The doc is back: What Tech must do to rise above mediocrity
Just sayin': Special teams matter, too. (AJC photo by Johnny Crawford)
Step 1: Get players AND playmakers. Paul Johnson has proved he could win an ACC title with Chan Gailey’s recruits but hasn’t proved he can recruit as well as Gailey did. That will become an ever bigger issue next fall, when there’s no Joshua Nesbitt. Tech needs pretty much everything — speed, size, depth — and the loss of recruiting coordinator Giff Smith, who was hired away by Gailey last winter to coach linebackers in Buffalo, was a major blow.
Tech doesn’t so much need to light up the recruiting scoreboard — if rankings meant all that much, Georgia wouldn’t be where it is — as to find players capable of changing a game. The difference between 10-3 and 6-6 wasn’t the failing of Johnson’s stylized offense or Al Groh’s 3-4 defense but the absence of a Demaryius Thomas and a Derrick Morgan. (And neither, it must be noted, was a five-star recruit.)
Step 2: Get holistic. There’s more to football than offense, even a stylized one. Sometimes Johnson, who came to Georgia Southern as a defensive line coach, acts as if the other stuff doesn’t matter. But it matters when the head coach decides to go for it on fourth-and-2 near midfield with a minute left in the first half, as Johnson did against Duke, and leaves his defensive coordinator facing a short field in a hurry-up setting. It matters when you lose to Virginia Tech on a kickoff return inside the final three minutes.
Rather than simply rage at his latest punter for his latest shank, Johnson needs to do the simple thing: Hire a special teams coordinator.
Step 3: Get humble. There’s a tendency when you’re the smartest guy in the room — even if the room is an open-air stadium seating 90,000 — to trust yourself to think of something. Nobody disputes that Johnson is one of the best play-callers in the business, but there are times when he gives the impression that his, as they say in Hollywood, is the name above the title. (Maybe he doesn’t mean to come off that way, but he does.)
Clever as he is, Johnson cannot outsmart everybody all the time at this level of football. Nobody can. (Urban Meyer just went 7-5. Mack Brown just went 5-7.) Johnson needs to work as hard to sign players as he does on the sideline during games. Directing inferior talent is how this superior coach wound up losing as many games as he won. Surely the superior coach recognizes as much.
To view Dr. B’s Rx for Georgia, take two aspirin and click here.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
397 comments Add your comment
Dirty Dawg
November 29th, 2010
6:28 pm
You know that title…’The Smartest Guy n the Room’…was coined about a bunch of ‘flim-flam’ artists in Houston, TX a few years back, and where are they now? Those that guessed NASA should Google the term and you’ll find a book about ENRON. Not suggesting that your guy Johnson is a crook, but anybody that’s got this many sportswriters with their collective noses up his rear end, you’d think he was Tiger Woods before last Thanksgiving.
You can take whatever solace you want in being able to gain about 80 or 90 yards more than Georgia and whine about ‘beating yourselves’ – trust me you don’t have a monopoly on that since every game we lost, and even victories that were close, like Saturday night, resulted from a critical mistake at a critical time. In fact that generally is what happens in most games, but again, if it makes you feel better about gettin’ beat, then fine.
All I know is you lost and we won…and when one day after you come to realize that PJ ain’t no JC – and doesn’t walk on water after all, and the AJC writers have come to realize that sarcastic replies to questions doesn’t necessarily mean anything more than an attitude and attitude not backed by results rings hollow.
collegeballfan
November 29th, 2010
6:29 pm
NERDS!!! 42-34!!! November 29th, 2010
3:06 pm
I am glad the NERDS finally won their 6th game and now qualify for a bowl. Good job Richt.
Shoney's fried shrimp deal "two for the price of one"
November 29th, 2010
6:32 pm
Hey techers …………we Dogs are laughing at you all for many reasons. First is that some one told you geeks that to lose by 8 points is far superior than losing by 1, so you coach bought it. He thought that he could pass the ball to win. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA just like 2009 !!!!
Secondly, someone told you that this year the Independence Bowl will be fabulous, because the Bozier City Bluebonnet Dancing Fat Girls are doing their half time show.
Thirdly is that someone told you all that the fried shrimp at Shoney is THE BEST in town. Frankly the Waffle House is the best place in Shreveport. It is also owed by GTechers. AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA
We will be laughing. Oh, one more thing …………….we are still laughing at CPJ’s face when the Blair Witch Hunt Boy shanked it. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
9-1 is Richt over y’all and we Dogs know that “he is lousy”. Right? He handles y’all ………Right???
Golden Tornado
November 29th, 2010
6:32 pm
up the ante, You are exactly right. Tech alumni need to shed their pride and demand a broadened curriculum for Tech, so that the Jackets can recruit on a par with Georgia. With that equalized, we’d beat ‘em most years, because we have better coaching.
Laces Out Finkle
November 29th, 2010
6:33 pm
The looks on the dork’s faces in the crowd on Saturday when he shanked away your hopes and dreams was great.
Just like when we exposed your over-ranking last year.
Have fun in Shreveport.
Not so funny now, is it?
Maybe you’ll be in the San Fran bowl where you’ll fit in more.
42-34 ALL YEAR LONG
BBUUUUUHUUHHUUUUUWWWWWWAAAAHHAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAA
Can’t wait to humiliate Blewitt again too.
Laces Out Finkle
November 29th, 2010
6:34 pm
Better Coaching?
Seriously?
The 60 times we beat you are just flukes I guess.
BBBBBBWWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAA
collegeballfan
November 29th, 2010
6:35 pm
And as far as recruiting goes:
I just ran the numbers from Scout.com on recruiting for the 2006 classes through the 2010 classes. This covers all players on the field Saturday. The UGA classes were ranked 21, 4, 5, 17, 4 for an average of 10.2 for the 5 years. The GT classes were ranked 41, 32, 37, 15, 49 for an average of 34.8 for the 5 years.
For GT, this will not cut it.
For UGA, what the hell are you doing with the 10.2 recruiting classes?You finished 6-6 with this kind of talent???????
JB
November 29th, 2010
6:35 pm
Thoughts from this Dawg Fan. If Tech could/would master a short to intermediate passing game and get a little better on defense, they would win 10-12 games every year. If an opposing defense had to cover the short pass, that offense COULD NOT BE STOPPED.
Laces Out Finkle
November 29th, 2010
6:35 pm
I mean 61
61 to 39
BBBWWAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAA
JB
November 29th, 2010
6:36 pm
collegeballfan………………..See Head Coach.
JB
November 29th, 2010
6:38 pm
There are those who think Richt ought to get a life long contract. 6-6, 8-4, 11-1, doesn’t matter, they are sold. Most are still sucking thumbs with a blanket, but sold.
5150 P.O.A.D.
November 29th, 2010
6:46 pm
Headley Lamar
Nice editing of a post. I didn’t say that calling more penalities would have changed the outcome. I didn’t blame the refs for the loss. ou are not smart enough to read and comprehend I guess. I said it is crazy to think UGA got that much better in 2 weeks in stopping penalities when they were getting beat on the lines all night. When your line is getting pushed around so much the players to tend to grab and hold. Maybe you don’t know enough foortball to realize that. Don’t tell me UGA had on 2 penalities(matching the season low) for 10 years(lowest the whole year) in the state rivalery game needing to win just to go to a BOWL. You may fool yourself but nobody else. Watch the replay on CSS and you will see 2 blocks in the back on 2 UGA kickoffs that were not called as well a few holding no-calls. I didn’t say it would have allowed Tech to win. I am saying there were a lot of missed calls against UGA. I also saw a few against Tech that were no-calls.
Old Gold Forever
November 29th, 2010
6:51 pm
All 61 wins by the mutts are flukes.
One thing I know is that we can out-cheer you, which is better than winning and scoring homerun baskets at American football games.
Take this Dawgs
Differential X,
Differential Y,
A Square, B Square,
Integral of Pi !
Engineers Touchdown,
Engineers Yell,
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Fight like Hell!
Barney Fife
November 29th, 2010
6:51 pm
AJC headline: UGA editor resigns after alcohol-fueled visit with Nathan Deal, Sonny Perdue
#1Party School
Perennial winner of the Fulmer Cup
Sleaziest head coach in college football
Football team full of lliterate morons and thugs
The Cesspool of the South
The most grotesque embarrassment in the State of Georgia
native dawg
November 29th, 2010
6:57 pm
“There’s a tendency when you’re the smartest guy in the room — even if the room is an open-air stadium seating 90,000 — to trust yourself to think of something.” Only a true tool would write such a line.
History Major
November 29th, 2010
6:57 pm
With everything else in place, recruitment is the ticket to winning.
In 1978 I asked a Tech alumnus, a good contributor, why Tech did not offer courses that would bring in more good football players? He attended alumni meetings each year. He said the alumni annually VOTED DOWN the motion to add other areas of study. Voted it down!! Pride. Don’t want my precious elite diploma to be devalued.
As a fan, I was already desperate. Tech led the series with UGA by one game when the Jackets left the S.E.C. for the 1964 season. After having been an Independent, 1964-1978, Tech had achieved a 4-11 record against the Dogs. Since then, it’s gotten worse, and then worse again.
Laces Out Finkle
November 29th, 2010
6:57 pm
Hey Barney
SCOREBOARD
Sore Loser
BBWWAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA
Douc*he
RAMBLINWRECK
November 29th, 2010
6:58 pm
@jesse stone
You idiots ran the ball when we had no timeouts and we let you score so we could have a shot to tie the game. We made it to uga 42 as time went out. You brilliant coach almost screwed you! Even GT fans surely thought you would take a knee but you morons had to try for td when the game was won with a knee! Why give us the ball back with a shot at forcing overtime?? We know you couldn’t stop the run all night (417 rushing) and so be glad time ran out and we were forced to throw. My point is that you said MR out-coached PJ and that is moronic. You got 28 points off GT miscues and went got 0 off your 3 because we decided we wanted to be 6-6! You guys didn’t deserve to win because you did everything to LOSE! Just be glad we didn’t have 2 minutes left to shove it down your throats again! You guys say highschool offense and what about your highschool defense that we hung over 500 yards on? Face it, both teams stink and it’s nothing to brag about for either team in regards to the 2010 season. Your slightly better than the next to last place team in the ACC coastal…congrats!
Delbert D.
November 29th, 2010
7:01 pm
I’d like to see the Jackets in the bowl game with the Air Force Academy. The AFA has some elements in their triple option that might be employed by Tech. Their QB passed for 120 yards per game with a 150.5 passer rating. 3 of their 4 losses were to Top 25 teams TCU, Oklahoma and Utah; the other was San Diego St., who also received votes in the AP poll.
jay
November 29th, 2010
7:02 pm
Glad for the doggies that they are the state champs. However they haven’t sniffed a national championship in about thirty years and act like they’re still relevant to big time football. Their mascot’s face would wear Urban Meyer’s jockstrap just fine!
Losing always sux
November 29th, 2010
7:03 pm
Tech CAN’T change the curriculum. It’s been attempted in the past, and every time, it’s voted down either by the board of regents or the GA legislature, thanks to padding those bodies with mutts. There’s probably nothing that can be done about the legislature because liberal arts majors are more likely to run for public office. But the board of regents SHOULD be evenly populated. That it is not explains why THUGa was able to get an engineering curriculum added, to further increase Adams’ planned empire.
Delbert D.
November 29th, 2010
7:07 pm
Has the UGA engineering curriculum been voted on by the regents yet?
yellerjacket
November 29th, 2010
7:14 pm
I think CPJ is a very good coach who has the required faith in his system, but after the UGA game and multiple other games over the last three seasons in which we are losing towards the end of the game, there is obviously a glaring flaw in either the system, or the coach. Completely abandoning your offense (that had already rolled up 500 yards against UGA) and hurling the ball downfield over and over because the clock is winding down has proven time and time again to be a sure way to lose the game. I would rather CPJ continue to call running plays in the hopes of getting first downs and wisely using timeouts than go four and out on four terrible pass attempts. If the man has that much faith in his system, don’t abandon it at the end for a system (airing it out) for which we neither have the players, experience, or rhythm. I would rather the clock run out on us running the ball, than resort to desperate pass attempts by a QB recruited to run the triple option.
Losing always sux
November 29th, 2010
7:14 pm
Delbert, yes it has, and they unbelievably approved it….well, maybe it wasn’t so unbelievable since the majority of them are mutts. I think it was approved by a one-vote margin. Interestingly enough, though, several legislators have said they will NOT approve funding for it.
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:14 pm
All this hate… good it fuels the rivarly. I love it!
I saw Tech loose because of three fumbles. I’d say that sums it up.
All UGA has, is that they consistantly find a way to win! Unfortunately, TECH is not there yet. But maybe after a good ole heart to heart with GROH and JOHNSON we will be.
yellerjacket
November 29th, 2010
7:16 pm
Giving up 21 points on three turnovers and missing an extra point pretty much summed up the season for me. When does spring training start?
Gator Guy
November 29th, 2010
7:18 pm
Here’s the deal… GT will never get the athletes that UGA does, but yet they can STILL beat UGA, due to COACHING. UGA will never get CLOSE to the athletes the Gators get, and can NOT beat us… even when we have our worst team! 34 -31 Suck it LOSERS!!!!!
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:19 pm
BTW, I told you posters Blair might crack in the moment AND I told you all as well our Secondary was going to be abused. We need a CB. If I were CPJ, I would recruit my tail off for a 5 star corner and sell the, you’ll get plenty of opportunites to show out sell.
GO JACKETS, THWG!
supersize that order, mutt
November 29th, 2010
7:20 pm
yellerjacket, I don’t fault CPJ for resorting to passing the ball on that last series, since we had 80 yards to go with no timeouts and less than 2 minutes. It would have required at least one BIG breakaway run, and then quickly out of bounds, to get close enough to make it happen. BUT, on the series after Blair’s missed extra point, I DO wonder why he went to the air. There was still time then, and I believe, we still had one timeout left. I wondered the same thing at the end of last year’s game with the mutts. In spite of the fact that the mutts THINK they stopped the triple option last year, they in fact didn’t, and we could almost certainly have had more success running the ball than we ended up doing by throwing it. But, like I said, I think passing was the only way to go on that last series Saturday. It’s just a shame that Washington went into what appeared to be panic mode; he had thrown fairly efficiently the rest of the game.
2012 FEAR THE END
November 29th, 2010
7:21 pm
I think that CPJ had money on the game and he wanted to try and cover the spread, that’s why he let UGA score at the end, also why he was throwing the ball at the end instead of running it on a very tired defense,
I think that this needs to be investigated, if CPJ was so smart he would have a more balanced offense
yellerjacket
November 29th, 2010
7:21 pm
That Shoney’s fried shrimp comment above was amazing for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. Truly amazing. I hope his timer at the public library is almost up.
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:21 pm
Gator Guy your point is well taken… I beleive we coach up at TECH. Don’t care to much about the recruits being 4 or 5 star (albeit a 5 star DB or CB or S would be awesome).
Gator Guy
November 29th, 2010
7:22 pm
2012 Fear the End… What a MORON! You’re really a Dawg aren’t you?? LOSER!
yellerjacket
November 29th, 2010
7:23 pm
supersize, I agree about Washington. He definitely freaked out. Sometimes there is no other choice, but I wish our offense had more in it that didn’t make it look so desperate with a complete shift in approach.
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:23 pm
supersize, he only went to the air on 4th down after the missed extra point. I took issue with the three same option pitch plays that preceeded the 4th down pass. Why not ALLEN on the dive play?
yellerjacket
November 29th, 2010
7:25 pm
UGA’s defense was getting absolutely slammed by Allen in the fourth quarter and I think that with first downs and timeouts we could have run the ball more at the end and still had enough time to score. Of course, had we not missed that extra point, all of that desperate passing would not have been necessary.
supersize that order, mutt
November 29th, 2010
7:25 pm
GTZ, I didn’t remember which down we threw on; I just knew he threw it. I agree about Allen though; he ate them up all night.
2012 FEAR THE END
November 29th, 2010
7:26 pm
Yes I am
And you really wear JORTS don’t you http://www.jorts.com/
Paul in RDU
November 29th, 2010
7:27 pm
Delbert – Here is the post on the BOR giving approval for UGA to expand their engineering program (UGA already has a limited engineering program),
http://www.ajc.com/news/divided-regents-expand-ugas-735047.html
All part of Adams plan to expand his empire.
http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2010-09-27/story/behind-uga%E2%80%99s-push-engineering-school-money-%E2%80%A6
If this comes about, it’s only a matter of time before the BoR starts to “equalize” the money spent for engineering at both schools
supersize that order, mutt
November 29th, 2010
7:28 pm
yellerjacket, if we had not missed the extra point, there’s no guarantee that THUGa wouldn’t have still scored again. The miss really didn’t matter. What I don’t understand about Washington freaking out was that he DID NOT freak out against VT on the last drive in that game (regardless of the interception), and that was the first game in which he saw meaningful playing time.
supersize that order, mutt
November 29th, 2010
7:31 pm
Since this is the first time I have logged in since the game, has anybody yet addressed the non-overruled fumble recovery call? I mean even the announcers on TV said his foot was on the line when he recovered it, and the replay clearly showed that too.
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:33 pm
Agree… would have had plenty of time to get Blair down there for a field goal to win the game and an opportunity for him to get another shot… I think that would have been a classic ending! Oh well… we live to fight another day.
USMC
November 29th, 2010
7:33 pm
I’m a Georgia fan, but I must say if Coach Johnson just gets a halfway decent defense, he has the offense to go very far, as he did last year.
You can’t tell me there aren’t enough players right here in GA to get some stellar defensive talent onboard.
And people keep saying that recruits won’t go to Tech because of the offense.
Do you think Defensive players care about what Offensive system your team runs as long as it produces results?
And by the way TECH FANS, you guys played a hell of game Sat night.
We were lucky to hold on but you’ve got a great coach and bright future.
GTZ
November 29th, 2010
7:35 pm
supersize, yeah that was home cooking… but still to hard to over rule that call IMO.
Paul in RDU
November 29th, 2010
7:35 pm
supersize – On the non-overruled fumble recovery, the correct call was made. It was very difficult to tell on the TV whether the foot was on the line or not – certainly it wasn’t clear enough to overrule the guys on the field
Paul in RDU
November 29th, 2010
7:36 pm
supersize – Did you guys in Augusta manage to stop UGA from starting a medical school?
kingster
November 29th, 2010
7:37 pm
Mark you have some pretty good points and I agree with them all, now if we can get some of these silly UGA fans off our blog for one minute, they know the real deal, TECH is proud of our team and UGA is kinda scared, everyone knows UGA thought they were going to blow TECH away, what happen, isn’t TECH the sad team with 2 and 3 star players, UGA see us coming down the road, be very afraid, (I just read the store about the school editor and Nathan Deal and Purdue, drink up and lets have some fun coach!)
Chuck Allison
November 29th, 2010
7:37 pm
Mark, you are correct on all points. I hope that Paul Johnson, Dan Rakodovich, and the more influential Tech fans realize that you are correct. However, our lower rated recruits gained over 500 yards on Georgia and might have won if our new QB had been able to do what needed to be done.
BobbyDodd21/20
November 29th, 2010
7:37 pm
I threw up at the Kansas game and knew we had a problem, and as I said, we had to have a passing game too,…that was evident in the Iowa game last Jan…good luck Josh.., Washington is developing a much smoother option distributing the ball and his passing seems to have potential way beyond Josh…as to the game, congrats Ga. but both teams played, for the most part, like 6-6 teams..do we have a ‘team’ for next year?.
jacket89
November 29th, 2010
7:41 pm
Dawg fans and their AJC dawg pundit have spent the last 36 hours going on and on about CPJ (negative blah-blah-blah). You got to be pretty dawg gone arrogant to think that CPJ needs guidance in being more “humble”. What a joke. And Bark Madley – did Johnson recently give you the cold shoulder at a press conference? It sounds like you’ve got an ax to grind.