Paul Johnson sticks up for Washington
Greetings-
Your Paul Johnson news conference highlights:
1. Clemson is “probably the most talented team we’ve played since I’ve been here at Georgia Tech, at least in this stadium,” Johnson said.
2. He doesn’t think the sky is falling. “As I said last week, I don’t want to put the L’s down until we lose the games, if that’s O.K. with everybody,” said Johnson, in perhaps an unfortunate choice of phrasing. “I’d like to at least play them and see what happens.”
3. Johnson defended quarterback Tevin Washington, saying the offense’s lack of production in recent weeks is not his fault alone. “I think those guys get too much credit and too much blame sometimes. He’s like everyone else: He’s working hard and trying to correct what needs to be corrected.” Johnson said that Washington is not a guy he needs to push, that he’s self-motivated, hard on himself and holds himself accountable for his mistakes.
4. Part of Clemson’s ability to put up a lot of points is due to the numbers of plays that they run. The Tigers have run 626 plays, the most in the country. In the Clemson-North Carolina game, there were 16 possessions each, as opposed to 10 each in the Miami-Tech game. “That’s almost another half of football, so you’re going to have more points,” he said.
Johnson said further that “When you’re as talented as they are, you can score in bunches in a hurry.”
5. Clemson’s style won’t cause Tech to alter what the Jackets do offensively. “We’ve just got to try to do what we can do,” he said. He felt the same defensively, even though Clemson can run a high number of plays, because the linemen substitute considerably and the linebackers get swapped out on various packages. The secondary plays the entire game, generally, but there isn’t a lot of depth.
6. Johnson was asked about a petition signed by college football players and basketball players wanting a slice of the revenue schools receive from TV contracts. An Associated Press story Monday said that 55 Tech players had signed it. Denzel McCoy, who was recruited to Tech but is not on the roster because of a medical condition, was quoted in the story.
Johnson was not aware of the story or the petition, but said “I’m all for players getting whatever they can get.”
7. Johnson was asked about negative recruiting tactics against Tech from rival coaches who tell prospects that they can’t get to the NFL if they go there.
Johnson said that “I just point out the guys from Tech that are in the NFL.” He added further that if a prospect looks at a college solely as a vehicle to get to the NFL, “he’s probably not coming to Georgia Tech anyway because if that’s his only concern, he’s going to go somewhere where there’s 100,000 people at the game and the school’s not hard.”
8. Regarding special teams, Johnson said that “there’s a lot of things you can do. We try and do it every day.” He noted that Tech has five special-teams specialists on scholarship – punters Chandler Anderson and Sean Poole, kicker Justin Moore and long snappers Tyler Morgan and Sean Tobin – which might be the most of any team in the country
“I don’t care who’s coaching special teams,” he said. “If you punt the ball 13 yards, it’s not good.”
He asserted, more or less, that it’s not as bad as people think and that it’s the focus of attention because the team has lost two in a row. “We’re not good, but we’re about right in the middle,” he said.
9. He said Roddy Jones spoke to the team Monday with the message that there’s still a lot to play for, that the team can still win 11 games. “I want to win every game,” Johnson said. “The reality is the other teams have 85 scholarship players and they pay their coaches and they try to win, too.”
10. Johnson said he was just trying to get the offense going when he put in Synjyn Days late in the game against Miami. “We weren’t operating at a high level,” he said. “Sometimes you just kind of change things up and see what happens. That was it.”
He noted that Days fumbled. “If he takes care of the ball, he’s going to play more. Synjyn, he’s a talented guy. He can do some things, but you’ve got to take care of the ball.”
11. Johnson said he didn’t know how long center Jay Finch will be out. “It’s not near as bad as they thought. It’s a sprain and we’ll see how it goes.”
Links
How Clemson can make the BCS championship game, from the Charlotte Observer.
Tigers quarterback Tajh Boyd is the No. 2 candidate for the Heisman, according to the Sporting News, the Anderson Independent Mail writes.
Clemson defense split up snaps more equally against North Carolina, also in the Independent Mail.
Charleston Post and Courier story on Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris‘ philosophy on coaching from the field rather than the press box.
Ken Sugiura, Georgia Tech blog
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270 comments Add your comment
Ramblin Man
October 25th, 2011
5:08 pm
tampadawg,
I am not trying to be an elitist or anything, but plenty of degrees these kids are steered toward are useless. Case in point would be the criminal justice degree offered by many of the schools headley listed. That degree is useless and means nothing to the criminal justice world and a business degree would be so much better even if the student has a desire to enter law enforcement.
Ramblin Man
October 25th, 2011
5:10 pm
hayseed dixie I know I’m just a little bored waiting for an appointment and I figured I would give the guy a chance to make a valid point.
Kb
October 25th, 2011
5:11 pm
Georgia let up on tech in 2009 and 2010 holding 14 point leads for the majority of each game, similar to what happened with Vandy this year. I don’t consider eeking out anything when its a 2 td difference for the majority of the game. 2008 was the same , Georgia became overconfident and let tech back into the game. The talent gap between the 2 teams is now as large as 2002. Like Clemson and to a degree VT the only chance Tech has of winning will be it the opposition plays well below their capabilities and tech plays well beyond theirs.the longer pj is at tech the larger the talent gaps will become. Pj and his staff haven’t shown the ability to recruit nor develop talent.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
5:13 pm
Kb, that is the biggest pile of BS I have seen on here yet
Ramblin Man
October 25th, 2011
5:15 pm
Well here is to hoping the guys can get it together for Saturday.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:15 pm
Super – Please feel free to copy to your hard drive. See tips on house of rock.
GTBob
October 25th, 2011
5:17 pm
GTBob, interesting isn’t it that Tech “eked out” a win in 2008, but the mutts “beat Tech’s butts” in 2009 and 2010
That is always their mantra. Every time GT has ever lost a game, they got killed. What actually happened on the field never matters.
Ramblin Man
October 25th, 2011
5:17 pm
super I am sure kb was not at all concerned when GT was moving the ball on that last possession. Like they say ignorance is bliss and some of the UGA fans on these blogs are the happiest people I have ever meet.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:17 pm
Kb -Pass the word to the Georgia team to not let up this year. It’s annoying, if nothing else. Vandy was too close.
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:18 pm
Headley: Drink a few beers for me.
TampaDawg: The worth of a degree can be caluclated by knowing the cost of said degree vs. the potential/actual life time earnings of the individual, take the same number for all graduates and average them. Pretty simple calculation actually.The argument may seem tired to you because your strong suit is not academics. Sure there are plenty of majors at UGA that spit out some high earners. Law fields, medical fields, potentially jouralism, a few sciences, probably a few others, etc. Tech however is consistently ranked as one of the most valuable degrees in the country as opposed to our supposed yankee neighbors to the northeast..athens. I had more to say about this argument, but then I read some specs for a job and forgot the rest of what I was going to say, but you get the idea.
Ramblin Man
October 25th, 2011
5:18 pm
Well it’s been fun guys.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:20 pm
By the way, it’s eke not eek. There is a relationship, though: when the team is busy trying to eke out a win, the fans are screaming “eek!”
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:22 pm
Tech ‘10 – There is some data on that, recently published. I’ll try to find it. It has to do with college students majoring in STEM courses over other fields.
GTBob
October 25th, 2011
5:23 pm
Georgia let up on tech in 2009 and 2010 holding 14 point leads for the majority of each game, similar to what happened with Vandy this year.
Well, you almost lost all three of those games so maybe your coaches should teach the team how to play a full 60 minutes.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:24 pm
Here it is. It’s from “The Rising Value of of a Science Degree”, nytimes Oct. 20. I’ll post excerpts a piece at a time due to the filters.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:25 pm
“The scientific and technological disciplines have “become the common currency in the labor market,” Mr. Carnevale said. With more companies concentrating on technology, “if you’re going to sell in a technical world you’ve got to be credible,” even to be in sales, he said. “You can’t sell to an engineer unless an engineer thinks you’re also an engineer.”
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:26 pm
“The report, based on Census and National Science Foundation data analyzed by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, shows that professions that depend heavily on skills learned in these fields are the second-fastest growing occupational group in the United States, after health care.”
“With a shortage of people trained in such fields, many technology and scientific companies in the United States are forced to recruit from abroad, the study’s authors say.”
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:27 pm
“Compared with many other fields outside of these disciplines, STEM workers can earn higher wages. On average, 65 percent of those who hold a bachelor’s degree in such fields will earn more than those who hold master’s degrees in other subjects. Among those with associate’s degrees in the science and technical fields, 63 percent earn more than those who hold bachelor’s degrees in other subjects.”
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:32 pm
Hmmm interesting, thank you Delbert. I whole heartedly agree with engineers having to sell to engineers. One of the most valuable set of degrees in my opinion would be an engineering degree coupled with an MBA after 5 or so yrs experience.
Also saw we were ranked 24th in the world by a British publication.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:33 pm
“What’s striking to me is that I’m used to thinking of liberal arts as the foundational degree that gives you lots of options in a career,” Mr. Carnevale said. Increasingly, he said, science, technology, engineering and math are crucial to a wide-ranging career. “You get a bigger bump going in, and almost at every stage you have other options,” he said.
That’s enough to get the drift. If anyone is interested, Google the source article.
It’s never to late for trolls to work toward a degree in science, technology engineering or math. I did after 8 years in the service. I wasn’t qualified to attend Georgia Tech out of high school. Our HS chemistry teacher was a home econ major, and a group of us students got her kicked out after the fall session.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:36 pm
Tech ‘10 – You got it. My path was 3 misguided years prior the the draft trying to get me, so I singned up for special training in the Navy. After 7 years, my Navy teaing helped with getting my BA in Natural Science and Math, and it helped immensely in my career in engineering and management (Full Member IEEE). I got my MS in IS much later.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:38 pm
“Navy Training”, not teaing. I did have the opportunities for tea many times on a long assignment in England
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:45 pm
Delbert D. – Navy, very cool. I was thinking about the Seabees, since my degree is in Construction. I did however intern with Jacobs Engineering designing water and wastewater treatment plants and it was a bit funny to watch salesmen come in and try to sell products to my boss when they could not answer his techinal questions. On the flipside, it was amazing to watch a salesmen who had previously been an engineer talk about a product not have to answer a single question because he had already covered all the bases.
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:46 pm
IEEE is nothing to sneeze at either… to say the least.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
5:48 pm
At the risk of sounding like CMR talking to one of his players, I love you guys. There have been some awesome posts on here today, headley and GDB notwithstanding. I am humbled by the amount of knowledge many of you have
Kb
October 25th, 2011
5:51 pm
Ramblin, Wasn’t concerned at all, Tech under PJ not going to beat georgia with his “throwing” attack.
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:55 pm
Supersize: Hakuna matata from the collective Tech blog, many of which have gone home already, I speak on their behalf. Now, I am going home, finally.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
5:56 pm
Tech ‘10 – SeaBees would be good. A friend of mine was a Civil Eng. from Auburn, and he went Navy Nuclear Power. Some stayed in for a career, but a lot of them entered the work force after their 6 years in the Navy. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, I recruited a lot of those guys, since I knew first hand their background, training and experience. After a long period of decline in the mid ’90s, it is making a comeback in a big way. I worked with the big reactor design and Mfg. companies, construction companies, public utilities and 25 years with consulting companies.
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
5:57 pm
Supersize: oh and i believe a collective we love you too and thanks and perhaps some dittos are in order.
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
6:06 pm
Delbert: Nuclear Prop is currently in high demand. The training and experience you get certainly makes it hard to not consider someone coming fresh out of the Navy, from what I hear and can figure anyways. Sounds like there are a lot of opportunities to touch a lot of different fields. Pretty exciting.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
6:07 pm
Tech ‘10. Thanks, but in many ways, I am totally out of my element here. But it’s good to know (at least cyber-wise, and in some cases personally) so many intelligent helluva engineers
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
6:09 pm
Kb, you are lying out your butt if you say you weren’t “scared” at the end of both the last two Tech – UGA games. Every other mutt in the stadiums were.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
6:09 pm
was
Tech '10
October 25th, 2011
6:13 pm
Supersize: Hey me too once you start getting into deeper engineering levels, programming and the like. Delbert D. is most certainly waaaay past me as are many others. Haha. and yes, Kb was scared, he just won’t admit it.
Ok for real, I’m going home now, see y’all tomorrow.
gtechsta
October 25th, 2011
6:17 pm
I like how headley lamar says “we are the SEC.” No son, Troy is in the Sun Belt.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
6:17 pm
Super – Got the ticket for Clemson in the email today, and I was able to get a parking pass for the lot on Spring & 3rd, same as for VT
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
6:18 pm
mail. Postal snail mail, *not* email.
Some people can't read a calender...
October 25th, 2011
6:18 pm
headley lamar
October 25th, 2011
3:52 pm
….We have a winning record against every SEC team not named Florida the last ten years.
3 out of last 4 against Bama
3 out of last 4 against LSU
….
Looks like headley can’t count
10/3/2009 vs. *Louisiana State (9-4) L 13 20
10/25/2008 @ *Louisiana State (8-5) W 52 38
12/3/2005 vs. *Louisiana State (11-2) W 34 14 @ Atlanta, GA SEC Championship
10/2/2004 vs. *Louisiana State (9-3) W 45 16
9/20/2003 @ *Louisiana State (13-1) L 10 17
12/6/2003 vs. *Louisiana State (13-1) L 13 34 @ Atlanta, GA SEC Championship
19
October 25th, 2011
6:19 pm
You guys know I’m partial to Navy correct? Regardless of CPJ’s record there. That’s the branch of the military I served in.
Delbert your post are excellent and very informative! Thanks for being here!
The same goes to all the true GT fans!
I will pull for the Yellow Jackets win or lose!
Go Jackets!!!
GT-UT
October 25th, 2011
6:20 pm
And we like you too Supersize!!
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
6:24 pm
Tech ‘10 – Not for long, you’re not. You’ll find that experience comes very quickly. I spent a lot of my time a few years out of the Navy supervising other engineers at utility construction sites and in the home office doing the same.
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
6:26 pm
19 – How did I miss the fact that you were in the Navy? My sister say it’s “CRS” syndrome: “Can’t Remember [Stuff]“. My translation, not hers.
ATLER (Ramblin Wreck)
October 25th, 2011
6:29 pm
We just need the offense to get back rolling again and hopefully the defense will keep improving. Go Jackets!!!!
Kb
October 25th, 2011
6:36 pm
Supersize , Lets see tevin washington throwing for 80 yards in a little over a minute didn’t worry me, . And Pj having nesbitt throw long every play from mid field didn’t concern me either. Any time a games come down to a PJ offense having to throw ( they don’t have a passing attack) then I am not concerned. But I do think the Jackets may be ahead of Clemson at halftime. Clemsons going to give tech some early points.
ArkyTech
October 25th, 2011
6:47 pm
Reggie Ball Washington?
CPJ, you’re the head coach. You’ve been here 4 years. You should have developed a QB by now.
GJ
October 25th, 2011
6:48 pm
Come on bees….y’all have yet to play a decent team this year. You’ve lost to two mediocre/poor teams and are finally going to see what real football looks like. It’s gonna get ugly for the bees Saturday and I cannot wait to watch!
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
6:57 pm
Kb, I don’t know what you saw, but I saw TW move the ball down the field for 60 yards before throwing the interception. The sad thing there, as it was in the 2009 game, is that there really was no need to pass. We were running the ball down your throats, and if we had kept doing that, you would have lost both games. Yeah, I know we didn’t run; we did throw. But don’t tell me you were concerned during both years. Even UGA or Russell, or whatever inbred mongrel you have on your sideline had quit licking his butt.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
6:58 pm
GJ, Boise State has yet to play a decent team too, and they’re ranked 4th in the country. What’s your point?
Delbert D.
October 25th, 2011
6:58 pm
ArkyTech- You are mixing eras as different as Goff and Richt (I thought that Donnan was pretty good, especially with recruiting).
The first 2 QB recruits transferred due to the depth chart (2nd and 4th going into last year), and the fact is the 2nd string guy wanted to be a coach following in his father’s footsteps. The new QB is redshirting so far. I’d rather him get the game experience for next season.
Supersize that order, mutt
October 25th, 2011
7:00 pm
Delbert, do you want to meet somewhere before the game? Parking lot? UOAD’s tailgate location? Inside the stadium? You name it. Macrotech will be with me, and I’m sure he would like to meet you too.