What's ironic is your reply was in reference to the posts I quoted below. I made the original post, and did mention getting blown out by Syracuse. In that same post I once again urged showing patience with this coaching staff. So many people here are unwilling to talk honestly about where we are. Where we are currently is not an indictment on the former staff, nor yet the current staff. We can admit our shortcomings, acknowledge that the transition is not a routine coaching staff change fix, and critique areas we see as needing improvement without being either sandbagging or overly dismissive. I said years ago on another site that when CPJ left, transitioning back to a good "normal" offense might take the better part of a decade. Had we not landed such a dynamic recruiter, we might honestly be looking at a 6-7 year project in returning to winning football routinely. CGC was a major win for us because he checks all the boxes for recruiting and brand. A similar scenario was Dabo Swinney. He took over mid-2008. The previous 4 recruiting classes at Clemson were ranked 17, 16, 16, & 12 respectively, yet he went 9-5 and 6-7 in his first two years as full time HC. A lot of people, including many Clemson fans I know, had doubts as to his long term future there. The last two coaches there that had losing seasons were fired right after the season. Clemson was patient, and boy has it paid off.
Now, we aren't sitting in the same place Clemson was. Our recruiting classes were not only not that highly ranked, but were chock full of the wrong types of talent to run the current system. It's not a matter of just replacing starters, but also building quality depth. We all know that even highly ranked recruits strike out. Until such point that we stockpile enough talent on the team that we can weather the misfires in evaluation that every team has, then we are dependent on batting 1.000 in order to compete. Every year under CGC that number lessens. I think we will be ok long term, but I also think we might see improvement next year in everything but the W/L column. I see 3 solid wins and with some luck and good play as many as 5. If things break heavily in our favor we could win 7-8 games. I think 4 is reasonable, given all considerations.
I say all this to urge everyone to try and read the posts with context. You can be critical and still be a fan of the program. You can critique CGC and still support him. You can dislike certain methodologies and programmatic choices and still bleed White and Gold (and navy).
Sorry for the long ramble, just tired of the constant accusations flying around here...
