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Saturday, March 29, 2008
Tech’s Johnson clearly in charge
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No coaches have more distinctive personalities than those involved with college football. Take Georgia Tech, for instance, where Bobby Dodd was a battler, Bill Curry was a philosopher, Bobby Ross was a perfectionist, George O’Leary was a screamer and Chan Gailey was a — well, he was a what?
Tech offensive tackle Andrew Gardner paused before saying, “Coach Gailey was a nice guy. He was more of a hands-off coach in that he coached the coaches and the coaches coached the players. He probably was a real pro-style coach in the sense that, once his players earned a level of trust by making good grades and staying out of trouble, he expected them to be responsible for themselves.”
You know where we’re going. So what is Paul Johnson, Gailey’s successor, who was a head coach of distinction at Georgia Southern and Navy for 11 seasons? His first group of Yellow Jackets finished their fourth spring practice on Saturday at Rose Bowl Field, where the week was dominated by two consistent sights: Johnson teaching and his assistants yelling.
Which means what about Johnson, especially compared to the coaching personalities of Dodd, Curry, Ross, O’Leary, Gailey and the rest?
“Gosh, I don’t know. I’m probably a little of all of them,” Johnson said, sliding into a smile. “I try to be a teacher, but sometimes you have a lot of intensity if it calls for that, and sometimes it doesn’t require that, and you have to just do what you think needs to be done. Players can tell you [about my personality] better than I can. I don’t know what their perception of me is.”
They don’t know, either.
That’s because their perception of Johnson is a work in progress.
Here’s what they do know: Their new guy won a couple of Division I-AA national championships at Georgia Southern and made Navy football relevant for the first time in decades. Even though their new guy has an eternal love affair with the triple-option offense, he has spent large chunks of his first spring with the Jackets throwing and throwing some more. In other words, their new guy isn’t obsessed with trying to shove Tech’s round pegs that aren’t triple-option friendly into the square holes of his preferred offensive style. Their new guy also has shown wisdom by not having preconceived ideas of who can do what and allowing open competition.
Plus, their new guy already isn’t into folks who bark. Consider that Johnson has “Beat Georgia” on more than a few items around Tech’s practice fields.
“We’re still trying to get to know Coach Johnson, but we already can tell that he’s a no-games coach,” said cornerback Jahi Word-Daniels. “He sticks to the rules. He’s all about doing the right thing, and he wants perfection, and he wants to get the best out of us every time we hit the field. I’m sure we’ll learn more about him as the spring, summer and season goes on. But you can tell right now that he won’t accept anything less than the best from us.”
The same goes for Johnson’s wired assistants during practices. According to Johnson, such a thing isn’t a coincidence, with Johnson adding, “We need to be high energy, and I really believe that the players react to how the coaches are. So we’re asking them to get after it and move around with intensity, so we need to do exactly the same thing.”
No problem there for linebackers coach Brian Jean-Mary, a holdover from the Gailey regime, who is among the many assistants who keeps his tongue flapping and legs churning before, during and after drills. This is Jean-Mary’s fourth year at Tech, and he once spent two seasons as a graduate assistant under the intimidating Lou Holtz at South Carolina.
Said Jean-Mary, “Make no mistake about it. You knew who was in charge at South Carolina. You knew Lou Holtz was the captain of the ship. When he walked into a room, he had everybody’s attention without saying a word. That’s the same thing I’d say about Coach Johnson.”
Here’s another thing you can say about Johnson: He’ll add more yelling to his teaching along the way. How much more? It will depend on whether his Jackets are moving closer to beating Georgia.
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