Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Georgia Tech Football '09 Preview


The Yellow Jackets are coming off of one of their best seasons in recent memory. Many believe that coach Paul Johnson and his option offense snuck up on a lot of teams last year, which is something that they won't be able to do this year.

However, Paul Johnson's teams in the past have traditionally gotten better and been more efficeint at running the option in his second year as head coach. This will tough to duplicate this season, though, because the ACC is a solid conference and every team he plays will be ready for the option.

Coach Johnson has said that he plans on using more passes from the option this year, which should open up some holes for the Yellow Jackets. This could be difficult because the whole team practices running all the time so the first time they go to drop back and pass out of the option, there could be trouble. Then again, it could work beautifully.

With the way quarterbacks in his option system take poundings, coach Paul Johnson expects both Josh Nesbitt and Jaybo Shaw to get plenty of snaps under center this season. Some critics may say, 'If you think you have two quarterbacks, then you don't have one.' This, however, isn't the case with Tech as Nesbitt and Shaw both know their roles and seem to be very comfortable with sharing time with one another.

While I expect Tech to have another pretty good season, I don't expect them to win more games than they did last season simply because they have a tough schedule to go up against.

The Yellow Jackets usually always have a tough schedule, but this season will be brutal because of all the up and coming ACC teams like North Carolina and Virginia they'll have to play. Add to that Clemson, Miami, FSU, Va. Tech, Miss. State, Wake Forest and Georgia, and the Yellow Jackets could have a tough year.

Either way I expect that the Yellow Jackets will win a few games that they should lose and lose a few that they should win, ending up with a respectable season. I feel that 8-4 or maybe 9-3 if they're lucky is a good season for Georgia Tech.

But, no one expected the option to work for them last year, so they could win ten or eleven games if they're firing on all cylinders. Perhaps a return to the Chik-Fil-A Bowl and possibly another 10-win season is in their future.

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