On Sept. 6, 1997, Brent Key trotted onto the field at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. It was the redshirt freshman’s first snap as a college football player.
He remembers the play that was called for that snap. Remembers who was on the Notre Dame defense. Remembers that Georgia Tech lost 17-13 to the 11th-ranked Fighting Irish that day.
“It was the rededication of their stadium, they had expanded their stadium (for a record crowd of 80,225), first game in it,” Key recalled. “I’ll never forget it, the night before they had someone come in and speak to the team. Coach (George) O’Leary said, ‘We brought our priest with us, too.’ He was in his full outfit, and ‘Father Mario’ was with us on that sideline. But something must have happened because we ended up losing by one score.”
Key knows that loss was one of 30 the Jackets have suffered at the hands of Notre Dame. Knows the six times Tech has won, including the two Tech has won at Bobby Dodd Stadium and the one previous neutral-site matchup (the 1999 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, that Key and Tech won 35-28), and he knows that in 25 times of the 37 matchups the Irish have been nationally ranked.
He also knows the past two times Tech has played Notre Dame, games in which Key was the program’s offensive line coach at the time, the Jackets lost both by a combined score of 86-13. The 2021 result, a 55-0 win by Notre Dame in South Bend, was one of the worst defeats in Tech history.
Key knows that playing Notre Dame, and beating Notre Dame, holds heavier weight than most games. He hasn’t shied away from that fact this week and even told his team as much Sunday when they got together to discuss the week ahead.
Notre Dame (5-1) is ranked again for the next installment of the series that dates to 1922. This time the No. 12 Irish will meet Tech at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff Saturday (ESPN).
Not only is it a chance at redemption for Key for the 2020 and 2021 losses (and the 1997 defeat), but also for a few of Tech’s players such as punter David Shanahan, safety LaMiles Brooks, linebacker Trenilyas Tatum, offensive lineman Jordan Williams and Weston Franklin, tight end Avery Boyd and defensive linemen Sylvain Yondjouen, Makius Scott, Josh Robinson and Kevin Harris, who endured that 55-0 beat-down three years ago.
“Playing Notre Dame has always been something big since I’ve been here. I can’t wait to play,” said Yondjouen, who was a freshman in 2020 for the Tech-Notre Dame game. “The last memories I have to play Notre Dame was over there. It was cold. It was bad. It’s not memories you want to keep so we’re about to make new ones over here.
“(Key) asked us, ‘The guys that have been here before, you guys know what it means to play Notre Dame?’ It’s not a game to just play in. It’s serious. I understand it, and I feel it, too, for myself. I’m excited for this game, like every other game, but this one a little bit more because it is Notre Dame, (the game) is in Atlanta, and it’s a good team, so let’s go compete.”
Tech first beat Notre Dame in 1928, a shutout victory in Atlanta after six consecutive losses to begin the series. It would be 14 more years and five more defeats before a 13-6 triumph in South Bend in 1942. The Jackets also won in 1959 and 1976, the latter coming in Bobby Dodd Stadium when Tech ran for 368 yards and didn’t attempt a pass.
There also was a 33-3 win by Tech in 2007, a rare matchup in which neither team was ranked. In 1980 the two teams played to a 3-3 tie in what was considered an upset result for the Jackets — Notre Dame was ranked No. 1 at the time. Another upset-minded performance will be needed Saturday
“That’s who we are. That will not ever change,” Key said. “We are the outcasts. We’re the forgotten ones. We’re the people no one wanted. Every day we wake up, we wake up with something to prove. We have to go prove something. We know ourselves. And this is a chip on our shoulder — and I say ‘our’ shoulder, that’s the coaches, that’s the staff, that’s the players. As long as I’m standing here at Georgia Tech, that’ll never change with that mentality.”
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