A little more than a year on the job as Georgia Tech’s athletic director, J Batt already has seen some seismic shifts in the direction of Tech sports.
Batt, 41, was announced as the school’s AD on Oct. 14, 2021. He elevated Brent Key from interim football coach to full-time coach, hired Damon Stoudamire as men’s basketball coach and was part of the ACC’s expansion efforts to bring California, SMU and Stanford into the conference. Batt spoke about some of those experiences Friday during ACC Network’s “ACC PM” show, which was broadcasting live from Tech’s campus.
“I think the biggest part that’s been awesome has been how welcoming our alumni base has been,” Batt said. “This weekend is a culmination of relationships built, different people that care about Georgia Tech athletics. I think that’s one of the things that has been a pleasant surprise or something that I thought it would be here (Batt said lifting his right hand), but it’s even here (and then lifting that right hand higher) of just how much our fans care about Georgia Tech athletics. They want us to be good.
“We’re about winning, we’re about that. But our folks care so much for us, it’s been awesome this first year.”
ACC Network was on campus for much of the weekend as part of the buildup to Tech’s showdown with No. 17 North Carolina at Bobby Dodd Stadium at 8 p.m. The Jackets (3-4, 2-2 ACC) have been, truly, up and down through seven games in Key’s first official season at the helm, losing to Bowling Green and Boston College at home, but beating a ranked Miami team and Wake Forest on the road. The Jackets have alternated losses and wins each week this season.
Key is 7-8 as Tech’s coach, including 4-4 in the interim over the final two-thirds of the 2022 season.
“(Key) has done an incredible job with our football program,” Batt said. “As the interim last year, couple great wins, but really added to that with some great coaching hires and really proud about the way he has gone about building a staff. Intentional in nature, really being strategic. And then building this program for the long run. You guys were there, saw the fight of our team to the very end there in Miami. Those guys fought like heck. They did a great job.
“I think that’s a real reflection of the program Brent Key’s building. He’s building a program around discipline and toughness and continues to do a really good job getting us going. Really excited about (Saturday) and excited about (Key’s) first year leading the program.”
Batt and Tech, of course, are giving Key and his program a better foundation from which to build as well. The Edge Center, on the northeast corner of Bobby Dodd Stadium, will be demolished soon, and construction will start at the first of the year on the school’s new Student-Athlete Performance Center. Batt said that building will take between 18 months and two years to complete and should be ready to open by 2026.
Tech and Batt also are one year removed from the launch of the Competitive Drive Initiative that was created to accelerate funding for athletic scholarships. That drive produced $9.5 million, and Batt said Tech will launch the second phase of that endeavor in November.
The Student-Athlete Performance Center and the Competitive Drive Initiative aren’t the only two efforts Batt and Tech are working on to help athletics and Tech football, either.
“We’re beginning to look at how do we take one of the coolest settings in college football and make it the greatest stadium experience from a premium seating renovation to really leaning into our spot right here on campus and, really, right here in the middle of Atlanta,” Batt said.
On the field under Key, Tech was looking for its fourth win over a ranked opponent when it took the field against UNC late Saturday. Two of those victories came in the final two months of the 2022 season and put the Jackets in position to make a bowl game going into the season finale before losing to top-ranked Georgia.
Key’s team is up against it again as far as bowl hopes are concerned ahead of its final month of the season. It needs to win at least three of its final five matchups – two of those are against ranked teams and another is on the road at rival Clemson.
“Hadn’t had the outcomes we wanted consistently every week, but then we’ve shown spurts of playing really good football, several quarters put together. We finished games really well, but not just putting the full 60 minutes, the full four quarters,” Key said during the ACC Network’s “ACC Huddle” on Saturday, adding he wears a watch daily to remind himself time is money. “Not first quarter, second quarter, then the fourth or first, second, third and not the fourth. We gotta put the whole thing together, and that’s been the challenge. That’s been the challenge to the guys and them challenging each other, too.”
Tech has not been to a bowl game since 2018, the final season for the program under Paul Johnson (who was to be recognized for his career during Saturday’s game). Key took over for Geoff Collins, who went 4-28 before being fired in September 2022, and led the Jackets to wins over Pittsburgh, Duke, Virginia Tech and North Carolina last season and over South Carolina State, Wake Forest and Miami this year.
Tech players were asked earlier this week to assess how Key has handled leading his alma mater through 19 games. He appears to still have the backing of his locker room.
“His fire and passion for this program, this team is different than what it could be for a coach who isn’t a Tech man,” Tech safety LaMiles Brooks said. ”It’s not a good or bad thing, that’s just his style of what he brings to the table. He finds a way no matter what’s going on to light a fire under all of his players and coaching staff, and we believe in him 100%.”
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