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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2008 > November > 25
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
UGA could have had Paul Johnson, but …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nineteen years ago, Paul Johnson was just the offensive coordinator at Hawaii with an uncertain future.
He had just finished a recruiting trip in California. He was headed home to Charlotte for the holidays. But his head was on potential employment in Georgia until his wife greeted him at the airport and delivered some news.
“She said, ‘Did you hear? Erk turned the job down,’ ” Johnson said Tuesday. “She heard it on the radio. My first thought was, ‘Well, I just lost two jobs.’ “
Actually, one job in particular. In Athens.
Johnson, now the head coach at Georgia Tech, was closer to becoming the offensive coordinator at Georgia in 1989 — and the heir apparent as head coach — than we may ever know.
When Vince Dooley resigned and briefly considered a jump to politics, Erk Russell seemed like the obvious choice as his replacement. He had been the popular, snarling, head-banging, chief barker of the “Junkyard Dawgs” defense, and was winning I-AA championships at Georgia Southern.
But when Russell was hired — either because he turned down the job or never was offered it, depending on whom you believe — it had a ripple effect that could be felt at the baggage terminal of Charlotte International.
Russell’s intent was to hire Johnson — formerly of Georgia Southern and then Hawaii — to run the Bulldogs’ offense.
“I called coach Russell after I found out and asked what happened,” Johnson said Tuesday. “He said, ‘I turned it down. I didn’t feel like I could give them a commitment for four years, and it wasn’t fair to anybody.’ He said they offered him the job, or he thought they did. But I didn’t have any idea. I wasn’t privy to anything.
“I think if he was younger he would’ve done it, because the one thing he always said to me was that he would’ve loved to see what that offense could do over there.”
Johnson figured at worse, if Russell went to Athens and didn’t hire him, he would have been offered the head coaching job at Georgia Southern. But there had been enough conversations between the two coaches that Johnson had a pretty good idea what was going to happen: He and the triple-option were headed to Georgia in 1989 if Russell had been hired.
Instead, he got neither job. He stayed at Hawaii for five more years, before moving on to becoming the offensive coordinator at Navy in 1995, and then head coach at Georgia Southern and Navy.
Dooley recommended Russell to the search committee as his replacement. He presumed the triple-option would be coming with him. He projected Russell as a good coach “for the transition,” believing he would only want to coach “another four or five years.”
Logic dictates that would’ve opened the door for Johnson as Russell’s replacement — especially given how Dooley believes the offense would’ve fared in the SEC.
“How would it have gone over? In the same way it’s going over right now,” he said. “I mean, it’s good. It would’ve caused a lot of nightmares for a lot of defensive coaches in the SEC.”
Dooley’s version of the hiring process coincides with most — that the search committee and then-UGA president Charles Knapp never actually offered Russell the job.
“I think they made contact with him but didn’t really pursue it,” he said. “Perhaps they had another idea what they wanted to do.”
That other idea turned out to be Ray Goff.
Oops.
Georgia plays Georgia Tech on Saturday. Johnson will walk into Sanford Stadium and take his place on the Jackets’ sideline. He smiled when asked about the irony and how different things could have been.
“You can always wonder how things like that,” he said. “What if I had never gone to Hawaii [from Southern]? But it’s not something I dwell on.”
He will, however, get a chance to watch his offense at the Division I level in Athens.
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Falcons earning fans’ trust
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
And now for the Tuesday Countdown …..
10.Michael Vick is in court today. Remember when that really meant something around here?
9.Unscientific observation: I saw one fan wearing a Vick jersey while driving to the Georgia Dome Sunday for the Falcons-Carolina game. I saw 30 driving to the season opener two and a half months ago. That might be a more stunning transition than this team starting 7-4. Also, the Carolina game didn’t nearly have the phony-sellout look of other home games, when there were several thousand empty seats.
8.Quoth Lawyer Milloy of Sunday’s crowd: “We’re starting to get their trust and loyalty back. Everybody got burned last year and it showed early on this season with the empty seats. As we get better every week, we’re getting more and more fans in the stands and it’s paying dividends for us.”
7.And yes, Arthur Blank sees opportunity. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the Falcons’ owner - coming off a significant financial hit in ticket and merchandising sales - senses the tide shift and has started the Falcons’ season-ticket renewal campaign and sales drive this week. That’s three months earlier than usual.
6.Wonder if the Raiders have a scout in Surry County today?
5.I don’t know if Georgia Tech can pull off the upset in Athens Saturday. But if Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno leave, how can you not like the Jackets chances next season?
4.I’m assuming that when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told Adam “Pacman” Jones that he’ll be banned from the NFL for life for one more slip-up, he took “10 days” in the office pool. Pacman’s resume: alcoholism, suspended 22 out of 28 days, criminal charges ranging from assault to obstruction of justice — this is going to be like watching Curly accidentally dump the blasting powder in the pancake mix and waiting for the first explosion.
3.Thrashers coach John Anderson (7-10-2) went from optimist to realist fairly quickly. His quote the other day, “We’re dealt a hand here a little bit,” was an obvious reference to the roster’s talent deficiency. He is accurate, of course, but what does it say when a coach admits that 19 games into his first season?
2.Last season, the NFC South was just this side of the Sun Belt. But today it has a cumulative record of 29-15 and is one of only divisions with four winning teams (the other: the AFC East). If it keeps up, the strength of schedule should help the Falcons get a BCS bowl.
1.Just saw the story where Vick arrived at the courthouse at 6:30 a.m. — more than two hours early. If he had that kind of discipline and work habits as a pro, he might not be in this mess.
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