Brent Key is in the midst of a pivotal, maybe even defining, phase of his Georgia Tech tenure.
Last fall, the Yellow Jackets scaled their highest peak in nearly a decade, finishing 9-4. But Key opened spring practice Tuesday without many of the important pieces that helped them reach it, starting with generational quarterback Haynes King (now pursuing a spot in the NFL) and offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner (hired away by Florida).
This offseason is the start of a test of how well Key can keep the engine running.
At Bobby Dodd Stadium Tuesday morning, he had a new offensive coordinator (former Jackets quarterback and longtime NFL assistant coach George Godsey), a new defensive coordinator (Jason Semore, a past Tech assistant coach who replaces one-year coordinator Blake Gideon) and four new position coaches.
“You’d rather hit that hard reset after a good year than a really poor year,” Key said.
Gone, too, are the 26 seniors from the 2025 team — King included — who helped Tech achieve its first 8-0 start since 1966 and secured Tech’s first nine-win season since 2016.
“You can’t worry about the past,” Key said. “You can’t worry about those things.”
So starts Key’s second act. His first three seasons as a full-time coach went about as well as anyone could have hoped, though the 2025 season fell short of its potential.
The Jackets won 23 games in that span, the first time they had strung together three consecutive winning seasons since Tech achieved a 13-year streak from 1997 through 2009 under three different coaches (George O’Leary, Chan Gailey and Paul Johnson). Tech grabbed national acclaim with its 8-0 start, and King won legend status.
But now Key has to replicate that success without King’s playmaking and leadership and Faulkner’s expert play-calling skill, not to mention All-American guard Keylan Rutledge, first-team All-ACC defensive tackle Jordan van den Berg and offensive line coach Geep Wade, hired away by Nebraska. Besides Faulkner, Florida poached a slew of Tech staff members.
Key has embraced the turnover on his staff.
“I love it,” he said. “I love it. It’s fresh ideas, it’s fresh faces. It creates newness.”
Key highlighted reasons to have belief. He said he made his staff hires and roster additions with the shortcomings of the 2025 season in mind. Key described himself as “extremely still pissed off” about how the season ended. In case you want to relive it, the Jackets were 9-1 before a home loss to Pitt that went a long way to dousing Tech’s College Football Playoff hopes, a loss to archrival Georgia in Mercedes-Benz Stadium and then a bowl loss to BYU.
“If you don’t think that’s been at the forefront of everything out of my mouth for the last 2 ½ months, you’re crazy,” Key said. “It has. It has been in building the staff; it has been in building this roster.”
Specifically, Key burrowed even deeper into his core tenets about his program — trying to become stronger at the lines of scrimmage, more able to pound out tough yards and better at stopping the run.
“The core characteristics of what I identify a tough, physical football team as,” Key said. “We did not accomplish that in my opinion last season. And that is the mission of the ’26 football season.”
Key added size through the portal with transfers such as defensive tackles Tim Griffin (6-foot-5, 275 pounds) and Vincent Carroll-Jackson (6-5, 315) and defensive end Jordan Walker (6-4, 270), and made sure his hires shared his approach.
Said Key: “We had to get bigger.”
Unprompted, Key named another means by which Tech can improve, holding himself accountable for not doing a better job of developing players during the season.
“I’m a believer in, you play guys the first three, four, five games — if they’re talented, they’re going to be better versions of themselves,” he said. “They’re going to be better players when you get to later on (in the season). And that’s on me, I’m the head coach.”
And the portal has delivered potential replacements for the talent drain. Quarterback Alberto Mendoza, brother of Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza, took his first practice snaps Tuesday, as did running back Justice Haynes, a Buford High graduate who earned all-Big Ten honors at Michigan.
Mendoza has been spending long hours at the Tech football building, acclimating himself to his new offense and team.
“Just an ultimate ball junkie, and that’s what you have to have if you’re going to be successful,” Key said.
It sounds like there are some new pieces to work with. Tech may need every last one.
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