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Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2008 > October > 04
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Tech’s best offense is its defense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This will sound strange, especially after a game in which a receiver caught passes for 230 yards and a back rushed for 159, but here it is: For all the discussion of Paul Johnson and his stylized offense, that unit isn’t even Georgia Tech’s best. The defense is better.
Who said so? Why, the head coach himself. Asked why he didn’t take the ball after winning the coin toss Saturday, Johnson said: “We’re pretty good on defense. The strength of our team is the defensive front.”
Asked if an offensive man can delight in watching such defenders at work, Johnson laughed and said: “If it’s mine, I do. I don’t know that I’d take much pleasure going against one like that.”
With nine minutes left in the game, Duke had run 34 plays and had amassed, if that’s the word, 45 yards. That’s an average of 1.3 yards per snap, which means you could have granted the Devils seven downs and it still would’ve been eighth-and-1. The offense prepped by David Cutcliffe, the man who tutored every Manning except Archie, mustered four first downs in 51 minutes.
And even that miserly yield, you should know, didn’t satisfy the ravenous Jackets. “We’ll have to work on that,” linebacker Sedric Griffin said. “We want no first downs.”
Duke would finish with 132 yards, the third-lowest output by any ACC opponent against Tech. (It would also finish with nine whole first downs, sending Griffin into a state of deep depression.) On a day when Johnson’s option-based spread was slow to score — it was still 3-0 with 11 minutes gone in the third quarter — the defense made scoring almost superfluous.
Tech is 4-1 because Johnson has brought a new system and a new energy, yes, but it’s also 4-1 because a bunch of proud Chan Gailey holdovers are playing better than they ever played under Jon Tenuta.
“It’s a good feeling, going three-and-out,” said defensive coordinator Dave Wommack, and Duke went three-and-out six times on its first eight possessions. “Our [defensive] kids were saying on the sideline that they were hungry to get back out there.”
Said Vance Walker, a defensive tackle: “Third down was our area of weakness. We knew we had to build on that.”
Before Saturday, Tech opponents had converted 44 percent of their third downs. Duke was 2-for-12.
Asked what went wrong, Cutcliffe told reporters: “We just couldn’t block them. We didn’t have an answer for those ends.”
Tech’s ends are Derrick Morgan, a terrific sophomore, and Michael Johnson, the towering senior who last week told Sporting News Today, “Don’t be surprised if we end up 11-1.” Asked Saturday if he truly believed as much, Johnson said, “Yes, sir. It’s like I said: The only team that can beat Georgia Tech is Georgia Tech.”
Not many opponents can or will handle this defense, the foundation of which is that mighty front four. But with the new offense drawing most of the attention, does the D-line need, like, a snappy nickname?
“Last year we — Michael, Darryl [Richard] and I — were the Three Amigos,” Walker said. “With Derrick, I heard somebody say we should be the Quadruplets.”
Said Morgan: “We call ourselves a family — we take care of each other.”
Said Richard: “It’s got to be The Perfect Storm — led by Hurricane Mike.”
Actually, the great minds in Tech’s sports information department are toying with the idea of having fans vote on a nickname via RamblinWreck.com. But if you consult Hurricane Mike, nothing so trivial is needed.
“We’re just the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets,” Michael Johnson said. “We win together.”
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