What Paul Johnson Needs At Tech

As I sat and watched the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets get embarrassed by a group of overachievers from the Air Force Academy last night, it reinforced to me what I already knew was going to happen when Tech hired Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson is without doubt a great football mind. I may even say that he is a great coach...at the RIGHT school.

Johnson is a niche coach who has an offensive scheme that is really hard to stop against equal competition. The problem is that Johnson, now in his third year, is consistently facing superior athletes. The guys that Johnson is able to recruit to play offense are never going to be top caliber stars. Josh Nesbitt, Jonathan Dwyer, and Bebe Thomas are guys that were already at Tech when Johnson got there, and I find it hard to believe that he is going to be able to recruit talent comparable to those guys in the future.

Why would a 4 or 5 star offensive recruit want to go to Ga Tech when he has aspirations of one day playing in the NFL? Dwyer is the prime example of a guy that thrived in Johnson's scheme at Tech, and then found out that the NFL doesn't want a guy that knows little about how to play in a pro offense.

The only way I see Johnson surviving at Tech is if he goes all out on defense. I think he should place 80% of his recruiting emphasis on getting the best recruits possible to play defense. Then, he can get the 3 star left overs that fit his style of offense. We all know what the formula of a stout running game mixed with a top notch defense can do. What do you guys think? Any Tech fans out there with comments, or are you all already done with Paul Johnson?

It's Hard For This Dawg To Hate Paul Johnson

It's hard for me to hate on this GaTech coach when he makes so much sense: Johnson Doesn't Like The Preseason Polls.

Pre-season polls can have way too much impact on who plays where at the end of the season. I am all about not starting any kind of official poll until week 4. That and the Coleman Playoff System would be an amazing way to end the college season.

Is Having GaTech On The Schedule A Bad Thing?

"Is having Georgia Tech on the schedule bad?" If someone walked up to me and randomly asked me that question, I would respond with an immediate HELL NO! I look forward to that football game every year with as much anticipation as probably any game on the schedule. Granted, I am probably considered a new age Dawg fan, and I hate the Gators the most! Never-the-less, I am a card carrying member of the "Clean Old Fashioned Hate" club.

Now, when I step back and take an objective look at the question, I have a few thoughts that come to mind. Since Paul Johnson has taken over and successfully installed his triple-option offense, he brings quite a bit of chaos to the match-up. What I mean by that is how it impacts their opponents game plan. Defensive coordinators get heartburn when they think about defending against an attack like Tech throws at you, and when you have the athletes they had the past few years (Dwyer, Nesbit, Thomas, & Co.) the gut ache is made even worse.

You would be a fool to think that Grantham has not already had a thought or 100 about how he is going to use the 3-4 to stop Johnson's offense. So, the question I posed at the beginning can be answered differently when looked at it from this perspective. I think that having today's Tech team on the schedule does hurt a little bit because coaches and players are required to spend so much practice time scheming against an offense they are only going to see once during the year.

Do I want to stop playing the Nerds? HELL NO! I relish in the joy of beating them, especially in years like 2009 when the whole world thought they would dominate the Dawgs. What happened in reality is that an SEC defense proved once again that the high school offense doesn't work when the big boys are prepared for it, even when Willie Martinez is your defensive coordinator!