Everything Georgia Tech QB Haynes King Said Ahead Of Matchup Against Wake Forest

Georgia Tech QB Haynes King talked to the media in his availability session before the Yellow Jackets travel to Wake Forest. Here is everything he had to say.

On what he has seen on film about the Wake Forest defense…

“You know, they're a really well-coached team. They play hard, play physical, fast, and run to the ball. They're smart. They don't bust a lot and play sound defense. So we're going into this game knowing it's going to be a four-quarter tough game.”

On how important it is to get the explosive plays on offense….

“Oh, for sure. It's extremely important, you know, moving the sticks. And then now, you know, we hit an explosive. We can change the tempo, whether it's going really, really fast or huddling and trying to get them in a bad situation, misaligned, and stuff like that. So it's very important in what we do.”

On how practicing has been going and the team’s mindset this week….

“I mean, like he (Coach Key) said, I feel like everybody's locked in, you know, having a couple of good practices this week. The big message of this week is try and bring our own juice, you know, create our own juice, come out with high energy and effort, and running to the ball and chasing it and stuff like that.”

On having a game where he depends on the running backs and takes fewer hits…

“I mean, to me, it's about the same, you know, whatever it takes to win. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not a big stat guy and never really have been. The only one that matters to me is the win-loss column and then the turnovers. If we control those, then we'll be all good.”

On overcoming just missing out on explosive plays…

“We know the game of football, it's a game of inches. You know, things like that happen. Sometimes you connect. Sometimes you don't. You can't be too high or too low. Can't let it affect the next play. You know, we just got to go on and keep operating and executing.”

On if more interview requests and national attention distract him during the week….

“Honestly, not too bad. Mike and his team do a really good job of communicating and setting certain times up, certain windows up for that to happen.  I mean, I don't really miss anything time-wise, you know, watching film and stuff like that, so I necessarily haven't had to cram or anything. Like I said, they've done a really good job of communicating that aspect of that with me.”

On how far the team and the program have come since King and the Yellow Jackets played Wake Forest in 2023…

“I mean, it's come a long way. You know, just even like our identity. You know, that first year we were almost, you know, we thought we had it, but we were still trying to find it, necessarily. Even that game it was a tough, fought-out game, a four-quarter game. We knew that they were going to play really good on defense. I mean, I haven't seen a whole lot of their offense, you know. Don't study them. This team has matured a whole lot, and just to see that change from year one to now year three.

On being in the big spots as a program and pressure being a privilege…

“I mean, pressure is definitely a privilege. This is what we wanted. This is what we wanted as a team. This is also kind of what comes with it. So, I feel like we've prepared enough to handle these situations.  We can't just let up and, okay, we arrived. You know, we're ranked now. We're playing well. We're, you know, 4-0, stuff like that. Like, we got to still press the issue and do what we're supposed to do because, I mean, that's our standard.”

On where the offensive playbooks are right now and if new wrinkles are still being added in….

“A little bit of everything, honestly. You know, we got all our base stuff in, and, you know, you can hide it and run the same stuff, showing different formations and motions, stuff like that. But, you know, we're also, you know, still improving and still installing stuff. It's also week to week, you know. We might see a look and, you know, really like this play or this look. So, like I said, it's kind of all over the place. I feel like we do a really good job of carrying over meetings to the practice field and the practice field to game days.”

On how the offensive line is dealing with blitz packages and adjusting to defenses as they improve…

“Oh, for sure, they're improving game by game, you know. The more that those guys play together, the better they're going to be because that's a communication aspect of it. You know, when you get a group of guys that's played a while and played a while together, that's just the communication aspect. They know where to be, when to be, stuff like that. But, you know, so far they've done a really good job of doing that. Like I said earlier, like carrying over meetings to walk through and walk through to practice and practice to the games."