On Tuesday, Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key talked to the media ahead of Saturday's game vs. Boston College. He addressed the struggles, confidence in his staff, how the team could get better, and why simplifying things could be key in helping the defense improve. Here are all the interesting things he had to say.

Coach Key still has confidence in his staff 

One of the major points have been the hires that coach key has made as his new offensive and defensive coordinators in George Godsey and Jason Semore. We have seen one coordinator continue to improve and the other have glimpses, but the struggles have been apparent. Coach Key addressed his confidence level in his coaches and the staff. 

"I've got confidence in the way we do things, all right, and who we have doing it. Okay,  that'll never change for me during the football season. Never,  right?  To adjust and tweak and arrange, that's a totally different thing. All right, no different than somebody being out of the game or somebody being disciplined or whatever. I mean, that's for us to figure out, for me to be able to problem-solve with it. And the coaches in the best position then to affect the players positively to put the players in the best position to have success,” said Key. 

Coach Key is taking accountability

“I told the staff and the team, no one in the entire organization is above accountability,  including myself, starting with myself. There won't be any finger pointing,  right? There won't be hidden agendas, right? There won't be he said, she said; we're not gonna have that. There's a standard of the way you do things, and just because you don't get the outcome you want or you don't play the way you want doesn't mean you lower your standard.  Doesn't mean you lower your expectations.  Now, do things to each team every year.  Are they different? Yeah, they're different. Hell yeah, they're different. Each team.  So being able to identify those ways to get them to do the things the right way.  So we make some tweaks and adjustments within practice,” said Key. 

“Different ways of creating some situations within practice,  different ways of scripting in practice, the periods. Then at the end of the day,  why do you not have success? Well, it's easy. You don't execute.  Right. When I look at execution, when I'm sitting with the coaches or myself, the first thing I ask is, "Why?”

The team playing with more emotional control

“Now, we were able to regroup at halftime and do some things, but right now we're letting- again, it all comes back to being singularly focused on playing that play and whether it's in practice, staying driven on what you have to do, the process. I've said that more than I've ever said probably. But if you don't, that's what happens. Then all of the air comes out of the sails and that person has to be able to rally them back. Emotional control: playing with emotion, not emotionally.  Biggest challenge we have this football team right now. What leads to lack of consistency: emotional reactions to previous plays, good or bad.  We'll put it all in a nutshell. There you go.” 

Key acknowledges injuries and their effect on the team 

Coach Key isn't going to complain, but he acknowledged that being without his top three defensive linemen has an effect. There is a difference. You learn to play with it, but it is vastly different to have someone 25 pounds lighter than you're used to. 

“When you lose three of your field defensive ends, your big, the big DN, right.  And now you're trying to play what you've installed since the first day of spring and 20-something practices, 20, whatever practices in summer.  And you don't have number one, number two, or number three. And now you're trying to take guys over, and basically you can take three-quarters of the calls that have been made over the last seven months and just flush them.

That's real. That's real.  How does that affect? Well, it affects a lot of things. It affects pass rush. It affects your structure of the front. Right now, it affects guys' calls you have been making. Well, now if you got a guy who's 240 pounds, he can't do what a guy who was 265 pounds can do.  That's a big difference. It's a major difference. When you play the first four games with four different starting lineups on the O-line.

All right. Well, I want to talk about continuity and five guys playing as one. “That's why I like Game Six. The first time I saw an offensive line,  they came out and played competitive football together. I think that those guys played the best game they've played.  Played collectively, played together. They played their absolute tails off.  And y'all know, and everybody knows, that I'm the first one to get here and say if they don't, especially that group,  right? But that took time. That took time because every week was new,” said Key. 

Simplifying defense is on the table

One major takeaway from the presser is that Key acknowledged the team didn’t do much differently from the 1st half to the second half. Slight adjustments and maybe even simplifying things could be the key moving forward for the Yellow Jackets. 

“It's one of those things where we kind of lean one way and… stop that and give up this, right?  Yeah, there's personnel. There's some personnel issues that we've had, but that's not stopping the game. We've got to continue to find the best ways to put our players in positions to be successful.  Sometimes the answer isn't always more. It isn't always more practice. It's not always more plays. It's not always more of this, more of that. Sometimes it's doing less, but doing a better job of that if that makes sense,” said Key.