We’re now well past the ides of July, and the end of the college football offseason can be seen faintly on the horizon. Unofficially marking this denouement are conference media days: a series of press conferences to which teams send their coaches and a few players to issue some platitudes upon which a college football media, starved for any sliver of news, feasts. The Atlantic Coast Conference hosted its sessions in Charlotte, NC last week with the Coastal teams’ press conferences scheduled for Wednesday, followed by the Atlantic teams’ on Thursday. And so, without further ado, let us feast on the few scraps of news brought to us by Georgia Tech’s representatives at ACC Media Days: head coach Paul Johnson, senior quarterback TaQuon Marshall, and senior linebacker Brant Mitchell.
As previously mentioned, most of the responses from our trio were simple statements emphasizing hard work, grit, team buy-in, motivation, and forward thinking. That being said, there were a few key takeaways:
The offense brings back a lot of experience, and the guy who runs it has gotten better at it.
Tech returns its quarterback, its entire set of A-backs, its primary B-back, and most of its offensive line in 2018. Suffice to say, the scene is set for TaQuon Marshall to reign supreme over an experienced and resurgent offense and establish a new (old-)gold standard. Coach Johnson admits “we’re probably better in the two-deep than we’ve been in a while in case someone gets hurt“, and it’s hard not to see why when you take a look at the depth chart. In a transition year, this offense was able to put up 391.6 total yards of offense, most of that being on the ground (307.4 rush yards per game - good enough for 4th in the nation). Rest assured, the running game will be good (as it always has been under Johnson).
But, in his own admission, Marshall struggled mightily when it came to throwing the ball. At ACC Media Days, Marshall described one such situation in last year’s game versus Virginia in Charlottesville: he threw a high floating pass out to Qua Searcy on the sideline that was picked off by UVA safety Quin Blanding. Marshall admitted that he didn’t see Clinton Lynch get wide open in the center of the field, and a well-thrown ball to Lynch would likely have led to a touchdown. However, Marshall explained to reporters at ACC Media Days that the passing game has been his point of emphasis in spring camp and over the summer. In practice and 7-on-7 drills, he’s focused on his timing, footwork, and pocket presence, admitting that he had a tendency to zone in on his first read and rush out of the pocket early if he can’t find his first option open. Marshall won’t have 2017’s reliable deep threat Ricky Jeune (now with the St. Louis Los Angeles Rams), but when asked about Jeune’s heir apparent, he seemed willing to spread the deep ball around: “There’s not going to be one specific person this we’re going to target. [We] have a couple of guys that we can throw the ball to.“ Freshman Jalen Camp and senior Brad Stewart look to be those guys, and it will be interesting to see which of them becomes Tech’s prototypical edge blocker and reliable deep ball receiver this season. All in all, the Georgia Tech offense has the tools and experience to take the next step towards major success in 2018.
A new defensive scheme poses new challenges, and replacing an entire secondary will be difficult, but Tech is ready for the task.
From the Rumble Seat has previously written at length about new defensive coordinator Nate Woody and Tech’s switch to the 3-4 defense (see: here and here), but the fact remains that installing a new defensive scheme remains one of the most intriguing prospects of the 2018 season. Brant Mitchell and Coach Johnson came prepared to face the music on how the roster has gelled with Coach Woody and taken to a new defensive philosophy. “It’s an attack-style defense,” Mitchell explained. He continued, “We’re going to be moving a lot more. I mean, I think our defense is a little bit more unpredictable than it has been in the past,” and went on to highlight how the change in defense will allow players to be more athletic and more aggressive on the field. Coach Johnson hit many of the same points in his portion of the conference, also noting that Coach Woody has a lot of experience having a lot of success with his attacking style of defense and adding that modern offenses become too dangerous if defenses can’t force negative plays, something Tech had trouble doing under former defensive coordinator Ted Roof. Forcing opposing offenses to make mistakes and ensuring that Tech capitalizes off said mistakes will no doubt be a key focus in game prep this season. Mitchell sums the defensive scheme switch succinctly: “The transition is going to be a challenge. Obviously, there will be a learning curve. But we’re excited about it and we’re excited what it’s going to do to our opponents.“
While it installs a new base defense up front, Tech also must replace its entire secondary with a fresh crop of inexperienced talent in 2018. Nishant previewed the new-look Tech secondary last week, so check that out for a detailed analysis. Mitchell’s aforementioned conclusion also applies to the secondary; it’s always a challenge to replace five two-year starters, but Tech’s players seem ready to step up and take it to their opponents.
Recruiting has become an arms race, and Tech has to compete differently in it.
In another item we have often covered on From the Rumble Seat, Coach Johnson touched on the struggles of recruiting at a smaller school. With the recruiting cycle now even faster and commitments seemingly more fleeting, it is important for smaller schools to invest in themselves and buy into what makes their program unique. Shiny new facilities, like Clemson’s new football facility are great, but not everyone has that kind of money to throw around (in fact, we have to raise it). “[E]very school is different,“ Coach Johnson notes. “Georgia Tech and Clemson are set up differently as far as the schools go. We have far less students. Our fan base is probably not as big. We’re not going to have as many people at the game. So we’re not going to win an arms race with Clemson. But what we’ve got to do is sell what we have that’s positive.“
In recent years, Coach Johnson sometimes hasn’t had the resources to really build up the football program, but he’s found a like-minded athletic director in Todd Stansbury who ‘gets it’ and is willing to do what it takes to strengthen the program. But that sort of investment takes time to pay off — while Clemson was able to put together a cathedral to football in a couple of years to woo recruits from far and wide (seriously, look at it - it’s jaw-dropping), Tech doesn’t necessarily have those sort of resources at its disposal just yet. Therefore, we must rely on bringing in recruits with what else we do well. Take it from Coach Johnson: “Everybody has to be positive with what they have. We’ve got a great school academically. We’re in a great city. We have a lot of positives that we can sell rather than facilities sometimes.“
“There’s a really razor thin margin for most teams between winning and losing.”
This was arguably the most important point echoed in Tech’s press conference. Tech finished 5-6 in 2017, but like Coach Johnson pointed out, the team was only a few defensive stops and a lucky bounce or two from being the Coastal’s sacrificial lamb representing the Coastal versus Clemson in the ACC championship game. Brant Mitchell emphasized the importance of ‘sweating the small stuff’ in game prep to prevent mental mistakes and avoid giving up big gains: “it’s really about...what you can do to prevent the big plays from happening...[Football]’s a game of inches, and it’s a game of big plays and whether or not you can stop them or not“. That’s the type of focus necessary for Tech to succeed this season.
As part of a question about preseason polls (in which he also called them ludicrous), Johnson explained his views on how a team wins or loses: “you have to have a system that you believe in and the players believe in. You have to have good players, and you have to be fortunate. So much of it is staying healthy, getting the right bounce, getting the right thing.” Well, Tech has a solid, battle-tested system on offense and a new defense that its players have bought into, and those players are experienced, athletic, and hungry for success. Will it get lucky this season? We’ll have to wait till September to find out.
You can view a transcript of Georgia Tech’s press conference at the 2018 ACC Football Kickoff here.
If you’d like to rewatch the press conference, Georgia Tech Athletics has made it available to stream on their site.
If you’d like to rewatch the entire session, you can find that on ESPN here.