If you are a Gardner Webb fan, I don’t mean to say that just because GW is a Division I-AA team that it has no credibility or chance to beat a I-A team (for example, Toledo beat Michigan today) but let’s not pretend that this is the first time you’ve read this game should have been an easy game for Tech.  Because, it should have been.  Even after reading somewhere that GW was a great rush-defense team, I admit that I didn’t think much of it and wouldn’t have been able to believe that they would be able to hold our rush-oriented offense to 79 yards on the ground.

Now for Tech fans, let’s not use the “but it’s our third-string QB” excuse because that doesn’t explain why we only had 79 yards rushing.  That doesn’t explain why Calvin was sacked two times and he was the leading rusher at the end of the game with 35 yards rushing on 19 carries.  I am going to be blunt here so be prepared for that: our offensive line just plain sucked.  Coach Paul Johnson said in his radio show last week that they were working a lot on their punt-return team but did he let the offensive line take a week off or something?  CPJ also said after last week after Duke’s game that the offensive line needed to play lower and launch off of the line of scrimmage… but did they instead lay down on the ground and play dead?  I wasn’t able to watch the game since it wasn’t televised but I did listen to it live on radio and I just could not believe that our blocking was so bad that our running game couldn’t even muster 80 yards; don’t forget 35 yards came from Calvin who is more of a pocket-passing QB.

What’s even worse is that after reading this column from Terence Moore at the AJC, it seems as if 80% of our offense failed to show up for this game because aside from our non-existing offensive line, our wide receivers were running wrong routes.  Seriously?  Out of any of the games that the wideouts could be running the wrong routes, they do it on a day that Calvin finally starts a game.  Calvin, who is so easy to root for because of he is so team-oriented and unselfish?  Come on!

In my mind, Coach Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech football team lost today.  They are 4-2 in my book.  We can say a win is a win all we want but we all know Tech coaches, players, students, and fans were disappointed by our lackluster offense today and know that our offense can do better than they did today.  Tech didn’t take GW seriously today and it’s going to hurt the team’s credibility.

How about the glass half-full stuff?  Our defense played decent which is better than piss poor.  This can be used as a good learning experience for our young team so hopefully this game will make them stronger and more focused.

GT is now 2-0 and 1-0 in the ACC conference.  I realize that beating Jacksonville State and BC (in such an ugly way as Paul put it agreeably) doesn’t really match up to some of the ranked teams in the nation.  Yet still, considering that earlier this year and probably up until the final play clock ticked down in Chestnut Hill today, there were plenty of sketics questioning Tech’s chances of being successful; I think our offense did okay.

A win is a win regardless of how ugly of a win it was but obviously with three fumbles, two of which I attribute to the poor execution of the offense, we still have a long road of improvement ahead.

GO TECH!  THWG!

Instill Confidence
The future of Yellow Jackets football is bright.  Why?  It’s not because of the option-based offense that is often called ‘gimmicky’ by American football followers.  It has more to do with the new Head Coach that is not installing this so-called gimmicky offense but because he is instilling new and pure confidence to his new football team.  Everyone whose ever asked Paul Johnson about his “system” or heard him talk about it understands how much rock-solid confidence he has in it that some would even go as far as calling it being stubborn.  I wouldn’t argue with that whatsoever but what I like reading and seeing is Paul making the players believe and build faith in something that they are not used to.  He’s like an powerful evangelist for the experience he gained over his college football career.  Confidence flows from the leader to the followers; from the head coach to the assistant coaches and players.  Paul Johnson exudes confidence and it will show in our football team.

Turn-around Winner
I even have caught myself questioning where this confidence comes from but a quick google to see Paul Johnson’s history in college football shows his impressive résumé of turning around programs and being a winner.  The thing that impresses me most is his ability to find ways to win with the tools he’s been given which so far has been limited at best.  There’s always been doors that prevented him from recruiting the best in the nation and that door has been kicked wide open.  Right now, I don’t think it’s the question of whether or not he will maintain his winning record because I have no doubt that he will at Tech.  The question is how far will he be able to surpass that by winning the games that matter: bowl games, championship games, and rivalry games.  With Paul’s track record, I have faith that as the Yellow Jackets matures, the fans will savor the answer to that question.

MacGyver of Football
Paul Johnson is the MacGyver of American Football.  It’s funny to metaphorical say that but it’s true.  He takes whatever is available to him as a resource without taking anything for granted and maximizes the usefulness of everything to come out with wins.  PJ is always quoted as saying that he needs to learn what his team can do.  From what I can find, he uses that and molds his “system” so that it fits.  The Naval Academy lead the nation in rushing last year because that is what they were best at; he saw no point of putting balls up in the air and risk interceptions.  At Georgia Tech, he technically has better resources in the rushing and passing attack so I would be very surprised if we don’t see Calvin come out for snaps or see designated option-pass plays from Josh and Jaybo.  Naysayers, be aware of Paul Johnson’s MacGyver-ism.

GO JACKETS!
THWG!

The Old Regime
Under former Head Coach Chan Gailey, Georgia Tech ran an offense predominantly known as the “pro-style” offense in College football.  This type of offense pivots on two types of plays, a passing play where the quarterback snaps the ball under center or in shotgun and throws it to a wide receiver or a running play where the quarterback hands off or pitches the ball to one of his backs.  The question that the defense needs to answer is… is the offense going to pass the ball or are they going to run the ball.  Chan ran this type of offense during his entire career at Tech and it was a decent offense but as we found out over the past five years, it was never consistent due to talent that wasn’t spread across the field on both sides of the ball.

The New Regime
Paul Johnson, on the other hand, runs predominantly an option-based offense in flexbone formation that tries to spread the defense out across the field.  The core of such an offense is a strong dual-threat quarterback that has the ability to run the ball himself as a carrier and at the same time have the arm to throw the football.  The triple option is quite an elusive offense because no one really knows where the ball is going to end up, not even the offense, until the whistle is blown.

Snapped under center, the QB receives the ball and has to make multiple decisions based on how he reads the defense.  First option is to hand it off to the B-back who will run it up the middle.  If he sees the linebackers in the path, he will hold onto the ball and start rolling out to either his left or right and be flanked by an A-back.  If he sees that a defender is shadowing him, his second option is to lateral to the A-back right before the defender commits to tackle him in which case the A-back will have the ball to run the ball.  Otherwise, if the quarterback sees that a defender is shadowing his A-back, the third option is to keep the ball himself to run the ball.  Technically, there is also a fourth option which is for the QB to throw the ball to a receiver down the field but this is rather called the option-pass play rather than a triple-option because the wide receivers on a triple-option play are usually used as blockers instead of running routes.

The key to this offense is not brute strength or speed, it is execution.  Every time a play is called, every single person on the offense will have a job that they have to execute flawlessly because no one knows who the ball carrier will be or where the ball is going to go.  Paul Johnson has had a lot of success with this type of offense so far at his previous coaching positions at non-BCS schools.  So when Paul was hired, there were plenty of opinions by practically everyone that this type of offense will not work as effectively at the BCS level.  The primary argument seems to be that the defense is faster so that the elusiveness of the triple-option becomes null.

My (maybe biased) Opinion
As a Tech fan (so I may be guilty of bias here), I think the criticism has been overdone.  No one knows what this offense is going to look like; Paul Johnson was quoted as saying that they ran the ball at Navy because it was what his team at the time was good and he was taking advantage of what he knew the team was capable of.  Yes, he likes and has absolute belief in his offensive scheme (a.k.a the “system”) but this certainly does not mean that the system is not flexible to fit the profile of the team.  A good Head Coach will take advantage of the available talent and get the victory.  If Paul believes that he can do this at GT without throwing the ball, I’m not going to argue with him.  Otherwise, if Paul sees good things happening when the ball is in the air, I am confident that he will not neglect to pass the ball.  It is simple as that.

Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Yellow Jackets came out in the first game and pass the ball often to give those sports columnists something to write about for Friday.  On that same note, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Tech never threw the ball in the first game and keep it on the ground 100% to give future opponents a false sense of security by letting them think that they will only have to worry about defending the ground game.

Either way, as you may be able to tell, I am very excited about this season.  I had very high expectations last year and was let down pretty hard.  I think we will have some surprising wins this year and also unexpected losses but I will be a happy fan just to see the critics proven wrong whether it be this season or the next.

External Links

• Georgia Tech’s Johnson explains spread-option offense
• Johnson, Ga. Tech proving option can dominate at highest level