PAUL JOHNSON GEORGIA TECH
Well, good morning. Clearly our season has not gone the way we would have liked, and it's kind of been a situation where we continued to make some critical errors at inopportune times, and haven't found a way to get it done. We've got another challenge this week going to a place where historically we have not had a lot of success. I think there's no question that Miami still has very good players and is a talented team, and hopefully we can go finally put it together on both offense and defense for four quarters.
Q. Working on a story on the Iron Bowl and the kick six, the missed field goal, return touchdown. I was wondering if you thought that that play was the greatest play in college football history, and if so, why, and if not what you feel the greatest play is in college football history.
PAUL JOHNSON: Wow, well, that encompasses a lot of territory. Certainly if you asked the people at Alabama or Auburn, they would tell you it was probably the biggest play in college football history. You know, I think any time you're getting up in those rivalry games and you have a special play like that, it's certainly going to go down in lore. But I'd be hard pressed to answer that without really thinking through. There have been a lot of huge plays in college football history, but certainly that was a big one.
Q. How did that play impact how you go about preparing for long field goals?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think it varies. We've always worked -- certainly if you're kicking them you work on covering the kicks all the time in practice, and depending on who the kicker and the situation is to where you put a guy back. Clearly the guy from Florida State, we didn't have any question that he could kick it that far. He's probably the top kicker in the country. We wanted to try to utilize our guys to block it. I didn't think there was going to be a return opportunity. If he missed it I didn't think it was because it would be short. You know, every situation is a little bit different, and I think you just have to practice them that way.
Q. As you mentioned, obviously the season hasn't gone the way you wanted, but what do you hope to accomplish for the program going forward with the last two games against two pretty traditional opponents, two games you obviously want to win?
PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, we've got a lot of really young guys that are playing. I think that we're playing six freshmen on offense most of the time, and defensively we've had some of our older guys with injuries, so we're starting, I guess, three or four freshmen over there, as well. And what it does, it gives them another opportunity to play and compete, and hopefully we start to lay the foundation. It's been a weird year, and every game we've played with the exception of Clemson has been a one-possession game. We've managed to find a way to come out on the wrong end of all of them with the exception of the Florida State game. I think that every time you have an opportunity to go out there, you learn and compete, and certainly we haven't had much success in Miami since I've been here, so it's a chance to go down there and try to get that turned around, as well.
Q. Is there ever any point where you do something in a game like this looking ahead to the future more than trying to win the game on Saturday?
PAUL JOHNSON: Not me. I'm always going to try to win. I'm pretty competitive, so anybody who knows me knows that I don't take losing very easily. We're going to try to win the game, I can assure you that. I am; you can bank on that.
Q. Obviously you are coming off these back to back close losses and other losses you've had this year have also been close, like the Pittsburgh one. What does that tell you about this team, that the team is missing a certain ingredient, whether it's experience or talent or what have you, to win those close ballgames, or do you kind of look at that and say, okay, that shows me that at any point such as this week, this team could turn that close game into a win?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I don't think it's any one thing. I think that probably a lot of it is being young. That's some of it. You know, the last game was just ridiculous. I mean, we fumbled the ball three times in the second half, and we get the ball down where we're either in field goal range or very close, and we get an untimely penalty. The series before we drop a ball wide open on a pass play. The best way to win is not lose, so you've got to quit beating yourself. Their last touchdown to go ahead we got them in 3rd and long and we get a pass interference penalty. It's like we're finding ways to lose. You could go back to each game -- I think sometimes that comes with youth and sometimes you've just got to get a break here or there to kind of turn it. But you're not going to win very many games when you fumble the ball three times in the second half. You know, you have to take your hat off to the team you're playing, give them credit for getting it. But we fumbled the ball on a toss and on a call to hand give, which is ridiculous.
Q. You talked a little bit about some of the very young players that you're playing this year. Can you talk about some of them and the bright spots you see for you going forward with them?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, if you go on offense, both our offensive tackles are freshmen. Will Bryan is a true freshman, Trey Klock is a redshirt freshman. They're both starting. We really won't lose -- we lose Trey Braun at left guard I think is the only guy we're losing on a starting offensive line right now. All the skill guys return, so that's 10 of 11 on offense. Defensively we're playing Brant Mitchell is a freshman linebacker who's had a great year. He's been starting for probably the last six, seven, eight games. Kyle Henderson is now starting at defensive tackle. Anree Saint-Amour is playing a bunch at defensive end. You know, there's just a bunch of those guys playing, and you hope that the experience they gain is going to be invaluable, and when you come back you've got a good nucleus returning as opposed to when we started this year we didn't have any skill players with the exception of the quarterback returning on offense. We'll have some growing pains, and quite frankly we haven't played as well defensively as we thought we would before guys got injured, but that's part of it. Like I said, we've been in every game. We've got to figure out a way to win them. You go all the way back to the North Carolina game, we're up 21-0 in that game and got a chance to put them away on the goal line with two pops from the six-inch line and don't get it in. You know, those things you've got to finish. We just haven't done very well at finishing the games.
Well, good morning. Clearly our season has not gone the way we would have liked, and it's kind of been a situation where we continued to make some critical errors at inopportune times, and haven't found a way to get it done. We've got another challenge this week going to a place where historically we have not had a lot of success. I think there's no question that Miami still has very good players and is a talented team, and hopefully we can go finally put it together on both offense and defense for four quarters.
Q. Working on a story on the Iron Bowl and the kick six, the missed field goal, return touchdown. I was wondering if you thought that that play was the greatest play in college football history, and if so, why, and if not what you feel the greatest play is in college football history.
PAUL JOHNSON: Wow, well, that encompasses a lot of territory. Certainly if you asked the people at Alabama or Auburn, they would tell you it was probably the biggest play in college football history. You know, I think any time you're getting up in those rivalry games and you have a special play like that, it's certainly going to go down in lore. But I'd be hard pressed to answer that without really thinking through. There have been a lot of huge plays in college football history, but certainly that was a big one.
Q. How did that play impact how you go about preparing for long field goals?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think it varies. We've always worked -- certainly if you're kicking them you work on covering the kicks all the time in practice, and depending on who the kicker and the situation is to where you put a guy back. Clearly the guy from Florida State, we didn't have any question that he could kick it that far. He's probably the top kicker in the country. We wanted to try to utilize our guys to block it. I didn't think there was going to be a return opportunity. If he missed it I didn't think it was because it would be short. You know, every situation is a little bit different, and I think you just have to practice them that way.
Q. As you mentioned, obviously the season hasn't gone the way you wanted, but what do you hope to accomplish for the program going forward with the last two games against two pretty traditional opponents, two games you obviously want to win?
PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, we've got a lot of really young guys that are playing. I think that we're playing six freshmen on offense most of the time, and defensively we've had some of our older guys with injuries, so we're starting, I guess, three or four freshmen over there, as well. And what it does, it gives them another opportunity to play and compete, and hopefully we start to lay the foundation. It's been a weird year, and every game we've played with the exception of Clemson has been a one-possession game. We've managed to find a way to come out on the wrong end of all of them with the exception of the Florida State game. I think that every time you have an opportunity to go out there, you learn and compete, and certainly we haven't had much success in Miami since I've been here, so it's a chance to go down there and try to get that turned around, as well.
Q. Is there ever any point where you do something in a game like this looking ahead to the future more than trying to win the game on Saturday?
PAUL JOHNSON: Not me. I'm always going to try to win. I'm pretty competitive, so anybody who knows me knows that I don't take losing very easily. We're going to try to win the game, I can assure you that. I am; you can bank on that.
Q. Obviously you are coming off these back to back close losses and other losses you've had this year have also been close, like the Pittsburgh one. What does that tell you about this team, that the team is missing a certain ingredient, whether it's experience or talent or what have you, to win those close ballgames, or do you kind of look at that and say, okay, that shows me that at any point such as this week, this team could turn that close game into a win?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I don't think it's any one thing. I think that probably a lot of it is being young. That's some of it. You know, the last game was just ridiculous. I mean, we fumbled the ball three times in the second half, and we get the ball down where we're either in field goal range or very close, and we get an untimely penalty. The series before we drop a ball wide open on a pass play. The best way to win is not lose, so you've got to quit beating yourself. Their last touchdown to go ahead we got them in 3rd and long and we get a pass interference penalty. It's like we're finding ways to lose. You could go back to each game -- I think sometimes that comes with youth and sometimes you've just got to get a break here or there to kind of turn it. But you're not going to win very many games when you fumble the ball three times in the second half. You know, you have to take your hat off to the team you're playing, give them credit for getting it. But we fumbled the ball on a toss and on a call to hand give, which is ridiculous.
Q. You talked a little bit about some of the very young players that you're playing this year. Can you talk about some of them and the bright spots you see for you going forward with them?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, if you go on offense, both our offensive tackles are freshmen. Will Bryan is a true freshman, Trey Klock is a redshirt freshman. They're both starting. We really won't lose -- we lose Trey Braun at left guard I think is the only guy we're losing on a starting offensive line right now. All the skill guys return, so that's 10 of 11 on offense. Defensively we're playing Brant Mitchell is a freshman linebacker who's had a great year. He's been starting for probably the last six, seven, eight games. Kyle Henderson is now starting at defensive tackle. Anree Saint-Amour is playing a bunch at defensive end. You know, there's just a bunch of those guys playing, and you hope that the experience they gain is going to be invaluable, and when you come back you've got a good nucleus returning as opposed to when we started this year we didn't have any skill players with the exception of the quarterback returning on offense. We'll have some growing pains, and quite frankly we haven't played as well defensively as we thought we would before guys got injured, but that's part of it. Like I said, we've been in every game. We've got to figure out a way to win them. You go all the way back to the North Carolina game, we're up 21-0 in that game and got a chance to put them away on the goal line with two pops from the six-inch line and don't get it in. You know, those things you've got to finish. We just haven't done very well at finishing the games.
