Johnson: ‘Sky’s the limit’ for Tech
Greetings-
Just returned from the kickoff luncheon at the Cobb Galleria. Coach Paul Johnson spoke last, after athletic director Dan Radakovich, former center Sean Bedford and A-back Roddy Jones. Johnson had a few noteworthy things to say:
1. He said he was “embarrassed” by the way the team finished the 2010 season, “and I hope our football team felt that way.” That the team wasn’t thrilled with the season isn’t news, but I don’t think I’ve heard him use that strong a word to describe it.
2. Johnson quote: “I really believe you’re going to come out and see a football team that’s going to be hungry, that’s going to fly around, that’s going to play extremely hard and just be kind of generally [hacked] off. We have a lot of reasons to be in that mode, and if we’re not, I’m going to be really disappointed and I’m going to make sure they get in that mode fairly quickly.”
3. He kicked coaches and players off the field with about five minutes left in Thursday’s scrimmage against the scout team because he didn’t think players were playing with necessary intensity. Johnson: “That’s the message we’re trying to send. It’s a message of urgency. Nobody respects you, nobody thinks you can do anything, so it’s up to you to prove them wrong.”
4. Johnson said he believes the “sky’s the limit for our football team” and that the team “might be as talented or more talented athletically and physically than we’ve been since I’ve been here.” Not a small claim, considering the 2009 team had six first-team All-ACC players, including the 2008 ACC player of the year and two NFL first-rounders, as well as a third-rounder and also a 2011 seventh-round pick.
He said he’ll probably play eight or nine true freshmen and seven or eight redshirt freshmen. The true freshmen I am sure will play: guard Trey Braun, defensive back Zach Laskey and wide receiver Jeff Greene. True freshmen I think could play: Guards Errin Joe and Shaq Mason, wide receiver Darren Waller, quarterback Vad Lee and long snapper Sean Tobin. I imagine a linebacker or two will play, but I confess I have no read on that.
Redshirt freshmen I’m confident will play: A-back Tony Zenon, quarterback Synjyn Days, A-back Deon Hill, B-back Charles Perkins, inside linebacker Quayshawn Nealy.
5. Johnson said he thought the defense will have two senior starters on defense, maybe three, and for certain one on offense and possibly two. I would think that would be defensive tackle Logan Walls and defensive end Jason Peters, with outside linebacker Steven Sylvester the “maybe.” Linebacker Brandon Watts has challenged Sylvester.
The sure thing on offense is A-back Roddy Jones and the maybe is wide receiver Tyler Melton, who is competing with Greene for the starting job. Melton missed time in camp with a calf strain.
6. He said he likes the schedule and is how he would draw it up if he could, with three non-conference games to start.
The Western Carolina season opener is a chance “to lay the foundation for something special.”
He said he thinks Middle Tennessee State on Sept. 10 “will be a Super Bowl-type game for them,” in that a BCS conference team is coming to its place.
The Blue Raiders lost to Minnesota at home by a touchdown last year, beat Maryland on the road in 2009 and Memphis at home and three years ago, beat Maryland at home and lost to Kentucky on the road 20-14.
“It’ll be wild,” he said.
(An aside: The school’s nickname is the Blue Raiders, but the school’s athletic logo includes a white winged horse on it. Perhaps the Raiders ride atop such magnificent steeds.)
As for the Kansas game Sept. 17, he said, “I’ve got a long memory of standing on that sideline a year ago in Lawrence, Kans. It was not a happy moment or a happy place. Hopefully our guys have the same kind of desire (to avenge the loss).”
North Carolina, Sept. 24: “I hear a lot of people writing off those teams (like Miami or North Carolina). Sometimes that can be a real rallying cry.”
That was about as far as he got on the schedule, though he noted the next game is North Carolina State, “who beat us at our place a year ago.”
He said the team shows consistent improvement as opposed to the 2010 season, which he termed a roller-coaster ride where “we were never really quite sure what we were going to get.”
7. The team will vote for captains after a few games after all of the seniors have a chance to be game captains. The game captains for the opener will be Jones, Walls and Sylvester, who were chosen by the coaching staff.
8. Bedford delivered an impressive speech. He spoke about his appreciation and indebtedness to the school, how he felt blessed that his playing career traveled the course it did and that how the story of his career – hard work, dedication, academic success – isn’t so different from that of his former teammates’. I imagine many of you on the blog would have had heart palpitations hearing it.
He also included a few jabs at the NCAA and Georgia. He appreciated the choice Tech fans make to follow the Jackets and for not falling in line with the trendiness of cheering for Georgia and the ease of being able to “go to a Walmart and buying a red cap with an ugly ‘G’ on it.”
The man knows his audience. I spoke with him briefly aftewards. He started law school at Florida Monday and flew up to give the speech at the luncheon. He said he has 300 pages to read over the weekend. Aiyee.
Thanks for reading. Please follow on Facebook and Twitter.
By Ken Sugiura, AJC
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367 comments Add your comment
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
1:51 pm
I don’t know why I bother even to address such a stupid comment, but being COMPETITIVE does not always mean wins. Do you consider the mutts to be competitive against the Gators? Of course you do, even though you have only one twice in the past 22 years. Tech may have lost 9 out of 10 to the mutts, but most of those games were settled by less than a TD. That is being competitive. And in the past 10 years alone, Tech has beat Notre Dame once and Auburn twice. So that’s not being competitive???
dawgfan
August 27th, 2011
1:58 pm
No Supersize, I do not consider us to be competitive against the Gators. We don’t claim moral victories at UGA. All that matters is the scoreboard. They’ve got our number. No excuses necessary. So most of your games against us have been decided by less than a TD, eh? Congratulations. Put it on your Chicken Bowl rings if you ever make it back there.
Thanks.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
2:07 pm
ok, if you don’t want to consider yourselves competitive against the Gators, then you are in the vast minority of mutt fans. Even I wouldn’t say that about your team. But the fact that we have the same or almost as many, or in some cases more wins against the likes of Notre Dame, Auburn, Miss State (one of your semi-regular opponents), Vandy (one of your regular opponents), Clemson, UNC, UVA, VT, Miami, and even FSU (over the past 10 years), then I would say your claim that Tech does not field a competitive team to be BS.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
2:08 pm
“is” not “to be”
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
2:10 pm
Losing by a small number of points is not a moral victory; it is still a loss. But it IS being competitive. If you deny that, then you really are stupid.
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
2:18 pm
Hey supersize, I hear ya but playing at MTSU is not an issue. They have earned some respect by who the have played and beat. As for dawgfan, he obviously is only interested in sports and has no clue about why studnets really go to college. Tech is a world class institution, while Georgia is a regional/national level college that attracts mostly good students from small towns and the Atlanta suburbs. It is a nice school for students who are not looking to compete on a national or world stage. Obviously, that explains the envy of Tech by most UGA people. As for sports, Tech consistently plays at or above UGA’s level in basketball, baseball, volleyball and other sports. UGA has a good athletic program, but should as they are a big, state run, general university. As a native Georgian, I am proud of our university system overall, but unfortunately UGA cannot compete with schools like Tech, Vanderbilt, Duke, UVA, UNC, Tulane, Wake Forest and other top rated academic universities. UGA does serve its purpose, it just simply is not a top academic school. The fact that they can play college sports with students who normally would not qualify at top rated schools is not impressive. Sorry dawgfan, but facts are facts.
GT Fan
August 27th, 2011
2:24 pm
5 days, 5 hours, 3 minutes!!!
gt4ever
August 27th, 2011
2:26 pm
Lance,
The bottom line is that they beat our butts every year, in football, and that’s what this blog is all about… Academics mean NOTHING, in this conversation…. I mean it’s really sad when GT people stoop to talking academics when we really want to talk about football… imho…
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
2:51 pm
So gt4evr, what year did you graduate from UGA?? Hiding as a Tech grad is laughable. Very weak comment. This blog went off the track for football when the UGA fan remarked about not wanting black athletes at UGA. Other posting here in clude anti-Asian comments as well. When you make racist remarks disguised as football comments, calling these uneducated people out if fair game. Get over it and support your school (if you even went to collge!) Go Jackets!
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
2:54 pm
Oh, one other thing gt4ever, you said it is “really sad when people stoop tto talking academics”. Hell, I think it is sad when you are talking about a collge as a football factory and not as an academic institution where students happen to play sports. You obviously did not stoop to get a degree…..
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
2:54 pm
Lance, just so you will know, the guy who made that particular post about blacks was a poser….he signed on under the name dawginlex, but the REAL Dawg in Lex, would NEVER say anything like that. The real one may be a DAWG, but he’s a classy one, and he’s definitely not a MUTT.
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
2:58 pm
Thanks Supersize, nice to call them correctly. Here’s to a great season!
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
3:01 pm
Hey supersize, I hear ya but playing at MTSU is an issue. They have earned some respect by who the have played and beat. As for dawgfan, he obviously is only interested in sports but has a clue about why students really go to college. Tech never was a world class institution, while Georgia is a regional/national level college that attracts top students nation wide and the Atlanta suburbs. It is a top ranked school for students who are looking to compete on a national or world stage. Obviously, that explains the hatred of UGA by most tech people. As for sports, UGA consistently plays at or above Tech’s level in basketball, baseball, volleyball and other sports. UGA has a superior athletic program, but should as they are a big, state run, flagship university. As a native Georgian, I am proud of our university system overall and proud that UGA competes with schools like Tech, Vanderbilt, Duke, UVA, UNC, Wake Forest and other top rated academic universities. UGA does serve its purpose, it isn’t just simply a top academic school. The fact that they can play college sports against tech students who normally would not qualify at top rated schools is impressive. Sorry Tech alums, but facts are facts.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
3:08 pm
Lance, it appears you have a poser yourself now. Too bad Ken isn’t here, he would delete the message…..something he did at least once last week. I wish he would ban the jerk who gets off doing crap like that too.
Old Gold
August 27th, 2011
3:13 pm
What a idiot! Funniest thing I’ve heard in years!! Tech will have another losing season just as I predicted last year!!
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
3:29 pm
Supersize, I guess when you have no class or intelligence, then all you can do is copy a great post. This is absolutely hillarious! Have a good weekend and go Jackets!!
hey dawgfan
August 27th, 2011
4:51 pm
you forgot to mention…..
most recent mmc’s
gt 1
uga 0
unless you count recruiting or preseason or fulmer cup. than the dawgs win hands down.
btw dawgfan…. give us tech fans a hint. at what point in the pathetic dawgs season will they point to the gt game as a season saving game. AGAIN.
all those recruits. all those fans. all those resources. the flag ship team of the state…. and what do you have to show for it?
4 fulmer cups in a row. or is it 5? and a library that smells like urine and tons of trash on what could be a beautiful campus.
superDawg
August 27th, 2011
5:46 pm
All you nerds make gt look like what it is,the laughing stock of all blogs.supersize you must live one sorry excuse of a life to spend the amount of time on these blogs that you do with your excuses of why tek is so great.man get a life!
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
5:49 pm
get off this blog supersize, jesus christ
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
5:53 pm
superDawg, you’re on here more than me. And Lance’s poser is the one who really needs to get a life. You really got to be a sicko to steal somebody else’s name to make posts.
superDawg
August 27th, 2011
6:02 pm
wrong fool check the stats idiot.
superDawg
August 27th, 2011
6:03 pm
good night my wife wants to take me out.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
6:08 pm
I’m a Tech fan, and I’m on a Tech blog because I support my school. You are, I assume, a mutt fan, and yet you’re on a Tech blog too? Why would that be? You have never posted anything even remotely relevant or intelligent? So you are obviously only here to pretend you’re important—sort of like the school yard bully in elementary school—when everybody knows you are not important at all. Why don’t you take a lesson from the classy DAWG posters like Dawg in Lex and BYRRDAWG? You are an embarrassment to your school and obviously have the maturity of a 8 year old girl.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
6:09 pm
Take you out like she takes the other dogs out? I guess that means she has you house-trained.
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
6:29 pm
so…maturity to you is calling another poster “house trained”. I’m here to root against tek & all of the tek alums who beat the dead horse of tek being “highly regarded” and a “great school”
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
7:05 pm
then why are you using somebody else’s name and changing what he typed in his original post to suit your demented mind?
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
7:26 pm
Supersize, it is not worth arguing with posers and fools. It is OK to talk football, even a little smack, but to have people make ugly, racist, ignorant remarks is over the line. I am happy to say that my son is a student at Tech. He will graduate in a couple of years with a great degree and make a nice living. His college experience is excellent, great fraternity, nice girlfriend, and he is with a great group of success oriented people. Tech has great athletic programs and students are fortunate to be able to enjoy them on campus. I am sure there are many at UGA just as happy and that’s great, but only a few students in the state of Georgia at Tech and Emory will have world-class degrees. Frankly, that is what college is all about.
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
7:36 pm
Oh, one more thing. Most of the Georgia graduates that I know would never act like some of the nuts on this message board. The problem with big state schools like UGA is that they attract so many “wanna be” fans who could never get into UGA. They have been UGA fans as kids, then could not get into the school, and oddly have a strong attachment to the UGA sports program. They know nothing about the real school which is actually a good state university. I guess they just need a place to belong and a school’s sport’s program is all they have. Nothing wrong supporting a school that you did not attend, but these folks are really sad. Just look at the previous posts.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 27th, 2011
7:41 pm
Lance the problem with the “posers” is that they say things which others think the real person has said. My poser had me making racist remarks. Ken can determine who is real and who is not, and he deleted all the poser’s comments. He well may have banned or at least contacted and warned the poser too, because he hasn’t been back since then. If Ken were monitoring this blog now, I’m sure he would do the same for you.
Lance Manion
August 27th, 2011
7:54 pm
Thanks supersize.
George Stein
August 27th, 2011
8:23 pm
Probably because most of the Georgia folks posting here are not graduates of anything above middle school, Lance. Check their grammar and it’s a wonder they ever got out of the second grade.
Did that comment make me arrogant, dawgfan?
My thoughts
August 27th, 2011
8:52 pm
Go Jackets!!
@ hey dawgfan
August 27th, 2011
9:29 pm
Hey dawgfan, You asked. 11 th on all time win list, 3rd in all time bowl wins, 6 th in all time bowl appearances, 12 SEC championships 5 NCAA titles, Past 10 years 5 times final top 10, 2 time top 3, 2 SEC titles, only one behind leader LSU, 2 BCS wins, 3 BCS bowl appearances winning record over every SEC team other than Florida, The two bcs wins ties Georgia with the ACC, The 5 top tens finishes in past 10 years is one more than the entire ACC. The 2 top 5 finishes are 2 more than the ACC. So you have a point of reference Tech has 2 top ten finishes in the past 44 years, 1 major bowl appearance in 44 years. 9-1 over the past 10 years vs. Tech. I would go on but I think you “get the picture”. for good measure 39-15 vs tech since 1957.Need more?
mike
August 28th, 2011
7:27 am
The Western Carolina season opener is a chance “to lay the foundation for something special.”
He said he thinks Middle Tennessee State on Sept. 10 “will be a Super Bowl-type game for them,” in that a BCS conference team is coming to its place.
IS THIS A JOKE OR WHAT????????????????
GDBurdell
August 28th, 2011
7:44 am
Yes it is, tek alums are pretty much brainwashed – blind to reality. They don’t know squat about football either!
GDBurdell
August 28th, 2011
7:54 am
Lance minion/supersizethatordermutt: you need a serious reality check…need I remind you that UGA now has an engr school in addition to it’s med school, vet school, law school and b school.
Lol I’m trying to figure this out, I didn’t got to the top institute in the world so help me out: which one of the following tek alums is the better “world stage” competitor (see idiotic posts above from you)?
“Crit” or the tek grad student who tried to kill those people with the samurai sword?
Sunday morning buffet | Get The Picture
August 28th, 2011
8:23 am
[...] Paul Johnson thinks his team will “just be kind of generally [hacked] off.” His former center bitches about the ease of being able to “go to a Walmart and buying a red cap with an ugly ‘G’ on it.” Does Georgia Tech football have anything else going for it besides bitterness? [...]
Lance Manion
August 28th, 2011
12:11 pm
GD, check your facts. Georgia has been approved for a small engineering program. Even its supporters stated publicly that it will not compete with Georgia Tech. It will have lower entrance standards and will be less rigorous. Some students who were intveiewed in the AJC said they would be interested and might prefer UGA to Tech because it would be easier and they did not want to work as hard as they would have to do at Tech. Students applying to Tech are not worried about working too hard. Tech’s business school ranks as high as Georiga’s nationally. Not bad for a “trade” school. As for the medical school, they are just beginning to piggy back on the progams at the Medical College of Georgia. You call this world class? The law school is a good one, but we also have two good programs at Georgia State and at Mercer. For now, UGA is the number two program in the state, behind the Gambrell School of Law at Emory. Not really seeing world class anywhere in Athens. UGA is a fine state school, but not at the academic level of Tech or Emory. But the football is pretty good at times.
macrotech
August 28th, 2011
12:56 pm
superDung just exercised his right to commit ANOTHER drive-by posting….he’s a chump!
macrotech
August 28th, 2011
1:00 pm
GDBurdell states, “tek alums are pretty much brainwashed – blind to reality”…it’s not that we’re “blind to reality”…it’s just that we enjoy an elite status in this world where we celebrate a greater reality!
juvenal
August 28th, 2011
2:21 pm
Enter your comments here
Tech Fan For Life
August 28th, 2011
3:37 pm
Great – Sky’s the limit- that is if your talking about the San Francisco skyline. I’ve already booked my flight for the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl on Jan 1 – we’ll ride the cable cars- play a west coast team- and for the few of us out there we’ll cheer for the jackets. Let’s be reasonable.
TO Lance Marion
August 28th, 2011
4:07 pm
check my facts? fact: UGA now offers me, ce, ee plus the ag program degrees that it already had. fact: your characterization of the new program as “small”, “less rigorous”, attended by “some students” who want an “easier” school where they don’t have to work hard is nothing but your own comical delusion.
You are literally making up BS so that you can slander UGA.
Why would the state flagship school be allowed to suck? That absolutely makes no sense what so ever. I know from personal first hand experience in the workplace that what you are saying is out of touch and wrong. tek is not the elite place of prestige that your RA told you it was. Sorry but thems the breaks kid
TO Lance Marion
August 28th, 2011
4:11 pm
macrotech – explain what exactly your elite status is? All I’ve seen is so-so engineers chest thumping about their tek degree (before they screw something up). lol wait did you mean in reality or in world of warcraft??
Supersize that order, mutt
August 28th, 2011
4:48 pm
Despite all of Adams efforts at building an empire in Athens, whatever attempt the new engineering school (sic) there makes is doomed to mediocrity. Several Georgia legislators who disagreed with this move to begin with (and some of them are UGA grads) have vowed NEVER to approve any kind of funding for it. And with the new president of Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta (formerly the Medical College of Georgia) building up research grants and endowments there, the medical school in Athens will fall flat on its face too. It will continue to be a second rate university ad infinitum.
GT
August 28th, 2011
4:48 pm
Some are saying the ACC is dead. All I see in the country is parity and hype. I think South Carolina is the closest thing to the real thing, and they get negative pub with the press hating Spurrier, which Spurrier feeds off of. I think we are seeing Johnson doing the same thing. There is really no way you could do this at Georgia, they think they are winners before they walk on the field. I heard Kevin Butler on 680 the other day. If Boise State wants motivation they should tape what Butler was saying. Butler said there is not way BS is better than any man at any position at Georgia and he could not see how Georgia could lose. You don’t hear that from Johnson or Spurrier. They allow there is a chance their teams can lose, they just say you are going to have to be pretty good to beat us. To the most part that has been Tech since Johnson got here. No one is real sure what happen with those first few games last year but if Georgia or Va.Tech or Clemson want to pretend we are as bad as some try to make us have at it. Ever year you have to tee it up and I wouldn’t want to live off the difference on any of those games past or future. And we don’t have to play FSU who may be the last team standing for the NCAA championship.
Supersize that order, mutt
August 28th, 2011
4:53 pm
I’m sure there were some Butler-like bozos at VT and Oklahoma who put down Boise State too prior to those 2 games, and yet who won those matchups? Their win over Oklahoma was especially sweet.
Dawgs Rule
August 28th, 2011
5:30 pm
I am sitting at home watching ESPN H.S. Football, and they are running the same offense as GT!! What a hard non conference schedule for you nerds!!! You nerds will win 5 games, because the first three games are a joke.
UGA Fan 86
August 28th, 2011
5:34 pm
Hey guy’s there is an ex dawg player going to be “Hillbilly Hand Fishing” tomorrow night. He said he had done this since his Paw Paw showed him when he was a kid. I didn’t hear his name but I’ll be tuning in for sure! Oh yea, Trick Tech stinks!
Tech Fan 86
August 28th, 2011
5:38 pm
@ Dawgs Rule: If the TO is so simple why can’t UGA stop it? We have a better D this year. You better have one too if want a chance to beat us this year. The ESPN listed UGA as the most likely to disappoint in the SEC this year. Tech fan have known this for years especially in 2008!