Comments from Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson following his team's 49-28 win over Virginia Tech Thursday night at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va.
Opening statement:
“I’m proud of the way our team played. I thought the team kept playing. The game certainly didn’t start out very well, but we went out and answered score for score and we finally got one up on ’em right there at halftime. We knew we were going to get the ball to start the second half. We were able to overcome a call and take it down and score.”
On the play of the defense:
“Big time. The defense came out and got two really big stops in the second half there and enabled the offense to put the game away.”
On the fumbled punt:
“We had pretty good momentum. We were moving the ball pretty good. Anytime there’s one turnver in the game, when you get it, that’s big in a game like this.”
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On playing at such a high level:
"We just played well. They've got some young guys on defense and we played well. They got good Georgia Tech. This year, it's been good Georgia Tech, bad Georgia Tech. They got good Georgia Tech."
On Tobias Oliver:
“Played his tail off. He practiced all week. TaQuon (Marshall) was cleared to play, but he only got a couple days of practice, and I’m not sure – even though he was cleared, I don’t know that he was 100 percent cleared. I’ve got a lot of confidence in Tobias and we can play that way with Tobias. He’s quick and fast and hard-nosed and he can run all those follow plays and all those keeps and he played his tail off. I don’t know how many yards he ended up with – 215? – he played well.”
More on the play of the defense:
“We didn’t give up the big plays and we made a couple third-down stops. In the first half, I don’t know they got to third down much, but we had to get our corners involved. They came out with a good plan. They were trying to make the corners tackle people and we didn’t do it. We weren’t physical. And made a couple of adjustments and in the second half we did a little better.”
More about Oliver:
“I thought he played with a lot of poise and took care of the ball and did what we need to do. It’s like I said: we’re a decent team when we don’t turn the ball over and have penalties. It is what it is. But I thought he played well.”
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On winning three in a row against Virginia Tech:
“Just trying to pay ’em back. They got us a bunch early.”
On if Marshall will start next week:
“I have no idea. We’ll see if TaQuon gets healthy. We’ll watch in practice. TaQuon, he was the starter for a reason. He didn’t practice. He had one practice last week. So when he couldn’t come back and practice, my way of doing things, it’s not fair to the guys who practices all the time not to let him play. Now had (Oliver) gone out there and struggled, we could have either decided to play James (Graham) because James got a lot of work or we could have put TaQuon in there. He was cleared to play, but he hadn’t been hit since the last game, so if he’d have gotten tackled, who knows?
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