Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson’s comments following the Yellow Jackets’ 45-21 loss to No. 5 Georgia Saturday in Athens.
Opening statement
“We played against a really good football team and we played very poorly. I think they probably had something to do with a lot of that. Offensively, they were pretty much a machine there in the first half. We got ourselves dug in a hole and never could put together anything consistently on offense.
The first drive, we make a couple first downs and we got a fourth-and-1 and jump offsides. I think the first half, we had the ball four times sand couldn’t do much with it. And then the second half, we got the old block-below-the-waist call which I talked to (the officials) about (before the game).
The back judge throws (the flag), the guy’s two yards down the field. Killed that drive. The game was over by then, but just never could get anything going offensively at all.
The offense needs to possess the ball. For us to have a chance, we have to possess the ball and score and we didn’t do that today. And credit to Georgia. They did what they had to to win the game.”
On defensive play
“We’ve struggled some. It gets masked sometimes when there’s a game of limited possessions as long as you can hold the ball and score. But we’ve struggled. We’ve struggled mightily on the back end. We missed a ton of tackles.”
On the UGA touchdown in which linebacker Brant Mitchell was caught defending UGA wide receiver Mecole Hardman:
“I think that was the call. that was the coverage call probably. Probably not a good one with him in the slot.”
On the offense’s play
“We had a hard time blocking. We never could get anything going. We’d get a first down or two. We missed some reads and in a game like that, when you miss the read and you miss your turn, you just keep getting buried, and there’s not much margin for error. You can’t go four possessions without scoring and expect to be in the game.”
On pass protection
“We couldn’t pass protect against their first group. They were back there before you could set your feet.”
On how he felt about game
“Yeah, it’s frustrating. Frustrated I couldn’t find more ways to help them.”
On the stacked wideout look
“We worked on it during the week and we had a package out of it that we were going to run, but I think we ran 20 plays in the first half, so there really was no place to run it. When (UGA) came out and we went 3 and out and they scored to start the third quarter, my thought process was, we need to hang onto the ball. And we did a decent job of running out the third quarter, but we didn’t get any points out of it. We got down there (but didn’t score).
And again, there was really little or no margin for error. If you missed a read, you never blocked ’em good enough to gain it back. it was slow, probably three yards at a pop. And when you missed one and got behind, it was tough.”
On the game
“They’re a good team and we played horribly so put the two together and that’s what you get. You get your butt kicked.”
On if he had hoped pass rush would be better
“You’re always hopeful that you’re going to get there. He had some time, but there were guys wide open. They tried to make the corners play and they did right from the very first play of the game. He hit plays. He didn’t have many third downs when he was in there.”
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