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Thursday, April 3, 2008
Maybe James Johnson simply had enough
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For the time being, it’s not as easy to form an opinion on wide receiver James Johnson’s decision to leave Tech’s football team as it was to empathize with WR D.J. Donley’s apparent decision to transfer to Purdue, where the Boilermakers will throw plenty.
In both cases, it seems safe to posit that they weren’t — if Donley was to remain a WR at Tech, that is — going to be running as many routes and catching as many passes as they might have liked. And they were going to be asked to block more, and differently, than in the previous offense.
Asked about James Johnson after practice Wednesday, Paul Johnson said something to the effect of, I don’t see him out here; I guess he quit.
Simple, understated, detached.
But these situations probably cannot be summed up simply by suggesting — as some on other boards have — that Donley and James Johnson left merely because they were concerned that they weren’t going to get what they thought was their fair share. That would go too far toward implying selfishness, a label neither has done anything else to deserve.
Donley has three years to play, and Johnson one, and at least by my eye, Donley showed enough skill in his very first year (admittedly, much of it in preseason practice) to merit the suggestion that he might have potential enough to develop into one whale of a wideout. If, as his high school coach said, he is making a move because he believes he can best develop elsewhere, who has a right to suggest that he stay put, suck it up for the team, and embrace a system he wasn’t recruited to?
If coaches can changes jobs at their leisure, and athletics directors can fire them, why shouldn’t kids be able to change their minds?
But it’s unclear if these dynamics apply to James Johnson. (EDIT: It’s more clear now, after this blog was written, if you read Mike Knobler’s story.)
Without having talked to him, we are to date left with the explanation he apparently gave his position coach, which is that he simply decided to get on with his life. Lord knows in the past six or eight months he’s had a boatload of injuries. James is bright, engaging, upbeat … from my observations a stand-up chap.
So maybe he’s just had enough football, especially with the idea — pretty realistic — that he was not going to do as much of what he came to Tech to do, and he was going to be asked to do quite a bit that he didn’t bargain for when he chose the Yellow Jackets. Some of this is speculative, but hey, it’s all we have now. (EDIT: Actually, there is more now; read Knobler’s story.)
I think the suggestion on The Hive that James made disparaging comments in a story (CBSportsline/Dennis Dodd) is goofy.
About Paul Johnson’s predilection toward the run game, Dodd quoted James Johnson saying (prior to his leaving the team), “we’re going to hope that Coach does not do all that much running. We just hope he’s saying all that to trick people.”
From my dealings with James, I’ll bet he had a big smile on when he said that. And I happen to think Tech is going to pass a fair amount more than than 10 times a game Navy threw the ball last season, although the Jackets will run the more more than twice as often as they’ll pass, I believe.
Later in Dodd’s piece, he wrote that Paul Johnson responded by saying, “He caught 30 balls (actually 25) and they went 7-6. If something wasn’t wrong, if what they were doing was so great, we wouldn’t be here. It’s not like we’re coming in here and dismantling this high-powered machine that was lighting everybody up.”
Hopefully, Paul Johnson had a smile on his face, too, when he said that.
Was he suggesting that the Jackets muddled along last season in part because they passed too much?
That’d be silly, too.
To be sure, Paul Johnson wasn’t hired to improve Tech’s running game, per se. He was hired to win more games, and inspire fans and players along the way.
The Jackets didn’t lead the nation in rushing, as Paul Johnson’s Navy squad did, but they led the ACC at 199-yards plus despite recurring injuries to Tashard Choice, and were No. 24 in the nation last year. The run game was better than 7-6.
If I were to boil Tech’s shortcomings from last season down to their simplest forms and list them: woefully inadequate passing game (No. 11 in the ACC, to be precise), a schizophrenic defense that failed horribly to adjust as games wore on, an overriding team failure to consistently rise to and seize moments and general lack of inspiration.
Those are the reasons Paul Johnson’s here, the issues he was hired to address and improve, in my view.
Not simply to improve a running game that was among few things not broken.
And not to deride departed coaches and players and what they did or did not do.
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