Touchdowns per Touch

I'm on a touchdown per play kick right now. I'm digging deep into ramblinwreck.com's data to pull out some more interesting information for all the GT fans. I had to truncate my data diving to CCG/CPJ Era players and players with a minimum of 100 touches. This means they played in 2002-2008 seasons and the data includes their 1999-present statistics. Even the non-stat people will like some of the basic observations about this list highlighted in yellow.

The data is broken down by rank in this system, position, name, # of touches, touchdowns (receive, return, rush, pass), and % of touches that result in a touchdown. I really don't want to do the negative version (turnovers per touch) but I think I might eventually.

Josh's stats seem rough compared to Reggie's because Josh doesn't get credit for good reads that go the distance while Reggie did get credit for good passes to Calvin that went for 6. An interesting comparison is the backfield comparison of Reggie/Tashard/PJ versus Josh/Diesel/Roddy. The Chan backfield trio went the distance 3.54% of their offensive plays while CPJ's backfield trio goes the distance 4.73% of the time. This doesn't account for the Cox Bros., Rashaun Grant, or Chris Woods but I think it's interesting.

I'd also like to note that anyone doubting Calvin's greatness can look at the stats. He took it to the house once every 6.67 plays. Greatness. And in case you were wondering, Calvin's average is one touchdown per 7.82 plays in the NFL.

As a supplemental group, here're some guys that I thought I could also provide data on. They were legit role players who didn't make the 100 touch limit I set for the first data grouping.

Paul Johnson's Bad-Assery

By now many of you have probably read The Birddog's post about how we beat Georgie in November. But have you read everything else the man has written? CPJ was at Navy for long enough for The Birddog to understand a lot more about his offense than many of us and every Tech fan should use his posts as an excellent resource. I have read all these links at least 3 times each, always trying to find something new to look for and pick up on. We'll start from the earliest entry.

• Five Myths about Paul Johnson's Offense (One of my favorites)
  
• Reading is Fundamental
• The Science and The Art
  
• Georgia Tech: Friend or Foe?
• Other People's Rivalries and the Futility of Defending the Wishbone

But wait! There's more! SmartFootball dove into CPJ Bad-Assery today as well

• Why you can't play "Assignment Football" against the Flexbone
• Paul Johnson describes his offense
• The Flexbone Run meets the Run-and-Shoot
  
• Paul Johnson Smart Notes

And Orson at EDSBS gets sexy with the NCAA 2010 Flexbone

This should hopefully hold everyone over for a while. So sit down and get ready to LEARN.

Edit: Found a good article of 11 meanest dudes in CFB history. Pat Swilling made the cut.

Some Wednesday Linkage

Coley Harvey continues to be a solid Georgia Tech beat writer. In a time when the AJC is floundering and they can't find a reporter who 1) the readers are satisfied with and 2) who actually seems interested in what he's writing, Coley goes above and beyond. He's on twitter (@macontechtalk) and he has his own GT blog where he throws in his thoughts and quotes from GT notables. He also didn't go to UGA to get his degree. No, he did a little better than that school east of us. He attended that school up North in the Big 10. That's right, Northwestern. But don't think of him as a Yankee. Coley is from Middle Georgia. The guy is good.

Back on track...The Peach State Pigskin Preview was in Macon yesterday at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame where Coley got some good quotes from Paul Johnson on Josh Nesbitt, Media Guides, and the SEC.

One more article from Coley discussing Bill Curry and Paul Johnson adding to the state's football legacy.

Finally, I'll throw a link the AJC's way because I like this quote from CPJ as it becomes clear he is tired of defending his offense:

There’s no special secret way to line up and say ‘Oh my god, now they can’t run.’ They’ll put nine people in the box. OK, go ahead. You’re not going to line up something we haven’t seen in 26 years. You might beat us, but I highly doubt it’s because of the way you line up.”

Reverend Richt crying dawgy tears

Call this man a waaahmbulance.

I think he might be choking on his waaaahmburger and french cries.

Seriously, suck it up, Richt. You got donkey punched last year because the 'Bama lines were much, much better than yours, and they orchestrated an offense that made you look like a peewee team and had you cussin' at halftime.

Traveling to and from Tempe had nothing to do with it. Teams like Miami have always had to travel like that, and it has never stopped them from succeeding at the highest levels. Ok. State did not lose when it last visited Athens because they traveled so far, it's because they were playing a better team. Quit being such a crybaby and focus on not having as many arrests this summer and you might do a little better.

This man doesn't know how to make excuses. You should take a lesson from the master, Richt.

Who can't you stop: Georgia Tech or Texas Tech?

Good read on rivals about GT vs. TTU offenses and defenses inability to stop 'em. Will post more when baseball/softball finish their weekend games.

Football reading for those found wanting more

Here's a great entry by Navy blogger Mike. He discusses Paul Johnson and new head coach Ken Niumatalolo's efforts in the wake of Johnson's departure.

Yahoo! has always been my favorite source of sports information but the merger with Rivals is a little annoying. Either way, here's a featurette about Roddy Jones on Rivals. My favorite quote:

...it is amazing we won any games last year," he said. "At the beginning of the year we had some guys make some great plays. When a play would breakdown Josh Nesbitt, Jonathan Dwyer or Demaryius Thomas would go out and make some plays. We were able to win some close games and towards the end of the year when we got used to the offense, things started to click...

This quote is the definition of last season. Josh Nesbitt and Jon Dwyer created big plays early on (BC and VT). The season progressed and we saw some Bebe action (MSU). And finally the A-backs and the offense started to roll (e.g. the U, FSU, and uga).

And since I liked the link about Darryl so much this morning I looked up articles about Michael Johnson and Andrew Gardner.

You better have your reading glasses on.

I heart intrastate football

Sorry about lack of postings today. Dane/Winfield are cuddling after completing their final finals and I was in Charlotte for a Hazmat Conference.

On to the interesting news today. Tech is slated to play Georgia Southern in 2015. That's a helluva long way away, which leads me to believe it'll give GSU time to reach I-A status as Coach Hatcher has indicated he'd like to be the guy to take GSU to that level. We'll see.

I personally will love to see this game. I've followed the Eagles since my cousin's 5 years in Statesboro. We'd trade tickets every other year for the GT-uga game and the GSU-Furman game. I've seen epic duals between Chaz Williams and Ingle Martin, Jayson Foster dominate some I-AA bitches, and some incredible triple option football under Mike Sewak. And I was pretty pissed off at VanGorder for doggin' the Eagles after one crappy season. So, like I said, I've been waiting for this game.

Once again, sorry for the shortage of Friday postings. I may post some this weekend between golf, Cinco de Mayo parties, and watching the NBA playoffs. Expect more Winfield/Dane postings since they don't have jobs/school now.

ACC Coaches sophomore slump or jump

I like to look at numbers to draw conclusions. I was thinking about the term "sophomore slump" and wanted to pull some coaches' stats out for predictions of CPJ's second year. So here's the most recent 2-year tenured coaches' freshman/sophomore records at all 12 ACC gigs:

It's nice to know that on average most coaches got better in their second years. That makes sense. In fact, only four of twelve coaches didn't improve in their sophomores seasons: Roof, Amato, Gailey, and Bunting. Amato needed P. Rivers, Bunting was terrible, Roof was at Duke, and Gailey was Gailey. Otherwise, I think the numbers are pretty interesting. It would be totally cool if CPJ followed the trend and won 0.83 more games next year and lost 0.25 less games. That's a +1.08 net. I'll take a 10 win season any day.

Roddy Jones Replay

The 54 yard TD by Roddy Jones against ugag is an excellent clip of our triple option at work. You see the fake to Dwyer (21), the option by Nesbitt (9), and the downfield blocking. The above diagram shows the GA defenders that could make a play (red) and those completely removed from the play (black).

GA is lined up in a 4-4 with press coverage on the wideouts. The right cornerback (2) is blocked and removed eventually by Bebe. This is actually a poor block attempt but who's judging? Cox (36) destroys the free safety (4), which basically creates the touchdown after the right outside linebacker (3) takes a terrible angle on Roddy (20). The free safety recovers pretty well and tries to knock Roddy out of bounds but isn't strong enough and the TD is scored.

I really enjoy watching these dog clips.

When Johnson speaks, people listen

Very good article by Barnhart at the AJC. If you have time to read a couple minutes, read it. It's reassuring knowing that former players are solidly backing CPJ - something Gailey never really had.

And in case you haven't noticed, Mark Teixeira was booed mercilessly by his hometown Orioles fans in the Yankees' first series in Baltimore. I don't really get the anger that Northeastern fans have when it comes to baseball. I understand that he "looked" at a Baltimore deal but the Orioles weren't bringing the dough.

You'd never see Atlanta fans booing an Atlanta native that signs with Mets/Phillies. Plus, every time a former ATL great comes back to Turner Field, he usually receives an ovation for his services rendered. I think the sadder part is that Mark went 0-4 with 5 LOB meaning if he doesn't get his act together, the Yankee fans are gonna boo him, too.

Side note - that 7th inning for the Braves yesterday was terrible. Not quite as terrible as Tech's pounding received by GSU yesterday but still pretty terrible.

Helen Hunt is a big ol' snuggybear

Anyone who has lived in Georgia for more than one football season knows that the Athens cultists have a very, very predictable pattern. Generally, their preseason expectations are that not only will they win the big show, usually stemming from ignoring every other facet of CFB during the offseason.

They (obviously) don't meet those expectations and until after the spring game (where they crown some overrated running back as the next coming of Herschel Walker), they spend most of their time praising St. Richt's "integrity" yet wondering if he and his staff can "take them all the way". It even gets in the press. Current topic of discussion? The fact that Mark Richt is, well, kind of a sissy.


Is Mark Richt intense enough? The jist of the collective dawg answer: sure.





...sure.

Is St. Richt intense enough?

Not for us.

THWG

Metric ton of debacle

Wow. We got beat down. What do we gain from this loss? Probably not very much. We didn't get to see any backup time. We regressed offensively. We played the same defensively that allowed our last 4 opponents to rack up 30 points per game. However, we didn't really lose anything. A lot of people say we lost momentum, pride, respect, and whatnot but I don't really feel too bad about the game. Bowl games, to me, mean about as much as an exhibition basketball game or spring scrimmage. I like to win and don't mind losing bowls...unless it's for an MNC.

Maybe everyone's pissed because we all shelled out a little dough to see the game. I picked up some tickets for the 'rents, myself, and little bro to the tune of 270 cold ones. I generally had a good bowl experience but we ended up leaving earlier than I've ever left a Tech game.

I left because we fired a coach who "did not "motivate his team" or "prepare his team for big opponents" yet on that GA Dome field, I saw a team that was not prepared to play LSU and lacked any real motivation. Sorry to be a negative nancy but did we win a big game this year? Or did Chan's talent win 9 games by default? VT win would've sealed coastal. Came out flat against UNC. Dropped big egg against a terrible UVA team albeit they were hot at the time. And LSU destroyed us. The only big games were losses. We won the two games that went beyond the football field (ugag/FSU) but couldn't win the ones that we needed on the field (coastal games). We'll see next year, eh?

Any thoughts on this rant? Feel free to roast me.

Triple Option 101

This is for the LSU fans who aren't totally accustomed to Tech's version of the Triple Option. Let's start with basic terminology:

A-back - This is our slotback in the basic Paul Johnson formation. Starters are Roddy Jones and Lucas Cox. Typically, this position is played by a smaller back with able hands and good speed. Cox is an atypical A-back. He found his way into this position however because he plays hard every play and is an excellent blocker.

B-back - This is our fullback in the basic Paul Johnson formation. The starter is Jon Dwyer. Typically, this position is a big bruising back that carries a bulk of the load.

Here's our basic formation:


The basic Tech Triple Option involves one of the A-backs motioning presnap into the backfield creating an "I-formation" and right as the I is dotted, the ball is snapped. The QB reads the defensive end on the play side and determines if the end is crashing in to take the B-back or dropping off to cover the option. If the DE crashes, then the QB keeps the football and runs around the blocking A-back with the motioned A-back trailing as a pitch man. The QB then makes a second in play read on whether or not to pitch or keep. Thus, the Triple Option. Option 1 - Nesbitt hands to Dwyer. Option 2 - Nesbitt keeps the football. Option 3 - Nesbitt pitches to Roddy or Cox.

For information straight from the horse's mouth watch this video.

Vacation and Johnson's raise

I'm gonna be going back to ATL for 9 days so I'll let Dane/Winfield pick up the slack on bloggin'. Sadly, GT will be travelin' to the west coast while I'm in town.

Let's talk about Paul Johnson's raise. Why would you give someone who excites the fan base a 53% raise? One major factor is attendance. This year's poor attendance due to double barrel of I-AA's and lack of marquee crowd pleasers resulted in around 86% attendance.

If every ticket was sold for approximatly 25 bucks (estimation based on mixture of alumni/seat donors higher and 9,000 "free" student tickets), then we generated 8.7 million in ticket revenue. Now, next year we'll be bringing Clemson, uga, and VT to town. If VT sustains some momentum and the game is not a Thursday night, then we're talking at least 3 sellouts. Next year's home slate will be Wake (86-90%), UNC (90-92%), Clemson (99-100%), ugag (101%), VT (95-100%), and Jacksonville State (85%). So an average of 93-95% is not bad for 6 home games. That's a revenue of 7.6 million.

Imagine a team that annually excites the fan base. We continually bring in 95-96% capacity per game and you're taking care of Johnson's pay raise. This coming year's 6 game home slate doesn't help us but the big 3 opponents at home certainly doesn't hurt.

Now, throw in increased revenue from concessions, increased sales in merchandising (e.g. hundreds of #21 Jon Dwyer gold and white jerseys running around town), and increased television exposure and GT's talking an even greater revenue stream because we made the risk of keeping a good coach.

Are you frightful over Tech's financial future? Do you dislike the Tech fan bases poor home attendance yet odd eagerness to travel (except to VT)?

Thursday News and Links

Every now and then we do a blog search to see what the blogosphere is talking about regarding the Yellow Jackets. Here is what people are talking about:

Football

Paul Johnson: 2nd highest paid coach in the ACC. $17.7 million for 7 years. BOOM!

Coley Harvey continues to dish out the love to Cord Howard and talks about how he has stepped up in Andrew Gardner’s place.
Sidenote: I really do enjoy reading Coley Harvey. I suggest all of you do the same.

The ACC Sports Journal takes our pulse. Well more like they interview the guy who publishes GoJackets.com, Jonathan Leifheit. The responses fit what a typical Georgia Tech fan would sound like at this point in their life would sound like: excited but wary of being too overconfident AKA cautious.

Issue with VT blog “TechSuperfans” 1. Spell Ramblin’ Reck correctly (Wramblin Wreck, seriously WTF?) 2. “Uphill battle against LSU” Pfft. FAIL.
Please speak of what you know next time.

Some of you may not realize the history that Tech and LSU have together on the football field from back in the day. Here’s some information on that.

Basketball
Lewis Clinch is back! And boy did he perform! Coley Harvey discusses here.
Larry Harstein (AJC) talks about it here.

The Nick Foreman Walk-on love continues. This time it’s the ACC Sports Journal.

Randomness

The current bowl system sucks and is outdated. In fact, it’s a “boondoggle”. I don’t really understand that specific metaphor but whatever.

CPJ and GT reach contract extension agreement

Yesterday afternoon, Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech came to a contract extension agreement. Details won't be announced until the end of this week unfortunately. When Johnson first signed on at the flats, his contract was 7 years, $1.6 million per year. That put him right in the middle of the ACC for coaching salaries.

Ladies and gentleman, we sure as hell are not in the middle of the ACC. Currently, Bobby Bowden, Frank Beamer, Butch Davis, Al "Chan Gailey pt. 2" Groh, and Ralph Friedgen all make more than CPJ. I expect the extension to be right around the Butch Davis $2.1 million a year salary.

So, while we wait on the official announcement and numbers, let's revel in some of the images of our beloved coach from this past year:

The Beginning.

Always givin' the Refs a hard time.

EXPECTING PERFECTION FOREVER AND ALWAYS.

What are your thoughts on a contract extension? Is 1 year to soon? Does CPJ deserve it?

Clinch returns and new fball wrinkles

Mo Miller is out and Lewis Clinch says he's eligible again. Clinch should return against my second most hated team in the state, Georgia State. Clinch should finally provide us another three point shooter. And for CPH's teams, the more 3-ballers the better.

Concerning football, Johnson looks to be bringing in additional wrinkles in the passing offense. I think Georgia Tech's passing game has been pretty bad for about 5 years now. We haven't had our primary passer throw for over 50% completions since Reggie's freshman year in 2003. Wow, that's a long time and probably the longest active streak in CFB.


What are your thoughts about the new additions to the offense? About Lewis Clinch? Post below!

Wednesday Poll Talk

With the Auburn debacle going on, and the rumors swirling about that Jimbo Fisher, the Bobby Bowden successor, leaving for elsewhere, we pose a question to you, the readers.......

Where will Paul Johnson be in 5 years?

1. Still at Georgia Tech with an above average team?

2. Took the money at another Big 6 Conference?

3. Non-BCS school

4. Bobby Dodd re-incarnate

5. The NFL

6. Tuberville-esque leave of absence

Mark your answer in the poll box above and leave your comments below as to why.

LSU Quick Look & All-ACC Blog Awards

So here’s a quick look at our Chick-fil-A bowl opponent, the LSU Tigers.

Key Stats:

Signature Wins: South Carolina
Wins against bowl teams: 2; South Carolina (Outback) and Troy (New Orleans)

They may be the defending national champions but they are very average and extremely beatable.

The Legacyx4's All-ACC Blog Award Nominations

And now we move on to the inaugural All-ACC blog awards. Gobbler Country headed these up. Below is our ballot. If you have any Bitches, Gripes & Suggestions put them in the comment box. Here is how the voting is scored: 3 pts. for a 1st place vote, 2 pts. for a 2nd place vote, and 1 pt. for a 3rd place vote.

ACC Offensive POY

1. Jon Dwyer
--call me a homer but you know it's true. So does the media and the coaches
2. Russel Wilson
--Yeah, he was good
3. Thaddeus Lewis
--Without him, Duke would have been even worse. And if they had him, they would have beaten VT.

ACC Defensive POTY

1. Trimane Goddard
--Slightly better than Burnette
2. Morgan Burnette
--sick nasty!
3. Everette Brown
--12 sacks. 'nuff said.

ACC Offensive ROTY

1. Russell Wilson
-- he led his team's turnaround
2. Roddy Jones
--baller
3. Darren Evans
--stuck it to us at VT.

ACC Defensive ROTY

1. Brandon Maye
2. abstain
3. abstain

ACC COTY

1. Paul Johnson
-he's going to win National Coach of the Year. Plus, you know it's true
2. Jeff Jagodzinski
-No one thought BC would get where they ended up this year.
3. Frank Beamer
--You can credit Bud Foster on this one as well. They deserve a round of applause for this year's team.

Paul Johnson Coach of the Year

We all knew it was coming. It's now official.