Two wins in two games does not make a coaching legacy.
But it does make history. Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson did last weekend, becoming the Yellow Jackets’ first head coach to win his Atlantic Coast Conference debut with a 19-16 victory over Boston College.
Not bad for a guy who, in an era dominated by the spread-option offense, has ascended into big-time college football on the back of the triple-option.
But while Johnson’s propensity for winning might make the Tech alumni happy, CBS college football analyst Gary Danielson worries it might harm the Yellow Jackets over the long run.
“When he is recruiting players the negative against what he is attempting to do will be, ‘Why are you going there?’” said Danielson. “‘You’re not going to be trained to be an NFL player. You’re going to be trained to be a college-winning player.’”
The triple-option isn’t run by a single NFL team, which makes it unlikely that Georgia Tech can land another Calvin Johnson. Instead, the Yellow Jackets under Johnson will rely on guys that aren’t also vying for spots at Georgia or Alabama.
For Danielson, the only true way to win consistently is to recruit the best players. The programs that do don’t need the bells and whistles of the triple-option or the spread, which Danielson believes has saturated the market and faces an inevitable drop-off.
“To me,” said Danielson, “it peaked when I saw Michigan come out. Michigan — who used to walk out of the huddle, went to three out of the last five Rose Bowls, they basically said, ‘We’re running this play, stop us,’ — came out of the huddle against Miami of Ohio and Utah, faked a play and looked over to the sideline to figure out how they could trick [the defense].”
The ultimate irony for Johnson, who will introduce his system to Virginia Tech this weekend in Blacksburg, is the fate of the spread-option and triple-option may be inextricably linked.
“Everybody struggles stopping the spread. The spread stumbles trying to do it against everybody,” said Danielson. “That’s why the big guys don’t use it. That’s why USC, Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, LSU, don’t use it because they don’t need to use it. They don’t need to gamble. They got the best guys, why do all that extra stuff.”
