A shade more than two years ago, Brent Key stepped into Bobby Dodd Stadium for the first time as the interim head coach at his alma mater Georgia Tech. The opponent that day? Duke.
Key would lead the Yellow Jackets to a 23-20 victory in overtime. It was his second game overall and second consecutive win of what is now a 26-game tenure leading Tech.
Since that 2022 night in Atlanta, Key has gotten the Jackets back to a bowl game, secured a winning record in his first full season as full-time coach and defeated five ranked ACC teams. His next immediate challenge is to somewhat right the ship after a 31-19 setback at Louisville on Sept. 21 and a bye week.
Oh, and to knock off an undefeated ACC opponent at 8 p.m. Saturday, an opponent which happens to be named Duke.
“I tell you guys a lot, the self-assessment that takes place every day, every week — the comfort level of being the head coach on the sideline in a game,” Key said on how he’s grown since the Duke game two years ago. “There’s a drive taking place, ‘OK, I can decompress for a minute, watch the flow of the game.’ You’re always trying to think two or three plays ahead and the management of it, scenarios within the game. A lot of those things you can rehearse all you want, but until they occur.
“All those things and situations that just happen so much quicker now. The elevated level of awareness, I think, has increased as well.”
Even though Key’s squad technically is the favorite (by about eight points) going into Saturday’s matchup, the Jackets have made a living of playing up the underdog role during Key’s tenure. And they seem to play at a higher level when their backs are against the wall.
Tech (3-2, 1-2 ACC) has had only one losing streak during Key’s tenure, suffering back-to-back defeats to Virginia and Florida State, respectively, in October 2022. Since then, Tech has won eight games in a row immediately following a loss.
That may be a good omen for the Jackets against a Duke team (5-0, 1-0) which is off to its best start since beginning the 1994 campaign 7-0.
“They’re a good team, and they have been for a long time,” Key said. “The culture of the players in that locker room, coaches can come and go, but those things — (Diaz) is a really good football coach, preaches things the right way, does things the right way, builds his team the right way. You’re not gonna lose those positive things that you had over the course of time.”
The matchups inside the matchup are plenty.
Duke brings an aggressive defense that has racked up a ton of sacks and tackles for loss, have the league’s best pass defense and stifle offenses on third down and allow only 16.2 points per game. Tech quarterback Haynes King described the Blue Devils’ secondary as, “like little gnats you can’t get rid of.”
But on offense, Duke is only managing 120.6 rushing yards per game and ranks 13th in the ACC in total offense. Tech’s rush defense, led by former Duke assistants and current Tech coaches Tyler Santucci and Jess Simpson, is only giving up 90.2 yards per contest, the third-best mark in the league.
“They do a job with their effort, physicality, toughness. And then schematically they cancel run gaps and just make it tough sledding on anybody,” Duke coach Manny Diaz said this week. “It’s a great challenge for our group because we are getting better and better at running the football every week, and it’s gonna be important. You cannot go on the road in conference then just expect to throw the ball 40-50 times in a game.”
Tech’s offense, meanwhile, hasn’t gotten into the same high gear it was operating at by the end of the 2023 season. But that in no way makes it less dangerous, especially with King at quarterback, Diaz said.
King ranks fifth nationally in completion percentage (73.9) and accounting for 298 yards of total offense per outing. And his ability to run it as well as he does pass it is a concern.
“When you play those type of quarterbacks you always feel the tension that they can cause because you can never really be relaxed,” Diaz said. “They’re always a threat to do something that defenses generally don’t like.”
Tech likely needs to win its five remaining ACC games to have any shot of making the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, North Carolina, the first weekend of December. Duke is in a more advantageous position at 1-0 in conference play with seven league matchups to go.
Thus, the Jackets, on paper, may need this one more than their counterparts.
“We don’t have a huge margin. We’re not gonna have a huge margin in any game we play,” Key added. “We’re playing a 5-0 team coming here who has earned every bit of those five wins. Every game from here on out is gonna be a very evenly matched game. We do have to create that margin.”
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