Matt Luke (Ole Miss) this is the one that people who really dislike the Key hire fixate on. Luke got the job because Hugh Freeze was a dirtbag and got fired for doing shady things with escorts using Ole Miss phones. Luke was 40 when he was named the head coach and even less experienced than Key as an assistant coach having never been an OC and really getting his work in under David Cutcliffe at Tenn and Duke before returning to Ole Miss. The Rebs went 6-6 in year one, 5-7 in year two and 4-8 in year three and he was gone. He cried during his opening presser and really was overmatched in almost every respect of the job from the outset. He cut his teeth under Cut and Freeze not exactly GOL and Saban.
Time will tell where Key fits into this list.
For all intents and purposes, this is year one under Brent Key. It is not year zero, it is not a continuation of the 2022 season either. The team has specific flaws and many I pointed out going all the way back to the spring including linebacker on defense and running back where they just don't have a consistent needle mover akin to the backs of Tech lore or even recent memory. They have a lovely shifty back in Jamal Haynes who is a great kid and a very talented guy, but he is not an every-down back who can give you 25 touches if you need to ride him on a tough night.
Quarterback Haynes King has cooled off, but by the standards of the previous era is still playing pretty well though that was more Jeff Sims than Haynes King last week in most ways.
BC isn't a bad team, they are mediocre to decent. Georgia Tech is in the same boat and most of the ACC above GT like UNC or Miami are decent to above average except for FSU. GT fans in their drive to be excited about turning the corner skipped over the 31-29 game with the highly-ranked Noles back in September. The Eagles are not Bowling Green or SC State.
Brent Key is a first-time head coach and you can see he is learning his way and Saturday was a massive setback for him and the fans who desperately want to see a winner in Bobby Dodd Stadium.
It is not the end of the line nor the final chapter or anything or the writing on the wall or whatever other cliche you want to use. It was a loss and this team has closed some margin even compared to the second half of last year. The defense just isn't as good without the two linebackers and Keion White/Sylvain Yondjouen duo. If you had that defense and King this year you'd be looking at a team with a 5-2 record IMO despite some of the issues at times.
Right now no one knows if Key is the next Bill Curry, Bill Lewis, Bobby Ross, George O'Leary or Chan Gailey. It will take at least another full 12 months to have a real idea of what kind of progress he is truly making reimagining the program into what Key's version of GT football is.
That doesn't make things any easier for fans or even people like myself who have to cover games each week having no idea which team will show up and if they will be the good GT or the bad GT and how long. Key has to fix that as well, but even that takes time.
A look at some other similar coaches might help shed light on different possible outcomes.
WORKED OUT:
Dabo Swinney is the most obvious non-GOL one. Dabo went 4-3 as the interim after Tommy Bowden was fired midseason in 2008. Dabo won 9 games the next year and lost to GT twice including in the ACCG. He fell to 6-7 the next year and then he hired Chad Morris replacing now Florida coach Billy Napier as OC and found the first part of the coaching duo that made him very successful. The next year he dumped Kevin Steele and found Brent Venables and Dabo/Venables really was the core of their run along with Morris' offense called with various generational QBs. It took Dabo several hires to get to the correct staff though. Clemson was never short on talent in any of those seasons either.
George O'Leary (GT) O'Leary returned to Tech after a brief NFL stint as DC for the hapless Bill Lewis before taking over a fractured Jackets' team in 1995. Tech went 0-3 with him as the interim HC, but he was given the green light to run the program and the Jackets went 6-5 and 5-6 his first two years yielding a 11-14 record before things started to turn around in 1997 when he brought back Ralph Friedgen to be his OC and things started rolling.
Kyle Whittingham (Utah) This is one of those weird situations where he got the job when Urban Meyer bounced for Florida in that December and coached his first game as the interim coach in the bowl game in the Fiesta Bowl in 2005 and they beat Pitt soundly in the game and he has never looked back. Whittingham is 160-75 at Utah with 3 Pac-12 titles and three other PAC12CG appearances.
Phil Fulmer (Tenn) He took over an ailing Johnny Majors in 1992 going 3-0 before Majors returned and the Vols faltered some, Majors was forced out after the regular season, Fulmer coached the bowl game also a win and never looked back winning a Natty for Rocky Top and coaching there for 16 years in total as the HC.
JURY IS OUT:
Sam Pittman at Arkansas is another example of this and an OL coach like Key. He went to Pittsburg State not Arkansas though. Pitt Boss went 3-7 in year one with hot shot OC Kendall Briles who Geoff Collins originally wanted as his OC, but Briles went to FSU to work for Willie Taggart who got fired at the end of 2019. Pitt-Boss won 9 games in 2021 and went 7-6 last year before falling back after Briles left for TCU and he is having a tough year at 2-5 now having fired Briles' replacement Dan Enos just seven games in. Enos was a bad hire. Arkansas like Georgia Tech also suffers from scheduling blues with the SEC West gauntlet. Pitt Boss didn't start as an interim or take over from a staff he was already on, but he is sort of the middle ground of the OL coach as a HC.
FAILED:
Matt Luke (Ole Miss) this is the one that people who really dislike the Key hire fixate on. Luke got the job because Hugh Freeze was a dirtbag and got fired for doing shady things with escorts using Ole Miss phones. Luke was 40 when he was named the head coach and even less experienced than Key as an assistant coach having never been an OC and really getting his work in under David Cutcliffe at Tenn and Duke before returning to Ole Miss. The Rebs went 6-6 in year one, 5-7 in year two and 4-8 in year three and he was gone. He cried during his opening presser and really was overmatched in almost every respect of the job from the outset. He cut his teeth under Cut and Freeze not exactly GOL and Saban.
Time will tell where Key fits into this list.
