Brent Key joins Josh Pate - Pate Speaker Series

Summary

Podcast Summary: Josh Pate's College Football Show

Episode: Brent Key joins Josh Pate – Pate Speaker Series
Date: March 18, 2026
Host: Josh Pate (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation between host Josh Pate and Brent Key, head football coach at Georgia Tech. Key brings candid reflections on the challenges, evolutions, and philosophies shaping modern college football—spanning roster management, staff overhaul, leadership, and personal growth as a coach. The discussion dives into the nuances of sustaining success, reacting to change, and the responsibility of leading a program at one’s alma mater.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Deconstructing Last Season's End (03:36–08:22)

• No Easy Answers: Pate opens by asking Key about Georgia Tech’s strong start to the previous season and a late downturn, seeking a deeper explanation beyond simple causes.
  • "Everyone wants that single sentence, that single answer, that single person they can blame... Sometimes that's the way the cards fall." (Brent Key, 04:20)
• Key emphasizes a “recipe” of factors: depth issues, injuries, roster responsibility, coaching detail, player anxiety, and external distractions.
• Key notes self-reflection is key: "At the end of the day, I learned a long time ago... as a head coach, you gotta look at one person: what can I do better? What do I have to do better?" (Brent Key, 07:36)
• Critical incident: The momentum turns during a tough Halloween game at NC State—highlighting the confluence of intangible team dynamics and luck.

2. How the Game Has Changed in a Decade (08:22–11:56)

• Fluid Environment: Compared to 10 years ago, roster fluidity and the “free agent market” require constant adaptation.
  • “There’s no telling how many [players] you're going to have, because these guys are going to leave... a lot of things have changed, but it's a constant evolution.” (Brent Key, 09:09)
• Key resists negativity about changes in college football; instead, he sees opportunity in adapting faster than others.

3. Organizational Philosophy: Plan vs. Execution (11:56–15:53)

• Learning from Success and Failure: Pate probes Key’s philosophy of whether to copy winning models like Indiana or stick with what’s already working.
• Key stresses that consistency and foundation trump imitation:
  • “There’s going to be 60 teams try to copy Indiana. 59 of them are going to fail, and one of them got lucky.” (Brent Key, 13:13)
• Self-assurance in their own plan has only strengthened—while admitting tweaks are always needed: "I’ve made tweaks in our program for the betterment of it... but a lot comes back to trust." (Brent Key, 15:14)

4. From Micromanagement to Delegation (15:53–18:49)

• Letting Coaches Coach: Key admits embracing delegation was initially hard, often wanting to step in out of habit.
  • “You don’t realize that when you’re doing it—you don’t see it when it’s happening…two or three years in you look and say, okay, what can I do better?” (Brent Key, 16:28)
• Valuable mentorship lesson: Transitioning “from doer to leader of doers and eventually to leader of leaders.” (17:47)
• Key now spends more time coaching the coaches instead of running every drill.

5. Staff Turnover and Fresh Perspectives (22:04–24:59)

• On Continuity and Complacency: Key breaks with the tradition that staff continuity is always good:
  • "Continuity breeds complacency in my mind, in every walk of life in an organization." (Brent Key, 22:38)
• Overhauled playbooks and staff meetings start “at A, B, C, 1, 2, 3”—building foundation for new and old.
• Early efforts focus on developing freshmen and maintaining new-staff energy regardless of tenure.

6. Stories from Alabama and Saban Era (25:12–26:20)

• Pate notes Key’s background and connection to legendary dynasties; Key reflects on those years at Alabama as "the greatest run in the history of college football" (25:38), unlikely to ever be repeated.

7. Whirlwind of Becoming Head Coach Mid-Season (26:20–32:26)

• Key details the day he was named interim head coach:
  • "There's no manual. There's no guide... get called up to the president’s office, get told you’re doing it." (Brent Key, 27:26)
• Immediate focus on special teams and authentically leading the team.
• His philosophy: “If you ever want to be a winner, you gotta learn how not to lose first.” (Brent Key, 28:53)
• Emotional anecdotes about near job loss and carrying forward lessons from trial by fire.

8. Coach Burnout and Personal Efficiency (32:26–35:08)

• Work/Life Balance: Key reflects on early years of “grinding” vs. present focus on efficiency and boundaries:
  • “I don’t leave my house in the morning without kissing my wife and my daughter goodbye. Not one time. I have ever. And I won’t.” (Brent Key, 33:56)
• Adapting team meeting schedules has increased productivity and wellbeing.

9. Pride and Pressure of Coaching Alma Mater (38:23–42:59)

• Emotional Ties: Key describes moments of solitude in the stadium, reflecting on Georgia Tech’s history and the weight of his position:
  • “I’m the luckiest man on the face of the earth to be able to do this here. And I don’t ever want to lose sight of that...” (Brent Key, 38:59)
• Strong obligation to program legacy without letting pressure overwhelm decision making.

10. Leadership After Quarterback Transition (42:59–45:58)

• Losing Haynes King—a pivotal leader—but asserting he “will never exit” the program in spirit.
• Key on developing leadership: “Leadership is lonely...they do everything they can to influence people in a positive way... But when everyone looks at one singular person as that leader and then they're off, well, what happens to the leadership of the team?" (Brent Key, 43:51)

11. Recruiting Overhaul and Future Blueprint (45:58–48:02)

• Priority was increasing size and length on the roster, without sacrificing athleticism or speed.
• Recruitment based on Georgia Tech’s vision, not external rankings or opinions.
  • "I want the best players for this place and we had to continue to elevate that. We’ve elevated it, but not to the point where it needs to be for us to...win them." (Brent Key, 47:22)

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Memorable Quotes

• On Accountability:
  "At the end of the day, the roster is the responsibility of the head coach. So you're putting that together. So what really became the issue?...As a head coach, you gotta look at one person: what can I do better?" (Brent Key, 04:20 & 07:36)

• On Not Copying Others:
  "There’s going to be 60 teams try to copy Indiana. 59 of them are going to fail, and one of them got lucky." (Brent Key, 13:13)

• On Leadership Evolution:
  “When you have a lot of success...now you become a leader of leaders. Well, you can't skip down to that bottom step and be a doer anymore.” (Brent Key, 17:47)

• On Alma Mater Pride:
  "I truly sit in that seat and everyone that ever played here sits in that seat with me." (Brent Key, 38:59)

• On Leadership Post-QB Departure:
  "Leadership in a whole is lonely...When everyone looks at one singular person as that leader and then they're off, well, what happens to the leadership of the team? ...In football, to have multiple leaders is really important, and we really work to start developing those guys in January." (Brent Key, 43:51, 45:33)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:36] Explaining last season’s late struggles
• [08:22] How college football has changed over the past 10 years
• [11:56] Sticking to one’s plan vs. copying winning teams
• [15:53] Challenges of delegating and letting assistants lead
• [22:04] Staff/roster overhaul and why continuity can breed complacency
• [25:12] Reflections from Alabama/Saban era
• [26:20] Becoming head coach mid-season: immediacy, lessons learned
• [32:26] Facing the grind and prioritizing coaching/life balance
• [38:23] Emotional resonance of leading his alma mater
• [42:59] Leadership development after star QB departs
• [45:58] Offseason recruiting priorities and vision for program

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Tone and Style

The episode is authentic, candid, and humble. Brent Key mixes humility with hard-nosed realism, blending personal growth with tactical team management. The conversational tone is relatable, blending football wisdom with universal leadership lessons.

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Summary

Brent Key’s appearance on Josh Pate’s College Football Show offers listeners a rare look into the nuanced, inner working of a major college football program—especially from the perspective of someone with deep personal ties to his school. He balances accountability, adaptability, and tradition while navigating the relentless change and pressure of modern college football. Throughout, Key shares practical leadership insights and hard-earned lessons from both his ascent to head coach and the challenge of building lasting success at Georgia Tech.

Transcript

[Brent Key]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Interviewer]

Ugh.

[Brent Key]

Could this vintage store be any cuter? Right.

[Interviewer]

And the best part, they accept Discover.

[Brent Key]

Except Discover in a little place like this. I don't think so, Jennifer.

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Key]

Huh?

[Interviewer]

Discover's accepted where I like to shop.

[Brent Key]

Come on, baby, get with the times. Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.

[Interviewer]

These are making a comeback, I think.

[Brent Key]

Discover is accepted at 99 of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

[Julian Edelman]

This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. All right, real quick, take a look at yourself right now.

[Brent Key]

Why?

[Julian Edelman]

What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. You look like a guy running on three hours of sleep and vibes. Okay, yeah, I'm tired, kind of cranky, and very thirsty. Congrats. Those are some of the potential signs of mild dehydration. And I bet your last bathroom break showed you another sign. Your body might be throwing you a penalty flag.

[Brent Key]

So what's the play?

[Julian Edelman]

Call Liquid IV hydration multiplier. One stick in water helps hydrate faster than water alone. Okay, but where's the proof? Liquid IV's clinical studies, not just a guy I know. Real science. Results you can trust. Well, take a look at me now. Liquid IV is officially part of my daily hydration routine.

[Brent Key]

Pass the firecracker Popsicle flavor.

[Julian Edelman]

Stay hydrated like a pro, not like Jack. Before this. Stock up on Liquid IV hydration [e-mail] and use the promo code nuthouse for 20 off your first purchase.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Interviewer]

So I am sure by now like a million people have asked you hey man, why last year end the way it did? And then they want like a sentence or they want to point their finger at a thing. So you and I were talking about this earlier and how it's just 47 layers of these little things here and there. It's no different than a recipe. Like a bunch of stuff adds up to either a good tasting dish or a bad tasting dish. But.

[Brent Key]

And you think you're making the same dish every time, right?

[Interviewer]

So you, when you're in it, when you're in it and you got all of a sudden a string of wins and then you got a string of Ls at the end of the year. I mean, live bullets flying like you're, you're kind of, you're trying to win games at that point. But then when you get done with it and you look back on it from your ver. From your vantage point, not from a, like a coach or a fan, how long does it take to figure out why something happened the way it did?

[Brent Key]

You know, it takes a lot of reflecting. It takes a lot of being real with things. But you're right, everyone wants that single sentence, that single answer, that single person they can blame or something they can blame, right? Well, there's not always something to blame. Sometimes that's the way the cards fall around. Here we talk about all the time we can't control outcomes, we can control what goes into it. Okay? So I looked at that and said, well let's go, go back and look at what went into those games. And there's a combination of things. There's a lot of things. There's Depth issues. Okay. There's injuries. There's no excuse for those things, though, right? At the end of the day, the roster is the responsibility of the head coach. So you're putting that together. So what really became the issue? Well, if you go back and look at week four, really, I guess week three, we played Clemson, and you start hearing some scuttlebutt, like, coming from not what you thought would have been players. Okay. Really, coaches saying, well, man, why is he acting like that? What's wrong with him? You know, we just beat Clemson. We beat the number 10 team, or, you know, we're six and zero, we're eight, and, oh, why is he doing this? Well, I try to be the same every day. I try to be the same every Sunday when I come in. It's about correcting mistakes, right? If you don't want to have mistakes corrected, do what's right. And so there was some of that. And then I think a big thing was I constantly talked to the players during that run of. For me to tell you to block out the noise is crazy. You're gonna hear the noise, but you choose what you listen to. I think the players became so anxious to the point of not wanting to mess up. There was a lot of hesitation. There was a lot of lack of detail in coaching at certain, you know, positions or, you know, different instances where, you know, maybe they didn't want to dig in too deep to it because, you know, let's just kind of do what we've been doing because it's been working. You know, let's don't give too much of the detail in it, because I don't want to mess them up. But now the players are sitting back on their heels, and then there were a lot of distractions and distractions externally, more so than just, hey, all of a sudden, now you get ranked seventh. Well, personally, I looked at our roster and our team, and I said, we were very fortunate to win some of those games. We won, right? Against some of the competition. We probably should have been in a position to win by a bigger margin. So you're being real with it, and you're saying, okay, we're pretty lucky right now to be 8, 0, and 7th in the country. And then we go up to really an absolute firestorm up at NC State night game. They had a great crowd. I think it was homecoming there. You know, there was something going on, but had an outstanding Halloween. That's what it was. It was Halloween. So they had a really good crowd. They were into it. I think they had two of their best players not play. They're running back and they're tight end. We're not playing at the game. So now that creates another little sense of false reality going into the game. And the more you talk about it, the more whatever. So like you said, I'd probably name 57, 67 things that all come together. But then it happens, right? And at the end of the day, I learned a long time ago as an assistant, you can always put it on the coordinator. As a coordinator, you put on the head coach. But as a head coach, you gotta look at one person. What can I do better? What do I have to do better? So a lot of that starts back in January. How are we able to sustain for a longer time period? How are we able to sustain the success that we have? End of the day though, it's not about just believing it. It's about going out and working, working during the week, making sure your players stay healthy through the season. There's so many things I could point to that, you know, I've looked at to really help us this year.

[Interviewer]

When you, you look at how the game has changed, take a 10 year period. So 10 years ago versus now, you weren't a head coach 10 years ago, but you've, you've been in the game, right? Past 10 years. And beyond the stuff that would have been normal 10 years ago, procedurally, systems operations, the depth that you would have at major universities versus today, how much is that forced a guy in your position to not only evolve, but now you're like in this fluid environment where you got to keep evolving. And you may talk to someone who's been out of the game 10 years and they want to know, hey, why this way, why that way? And you're kind of like, guys, aren't

[Brent Key]

you tuple tuning at practice? Why aren't you doing this?

[Interviewer]

Different world now. Like, I mean, I know that's a reality, but I know it on the periphery. You kind of live it. So how much of reality is that?

[Brent Key]

It is, you know, the blessing for a newer coach, the newer head coach right now, is we weren't managing it that way then. We were involved in it, but we weren't managing it that way. This is all I know as a head coach. Okay, so the roster numbers being down, the transition of players, the free agent market where players are coming and going, you know, used to be able to say, hey, we have to sign 22 kids this year. Four offensive linemen, three receivers, a quarterback, a running back, you know, four defensive linemen well, now you might be playing that early on, but there's no telling how many you are because these guys are going to leave. And I learned a long time ago, you cannot control other people's thoughts, feelings, wants, emotions, all right? You just have to prepare to be able to react to it when those, when guys do leave and there's not a guy that leaves here, all right, Or a guy that comes in where relationships are broken. I cheer for those guys. I have relationships. There's no lost feeling. You look around. College football coaches do it all the time. They come and go, they leave for other opportunities. So I get really frustrated when I hear coaches complain about it, when they're actually the ones that set the example. So my thing is, let other people complain about it and let us find a way to pass those people to find a better way of doing it. Those split national champions 25 years ago, they didn't wear helmets 100 years ago. But every 20 years, there's a major shift and change in college football. And this one's taking a little bit longer to settle out, but when it does, it's going to be the norm. There's so many things about college football that are great right now. The fan involvement, exposure, you know, television viewerships, merchandise sales, all those things are at an all time high. The playoffs have generated such an engagement into college football. But then people want to talk about the negative of it. Well, it's going to settle itself out. We're going to be in a great place. I think we're in a great place right now. Who's going to learn to manage it the right way? Because I talked to some of my mentors and some of the old heads and why aren't you doing it like this? Or why aren't you doing this? And just like you said, well, you didn't have 200 kids come to a practice that day. You're constantly recruiting 365 days a year, your own players, building those relationships with them. They were there for four years. You had time to develop a player. Now, if a high school kid isn't coming in and playing within the first couple of years, they're probably not gonna be around. Yeah, you know, they're not. So a lot of things have changed, but it's a constant evolution.

[Interviewer]

I want to see where your head was at on this. So anytime someone does something good, Indiana did something really good last year. They won a national title. Then every other coach and to some extent players get asked, hey, like what could you learn from Indiana? Or do you want to copy anything about the Indiana model? And so like I remember a long time ago, totally out of football, but I was listening to someone, organizationally, they were talking about the plan and then they failed to accomplish something. So someone said, you know, well, what plan do you use now? And the guy said, I'm not changing the plan at all. The plan was sound. Our execution on the plan was not sound. So you don't throw the plan out, you change the way that you go about trying to execute it. So like from in your lane, when you kind of get some of what you wanted last year and then the end of the season doesn't go the way you wanted, that's not necessarily indicative of a plan being flawed, maybe the execution in the plan being flawed, but then at the same time there are other folks who finish the drill the way they wanted to. So like what's the balance of. I could learn some things or maybe take some cues from him or her or that team or that program versus Yeah, I kind of trust our plan though. I just want to execute on it better.

[Brent Key]

You know, we've talked about this a lot the last two months. A lot. Because I said there's going to be 60 teams, they're going to try to copy Indiana.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Brent Key]

And 59 of them are going to fail. And one of them got lucky. That's the way it is. Going through what we went through last year, having the success then not having success and it was such a wave of emotions within it. Right. Played poorly. NC State, played poorly and won at bc. Played a quarter and a half of the worst football you can play in a game that still mattered and everything was on the line here at home and we hadn't lost a home game in two years against Pitt. Well then halfway through the second quarter we start playing a little bit better. Second half we played a little bit, but we were too far behind. We go into play arrival, we're across the state the next week and play with a one score game. But we come up losing. What I learned from it is I'm very confident in our organizational plan, our structure, the way we go about doing things, that it leads to the right things. I'm not trying to copy other people in the first couple years. You're like, oh man, let's look at that. You look at that, you're reading, you're studying, you're talking to people. I know it's right, but what kind of tweaks can we make now to our plan? So going through that last year actually Made me more confident in ours. Right. Because I've seen also the failures of other people trying to copy year to year the plan of other people. And now you got no foundation. And players see through that. The biggest fool in the world is someone who thinks they can pull the wool over the eyes of an 18, 19, 20 year old kid. They see everything. They do. And when you're not consistent in your approach with them, you're consistent in the way you deal with them, they're going to see through it, they're not going to believe in it and it's going to be over. So, yeah, I've made tweaks in our program for the betterment of it, a lot of it, to allow myself to focus more on football and recruiting and the things that go about being a head coach. Not to micromanage, not to, you know, want to be the OCD person that I am and, you know, take every little thing and do it all myself and compartmentalize it. But a lot of that comes back to trust, trusting the people you're around. I spent a lot of time building out this staff and this roster this year. A lot of time went back and looked at some of the mistakes of the ones I'd made the previous three years and what did I do wrong? So now I've taken our organizational plan and I've really streamlined it and tweaked it into what I think is a very strong, strong organization right now.

[Interviewer]

I was watching you guys practice earlier today as we're recording, and you can tell, talking about being ocd, like you're not the only person in the world that's like that. And the immediate instinct is I want to have my hands on everything. I want to jump in, I'll fix it, get out of the way, I'll fix it. But you're really, you're not letting coaches coach. You hire assistants for a reason and in some cases, ultimately you'd love to get to where it's just a player led team and players are the ones that end up being able to correct that stuff. How hard is it to be on that seesaw mentally of My instinct is to jump in here, I'm a lay back for a couple of plays. Let's just see how this plays out.

[Brent Key]

Because I failed at it, right? And you don't realize that when you're doing it, you don't see it when it's happening. When you go take over a drill, when you go, you know, it's one thing to be a head coach and go and Be involved and coach up certain things with each position and let each position know that they're just as important as the other. You know, whether it's being at the dbs and, you know, coaching up ball security or, you know, at the quarterbacks and talking about their footwork and, you know, but when you go and you take over a D line drill or you take over the O line drill or the linebackers, the first time you do it, you think, oh, yeah, I'm coaching. But a lot of people fail to put themselves in the other person's seat, right? Well, now you've just made that person insecure about their ability to coach. A lot of times when you're around, well, you don't find that out in the first practice, you don't find that out in the first year. But two and three years in, you look and say, okay, at the end of the day, I say it all the time. I'm the person that is accountable for the success and failures of this football program across the board. I'm the head football coach. So let's look back and see what can I do better. So I think, as you saw me today, as hard as it is at times, I want to sit back and watch the coaches. And then we'll get together at three today in the staff meeting. I'll go through all my notes. That's where I coach the coaches now and then. I was extremely pleased today because everything I talked about after Saturday's practice was addressed, corrected, and was run better today. So now let's do the same thing then. And I didn't have one time to go jump in the middle of something, right? A guy that is really kind of a personal coach to me over the last couple of years told me this last year, we all become successful in what we do because we're doers. We're workers. If you're a really good worker or doer, you become a leader of the workers or doers. But you can still go get your hands dirty. But when you have a lot of success doing that, now you become a leader of leaders. Well, you can't skip down to that bottom step and be a doer anymore. And sometimes that's the most frustrating thing about being a leader or CEO or a coach, a head coach. Because now you're coaching the coaches, you're leading the people. You're not getting your hands dirty. It takes a while to understand that. But to build confidence in those other doers, to have them one day be leaders, you've gotta let them do their jobs.

[Interviewer]

Ugh.

[Brent Key]

Could this vintage store be any cuter? Right.

[Interviewer]

And the best part? They accept Discover.

[Brent Key]

Except Discover in a little place like this?

[Sponsor/Announcer]

I don't think so, Jennifer.

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Key]

Huh?

[Interviewer]

Discover's accepted where I like to shop.

[Brent Key]

Come on, baby, get with the times. Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants.

[Interviewer]

These are making a comeback, I think.

[Brent Key]

Discover is accepted at 99 of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

[Julian Edelman]

This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. All right, real quick, take a look at yourself right now.

[Brent Key]

Why? What's wrong?

[Julian Edelman]

Nothing's wrong. You look like a guy running on three hours of sleep and vibes. Okay, yeah, I'm tired, kind of cranky and very thirsty. Congrats. Those are some of the potential signs of mild dehydration. And I bet your last bathroom break showed you another sign your body might be throwing you a penalty flag.

[Brent Key]

So what's the play?

[Julian Edelman]

Call Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier. One stick in water helps hydrate faster than water alone. Okay, but where's the proof? Liquid IV's clinical studies, not just a guy I know real science. Results you can trust. Well, take a look at me now. Liquid IV is officially part of my daily hydration routine.

[Brent Key]

Pass the firecracker. Popsicle flavor.

[Julian Edelman]

Stay hydrated like a pro, not like Jack before this. Stock up on Liquid IV Hydration Multiplier at liquidd I.com and use the promo code nuthouse for 20% off your first purchase.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Interviewer]

It's interesting if you walk through the building last year you walked through the building this year. Everybody's used to roster turnover, but there are a lot of new staff faces here. In some cases you're still filling your staff out. I mean, to a certain extent. When you tasted a version of what you ultimately want to have last year, the outside world was think you do everything you can to keep everything about that together and then just climb one more rung the next year. But I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you went maybe a little bit different angle here of no, I want a lot of new faces in the building. With new faces comes what?

[Brent Key]

Continuity breeds complacency. In my mind, continuity breeds complacency in every walk of life in an organization. Think about the times in January. We've already done it this way. We've already done this. We don't need to do A, B, C. We can start at D. What about that freshman? I thought we did an absolute poor, poor job of developing freshmen last year. From January through the season we had players that played for the first time in November that should have been playing in September. Alright, well why is that? Well, you go back and look at it well when you have a lot of people together for one year, two years, three years, just because they know it in that room doesn't mean that freshman that walks in the door knows it, right? So continuity breeds complacency in my mind. And I'm fortunate to be underneath two head coaches in my career that have really, you know, I've learned from and that have developed me that I think out of 20 plus years of coaching, only one time did I ever see the same staff stick together for two consecutive years with Coach o' Leary and Coach Saban and they had an ultra amount of success. But those guys also always went back to the a, b, c, 1, 2, 3 on the very first day. So that's the approach I took, that's one of the tweaks to the organization. That's one of the things I learned through failure, that we have to be better at that we have to do better. We took all our stuff that we normally do in June, and we moved it up to January with the players. We walked in the. I pulled my notes from the very first day of being the head coach. I tweaked them, I changed them. And we started out our first staff meeting with that. We're rebuilding playbooks. Everything started from scratch. So now when you walk around the building, it's not like you've been somewhere for a while, but there's that freshness and that newness that a new staff always has, that energy of a new staff. You know, when a brand new head coach comes in, everyone's all excited. Well, we have that now again. But now I realize, and I see back my time in Alabama, how every January, February, there was always this buzz of new life because we always started back at a.

[Interviewer]

How many. I mean, how often is it that. Whether it be a player or a staff or just someone, you know, socially, how often is it that people just want stories from you? It's not even recent stories. They just know you were on those staffs at Alabama.

[Brent Key]

Oh, yeah.

[Interviewer]

And I just want to tell me something to Jalen national titles, like, just tell me about that. And then you could talk for, like, five hours nonstop, probably.

[Brent Key]

Yeah, you could. Well, I think the further we get removed from that stretch of time, from really, was it 16 to 19, you know, 15 to 20 at Bama, the more people are going to want to reminisce about it, because I do not believe you're ever going to see those types of rosters again, that type of, you know, dynasty. And that was in the midst of it. That was the middle of it. That was the greatest run. I tell every recruit, I tell every person that was the greatest run in the history of college football, in modern college football. And I don't ever think it'll be duplicated again. So, yeah, people want to talk about it all the time. And I think it's going to become more and more as people reminisce as coach Saban gets further away from being the head coach in whatever role he continues to evolve into in this landscape that we're in, he's seen as this, you know, probably like the way when I was. When I was a kid, I looked at, you know, Bear Bryant and Bobby Dodd. I mean, those were like the legends of the legends and that's what he sees as now. So everybody wants to hear those stories, but it's pretty cool to tell them, too.

[Interviewer]

We are, like, a couple of months removed from Ole Miss, playing in a semifinal game. Pete Golding, all of a sudden, is the head coach at Ole Miss. Looks like it's going to be interim. They ripped the interim tag off. He's just the permanent head coach. And I don't have to hit the rewind button too far to go back to 2022, where you start the season in what you. You coordinate or you just. Offensive line. Assistant head coach. Yeah. So there are a bunch of acronyms next to your name, but HC was not next to your name. And then all of a sudden, middle of the season, you could have never known, this is going to be my shot this year. But then, boom, it's your shot. And it's different than auditions in the regular world, where if you want to get a job, you go sit down in a boardroom, you sit down in an office room, you are just taking the headset, and it's yours, and we'll see how it goes. And then the public thinks, all right, well, Brent's going to be the interim head coach. Then we'll see who they hire afterwards. But you end up being the guy because you guys end up turning things around to a certain extent. But that whirlwind. And then after that, the first off season after that, describe as much as you can what that's like.

[Brent Key]

So the whirlwind is just that. And there's no manual. There's no guide of how to do it. It's get called up to the president's office, get told you're doing it. And from the time I walked from the president's office back down to this building, in my head, I had to compartmentalize things we had to get done before we went out and practiced. The next morning, the first thing was fixing our special teams. So I walked from there back to this building, walked straight up to Jason Seymour's office, who was the linebacker coach at the time, who's now my defensive coordinator. This is part of the relationship that me and him have. I walked straight into his office. I told no one anything. Walked in his office, sat down and closed the door. I said, jason, I just got named interim head coach, and I need to ask you something. I said, you're probably going to say not only no, but you're going to run far from it. I said, but if we want to have any success, we got to fix our Special teams, we have to fix our punt team. You're right, coach. I'd have to be crazy to want to do that. He goes, but I stayed up all night last night. I've got 156 plate cut up of what I would do if you'd come and ask me this. If this happened. Boom. So we started fixing punt, had a staff meeting, had a team meeting, stood in front of the team and said, I walked in the same shoes you guys walked in 25 years ago. You guys are not losers. You just do not know how to win. We're gonna do this the only way I know how. I'm gonna be authentic. It's gonna be player led. If it doesn't have to do with graduating or winning games, I don't want to deal with it. And we're gonna create a culture that's black and white. Y' all live in a world of gray. You're told a bunch of BS every day. You can't open your phone up without knowing what's true. Not true. And, you know, four years ago, this is. Right. The cusp of the. The explosion of AI. Yep. So now everything. Is it real? Is it not real? Right? We're gonna walk through these doors. We're gonna be black and white. I'm gonna be transparent with you. You can be transparent with me. And we're gonna put pads on, and we're gonna absolutely go out there and knock the crap out of each other. I said, but if you ever want to be a winner, you got to learn how not to lose first. And I felt like the team just sat around. Even when they were, you know, did things well, they were waiting on the bad thing to happen. So we didn't even talk about the opponent. We were going up to play Pitt, who was 20, 21 in the country, on the road. That first game, we didn't talk about it. We went out, we practiced for about three hours. On Tuesday, full pads. Three hours. On Wednesday, full pads. Thursday, did the same thing again. Then Friday, I said, you know, I probably need to do a little bit of scout teamwork, but I didn't really care. It wasn't about the other team. It was about us becoming a more disciplined, physical, tough football team. And I wasn't worried about the next job. I wasn't to the point of. And I said it every week. Everybody asked as we started to win some games. They said, what about this job? Getting the job full time? I'm not worried about that job. I'm worried about this job. And that's really where I cemented into the mentality of be where your feet are. To the point. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So the day before Thanksgiving, before the last game of the year, and I went home. I got home that night and I was burning the candle at every end possible. I mean, I was falling asleep on the couch at 3:34 in the morning, waking up, coming in. And every day I would say, I can do anything for six more weeks. I can do anything for five more weeks. I came home that Wednesday night, my wife looked at me and said, have you heard anything about our future or about the job? I said, babe, why are you asking me that? You know, I don't want to talk about that. And she looked at me and said, I just need to know if I need to put the house up for sale on Monday or not. Boom. Ton of bricks, man. Ton of bricks. That it hit me. I need to know if we need to put the house up for sale on Monday. Wow. Luckily we didn't. And from then on, I've really carried over a lot of the lessons I've learned there. You know, kept a couple people around, you know, some people around, you know, probably shouldn't have. Really good football coaches that I kept, learned a lot of lessons and put together staff and I tell people this, you know, anybody that's had their first. And I told Pete this, everything you do your first year, you think you're doing correctly or you wouldn't be doing it. Year two, you realize how bad you were and how screwed up you were. Year three, you have a decision to make. Do I ride it out and just keep going because it's year three, or do I restart this whole thing back over as year one and now by year four, which is what I'm in now, truly, like a second year of now, you're tweaking your processes and that's where we're at now. And that's the best advice I can give anybody that's going through that situation.

[Interviewer]

I think the instinct of any kind of high achiever, if they're put in that position is I'm just going to grind. I'm going to grind. Hey, man, I may not be the most talented or whatnot, I may not be the smartest, but no one will outwork me. And, you know, some people say that and they're actually telling the truth, but then there's only a certain amount that you can redline mentally and physically. And you go and you go and you go and you go and, you know, there's a very, very finite amount of time that you can live that way. And you were talking about burning the candle at both ends. Okay, well now we're four years later. So forget about the X and O portion of this for a second. Just from an overall quality of life standpoint, how does today compare to when you first got handed this thing?

[Brent Key]

I'm more efficient in my time. You know, early on I was always afraid. I have this fear that I feel like I'm being efficient but the staff isn't. So everything I built was for the staff efficiency. Well, I was being pulled in every direction. I was allowing them to be efficient, but it wasn't working for me. So I've tweaked each year some of those things. I mean, like even this year we practice in the morning so we staff at one. Well, this year I said on practice days we're gonna staff at 3. 3. So everyone has a chance to watch the film. Well, it's great for me. I can do different things like this. I can do interviews I have to do, I can do obligations I have. I can watch the practice tape. We can go sit down there at 3 o' clock and talk about practice together. Just another tweak of efficiency that's helped me. I don't leave my house in the morning without kissing my wife and my daughter goodbye. Not one time I have ever. And I won't those times. I'll stay up till 3, 3:30 in the morning. At midnight I make myself go to bed. Now there's still, you know, if there's something good on Jimmy, you know, some good, you know, singer on Jimmy Fallon or something. Later at night I might stay up to watch it. But I get my work in. I have the things in my personal life that'll help me release from it. And I'm working out, get up in the mornings and work out, do things active. And I'm enjoying it a lot more. But what I found is I've become a lot more productive. I was staying up all night, waking up in the morning, saying, I'm going to outwork anybody. No one will outwork me. And no one was. No one was out working me hours wise. But I can also look back and remember myself just like staring at something. And all of a sudden it's been an hour and a half and I hadn't gotten through half a page of it. And it should have taken me 20 minutes to do. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?

[Interviewer]

Right? And the best part, they accept discover.

[Brent Key]

Except discover in A little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer.

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Key]

Huh?

[Interviewer]

Discover is accepted where I like to shop.

[Brent Key]

Come on, baby, get with the time. Right.

[Interviewer]

So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think.

[Brent Key]

Discover is accepted at 99 of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.

[Julian Edelman]

This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jewels. All right, real quick, take a look at yourself right now.

[Brent Key]

Why?

[Julian Edelman]

What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. You look like a guy running on three hours of sleep and vibes. Okay, yeah, I'm tired, kind of cranky and very thirsty. Congrats. Those are some of the potential signs of mild dehydration. And I bet your last bathroom break showed you another sign your body might be throwing you a penalty flag.

[Brent Key]

So what's the play?

[Julian Edelman]

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[Brent Key]

Pass the firecracker Popsicle flavor.

[Julian Edelman]

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[Interviewer]

You are a head coach and there are a lot of them in the country right now, but very few of them played at the place that they're the head coach. So you and I are sitting here, actually stadiums in the background of us right now, and it's this like beautiful sunny spring day. There's not a soul in here. Well, at least in terms of a patron, there's not a soul in here. Every now and then you walk out on your balcony or you just, you go down there, stand on 10 yard line. But if you're middle of spring, no one's around here, complete silence and you just let your mind wander for 10, 15 minutes. Where does it go?

[Brent Key]

Once every month, once every couple of months, I'll kick my feet up on my desk and I'll just go across the names. George Morris, John Heisman, William Alexander, Billy Shaw, Calvin Johnson, Bobby Dodd. I mean, I just go around the stadium and I just look at the names and I do somewhat pinch myself and say, man, I'm lucky. I'm the luckiest man on the face of the earth to be able to do this here. And I don't ever want to lose sight of that because I truly sit in that seat and everyone that ever played here sits in that seat with me. And that's a strong, strong obligation to uphold, you know, first day of spring practice last week, went out on the field and everyone was out there getting ready to blow the horn to start. And I went up to Godsey, to George. I hosted George on his official visit here. We were roommates for a large portion of the time. It was my wedding and I walked up to him and I dapped him up and said, hey, brother, don't forget the times we had out here on this field. Don't ever forget them. You know, make this special because it is.

[Interviewer]

Do you ever do a thing where in those moments or maybe it's just you all by yourself, maybe feet are up on the desk, not only are you kind of reminiscing and man, I'm so lucky. I'm so blessed to have this position. I got all this Responsibility, but also maybe like talk to yourself from 15 years prior, 20 years prior to.

[Brent Key]

Well, that was stupid.

[Interviewer]

Just whiff for a second. All right. But even put the bad decisions aside because we all got them. But also you, 20 years ago, you, 30 years ago, if you could, if you go back there and just maybe snap your fingers and give like a 10 second glimpse of what's coming down the road, how you would have felt 20, 30 years ago knowing you'd be a head coach at Georgia Tech one day.

[Brent Key]

No way. There's no way. Never would have believed it. Never would have believed it. Never would have believed it. I didn't. I was that guy that wanted to play in the NFL then didn't want to give up football. So I became a coach. Hated it my first year. Got into real estate for a year and a half. Then I realized how much I loved coaching and being around the game and how hard it was to get back in. I. But I got back into coaching hopefully one day to coach the offensive line at my high school. And maybe if I got lucky to be the head coach at my high school, to know that I'd be sitting here on that same field that I've played on and bled on, had so many great memories on. It's not even a realm of belief. And if I really want to get, get down into it, I think about the coaches that have sat in that seat. Strong. Yeah, it's strong. So I got a lot of people to, you know, to a lot of great people that have been in front of me to live up to a lot of people that are looking at everything we do every day. But I've also learned in the last, you know, four years not, not to turn that into pressure. I can't answer everyone's call, I can't answer everyone's text because there are a lot. I can't give everyone their wishes or let everyone's nephew or brother or son have a scholarship. You can't do that. You have to stand your ground. And I'm in the position I'm in to make those decisions, to make hard decisions. And I have to look at it and say, say what is best for the GT and what is best for the players on this football team now. And every decision I make really comes down to those two things.

[Interviewer]

You just got done having a multi year run with Haynes King as your quarterback, who pound for pound, may be one of the toughest players we've ever watched play leadership in droves. And so he exits your program.

[Brent Key]

He'll never Exit.

[Interviewer]

Well, so, yeah, he's in practice today, actually, so he's constantly around. Someone else is going to have to play quarterback for you this year. But also the leadership aspect of that, like when you have that, that chunk, that critical piece of leadership that leaves, in an ideal world, someone just steps right in and they're like a duplicate of that. In another, more realistic world, you probably got to have several guys that step in and step up there. But when you put together a football team, you're watching it come together in spring, and then you got summer workouts and then you got fall camp. When you, in an ideal world, see leadership start to form, like in an individual player, what does that start to look like?

[Brent Key]

Leadership in a whole is lonely. And it's lonely because of the decisions you have to make, the things you have to say, the things you have to, you know, hold people accountable for. So to see the person on the field that. And they're easy to see, is not afraid. They might been here two months, it might be a freshman. You know, rarely it's a freshman, but it might be somebody that's been here for three years and just now decides to take that role. They're doing things and saying things that are not the popular thing to do in today's world. They're in early, they stay late. You know, I look at the film study reports from the iPads that they all have at home. It's hours upon hours of extra they have. They don't miss class. They set the example. They do everything they can to influence people in a positive way. When you have one guy like Haynes, sometimes that blessing can be your curse, too. It really can. Especially on a football team. Team is different than every other sport. There's three phases that all have to play together. There's 11 guys on the field at one time, and I don't know anybody that's played golf, all right, that has shot the same on every course they played on, every time they played on it. Because precision comes and goes, and with that comes emotions. Well, when you're the quarterback, you're not always going to be on. Something's going to be just. Why you shot a 72 on a course and you go shoot an 86 on the same course the next day, sometimes it's just off. But when everyone looks at one singular person as that leader and then they're off, well, what happens to the leadership of the team? Maybe they have to worry about themselves a little bit more that day and they can't affect that other person. So I believe in football to have multiple leaders is really important, and we really work to start developing those guys in January.

[Interviewer]

I didn't want to wrap up without asking you just about the roster overall, because I was here last year and then I was here today and I mean, I could have brought my sister to practice those two times and she would know that. This group you got just looks a whole lot bigger than the group you had last year, which is certainly intense. But I mean, what specifically did you have in mind? What were the bullet points? Here's what I'm looking for. When we overhaul this thing, we had

[Brent Key]

to get bigger, we had to get longer without losing athletic ability, speed. We had to get bigger. Another one of those 47 things in the recipe that allowed you to start out 8, 0 and then go 1 and 3 down the stretch. There's weight classes in boxing for a reason. Coach Saban used to always say that, and it's real. There's teams that we've played that we've out coached, we've outplayed, and they out recruited us. So we had to make up that ground. It's the lifeblood of our program. We've recruited well, there's nowhere to the standard in the belief that I think we can be here. I do not buy into what the external narrative is, whether it be from people that have been at a place before, people that are fans of a place, people that aren't fans of a place. I believe in recruiting the best players for Georgia Tech football today. I don't read social media. I don't read things when I'm evaluating recruits. I will not let recruiting people say 1. I won't let them say who else is recruiting them. Who else? You know, what stars they have, you know, what services have done with them. None of that. I want to know truly the evaluation that I see on tape and then does the character and, you know, all the other things match up to what we need now? If it aligns with the recruiting services, that's great, right? But I want the best players for this place and we had to continue to elevate that. We've elevated it, but not to the point where needs to be for us to, you know, be able to play 16 games and win them.

[Interviewer]

It's a fun operation to be around. Brent, we appreciate it, man.

[Brent Key]

Appreciate it, man. You do an awesome job. Awesome job, you know, really, really happy for you and the success you've had too, man.

[Interviewer]

I appreciate it, man.

[Brent Key]

Go Jackets. Yes, sir.

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[Brent Key]

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[Brent Key]

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[Brent Key]

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