Can you really call an issue an “elephant in the room” when one party in the “discussion” is constantly making attempts to start a discourse but the other refuses to engage? The power dynamic between Tech football coaches and the fans that come to spectate the sum of their efforts on Saturday afternoons is one that requires no explanations from on high detailing the logic behind coaching decisions. That being said, when there is a banner proudly hanging from the rafters of a fraternity house with “FIRE PAUL JOHNSON” boldly emblazoned on its front, there is clearly a conversation that needs to be had.
Many armchair athletic directors have qualms with the team that are relatively reactionary and are most likely just parroting what ever hot take made it to the top of a Tech discussion board this week, but there is one central question that even the most casual Tech fan has most likely asked themselves at some point in the past few years: why does Tech still run the triple option?
Like most physics proofs over the centuries, the easiest way to build an argument as it pertains to sports is to make a definitive statement based on a single broad assumption and build the rest of the model from there: the reason the Jackets run the triple option is solely because Paul Johnson is the coach, and the reason it isn’t working is because they do not have athletes with enough talent in the necessary skill pools to execute it — at least right now.
The second half of this statement is fairly obvious, and in some ways, is one of the biggest problems with the triple option; recruiting players to run this system is different than recruiting for a ground-and-pound or aerial assault offense. Tech’s A-back and B-back recruits need to be good enough at their specialty route paths and pass blocking to be flexible, but talent like that is rarely content in a non-workhorse role that limits their ability to showcase talent for NFL scouts. Meanwhile, the quarterback needs to be run-first and athletic, but cerebral and capable of making the proper read on the pitch/keep, difficult skills to find.
Credit where credit is due: Johnson has a knack for recruiting and polishing his running backs, and over the years, the Jackets have enjoyed the fruits of his labor through one of the winningest eras in Tech history. That being said, finding the “right” quarterback for the triple option is extremely difficult, let alone selling the prospect of being blasted as a runner every time the pocket is abandoned to some highly-rated recruit. Quarterback TaQuon Marshall is a phenomenal athlete, and if returning 1000-yard B-back KirVonte Benson had remained healthy, it’s not unrealistic to think that the two over them would have paired with AB Qua Searcy for a successful rebound season capped with a bowl win. Even with the Benson injury, Jordan Mason has stepped up admirably and is in no way a liability. Unfortunately, what Marshall has in raw talent he lacks in football IQ, and watching him maddeningly refuse to pitch when necessary — or worse, miss an open A-back streaking down the side — does not pair well with an inaccurate arm and losing record.
Just a few years ago, the triple option steered Tech to an Orange Bowl win and ACC championship game. It would appear that the right personnel (and a little bit of luck) is all it takes to make the system work, and it is entirely possible that may be true. However, if the system designed to “steal” wins off teams with higher mean talent is so inflexible that it fails to work against those with lower mean talent, an argument can be made that the lack of consistency makes implementing such a system pointless in the first place when the core of most rosters is only operating together for a year or two at maximum. Of course, since Paul Johnson has already been labeled as the reason that the triple option is being implemented here, it is only fair to also make the assumption that his in-depth knowledge of the system far exceeds that of those spectating, and the micro-adjustments to his game scripts and year-to-year playbook reflect this in a manner imperceptible to the common fan. This conclusion, that Tech is trapped in a system paradoxically consistent with the right protocol but with high variance dependent on said protocol, is frustrating on the down years and inevitably leads to bad-mouthing of Johnson, the man behind the curtain.
It is easy to make excuses for Tech’s inability to draw talent in when recruiting against UGA, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, UF, FSU and South Carolina all within in a 200-mile radius. The athletic department still has not finished paying Paul Hewitt’s albatross of a contract that was bought out in 2011, and Tech has been out-spent by Georgia State the past two years on recruiting — and that program is less than a decade old, there are many external factors to the team that make Tech an undesirable destination for blue-chip recruits. But even with that all taken into consideration, the triple option is at best a double-edged sword in the recruiting process, and at worst the final nail in the coffin that buries any hope the team has for relevance in the decade to come.
By operating a different system and looking for different styles of athletes, Tech is theoretically looking at a different pool of high school students to bring in and mold into Johnson’s vision of perfection through marginal gains and efficiency. Unfortunately, there just are not that many athletes out there that are good enough to play high-level collegiate football, and even though Tech’s focus is on different aspects of a player, the individuals on the Jackets’ radar are for the most part more likely than not similar to all the other Power Five programs.
Yes, Tech may value different characteristics in its running backs than most teams do, and on occasion they can steal an athlete from a top school because they can offer him a chance to play his dream position — Justin Thomas, for example, turned down the chance to be a defensive back at the University of Alabama and instead decided to play quarterback at Tech. No fan will argue that such a turn of events worked out poorly for the Jackets. But scheme cannot overcome deficiencies in talent, and that, unfortunately, is where Tech is afflicted. Neither the Air Raid nor the West Coast offense will fix that.