Georgia Tech’s Brent Key made some comments this week after losing to Tennessee that tells us something important about the Vols
The Tennessee Vols beat the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 45-24 in Atlanta last Saturday night.
The Tennessee Vols are off to a great start this season after convincing wins against Furman and Georgia Tech, but we still don’t really know how good this Tennessee team actually is.
ESPN’s Greg McElroy, who was high on the Vols going into the season, left Tennessee out of his top 15 this week because he questioned the competition the Vols have played through the first two games of the season.
“Tennessee is not in right now,” said McElroy. “Their signature win right now is a convincing win against an 0-2 Georgia Tech team. The other win was against Furman, which is an FCS school. So there’s not really a quality win there on Tennessee’s schedule just yet.
“They’re 20th right now in overall efficiency, and the schedule that they’ve played at this point is 73rd. So I am not telling you that Tennessee is not the team that they might very well be. I think they’re legit. I’m just telling you right now that we don’t know with certainty just yet. They’ll move up very quickly when they get some of those opportunities that are coming in the weeks to come.”
Of course, it’s a little too early to know exactly how good anyone is. We’ve got to let more of the season play out. But I do think some comments from Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key after his team’s loss to Tennessee were telling.
Brent Key’s tone after losing to Tennessee was very different than after the Yellow Jackets’ loss in Week 1
Georgia Tech lost its season opener to Colorado, and Key spent several days after the game lamenting his team’s effort, and he even called them soft. Key repeatedly said it wasn’t the Georgia Tech brand of football that was played against the Buffaloes.
His tone after the loss to Tennessee was very different. He was still upset his team lost, but he was at least happy that his team seemed to play Georgia Tech’s brand of football. They were physical, they played with great effort, and they made some plays.
And yet the Yellow Jackets still lost by 21 points at home to Tennessee.
“The name of the game is to improve each week, and that’s what we’re looking to do,” said Key on his radio show on Thursday. “And what I told the staff and told them numerous times, and we talked about it today, is that our goal is to be an improved football team each week. And to maximize the talent that we have on the roster. It’s pretty simple.
“Look, we got beat last weekend. It was a totally different type of game than the first week. And that was really the thing coming out of the first game (against Colorado) was that it was not Georgia Tech football. That was not representative of anything about Georgia Tech, and we had to make sure that we played the game the right way. Our emotional and competitive discipline was much better (against Tennessee). We did a lot of things better. But look, at the end of the day, a loss is a loss. We play the game to win.”
It’s easy to read between the lines and see that Key feels like losing to Colorado was a fluke. Sure, his team could have played better against the Vols, but he thought they played well and still got beat. I think that tells us a little about how good Tennessee might actually be.
Key has high standards. He’s coached under Nick Saban. He wasn’t claiming any sort of moral victory, but you could tell that he had respect for the Tennessee team that beat Georgia Tech last week.
We’ll see over the next few weeks how good this Tennessee team really is. But I think the fact that Key felt like his team took a step forward and played their brand of football and still got beat by three touchdowns is a sign that maybe the Vols are going to be pretty good this season.
