Prior to his first practice as Georgia Tech’s defensive coordinator, Ted Roof took a walk back in time. Walking from the football offices under Bobby Dodd Stadium to the practice fields Monday, Roof traced the same steps he took hundreds of times as a Tech player 1982-85 and then again as an assistant coach 1998-2001.
“It was pretty neat,” he said. “You think about 30 years ago and then you think about 15 years ago and then you think about, ‘Man, I used to walk a lot quicker.’”
Change was a theme of the day as the Yellow Jackets went through a frosty two-hour practice to start spring practice.
Three coaches who were with Tech at the start of last season — quarterbacks and B-backs coach Brian Bohannon, defensive coordinator Al Groh and secondary coach Charles Kelly — are no longer on staff. It’s the most turnover the program has seen since the 2009-2010 offseason, when three of four defensive coaches were turned over and A-backs coach Jeff Monken left to coach Georgia Southern. Furthermore, current defensive assistants have shifted responsibilities.
In this churn, Roof began the instruction of his 4-3 defense to his new pupils.
Said linebacker Quayshawn Nealy, “There was a lot of learning going on out there.”
Assistant coach Joe Speed has moved from linebackers to the secondary, coaching the cornerbacks while Roof takes the safeties. Defensive line coach Mike Pelton is new. Andy McCollum, who switched to coaching linebackers from the defensive line midway through last season after the dismissal of Groh, has stayed at that spot.
The biggest change for players is learning Roof’s terminology. Speed has served as something of a translator for his players, introducing new terms with the equivalent in Groh’s playbook.
“Cover-2 is cover-2, it’s just what you call it,” Speed said.
Nealy liked what he had seen thus far.
“(Roof) is a hard-nosed, get-after-you coach,” he said. “He’s wanting things done right. They’re going to be simple, but he wants them done right and he wants them done with 110 percent. He’s going to be a great coach, I feel like.”
Roof said the amount of the playbook he’ll be able to teach in 14 practices, not counting the spring game, is “not as much as we’d want, but probably more than we need.” Roof wants to balance teaching “things we’re going to hang our hat on” with practicing against Tech’s offense and also against the offenses that the Jackets will play in the early portion of the season.
Roof said, “I don’t want to put in things that we’re not going to run in the first four weeks of the season because they won’t remember that.”
The race is on to build up a defense that improved after Groh’s firing but still gave up 40-plus points six times last season. In a meeting prior to the practice, Roof imparted three points to his defense — be aggressive, run to the ball and “NPH.”
Explained Nealy, “Nobody plays harder.”
The offense also will deal with transition with Bohannon having taken the head coaching job for Kennesaw State’s new football program. Coach Paul Johnson will fill in for him, which will keep him from the observational role that he has taken in past springs but will give him the chance to be more hands-on with the quarterbacks and B-backs.
“I always did some, I just kind of picked and chose where I wanted to get in,” he said. “When you’re doing it yourself, you go from the scripting (of practice) to the meetings to everything, but I enjoyed it. It was good to get that heavily involved in it.”
Johnson even has a new graduate assistant. With former GA Paul Rice having left for Yale, Johnson hired former linebacker and team captain Steven Sylvester, who is helping coach the B-backs.
“So they’ve got two newbies over there, me and Steven,” Johnson said.
Quarterback Vad Lee was looking forward to the arrangement.
“Just understanding how and why he calls a certain play will help me,” he said. “Obviously, I’m sad about Coach Bohannon’s departure, but I’m also excited for him and excited to have Coach Johnson working with the quarterbacks.”
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