Everything Georgia Tech coach Brent Key said after losing to Notre Dame

A defeated Brent Key and his raspy voice spoke to reporters for about 10 minutes after Georgia Tech lost 31-13 to No. 12 Notre Dame on Saturday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Here’s everything the Yellow Jackets head coach said.

Opening statement:

“Credit to Notre Dame, (for) having a plan, for getting a win today. But speaking of ourselves, we did not play good enough to win with the things we did. You don’t deserve to win when you play that way. There’s some things we did today, things we did, and some things we didn’t do. I’ll save a lot of judgment until we have a chance to go back and have a chance to watch the film tonight and really make sure to correct everything and what we saw. 

“But missed two field goals in the game, critical times right before half. Getting the ball, second half coming out, and have a chance to get a swing there in the middle eight of the game. And then, not only is it points when you go down to the red area, but it’s also momentum.

“Then, I thought in the first half, we missed a lot of tackles. Didn’t come up and make the plays we needed to. Too many extra yards out there; way too many extra yards. Then we challenged them, and I thought the second half they did a little better job of that. Obviously not good enough to come back with a win. 

“So credit to those guys. But we’ve got to — we got a lot of work we have to do. We have to get to work on this and be critical of it. Special teams is something that, for three weeks now, has not been up to expectations. Or played the way that I think we should play, know that we should play. 

“It is every game; It is in the game of football; it’s a line of scrimmage game. Whether you can throw the ball 60 times and run it 10, right? Whether you run it 10 times or 60, it doesn’t matter, you got to be able to establish the line of scrimmage and be able to get positive, positive plays. Otherwise, it puts a lot of pressure on the throwing game and the timing of the throwing game. We weren’t able to do that today.

“So again, credit is Notre Dame, but we have work to do. There’s a lot of season left. We got to get these things corrected, and we’ve got to be able to move forward, very specifically not move on, because move on means you don’t worry about it. You forget about it. All right, that’s not the case. All right. We’ve got to move forward. All right. We’ve got a bit of work forward.”

On if he sensed a lack of focus from his Georgia Tech team:

“Yeah, that’s the greatest thing about the game. I thought we had a very focused week of practice. I thought we were very focused before the game, leading up into the game. The guys have been detailed during the week, execution during the week. Then we get out in the arena, get there and the lights come on, and we’re not able to execute. So when you play a good football team, you’ve got to be able to execute and make plays.”

On his evaluation of junior quarterback Zach Pyron’s performance:

“Yeah, they’re good defense. I thought it was gutsy. I mean, the kid’s tough. He’s nails. He’s tough as nails. He gave everything he had. We have to step up around them and be able to compliment and help.”

On the linebackers that played for injured junior linebacker Kyle Efford:

“Yeah, we won’t have any updates on anybody. I haven’t talked to the trainers yet, really, from today with any of those guys. So we got to play (freshman linebacker) Tah’j (Butler), and (junior linebacker) E.J. (Lightsey) played today in his place. We’ll look at the tape and see really how those guys did, what they need to improve on and what they need to get better at.

“Stepping in, I don’t think that it was too big for them. They both played football. They both played playoff snaps. You know, EJ has been hurt early on, so getting him back in there, but last week, I think, last week was his first game back. So we’ll evaluate and see where they’re at. 

“I thought the D-line played hard. I thought they affected the game in some ways. There was too many missed tackles at the second and third level.”

On the long-snapper’s high snaps:

“Yeah, I saw the same thing you saw. Again, we missed two field goals and that goes with everybody and everything on the same thing, not one individual player, until we see it and see why it was and what happened. But today, we missed two field goals that were at critical times.”

On why they missed tackles:

“Yeah, well, really, the big ones were in the first half. That was one where we extended a lot of drives, a lot of hidden yardage. We thought we had a chance to get that down for two- or three-yard gain, but they ended up getting 9, 12, 14 yards. That’s where a lot of yardage came from. It was really in the first half.

“I thought we came down, started supporting harder and faster in the second half. Once you read your keys and see what it is you got to transition. I told them at halftime, I said, ‘We were tentative, very tentative.’ Like, come out and wait and see what they’re gonna do. They are going to take our shots. We got to be aggressive and trust the other 10 guys are gonna be behind you to help you.”

On the rushing attack:

“It wasn’t there. Like I said, we weren’t able to establish the line of scrimmage and get positive plays. You have to be efficient. The bare minimum of efficiency on first down is four yards, second down’s half the distance, and third down’s, you got to be able to get the first (down). I don’t know if we accomplished that more than a handful of times.”

On the increase of takeaways:

“Good to see get him get a pick. That was a good momentum changer early in the football game. But obviously, we weren’t able to capitalize on it — consistently, capitalize on is what I’m saying. That’s why you want to get takeaways. You want to be able to change momentum swings. And not really even just for that, but for that next drive is really the momentum swings. 

“You want to be able to change the whole game, a little bit of fear into your opponent, being able to throw those balls. So we got to continue to improve that in that area.”

On if he got an explanation from the refs on the hits senior punter David Shanahan took:

“Yeah, we speak after every one of those situations, and we communicate with each other. But I’m not ever going to say anything about officiating after a football game.”

On senior quarterback Haynes King’s status:

“I don’t know. It’s day-to-day. That’s kind of what it is. I mean, I don’t know. Don’t know where he’s at. It’s not a season-ending thing. I can tell you that. It’s not a season-ending injury. It’s going to depend a lot upon just how quickly he can rehab and come ready to roll.”