Where Did Brent Key Land In CBS Sports College Football Head Coach Rankings?

Every offseason, CBS Sports ranks every head coach in the Power Five (now power four) conferences from the top to the bottom and it is always an interesting look at how they view the different head coaches around the sport. It is hard to rank some coaches and any person could use a different method. How much do you weigh past accomplishments with the shape the program is in and if there has been a drop-off? Winning big at one school could be considered underachieving at other programs. How good of a recruiter are they? These are all different things to consider when trying to do the impossible task of ranking the power four coches 1-68.

One of the easiest things you can do when ranking the coaches is to put the coaches who have not coached a game yet near the bottom of the rankings, which is what happened to Georgia Tech’s Brent Key last offseason, when he was ranked near the bottom, 63rd to be exact. Yesterday, CBS Sports released their head coach rankings from No. 68-26 and Key took a jump up nine spots from 64 to 54.

Here is what CBS Sports Tom Fornelli had to say about where Key was ranked:

“What is the best way to climb in our rankings? Exceed expectations. That’s exactly what Key did in his first full season at Georgia Tech. He went 4-4 as the interim in 2022 and followed it up with a 7-6 mark last year. Key is now 9-6 in ACC games with the Yellow Jackets, giving off the impression that he could become a program institution.”

Key was ahead of a few ACC coaches, including Syracuse head coach Fran Brown (67th), Virginia’s Tony Elliott (62nd), Stanford’s Troy Taylor (60th), and Cal’s Justin Wilcox (57th). The coaches ranked ahead of Key included Bill O’Brien (51st), Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry (50th), Dukes Manny Diaz (48th), SMU’s Rhett Lashlee (45th), Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi (38th), North Carolina’s Mack Brown (37th), Miami’s Mario Cristobal (35th), and Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson (30th). Other ACC coaches that will appear in the final edition of the rankings will be Clemson’s Dabo Swiney, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, and NC State’s Dave Doeren.

I would argue that Key should be above a few of the coaches on the list. He should be given a lot of credit for guiding the Yellow Jackets to a bowl game while playing one of the toughest schedules in the country. He took Georgia Tech to a bowl game for the first time since 2018 and won their first bowl game since 2016. After the dreadful seasons under Geoff Collins, that was not an easy thing to do. I would argue he could be over O’Brien, Diaz, Pry, and maybe even Lashlee.

It will be interesting to see how high Key could climb in these rankings next season. He is going to face one of the nations toughest schedules again but returns one of the best quarterbacks in the ACC, a deep group of skill position talent, and most of the offensive line that led the Yellow Jackets to the No. 1 rushing attack in the ACC. This has a chance to be a special season for Georgia Tech, but we will have to wait to see how it plays out.

Look for Key to be higher on this list next year though.