Although the weather wasn’t exactly great Saturday night, Georgia Tech defeated Duke 24-14 to improve to 4-2 on the season. After the win, Yellow Jackets head coach Brent Key spoke to the media and here’s everything he had to say.
Opening statement…
“I think it was a really good football game. I mean, it was a good football game from both teams overall. Duke has a good football team. I think we certainly came out ahead and played fast. That was what I was looking for.” After the bye week, when you come out of the bye week and look fresh, you look like you’re fast again, and that’s what you saw in practice that week when the team’s speed was good again. Like, the defense tonight did a good job flying around as well, I think they’re really getting better every week, against the run with what Tucci is doing and credit to Jess and Kyle Pope. Um, those guys in the front seven, doing a good job, uh, getting some big stops, they had explosive kickoff returns in the second half, uh, they had some We had to add a good stop of, um, I think we were playing in stick field position. I think we had three or four drives that started at minus-10 and three at minus-9. And there were one or two with minus 10 points. It is better to control the vertical position of the field in a football game.
So we don’t get into those holes as much and we can go through long fields. But we moved the football on nine actual possessions and took a knee at the end of the game with 22 possessions for halftime. He scored four points with three touchdowns and one field goal. Productivity has increased a bit in these respects, but there are long areas to reach. So we had to make it a little better. The children played hard. I thought they played smarter tonight. I really think so, except before halftime on defense, they had a few chunk plays after a penalty on a punt. We’re going to look at that penalty and see exactly what we need to discuss about that penalty on Sunday. But other than that, both teams played really hard. It was a great game of football and I was really happy to come out on top in that game. Afterwards, I said to the players in the locker room, “Enjoy the wins, enjoy every win.” But then I told everyone in the room, one-on-one, that when we come back tomorrow, the first thing we’re going to do when we start our team meeting is make sure everyone on this soccer team knows how to do it. Ta. To sing Georgia Tech’s Ramblin’ Wreck. There are some young guys there who aren’t really into it. They are not very enthusiastic. So first there’s a lesson on that. But the challenge to all of them is that after this game they will be just as important as they were two weeks ago. And I want to make sure we improve on the same thing next week. Because we have a tough game ahead of us. Kickoff will be on Saturday at 12pm. I think it’s 12 o’clock or 8 o’clock. Kickoff is at 12pm, so I’m back to work. But I’m really happy, I’m happy for the kids, I’m happy for the coaching staff.”
1. Regarding the team’s performance in the 4th quarter…
“We reminded the players that the second half of the game was going to be a big game of field position. Duke took real pride in leading the team in the fourth quarter and winning the game in the fourth quarter. I know.” But that was our top result. I think our team kept playing until the end. I think our guys showed a trend in the scrimmage, you can definitely see it when you watch the tape, but I thought some of the runs early on started to wear him out a little bit, 3 yards, 4 yards, 2 yards. , 6 yards, you know, and they started to crack. I know Jamal had a good game of football, but I thought Chad Alexander was making some really hard, physical runs on big downs. Tanda. ”
2. About the new wrinkles from tonight’s attack…
“Yeah, we’ve been tightening it up a little bit the last couple of weeks and playing around in the phone booth a little bit. So we wanted to make sure we widen it out and try to move the field east and west as well as north and south.” Yeah. We have players who are explosive with the ball, and the biggest challenge was that Haynes was charging on the field for almost the entire game. So I wanted to be able to do that and be able to get the ball out. I mean, they didn’t have a lot of long, big passes. I thought of a decisive catch and some decisive situations. ”
3. About Chad Alexander…
“Chad had some really good, hard runs. I mean, he had some third-down runs. The ramp got behind the pads. And for a smaller back, he’s explosive. And I showed it to him. ”
4. About Jamal Haynes…
“Yeah, you have to mentally and emotionally deal with that weekend at work? Yeah, I mean, any time you don’t perform to your ability, it’s tough. But you know, it’s not just Jamal. No. I mean, I thought we played better as a team up front tonight and we added some wrinkles there, especially in some short yardage situations, which helped. Some of those were additions because we were able to get the guys in. We were at full speed, fully healthy, but after the game we gave everyone a big hug and said, ‘Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday. % jersey number 11, I was really glad to see him practice.” The guys that were getting beaten up in practice were wearing black jerseys, and at the end, when I went to practice, I had the equipment guy take his jersey and I ripped the black jersey off him. At the end of practice, I gave him back his white shoes, throwing them in the trash. It would be like Superman taking away his stuff, I don’t think that’s very wise, he’s a tough kid, we have some tough kids. This is our team. ”
5. About Jordan van den Bergh…
“Yeah, he’s been playing better and better every week. He’s far from the strongest guy on the football team because of what he’s done in the last few games that earned him the starting spot tonight. I mean, he might be.” So he’s a powerful, strong guy, but he also has enough agility and quick physical ability to be a destructive force. He’s growing every week. We had some nagging injuries along the way, but tonight we were at full speed and I think that really helped us.”
6. On how he contained Duke’s rushing attack…
“We closed our gaps and we played well blocking. I can’t say enough about Jess Simpson and his work and his coaching techniques on the defensive line. He understands the big picture of the defense. , understands the big picture of the offense as well.” And he’s been a great teacher over the years as a high school coach and as a teacher, and you can tell they understand how to play different blocks, different schemes.” Masu. Some of the things we jumped over there to get bigger gains were really in our favor. We’ll take a look at it and see exactly what we messed up. We have a big challenge ahead of us next week, so I’m very proud of getting better and better. ”
7. Regarding long drives on offense…
“So, you want to score one play every time, but no, this is free football. Okay, and, you know, line up and throw the ball on every play, tempo on every play. For myself, the coordinators get together every Thursday and talk about how we compliment each other, not just the offense, not just the defense, not just the kicking game, we’re complementary. You have to play football, and time of possession isn’t always an indicative statistic, but if it suits your style of play, then at some point you’re going to take away playing time. , so when we had about 10 points, we had a couple of possessions and I think it was like a 2-on-1 possession time at halftime. So we’re efficient on those drives as well. And it has to be a little more efficient at some things, like I said when I opened my mouth, along some drives, getting points on the board and finishing. I think it has to be.”
8. About Tay Seymour and Billy Shaw…
“Yeah, Tay got where he is, where he is. I mean, there were strings there. I mean, he had pass breakups, tackles, tackles for loss. I mean, he was all over the field. The big thing we talked about this week was not playing fast, we all know Eric is fast, right? Right? When the game starts to slow down, when you know what to do, what the offense is doing, when you start anticipating what’s going to happen, you play fast, right? He’s taking a step or two, and I think the more he plays, the better he gets.
One of the greatest players to ever play here, Billy Shaw, and that’s exactly what happened. It died yesterday for him. And, you know, NFL Hall of Famer, incredible career here, incredible career in the National Football League. And I believe to this day that he is the only person ever to be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame who never actually played in the NFL. And he was with the AFL Buffalo Bills the whole time. Someone who passed away at age 83, 84, obviously 85, became a good friend. Even if he did let you know, you find out later, and he couldn’t just text me or talk on the phone, and you know, it’s Just a good, good guy, he’s an engineer, he’s done a lot for this place, and someone at Canton University stood up and said they were going to the greatest university in the world. Every time I say, they love this place. ”
9. Regarding the reversal after the match…
“No, that’s right. We started competing for position in earnest. As I said earlier, in the first half we had two games with minus 9 points, one game with minus 10 points, and then suddenly we had minus 9 points again. Again, we were able to punch out from there and get the ball and turn it over the field. And then they got a big stop defensively. So we got some advantage in field position. But like I said, I think we started to wear them out a little bit better. , their defense got better as the games went on, stopping the run and covering more, and those are their accomplishments from January, February and March practices. Not just this week.”
10. Regarding the secondary being aggressive…
“Well, they’ve got to continue to be more aggressive, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve challenged the receivers. That’s really what we’ve really emphasized the last two weeks. . . . And throughout the week from practice this past Sunday, we got more balls, we got more interceptions, we got more strips. It was good that that could happen because not every play was just over-emphasized. ”
