It is far from the biggest problem that the Georgia Tech offense is facing right now, coach Paul Johnson was sure to make clear Monday, but he recognized that quarterback Justin Thomas has been trying too hard to make plays for the Yellow Jackets to the detriment of the offense.
Self-inflicted mistakes in the Jackets’ past two games – losses to No. 6 Notre Dame and Duke – have slowed the powerful Tech offense to a halting walk. After the Jackets punted seven times against Notre Dame – tied for the most punts ever in a Johnson-coached Tech game – they averaged 2.9 yards per carry against the Blue Devils. That was the fourth-lowest rate for Tech since Johnson’s hire prior to the 2008 season.
On occasion, Johnson said, “sometimes I think he tries to do too much as opposed to just relaxing and play, let it come to him. He’s a good enough player and good enough athlete, it’s going to come to him anyway.”
With about 2 ¼ minutes left in Tech’s 34-20 loss to Duke on Saturday in Durham, N.C., the Jackets faced a third-and-5 at their 43. After a clunky performance, Tech still had a chance to steal a win out of Wallace Wade Stadium. On a triple-option play, Thomas’ read was to give the ball to B-back Patrick Skov. However, Thomas chose to keep it and ran an option with A-back Clinton Lynch.
“He’s trying to make a play,” Johnson said. “He’s trying to pull it and outrun ’em because he wants to make a play.”
Thomas was chased down from behind by Duke safety Jeremy Cash, whose forced fumble ended Tech’s possession and effectively iced the game. Speaking Monday at his weekly news conference, Johnson said that he didn’t want to suggest that Thomas is the problem.
“He can play better, and we can coach better, but he’s not the issue,” Johnson said. “He’s the guy who gives you a chance.”
Thomas said he tries not to play outside of the system, and acknowledged the need to trust his teammates.
“You do it, it can cause bigger problems,” Thomas said. “You just got to try to stay within the system as best you can.”
The burden that Thomas, an All-ACC selection in 2014 and an undisputed leader of the team, evidently feels to jumpstart the Jackets by making plays on his own is part of the thicket of challenges that Tech faces going into its game Saturday against North Carolina at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Others include poor blocking, inexperience and lack of depth at the skill positions and missed assignments.
Part of the solution includes a simple directive.
“Just do your job,” Johnson said. “Now, sometimes, you can get frustrated when you’re doing your job and the other guys aren’t doing theirs and it clouds things for you, and that’s when you start pressing. But you can’t do it.”
Monday, Johnson said this week in practice will be devoted to that and other problems.
“It’s like I told the coaches, we’ve got to fix ourselves,” he said. “North Carolina will have a good team and they’ll come in here. I’m more worried about fixing our problems. We’ve got problems that we’ve got to take care of from an execution standpoint.”
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