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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCENCEApril 22, 2015Paul JohnsonPAUL JOHNSON: Good morning. We're excited the way we finished up the 2014 season and we wanted to try to carry some of that momentum into spring, and I felt like we did. We got a lot of things accomplished, ended up with getting some, I guess, nagging injuries or some bad injuries at a couple positions, which you're always afraid of in spring practice, but overall I think that we got a lot accomplished and started to lay the foundation for the 2015 season. Q. Just curious what your thoughts are on what the addition of Patrick Skov could mean for the backfield and for Georgia Tech in 2015. PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, well, we're excited to have Patrick come and be a part of our program. I really enjoyed getting to meet him when he was here for a brief time on a visit. I think he's a very mature young man, very well‑spoken. He gives us a little older, more mature guy at that position. We feel like that we have a couple of young guys coming in that can be dynamic players, but it's always good to have a guy with that type of experience to come in and compete, and having said that, I was really proud of Marcus Allen, the way he finished up the last week of spring for us moving to that position, and he'd been there before and he really played well on Friday night in our spring game, and I know he's excited to have an opportunity for his senior year to have a chance to play there, as well. Q. What do you anticipate the learning curve to be like, obviously probably a little shorter being that he's a fifth‑year senior but just in terms of adjusting to your offense, coming over from somewhere else? How smooth do you think that transition should be? PAUL JOHNSON: I think it'll go pretty smoothly. I think he's a young man who's played a lot of football, and he's got a good football IQ. You can tell from talking to him. I suspect we'll get him in here in the summer, and our guys will try to get him up to speed, some of the players, and then when we get started in camp the last week of July, I don't think it'll take him long to get caught up. Q. If you look at Justin Thomas and just what you think he's done, how you think he's grown through the spring and where he's at right now in your mind. PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think Justin got a lot better as the year went along. One of the things I was most proud of with our football team is I think we were a way better team at the end of the year than we were early. I think we got better each week, and certainly Justin I would include in that assessment. I think he had a good spring. I think he's getting better overall knowledge of what we're trying to accomplish and what we're trying to do. He's got a great skill set for what we want to do. He's a good competitor, and I look for him to have a great junior season. I think that he's more comfortable with what we're asking him to do and understands it better, and he's going to be one of the more experienced guys over there, so he's going to have to be a leader. He lost a lot of good senior skill guys around him. But the one good thing he has in his favor is we do have four of the starting five offensive linemen back, so he's got a nucleus there, and I think he's just going to get better and better. Q. And then as far as you said he has a good skill set for what you're trying to do, how do you define that? What are some of the things that you really key in on with him that work in your system the best? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, it's like any system. I mean, he's got great quickness, he's got a strong arm. He can throw the ball. Doesn't hurt that he's pretty fast. He's just a really good athlete. I think that he's the definition of what you would call a dual‑threat quarterback in that he can hurt you with his feet and his arm. Q. Obviously you lost a lot of talented A‑backs and B‑backs and an impact wide receiver. What's your assessment of those positions after seeing the potential replacements in the spring? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think, you know, we actually lost the two guys at B‑back who were playing early, so that's going to be more open in the fall. But I thought our A‑backs did some good things. We had a couple of guys that we red‑shirted, Qua Searcy and Clinton Lynch, who I think both are going to be good players. They'll certainly be in the mix. Broderick Snoddy actually missed spring, he played a lot for us at A‑back a year ago. Dennis Andrews played, Ike Willis. We've got some guys who have played a little bit. I think we'll be okay at that position. We lost two really good wide receivers. I think both of them will be playing on Sunday, and that's probably the biggest area of concern right now is who's going to step in and be the go‑to guys at those positions. Q. What does it mean to have so much experience back on defense? Does it allow you to do more, and coming out of spring, were you able to work more people in because of having guys that didn't need to learn the position very much? PAUL JOHNSON: I think any time you can stay within the same scheme and system with the same coaches that's a plus. We do have eight starters coming back there, and they're going to have to play better. We're going to need our defense to play much better this year because the offense is going to be younger, especially early in the year and starting out. We're excited about what they were able to accomplish in the spring. I think we're hopeful that we're going to get back a couple of defensive linemen who did not play a year ago, and I think they're going to be a big, added help to the defense just from a depth standpoint and from play‑making ability. It's always good to have a bunch of guys back that have played, and certainly we hope that we're going to show major improvement on that side of the ball this year. Q. Do you have a lot of competition, guys that have started and played with younger people pushing them coming up from below? PAUL JOHNSON: I don't know that I would say a lot, but certainly I think we've got more depth and more defensive linemen that can play and when you have that, that's always a luxury. We return on the secondary, I think there's pretty good competition there in the secondary. The one spot where we might not have as much depth on defense as the others is at linebacker. P.J. Davis returns, Tyler Marcordes, both of those guys have played a lot. (Inaudible) has played some, guys who will have to step up in there and play. They're good athletes, but we haven't seen them play yet. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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