AJC > Sports > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 23
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tech’s Johnson: “We may surprise some folks.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m planning my ACC Spring Football Wrap-up for next week but yesterday I had a chance to be on a conference call with the league’s 12 coaches. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits from that call.
1. Georgia Tech is going to be fine: New coach Paul Johnson said folks shouldn’t read too much into last Saturday’s spring game, which was fairly sloppy on the offensive side of the ball.
“When you first come in to a new situation it’s a change of the culture almost,” Johnson said. “That doesn’t make it right or wrong. We’re just doing things differently than the previous staff. Our quarterbacks were (playing) live this spring. You’re not going to become real efficient right away when you’re putting in a new offense. There are going to be growing pains no matter what you do.”
Johnson was asked what would constitute success in his first year on The Flats. “We want to win the first game (against Jacksonville State). Then I want to win the second game (at Boston College),” he said. “If we do that, who knows? We may surprise some folks.”
2. The bulls-eye is off Bowden: It seems that Tommy Bowden has been perpetually on the hot seat since he got to Clemson nine years ago. But this season, Bowden said, the heat is going to be shared with his very talented team. With all of the stars returning on offense (QB Cullen Harper of Alpharetta, RB James Davis of Atlanta, WR Aaron Kelly of Marietta) and a defense that is really underrated, Clemson will be the preseason favorite to win its first ACC championship since 1991. “It’ll be a lot better because the bull’s-eye won’t be on me. That will be a different angle,” Bowden said. Now this is not to say that Bowden won’t hear about it if the Tigers stumble out of the gate against Alabama on Aug. 30 at the Georgia Dome. But the reality is that in the off-season he got a contract extension through 2014 that includes a $4 million buyout. Bowden is pretty secure.
3. The quarterback job at FSU is still open: Senior starter Drew Weatherford missed most of the spring with a slight knee injury, but that has opened the door for red-shirt sophomores Christian Ponder and D’Vontrey Richardson (of Leesburg). Both showed that they can make things happen with their ability to scramble and make big plays.
“These guys just need some at-bats to show what they can do,” head coach Bobby Bowden said. “We’re hoping they can close the gap (with Weatherford).”
The word that I get from Tallahassee is that the gap between these two guys and Weatherford has already been closed. If the Seminoles had to play this Saturday, OC Jimbo Fisher would use two quarterbacks.
4. North Carolina missed T.J. Yates: North Carolina quarterback T.J. Yates of Marietta (Pope High School), missed the entire spring as he recovered from shoulder surgery. Coach Butch Davis wishes the sophomore, who completed 59.7 percent of his passes for 2,655 yards and 14 touchdowns last season, could have been on the field so that he would have had a chance to get better. “We would have loved to see how much he could have moved the needle during spring practice,” Davis said. He did note that Yates’ absence gave more snaps to red-shirt freshman Mike Paulus, one of the top quarterback prospects in the country in 2007, and junior Cameron Sexton. So the Tar Heels will have a proven backup if Yates struggles. Look for North Carolina (4-8 in 2007) to be the most improved team in the ACC in 2008.
5. Why the Falcons should draft Matt Ryan: I asked Boston College coach Jeff Jagodzinski to pretend he was in the Falcons’ war room on Saturday and make the case for drafting BC quarterback Matt Ryan. “He’s got all the intangibles that you would ever want with a quarterback,” Jagodzinski said of Ryan, who led the Eagles to the ACC championship game last season while throwing for 4,507 yards and 31 touchdowns. “And all he does is win. He’s proven it over and over again.”
