ATLANTA — Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key has more than a little experience squaring off against Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers. As an offensive line coach at Alabama, Key had to size up the Clemson defense three postseasons in a row from 2016 to 2018. Twice, Key and Alabama lost to Clemson in national championship games; once, the Tide bested the Tigers en route to the 2017-season title.
For most of the last decade-plus, Swinney and the Tigers have stood as the ACC’s benchmark, reaching the postseason every year since Swinney’s debut in 2009, making the playoff field five times and winning two national championships. Everyone, Tech very much included, is staring up at the Tigers’ record.
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“Dabo is a coach that’s been in the league, obviously, a long time, but he’s really set the barometer of the program that you want to build and the success that you want to have,” Key said Thursday. “He’s done it the right way. He really has. Seventeen years as the head coach with nine ACC championships, two national championships. Unfortunately,” Key added, “those two national championships, I was on the other sideline.”
Now, Georgia Tech has its first chance in the Key era — first chance in a decade, really — to match that standard. Clemson comes to the Flats on Saturday a wobbly 1-1, unimpressive in either of its first two games. Tech, meanwhile, is 2-0 after a ramshackle win over Colorado and a shorthanded thumping of Gardner-Webb.
The line is Clemson -3.5. A combination of factors — Clemson QB Cade Klubnik’s relative ineffectiveness, Georgia Tech’s resourcefulness, the return from injury of Jackets quarterback and motor Haynes King — make the 12th-ranked Tigers a more appealing upset target for Tech. Not that Key is letting any of this go to his team’s head.
“Having gone against Clemson for a lot of years,” Key said, “there’s one thing you can say that he does a great job of. It’s when they have had a down week or down game, he gets them up and they’re ready to roll that next week.”
Georgia Tech head coach Brent Key in the second half of an NCAA college football game Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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Besides the national championship losses, Key has some positive Clemson memories of his own to draw on. As a four-year starter at right guard at Georgia Tech from 1997 to 2000, Key and the Jackets went 4-0 against the pre-Dabo Tigers. Oddly, the Jackets won all four games by just three points apiece, but a win is a win.
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Since then, though, it’s been a whole lot of downs and very few ups for Georgia Tech against Clemson. The Tigers are riding a nine-game winning streak since 2015, a run that includes whompings of 73-7, 52-14 and 41-10. The Tigers and Jackets have played 88 times since 1898, but Key noted that the “rivalry” aspect of the matchup — Clemson leads the series 50-36-2 — needs some work.
“It’s not a rivalry if it’s one-sided completely,” Key said. “That’s on us to be able to go out and compete and make these games what they should be.”
Step No. 1 for Tech: Starting games with a bit more precision. Tech turned the ball over the first three drives against Colorado and the first two drives against Gardner-Webb. Yes, the Jackets won both games, but that’s not the kind of hole you want to throw yourself into if you can avoid it.
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“We can’t beat ourselves. Our margins aren’t big,” Key said. “We try to create more margin in the way we play and the style we play with, and [first-quarter turnovers] can be one of the things that sets us back.”
If Tech is able to get past Clemson — and, spread or not, that’s a massive if — then the path to the College Football Playoff stretches as wide as the I-75-85 connector that runs beside Tech’s campus … but with a lot less traffic. The schedule gods gifted Tech with a conference slate that doesn’t include Miami, Florida State or SMU, meaning the Jackets will likely be favored in every game they play right up until they face Georgia the day after Thanksgiving. A clean conference slate should get them into the ACC championship, and even a loss there might not eliminate them from a CFP berth.
Which is exactly why Key is trying to keep some perspective heading into Saturday and Clemson.
“It’s a huge opportunity for us. It’s a big mark for us, but it’s not our end-all goal,” Key said. “It’s an opportunity that allows us to proceed towards our goal, and that’s what it is.”
