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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > August > 22
Friday, August 22, 2008
Tech’s offense won’t work this year
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of these years (sooner rather than later, by the way), Georgia Tech will become a triple-option monster during its ACC schedule and beyond.
Not this year, though.
This year, Paul Johnson’s offense, which is rarely used among major college programs, will spend more time scaring the players he inherited this season than their opponents.
A-backs? B-backs? So, with three other folks in the backfield with the quarterback, why isn’t there a C-back? And since Johnson has Y-backs, why not Z-backs, as if his Tech players would perfect such a thing these days, anyway?
The good news is that the Jackets aren’t rumbling, bumbling and fumbling as much from all of this running, pitching and diving on nearly every play as they did during spring practices. The bad news is that the Jackets won’t become proficient with their new offense until later this season. Or longer than that. Give it another recruiting class or two, and Tech’s offense will become significantly more potent than the one Navy used to reach five consecutive bowl games under Johnson.
That said, there is a difference between now and the start of Johnson’s Navy career in 2002. Back then, he left his wonderful stint at Georgia Southern as head coach to transform Navy into the nation’s third-best rushing team after the Midshipmen finished 35th the year before. In fact, under Johnson, Navy spent four of the past five years leading Division I-A schools in rushing, including a record three straight years through last season.
It’s just that Navy already was an option team when Johnson arrived. Tech had a pro-style offense under previous coach Chan Gailey. That means the Midshipmen featured more of the right personnel for Johnson’s offense from the start compared to the Jackets’ current situation.
One more thing: The key to any offense is the quarterback — especially with the triple option — and sophomore Josh Nesbitt is evolving into the Jackets’ starting quarterback during and after their home opener on Thursday against Jacksonville State. Nesbitt played little last season, but he played a lot as a senior at Greensboro High School, where the team passed nearly 45 times per game.
Nesbitt might throw nine times per game under Johnson.
Yeah, this will take awhile.
(Editor’s note: Want a different take on how Tech’s new offense will fare? Mark Bradley says the option offense will thrive in ‘08.)
Permalink | | Categories: Tech/ACC
Why UGA won’t win it all: The schedule
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s the schedule, stupid.
Ever since Yale, Princeton and Harvard mostly alternated as national champions in the latter 19th century, nobody has been crowned the king of college football with three losses or more.
Two losses? Well, LSU had such a distinction last season. According to history, though, that was a fluke. Prior to the Tigers, no two-loss team had finished at the top of the Associated Press or United Press International polls since Minnesota. We’re talking 1960.
Now consider this: Georgia will have at least two losses, probably three, and not because of Georgia. It will be because of road games at South Carolina, Arizona State, LSU and Auburn, along with consecutive home games against Alabama and Tennessee. There also will be that little event in Jacksonville against a Florida bunch that continues to fume over the Bulldogs’ excessive Dog-pile last year after they scored the game’s first touchdown.
Oh, and did we mention the SEC championship game? If the Bulldogs make it that far, they’d likely face highly ranked LSU, Auburn or Alabama during a rematch from earlier in the year.
I know. Georgia is the rage from Sports Illustrated to the coaches’ poll. The theory is that, with all of that talent and an accomplished coaching staff, Georgia could go undefeated or lose once.
But what about the schedule?
“The way we look at it, it’s not a tough schedule that we suddenly have to deal with. For us, this is just another SEC schedule,” said Georgia cornerback Asher Allen, who has a point, but only to a point. The Bulldogs regularly have schedules in this vicinity, and they did well enough with their schedule last season to finish 11-2. Still, they didn’t reach the championship game of the Bowl Championship Series. They didn’t even win their division.
That also was a schedule without rare trips for the Bulldogs to the West (Arizona State) and to Death Valley (LSU). That also was a schedule before the Gators had a whole year to fume over Georgia’s end-zone silliness in Jacksonville. That also was a schedule lacking back-to-back SEC monster games (Alabama and Tennessee).
So, if the Bulldogs do prosper with such a schedule, they shouldn’t become kings of college football.
Try kings of the Earth.
(Editor’s note: Want a different take on how UGA’s schedule affects the Bulldogs’ chances of winning the national championship? Mark Bradley says this is the year.)
