Kyle Efford emptied the tank for Georgia Tech. Eventually, it became too much.

Brent Key set out to make a point.

He told his Georgia Tech football players in a meeting during spring practice two years ago that nobody on the team was a leader. Nobody was a captain. He went off on the group and returned to his office.

Minutes later, Kyle Efford walked in and slammed his hand on Key’s desk.

“Why am I not a leader?” the linebacker asked. “Why am I not a captain?”

Key laughs now when he tells the story.

“Kyle, it was a little bit of a show there,” Key told him. “You are, man.”

Efford had to make sure.

“This means more than anything in the world to me,” he told Key.

Efford developed into a prolific tackler and unquestioned leader of the Yellow Jackets, driven by something he often repeated to himself: He would never be the reason somebody else had to give more because he gave less.

On Tuesday, though, three days after helping Tech beat Duke, Efford finally made the call.

At times this season, he had lost feeling in his fingers because of a long-standing shoulder injury, one of several issues his body had endured. He admitted he’s afraid of how his body will function, now and especially later in life.

So Efford, Tech’s leading tackler for the past three seasons and a two-time captain, retired from football.

“There is nothing left in the tank, and there are no regrets in my heart,” he said.

Efford said he had always approached football at full speed and knew his style would eventually take a toll. After years of accumulating injuries, he reached the point where protecting his life after football outweighed his desire to keep playing.

Efford addressed the media Tuesday in a room that included Tech president Ángel Cabrera and athletic director Ryan Alpert.

“All I have to say is thank you,” Cabrera told Efford. “When (Key) talks about a ‘Tech man,’ this is it, guys. This is a Georgia Tech man. You have represented this school with class, with honor. You’ve made Georgia Tech very proud.”

Efford piled up statistics, twice earning All-ACC honors. But the emotion from Key and other Jackets staffers Tuesday had little to do with numbers.

Efford was a freshman when Key became coach midway through the 2022 season. He said he trusted his new head coach because Key had played for Tech. Key had sat in the same meeting-room chairs. Dressed in the same locker room. Played on the same field.

With the Jackets coming off four straight losing seasons, Key promised to rebuild the program around many of the same standards he experienced as a Tech player.

Efford bought in immediately.

“Come in here every single day ready to go, our best version,” Efford said. “I mean, we slowly built our pillars.”

Efford became a fixture as Tech won seven games in each of the next two seasons. Last year, the Jackets started 8-0, climbed into the top 10 and ultimately won nine games for the first time in nearly a decade.

Key said Efford wasn’t afraid to be vocal. He’d storm into the coach’s office and slam the desk. But Efford also had a habit of deflecting credit and downplaying his own performance.

“Great leaders don’t have to profess to be a leader,” Key said. “They just do it.

“And this guy is a leader.”

After Efford’s shoulder injury worsened against Tennessee, doctors told him last month he likely would never play again.

The Jackets lost two weeks later playing at Stanford without Efford.

With his team 1-3 and facing undefeated, ranked Duke, Efford decided he had to play one more game. He had accepted his career had to end. But he would go out on his terms.

He made six tackles in Tech’s 28-25 victory, though he said he lost sleep over his play on Duke’s late fourth-quarter touchdown that briefly gave the Blue Devils the lead.

Before that, Efford had spent the game marching around the field, getting calls from coaches and delivering plays to the defensive line and linebackers. Earlier in the fourth quarter, he stopped Duke for a 1-yard loss on third down, forcing a punt and preserving Tech’s lead.

Classic Efford.

“This man felt as if he could single-handedly will us out of a rut,” Key said. “And he did. He did. There’s 11 guys on defense and 21 arms out there; he left it all on the field.”

Efford was asked what he’ll miss most.

The answer: daily walks from Bobby Dodd Stadium to the practice fields with his teammates.

Those walks aren’t over yet. Neither is Efford’s work for his team. He said he’ll take on a “player-coach role” the rest of this season.

On Tuesday, while his teammates worked through drills in helmets and shoulder pads, Efford was in the middle of it all in a Tech T-shirt.