Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson’s comments following the Yellow Jackets’ 63-17 win over Bowling Green Saturday at Bobby Dodd Stadium:
Opening statement:
“Well, that was a lot more fun. I thought that offensively, we were very efficient. We went back and tried to simplify and just make sure that we did things the right way. I don’t think we had a penalty on offense and we might have had one bad snap, but the ball was never out and when you do that, you have a chance. Defensively, we gave up some yardage and some first downs, but we did a decent job of keeping them out of the end zone and we got some turnovers that set up short scores. It was a crazy game. For a team that goes fast, I think there was only eight or nine offensive possessions. So there wasn’t a lot of possessions. The way the game was going, we were pretty efficient on offense. It felt like we had the game pretty much in hand.”
Pitch relationship between quarterback TaQuon Marshall and A-backs:
“It’s a little better. I think that we spent a lot of time working on it. there’s still a lot of things that we need to get better at. That looked more like one of our football teams.”
On Marshall’s passing:
“When you give him time … Nobody can throw the ball when they don’t have time. Most of the stuff we threw today was play action, other than the first play. We were trying to isolate on a certain player. Other than that, it was pretty much all play action.
The one that he threw to Qua (Searcy) could have been caught. I thought he did a good job. He came out and played a clean game. I don’t know that he missed a read on the option. Got the ball dealt and played very well.”
On observations from the game:
“I think that we played better. We didn’t put the ball on the ground, we didn’t turn the ball over, we didn’t have the stupid penalties. It’s like I told our guys. It’s about us it, not about who you play. Most of the time, it’s about you. Next week, we’ve got to go to Louisville and play and it’s still going to be about us. You’ve got to play without putting the ball on the ground. You can’t have a bunch of missed assignments and missed coverages and those kind of things. We’ve still got some work to do on the tempo stuff. They got us several times, especially on short-yardage sneaks, snapping the ball before we were ready to play and all that. So there’s still a lot to work on. It’s disappointing; we had a penalty on Juanyeh’s (Thomas) kickoff return. He did a nice job with that and the one guy who has been pretty consistent for the most part for the year is Pressley Harvin punting the ball. He hit a great punt. We wore him out last week, so it was good we didn’t have to use him much today.”
On ending losing streak:
“We dug ourselves a hole and we’ve got to dig it out one week at a time. It’s not undoable. It’s like I said: We’ve got to go to Louisville now and win an ACC game on the road and we’re back to even and we’ll play the last half of the season and see where it goes.”
On changing placekickers to Wesley Wells:
“We’ve struggled there and I thought Shawn did a great job kicking off. He did a great job today with that. We missed a couple extra points, we’ve missed some field goals, so we had a kicking competition this week in practice and the freshman won. So when he won, he got to kick.”
On center Jahaziel Lee:
“In all honesty, in a perfect world, if we could get them all healthy, Kenny Cooper would be the center and Jahaziel would be the starting tackle where he started for two years. Jahaziel, I can’t say enough good things about Jahaziel because he went in from tackle and played center when we didn’t have anybody. So he had to learn on the job starting the last week of spring and fall camp and he’s done a good job with it. He’s certainly one of our better players. If we can get Kenny back out there, we’ve got to find a place for Jahaziel to play.”
On backup quarterback Tobias Oliver:
“He’s really quick, he’s shifty, he gets downhill and he’s quicker than people think. I was giving him a hard time on the sideline. I told him he went 62 yards in 13 seconds, so that’s not real good. But he continues to progress. I think the very first play he was in there, sometimes he doesn’t want to turn it loose, but then the next play, he pitched it. He’ll learn the more he plays.”
On the defense:
“I told the coach after the game, I think they have some pretty good wide receivers. They were quick, and to start the game we weren’t getting inside the third guy on some of those (run/pass options) and some of that we changed up. We started to stem a little bit but there wasn’t a great deal of change. I think it’s like anything. With the defense, for Nate (Woody) sometimes it’s frustrating because he doesn’t have everything in. And sometimes, there’s stuff that you want to run that’s not in and so we stay fairly vanilla at times, which is what we did on offense. I think the more we’re out there, the more he’ll get in and the more pressure stuff you’ll see and those kind of things.”
On defensive fundamentals:
“You really have to watch the tape, but I thought we did a good job against the run game. They struggled to run the ball and they became somewhat one dimensional. While they converted too many third downs and possessed the ball – I don’t know what the time of possession was; it had to be close – actually, they were 33 minutes and we were 26. Some of it’s scoring a little faster on offense, but their third downs were 11 of 19. We’re not going to survive like that. We’ve got to do better on third down.”
On wide receivers:
“I thought they played well. We didn’t throw the ball a lot but they cracked and blocked and got after folks. It was good to see Steve (Dolphus) make a play. The ball was underthrown just a little end he came back and got it. Jalen (Camp) made a couple of nice plays, Clinton (Lynch) made a play. Those guys, today was a day that they – Brad didn’t really get one thrown his way – but I remember the very first time we cracked the safety, he almost knocked him out over there on their bench.”
On Clinton Lynch’s achievement of 1,000 rushing and receiving yards:
“Just happy for Clinton. He’s been a good player and been consistent. If there’s one guy that always seems to be around big plays, it’s Clinton. He just has a knack for being in the right spot at the right time and when he’s there, he usually makes the play.”
Michael Cunningham’s column about the fun returning to Bobby Dodd Stadium
About the Author
