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!
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!
