Georgia Tech’s Brent Key apologizes for ‘poorly coached, soft’ performance

Georgia Tech football coach Brent Key’s assessment of his team’s season-opening loss to Colorado grew harsher after days of studying film.

Key criticized himself and his team Thursday, immediately following the 14-13 loss.

On Tuesday, after reviewing tape and meeting with his staff and players, Key apologized to fans for what he called a “garbage” performance on the field.

“Right now, when I look at the film, we look as if we were a poorly prepared, poorly coached, poor disciplined, soft football team,” Key said. “And that is extremely black and white, and that’s the way I have to deal with this thing.”

There’s little time for Tech to sit with its disappointment.

No. 18 Tennessee comes to Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday, providing the Yellow Jackets an opportunity to show whether the problems Key saw against Colorado can be corrected.

The Volunteers opened their season with a 56-9 victory over Furman.

For Key, the challenge this week is not simply preparing for a ranked opponent. It is determining what went wrong against Colorado and fixing it quickly.

“That was not Georgia Tech football,” Key said. “That was not the team that I’ve talked about for the last eight months.

“I have been extremely high on this football team. I still am extremely high on this football team. I am not high on the performance that occurred.”

Against Colorado, the Jackets rushed for just 51 yards. They couldn’t stop the run, either, allowing the Buffaloes to pile up 183 yards on the ground.

Tech had nine total penalties, missed two field goals — one of them blocked — and scored just six points offensively.

“We were way too conservative as a football team,” Key said. “That’s not the plan that we went into the game with. We have talked through that, addressed that. You can’t play the game conservative like that.”

Key pointed to Tech’s first two offensive drives as the reason for playing tighter as the game played out. On the first, the Jackets were near the goal line when a third-down penalty moved them back. They missed a field goal instead of potentially scoring a touchdown.

On the second drive, quarterback Alberto Mendoza and wide receiver Jordan Allen fumbled an exchange.

Late in the game, however, Tech had control and a chance to clinch victory. Key also faced questions about his clock management — specifically, Mendoza snapping the ball multiple times with time remaining on the play clock late in the fourth quarter.

“We spent three days on it internally,” after the game, Key said. “Play different situations, you can run models and have 10 million different ways to play the game. Bottom line, we didn’t win the football game and we’re all accountable toward that.”

Key made a switch to the schedule in the aftermath.

On Sunday, in place of staff and individual meetings, Key had one full-team gathering. They watched the entire game together, a TV broadcast copy to see things from a different perspective than the typical coaches version.

Later, Key heard explanations from his coaches for mistakes players made. His response, no matter the issue, was the same: Why? Why did that happen? Was it taught properly? Was it practiced correctly?