I don’t know about you, but I’ve been waiting since Saturday afternoon to hear how Bradley and Schultz intended to spin Georgia Tech’s epic collapse against Miami, which was topped with a questionable decision by the genius to go for it on fourth-and-one in overtime. So far, crickets (although to be fair, Schultz probably deserves a pass since the paper had him out covering the Falcons game).
But we may be finally getting our first little hint in Bradley’s Heat Check:
GEORGIA TECH: It’s difficult to score 36 unanswered points in a game and not win it. But the Jackets just did. Heat Index: It’s likewise difficult to yield 609 yards to a Miami team that managed only 262 in a 39-point loss at Kansas State. Leave it to Al Groh, though.
Negative Grohmentum, for the win loss!
*********************************************************************************
UPDATE: Shorter Mark Bradley: The only thing holding Paul Johnson back is Paul Johnson.
Hey, it’s a start. Some addictions are a bear to quit.
Get The Picture 
If no one was there to see it, does it still count as a loss?
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“does it still count as a loss?” No. Das Hat thinks there should always be a place for ex-DC’s regardless of whether the act of Grohmentum was committed in front of an Orange Bowl crowd or in front of #44 and the ZZ Top roadie in the Bobby Dodd bleachers
http://www.mrsec.com/2012/07/report-ex-clemson-dc-steele-to-join-lsu-staff/
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Well, LSU needs help apparently. After all, they did allow one of Auburn’s top offensive outputs the other night. 😉
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Yes. Just think how awesome either Auburn or LSU could be if they actually had a quarterback.
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But, but, LSU has like the best evah QB at UGA. At least until Mason. I blame Bobo.
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+!
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My favorite shot of the Tech crowd was of the geek dressed in a gold Star Trek uniform shirt, probably purchased at the bookstore. Combined both of his loves into one shirt that he never has to change.
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Bradley, how do you write so well? “Easy, I think of a real journalist and I take away reason and accountability.”
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+1.
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Lol, +1
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Nicely done.
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Notice he didn’t pin it on the genius’ brilliant “I’m smarter than everybody else” call on 4th and 1.
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1) not really an obviously bad call given how poorly their defense played in the fourth.
2). As much as I love watching tech lose we should recognize that they lose because they have very bad players not very bad coaches. You can’t recruit to tech and it’s now very difficult to recruit to that offense. Given the inherent obstacles in producing wins at that place CPJ should get some credit for winning as much as he has.
3). I try to keep in mind that but for chuck knapp’s stupidity, Erk Russell would have been the coach and CPJ would have been OC at UGA in 1989. I’m almost certain would they would have out performed what we actually had in those days. In fact, my supposition is that SOS would be thought of as more evil and less genius had we gone to that offense back then. And who knows, maybe Tommie Frazier stays closer to home.
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Good coaches don’t take jobs at places you can’t recruit to.
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Indeed. Wasn’t this one of the reasons Richt chose UGA over Mizzou?
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Tech loses because their defense doesn’t practice against a competent passing game.
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High school players running a high school scheme in front of a high school-sized crowd at a high school-sized stadium against other high schools in a conference full of high schools. This is Georgia Tech football.
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Hey don’t forget Fsu. :).
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I don’t think you can give CPJ a pass on recruiting when the major obstacle to recruiting is his flexbone system. No coach gets to run his system in a vacuum.
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Half the evaluation of a college coach is ability to recruit. Just because you’re a brilliant X’s and O’s guy doesn’t mean jack if you don’t have the horses to run your scheme. Ray Goff was one hell of a recruiter, but none of us are confusing him for a great coach either.
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Not only that, their asinine scheme is part of the reason they can’t recruit! One of the AJC commenters on the Bradley article wrote, “There has to be quarterback who can run and pass somewhere.” Yeah, lots of them–they go play in SPREAD offenses, not triple option ones.
Here’s to kicking their smart asses forever.
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With all due respect to all of the responses to my post, I think we should just focus on the agreed fact that tech sucks. To suggest that it is CPJ who sucks is to say that tech may one day not suck. In other words they are a program in search of the right coach and winning will follow. I disagree. Tech is the problem at Tech. I think they are doing as well as they and we should expect.
I do agree that the CPJ is running a system that won’t win big at tech but again no one and no system would. However, if you put him at an established BCS program and gave him a qb he would win and win big that year and the next. It would peter out though as recruits chose to go elsewhere. Does that mean he’s a bad coach or an anachronism? I think it’s the latter.
I think that if you were to pick a coach to hand a roster over to in order to win a game a month from now you could do a lot worse than CPJ. If I had to pick a guy to take a team and try to win one game I would take Meyer then CPJ. The problem with each though is shelf life.
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Derek, I understand your opinion but respectfully disagree. No biggie, to each his own. I will say that if you got Paul Johnson for that game to be played in a month, and I got a competent defensive coach with competent players that also had a month to prepare, I’d take my chances (just like LSU, Iowa, Air Force and Utah did in bowl games).
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If you have a month to prepare AND you have better players than than CPJ than yes you will win. My hypothetical assumes that the players are relatively equal. Techs players since 2008 are terrible. Anytime they play an athletic team, they get beat. How many players on techs team would even be offered a scholarship to play at Bama, LSU or UGA? Not many. But that offense still gives people fits.
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My point in the listing was that their bowl games have come against progressively worse teams, but with the same result. I agree, their talent has suffered, but Air Force and Utah?
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I disagree. I think Tech could be good with the proper coach and good recruits. Tech fans use academic standards as an excuse for failing to recruit. But, I don’t think it holds up. Stanford has high academic standards and has been very successful under a good coach. And Tech has been shown to ease up considerably on its academic standards for football players.
To say that CPJ has a good system, but can’t recruit, is to say that he is half a coach. FWIW, I agree with that assessment. I think the reason he was successful at Navy is because of his system. He didn’t have to worry about recruiting. But, he’s not at Navy anymore. He’s at a FBS school where recruiting is vital to success.
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“For a guy who blew his hands off with firecrackers, you gotta give him credit for learning how to brush his teeth with his stumps as quickly as he has.”
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It was a bad call in the play call. They had about six inches for a first down and called a QB dive off tackle…crazy. When it’s that short it’s a QB sneak every time–you can’t go backwards and/or risk missing an assignment (which is exactly what happened).
Snarky Genious probably doesn’t have a QB sneak in the playbook…fullback dive or nothing. What a dumbass that guy is.
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My GF was in the press box for Georgia-Vandy, and she said Bradley, Schultz AND Chip Towers were there. Don’t know if the AJC even had anybody left to send to Miami-GT.
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Gee… I hope the bloom hasn’t worn off the rose for the AJ-C.
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Schultz was already blogging from San Diego so it must have been only Bradley and Towers. Surely one of them will be in Athens this week, hoping for the fall.
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You missed the BIG complimentary writeup he gave us. He is a multifaceted writer and has the multiple personlities to prove it. It’s like he has been a stranger in our midst and is finally speaking Dawg. Ole’ Blue would be pleased, God rest his soul.
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Guess he figured “The Genius” has turned into a blind pig?
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Yeah, but I am guessing we will get an “I can’t quit you” confessional from Bradley to the genius sometime this week.
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Not sure anyone could have found many negatives about our game Saturday Night. I’m hesitant to accept his praise as anything other than an attempt to appear unbiased in the face of a performance where there are no real negatives. Just so he can say “but, I’m not biased, remember when I wrote this article….”. So I’m not on board that his favor is turning.
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Maybe Bark Madly is undecided because there’s still a lot he just doesn’t know
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/undecided-voter/1418227
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“The surprise wasn’t that Paul Johnson went for it on fourth-and-inches with Tampa on the line. The surprise was that, for half a minute, it seemed Paul Johnson wasn’t going for it on fourth-and-1 with Tampa on the line.
Down three points in overtime, ball nuzzling the 5: What else would PJ do? “If we can’t get half a yard,” he said, “we don’t deserve to win.”
First Georgia Tech faked everyone out. The Jackets lined up as if to run a play but did the ol’ draw-’em-offside bit to no avail. They called timeout and trotted to the sideline, and your first thought was, “PJ just chickened out.” But PJ doesn’t chicken out. He talks the talk and goes on fourth down.”
Mark Bradley from happier times.
http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-blog/2009/11/07/techs-paul-johnson-a-coach-who-dares-to-be-great/?cp=9
Read the whole thing…brings a smirk knowing what I got to see three weeks later from the 30 yard line in the Tech alumni section.
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If Paul Johnson has lost Mark Bradley, he’s lost middle America. It would be like Obama losing the Upper West Side plus MSNBC. And Bradley didnt even mention the stellar special teams play at Tech. You’d think a place that recruits that many calculus whizzes would understand the whole thing about downing a live ball in the end zone. “See, there’s this imaginary plane at the goal line,……..” Imagine if Tech were recruiting dumb kids; what would their kick returns look like? The Baby Ruth in the pool scene from Caddyshack?
Sic transit gloria. Sic transit PJ.
Meanwhile, poor old dumb Mike Bobo seems to be hanging on reasonably well.
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“It would be like Obama losing the Upper West Side plus MSNBC.”
With losses like those, Paul’s problem is that he doesn’t have a Lloyd of Wall Street on his side
leaving Willardo to say, “Stay thirsty mis amigos…”
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I took my daughter to her first ever college football game last year on North Avenue. A year later, she still remembers a fellow Dawg fan hollering, “PAUL JOHNSON’S A GENIUS!!!” Now, whenever she sees the Nats on TV, she laughs and does the same. I couldn’t be more proud if she won the Nobel peace prize…..
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Well, considering some recent results, remembering what some guy yelled at a game last year is a much more impressive accomplishment than winning a Nobel prize for peace. Your pride is well-placed.
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What’s Little Miss Sunshine’s name?
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The Paul Johnson conundrum- a unique offense that relies on unique skills and thus cannot attract quality players must eventually break down as talent falls. Interestingly, if the offense wasn’t so good at producing results with less than elite players, it would not exist now, and Tech would be better off.
Oh the gaping talent hole when PJ is run off. Honestly, Tech may never recover. State may beat them in the next 7 years.
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I don’t always watch Tech football, but when I do I am deeply saddened by the empty seats, empty hearts and empty minds. Just think… the great tradition of the Mexican National Championship, coaches lying on their resumes…but having to go somewhere else to get caught, quarterbacks who flunk out of Georgia and can’t count has come to this.
I am so glad my po ole daddy ain’t around to see how the mighty hated have fallen, he woulda got all misty-eyed.
And thas all I got to say about Tech, me.
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“I don’t always watch Tech football, but when I do I am deeply saddened by the empty seats, empty hearts and empty minds.”
Excellente! When you watch Tech football were you deeply saddened by the son of the most interesting man in the world and his daddy?
http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2012/09/23/snl-son-of-the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world-video/
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Don’t watch them enough to catch that….too many more pertinent games on.
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Recruiting’s the problem? I think Bradley just blamed Bobo!
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Wow – even the genius can’t out smart everybody. Quite an admission for Mr. Bradley.
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I don’t think he understands the meaning of “unanswered.”
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