After a 9-4 season, Brent Key will be entering the 2026 season with a staff filled with new faces.
On the offensive side of the ball, widely respected offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner left to join the staff of Jon Sumrall at Florida in the same capacity, and took some additional members of the Yellow Jackets staff with him (see them here via the Florida Staff Tracker page) and also lost offensive line coach Geep Wade to the Nebraska offensive line job.
But it doesn’t stop there. Changes are also coming on defense to Key’s staff.
According to reports today, Yellow Jackets linebackers coach Darius Eubanks and secondary coach Cory Peoples are not expected to return.
Eubanks spent just one season in the role after coaching the safeties and nickels at Georgia Southern for two seasons. A veteran coach with multiple stops working in the secondary, Eubanks has previous coaching stops at Arkansas, Samford (FCS – AL), Georgia State, and Liberty as well.
Peoples spent the past two seasons on staff at Georgia Tech working with the defensive backs after previous stops coaching the corners at both Georgia Southern and Georgia State. The opportunity working for Key was his first coaching job at the Power Four level, with previous stops at Albany State as defensive coordinator, and defensive backs jobs at South Carolina State, Charleston Southern, St. Augustine’s, Clark Atlanta, and Georgia Military.
Former Florida co-defensive coordinator Vinnie Sunseri, who has spent his entire young coaching career at either the FBS or NFL level, is set to join Key’s staff coaching the safeties, according to multiple reports.
A former Alabama player, and fifth-round pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, Sunseri spent two seasons with the Saints before landing with the ePatriots and 49ers briefly during the 2016 season.
He joined his alma mater as part of Nick Saban’s staff in 2019 as a graduate assistant before moving on to a defensive coaching assistant position with the Patriots, which turned into the running backs job with the organization just a year later. He spent the 2024 season back on the defensive side of the ball at Washington as their safeties coach before heading back to the SEC to join the Gators as co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach for Billy Napier’s final season in The Swamp.
Other new additions on defense will join second-year defensive coordinator Blake Gideon, who previously coached the safeties at Texas and who is considered a rising star in the coaching profession at just 36 years old. He served as a special teams coordinator in his early 30s at both Houston and Ole Miss before joining the Longhorns staff.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest in coaching news and job change information.