ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Tech coach Brent Key is learning to embrace the challenge after an 0-2 start to the season.
Georgia Tech lost 14-13 to Colorado in its opener after allowing a game-winning touchdown drive in the final minute. One week later, the Yellow Jackets fell 45-24 to No. 15 Tennessee.
Yet Key insists he’s less focused on an 0-2 record and more motivated for a 1-0 week.
“The identity that you have at the beginning of the season doesn’t mean
it’s the identity you’re going to have for the full season,” Key said Tuesday ahead of hosting in-state Football Bowl Subdivision opponent Mercer.
That’s something he knows all too well. An 8-0 start last season was Georgia Tech’s best since 1966. But after losing four of the final five games, the narrative soon changed from a gritty Yellow Jackets team with attainable playoff hopes to a middle-ground Atlantic Coast Conference squad with a Pop-Tarts Bowl ceiling.
Key has now lost five straight, or six of the last seven games, dating to last season. But now is not the time to change coaching philosophies, he said, not after leading Georgia Tech to three straight winning seasons.
“Embrace the challenge," Key said. "Every week’s a challenge. I really look at it like that. Every week’s a challenge. Every season’s a challenge because it’s a new season, it’s a new group of players.”
One of those new players is quarterback Alberto Mendoza, brother of Heisman Trophy winner and No. 1 draft pick Fernando Mendoza. A new quarterback is an adjustment for Key after having Haynes King under center for the past four years.
King was a dynamic runner who threw for 2,951 yards and 14 touchdowns last season while leading the team with 953 rushing yards and a conference-high 15 rushing scores.
Following a quarterback the program built its identity around is a tall task, but Key maintains confidence in Mendoza as he finds his footing.
Key knows the on-field product isn’t going to look the same year in and year out, especially with a roster that has 62% turnover. He also knows Georgia Tech football quite well after starting as an offensive lineman for the Yellow Jackets from 1997-2000 — and that a Week 1 loss to Colorado wasn't consistent with it.
"We have a full season in front of us," he said. “Are people happy since we lost two games? No. ... We had a competitive football game, and a game we gave away that we did not play Georgia Tech football in at the end of the day. It can’t be any more black and white than that.”
Mercer is Georgia Tech's last nonconference opponent until its annual matchup with Georgia to wrap up the regular season.
“You learn from the previous game, whether you win or lose, the mistakes you make, the things you don’t do well, the bad calls, whatever it is. Same with the good things that did take place,” Key said. “I live in a week-by-week scenario with that. That’s the mindset that the entire program has to have."
___
Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full college football coverage here
