Technical Tidbits 7/23

We all know that versatility is a huge necessity for any Paul Johnson-coached team, but Tech players Justin Thomas and D.J. White took it a little bit further yesterday when they took a shot at calling parts of a game as play-by-play announcers at the ACC Kickoff event. I'm not sure that they're quite at the level of a Wes Durham or Brandon Gaudin just yet, but if Paul Johnson decides to send them to a few more kickoff events in years to come they'll surely get there eventually. The foundation is totally there, but the rest still needs some development. No word yet on which one will forego his final years of eligibility in order to join Brandon Gaudin in the broadcast booth.

A year ago today, Tech's very own Paul Johnson topped most of the lists detailing which ACC coaches were on the hot seat for the upcoming season while Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer resided soundly in the "untouchables" category. Now ESPN has released their breakdown of coaches on the hot seat for 2015 and my, how times have changed -- Paul Johnson is nowhere to be seen while Beamer tops the list of coaches under pressure. I can see why fans of a program as successful as Virginia Tech would be upset with what Beamer has delivered in recent years, but I can't for the life of me figure out why the other ACC Coastal coaches are not feeling as much heat. Mike London of UVA, Larry Fedora of UNC, and Al Golden of Miami are perhaps the worst offenders in terms of underachieving football teams in the whole nation. How they still have their jobs is both amazing and shocking.

You can tell that an article is going to be good when the opening sentence is "Paul Johnson is my spirit animal", and this piece from WRAL.com does not disappoint. Properly titled "An Ode to Paul Johnson", the author goes into great detail about the head coach as a person rather than talking about his offense or any other football-related subject. Couple that with at least a dozen of his finest quotes from just the past week alone and you have a recipe for success. Here is a little teaser:

People who think I’m a good coach think I’m a good coach. People who think I suck think I suck. I ain’t gonna change their mind.

And he's totally right. Completely, unequivocally, 100% dead on.

I'll leave you today with the story of quarterback David Sills, who must have broken some kind of record when he committed to play football for USC in seventh grade. That was over five years ago, back in 2010, and now the former prodigy will officially begin his college career.... at West Virginia. The general gist of the piece confirms what most of the nation -- excluding USC -- have known forever, which is that offering a middle schooler is a bad idea. Go figure, go Trojans.

Is Paul Johnson your spirit animal? If not, then which coach or other figure is?