Sometimes there can be such a thing as being overprepared.
“With the players, I do not believe in starting game-planning longer or more out in front than you would on a normal week,” Georgia Tech coach Brent Key told 680 The Fan on Tuesday. “I’ve just been a part of that where it becomes stale, it becomes mundane and you really kind of forget. You almost go back into (preseason) camp mode. You don’t get the newness of it.”
Thus, Key’s Yellow Jackets have only scratched the surface when it comes to studying Colorado, their season-opening opponent Aug. 29 in Boulder, Colorado. Key did say that he watched all of Colorado’s games from the past two seasons, and that he and his staff have been working on a game plan throughout the summer.
But his players mostly have been focusing on their own playbooks for the past three weeks.
“We’ll have some teach periods (Tuesday) in practice that will be based on the next opponent,” Key added. “We’ll probably have 40-45 minutes over the next two days, but then Thursday the players will be off and then Friday we’ll jump in and we’ll be rockin’ and rollin’ for Colorado.”
Colorado, coached by Deion Sanders, went 4-8 in 2023 and then 9-4 in 2024 and lost to Brigham Young in the Alamo Bowl. The ’24 team was led by Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, a wide receiver and cornerback, and quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Deion’s son.
Hunter and Shedeur Sanders are now in the NFL and are only two of the many players the Buffaloes lost in the offseason. Colorado has only six returning starters, and according to reports, running back Dallan Hayden already has been ruled out of the game against Tech because of injury.
The Colorado defense, however, often undervalued or overlooked under coordinator Robert Livingston, has caught Key’s eye.
“They’re a fast football team. They’re fast, they play hard,” Key said. “The guys on D-line, regardless of who it is, just schematically they’ve done a good job the last couple years — last year how they improved their defense from Year 1 to 2. The players they play with, they play hard. Schematically, they don’t appear very difficult, but they do some things that are very challenging. You can tell they’re playing for something bigger than just that game.”
This time last year the Jackets were readying to open the season in Dublin, Ireland, against No. 10 Florida State. The anticipation for that matchup is somewhat akin to the one featured at the end of this month, a chance for Tech to take its show on the road to play a Power 4 conference opponent on a nationally televised stage (8 p.m., ESPN).
Tech has not opened a season with a true road game since 2020, when it went to FSU and won 16-13. It hasn’t started the season on the road against a nonconference opponent since going to Notre Dame to start the 2007 season and winning 33-3.
The prevailing sense around the program is that much of the college football world will be watching to see how the Jackets handle this next challenge at a sold-out Folsom Field.
“Just another opportunity for people across the country to see Georgia Tech. And I didn’t say Georgia Tech football. To see Georgia Tech,” Key said. “We feel like we represent the entire school when we’re on TV, when we go and play. That’s why I’m so proud of these kids.”
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