Nov. 29, 2009
– GEORGIA TECH HEAD COACH Paul Johnson
Opening Statement:
“I’m extremely disappointed in the outcome of the game. You have to give Georgia credit. They had a plan to come in and run the ball and keep us off the field and they accomplished that. We had a hard time getting them off the field and when that happens, you put a lot of pressure of your offense to score every time. We didn’t get it done in the first half and we just didn’t make enough plays. That’s what happens, it’s disappointing.”
On the play calling on Georgia Tech’s final drive:
“Well, the first one was a wheel route that we thought because we had thrown the out to the inside receiver that we had the chance to make a play. That was a few feet away from being a catch at the two-yard line. The one to Anthony Allen was a stretch route that he broke across the middle on and he clearly had the guy beat, but we didn’t make a play. On the last one, we just didn’t make a play. [Demaryius Thomas] made plays all year and without him; we wouldn’t even have been in the game. There’s no one play you can look at. We just didn’t make enough plays. They did a good job of keeping us off the field.”
On if injuries affected the defensive:
“I don’t think they affected us. They just kind of whipped us up front, I guess. We overran a lot and missed some tackles. We’ll have a better idea of what happened when we look at the tape.”
On what he told the team afterwards:
“You have to move on. You’re disappointed that you lost the game, but it’s never as good or bad as it seems. They’ll look at the tape and they’ll see some things they could’ve done better and we’ll see some things as coaches that we could’ve done better and we’ll move on. You can’t let one game define a season. Our number one goal was to try to win the ACC and we will play for that next week in Tampa. Like I said, we’re all disappointed. It was a big game and we all wanted to win, but it just didn’t happen. You just move on.”
On what effect losing Josh Nesbitt for a time in the second quarter had on the team:
“I’m sure it might’ve affected the mindset a little bit. I thought Jaybo [Shaw] came in and did a good job. The plays he was in there other guys busted, not him. We had a tackle that blocked the wrong guy on the option and the interception might have been a tad underthrown, but it wasn’t bad. Their kid made a great play on it. He came from the other side and made a nice play. We have no excuses. We got beat. It happens sometimes when you play. Like I said we didn’t make enough plays and Georgia did my hats off to them.”
GEORGIA TECH A-BACK Roddy Jones
On Fighting Back – “I thought we had a chance there at the end, and we did have a chance. We fought back hard. It was a crazy game again, but we dug ourselves into a hole in the first half.”
On Josh Nesbitt’s Injury – “I don’t know that it affected us that much. We know that football is a game where injuries happen. Nesbitt got hurt, Jaybo stepped up, and I thought Jaybo did a pretty good job. He came in, and managed the offense until Josh came back.”
On the Effect of the Bye Week – “I don’t think so, we just didn’t play well. The bye week was something that I thought was good for us, everybody came back refreshed and with a little bit of bounce in their step, but we just didn’t come out and play well tonight.”
On Looking Past Georgia to Clemson – “No. You never look past a rivalry like this. We knew that they were a talented team, and that they had a lot of guys that could make plays. They came out today and they played well and we didn’t. Now we’ve got to look towards the ACC Championship game.”
On the ACC Championship – “I think we will definitely use this as motivation for Clemson game. I know they lost their rivalry game too, so they are going to come out just as fired up and it is going to come down to execution. We’ve just got to come out this week and tune things up in practice and correct the mistakes that we made.”
GEORGIA TECH QUARTERBACK Josh Nesbitt
On Close Misses at the End of the Game – “That’s the type of game this is. It’s a dogfight, and a game of inches.”
On the ACC Championship – “We have just got to take all of our anger out on Clemson and play our hearts out in that game.”
On What Was Said to Demaryius Thomas After the Game – “Just keep your head up, you have done a lot of great things for this team, and don’t let one play define what you have done.”
GEORGIA TECH B-BACK Jonathan Dwyer
On Only Getting 33 Yards – “It wouldn’t matter if I ran for one hundred million yards tonight or zero. I just wanted to win the game. I don’t think we played our best game. They came out hungry and ready to play, and we didn’t respond.”
On the Effect of the Bye Week – “We didn’t match their intensity, and didn’t make the big plays that we should have made. We made some mistakes, but I don’t think the week off messed us up.”
On Getting Over the Loss – “We have no choice but to get back into the mindset of getting over this. If we go into this next week against Clemson, it’s not going to look good if we go in with our heads down. We need to get over this fast, and we have a bigger game to worry about.”
GEORGIA HEAD COACH MARK RICHT
Opening statement
“Just a great job by our coaches, our players and our program. A group of guys you don’t thank very often is your scout team. Vernon Spellman played QB all week, and we had a bunch of guys do a great job simulating the look. Our coaches did a fantastic job of having the plan ready as quickly as possible. Our players bought in 100 percent of what we were trying to get done on both sides of the ball. I thought our special teams were outstanding. They needed to be, because we weren’t covering kicks very well. We had one that spit out more than we wanted it to. The coverage team rose to the occasion. I don’t think anybody punted, so that’s a little less film we have to watch tomorrow.
“Considering how our season has gone, and playing one of the hottest teams in America, one of the best teams in America this season, in their house, to get the victory was a great tribute to the Georgia football program. Glad we were able to get this victory for our fan base, for our players and for the coaches.”
On Georgia’s success running the ball (high for Georgia under Richt)
“I never would have predicted that. I know we wanted to run the ball. I know we wanted to control the clock as much as possible. We wanted to keep the ball away from Georgia Tech as much as we could. They’re a team that grinds the clock and has long drives. We wanted to at least do a decent job in that area. I never would have dreams we would have done quite that well, especially running the ball so much. I think we ran it every down that first drive. I don’t think we threw a pass in the first quarter.
“Just a great job of blocking up front. I know out tight ends blocked well. I know our receivers blocked well.”
What did you say when you rallied the team up in the fourth quarter?
“I knew that Georgia Tech has scored a lot of points in the fourth quarter. I also knew that we have scored the least amount of points all season long in our fourth quarters. We needed to finish. I just wanted to keep the fire stokes up as much as possible and keep encouraging them to do the things that we’ve been talking about all week, which was focusing on your job, playing physical, and tackling when you get there. We thought we could get there. We just had to make sure we tackled when we got there. Their biggest plays came when they broke tackles. If we’d tackled extremely well, it would have been an even better ball game.”
Was King’s run the biggest play of the game?
“It probably was. They chose to play a lot of zero coverage. They put just aobut everybody at linebacker level. If you spit it through there, then there’s no one to clean up, and that’s how that thing spit out. They had no safety help on that. They pretty much stuck with that the rest of the game. We weren’t able to run it quite as effectively in the second half because they were really selling out to stop it. We probably should have taken a couple more shots. We planned on taking more downfield shots, but because the score was what it was and because we still had success running the ball and grinding clock, we stayed a little more patient with the run that normal.”
