For the first two games of his brief tenure, Georgia Tech interim coach Brent Key led his team through the most welcome of challenges – preparing for its next opponent while infused with the delight provided by winning hard-fought conference games. This week finds Key handling his team at the other end of the spectrum, preparing the Yellow Jackets to go on the road as heavy underdogs to Florida State after a dispiriting home loss to Virginia.
“Just like we talk about the ability to handle success, the ability to handle the failure is just as important,” Key said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “You have to be able to handle those things because you can’t change one thing that’s in the past. You really can’t – we all know that – but you sure can learn from what’s in the past.”
After the 16-9 defeat against the Cavaliers on Thursday, in which the defense forced three turnovers (scoring off one of them) and the special-teams unit blocked a field-goal try and a punt, but the offense could muster only three points, Key found himself quoting from the Book of Saban.
“Coach (Nick) Saban always said, ‘You can’t ever waste a failure,’” Key said, referencing his former boss of three years at Alabama. “You can never waste a failure. And that’s really the thing we’ve been working toward right now.”
There was plenty to learn from in the loss, which dropped the Jackets to 3-4 overall and 2-2 in the ACC, a defeat that was costly in the team’s pursuit of its first bowl berth since 2018. Key said he spoke to the team Sunday about having the discipline to carry training from the practice field to the game and to play through the highs and lows of a game.
“We weren’t able to do that on Thursday,” Key said.
Quarterback Zach Gibson, who entered the game in the second quarter after starter Jeff Sims sustained a sprained foot, was not at his best and tried too hard to hit big plays, Key said. Clock management and situational awareness were other shortcomings.
“There’s a saying, ‘You can’t go broke taking a profit,’” Key said. “Don’t try to win the game on every play.”
Key was unsparing in his assessment of the offensive line, the unit he coached before he was installed as the interim coach. The Jackets’ front was particularly ineffective in the second half, when backs Dontae Smith and Hassan Hall combined for eight runs for 28 yards. Gibson was sacked five times in the half, sometimes because he held the ball too long in the pocket.
Key said the line became tentative. Linemen were overpowered in pass protection, didn’t pick up blitzes and didn’t make blocks in the run game. It was the same group, it bears noting, that mashed Pittsburgh for 232 rushing yards and Duke for 180 in the Jackets’ two previous games.
“I thought we tried to almost be perfect on everything, and when you try to be perfect on everything at that position, you become, really, good at nothing,” he said. “Let me just say it this way: It was a collective effort to be bad, and it was. It was bad in the second half.”
Saturday’s challenge is immense, as reflected in the point spread posted by bookmakers. The Seminoles were initially listed as 20.5-point favorites, and the spread had widened to 23 points by Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, as news of Sims’ injury and Key’s plan to play quarterbacks Gibson and Zach Pyron spread, it had risen to as high as 24.5 points.
Key said he was taking encouragement from his team’s response to the loss to the Cavaliers. One of the changes that Key has instituted since coach Geoff Collins’ dismissal Sept. 26 was to establish a leadership council of players. The group met Friday, Key said, and he opened the floor to players.
“Now, I’m not going to share what went on in that meeting, but it was powerful,” Key said. “It was a good meeting. Well, then that filters into your locker room, and that helps to build the type of team that you really want.”
At the Tuesday morning practice, a full-pads session, Key said he saw players “dialed in” and practicing hard as he led drills pitting the offensive and defensive starters.
“That’s the sign there’s not let-up at all,” he said.
The surest sign will be on display at noon Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium.
