With a new offensive coordinator on his staff, Georgia Tech coach Brent Key was ready to divulge details of how the Yellow Jackets will look when they have the ball.
“There’s going to be 11 people on the field,” Key said. “Hopefully.”
More specific aspects of the scheme that will be run by offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner, as well as how returning defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker will deploy his own 11 people (hopefully), will have to wait to be uncovered. More could be revealed when Key begins his first spring practice Monday.
“I’ve got a pretty defined idea of what I want the offense to look like,” Key said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And the people, the way the staff was built, it incorporates every facet of that. Without getting into the specifics and details of it, everyone was brought in for a certain aspect of what they did very well. And, having known Buster a long time, Buster’s background, his vision, what he’s done, really melded everything together really the right way for me.”
Key’s coaching staff includes seven new hires. He intends for each to have input on the shape of the offense and defense.
“I’ve always been of the mindset that when you start a new program or you start something up, I wanted to build the offense, build the defense, build the special teams from the ground up, with everyone involved, as opposed to one person coming in and saying, ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and everyone else just did it,” Key said. “Because, how do you know that square peg’s going to fit in a round hole? You don’t.”
To Key, a staff that can be flexible and adjust to the roster’s strengths and weaknesses are critical.
“Whether it’s week to week, year to year, I think that was very, very important going in,” Key said.
Flexibility has been considered to be a strength of Faulkner’s. For example, in three seasons as offensive coordinator at Arkansas State (2016-18), the offense’s run/pass ratio veered from 56/44 to 47/53 to 52/48. Key anointed Faulkner with a lofty projection, calling him “a very, very good football coach, a guy that can be the top offensive coordinator in the country.”
A close friend and coaching colleague of Faulkner’s, Stephen F. Austin defensive coordinator Joe Cauthen, said that “probably his biggest asset is he does a good job football-wise of utilizing his personnel versus the opponent. He’s going to take what he’s got, and he’s going to find out how to best use his guys.”
Key did mention one intention for the offense that dovetails with Faulkner’s approach.
“That is the A-No. 1 thing, is to get the ball into playmakers’ hands,” he said. “Touches. Touches. Who needs touches? And being able to manufacture and create explosive plays within that.”
As for the playmakers, Key declined to identify who they might be. Three could be running back Dontae Smith and wide receivers Leo Blackburn and Chase Lane, a transfer from Texas A&M.
“We’ve got an idea,” he said. “Until we go through 15 days of spring practice and 29 days of preseason camp (it won’t be fully determined). By Sept. 1 (the date of the season opener), we’ll have a good idea of who those guys are that we’re going to get the ball to. Hopefully it confirms everyone we think it is.”
The flexibility even extends to the pace at which he wants the offense to play. Key wants the offense to be able to play at varying speeds.
“There’s a high percentage of teams that probably can’t even get in a huddle anymore,” Key said. “Then there’s teams that can’t do it the fast way. You’ve got to be able to do all those things.”
Key said he was excited with how quarterback Zach Pyron played before he broke his clavicle in the Miami game. He led the Jackets to a win at Virginia Tech and for the season completed 49 of 82 passes for 565 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions while earning the respect of teammates with his toughness. Key said Pyron is “full go” health-wise after the injury.
“I thought Zach Gibson made major strides from his first action, getting thrown in, to the end of the season, how he was throwing the ball and knowing where to go with the ball, his timing, his delivery,” Key said. “And credit to (quarterbacks coach Chris Weinke) for being able to develop him in that short amount of time.”
After a forgettable effort in his first extended playing time for Tech, in a relief effort against Virginia, Gibson played a leading role in the Jackets’ upset win at North Carolina.
The third scholarship quarterback on the roster is Texas A&M transfer Haynes King, who Key said “complements offensively a lot of the things we do.” At Texas A&M, King played in 10 games, starting seven. He completed 128 of 226 passes for 1,579 yards, 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Key called him “a guy that can run really well, has the ability to throw it, has played in big games.”
Key did not reveal any pecking order going into the spring.
“They’ll all have their opportunities,” he said. “With three quarterbacks right now, they will all have opportunities in the spring to do well, opportunities to fail, learn from their failures and grow. Who knows?”
Pyron’s play in three games and his moving ahead of Gibson on the depth chart would suggest he might have an inside track, but with a new offensive coordinator, the three will be learning together.
As for the possibility of adding a fourth scholarship quarterback after spring practice, Key said that he would like to have four or five quarterbacks on scholarship but will be selective.
“I think we have three guys that we can definitely count on right now, but it’s not just go out and find a guy,” he said. “It’s like everything; it’s got to be a good fit.”
On defense, Key said that “there’ll be some carryover” from last season’s scheme with Thacker, “but bringing in (linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator Kevin Sherrer) I think adds a lot. He has a wealth of experience at every level of football, from high school to the National Football League.”
Sherrer began his coaching career in 1996 at the high-school level and reached the NFL in 2020, with stops at Tennessee and Georgia along the way. Key hailed “the amount of experience that he brings and the knowledge in the (meeting) room staff-wise, but also being able to relate to the players in all different ways.”
Of the hire of Tech great Marco Coleman, who was brought on in January from Michigan State to coach the defensive line after the dismissals of defensive ends coach Larry Knight and defensive tackles coach David Turner, Key said that “just sometimes the cards fall the right way. I love Marco. … I love everything about him, his passion and his fire.”
When Coleman coached defensive ends at Tech for the first three seasons of former coach Geoff Collins’ tenure before leaving to become defensive line coach at Michigan State, Key and Coleman’s groups often practiced against each other. Key extolled the command and respect held by Coleman, who is only in his seventh year as a coach after his 17-year NFL career.
“His growth as a coach, from somebody that coached the ‘D’ ends and now coaching all four and to just sit in his meetings with him here and talk about the individual footwork and techniques and hand placement and overall scheme – just his growth as a coach has been really phenomenal,” Key said.
The play on offense and defense will be girded with a priority on playing situational football, he said.
“It goes without saying that discipline and toughness and you can’t beat yourself, you can’t turn the ball over, you can’t have penalties and those things, which we made improvements on as the season went on last year,” Key said. “We need to make many more strides in that. But to play situational football and understanding third downs, red area, two-minute (offense), four-minute (offense), backed up (against the goal line), all of the facets of the situations (are important).”
It will get underway Monday. Key, who has been a full-time head coach for 3-1/2 months, said he doesn’t need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning to get to work at his dream job.
“It’s jump up, it’s ready to go,” he said. “I think that’s probably when it hits me the most, when I wake up in the morning and how excited I am.”
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