Paul Johnson, who invented this stylized offense, couldn’t have invented a better endgame scenario. From 16 points behind, Georgia Tech had drawn within six. It took the ball at its 20 with 4:36 to play. The Jackets could take their time and run their option and win the Music City Bowl in the final seconds Monday and beat an opponent from the lordly SEC.
Trouble is, Paul Johnson no longer trusts his stylized offense.
His Jackets rushed for 91 yards in the first quarter against Ole Miss, 60 thereafter. He noted that quarterback Vad Lee made the wrong read the first three times Tech ran the option Monday, but here we ask: If Johnson’s team, playing its 13th game of 2013, can’t make Johnson’s offense work, what’s wrong with this picture?
With his team 80 yards from stealing a victory over a slightly (but not vastly) more talented opponent, Johnson turned his back on the creation that made him rich and somewhat famous. He ordered a reverse pass by backup receiver Corey Dennis, who hadn’t caught a pass or run the ball this season.
“I’d been waiting a series and a half to get the ball in the middle of the field,” Johnson would say later, “because I knew it was going to work.” Turning to A-back Robert Godhigh, he said, “Did anybody take (meaning cover) you?’”
No, Godhigh said. He faked a block and ran free. He would have scored had the ball been forthcoming. Alas …
Moving left to right, Dennis took a pitch from Lee. Defensive end D.T. Shackelford crashed through and made a frantic Dennis retreat, whereupon linebacker Serderius Bryant divested him of the football.
Tech was lucky to escape with a safety — tackle Ray Beno fell on the ball in the end zone — as opposed to Ole Miss recovering for a touchdown. Still, the Jackets trailed by eight points and had to kick to the Rebels, who would run the clock down to 37 seconds. Tech’s chance had come and gone on the strangest call this coach has made at Tech.
Said Johnson: “If it works, you’re calling me a genius. If it doesn’t work, you’re calling me a dumbass.”
It wasn’t just that a trick play blew up in Johnson’s face. (Stuff happens, even to clever coaches.) Of greater importance was that Johnson’s sixth Tech team, consisting entirely of his recruits, couldn’t run his offense as well as the players he inherited from Chan Gailey did back when.
Yes, Tech entered the Music City Bowl ranked No. 4 nationally in rushing offense, but look behind the rating and we see that the Jackets mustered only 129 rushing yards against Virginia Tech, 242 against BYU and 253 against Clemson. Not coincidentally, the Jackets lost all those games. In the overtime loss to Georgia, Tech had nearly as many yards passing (232) as rushing (265) while running 34 more times than it threw.
Matched against a flimsy opponent — an Elon or even a Syracuse — the option can still click. It clicks less well against teams of comparable worth. The stylized offense that was once capable of taking down mighty opposition hasn’t managed a victory over a ranked team since October 2011.
Johnson conceded that his team was “fortunate” to have a fourth-quarter shot at Ole Miss, which outrushed Tech by 70 yards and outgained it by 179. But this was no colossus the Jackets were fighting. This was a 7-5 Ole Miss team that tied for fifth in the SEC West, an Ole Miss that botched two gimme field goals and had a PAT blocked.
Those numbers again: Tech was 20-7 and won, at least on the field, an ACC title in Johnson’s first two seasons; it’s 28-25 since. Until this season, it was possible to view Johnson’s offense as the only thing keeping the Jackets from abject mediocrity, but Ted Roof’s defense was ranked No. 22 nationally before Monday. Going on raw numbers, Tech played better D than O this regular season.
To the heart of the matter: Given that Lee has shown a greater capacity to throw a spiral than his immediate predecessors, might a more conventional offense — you know, one that deploys a tight end — suit him better? And if a coach can’t find the players to implement his design, shouldn’t the coach try to alter the design to his talent?
And so we ask: If Johnson’s offense has become the thing that’s holding Tech back and he’s not willing to change it, should Tech continue to employ him as head coach? In 2008 and 2009 his teams beat a handful of very good teams. The Jackets haven’t beaten anybody any good lately and on the penultimate day of 2013, they lost a winnable bowl game because the creator lost faith in his creation.
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