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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: GEORGIA TECH v FLORIDA STATEDecember 5, 2014Paul JohnsonCHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA PAUL JOHNSON: Good afternoon. I think it's afternoon. We had a little bit of delay coming in, but excited to be back in Charlotte and have an opportunity to participate in the championship game. Certainly we've got a huge challenge in front of us playing what I still consider to be the No.1 team in the country until somebody beats them, the defending national champs and undefeated. But our guys are playing very well here at the end of the year, and we're looking forward to seeing how we match up against Florida State. With that, I guess I'll throw it open to some questions. Q. I know this is a little bit of a kind of a retro‑hypothetical situation, but given the close games between the two teams and the rare occasions they have played, do you think it would have been nice if they would have wound up in the same division, played every year, geographically they're close and it would have been a pretty good little rivalry? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think there's probably a lot of rivalries within our conference as it is. You know, our rival as determined by the league is Clemson, which is closer for us and right up the road. But clearly we've had some great games with Florida State. I think in my seven years in the league, we've played them three times counting the championship game. This will be number four, and we've had some great games. Q. What do you got to do to stop Jameis in the second half because it seems like in the second half he's always a different quarterback? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, we're going to try to stop him in the first half first. But he's a tremendous player. I think he's got good size. He's hard to get down, very accurate. And the thing that's probably most impressive about him to me is his ability to make plays. He knows how to win, and I think if you could pick one trait for your quarterback to have, certainly that would be it. Even when things are going bad, he doesn't seem to get flustered. He just keeps playing. He's a great player. You just hope to slow him down. I don't think you stop a guy like that. Q. You'll be without DeAndre Smelter for this game, and he's obviously your leading receiver. What will that do to the offense? How will that change the offense for you guys? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, we're going to miss DeAndre because he's a tremendous player. He's one of the better players on our team and a young man who I think certainly has next‑level ability. But we're not going to change what we do. We've played four or five receivers all year. Micheal Summers will have to‑‑ he'll be the starter for DeAndre, Darren Waller will probably take a little bigger role, and then Corey Dennis and Rick Jeune will both play. At this stage of the year you're not going to change what we do, but certainly we'll miss DeAndre because he is a good player. Q. What's the plan in the rotation at B‑back with Laskey and Synjyn? Is he 100 percent after the injury last week? PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, they're both healthy. We'll probably start Synjyn and then see. We'll talk about it right before the game. A lot of times it's a feel thing. We may go into the game saying the starter is going to get two and the backup guy one, and then whichever guy is playing the best we just kind of leave out there, but they'll both certainly play. They both deserve that and they both played well here towards the end of the year. Q. I know you've probably been watching more film of FSU than commentators on ESPN or whatever, but did you see the standings, the playoff standings when they were released Tuesday night, and is there a way that we can get there from No.11? PAUL JOHNSON: You know, I didn't think a whole lot about it because we were busy getting ready for the game, but I think there's clearly a path that's there. But it's certainly not going to be there unless you can beat Florida State. If we could pull that off, then we'll worry about that. We probably need some help. But I think you could make a case in our last three games we will have beaten three top‑20 teams and two top‑10 teams in the last three weeks, and I don't think there's anybody else out there that can make that claim. Q. Another question on the playoff if I could.  There's a championship game here, but there isn't one in the Big 12, and if you were to potentially leap teams, the Big 12, two teams would be there that you would have to leap. What are your thoughts on them not having a championship game, and also the Big 12 deciding they weren't going to declare a champion? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, truthfully I've got enough to worry about with my own thing as opposed to worrying about the Big 12. I'm sure they have competent people there that can figure out what they're going to do. Overall I think as coaches, everybody would prefer that everybody do the same thing, but I mean, I'm sure they have their reasons and we have ours. I'll leave that to them, and we'll let Commissioner Swofford figure out our deal. Q. What's your hypothesis on why TCU, why the city let TCU leapfrog Florida State? PAUL JOHNSON: I don't know why they let anybody leapfrog Florida State. To me I think from a coaching standpoint, the bottom line is you try to win the games. You know, I saw a little bit where Jimbo had talked about it's not style points. But again, I've got enough to do trying to coach our football team, and those guys are busy. I'm sure they have their criteria for what it is they do. But we're approaching the game in our mind, Florida State is the No.1 team. They're undefeated, they're reigning national champs, and until somebody beats them, they're No.1 to me. Q. Where has Justin Thomas grown the most this season? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think probably just experience. You know, I think that sometimes he's played so well that we forget he's a first‑year starter and just a sophomore. I think every game he plays, he gets better. He's a very competitive guy who's quiet, doesn't say a whole lot, but deep down he's got a fire. He's pretty competitive, and I think he enjoys playing. I think he's got a good skill set for what we do, and I think he enjoys doing it. Our guys certainly believe in him, and so do I. Q. Talk about your quarterback because the last couple years you guys have been running the ball and your quarterback this year is doing really well passing. PAUL JOHNSON: Truthfully that's a little bit of a misnomer that's out there. We've thrown the ball less this year than we did last year, but we've gotten more efficiency out of it and completed a little higher percentage and gotten more touchdown passes. But he's the guy that makes the whole thing go. There's very few plays we run that there's not some kind of read or something involved in the option game, and he's an accurate passer. He's got a really quick release, strong arm. He's challenged seeing sometimes, so we have to try to get him out on the perimeter a little bit. But I think the biggest thing with our passing game is we've been a little more efficient. Q. A lot has been made of Florida State having one week to prepare for you. What's the biggest challenge for you to prepare for them in one week? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, we played‑‑ the preparation is almost like a regular‑season game. It's no different. You come in and you get started on Sunday after your last game. I really believe that a lot of that is overblown about the one week to prepare for us. I think if you actually dig down and look at the stats, the teams who have more than one week probably don't do a whole lot better than the teams who have one. The teams with the good players are the ones who usually give you the hardest time. You know, it's a typical week, and I'm sure it was a typical week for both teams, probably no different. You've got your routine in place all season, and that's kind of the way both teams approached it I'm sure. Q. As you saw Jameis Winston, four interceptions against Florida, do you think if you guys can get that many turnovers that you'll have a really good shot in the game? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, if you asked me would we take four, yeah, we would, we'd take four and take our chances. Hopefully he didn't get them all out of his system. But it doesn't make any difference that he threw four because he found a way to come back and win the game, and that's what they've been good at all year. Like I said, he's such a competitor that, you know, he's going to make a mistake once in a while, but he also makes a lot of big plays for his team. Q. Two years ago North Carolina and Miami had NCAA situations and you guys played in this game. What does this game mean to the morale of your team and having a postseason and playing in a bowl game overall? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think we were all tied two years ago. We all had the same record. You know, it's a big goal of our team. It's our No.1 goal every year to try to get here to Charlotte. We've been fortunate we've been in three of the games in seven years. The last time we played‑‑ first time we did okay, second time not so good. We're hoping for the same outcome as the first time. But we look at it as an opportunity to play for our conference championship, which is the goal when you start the season. Q. When did you realize this team had a look of being one capable of getting here? PAUL JOHNSON: You know, I don't know as a coach if you ever look at it that way. I really liked the team from the start. We got off to a great start. We got off to 5‑0, and then we did not play very well for really a couple of weeks, kind of hit a little bit of a road bump, and not to take away from the two teams that beat us because they won the game and they beat us, but we didn't play well. After that we came back and we started getting better, and I guess from the Carolina game where we really made the improvement was defensively. We had been pretty consistent offensively for most of the year, but we kind of sat down after the Carolina game and decided to get a little more aggressive and take a few more chances. I think our guys enjoyed doing that, and they got some confidence and started to play a little better. We started to play better on third down, started getting a lot of takeaways, and those takeaways have helped us win a lot of games here down the stretch. Now there's a confidence factor with those guys. They feel like they're playing good. Q. Having just played Georgia whose defensive coordinator came from Florida State last year, there's obviously a lot of similarities in what they run. What do you see as the main differences between what Georgia's defensive was doing and what Florida State's defense has been doing? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I'll have to answer that after the game, I guess, because there's not a lot to look at to see how they're going to play us other than maybe a game early in the year with the Citadel. If you watch our Georgia game and you watch their Citadel game, it looks the same. I've known Charles for a long time, Charles Kelly, who was on our staff for five years, I guess, and he's a really good coach. He's a hard worker, so I know he's going to have a good plan. He understands what we're trying to do. It'll be the team that goes out and executes the best. I don't think that we're going to be forcing enough that they can't get lined up or don't know what to do. They'll have a good plan. Q. Seems like the defense started playing better right around the same time that P.J. Davis really started breaking out. Can you talk about how well he's been playing and what he brings to the defense? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, P.J. has played well all year. I think he brings a lot of enthusiasm. He really loves to play the game. You know, I think that P.J., D.J. White, Quayshawn Nealy, Adam Gotsis, there's a bunch of guys over there that kind of elevated their game. Isaiah Johnson is playing much better. I think it's just an overall team effort, and that's probably one thing that I'm most proud about with this team. I think it is a team. We don't have maybe, as people view it, the individual stars. I don't think we have one guy on the first‑team All‑ACC on either side of the ball, but they play pretty good as a team. The chemistry is good, they like each other, and they play hard, and if you play hard, you've always got a chance. To this point, they've played hard. They'll show up Saturday night. I have no doubt about that. Q. Have you guys had a game in the rain this year, and does that cause you‑‑ if it's certain that it's going to rain or it starts during the game, do you make any kind of adjustments, anything you do on offense? PAUL JOHNSON: I can't‑‑ we may have. I don't remember. The only adjustment I'd make is probably wear a raincoat. (Laughter.) You know, I learned a long time ago I try not to worry about things you can't control, and so somebody asked me on the bus about the weather, and I hadn't looked. Now, I did ask my wife if she looked because when she was packing she didn't know whether to get a raincoat. She was asking me, and I'm like, take them both, I don't know. But both teams got to play in it. Whatever it is, it is. We won't make a big deal about it, and if it's something that's so bad that you have to change, that'll be like a game‑time decision or decisions you have to make during the game, but right now we don't have a plan for that. Q. I'm curious when you came to Georgia Tech if there was any detractors who wondered if your offense would work at this level‑‑ PAUL JOHNSON: Really? Yeah, there were a few. (Laughter). Q. What did they say, and what sort of satisfaction does it give you that you're so dominant rushing the football? PAUL JOHNSON: You know, we've had a lot of success doing this at Georgia Southern for a lot of years and then at the Academy, and actually when I was an offensive coordinator at the University of Hawai'i we had some pretty good offensive numbers, as well. Truthfully I didn't‑‑ I didn't think about it. I knew it would work. It wasn't like we didn't play other teams at the Academy or whatever. We would always play two to three ACC teams a year at the Academy when I was there, or we'd play Big East teams then or you'd play teams in the bowl game. As far as the scheme, it's like any other scheme. If you have the better players, you have the better one that's going to work. So no, that didn't bother me. I mean, it goes from it won't work to you can't recruit to‑‑ they'll just find another reason. Q. Does it make you grin that you're kicking people's butt with it? PAUL JOHNSON: Well, you know, I think that it's pleasing. I don't know about make you grin. The other adage that you got was they'll catch up with it once they play it once or twice. They know how to line up. This was our seventh year in the league, and to lead the league in scoring and total offense and rushing offense and lead the nation in third down, they hadn't caught up yet. But that's more a reflection on the players than the scheme. We've got our quarterback who's pretty good at doing it and we've got guys that play hard. It doesn't matter if you do what we do or what Florida State does. If you have answers and you have guys who embrace it and guys that play well, you're going to be successful, otherwise you won't. Q. With your offense, what are the characteristics you look for in players when you're recruiting for them to be able to run your offense efficiently? PAUL JOHNSON: You know, that's kind of another misconception I think. We recruit the same guys everybody else does. Probably the biggest difference might be we're not hung up on height for offensive linemen. The length, we don't care if they're the tall guys with long arms or whatever. We just try to find the best players we can find. But Justin Thomas in high school ran what I'd call‑‑ well, I jokingly call it the NCAA offense where it's the gun and the zone read and the same thing that everybody runs. I don't think‑‑ Synjyn Days was a quarterback that was quasi‑our system in high school. But most of the guys just played in regular offenses or whatever, and you recruit them just like you would anybody else. There's no set guy we look at. And I think the thing I've said earlier this week in recruiting, you take a guy like Justin Thomas who had committed to the University of Alabama to play defensive back but decided he wanted to play quarterback, and he fit our system. So without the system, you don't get him. He's not coming to your place if you're recruiting him as a DB. And if you look at our football team, I was just thinking on defense, Demond Smith was a high school quarterback, Jamal Golden was a high school quarterback. We talked about Synjyn Days, Corey Dennis. So you get a lot of guys through recruiting and you give them a chance to play quarterback, and they're the same guys who end up at receiver or defensive back that the other guys are recruiting that way. There's some give and take. If I'm a receiver and I'm trying to catch 100 balls, I'm probably not coming if that's what lights my fire. But if I want to play in‑‑ I can point to Demaryius Thomas or Steven Hill or Kevin Cone played now for four or five years that played receiver for us in the NFL. I think the two this year we have that are receivers are get a chance to play in the NFL, DeAndre Smelter and Darren Waller. I think a lot of things that people try to throw out, we've been here long enough now they don't stick because we can point to guys that have done it. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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