Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson has long resisted being a part of the coaches poll. He gave up his fight this year.
For the first time in his career, Johnson is a member of the USA Today coaches poll. He is one of 62 coaches who cast ballots weekly, ranking the top 25. Georgia coach Mark Richt is also a voter, as is former Tech coach George O’Leary, now at Central Florida.
“Enough people finally asked,” Johnson said Monday.
Johnson has said he didn’t want to be a voter because he wouldn’t want to be in a position where he faced an opponent that he ranked higher than his own team, particularly for the message it would send to his players. He’ll likely be in that spot in two weeks, when the Yellow Jackets play Virginia Tech. Georgia Tech did not receive any votes in the most recent poll, while the Hokies are No. 19 after beating then-No. 7 Ohio State at Ohio Stadium. (Votes are confidential, although the final regular-season ballots have been made public.)
Johnson has said he has a couple staff members helping him assemble his vote.
“I just try to look and see who was on the last one and who won and who lost and what’s the score,” he said. “It’s like I said before: I think until you get into October, it’s useless.”
Voters are all members of the American Football Coaches Association. Johnson said AFCA executive director Grant Teaff is the one who has asked him in the past to vote. It’s been tolerable so far.
“I’ve only voted, like, twice,” he said. “It hasn’t been a big problem yet.”
