Tenuta silently has Yellow Jackets playing tough D

ATLANTA - The players at Georgia Tech have plenty to say about the coaching style of defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta, using words such as fiery, tenacious, emotional and professional. But ask them about Tenuta's personality off the field and they go silent.

``Coach Tenuta, off the field?'' cornerback Dennis Davis said, shaking his head. ``Man, that's tough.''

Linebacker Keyaron Fox didn't have an answer, either.

``Coach Tenuta, you can't really get a bead on him,'' Fox said. ``Great guy, though.''

In his second year, Tenuta has his defense playing solidly, a big reason the Yellow Jackets are the surprise of the Atlantic Coast Conference. They were picked to finish next-to-last in the nine-team league, but after three straight victories, they're tied for fourth.

With six freshman on the two-deep defensive roster, Georgia Tech leads the ACC in rushing defense (94.6 yards a game) and is fourth overall, using Tenuta's blitz-heavy schemes to overcome a lack of size on the line. End Gerris Wilkinson weighs only 230 pounds, and only tackle Mansfield Wrotto weighs at least 300.

``We've played pretty good, but we can get better,'' Davis said.

What does Tenuta think about all of this? Well, that's hard to say. He hasn't spoken with reporters this season, and he declined several interview requests for this story.

``That sounds like Tenuta,'' former Ohio State coach John Cooper said.

Tenuta was part of Cooper's staff there for five seasons, leaving after Cooper was fired in 2000. As coach of the defensive backs a job he also holds at Georgia Tech Tenuta developed several players who eventually reached the NFL, including first-round picks Shawn Springs, Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements and Ahmed Plummer.

``He's one of the best assistant coaches that ever worked for me,'' Cooper said. ``If I got hired tomorrow as a head coach, Jon Tenuta would be the first person I'd call to see if he was available.

``He's just an old ball coach, that's the best way to describe Jon Tenuta. He's not going to spend a lot of time with the press or with the alumni.''

So getting to know Tenuta isn't easy.

``He has always been that way,'' Yellow Jackets athletic director Dave Braine said. ``He doesn't like the limelight, and he's got his group of friends and he stays very close to them. But it's hard to get into that inner circle.''

Braine has known Tenuta longer than anyone else at Georgia Tech, serving as an assistant coach at Virginia when Tenuta was a defensive back there. When Chan Gailey was hired as head coach of the Yellow Jackets in late 2001, Braine recommended Tenuta for the job of defensive coordinator.

At the time, Tenuta was at North Carolina, where he led the top-ranked defense in the ACC in his only season.

``I knew from the very first day I coached him that he would be a football coach one day,'' Braine said. ``He just had the discipline and the knowledge of his position and everybody else's position, and what they were supposed to do. That's very rare.''

After an indifferent first season with the Yellow Jackets, who finished 7-6 after losing their final two games by combined score of 81-28 in 2002, Tenuta appears to have the defense on track. North Carolina State finished with minus-8 yards rushing earlier this month in a 29-21 loss to Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest gained only 277 yards of total offense last week.

``He just covers every base,'' Gailey said. ``He does a good job of getting the players to understand why they're doing what they're doing. They're not just memorizing their assignments, but why they're doing something.''

Gailey has so much confidence in Tenuta that he rarely contributes to the defensive game plan.

``I don't even have to go other there and talk or go into meetings or even ask,'' Gailey said. ``He's nice enough to say, 'Do you like this?' But I ask him if he likes it, and he says, 'Yeah,' so I tell him to do it.''

As far as Tenuta's reticence for interviews this year, Gailey doesn't plan to ask him to change.

``I think what Jon realizes is that it has very little to do with winning or losing football games,'' Gailey said. ``So he doesn't have to do it. That's why I'm here, that's my job.

``And if he gets a head coaching job, if that's what he wants to do, he'll deal with it just fine.''