Everything Brent Key said about the Miami Hurricanes

Here’s everything I gleaned from Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key’s comments about the Miami Hurricanes in his interview:

Q: I think we’ve talked about this a little bit, but the 3rd down conversion rate is 59%. What do they do on third down that makes them so successful?

BRENT KEY: “It’s really interesting when you look at them. I think in the first quarter games this season they are about 80% efficient in the third period, in the third quarter. I mean, I think they’re 75% efficient in the third quarter.” In the third quarter the decline was 71%, in the fourth quarter it was about 30%. So there’s some interesting things there, you probably know if they were lucky or unlucky, but it’s interesting how each game has played out like that. They’re doing a good job, you know, I think they’ve got a good opening plan, yeah . They obviously do a good job making adjustments at halftime. And that shows up in this kind of breakdown I’m talking about You can run and throw. They can run the ball for shorter distances the box will load if they are successful, make good use of the time on the clock. I mean, they jump. I mean, they have about 34 minutes of possession right now, but they get to the line of scrimmage right away. And then they give the quarterback a chance to really see what’s going on, communicate and have the freedom to check some things at the line, but then they get to the line at the same time and then immediately make a tempo play. So we have to be ready, take our call and be ready to get started. And then sometimes it’s a bit of a waiting game until he makes the decision or the final check or whatever. But it’s all in flux as to how they go about it. And then there is a longer descent. Like I said, they have dynamic receivers. They have really good receivers. They have the ball well in their hands. They’re safe, but once they have the ball in their hands, they’re ready to go.

Q. Your quarterback, Cam Ward, does a really good job of extending plays in terms of how difficult it is to go against a quarterback like that?

BRENT KEY: “Yeah, well, it’s a challenge, it’s exciting too. Like I said, he’s probably the leading candidate for the Heisman Trophy right now. I mean, not only do they distribute these idiots, but he does. I mean, I.” I think in the Duke game he had 11 scrambles that he turned into touchdowns. I think Duke did a good job on a lot of the others, but on two of 11 touchdowns, so you have to be careful that they continue to be active to spread the field in front of the quarterback. He does a good job while he’s walking around so you can’t really follow his eyes and see where he’s looking because at the last second he’ll look to the other side. So we have to be disciplined keep everything in front of us defense, which is hard to say because sometimes you look at him with all the free throws he has and you want to jump up and press him. At the same time, he gets these crazy scrambles and you have to keep him in front of you and attack the ball. We have to be disciplined with our cadence and we have to be confident tacklers. We have to be confident tacklers. He breaks a lot of tackles in these fights. He goes left, goes right, shows up in the middle and then, you know, some of them are eight, nine, 10 seconds long, some of them are the last ones.”

Q. You’ve had a number of close games, had a few late game comebacks and so on… What makes you so successful?

BRENT KEY: “I think there’s obviously a level of confidence there. I think they have confidence in the quarterback, confidence in his ability to make plays. They have faith in their team that if you win a few things will get better. “It’s contagious and you keep going. But it was some close games and they found a way to win and that’s the mark of a good football team because they have, it’s not like they won. Half of them won. They all won in the fourth quarter scored more points than in any other quarter. So we have to play four quarters.

Q. So, given the underdog mentality, how do you manage to show your guys how good Miami is, but at the same time believe they can go out there and still make it?

BRENT KEY: “Yeah, I wouldn’t have sat up here talking about what Miami is. If I was worried about that, I mean, they turned on the tape. They are smart children. We have smart people on this team, smart, you know, smart people, graduates of Georgia Tech, and they see the same thing we do, there’s no sugarcoating it and no hiding it. That’s what you do. It’s about us preparing for it to do our best. We want to develop our team as much as possible and be able to play against the opponent we have this week.”

Q. How similar is his approach to that of Mario Cristobal, who is also an offensive coach?

BRENT KEY: “Yes, there’s a lot to it. Obviously I’m not inside the walls every day, I know Mario, you know, his mentality, I know his personality as a coach, I’ve had the opportunity and the pleasure to work with him.” . Good man, you know, believes in many of the same core values ​​of a football program that we do here. So, you know, these are the guys that you’re rooting for when you’re not playing against them in the week you know, really, you know, they’re the guys out there that you think are running the programs the right way and build way. And he went through some adversity and he kept working at it and believing in his process and believing in his plan and it shows on the tape.”

Q. Your quarterbacks have done a pretty good job of making decisions and reducing interceptions…You’re facing a secondary that has 13 interceptions. How important will decision-making be in this game?

BRENT KEY: “Yeah, and that’s something I thought, you know, Haynes did a great job compared to last year and really improved some of those things. And, you know, the quarterbacks they did, they did. “They did a good job of, you know, reserving the right to kick, you don’t always have to force the ball in and play because it’s in the Practice is one thing, but then week after week, you can watch the standings all you want, but the team’s speed changes every seven days depending on who you’re up against. So if you came in a week and now you’re a tenth of a second faster, that won’t be the case. So we have to get along well with the football. If they make a turnover, that’s ours But we really care about the football every game. Don’t do anything to beat yourself. Limit explosives, extract explosives. Those are things that really matter when you lose a college football game.”

Q: Does the end of the Miami game last year have any impact on this game at all?

BRENT KEY: “Man, that has nothing to do with it. That has nothing to do with it at all. I mean… It has absolutely no, absolutely no impact on this game, on this football game. for better or for worse, and when you look at them you see so many new faces on their team, so many new faces on our team, so no, there is no impact from one year to the next.

Quotes from Jackson Caudell of All Yellow Jackets on SI, you can find him on X HERE: