ATLANTA — The Georgia Tech football team has its guard up.
The undefeated, seventh-ranked Yellow Jackets host Syracuse on Saturday, and coach Brent Key isn’t letting them grow complacent as November gets near and the regular season goes from midpoint to stretch run.
“There’s three things I told the team, and they have to understand this,” Key said Tuesday. “I walked in and said, ‘Appreciate it guys, you’ve worked your butts off for this. But understand teams die from inside out, and not the outside in. Number two, we can get beat. And number three, this time of year, teams either improve or they get worse. You don’t stay the same.'”
Georgia Tech (4-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) has its highest AP poll ranking since 2009 and its first 7-0 start since 1966. A victory over Syracuse (3-4, 1-3) would secure the Yellow Jackets’ first eight-win season since 2016 and the sixth 8-0 start in program history.
“If you can’t appreciate success, what’s really the motivation to continue to do what you do, if there’s no reward?” said Key, a former Georgia Tech offensive lineman and assistant who has led the program since 2022. “The reward comes at the end of the year, but there’s small rewards each week.”
Scoring 20 unanswered second-half points in a 27-18 win at Duke last week kept the undefeated season alive. The Yellow Jackets trailed 10-7 deep into the third quarter against the Blue Devils and did not score an offensive touchdown until the final five minutes of the game in Durham, North Carolina, all while surrendering 441 yards.
“It’s hard to get better. It’s a choice and decision everybody has to make. That was the challenge to the team,” Key said, adding that regarding outside talk about what they’ve accomplished so far: “They’re going to hear it; I’m not oblivious to that. But it’s still the same thing we said before. It’s their decision, it’s their choice what they give their full attention to.”
Georgia Tech is the only remaining undefeated ACC team and one of just six across the Football Bowl Subdivision.
All of the potential historical marks combined with the chase for an ACC championship and the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance have created noise around the program heading into its homecoming game.
“Homecoming, all that stuff, that’s for the fans,” Key said. “It has nothing to do with the football game, has nothing to do with the team we play, the game we’re going to play. It’s another opportunity for us to go out and compete against a really good opponent, and we’re excited to go.”