Georgia Tech spring football practice notes and quotes 3/11
Georgia Tech began spring football practice Monday with a two-hour session on the Rose Bowl practice fields. Second-year head football coach Brent Key spoke with the media after practice and detailed his five new assistant coach hires including his all-new defensive staff.
Key said that new defensive coordinator Tyler Santucci was the first person he spoke to about the open defensive coordinator position when he decided to move on from the previous defensive staff and several weeks later he hired him to lead the Jackets defense.
"You go through the process of talking to people for different spots and we were really lucky to hire Tyler for defensive coordinator," Key said. "He was the very first person I talked to and fast forward 4-5-6 weeks later, he ends up being the guy that we were fortunate enough to be able to get."
Santucci is only 35 years old but Key said he coaches like an experienced veteran coach twice his age.
"He is a wise past his years. You forget a lot of the time what his age actually is especially when you see the energy he coaches with but also the detail he coaches with and the toughness he coaches with. He has been around really good coaches in his career and the outstanding thing about him is when you look at what he has been able to do and what he did at the last place he was at (Duke), he had a group of guys that played cohesive and played together," Key said. Yeah, they were good statistically, but that is because of the way they were coached and the expectations demanded of them."
Prior to hiring Santucci, Key brought in Jess Simpson who happened to be Santucci's defensive line coach at Duke. The former Buford HS coach and Atlanta Falcons assistant was a priority hire for Key because of the boxes he checked."Jess is a guy I've known for a long time. He is as respected as anyone there is out there as a defensive line coach. It is just the relationships that he is able to have with those players in the room and when you have those relationships you are able to push them to do a lot of things with them to push them out of their comfort zones. I thought that is what we needed but he is also a very detailed coach and very technique-driven to (make his guys) strong technicians. He has coached at every level and had success at every level," Key said of Simpson.
Working alongside Simpson, Key hired Kyle Pope who was the defensive line GA at Alabama when Key was the offensive line coach under Nick Saban. Pope was most recently at Memphis prior to coming to the Flats. Key said he likes the chemistry between Simpson who coaches the defensive line and Pope who will coach the edge rushers and outside linebackers in sub packages.
"Kyle was a graduate assistant in Tuscaloosa with us and just the energy he had at a young age then as a coach and a recruiter was impressive. He goes about it the same way every day and the recruiting part is huge as well all know. He has proven to be a very successful recruiter working at a couple of different places and has improved upon what he was doing as a GA six or seven years ago and he developed that and has become an even better coach. I'm really excited about having him working with edges and outside backers if we go into a 3-4 mode. Kyle and Jess working together is a really good pairing and they feed off each other and I really expect big things out of those two guys."
New secondary coach Cory Peoples came to Tech from Georgia State to round out the new on-the-field hires on the defensive side of the ball.
"Corey was right down the road and he was one of the first people I talked to at that position and the relationships he had with people in the area were big. When you talk to people whether it be local high school coaches or former players that he coached, everything was super positive. Cory was able to do a lot with the guys he brought into his last place and his relationships with coaches in the area were very important," Key said of the Peoples hire.
Key also added to the plate of special teams coordinator Ricky Brumfield putting him in charge of the cornerback positions."Ricky who has been here for a year already coaching special teams, adding corners with him allows him to affect things in a different way with another position group and allows him to use his recruiting skill even more than we were able to last year," Key said.
On the offensive side, the only change was the hiring of Trent McKnight as receivers coach. McKnight joined the staff late last month after the sudden departure of McKnight's former boss Shawn Elliott from Georgia State started a ripple effect with Dell McGee getting hired to be the head coach of the Panthers from UGA and UGA hiring Josh Crawford away from the Jackets to replace him as the running backs coach flipping him from being a long-time receivers coach.
"Trent we hired two weeks ago I believe, you are able to see him out there for the first time with the guys and I'm excited to able to watch him," Key said. "I'm looking for him to coach receivers and be able to recruit his area and his position at a high level as well."
Key said he contacted former players, high school coaches, and fellow college coaches to vet all of his new hires.