He’s the guy we have, and maybe the guy we need
Upon starting this piece and reflecting on what has happened in the Brent Key era, the circumstances surrounding how he became the head coach at Georgia Tech are still striking in my mind. We had just started seeing the first rays of sunshine from the program in multiple seasons after taking care of #24 Pitt on the road in Key’s first game as interim head coach and then beat #13 North Carolina after Josh Downs let a win slip right through his fingers. We even had a lead against uga despite being tremedously outmatched. We didn’t make a bowl, but the required progress to get out of the horrible situation had started.
When the decision came to decide on our next full time head coach, it’s not like we were sure Key was the man to carry us forward. Jamey Chadwell was out there. Willie Fritz was a favorite of ours. Bill O’Brien apparently interviewed as well but was out of our price range (but then Boston College could still afford him? What do I know…).
When the newly hired J Batt walked into the football team meeting room to break the news that Key was promoted to the full-time head coach, it felt like we landed on our 4th or 5th choice of head coach. Speaking for the From the Rumble Seat staff, we were cautious at best about the hire.
Now, after two straight bowl seasons and a run of games that made Tech the most entertaining team in college football in 2024, it feels like we got the right guy even if how we got there wasn’t optimal. Personally, and like many of you reading this I’m sure, I’m so glad we ended up with Key instead of anyone else.
As of now, his coaching record is 18-16 over 2.5 seasons with a bowl win and six ranked wins (Pitt 2022, UNC 2022, Miami 2023, UNC 2023, FSU 2024, Miami 2024). In the last two uga games, we’ve lost by a single score and played right up to their level. After 2023’s 31-23 loss to uga, Alabama essentially took our gameplan and used it to win the SEC Championship the next week and got in the playoff.
After beating #10 Florida State and Georgia State to open last season, Tech earned a ranking for the first time since 2015. Even though we only held onto the #23 spot for a single week, Tech for all intents and purposes was back and legit. Whose fault is that? I’m putting it squarely on Brent Key (and the support from President Cabrera behind him).
While we may have a very sour taste coming out of 2024 after the 8OT game and an absolutely horrible performance by the refs in the Birmingham Bowl to hand Vanderbilt the cowbell trophy (was the result a coincidence across the street from the SEC offices? I’m not saying yes.), Tech needed to show progress after the 2023 season with the returning weapons they had in Haynes & Haynes and Eric Singleton, even with a super hard schedule. We projected a 6-6 regular season and got a 7-5 record with the two ranked wins. The season was a success, even with playing three quarterbacks in significant moments. The seeds planted in 2023 blossomed in 2024.
That means 2025 is for harvesting, and therefore Brent Key’s most important season in his young career. For the first time in…sheesh I don’t even know how long, Georgia Tech is expected to have a winning season. If we do worse than 7 wins (assuming we’re healthy enough), this season will be a failure. 8 meets expectations. 9 or more may get us an ACC Championship berth, which means we’re one win away from the College Football Playoff (it’s so easy to talk our way there, do not read this as my season prediction).
Thankfully, the schedule is there to make it happen. These aren’t tests Brent Key isn’t used to at this point. These are tests this entire iteration of the program is used to at this point. If there’s one thing I know about Georgia Tech people, once they’ve mastered something, they’re of the best in the world at it. That of course doesn’t fully translate to football, but knowing Key is as Tech as it gets, it does give me a significant level of confidence.
With 34 games under his belt, a number of lessons you can only learn when head coaching have been learned (clock and timeout management, for example). His coordinator moves have been excellent and he’s willing to be cutthroat at times when the situation called for it (see: Andrew Thacker). Very few get head coaching completely right, but between having days under Saban and building a program out of the depths of despair, Key has shown he can make successful, competent programs that don’t overlook any detail.
And equally important, at least for me, he has fierce, fierce pride representing the Yellow Jackets. It’s not a show like the last guy. It’s a dedicated life he’s living. Key is doing what William Alexander, Bobby Dodd, and Bill Curry did during their tenures, which is build and/or sustain the certain pedigree Georgia Tech was known for during the majority of the team’s existence. He’s holding his job and role as a leader with such pride and humility in a very specific way that few have done at Tech.
Growing up as a baseball player focusing on shortstop and pitcher, every little detail mattered in those positions. In both spots, I had to ensure other people in the infield knew what to do. I positioned outfielders based on the hitter. Me and the catcher had to be on the same page. If I wasn’t on top of every situation, I could cost my team. In short, I’ve lived a leadership role in sports that emphasized every moment I was on the field.
This is not a perfect comparison for Brent Key’s job, but what’s been telling about the potential of Brent Key’s run is that I see those traits in him. For a head coach, that is the base expectation, but it’s still notable when you can tell that process is actually taking place and making an on-field difference.
In the 2025 college football specific landscape, his leadership has been so impactful that it’s created a committed core of players that’s becoming rare in this day of the sport. Just last week, Haynes King said in an interview with On3, “I’m not the one who tries to jump ship and quit. This is the ship that I helped build, and I’m part of it.”
King has pride in his work as a Yellow Jacket. It means something to him to be here. That’s the Georgia Tech I know we are when we’re at our best on the field and in life. Without Key, we never see that starting in 2022 and who knows who would come along to bring back that mentality at The Flats. The fact Brent Key got our quarterback to intake that pride and stick around is one of the most important things to have happened at Georgia Tech in the last decade.
This brings me to my ultimate point of this piece: Brent Key is the guy we’ve needed at Georgia Tech and haven’t had for a very long time. Yes the games we’ve won have certainly made our opinion of him brighter, but I cannot overstate enough how important it is specifically at Georgia Tech it is to have a football head coach who understands Georgia Tech and what it takes to athletically be successful here. Very few people can do that job. Those that do have turned into legends of our school and of the sports they’re in (Heisman, Alexander, Dodd, Curry, Hall, Thorne, Cremins, Collier, Morris, Heppler).
Nearly all of them went to and played at Tech or have been here for multiple decades. They all have an ingrained, lived in understanding of what needs to happen to make Georgia Tech an attractive location to play. Tech isn’t the place you can just casually show up to and expect good things to happen for you. Us alums know you have to create your own success at Tech. Just getting in is nothing compared to doing the work to graduate. It’s a good school not because it’s fun. It’s a good school because it creates successful, good people that don’t bullshit their way through life. Those that truly get it and stay at Tech, like Brent Key, attract the kind of people that will be successful in any walk of life.
Thankfully, we’re seeing that on the football field because that’s what Brent Key is preaching to our team. Even more thankfully, the team is listening and not hitting the portal en masse every season. If you’re a starter at Tech and want to leave for a higher athletic salary or NIL, I don’t blame you. We’re able to somewhat compete in that realm, but good luck replicating the lifetime effects of having a Georgia Tech degree and a varsity letter.
This is the guy we need now for this season. If we get into an important late season game, he won’t be overwhelmed. He’ll be able to keep our team even keeled if we get to those games. This team is so ready to make a splash that makes Tech one of the scariest teams to play this season because we’re disciplined and experienced as a unit. That aspect of Tech’s team that used to be common place in the sport is now is a rare commodity in college football. I will not be surprised if we’re ranked in over 50% of our games (this is largely a function of our schedule) and we’re treated with the national respect this team has been building towards deserving.
As is evident from this piece, I beam every time I get to talk about Key. There is no school like Georgia Tech trying to be as successful at football as we are (no, Stanford is not like us. I mean, they are, but not really. Ask me in a mailbag and I’ll explain.). Our ability to be in national contention will take a perfect storm to get us atop the sport again. This the best shot we’ve had in a long time and we’re not here without J Batt handing the team to Key. Now, we just have to win the games.