In Part 1 (
LINK), I looked at the claim that people make that other teams will have "figured out" Paul Johnson's offense now that they have played against it and they have game film to look at.
Now I'm going to look at the numbers from Paul Johnson's first two stops as head coach and see how his teams did over the years, particularly from Year 1 to Year 2, where Georgia Tech is right now.
First, I want to look at
rushing yards per game, since this offense is predominantly a rushing threat.
Georgia Tech fared similarly to other Paul Johnson teams in their first year, with ups and downs, but a solid YPG average over the season (273.2). What's interesting is the huge jump from Year 1 to Year 2 in rushing yards per game. CPJ's Georgia Southern team saw a 35.7% increase in rushing yards per game from Year 1 to Year 2 - and that was a jump from an already solid 288 YPG. His Navy team increased 19.4% from Year 1 to Year 2. Not as high, but still impressive. Georgia Southern then improved again by another 13.8% in year 3.
After Year 3 is where Georgia Southern sees a drop off statistically, but this same year, Year 4, is when GSU won their second conseccutive 1-AA National Championship. In fact, after 3 losses in year 1, CPJ's GSU teams never lost more than 2 games.
Navy's RYPG dropped after Year 2, but Year 3 is the year the Midshipmen went 10-2 (just two years removed from a 2-10 season). So despite decreased rushing yards after a few years, the results improved at both stops. Navy then continued to outrush themselves per game each season until CPJ departed for Georgia Tech.
If you look at
rushing yards per carry, you see a similar story:
Georgia Tech had a slightly better first year than GSU and Navy, but what's really impressive is a Paul Johnson team has never rushed for fewer than 5 yards per carry on the season.
A lot of Tech fans are wondering how much more the passing game will play into future seasons under CPJ, so I wanted to look at his past passing stats as well. Here are
passing yards per game:
One thing's for sure - after 4 years at a school, Paul Johnson get tired of passing the ball... I think what this actually does show is that, at least at his last two stops, Paul Johnson knows what he does best and sticks to it. If he had felt a need to pass more, I'm sure he would have. Some people think that to take Georgia Tech to the next level, he may have to pass more, and if that ends up being the case, I think he will. But based solely on the past, we shouldn't expect a huge upturn in passing numbers. What you can bet on is that Tech will be better and more efficient in running this offense and continue to be a successful football team.
Another thing you can bet on is that when Georgia Tech
does pass the ball, they will gain yards. GT was number 1 in the nation last year in
yards per completion at 17.4 (
LINK). Here's how Paul Johnson's teams have done in the past:
What wins games, though? It's not yards. It's points. Here's how CPJ teams have fared in
points per game each year:
Pretty ridiculous numbers at GSU. Obviously, the defenses he's facing at Navy and Georgia Tech are much more stout, but his numbers are impressive there, too. The comforting thing for Georgia Tech fans is the pretty steady increase in points per game at Navy, playing against tough defenses, but with lesser offensive talent than Johnson has at Tech.
So what does all this mean?
The theory in question is that teams will have this all figured out already after one season. That Georgia Tech's triple option glory days are behind them and the success was due to the offense's newness. Well the numbers would show that this was probably the worst season, statistically speaking, Georgia Tech will have under CPJ. Year 1 was also the worst record he had at both GSU and Navy.
Georgia Southern plays in a conference, so they played the same teams year in and year out. Their conference didn't figure out how to stop Georgia Southern. In fact, they never really improved at it. Georgia Southern won the Southern Conference all 5 years he was there and never lost more than one conference game.
Although Navy is independent, they have a lot of common opponents. Looking specifically at Johnson's first and second years there, Navy played 5 teams twice (Army, Air Force, Notre Dame, Rice, and Tulane). In Year 1, Navy lost to all but Army. In Year 2, they avenged 3 of those losses, only losing to Notre Dame. So it seems those teams actually
forgot how to defend the triple option in Year 2.
The ACC is a whole new beast for Paul Johnson (as tame as that beast may appear). The ACC now has supplied the top defender in four of the past eight NFL drafts, and since becoming a 12-team league, the ACC has had more first round selections than any other conference, with 30 first rounders chosen since 2006.
But despite the elevated level of defenses faced, Year 1 in Atlanta looks right on par with his other debut seasons, and he saw improvement from that point on at both stops.
This is a lot to digest, and I kind of rambled, but what it basically boils down to is this...
No matter how much you think you've "figured out" another team's offense, football still comes down to who executes better - who blocks, reads, passes, runs, or tackles better will usually win. People have figured out numerous ways to stop the "pro-style" offense so many teams run, but you still have to go out and execute.
A few years ago, Rich Rodriguez surprised people with his success at West Virginia, using what is similar to Paul Johnson's offense, just run from the shotgun. I'm sure he faced all the same questions CPJ is now, but eventually people just said, "Hey, that West Virginia team is pretty good."
The only thing that's going to prove people wrong is results, and only Georgia Tech's coaches and players can produce those. But in the mean time, I can try to educate people. And if nothing more, I can make pretty charts and kill some time until September 5.
I think the future is definitely bright for Georgia Tech. Remember, he did all this starting 16 freshmen and sophomores, most of whom he didn't recruit for his offense.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think in the comments section.Sources: ncaa.com, espn.com, cnnsi.com
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