Taking apart another falsity.

I saw this comment regarding Paul Johnson on a Husker message board to which I don't subscribe and can't respond to the poster. This sums up a lot of the silliness and misinformation about Paul Johnson, his offense and his philosophy:

"Not to mention the "We don't have a playbook" comment. While he is obviously kidding, it shows that he at least has a very basic offense, one that the coaches and defensive coordinators in the Big 12 would do a better job of scheming against. A lot better coaches would be dissecting his offense. With all due respect to the great job he has done at Navy, I feel he would have to alter his offense to a spread option perhaps like the one West Virginia runs - and hiring an offensive coordinator with experience in it would be a plus.."

Let's take this statement apart little by little.

First, Paul Johnson isn't kidding when he says he doesn't have a playbook. Well sort of. But he lets his players draw up the plays in their own terms, so his playbook really doesn't end up on ebay.

Second, his offense is basic in terms of philosophy but it does take mastery-just like everything else. As one Navy player has said, they may run the same play 3,000 times a year. It means players become extremely familiar with what they're supposed to do. Contrast this to Bill Callahan's 8 lb playbook, which has confused our own players and coaches for the past 4 seasons.
The poster's statement about Big 12 defensive coordinators being better able to scheme to stop this offense is simply ridiculous. For one, it assumes that PJ's teams have played no BCS teams during his time at Georgia Southern or Navy or Hawaii. Rutgers, Notre Dame, Boston College, Oregon State, Georgia, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, Maryland and UCONN are schools that have tried and failed to stop PJ's offense. Some may have had more success than others but remember Paul Johnson is working with an offensive line that averages about 270 lbs a man and a roster full of players that probably belong on your average D-2 school. I suggest reading the article below titled "A fascinating read," which talks about how different schools have tried to stop Johnson's offense over the years. The man is an offensive genius that has seen it all and can make in game adjustments that completely counter everything that someone throws at him. On the contrary, like Phil Fulmer said when Alabama hired Saban over PJ, Nebraska would be a nightmare for opposing defensive coordinators in this conference.

Regarding West Virginia, I would remind this poster that PJ is the sole inventor of his offense. He calls it a combination of run and shoot, spread and flexbone. He actually has borrowed from Tom Osborne's offense to create his own. And he recently spent time at West Virginia, more than likely collecting information to add to his own offense as it continues to evolve. This poster has no idea what PJ would run at Nebraska, since PJ has said repeatedly that he tailors his schemes to fit the kind of players on his roster. And if you talk to this poster, remind him that PJ's offense at Hawaii led the country in passing yardage. Now that I've done the homework, you don't have to.