The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yellow Jacket seek to forget frustrating year
Tech finished 5-6 in 2017, missing out on a bowl trip.
As Georgia Tech began spring practice Monday, coach Paul Johnson could easily access the frustrations of the 2017 season. The Yellow Jackets lost three games in which they held a double-digit lead in the second half (Tennessee, Miami and Virginia) and a fourth in which they held a double-digit lead in the first half (Duke).
Not being able to make up the canceled game against UCF, Tech finished 5-6 to miss bowl eligibility for the second time in three years. It was Johnson’s third season without a postseason game in 21 years as a head coach. “Nobody likes losing, and I particularly hate it, but it was frustrating on a bunch of levels,” Johnson said. “It was frustrating we didn’t get to play 12 games because, in my mind, if we get to play another game (and win it) and then we’re in a bowl game and you’re probably playing a non-power 5 team, and you finish the year 7-6, which would be about 70 percent of them if you go back and look.” “And then just the way we lost some of the games was frustrating,” he said. “A couple of them, I think, were fluke, and if you change just two of them, now you’re 7-4.” The challenges at Tech are many, and Johnson (76-54 at Tech) doesn’t mind pointing them out. But he is eager to rectify matters. He will also note that he won plenty at Georgia Southern (62-10) and Navy (45-29). “The frustrating thing is, I haven’t forgotten how to coach,” he said. “I don’t want to be put in a situation where I go out there and I don’t have a chance to compete. That’s when I’ll go. Because I hate losing. And I think (Athletic Director) Todd (Stansbury) gets that, and he sees it, and he wants to fix it.” The fixes have been steady. The football lobby was renovated last summer, a $500,000 project. The locker room is also receiving a $4.5 million makeover, a project he had long sought.
Thanks to a fundraising chal- lenge that drew about 320 donors, the team has added four recruiting staff positions.
“You never have what you want, but I think we’re getting closer to it,” Johnson said. “It’s a unique situation because we don’t have the budgets that those schools do. We just don’t have the revenue and whatever. It’s different.”
Johnson particularly pointed to Clemson and Ge o rg i a, two of Tech’s annual rivals. According to a USA Today report, Geor- gia’s athletic department earned $124.7 million in revenues in 2015-16, clearing $9.1 million. Clemson’s revenues were $104.8 million with about $1.7 million in profit. Tech’s revenues were $76.4 million with a profit of about $100,000. While Clem- son and Georgia’s athletic departments support more sports than does Tech, the gap is not immaterial.
Last season, for example, also according to a USA Today report, Clemson allotted $14.2 million for salaries for coach Dabo Swinney and his staff, and Georgia paid coach Kirby Smart and his staff $8.4 million, with big raises coming for 2018. John- son and his staff earned $5.9 million. Also last year, fresh off its national champion- ship, Clemson opened its $55 million football complex.
“It’s always been tough to recruit with Georgia,” John- son said. “Now, we used to beat Clemson when I first got here on recruits left and right. Not so much the last couple of years, but when I first got here, it was left and right. Now, it’s the same guy — Dabo was there — but they didn’t have the facilities, and the success they’ve had, and the money and this and that and the other, and I’m sure that has something to do with it. But still, it’s different.” Given that Tech is coming off a 5-6 season and is, indeed, recruiting at a different level than Clemson and Georgia, the idea of legitimately competing with the Tigers, Bulldogs and others might sound far-fetched to many. Johnson’s message about the various ways in which Tech is behind doesn’t necessarily inspire, either. Still, Johnson said he’d like to get into the College Football Playoff before his career is over, and as he said, if he didn’t think Tech could compete, he wouldn’t be there. Tech does own wins over Georgia in its past two visits to Athens. “I think we’ve been close,” he said. “There’s been a couple years we were close. One year, we finished seventh. I think now, if you can win the league, you’d have a good chance.” And so Tech goes into spring practice, looking to new defensive coordinator Nate Woody to create a more aggressive scheme and an offense to build on a 2017 performance that was impressive at times but spotty overall, in his words. Johnson is hopeful that the return of 10 offensive players who started at least six games will translate to improvement this fall.