AJC > Sports > Tech > Blog > Archives > 2008 > August > 06
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Difference will be between the ears
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’m thinking semi-long-term this morning more than about the next or most recent practice. So …
(BONUS NOTES BELOW, IN THE COMMENTS SECTION; ALSO, EDIT NOTE FROM THE NOTEBOOK: JASPER AND COOPER TAYLOR APPEAR TO BE WORKING NOT ONLY AS DIME SAFETIES, BUT AS MUCH OR MORESO AS NICKEL SAFETIES, IN FACT, SOMETIMES AT THE EXPENSE OF REESE )
Much as so many people try, the idea of trying to predict a team’s future is impossible to do with any great accuracy, particularly when that team has a new head coach, new systems on offense and defense, and — this is no less important — so many young players who will not just be expected to play great deal. They will have to play.
My experience is that first-year head coaches offer a notable bump in morale, whether the previous coach was a curmudgeon, a mute, or whatever. I saw it with Jim Mora in 2004, when the only significant roster changes with the Falcons — who were awful in ‘03 — were the addition of DT Rod Coleman, and the return of injured QB Michael Vick.
Dan Reeves was steady as a rock as a head coach. But he’d been there seven years, which reduces the ability of the boss to jolt the troops. There comes a point where players need to do the jump-starting, where peer-to-peer accountability is more important than how much players “fear” coaches.
Still, more than that morale swoon and collective tune-out sank the ‘03 season. Doug Johnson and Kurt Kittner simply could not get it done at QB, teammates came to know it, and whether knowingly or not, a bunch of players played down to reduced expectations. Too young, too inexperienced, and not good enough. Their ability, or shortages thereof, had a collective psychological effect — translation: lack of faith — on teammates that was too much to overcome.
Tech is going to be really young. The QB, B-back and starting WRs are likely to be sophomores, with freshmen or redshirt freshman quite possibly entrenched in the two-deep and having to play quite a bit. At least one starting A-back, Roddy Jones, is a redshirt freshman.
And on it goes, less dramatically in the O-line, not in the D-line, but significantly in the linebacking corps and in the secondary.
I think the ability of Tech’s young players to play “up” will go further toward determining the nature of the Yellow Jackets’ season than how well players pick up news systems on both sides of the ball (whether under or upperclassmen), how sound those systems are, or even how Paul Johnson and his staff coach the X’s and O’s and make personnel decisions.
This doesn’t mean every young player has to be an All-Star. But a few need to really bow up, and help upperclassmen take the yoke.
It’s tough to imagine the energy level, or chemistry, being problems in this first year. Enthusiasm is impossible to miss with this team, and it’s not the type generated just because football is back in business, the annual hump in energy that comes regardless of the coach. There are believers everywhere on the roster, which is not to say everybody understands yet nearly enough to make all the pieces work.
Make no mistake, coaches are still selling their systems. Time will validate those systems, or it will not. Paul Johnson’s track record is pretty good. Navy was not good his first year there. Then, a run unlike any since Roger Staubach was in Annapolis.
I’m not saying Tech is going to go 4-8. It’s realistic to think, in my opinion, that the Jackets will win more than they’ll lose this fall. 10-2? That’d be quite a shock. 8-4. Possible. 7-5 or 6-6? Most probable.
I will check back in from practices today with UPDATES LATER in the comments section BELOW.
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