Georgia Tech coach Brent Key defends state of college football amid widespread criticism

In little than 4 afloat seasons, Brent Key has turned the Georgia Tech shot programme around. He guided the Yellow Jackets to a 9-3 grounds successful 2025 and was precocious rewarded with a declaration hold that ties him to his alma mater done 2029.

As Key and Georgia Tech enactment the finishing touches connected preparations for Saturday’s matchup with BYU successful the Pop-Tarts Bowl, Key took a infinitesimal to stock his thoughts connected the often-maligned authorities of assemblage football.

"I deliberation the authorities of assemblage shot … assemblage shot is astatine the top spot it’s ever been," Key said during his media availability connected Friday.

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Georgia Tech caput manager Brent Key celebrates aft the 2024 Aer Lingus College Football Classic lucifer betwixt Florida State and Georgia Tech astatine Aviva Stadium successful Dublin.  (Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Key cited the instrumentality acquisition and the beardown viewership the athletics often draws.

"The instrumentality experience, the viewership … assemblage shot is astatine an all-time high," Key noted. "The magnitude of radical watching games, watching Playoff games, watching (ESPN’s) College GameDay, it’s conscionable wide assemblage shot is simply a mode of life, and I deliberation assemblage football, the involvement successful it is astatine an all-time high."

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While the existent mentation of the assemblage shot calendar and the 12-team playoff format person been wide debated and critiqued, Key highlighted what helium believes are the sport’s beardown points.

A elaborate presumption of a University of Virginia helmet sticker connected Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets helmet during their crippled against the North Carolina Tar Heels astatine Kenan Memorial Stadium connected Nov. 19, 2022 successful Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

The advent of name, representation and likeness (NIL) rules and the summation successful subordinate mobility via the transportation portal person had monolithic impacts connected assemblage football. While Key is good alert of the seismic shifts successful the sport’s landscape, helium besides acknowledged the ebbs and flows assemblage shot has gone done astir each mates of decades.

Key yet gave credence to the affirmative advancement helium has seen implicit the years.

A presumption of the assemblage shot playoff nationalist title trophy connected the sidelines of a crippled betwixt the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Pittsburgh Panthers successful the 4th fourth astatine Bobby Dodd Stadium astatine Hyundai Field connected Nov. 22, 2025 successful Atlanta, Georgia. (Brett Davis/Imagn Images)

"There was a clip erstwhile it was voted connected who the nationalist champion was. So, times change. You look astatine assemblage football, each 15-20 years, determination is simply a large overhaul successful assemblage football. We’re going done 1 of those times close now," Key said. "Massive changes don’t conscionable hap overnight. At the extremity of the day, our occupation is to postgraduate players from college, get their grade and alteration their lives. We bash that done the avenue of football."

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The Pop-Tarts Bowl kicks disconnected Saturday astatine 3:30 p.m. ET astatine Camping World Stadium successful Orlando, Florida.

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