Key: ‘I’m here because of the commitment to win championships’
After coaching 46 games and winning 27 of those games, Brent Key has received another contract extension from Georgia Tech.
On Wednesday, Key had his contract extended by one year. The 47-year-old Tech alumnus had received a contract extension in December of 2024 as well that made him Tech’s coach through 2029.
The latest document will keep him in charge of the Yellow Jackets until 2030.
“I just wanna make sure it’s known that we’re here and I’m here because of the commitment to win championships,” Key said during a video call Wednesday. “We took a big step forward this year, but it’s nowhere near where I wanna be, where we wanna be as a program, where I have aspirations of being, where we’re working every day toward going to. That wouldn’t be possible without the commitment from (Tech president) Dr. (Angel) Cabrera and the rest of the people involved.”
Financials of Key’s new contract were not made public Wednesday. Yahoo! Sports reported Key’s pay would increase to $6.5 million annually, up from the $4.5 million Key was to make in total compensation for 2025.
The $6.5 million salary would make Key the seventh-highest paid coach in the ACC behind Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, North Carolina’s Bill Belichick, Miami’s Mario Cristobal, Pittsburgh’s Pat Narduzzi and North Carolina State’s Dave Doeren. Virginia Tech’s new coach James Franklin will reportedly make an annual salary of $8.2 million.
But Key’s salary wasn’t the only driving force in the new deal for the former Tech offensive lineman. Ensuring there was enough financial support for his coaching and support staff, as well as his current roster and future rosters, was imperative as well.
“That was the A No. 1 most-important thing, the ability to acquire and retain quality assistants and quality players. That’s how you improve yourself as a program,” Key said. “You’re either getting better or you’re getting worse, I say it all the time, and we’ve gotta continue to get better. So, yes, that was an extremely important thing.”
Key joined Tech’s coaching staff in 2019, leaving Alabama where he was the Crimson Tide’s offensive line coach, to work for Geoff Collins and coach the Yellow Jackets’ offensive line. Collins was fired after the first four games of Tech’s 2022 season and Key led the team as the interim coach over the final eight games in which the Jackets went 4-4.
In December of 2022, Key was officially named Collins’ successor and Key was given a five-year contract with an annual salary of $2.8 million.
The Jackets went 7-6 in 2023 and won the Gasparilla Bowl, then 7-6 in 2024 with a loss in the Birmingham Bowl. On Dec. 5, 2024, Key signed a five-year extension through 2029 that bumped his annual pay to annual pay to $4.15 million along with other total compensation that rounded out that sum to $4.5 million.
Key has also made a $50,000 bonus this season for the Jackets (9-3) being bowl-eligible and another $100,000 for eight wins in the regular season.
Because of Tech’s trend toward success, Key’s name had been linked to coaching vacancies across the country. But the Birmingham native is remaining in Atlanta for the foreseeable future.
“Zero percent of the new contract was based on (interest from) other schools,” Tech athletic director Ryan Alpert said Wednesday. “Obviously, it was based on his success and the vision of the program and what they were accomplishing. When you get recognized by the national media and your names are being attached to other places it means you’re having success.
“From what coach inherited to what he has built today on the field and the program and the staff he has put around him, people would be dumb for not putting his name out there and attaching him to jobs. Everybody’s looking to build the type of success that he has. I was very appreciative of the notoriety and respect that others have of coach and the program, but nothing we brought forward was in response to that. I think it was important for me early in my tenure to recognize what he has done, and he and the staff and the players have done, and we needed to invest in that to push ourselves forward.”
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