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GEORGIA TECH UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 19, 2015

Paul Johnson

South Bend, Indiana

Georgia Tech - 22
Notre Dame - 30

COACH JOHNSON: Clearly we were disappointed with the way we played. You have to give Notre Dame credit. Their kids showed up, played hard. They played a good football game, did what they had to do to win the game.

It thought right from the start we kind of got rattled a little bit. When it wasn't going good at first, we didn't respond very well. We got young guys, skill guys. We just didn't play very good.

I think you have to give Notre Dame some credit. They had something to do with that.

The first half was awful. We gave up two long pass plays, our kicking game was atrocious, missed two field goals, punt the ball sideways a couple times, then we can't do anything offensively.

It was disappointing the way we played. Go back, try to correct it, move on, get ready for conference play.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Anything going on with the Notre Dame defense?
COACH JOHNSON: We were not doing a very good job. It was like popcorn. One guy you'd get fixed, then the other guy would mess up. Against a good defense, and they've got some really good players, No. 9 is a tremendous player, No. 91 was a good player. Against good players, you can't have missed assignments or whatever.

Just like in the first half, we got third and two, we go the wrong way. Catch them in a slant to the field we were trying to catch them, then you got to go play fourth down instead of going the right way.

Pass protection, they're too good for that, they don't need our help doing those kinds of things. I've never seen so many guys slipping and falling. Every time we pitched the ball, the guy would fall down.

Just got out of control a little bit and we've got to do some things fundamentally a little better. But, yeah, we had a hard time blocking the linebackers again.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH JOHNSON: In the first one going towards the locker room, we were in zone coverage, three-deep zone. We didn't get any pressure. Guy had a long time to stand back there. He threw up a jump ball really.

I thought they were kind of pushing each other. But, you know, the kid is a good player. He makes plays. There's no way you can double cover him unless you turn somebody lose. We were in zone coverage, yeah.

Q. What were your impressions of DeShone Kizer for Notre Dame in his first start?
COACH JOHNSON: I thought that he played very well. I thought they had a good plan for him. I thought that he executed the plan. He threw the ball well, picked up some hot reads well off of some zone fires, hit some guys. When we were backing out of coverage, he was smart enough to throw the pitch routes and stops.

We had a hard time getting to him pressure-wise. They sprinted him some. We missed some opportunities to sack him.

But he was elusive. I thought he played well.

Q. I know you haven't had a chance to study a lot of teams this year, but based on what you see in the ACC, do you think Notre Dame is a team worthy of a top-10 ranking?
COACH JOHNSON: Certainly nobody's beat 'em. I think they fit in our league. I don't know that it would be a lot different than some of the top teams in our league. But certainly they would be one of them if they were in it.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH JOHNSON: Yeah, I thought he ran the ball really hard. His stats are going to be skewed because he had a 91-yard run. You got to give the kid credit. I thought he ran the ball well.

Notre Dame is very good I think up front. Their offensive line is big and long and physical. I think that's probably, with a couple of those guys I mentioned on defense, and the receivers, the strength of their team.

Q. (No microphone.)
COACH JOHNSON: I was disappointed. But at that point we weren't playing well. I mean, it's like we'd struggled. Yeah, I mean, you're right back in the game if you score that touchdown.

I told our guys at halftime, as poorly as we played, I don't know we can play any worse, we're six points down. What do we do, come out and fumble the ball. That's kind of the way the game went.

Q. Justin's play, what did you see?
COACH JOHNSON: He's played better, I think. There's got to be guys around him helping him, too. But probably wasn't one of his better games.

Q. At the time it didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but how big was D.J. White's interception?
COACH JOHNSON: It was huge. I turned the momentum, turned everything. We got the ball, hit a couple nice running plays, got it down there and scored. It was also equally huge that after we scored, they took it back down and scored. They kind of grabbed the momentum back a little bit, yeah.

Q. It's been a while since a lot of that guys in the locker room had this feeling, losing. What was the message to them?
COACH JOHNSON: Sometimes when you're winning and you're winning big, you hear the corrections and you hear people talking, but it doesn't register. Sometimes it has to take one of these to register.

We've got a lot of really young guys, especially the skill guys offensively. The first two weeks we played teams that were out-matched. We jumped on them. Those guys would fly around and have some fun.

Today, their eyes got real big, especially from the start. They struggled a little bit with going the wrong way, falling down, man coverage, just kind of running and stopping, all those things that young guys do sometimes.

But it wasn't just the young guys. Our old guys didn't play very well either.

Q. In terms of making adjustments, what do you take away? What can you build on?
COACH JOHNSON: I think you just got to get better at what you do. When we look at the tape, I don't think there's going to be a whole lot we would want to do differently. We felt like we got in our formation, we had angles. We just got to play. Outside relief, block the linebacker, cut off the backside, play. We were our own worst enemy.

Q. Skov handled all the scoring for you. How do you see him as a receiver?
COACH JOHNSON: Well, they were playing man-to-man, delayed blitzing the linebacker, so they had nobody for him. We tried it early in the third quarter and couldn't get it off.

But he did some good things. Also he's going to see the tape and see a lot of things he could have gotten more out of inside, too.

Q. Going forward here, most of your goals are still on the table for your team. Is this kind of the learning experience, a corner-turning moment like you had with Duke and Carolina last year?
COACH JOHNSON: We'll see. Like I said, we start the conference next week. We got to go on the road again. We'll see how much we grow from this week to next week.

Again, we got to go play a team that's a good defensive football team, that's sound, don't beat themselves. We have to play better. If we play like we played today, it won't be pretty.

Q. The third down performance wasn't very good at all.
COACH JOHNSON: You think?

Q. Is that a function of not playing well overall or anything in particular?
COACH JOHNSON: I think it's a function of early on getting behind the chains a little bit. But then it's just like I said, I mean, you got third and two, you got the play called against the defense you want, they do exactly what you think they're going to do, they go the wrong way.

We made it on fourth down. There was another third down where we had a drop in the first half. What happens, it starts to snowball. You end up in some third and longs. Not very many people are going to make many third and eights, third and nines.

What happened, when we tried to throw the ball early, if you don't complete them, you put yourself behind the eight ball. Nobody could make a play. Nobody could make a play in the passing game. Couldn't even shake loose. Couldn't throw it where they could catch it, whatever.

Right before halftime was critical. They fumbled the ball. We looked like the Three Stooges trying to pick it up. If anybody picks it up, they're going to run it in. We got about four guys, knock ourselves down. We finally get the ball, then we take a sack. We got a freshman receiver that don't go hot. You have to throw the ball away, not take a sack. We don't get any points out of it, which was also a killer. Missed a field goal, it was a long one, but one he can make. I think he had the distance.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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