Back in Paul's time I was sitting near an older (and if he was older then me, he was old) Tech fan. We were doing a death march and he started complaining about "needing some excitement". I think that's what a lot of Tech fans didn't like about the TO; the death marches seemed so monotonous, whether they succeeded or not. And, since we ran a system O, there was no way to brag about the prowess of our players. (This is, imho, a main thing for many college football fans; most don't understand enough about the game to get excited about good downfield blocking like I do.) And - Look! - we're only winning about 7 games a year! We need to have an entertaining O and get pass "mediocrity"!
Btw, Smith broke a long run right after the old guy complained. And he grumped about that too. And we scored a TD soon after.
Well, as I said at the time, those who disliked Paul got their wish and now we are having to live with it.