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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > October > 03
Friday, October 3, 2008
The buzz is back with Georgia Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We on the periphery tend to regard college football in this state as Georgia first, Georgia second, Georgia all the time. We tend to forget the proud program sitting off North Avenue, the program of Dodd and Heisman and the Morrises and the Swillings. We tend to forget until some driven man steps forward and demands that we pay attention.
Four games on the job, Paul Johnson seems such a man. He isn’t deferential to anyone or anything. Sometimes Tech people tend to be too circumspect for their own good. Paul Johnson doesn’t dabble in circumspection or, for that matter, circumlocution. He says what he thinks.
Johnson has Georgia Tech at 3-1 with a good chance of being 5-1 when it plays at Clemson on Oct. 18. At a time when the national spotlight has centered on Georgia’s presumed pursuit of various titles, the Jackets have launched a grass-roots campaign. They’re out to remind us that this is a two-program state. They’re looking to win championships of their own.
This week Michael Johnson, the tall and talented defensive end, authored an as-told-to piece for Sporting News Today, in which he averred: “Don’t be surprised if we end up 11-1 … Georgia Tech is the only team that can beat Georgia Tech.”
Boldness plays well with this constituency. Reggie Ball became infamous for, among other things, saying of Georgia: “Come on, dog. It’s just a game.” Tech people cringed. Tech people want to hear that their beloved Institute takes football every bit as seriously as the hated Mutts in Athens.
Tech people never got that feeling about Chan Gailey, who, the consensus held, played not to lose. Tech people want a coach who plays to win, and they believe they’ve found one. “[Paul Johnson] has unified the fan base,” says Jason Hill, a Tech grad from Conyers who has been quoted in this space before. “He’s gotten the excitement back and the teamwork back.”
Gailey, as we know, never beat Georgia. The last Tech coach to manage that was George O’Leary in the 2000 game that got Jim Donnan fired. Johnson has Tech folks feeling they’ll get Mark Richt and the Mutts, if not this year, then surely soon. Says Hill: “It was that way with O’Leary. You got the feeling he wasn’t scared of anybody and he’d take on anybody anywhere. We took a lot of pride in that.”
Viewed alongside other zealots, Tech people really don’t ask for much. They want to beat Georgia two times of every five, and they want their team to wear gold. (This one does, if in a garish configuration.) Most of all they want a coach who’s skilled at what he does. “Tech people understand business,” Gailey once said, and what doomed him was the consensus that he was forever underperforming.
Four games on the job, Johnson has instilled a different sensation: He knows what he wants and isn’t shy about sharing. “He’ll jump on a guy when he makes a mistake,” Hill says. “That really hits with Tech people. People want a coach who looks like he’s mad when they’re mad.”
Yes, it’s early. For all Michael Johnson’s bravado, the Jackets still could lose four or five games. (If they were unlucky to lose at Virginia Tech, they were lucky to win at Boston College.) And we forget this now, but Gailey’s first team started 4-1. But Gailey — partly because he followed O’Leary, partly because he was hired by Dave Braine — was never embraced even on his best days.
Paul Johnson has been embraced. Paul Johnson has made Tech people believe that happy days are here again. The buzz, long dormant, is back.
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