June continues to be a busy time for the Georgia Tech football program. Between recruiting, prospect camps and offseason conditioning for the current team, Bobby Dodd Stadium and the Brock Football Practice Facility are a bevy of activity.

Tech coach Brent Key said 32 high school 7-on-7 teams, 70 official recruiting visitors and 300 prospects have been on campus in recent days. His 2025 Yellow Jackets, meanwhile, have been striving to put themselves in position to compete at the highest level starting Aug. 29 when they open the season at Colorado.

“From about 6:30 in the morning until about 8:30-9, we’re with our team,” Key said. “We get some meeting time with them because the rules changed a few years ago so we’ll meet for a little bit with ‘em for installation. Then we’ll go out on the field and have a chance to work with ‘em and see the new guys out there and see how they fit in and put ‘em through tough situations and have ‘em come together as a team.”

Key’s squad is coming off a second consecutive 7-6 season, but optimism abounds for the Jackets to improve on that mark.

Tech returns quarterback Haynes King of Longview (and his backup, Aaron Philo), running back Jamal Haynes and wide receiver Malik Rutherford. The addition of key transfers to highly touted freshman and sophomore recruiting classes has given the offense perhaps more depth than ever before in the Key era.

But it’s King’s return that is most crucial to Tech’s hopes of higher success.

“Haynes is nails. I think everybody knows that,” Key said. “Just the way he plays the game, the way he goes about his business, the way he carries himself around the building, how he impacts others, impacts other quarterbacks in that (meeting) room — the relationship he has with those guys, it starts there in the quarterback room.

“For the first couple years, I think, at times, Haynes became kind of burdened with it. It became tiring, because he was the leader. He was the person everyone looked to. We had other supporting cast around him, but now, it’s not just him. He’s got guys around him that take that burden off of him, that back him up when he says something, so he doesn’t necessarily have to say it all the time now.”

In his first season as a Yellow Jacket in 2023, King was one of only two Power Five conference players with at least 2,800 passing yards (2,842), 25 touchdown passes (27), 700 rushing yards (737) and 10 touchdown runs (10), joining Heisman Trophy winner and No. 2 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Jayden Daniels of LSU.

In 2024, King completed 196 of 269 passes for 2,114 yards, 14 touchdowns and two interceptions and carried 125 times for 653 yards and 11 touchdowns.

King, who was named the starting quarterback at Texas A&M prior to both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, suffered a season-ending injury early in the 2021 season and split time with two other quarterbacks — LSU transfer Max Johnson and true freshman Conner Weigman — in 2022.

King finished his Aggie career completing 128 of 226 passes for 1,579 yards, 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions to go along with 41 carries for 150 yards and one touchdown in 10 games played.

At Longview, King compiled a 37-2 record as a starting quarterback. In 39 games, he completed 436 of 726 passes for 7,726 yards, 86 touchdowns and 20 interceptions while rushing for 1,311 yards and 20 touchdowns on 148 attempts. He also caught one touchdown pass.

As a junior in 2018, King helped lead the Lobos to the program’s first state championship in 81 years. King passed for 3,667 yards, 41 touchdowns and four interceptions and went 16 of 27 for 423 yards and two touchdowns to go along with 65 rushing yards and one TD in the Lobos’ 35-34 win over Beaumont West Brook in the Class 6A Division II state championship game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

The Lobos were 16-0 in 2018, and King passed for 1,926 yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions as a senior in an 11-1 season for Longview.

If there is a quasi-concern for Tech’s offense, it lies on the offensive line.

But Key said he believes his freshman linemen may be the most talented class of freshman offensive linemen he’s ever had in his coaching career. The Jackets also return senior Joe Fusile, junior Ethan Mackenny and Harrison Moore, who have all played major roles in Tech’s offense in seasons past.

And then there’s Keylan Rutledge, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound guard in position to have another All-ACC first-team type of season.

“That O-line (group), I have a lot of confidence in that group — even though we have a lot of new guys — and that’s because of one person: Keylan Rutledge,” Key said. “They don’t turn right or left without going through ‘Red.’ He’s the enforcer on the entire team. When you can go out there and play the way he plays, practice the way he practices, prepare and train the way he trains — he’s out there winning gassers (Tuesday) on the whole team, screaming at people as he’s running full speed across the field.”

Along with Rutledge and King, Key said he has pressed all 27 of his seniors to step into leadership roles for this season. And his expectation is for many of those seniors to increase their leadership over the next month while Tech’s coaches take some time off and before the team reconvenes for preseason camp.

Key added he believes the next three to four weeks are a crucial time for his coaches and staff members to clear minds and spend time with family. When they return, it will be time to pick up right where they left off, especially if the seniors’ leadership has developed as expected.

“I think it’s really important for the players, too, not to have the coaches breathing down their neck all the time. They need that separation,” Key said. “By the time (director of football strength and performance) A.J. (Artis) and the strength coaches get done with them at the end of July, their message kind of wears on ‘em over the whole summer and now we pick up from them.

“It also allows the team to build leadership with the coaches not around. Whether the coaches are there every day or they’re not, it’s all gonna be based on the leadership you have on your team, what they’re gonna do when the coaches aren’t around.”