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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 12, 2018

Paul Johnson

Greensboro, North Carolina

PAUL JOHNSON: Well, good morning. We're excited to finally get into conference play. We were a little disappointed with the outcome of our game the last week. That's the great thing about college football is you get to play again. Looking forward to it. Pitt has always got a real physical team, and they'll be well-coached, and hopefully we can go up and play a little better than we did last week.

Q. As you prepare to face teams that have really strong kick returners, what's the thought process in whether or not to kick to a guy?
PAUL JOHNSON: I don't know that you can not -- I guess you could squib and give it to them on the 40. Yeah, we spend a lot of time on kick coverage. Sometimes if you watch us, you wouldn't know it. But last week was disappointing, and partly our fault as coaches. I should have -- I'm ultimately responsible. We had five or six freshmen out there on that kickoff team, which wasn't very smart. I should have just took them off myself.

We won't have that problem again. They might have return one on us, but it won't be against five or six freshmen; I can promise you that.

Q. With the NCAA rule change allowing teams to fair catch, are you surprised that it isn't being used more, or what's been your vantage point on how that rule is being employed?
PAUL JOHNSON: I think each team is kind of individual. Shoot, if I was playing us, I wouldn't use it, I'd return every one of them.

Q. Could you as quickly as you can tell us how and when you were introduced to the option and kind of how it's evolved to what you do today?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, gosh, we ran an option offense when I was playing in high school. And then in college, the first -- I went back to my high school to coach when I got out of college, but then my first college job we were more a conventional offense, maybe a little bit of split back there and some stuff. And then when I went to Georgia Southern as an assistant coach in 1983, actually coached defense the first two years, but they ran a lot of option then. They were an I-formation in '83, and then in '84 they kind of went combination run-and-shoot and the option, but they threw the ball way more than option.

So in 1985, I became the offensive coordinator, and we kind of geared it more towards running, and we've been doing it ever since. It's evolved, but it's very similar to what we did in 1985.

Q. My last thing is about the cut block and how the new rules this year with the whole -- the five-yard rule and the 10-2, how that's impacted you this year --
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, the 10-2 is not new. The new cut block rule wouldn't have impacted us at all if the officials knew how to call it. We had one last week that was called that was straight up. I mean, it wasn't -- and it wasn't more than five yards downfield. That's the only one we've had called this year in a game, I think. They missed some in the scrimmages. It's almost like the RPO rule where they've put in a rule where it's impossible for those guys to call. They don't know when it's five yards downfield or when it's not. The rule sounds good, but it's just like the RPOs; how far downfield -- how can they tell how far those linemen are downfield when the ball is thrown? They can't. They'll tell you they can't, the ones that are honest. I don't know if that answers your question, but it hasn't affected a lot.

Q. Since you already talked about special teams, let me ask you about your defense. What do you need to see in terms of defensive improvement this week compared to last week?
PAUL JOHNSON: We need to get more stops, you know, tackle better, not have so many missed assignments, everybody know what they're doing. Just play better overall. It wasn't a very good game from that side of the ball a week ago.

Q. For those of us who haven't seen Jordan Mason play, can you describe him as a runner now that it looks like he'll be starting in place of KirVonte?
PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, I mean, Jordan is probably about 215. He's got good speed. He's got pretty good vision and quickness. You know, I would say that he's a good back. We're excited about him. I think he's going to be a good player. We've also got Jerry Howard who's going to play there who played a year ago as a freshman, and we've got a young freshman Christian Malloy who may play there, as well.

Fortunately for us, that was a position we had more depth than probably anywhere on the team.

Q. I think Mason averaged better than seven yards a carry last week after Benson got hurt; were you pleased with the way he played Saturday?
PAUL JOHNSON: Yeah, he's been good for both games with the ball in his hands. As a young player, sometimes we've got to improve when the ball is not in his hands, but he's got a chance to be a really good player, yeah.

Q. Pitt is particularly deep at linebacker. What have you seen out of those guys on film?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, you know, I think last week's game was an anomaly really. I'm watching the game on Saturday night TV, and they probably should have been ahead at halftime. You know, they just kind of self-destructed in special teams very similar to what we did on Saturday at South Florida. Their linebackers are experienced. They're older guys. They're very physical and good players. The Mike linebacker, he sat out last year, but you can see he's a good player, and those other guys have all played a lot.

Q. You mentioned last week; does that make them more dangerous kind of coming off that second-half letdown?
PAUL JOHNSON: You know, I don't know. I'm sure that they'll be ready to play. It's the conference opener. It's a home game for them. They'll be excited to play, and hopefully our guys will be excited to have a chance to play again after the way we played last week, as well.

Q. In high school you said you ran the option; what was it you ran, what kind of option, and where do you remember your head coach maybe got that option from?
PAUL JOHNSON: Oh, I don't know. That was in the '70s, and everybody was running the option. We ran the wishbone. But everybody was doing it. I was in North Carolina, but our high school coach came from Dixie Hollins High School in Florida. I don't know, he was a defensive coach there. I'm not sure whether they ran it or not.

Q. What did y'all do at Georgia Southern to kind of change it to what it is today?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, we just ran it out of a double slot. I mean, when we first put the offense in, it was a combination run-and-shoot option offense, and it still is today. We still have a large package of run-and-shoot pass plays with the offense, we just haven't run them as much in the last few years. Really it kind of stopped when I went to Navy. At Georgia Southern we threw the ball -- I think in the 1985 National Championship game, we threw the ball for 440 yards, and then we held almost every passing record at the University of Hawai'i until June went in there with all the straight run-and-shoot where they threw it every down.

But when I went to Navy, we just kind of hit back, we didn't have the receivers, and then when I was back at Georgia Southern as the head coach, we were usually so far ahead by halftime, we went 62-10 during that span, so there wasn't a lot of throwing in the second half. So it's just kind of evolved. I think if you had a throwing quarterback, you could throw the ball -- you could tweak it. It wouldn't be that hard.

Q. What's the next evolution?
PAUL JOHNSON: Well, I think everybody is running option. Nobody wants to say they are, but there's really not a whole lot of difference between what we do and all the zone read teams. You know, they might not call it option, they call it zone read, but it's the same thing. If you're not blocking a guy and either keeping the ball or handing it off, off the thing. There's hardly a college team -- and now it's gone to the NFL. There's very few teams that aren't running some form of option, they just don't call it that.

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