ATLANTA- Georgia Tech football players returned to the field for the first time since the firing of Geoff Collins with a Tuesday morning practice under interim head coach Brent Key. The vibe was different, the music was mostly gone and a focus on coaching and fixing issues like special teams was the prominent theme of the day.
Key spoke to the media for the first time after taking over as the interim head coach following Tech president Ángel Cabrera and interim AD Frank Neville inside the Edge Building on Tuesday afternoon. Cabrera before leaving immediately following his prepared statements summed up Key for the media and fans watching at home.
"Brent Key who has stepped in as our interim head coach, I can tell you he is laser-focused on leading the team to a much-needed win and I am very appreciative to both (Neville and Key) stepping up to the call," Cabrera said.
With his typical mid-season hoarse voice, Key spoke about the difficulty of the situation but also his passion for his audition for his actual dream job being the head coach at least on an interim status at his alma mater where he played on Grant Field.
"I'm honored and proud to take the responsibility of leading the football program over these next eight games," Key said. "It is something I take very seriously as an alum and a former football player here at Georgia Tech. I will give everything I have as well as the coaching staff who will give everything they have throughout this process. I'm obviously thankful for President Cabrera and Frank for this opportunity and it is bittersweet with what has happened the last couple of days with Coach Collins and Todd who are both people I have known for a long time and who gave me the opportunity to come back home."
Key said while he is honored that he got the nod to be the interim coach, he also is focused on the players and not the big picture.
"As a Georgia Tech alumnus and former football player, I think this is one of the greatest jobs in the country. I would hope over the next eight games and ten weeks that our work on the field would put our coaching staff in a position to able to have those conversations," Key said. "Again this is not about me and I told the players that. I don't want this to be about myself or the coaches. This is about the players. This is not about trying to get a job. We have a job and we take that very seriously."
Key said that the staff met together for much of the day after he was informed of the changing of leadership and they also held a team meeting Monday night to lay out the expectations.
"In the team meeting last night I laid out the expectations for the players and I told the players I want them to have ownership in this and coaches can lead the players, but the players drive the ship," Key said. "At the same time, you give players that responsibility, accountability comes with it so it is a two-way street where they have to understand both of those things so there has to be some accountability that goes along with it."
After the four punt blocks this season and poor field goal kicking, Key said his first move was to have a long special teams meeting. He appointed linebacker coach Jason Semore as the new special teams' coordinator as well. Semore worked on punt and kickoff coverage units while Mike Daniels oversaw kick and punt return while Collins handled punt himself until his termination.
"We had probably a two-and-a-half-hour special teams meeting and I would like to announce Jason Semore has been promoted from not only linebacker coach but also special teams coordinator," he said. "He will be running special teams along with everyone else on the staff to work to immediately fix issues that we had. Our goal is to go out and play our best brand of football that we possibly can and to give the kids a great chance and opportunity every Saturday to compete and win."
Key has the opportunity to either promote someone on the staff or hire someone outside the program to be the 10th on the field assistant spot with his move to head coach. He said he is not in a hurry to make that call with a bye week coming up less than 14 days.
"You are talking about someone who is going to be hands-on around your players every single day. That is a responsibility I take very seriously and who we bring into the program has to be able to help us and has to be someone who fits exactly what we have available," Key said. "So that is not something I'm rushing to do today. But is something I've already put a lot of thought into and with the bye coming in two weeks we can take some time and look at it."
Consistency is something Key wants to see and he feels has been missing from the team.
"Players respond to the organization that is in front of them. Players respond to discipline that is given to them, and have to make sure that our players are put in a position every Saturday to win football games. That is the easy thing to say," Key said. "You are only as good on Saturday as you were on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, and on Friday. The detail you have in practice, the discipline you have in practice, and for us coaches to be able to demand those things for the players and clean up the things that have plagued us in the first four games. Those things didn't happen just once or twice, but over and over."
One factor Key mentioned was overthinking on the field paralyzing players from doing their jobs.
"The more you have to think about things, the slower you are going to play and the more hesitant you are going to be. So our job and what I've told the staff is we want to empower these guys to be able to go out and play as fast as possible and play as hard as possible and be free of thinking about things. So if we have to simplify things, whatever we have to do to allow these kids to do that. That comes back to the practice habits we have Monday through Friday because you gain your confidence in practice," Key said.
Key said he felt like there was too much of a not wanting to lose mentality compared to the want to win he expects players to have and that good programs have.
"There is a big difference in this game of not wanting to lose and wanting to win. As a player when you are sitting back not wanting to lose a game, you are not free to go out and try to make plays. When you are sitting back waiting for something to happen you sit on the sidelines or are in the game and this happens with players and coaches, people waiting for bad things to happen or waiting for good things to happen. We need to make things happen. We have empowered the players this week in practice and in games, you are free to make things happen. We can't sit back and wait on things. We can't try not to lose."
The ATL Chart is also now a thing of the past. Key said he will have a depth chart and they will publish it for this game.
- S
- OG
- DT
- OT
- OG
- DT
- OG
- WR
- PRO
- WR