Sometimes he uses them. Sometimes Paul Johnson keeps them in his pocket. They can be trick plays or subtle tweaks on a basic option run.
They are the cache of plays that Johnson sprinkles into the Georgia Tech game plan weekly, drawn from Johnson's 32 years of coaching experience, to be potential game-changers. They help explain how the Yellow Jackets, in 39 total offensive possessions this season, have concluded nine of them with touchdowns of 50 yards or more.
"Sometimes you need a spark and sometimes you need a nail in the coffin," said Georgia Southern coach Jeff Monken, a 13-year Johnson assistant.
The Jackets, ranked No. 25 in the Associated Press poll, will open ACC play Saturday against North Carolina at noon at Bobby Dodd Stadium. In a matchup of 3-0 teams, the Tar Heels will be by far the best team the Jackets have played and will obstruct Tech's offense with several NFL-bound defensive linemen. The Jackets may well need Johnson to fish out all of his secret weapons.
"We try a bunch of stuff during the course of a week, so a lot of times we kind of have a feeling if they're plays that we don't normally run," A-back Roddy Jones said. "But sometimes it's just a wrinkle on a play that we already run."
Johnson typically brings three or four such plays into each game. The season's shining example was the 73-yard touchdown pass to A-back Tony Zenon on the first play of Tech's 49-21 win at Middle Tennessee State on Sept. 10. Watching game video the previous Sunday, Johnson realized he could match up the fleet Zenon against a linebacker if he lined him up at the B-back spot.
"There's a lot of [plays] that I know that I've got in files or whatever, but most of it I just see and look at tape and say, ‘Hmm. That might be pretty tough against what they're doing,'" Johnson said.
Tech rehearsed the play about 10 times during the week and then had Zenon loiter on the sideline before the series started to hide the subterfuge.
Prior to the play, "[Johnson's] like, if everybody does what they're supposed to do, this is going to be a touchdown," center Jay Finch said. "It's like, well, it's nice when he's psychic, too."
Johnson's tactical acumen rests upon the stored memory of roughly 22,000 play calls in his option-based spread scheme, which he has been coaching since becoming Georgia Southern's offensive coordinator in 1985. That's a span of 340 games at Southern, Hawaii, Navy and Tech, in which he's called plays for all but two.
"You've still got to execute and do what you've got to do, but we've seen a lot of stuff," Johnson said.
For instance, he spotted the same defensive tendency in Florida State's game video in 2008, his first year at Tech, that he did in MTSU's. Tech opened its first possession with the same wheel-route pass play that Zenon ran. Jonathan Dwyer's 30-yard reception uncorked a frenzied night at Bobby Dodd that culminated in Tech's first win over the Seminoles in 13 tries.
The plays don't always work. For Zenon to score, the line had to protect quarterback Tevin Washington, who had to get the ball to Zenon, who had to catch it. The defense doesn't always cooperate, either. One of Johnson's pet sayings is that, "Physical superiority cancels all theories," meaning that clever throwback passes matter little if the running back is leveled before he can set to throw.
"Most of the time, if they line up a certain way, we have a general idea of what ought to work," Johnson said. "It doesn't mean it's going to."
A .720 winning percentage would indicate it usually does.
About the Author
