Five games ago, motivating the Georgia Tech football team was easier.
“Nobody gave us a chance. We weren’t anything, and that’s how we’re good here,” quarterbacks and B-backs coach Brian Bohannon said. “When we start thinking we’re really good, we’re probably not.”
The Yellow Jackets are 5-0 and ranked No. 13 in the country. Before the season, the Jackets, who play Maryland at noon Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium, were unranked and picked to finish fourth in the ACC Coastal Division. It has become more difficult to convince players, whose team leads the country in rushing and ranks No. 2 in scoring, that they’re not really good.
“We fight it as coaches, I promise you,” Bohannon said.
Last week, for the first time this season, Tech coach Paul Johnson felt the need to challenge his team for its performance in practice. Johnson said he “flame-sprayed” the team on more than one occasion for falling below his standards.
“I don’t understand that one,” A-back Embry Peeples said when asked for a definition. “I guess for the most part, he got on us about it.”
Four-letter words?
“I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure,” Peeples said with a laugh.
The Jackets have responded. Johnson noted after Wednesday’s practice that “this week’s been a little better.”
“We have our certain periods [of practice] where we all get jazzed up, or stuff like that,” Peeples said. “But [Tuesday], it was kind of like consistent jazzed level, from start to finish.”
Last week’s practices were followed by probably the team’s poorest and least-focused performance of the season in a 45-35 win over N.C. State on Saturday. It was perhaps the first instance this season of the Jackets, who have been determined to atone for their underachieving 2010 season, losing their edge. Johnson and Bohannon thought that the praise that the team has received, as well as reports that the Wolfpack were beat up with injuries, played a factor.
“It was one of those weeks [when] you could talk and preach and yell and holler” to no avail, Bohannon said. “Fortunately enough, we won.”
It gave Johnson the opportunity at his weekly news conference Tuesday to express his opinion that a team’s motivation must ultimately come from the players. Fiery pep talks “don’t mean diddly,” he said. He recalled offenses when he coached at Georgia Southern that set such high standards for themselves that they came off the field upset if they didn’t score.
Johnson mentioned that he told his team before the N.C. State game that good teams are satisfied with doing enough to get by, while great teams play against themselves more than against their opponent.
Such teams “want to get better and want to execute at the highest level, no matter who you play,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that the Jackets possess that attitude, mentioning players’ frustration Saturday. He has said on several occasions that this is a fun team to coach, as the players like each other and want to work hard and improve, and is one that sometimes needs some reminding.
“Just a reality check,” wide receiver Tyler Melton said of Johnson’s outbursts. “That’s sometimes what you need.”
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