This isn’t Year One. Brent Key isn’t embarking on any firsts anymore.
“When you start (preseason) practice, you don’t wanna see a drop off in retention,” Georgia Tech’s second-year coach said Monday at the ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We carry a very distinct advantage into every game, and that’s our ability to carry a higher volume. They’re smart kids. I’m excited to see that start.”
Key clearly has an expectation for his team to somewhat hit the ground running Wednesday evening during the first preseason practice ahead of the 2024 season. Expectations for Key and his team overall, meanwhile, are high after the former Tech offensive linemen led the Yellow Jackets to a 7-6 record and a bowl win in 2023.
With so many players returning from that ’23 squad, especially on the offense, the Jackets seem to be champing at the bit to get back under the lights and prove they can take the next step as a team and as a program.
“Building off last season is a big step,” quarterback Haynes King said in Charlotte. “Now our expectation and standard has risen. It’s not going to be the same. People always say you’re either getting better or you’re getting worse, you can’t stay the same.”
King will take the field Wednesday as part of an offense that includes running backs Jamal Haynes and Trey Cooley, wide receivers Eric Singleton, Malik Rutherford and Christian Leary and offensive linemen Corey Robinson, Joe Fusile, Weston Franklin and Ethan Mackenny. That group was a big part of Tech success under offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner in 2023, and the pressure is on for them to produce similar gaudy numbers in 2024.
Complacency, however, always seems to be lurking around the corner.
“I definitely want to see some relentless effort out there,” Haynes said in Charlotte about the first few days of practice. “The same effort that the guys come out with on Day One, I wanna see the same effort on Day 16 when it’s hard and it’s hot and it’s two o’clock and it’s 93 degrees. You definitely wanna see that consistency out of our team, especially in that fall camp era.”
The defense will be the biggest mystery and concern for Tech starting Wednesday and, really, throughout the early part of the ’24 season.
Key brought in Tyler Santucci to coordinate the defense, Jess Simpson to coach the defensive line, Cory Peoples to coach the defensive backs and Kyle Pope to coach linebackers and defensive ends. Defensive linemen Thomas Gore (Miami), Jordan van den Berg (Penn State) and Romello Height (Southern California), cornerbacks Warren Burrell (Tennessee) and Syeed Gibbs (Rhode Island), linebackers Jackson Hamilton (Louisville) and linebacker E.J. Lightsey (Georgia) joined the program to boost depth.
Those new names join some familiar ones like linebackers Kyle Efford and Trenilyas Tatum, safety LaMiles Brooks, defensive backs Ahmari Harvey, Clayton Powell-Lee and Rodney Shelley and defensive linemen Makius Scott, Horace Lockett, Kevin Harris, Sylvain Yondjouen and Zeek Biggers. It will incumbent upon that returning crew to lead the charge to change the fortunes of the ACC’s worst rushing defense, worst total defense and second-worst scoring defense.
“We had the most-desirable defensive job in the country last year. It can only go one way: up,” Key said. “And we got players that play their butts off. We got players that play hard. Do we have challenging opponents? Yeah. Do we have challenging offenses we’ll face? Yeah.
“They go against a challenging opponent every single day in practice and every day this summer. They’re not gonna see more than they’ve seen the last eight months, I promise you that.”
The Jackets are scheduled to take the practice field at 5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and then 2 p.m. Friday before a morning workout Saturday and off-day Sunday.
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