The career of former Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson has received the ultimate validation. The architect of an option-based spread offense that he designed as a 28-year-old offensive coordinator at Georgia Southern and that eventually rewrote record books at three different schools, Johnson was named to the College Football Hall of Fame Monday.
Johnson, who retired from Tech at the end of the 2018 season after a successful 11-year tenure with the Yellow Jackets, became the 20th former Tech player or coach to earn induction and joins three coaching legends – John Heisman, William Alexander and Bobby Dodd. Johnson was one of four coaches selected for the honor, as was a noted Johnson adversary, former Georgia coach Mark Richt. Former Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen, who for two stints was the offensive coordinator of potent Yellow Jackets attacks and was also on the ballot, was not selected. Johnson was selected in his first year he was eligible for induction.
Perhaps his greatest contribution to the game was the development of his triple-option scheme and his play-calling acumen with it. While often derided as a “high school offense,” the offense was the foundation of championship-winning runs at Georgia Southern, Navy and Tech over a 22-year head-coaching career. With Johnson at the helm, Georgia Southern won back-to-back FCS national championships (1999-2000), Navy rebounded from a 1-20 record in the two seasons before his arrival to winning five consecutive Commander-in-Chief Trophies after not having won any in 22 seasons and Tech reached bowl-game heights it had not attained since the 1960′s. He finished his career with a record of 190-99 as a head coach.
In his 11 seasons at Tech (2008-2018), Johnson finished with a mark of 83-60, a tenure that included the 2009 ACC championship, two additional ACC title-game appearances and nine bowl-game appearances. The 2014 team was arguably his best, finishing with a record of 11-3 and a No. 8 ranking while leading FBS in rushing offense and third-down conversion percentage. The Jackets rolled to wins over Clemson, Georgia and Mississippi State (in the Orange Bowl), all of which finished the year in the top 15. He twice led Tech to the Orange Bowl, guiding the Jackets to a major bowl for the first time since the 1967 Orange Bowl, the final game of Dodd’s legendary career.
In statements, Tech athletic director J Batt and coach Brent Key offered their congratulations to Johnson.
“On behalf of the entire Georgia Tech community, congratulations to Coach Johnson on his selection for induction to the College Football Hall of Fame,” Batt said. “Coach Johnson led our football program to great heights during his 11 seasons on The Flats, while also producing outstanding men that have gone on to enjoy success on and off the field. He is a Georgia Tech legend and it is fitting that he now stands among the greatest coaches in college football history.”
“He truly deserves to join Heisman, Alexander and Dodd as Georgia Tech’s Hall of Fame coaches due to the great success that he brought to The Flats,” Key said. “As an alumnus, I’m grateful for the legacy that he built here at Georgia Tech. I ask that Tech fans everywhere join me in thanking and congratulating him, his family and all of his former and players for this much-deserved honor.”
The offensive system – and Johnson’s acumen in running it – enabled his teams, particularly those at Navy and Tech, to often prevail over teams with advantages in talent and resources. The five recruiting classes that populated most of the 2014 Orange Bowl championship team, for example, had an average ranking of 52.6 (247Sports Composite). A landmark win for Johnson’s tenure at Navy was the 2007 upset of Notre Dame, a triple-overtime victory for the Midshipmen. It ended a 43-game losing streak to the Fighting Irish, the longest streak in NCAA history of one school over another.
Johnson’s offense was fueled by his intense competitive spirit and his undying belief in the offense he made his own.
“One thing about coach is, when somebody tells him he can’t do something, or somebody says something about the offense, that just absolutely infuriates him,” then-Tech assistant Brian Bohannon, now coach at Kennesaw State, said of Johnson in 2011.
Opposing coaches often bemoaned the difficulty in preparing to face Johnson’s teams due to the uniqueness of the scheme and the speed with which his players executed it. Among his greatest rivals at Tech was longtime Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster.
“He’s the best at what he does with that offense,” Foster said at the time of Johnson’s stepping down in 2018. “He’s seen it all. His kids were always disciplined and played tough and we had some great battles.”
“I don’t think there is a coach that I’ve seen in my career that commands, schematically, his offense the way Paul Johnson does,” said then-Duke coach David Cutcliffe, at that point in his 36th year of coaching.
Cutcliffe added that what he admired most about Johnson was that he maintained balance despite his success, won wherever he went and competed with integrity. He anticipated his eventual induction into college football’s shrine.
“He’s in my hall of fame,” Cutcliffe said. “I can tell you that for sure.”
Cutcliffe’s and now, college football’s.
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