When your team is 4-0, the self-deprecating jokes come a little easier. Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson spoke Monday at the Touchdown Club of Atlanta’s weekly luncheon in Buckhead and brought with him an anecdote from the Yellow Jackets’ 27-24 win over Virginia Tech on Saturday.
On its opening drive of the second half, Tech had a turnover when quarterback Justin Thomas and A-back Broderick Snoddy failed to execute an option pitch. On the sidelines, Johnson fumed over Snoddy being in the game for that play and demanded over his headset to know which coach put Snoddy in the game. No one replied.
“So he comes over on the sideline, and he comes up to me, and I go, ‘Broderick, who put you in the game?’” Johnson said. “He said, ‘You did.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You did, Coach. You sent the play in with me.’”
As Tech goes into its first open week of the season, Johnson’s list of areas to address before next week’s Miami game is not short. But the pride he feels in this team, which has won in back-to-back weeks with fourth-quarter comebacks, is unmistakable.
“I’ve said all along, I like the kids,” he said. “I think everybody gets along. They pull together. I’m going to be tough on them because that’s what they need, but we’ll see. They keep finding a way. We’d like to get to where you don’t back yourself into a hole.”
He made clear, though, that the Jackets can be playing much better. He called the offense’s perimeter blocking in the first half “horrid.” Thomas missed a few plays that could have hit for big plays had he changed the direction of the play at the line of scrimmage before the snap.
“The offense? It could be a lot better,” he said. “This quarterback is kind of what you want with what we do. He’s quick, he can run, he likes to run. So, it helps. We’ve got to get everybody around him playing better.”
On defense, he said the unit improved greatly against Virginia Tech. He said that defensive tackle Adam Gotsis, aided by having backups Patrick Gamble and Francis Kallon play more snaps, probably played the best game of his career. Johnson particularly liked that the defense didn’t give up a play longer than 31 yards. The team had given up four plays of 60 yards or more in the first three games.
“That was the key,” he said.
Special teams has “not been real special other than blocking kicks,” he said. “Kickoff return right now is horrendous.” A return by Snoddy in which he retreated into the end zone to retrieve the bouncing kick and was nearly brought down along the goal line “could have been a disaster,” he said. While he made the game-winner from 24 yards, kicker Harrison Butker’s having missed three inside 35 yards has been “a killer.”
However, he also praised his team’s fight against the Hokies and mentioned that two of his players, Thomas and linebacker Paul Davis, were selected as ACC players of the week for their respective position groups.
“The thing I was most proud of in the game Saturday is the tenacity and the ability to fight and play through pretty much anything that happened,” he said.
Beyond falling behind 24-17 in the fourth quarter on a fluky fumble play to a Hokies team that has had the Jackets’ number, Georgia Tech was playing in conditions so loud, Johnson said, that the offense even had trouble hearing the play calls in the huddle.
“To come back and win in that environment was pretty special,” he said.
Johnson even included the team on his coaches-poll ballot. Johnson has long resisted taking part, but is a voter this year. He said he ranked his team in the “twentysomething” range. Tech is not ranked, but is in the “also receiving votes” category of both the coaches and Associated Press polls.
It was announced Monday that Tech’s next game, Oct. 4 at home against Miami, will be at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN2. Johnson was not concerned about his team losing focus after its strong start, given the Hurricanes have won the past five games between the teams.
“Against Miami? No,” Johnson said. “Once they see the film and we point (mistakes) out, we’re pretty good at looking at it and being honest.”
But amid the mistakes, he also saw progress.
“We played hard,” he said. “I think we can play a lot better. We missed a lot of opportunities, but so did they. But I think we got better. I think we got better than we were the week before, so we’ve just got to keep going in that trajectory.”
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