Georgia Tech’s 2024 roster is already heavy with homegrown talent. That trend should continue on future Tech teams, coach Brent Key told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this month.
“A big emphasis in January was getting in every school (in Georgia) and recruiting Georgia,” Key said. “That’s something we talked about a lot.”
In the early stages of his second season in command of the Yellow Jackets, Key spent much of his immediate offseason (after leading Tech to a 7-6 record and Gasparilla Bowl win) polka-dotting the state in a helicopter and visiting with recruits and coaches while selling his vision for the future of Tech football. Scholarship offers began flying off the shelves to dozens of those recruits as well.
Key currently has more than 70 players on his spring roster who hail from Georgia. Eight of those Georgians are true freshmen who enrolled at Tech in January, including quarterback Aaron Philo, wide receiver Isiah Canion, running back Trelain Maddox and defensive back Cedric Franklin. They are all part of an overall 2024 signing class that ranked 33rd nationally by the 247Sports Composite and seventh among 17 ACC programs.
Now Key is looking for more Georgians to join what he hopes will be become a conference-championship contending program. Tech’s winning record, return to a bowl game in 2023 and two victories over ranked teams in ‘23 have helped strengthen Key’s pitch that Tech is heading in the right direction.
“Results on the field, they matter. That’s why we play the game. It matters big time,” Key said. “But also, the way you play the game and the type of play you play, I think that matters a lot, especially in the state of Georgia, in the Southeast, where there’s outstanding high school coaches. So many of these guys are as good as, if not better, than college coaches. They’re great coaches. They see ball. They understand what good ball is.”
Another prong of Key’s recruiting strategy was to add new assistant coaches with strong ties to the state.
Jess Simpson joined the team as defensive line coach – Simpson coached high school in the state for more than 20 years before stops with the Atlanta Falcons, Miami and Duke. Cory Peoples was hired to coach defensive backs – he has been a college coach since 2008 and been a part of five other Georgia college programs. Trent McKnight took over wide receivers earlier this month – McKnight has been a coach in either Georgia or Alabama since 2008.
That trio is charged with joining a staff whose mission is to scour the Peach State, not just in metro Atlanta but to the south of Macon as well, to improve Tech’s roster for future seasons. And Key said that while he and his staff can certainly offer insight to recruits into what Tech football is becoming under his leadership, he has been learning just as much about what sort of football the Jackets should be showcasing at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
“Kind of the recurring thing that I’ve heard is externally there’s a little bit of a sense of what people expect Georgia Tech to be,” Key said. “They expect it to be a tough, physical football team that doesn’t beat themselves. Those are people that have been around for 20, 30, 40 years watching college football. They know what has made this place successful and it’s sort of the same M.O. that we’ve attacked in the first year and that we’re trying to do in Year 2, too.”
About the Author
