Since taking the full-time job as Georgia Tech’s football coach in November 2022, Brent Key has said he would be strategic about how he used the NCAA’s transfer portal.
For Key, it never has been about simply scooping up the best available players looking for a new place to play, or necessarily about collecting players with only one season remaining in their eligibility as a sort of quick fix to a positional need. Yes, Tech has signed its fair share of one-and-done transfers the past couple of recruiting cycles, but for the most part Key and his staff are looking for transfers who can make an immediate impact and provide depth for multiple seasons.
“I look at it no differently, really, then the NFL,” Key said this preseason. “There’s two philosophies: you build your team, in the National Football League, you build it through the draft and supplement through free agency or you lean a little heavier toward the free agency part of it. It’s no different in college now. You have the high school recruiting part of it and then you have the acquisition through transfers, which is really collegiate free agency, for lack of a better word.”
Tech’s 2024 roster is another case study in how Key has gone about building the latest version of his program. Many of the programs newcomers who transferred in during the offseason will be thrust into the starting lineup while others will play vital roles on the depth chart and could be standouts in seasons to come. And specific position groups clearly relied on the transfer portal more than others.
Tight end was one of those spots when the 2023 team saw the departure of Dylan Leonard and Luke Benson. Tech went out and got Ryland Goede (Mississippi State), Jackson Hawes (Yale) and Josh Beetham (Michigan), the former two having only one season to play with the Yellow Jackets.
“I think right away from the get-go, of the schools that were talking to me, I saw something really special with Georgia Tech,” Hawes said. “I had, like, a 1-on-1 conversation with coach Key over the phone, which was really special. And not only that, but (conversations with) the entire offensive staff. I saw something really special in what they’re building here and I wanted to really be a part of that.”
Another area of focus for Key was on defense, where he stacked the roster with college-experienced at all positions. Up front Tech got linemen Romello Height (Southern California), Thomas Gore (Miami) and Jordan van den Berg (Penn State). Linebackers E.J. Lightsey (Georgia) and Jackson Hamilton (Louisville) are now Jackets, and the secondary has been upgraded with the additions of Warren Burrell (Tennessee), Syeed Gibbs (Rhode Island), Zachary Tobe (Illinois) and Jayden Davis (Cincinnati).
Burrell is expected to start at cornerback when Tech opens the season Aug. 24 against Florida State in Dublin.
“From a football aspect, it’s a team that’s on the rise,” Burrell said. “Everything about this team was trending upward. I believe in myself enough to help give that boost. Everything kind of checked all the boxes so it made sense.”
The influx of transfers, especially on defense, doesn’t equate to a complete overhaul of Tech’s personnel, but rather the creation of a symbiotic relationship between newcomers and returners. Key said to do that he studies NFL franchises, like the Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots, among others, and how they go about constructing their rosters.
College football’s new era in which players can transfer and play immediately, opposed to the previous rule of being required to sit out at least one season when signing with a new school in the same division, is an era that Key is clearly trying to take advantage of during the early stages of his Tech tenure.
“It has been able to help us,” Key added, “and I think you see a lot more depth on the football team because of it.”
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