Everything From Brent Key After Georgia Tech’s First Fall Camp Practice

Fall Camp is underway on The Flats.

Georgia Tech began its preparations for the 2026 season today, one month ahead of the season opener against Colorado. After practice, Yellow Jackets head coach Brent Key spoke with the media, and here is everything that he had to say.

Opening Statement….

“First off, I appreciate you guys all being here. Always awesome to be back out the first day. All excitement, energy, you know, same time. You got all the, you know, the anxiety and the, you know, all the newness and all that, guys, even though most of us have been here.Instead of getting up here and just telling you guys a bunch of things that I talked about at ACC Media Days or what, and we’re going to say the same stuff, we’re excited to be out here. I want to leave this more for you guys to just ask more questions, more Q&A. That’s what y’all want to do anyway.”

1. On Injury Updates…

“Yeah, you know, you’re always going to have more in the springtime. You’ve got guys that are coming off the season, surgeries, guys that are trying to get back ready. You can’t really hit that part of your training program, the off-season program, like you do in the summer. It’s really built for a lot of the soft tissue and a lot of the things. I know you guys, you know, let you guys out there a little bit longer today to be able to see some things. And, you know, one of the big things we do, you know, we change flex, the way we flex in the beginning.

We take a little time to kind of get accustomed to it or whatnot, and I was kind of standing back just to watch. But, again, it’s get accustomed to it or whatnot, and I was kind of standing back just to watch. You know, one thing I’ll say is, you know, last season we had the fewest games missed total. of any team in the conference. When you look at total games missed by players in the league, so that’s an encouraging stat. You can’t always control injuries, but you can do everything in the world and try to prevent them, study them, all those things.

The guys that have been out, we’ve got Josh (Petty). Josh is way ahead of schedule, but with those things, we are not going to push that thing sooner than it is. Probably that mid-October. the time with him, you know, early October, mid-October. I think it’s four weeks from practicing, full go, and four weeks from playing, something like that. Don’t quote me on it, but somewhere in that time frame. He’s way ahead of schedule.

You know, you’ve got a really superior athlete like him. It’s going to always appear to be a lot quicker than some others. So he’s been able to do that, so I’m really happy with his progression. A couple guys with some nicks and bruises, you know, kind of late summer things. Not bruised, really more up. Tweaks and, you know, a couple of hamstrings and those things.

But I’m trying to think who else would be on that list. Gavin (Harris) wasn’t. Yeah, he’s got a soft tissue deal. So he’ll miss a couple of weeks, but nothing crazy. Who else? (Kevin) Roche. That was about it. So y’all weren’t paying attention. But, you know, we’re pretty healthy. Look, as sure as we’re sitting here right now, somebody’s going to get hurt at preseason camp. Somebody, we’re going to get guys back down. I mean, that’s going to get hurt at preseason camp. Somebody, we’re going to get guys back down. I mean, that’s going to happen. So, you know, it’s one of the things we’ve really been working towards the last four years is increasingly building the depth on the football team in order that it doesn’t hurt you as much as it normally would.

You know, that’s why you build depth on the team. Today’s different in college football than it was ten years ago. A lot of teams were able to stockpile a lot of talent in those days. Now it’s really who’s the most creative in being able to build their rosters, and I think we’ve done a good job of that, truth be told, here in a few weeks when we start playing.”

2. On re-establishing the identity of the team…

“I’m pretty refreshed right now, if that you can’t tell. So if that tells you anything. Every year it’s a rebuilding of those things. You know, we talked about it last night in the team meeting. that our job is to go out there during this preseason camp, this preseason camp, and prove that that’s us. To reestablish those things in training camp. And that comes to the players’ response,the coaches’ response to all the events that take place. The event right now is practice. We can’t control the events, we can’t control the outcomes, but we can control our response and what we put into it.

I’ve been very pleased. There’s been some adjusting of those things. Look, the four core things are never going to change in this program. We’ve talked a lot more in depth about commitment. So I think this team has really got a deep sense of commitment.And I look at commitment on basically a one-year contract. That’s what I look at because it changes every year. But with the second portal window being eliminated this year, you have a lot more commitment within your team. And then I think the big one is execution. It’s like we have a lot of really good kids here, the guys that want to do right.

There’s times you’ve got to make that decision as a head coach to cut them loose and go play and play ball like they did when they were 12, 13 years old in the backyard. Not trying to be so perfect every time. Take a calculated risk, go make a play. I want those guys to have the confidence in themselves and in their teammates to be able to do that. Then the other one, really, to have those things in order, the thing we’ve really focused on a lot, talked about a lot, really worked to build is trust. Players trust in the coaches. Coaches trust in the players. Coaches trust in coaches. Players trust in the players. To have trust in the organization or on the team really is what brings all those things together.”

“Yeah, so he wanted to coach. Longstanding relationship with George Godsey. Back in that time in Houston. Fast forward to the time in Baltimore. I had a chance to start building a relationship with him here fairly recently. And just been super, super impressive. I mean, super impressed with what he stands for. The character he has. He’s done in his off-seasons, really, to his self-education, financial literacy, and investment strategies, and just a lot of things. No one can argue he is one of the best route runners in the last 30 years in the NFL.

He’s a top 10 all-time NFL receiver. He knows the conference very well, and he’s a guy that I think can have a huge, huge impact on our football team. Yes on our recruits. Yes on current players. But not just the receivers, all the players. I mean, for him to take a DB and talk about how to defend a certain release after the practice for five minutes, I mean, that’s invaluable to have a guy of his caliber and his character be able to do that. And I’m really looking forward to him.”

4. On how the team has continued to adjust to two new coordinators…

“There’s not a team in the country that does not have turnover on staff. These players want to win. These coaches want to win. They’re going to build relationships. Somebody new comes in, somebody goes somewhere, they’re going to develop the relationships. They’re going to develop a sense of comfort. But again, what does it come back to? Trust. Those players trust those guys to put them in the right positions, to develop them the right way, to coach them the right way, to give them the right information, to have them go out there and be successful.

There’s not a person in this building that doesn’t want to go out and win every football game. There’s not a player in the building that don’t want to go out and be the absolute best player they can possibly be. I don’t buy into that, oh, he just doesn’t care, he’s not giving it his all. Our job as coaches is to pour into them. They have to trust us and what we tell them is the right thing. And then we have to trust them that when we’re not around them, they’re going to do the right thing to make themselves the best player. So I think the rapport that’s been built, offense, defense, with those two new guys, has been really good. It’s been evident throughout the offense, defense, with those two new guys, has been really good. It’s been evident throughout the So, like I said, time will tell here in the next few weeks.”

5. On the offensive line…

“Yeah, we need a lot of reps. We need a lot of reps to get those guys to play, to build continuity. The way we’re repping those guys in practice, Ken, is… a little different than we have in the past. There’s, you know, to the neck of the eye, just watching practice, you can’t tell a lot of things. But, I mean, there’s so many things that we’ve tweaked and changed and altered in the program really to, you know, create a little more sustainability throughout the months of September, October, November, December, and hopefully January.

But we’ve got guys really, you know, we’re not playing five guys and five more guys come in and five more guys come in. Now we have different platoons we are, but… guys are designated, hey, he’s this spot and this spot. He’s this spot and this spot. So there’s kind of eight guys we’re working with in that first group right now, I would say. And I think in a perfect world, you always have three tackles, three guards, and two centers. And if you have that, you’re in a pretty good position in college football, really any level of football for that matter. And that’s how we’ve been working them. Ethan being back has been obviously really good. He played really good football last year. He worked hard. He actually got one of the Iron Jacket awards for the summer. It was him, Tae Harris, and the other one was special. Lightning award was Rahkeem (Smith), fastest guy on the team.

So here’s the deal. Ethan’s been really good coming back. Played a lot of football for us. Joe (Ionata), I think, is going to be a really good center. But it takes time and reps at that position. I think you have to have that position. You have to have somebody that can obviously execute the snap, get the play started. He’s in the right position. Somebody that no matter what they say, right, wrong, or indifferent, other guys are going to go that direction. They’re going to do that thing. I see that in him. I see some of the qualities in him that I’ve seen in some of the great ones that I’ve coached in that position.

At right guard, Markell (Samuel) and Malachi (Carney), that’s going to be a battle. It really is. You talk about a welcome addition now. Markell coming in and being healthy now. He’s played, towards the end of spring, played really, really good football. I don’t care how many games you’ve started. Nothing’s given when you walk back out there, guys. And then Jameson (Riggs), who had a really good spring, is also working now. Jameson is working right. We’ve always got Malachi who played pretty good football for us last year now. He can play right tackle.

And then the guy that really from spring has continued on all summer is Jordan Floyd, who’s really come around and started finding himself as an O-lineman. So those are the eight guys that were really working with Kevin Peay being at left, Markell being able to go over to the other side as well. We’ll replay the center. Then in a slow cook time, we’re really developing Kevin to be a center as well down the road. Being able to create versatility in the front. That being said, we’re doing that so we’re not just playing guys all over the place all the time. He’s either here or here, here or here. All right, guard or guard, right side or right side. Okay, so the same, you know, body mechanics a lot of times are taking place.

And that way we feel like we have eight guys we can really develop to play cohesive football. So what do they need right now? They need a lot of reps. We need to get pads on. We need to get pads on so we can actually see who can sustain and finish and stay on their feet and play with pad level and use their hands. you know, the communication when they get tired at the end of practice, who’s still going to be able to communicate and, you know, get the last-minute adjustments or checks or audibles made.”

6. On the defensive line depth…

“Yeah, that’s a discussion we’ve had a lot in the last few weeks, really coming out of spring and then through the last couple of weeks. Because we are. I mean, you’ve got guys that might roll out there with a third group at some point, you know, one day. You know, it’s A, B, C, and the next day it might be B, C, A, how we’ve got to roll these guys. So not only are they getting reps, but also getting reps versus the best competition on the other side of the ball, okay? And you’ve got guys that roll out there with the, you know, the threes at times that are starting guys. I mean, guys that might be as good as anybody had in the last, you know, five, six years or whatnot.

I mean, you look out there and see Amontrae (Bradford), you go out there with threes, I mean, that’s 6’6″, 265 pounds. He ain’t a three, guys. That’s how we’re repping him right now to get him the reps. So how do we increase those reps? The first three days, we’re really trying to hit certain player loads in practice, get a lot of installation done, which is continuing both the spring, the summer, the whole time, right? The thing we’ve got to utilize and we’ve been on a lot are our walkthrough times. Those are the times where the reps have really got to go up. You’re not putting a lot of stress on the body, but you’re putting mental stress, and you’re getting these guys in a position to be able to play.

You’re not going to go up to Indy and walk through the pads and work technique and all these things. Your alignment, your assignment, what to do, when a guy’s on scoop or a guy’s on reach, how to play that guy, those are invaluable. That’s where we, again, a lot of the research we’ve done, a lot of the studies we’ve done, a lot of the… things we’ve done to tweak our processes in the program in the last seven months. How do we increase reps without increasing negative load on their body? My goal is to come out of this preseason camp with a lot larger number than in the past reps, but at the same time, keeping that player load down so we can create longevity in the season for the players.”

7. On Justice Haynes…

“You bet Malachi Hosley, Trey Maddox, Chad Alexander, Shane Marshall, J.P. (Powell), we have a lot of really good running backs. And that’s been the cool thing, I think, this summer. Anytime anybody’s new somewhere, things really start off like gangbusters, right? Then you hit a lull. It’s not until the summer where you really start to see how guys build relationships and bond with each other. I think one of the cooler things I’ve seen have been Malachi and Justice’s relationship and how those guys play off each other and want to complement each other. and want to be able to go out there and both of them compete at the highest level.

One time in my career, if I had a running back take every carry in the season, that was 207, that was Kevin Smith. And I don’t, I mean, 450-something carries he had in the season. And, I mean, that’s unheard of now. That would never happen. You’ve got to think now, running backs, I mean, it’s position to get banged up. So you don’t want to throw the stress on them in practice so that it becomes a big bang, per se. But you also want the best ones playing their best in the fourth quarter at the end of the year.

One guy twists an ankle, one helmet comes off, and now you’re down your third, fourth guys in valuable time in a game, valuable roles. So those guys all create competition in the room, all pushing each other. But, again, I want guys in the program that want to do the absolute best. There’s no room to really coach. I want guys that are – I think the biggest misnomer out there is that you see a lot of times coaches. and they try to coach really good players in different, right? They try to,you know, coach with white gloves and be soft. If you talk to great players, I’m talking about the great ones now, the great ones want to be coached hard. They have an expectation of level of success that they want to have for themselves. And again, I talk about the trust, the trust that the players have to have in the coaches.

Justice Haynes, Malachi Hosley, they trust (running backs coach) Jimmy Smith, has information every day for them that makes him a better player. Jimmy’s as good of a running back coach. because I’ve been around. I mean, Godsey will tell you that. I mean, anybody. The way he pours into them,the big picture aspect of it, the fine details, but then saying, I’m done over coach, lets him go play. So it comes back to that trust. Those players, trusting their coach is going to pour into them and make them a better player.”

8. On the offensive line depth…

“That’s what I’ve always done with the line. You can’t do it if you don’t have the right bodies, the right guys, the right talent that you want to develop. I talk about those guys, but I didn’t even talk about all the younger guys and other guys that are doing a really good job. But you’ve got to get a certain level. I mean, some of the great teams I’ve – the great lines that I’ve been a part of and been fortunate enough to coach, I’ve never had ten. I’ve never had ten that are game ready. Never. Eight’s the max I’ve ever been able to have. that truly you put them in the game in the most critical time and you trust that they’re going to be able to execute at the level that you need to win.

I think we’re finally to that point. And just because they hadn’t all started, you know, 45, 50 games doesn’t mean they’re not good players and have the ability to help us win, right? You know, offensively, how many times have you heard me say, like, all schemes are personnel driven, right? And one of our greatest assets here… the intelligence level of our players and our ability to carry volume, right? Those are deadly when you put them together, deadly. You know, a coordinator that understands about being personnel-driven, but at the same time, it’s going to carry the volume to have answers to everything in games and know how to, you know, get it out and get a spit out and get called.

And the onus falls on the O-line, right? Three O-line coaches, and I’m just like, O-line GA. So you’ve got a lot of hands in there that are coaching those guys and getting them ready to go play this year. I don’t want to wait until a game between one and two and say we’ve got to make a most improvement by the second game. I want to have gone through the tests, the trials, the ups and downs before that so that we’re playing at a good level in game one and then continue to ascend the rest of the year.

Offensively, I mean, since 2016, when Jalen Hurts was a freshman. We really started incorporating all the motions and shifts and everything. The reason you do that with a young quarterback takes a lot off his plate. You’re able to manipulate coverage and extra defenders with motions. And now they’re not having to go up there and make checks and do all those things. So there’s pluses and minuses to everything you do. But to be able to carry the volume to do everything, you’ve got to have a really good guy in charge of the offense that can, number one, put it into buckets to get it all.

And that’s all we are, teachers. And then you’ve got to have guys that are hungry and eager to learn that and want to take on that challenge of learning. That’s where I’ve been so impressed now is how our guys have responded to the challenges of learning the information, learning the new plays, the playoff play. It might look like one play, but there’s four different complements to that play if they’re trying to take it away on the other side of the ball. To the untrained eye, will it look a lot different? I don’t know. There’ll be times it does, times it doesn’t. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to be able to line up. When it’s short yardage, you’ve got to be able to get a yard. You’ve got to be able to get a yard. When it’s third and medium, you’ve got to have a highly efficient third and medium passing game. Or be able to have the confidence to get it to a fourth and short and be able to have run-pass options and go for it.

You’ve got to go hit the deep shots. You’ve got to be able to connect on the go balls, on the deep routes. You can’t be less than 40%, less than 30% on those things when you start. You know, everyone’s 50-50, but I think that’s kind of underless to say. But you start getting up there in that, you know, 45, 50, 55% now in those deep shots, man, you’ve got something cooking. You really do. You can’t live in that work of 25, 30%, though, and expect every time, you know, to get a big play home run. You’ve got to go to do it all. You’ve got to execute in the red zone. We get down in the tight red area, understand the difference, and, you know, trying to force the ball in there, you know, taking three, right? So that gets into all the situational part of the game and offense.

I’ve been really excited just for some of the organizational changes that we’ve made in the entire program. I’ve been able to be involved, man. I’ve been able to get in and be involved, you know, because I’ve got guys I trust underneath me that are really helping me with everything. So it’s allowed me to get and spend more time with ball, and that has been awesome.”

9. On Alberto Mendoza…

“Yeah, I mean, he’s developing every day. You know, I talked to him for a long time today. Yesterday and today. And honestly, it felt for the first time it was Georgia Tech’s Alberto Mendoza. And we talked about it. I mean, shoot. Anytime you come from somewhere else, I mean, what are you always doing? You’re always thinking about what happened this time last year. So there’s always a natural comparison to whatever you did to your previous, whether you were a freshman, you were comparing it back to high school, right, transfer, or you were here comparing it back to last year at this time. That’s human nature. I’ve been excited to see his progression. Leadership, I think that’s one of the most overused words right now in all of football, all of sports, probably in life.

You try to force a square peg in a round hole a lot of times with this leadership thing, and you don’t truly allow the guys that are leaders to rise up and lead in moments when they need to. If you had 100 leaders on the team, you’d probably go 100 different directions and have no success. So I want him to be him. I want him to understand that we’ve got a full offensive toolbox to be able to go use. He doesn’t have to go win every game. We don’t have to go out there and throw 90%. No one to throw the ball away. No one to check the ball down and take the profits.

We’re in a good position to kick. Understand the situational ball. He’s brilliant. He is really, really, really smart. You know, he’s just got to continue to know that we’ve got enough things around him. We’ve built a defense to be able to play good defense this year. And we’ll allow him to play as he continues to evolve in the offense and evolve as a quarterback here. But I thought it was a little bit, you know, looking back three years ago, you know, Haynes comes in. This has been three years to go, really. You know, three years. He graduated. He was pretty good. 28, 29 by then.

But what happened? You know, at that point in time, he was one of, not the best player on the team already, right? So when things went south for a drive, what did everybody do? They looked at him to bail us out. He forced a lot of throws. I mean, 16 picks that year, right? Forced a lot of things. He started understanding better, having a better grasp, understanding the situational ball and what to do with it and different things, right? But also, if the talent around him started to improve, they weren’t always just looking at him to make a play.

That’s a lot of pressure on a young guy. You know, they all singularly were one person, right?”

10. On the slogan for this year’s team…

“I have people I work with that I take, not even advice, but I take coaching from. People I work with develop messaging. We come together. Anthony Parker, AP, is big on that with his feel for the team. Every day is messaging. But you don’t want to. That was one thing is the interim. You run out of stuff to say. I mean, talk about ChatGPT now. But you really do. You get up there. And all of a sudden, it’s a different message every time. So it’s like, are you really building anything in the team from a mental standpoint from what you’re trying to get across? It just becomes stuff you’re saying.

And our motto, our slogan this year, we don’t have them. Anything else? What it is will stay inside. Seriously, we really don’t. This is about no different from the two guys I hired as coordinators. There’s no grills, blue collar. We don’t need the fancy crap. Let’s play ball. Let’s make a commitment to each other every single day we walk in this building. We want to do everything that we have, coaches, players, staff, all of us together, to be the best football team we can be and get the outcomes we want. At the end of the day, let’s win every football game. Let’s not beat around the bush.”

11. On Alberto Mendoza’s command at the line of scrimmage…

“You know, that’s part of it that we – a young age, we’re only going to give him as much as he can handle. You can get up there and do run checks and pass checks and run to pass, pass to run, pass to pass, run to run, four-pronged checks, autos, kills, alerts. You get in this whole world. Well, now you just become a robotic offense, and you’re waiting on them. I want to be able to play every type of football offensively, every type of tempo, as we say. Super fast-paced tempo. You’re snapping the ball 34. 33, 34 seconds. We started off, we’ll have those in tomorrow. Being able to take the clock down. Being able to control the tempo of the game is the most important thing. I guess that comes from me. The coordinator really is much more offensive driven. The quarterback has to understand it.

That’s what I thought Haynes did an unbelievable job of. He understood how we were trying to play the game. And each week changes. He understood. If I took a timeout with seven and a half minutes to go into the second quarter at some random time, because I’m trying to buy a possession back to get the ball into the first half when we’re getting to the second. He understands those things. He understands the why behind him. So we’re going to infer as much as he can go out and handle, but that’s on us as coaches to make that decision. If he handled it all week of practice and he can’t execute it, that’s on both of us.

But if we give him too much and more than he can’t handle, that’s on us as coaches. We would never do that. We don’t want to do that. But to this point, he’s shown to be very good. And the other person that has to be really, really sharp, that’s the center. It’s one thing for the quarterback to see something and say, hey, right, left, left, right, run past. The center’s the one involved moving parts up front, last minute, got to make it. The quarterback’s going to be on the same page with him, let him get the call made, the check made, the IDs, calls made up front. Also, that clock’s going eight, seven, six. So those two guys have to be on the same page. And the relationship with Joe and Alberto. which has grown a lot, and it’s become a really close relationship. That’s what’s really given us the confidence to be able to do some of those things this year.”