Inside Georgia Tech’s reversal under Brent Key: ‘Everything just feels different’

The exchange led to a phone call.

“He just emphasized that he was going to do everything that he could to put the players in the right situation to be successful and that he was going to change some things up so that they could be successful,” Brooks said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

‘Kind of mind-blowing to see such a quick turnaround’

That was almost three weeks ago. Any Tech fan knows what has happened in the days following Brooks’ conversation with Key. The Jackets traveled to Pittsburgh as 21.5-point underdogs and returned home as 26-21 winners. The following Saturday, Tech pulled a milder upset, a 23-20 overtime defeat of Duke at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

“For me, it’s kind of mind-blowing to see such a quick turnaround,” Brooks said.

As their team enjoys its lone open date of the season, Jackets fans everywhere happily share Brooks’ disbelief. A team that seemed in disarray and incapable of winning after its 1-3 start led to the dismissals of athletic director Todd Stansbury and coach Geoff Collins now appears to have a reasonable path to at least get to 6-6 and earn its first bowl bid since 2018.

“I think that if I’m a Yellow Jacket fan, I’m disappointed if they don’t make a bowl game,” Bally Sports South analyst James Bates told the AJC. “I think that’s a realistic goal for them.”

The explanation of how Tech has managed to reverse course so abruptly begins with Key. But it also includes Jackets players, Key’s staff and, perhaps, a little bit of fortune.

Some changes that Key instituted can’t be given too much weight – such as the shelving of the “Money Down” signs on third down or Key’s replacing Collins’ “Above the Line” chart with a standard depth chart. But they likely do point to a greater internal shift.

“We focused on working this week, not playing around and not doing anything that’s not going to help us win,” quarterback Jeff Sims said after the win over Pitt. “Just staying focused in practice and go out there and give it all we’ve got like we’re in a game.”

The coaching change served to lower the tension level that had been created by the losing and the looming possibility of Collins’ dismissal. When Collins was dismissed, a person close to the team said, it was as though a cloud had been lifted or a release valve had been pulled.

When Brooks went up to Pittsburgh to watch LaMiles play, he saw the difference even from the stands.

“I can say I saw different body language from him during the game, and I saw the energy and the enthusiasm that I’m used to seeing from him,” Brooks said.

The play of Sims, particularly in his running, might illustrate this effect more than anyone. In the past two games, he has run with a level of fight that he had not consistently demonstrated this season and previously. No play demonstrated this more than a 19-yard run in the first quarter of the Duke game when he plowed full speed into a Duke defensive back and dragged Blue Devils players about five extra yards after contact.

“Maybe I’m blowing this out of proportion, but if I were his teammate, that run would have showed me more about Jeff Sims than anything,” said ACC Network analyst and former Tech captain Roddy Jones, who has been critical of Sims’ running in the past. “Some of that’s probably (reflecting on) the guys that I played with, but I think they’ve gotten Jeff playing more confidently and maybe finally buying into the (idea of), ‘Hey, you need to be a leader of this team. More than vocally, more than just throwing the football. You need to be our emotional leader.’”

Jones said that for a quarterback to play with such abandon “100%” inspires teammates.

“You’re having to watch the game film multiple times, and when you see your quarterback run over somebody, it’s like, ‘Let’s go!,’” Jones said. “(Joshua) Nesbitt did it every game and every time I was like, ‘All right, let’s go! Come on!’”

‘I don’t know how it can be a complete coincidence’

Key also has found a way to connect with players. His promotion of defensive analyst Anthony Parker to director of player development, for instance, was done to make sure players’ input is being heard. He has tried to build players up and make the process simple – focus only on what will help the team win games that week and nothing else.

“I think the week-by-week thing is big for us,” defensive tackle D’Quan Douse said. “We just need to hone in on our job this week and then worry about what’s to come.”

From a preparation standpoint, Key has made changes in the way that the staff coaches and plans. He acknowledged as much when he said that defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker has been able to “simplify things when they needed to be simplified.”

For example, Key has told players that if there’s an element of the game plan that they don’t understand or are unsure about, they need to tell the coaches, and it will be removed.

“That’s been something they’ve really bought into, the kids have, and it’s allowed them to be confident in their preparation going into the game,” Key said. “And that’s a huge piece, especially on defense, of being able to play fast and play confident.”

Against Pitt, the defense accumulated 12 quarterback hurries, 10 more than Tech had had in its first four games combined and its most in a game since at least 2018. Pitt’s 2-for-12 effort on third down was Tech’s lowest rate (16.7%) in a game since 2017. Against Duke, the Jackets allowed two plays of 20-plus yards (the Blue Devils had averaged five per game in their first five games) and held Duke to 3.7 yards per play, the lowest for a Tech FBS opponent since 2014.

“Maybe it’s a myriad of things,” Jones said. “But I don’t know how it can be a complete coincidence.”

Taking plays out of the game plan is a common practice that offensive coordinators have with quarterbacks, but less so with other positions. Bates, who played linebacker for Florida, is a longtime ACC broadcaster and is the son of a longtime NFL coach (Jim Bates), was asked if he had ever heard of that option ever being offered to defensive players.

“Gosh, no,” Bates answered. “But it makes sense.”

The strategy called to mind one of Bates’ favorite coaching sayings: “If you think, you stink.” That is to say, a player who is having to think his way through a play will not be effective.

“Rather than to bog them down and get them thinking too much, just give ‘em a few things and let ‘em do it really well,” he said.

‘The guys took to it’

Another significant change that Key has instituted is ramping up the intensity in practice and creating more game-like conditions.

“Every day, that’s our goal, is to close that gap and to make that margin a lot smaller,” Key said. “Because the more you can do that, the easier the game’s going to be. The game’s going to slow down for you.”

Nickel back K.J. Wallace spoke to this difference after the win over Duke, saying the structure of practice wasn’t too much different, but that the mindset is.

“I’m not saying we haven’t been practicing hard all season,” Wallace said. “We’ve definitely been practicing hard. It’s just you can feel how intentional guys are with each rep in practice. We understand how it translates to the game, and we understand how crucial it is to prepare yourself each week.”

One way that has appeared to impact Tech is in its reduction of pre-snap penalties. The Jackets averaged 3.3 penalties before the snap in their first four games, but have drawn a total of three in the past two with Key as interim. On Key’s radio show between the Pitt and Duke games, Thacker said that there have been consequences for penalties committed in games.

“The guys took to it,” Thacker said. “They’ve got a lot of pride in what they do. They’re not attempting to make mistakes, but the discipline with which we worked through the course of the week then carried over.”

And, certainly, Tech enjoyed some breaks in the two wins. Sims and Tech were fortunate that at least four passes that he threw against Pitt that could have been intercepted – including one on the first play of the game that looked like it could have been returned for a touchdown – were dropped. Against Duke, as much as Jackets fans cried foul against penalty flags thrown against the Jackets on the Blue Devils’ overtime-forcing drive late in the fourth quarter, a rare offensive pass-interference flag took the Blue Devils out of a first-and-goal situation in which a touchdown would have won the game.

‘Daddy, I feel like a winner’

As it often is, the line between an offense playing poorly and a defense playing well (or vice versa) is difficult to delineate. Tech may have caught Pitt and Duke having off days. On the other hand, Tech had lost nine consecutive FBS opponents, some of them games in which the Jackets had chances to win but could not take advantage. It’s hard not to conclude something significant has changed.

In the past two games, Tech limited its mistakes, played fast and with an edge, rose up to meet challenges and reaped the rewards.

“It felt like it was a team that was really rallying and having fun playing football and competing together,” said Bates, who called the Tech-Duke game. “It looked like a physical football team.”

Tech will play the first of its six remaining games Thursday night, at home against Virginia. Can the Jackets continue on the same course and produce similar results? Brooks, who has seen his son’s coach make good on his plans to deliver success, believes so.

“Sunday morning (after the Duke game), when I saw Miles before I left town, he was just, like, ‘Daddy, I feel like a winner,’” Brooks said. “‘I woke up this morning, everything just feels different.’ And I think that’s what everybody is feeling.”