Comments from Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson following his team’s 27-21 win over Miami Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium:
Opening statement:
“It was a heck of a football game. I’m really proud of our team, we dug down and made some plays. It wasn’t always pretty, but we made fewer mistakes than they did and we were able to capitalize on a couple of their mistakes and come out on top. At times we played good on defense and then that last drive with seven minutes left, six-and-a-half, whatever it was and to be able to run that out was huge. Really proud of our team and the way they played. It wasn’t always perfect. It wasn’t pretty. It’s not going to be a pretty stat game because I think in the first half, both teams had the ball four times. It was like an academy game, it seemed like. But I learned a long time ago that 27 is more than 21 so that’s all that matters.”
On quarterback TaQuon Marshall’s play:
“I think he was, what 2-for-2? 3-for-4. The one (pass) on that last drive, the third-down pass to Jalen (Camp) was huge. The play to Brad (Stewart), Brad ran a heck of a route. The guy (covering him) must have almost fell down; he was wide open. I thought he did well in the passing game. They were running a lot of up charges and we were having a hard time reading the triple (option) at times, but there on that last drive, there on that third-down play, we kind of caught ’em on a midline and caught ’em on an up charge and got a big first down. Once we got that first down, it was kind of over.”
On Brad Stewart’s play:
“Brad Stewart’s been playing his tail off for the last three or four or five weeks. Really, all season. I can’t say enough good things about the kid. He’s unselfish. He goes in there and blocks. I’m sure, it’s his senior year, he’d like to be catching more ball, but it’s kind of whatever he can do to help the team win. And I’d love to have a whole team of Brad Stewarts. Because he certainly puts the team first.”
On gaining bowl eligibility after 1-3 start:
“It’s been a lot of clawback. I’m happy for the kids. It’s something they wanted to do. I told ’em after the game: We weren’t just trying to get to six (wins). You have to get to six before you can get to seven or eight or whatever, but we’ve still got a lot to play for. We’re playing a lot better now than we were earlier in the year, and we’ve kind of dug ourselves out of the big hole we dug ourselves in.”
On Miami testing Tech with deep balls:
“We struggled playing the deep ball some, so you know they’re going to test you and they did, and they got some really good receivers. Number 4’s (Jeff Thomas) really fast and they’ve got some tall guys and they were max protecting some, running some deep routes, but I thought overall for the most part, our guys played ’em pretty good.”
On avoiding mistakes:
“The biggest thing we had wanted to do offensively was not turn the ball over, not take negative plays. And for the most part, we did that. We had the one in the third quarter. It was unfortunate. We were down there in field-goal range and we lost some yards, but for the most part, we did a pretty good job, although sometimes you get in a game like this and it doesn’t look like it. I think our offensive line probably played better tonight than they did last week at North Carolina because the guys they were playing against were really good players and they stayed in there and fought their tail off.”
On Marshall and backup Tobias Oliver:
“They’re both great kids, and I would have liked to have got Tobias in there more maybe, but the way the game was going, like I said, it was so few plays. It was a crazy game. It’s been a long time since I saw a game where one team ran 53 plays and the other team ran 57. It’s just crazy the kind of the way it worked.”
