Brent Key: Tech isn’t ‘anywhere close to being ready to play a football game’
A less-than-pleased Brent Key made it very clear Saturday as to whether or not his team is ready to start the season later this month.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere close to being ready to play a football game,” Key said at Bobby Dodd Stadium. “Way too many penalties, way too many turnovers, way too many blown assignments, way too many guys that either didn’t play or tapped out for aches and pains and things you have to play through.
“We’re not even close from the standpoint of mental toughness, the grit and the fortitude that you have to have to play this game. We got a lot of young kids on the field, a lot of new kids, but that is zero excuse. We got a lot of damn work to do.”
Key, starting his third season leading the Yellow Jackets, watched his squad scrimmage Saturday afternoon. It was the team’s second scrimmage of the preseason and Key said the Jackets ran through about 125 plays because he, “was planning to go about 100, but the first 100 looked like dog crap.”
The mentality of the team was the main issue Saturday, said the third-year coach.
“I’m worried about the mental toughness. That starts with me. This is my job to get the football team in position to be able to compete and play football games,” Key said. “The mental toughness that goes into the game, the mindset that you have to have — these guys came out with a really good attitude and a lot of energy to start the day. We went into this thing, we wanted to play a lot of guys today to see what they could do and who could help us and who’s gonna be in the two-deep, who’s not gonna be in the two-deep, who’s on teams. We wanna see who can go out there and play.”
The Jackets will be off Monday for the first day of classes, then return to the practice fields Tuesday and Wednesday. Those workouts will be, “camp practices. We gotta find out who wants to play football,” Key said.
Before those days, Key said he and his staff will spend the rest of this weekend taking a hard look at the roster and evaluate who is ready to contribute this season — and who is not.
Toward the end of next week, Tech will begin to start formulating its game plan for Colorado. The Jackets are scheduled to depart Atlanta on Aug. 27 for its season-opening game against the Buffaloes on Aug. 29.
Key vowed to make the most of that time frame.
“I’m not frustrated. I speak, truly, from what I feel coming off the field,” Key added. “I’m actually really happy that we get to go coach the crap out of them for the next 13 days, put them in a position to play football.”
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