Paul Johnson Weekly Press Conference - Oct. 2, 2018
Paul Johnson Weekly Press Conference (Game 6 – at Louisville, Oct. 5)
Opening Statement:
“I thought we played a little bit better against Bowling Green. It was good to get on the positive side. Trying to get ready for Louisville with a short week. We kind of knew it was coming on a Friday night so we had a plan for it and hopefully we’re on schedule there with preparation. Any time you have a young team, I’m not sure you ever have as much time as you’d like. But I think the preparation is going OK and we’re getting ready to play.”
On if Georgia Tech is more ready for Louisville’s pass-heavy offense after playing Bowling Green:
“I think they’d like to run the ball more if they could be more successful with it. They’re probably not satisfied with their running game right now, but that’s kind of who they are with a quarterback and they’ve got some good receivers. So I think we’re going to see their [usual] offense, I don’t think they’re going to change for us.”
On practicing after a win:
“I think the frustration level is probably not as high, but our kids have practiced well all year long. We haven’t had an issue with that. Really, other than frustration, our guys have never gotten down or given up or whatever. They just go about their business. So practice has been the same.”
On Louisville tight end Micky Crum and the rest of Louisville’s pass-catchers:
“He’s [Micky Crum] a good player. They play with a couple of tight ends. It depends on what they do. They’re going to try to read the coverage and throw it to the guy that’s open. If it’s [not] the tight end, I don’t think they’re going to try to force him the ball. They like to spread it around. The big receiver [Jaylen Smith], who had been really good, has struggled with a lot of drops and last week he kind of got back on par and played well and didn’t do that. They’ve got some guys to ding it around to.”
On coaching the team in light of Georgia Tech’s seven-game road losing streak:
“You’ve just got to go play. It’s like I’ve said, it’s hard to win [ACC] games in general and it’s hard to go win games on the road. We don’t talk about that. I tell our team and, as coaches, we try to – I try to do it but sometimes it’s hard – you just have to turn off all the noise. It’s all it is – a distraction. Don’t worry about stuff you can’t control. You’ve just got to be able to get ready and go play. The field’s 100 yards long, the same width, the same everything. You’ve just got to go play.”
On playing at Louisville’s Cardinal Stadium:
“[Georgia Tech players] won’t have to worry about [fans not bringing energy], because they’ve got pretty good fans there and I’m sure they’ll have a raucous crowd. They usually do.”
On Georgia Tech outside linebacker Charlie Thomas:
“He played a lot of reps last week, I think he’ll play some [this Friday]. I think he was out there about 30 reps last week, so he played a pretty good amount of time. Certainly, the plan is to play him this week, for sure.”
On if he said anything to Georgia Tech quarterback TaQuon Marshall prior to BG game about playing more relaxed:
“TaQuon’s probably had a couple of halves where he didn’t play very good. The first half at Pitt and maybe the first half against Clemson. But that wasn’t all him. I’m not worried about TaQuon. He’ll be fine. It’s like I said … if everybody else plays as well as he does, we’ll be OK.”
On playing college football on Friday nights:
“I guess that that would be a positive, that you’re a national TV game on Friday night. Personally, to me, I think Friday night is high school football night. I think the one thing is it’s at least on the road. I think we’d get some blowback if you played a Friday night game in the state of Georgia here with the high schools. The way that TV controls everything nowadays, it’s in the contract. This is the first time we’ve had to play on a Friday night. We come back, and then you talk about schedules, and then in two weeks you go play on Thursday night. It’s different. It takes you out of your routine but you have to plan for it.”
On if there’s a distinct advantage to playing teams for the first time with Georgia Tech’s spread option offense:
“Possibly. I like to think we’ve done well against whoever we’ve played who doesn’t have a lot of really good players. If you go through the line – I mean, forever I heard that the second time around, third time around and fourth time around, every time that we used to play that we didn’t play well on offense – ‘Well, there it is. That’s the gameplan. People have the blueprint, that’s the way they’re going to play [against the spread option offense] forever.’ And it’s just like Clemson and South Florida. They lined up exactly the same way, but didn’t have the same players. Different result. That’s kind of what happens. We executed better at South Florida than we did against Clemson also. That didn’t help.
“But that’s what I’m saying. It comes down to playing the game. All that stuff [about spread option vs. new teams] is blown way out of proportion, I think. Now, if you play a team that’s not used to coming off the ball and they’re used to catching and some of that? Yeah, it can be an advantage sometimes maybe.”
