Meet the new scapegoat.

In introducing his latest hire at defensive coordinator, the genius is careful enough in setting the parameters to leave himself enough wiggle room to have somebody else to blame when things inevitably don’t work out:

“I don’t know anybody who has total control,” Johnson said. “But I have complete confidence in him or I wouldn’t hire him to put in his defensive scheme. I’m not going to hire someone who runs a certain scheme and then bring them in here and say, ‘No, you can’t do that, you have to do something else.'”

Woody is a 27-year coaching veteran who directed Appalachian State’s defense the past five seasons. After putting in his 3-4 scheme, the Mountaineers led the Sun Belt Conference in total defense three times and ranked among the top 30 nationally each of the past four seasons.

Appalachian State closed out this season with a 34-0 rout of Toledo in the Dollar General Bowl .

That was enough to persuade Johnson he’s got the right man to take over Georgia Tech’s up-and-down defense.

“I can see a method to the madness — what he’s trying to accomplish, how he coaches, that type of thing,” Johnson said. “I expect him to run his scheme. I’ll be watching. We’ll sit down during the week and I’ll have my suggestions within his scheme. But, no, I’m not going to micromanage or tell anyone what to do.”

He’s not going to micromanage, but he’s going to have weekly suggestions for the DC.  Yeah, that’s gonna work out just fine.

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12 Comments

Filed under Georgia Tech Football

12 responses to “Meet the new scapegoat.

  1. Spike

    Good luck indeed with all that. Me thinks they will need a bigger boat…

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  2. 3rdandGrantham

    The problem with being a DC at tech is you spend your time practicing against that HS option offense. Then you have to turn around and play against a more traditional offense on Saturdays that actually passes the ball, incorporates traditional OL blocking techniques (instead of merely diving at your legs), etc. No wonder why DC’s there have been a revolving door with little success over the years.

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  3. Is this guy going to all of a sudden start convincing blue chips that practicing against cut/chop blocking for 4 years is going to be good for their NFL potential? Is he going to be able to convince recruits in the secondary that they’ll learn to defend the entire route tree as opposed to go and post patterns thrown by QBs who should be DBs?

    Given the answers those questions to be no, I’ll yawn and go back to watching how Fromm torched tech’s talent and App’s scheme.

    Fish Fry knows he’s back in the danger zone now.

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    • Honestly, I don’t think Johnson hired this guy with the idea that recruiting would take a step up. He’s hoping that Woody can make defensive lemonade out of Tech’s recruiting lemons.

      The problem is that having a great Sun Belt defense doesn’t necessarily translate over into having a great ACC defense.

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      • 69Dawg

        You hit the nail on the head. Johnson is hoping this guy can make chicken salad from the chicken sh*t Tech recruits. If he could make App St’s defense good he can make our gang look good. Memo to Paul Miami torched his defense two years ago and Georgia had very little problem with them this year with a true freshman QB. I don’t beleive that Tech’s guys are that mush better than App State’s guys. Paul’s just buying time till the AD gets enough heat and balls to fire him.

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      • bDawg

        I think App St has better players than Tech…this is going to be funny to watch when they can’t stop anyone for a few years trying to get kids in here. Johnson probably won’t make it past this year anyways.

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  4. 81Dog

    Woody probably had better talent to work with at App State. Remind me again how that worked out against UGA on Labor Day weekend.

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  5. Russ

    This guy must be a joy to work with.

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  6. Bigshot

    Is Woody his first name or last name?

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  7. W Cobb Dawg

    Now all fishfry has to do is remove every Mark Richt-coached team from the schedule and replace them with Toledo.

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