A GT Football Fan expectation

[Skeptic]

This thread started with a question about our long term expectations. Here are mine:

1. I expect that under whatever coach we have, GT will never be able to recruit with the "big boys" (aka the football factories) until and unless Administration decides to make the changes necessary to compete on a level playing field.
2. I do not expect Administration to ever change their attitude
3. Ergo, the best we are likely to see is occasional flashes of brilliance competing with the power teams, but if we can even average 0.500 record against the better teams on our schedule, I'll be surprised.
4. All of that will lead to 7 wins on average (4 gimmes and 3-5 against the good teams). Hard to predict the peaks and valleys but I will be shocked if we ever make it to a national championship game the way the game is set up these days.
5. I think this approach will continue to feed the slow agonizing death of interest in GT football. We are already are at a huge disadvantage because the school itself is so much smaller than most we play against, leaving us with far fewer alumni to populate our stadium. The only way to really compete therefore is to try to develop a huge sidewalk fan base. For that to happen, see #1 above. No amount of uniform changes or innovative marketing can put lipstick on a pig.
6. Having said all of that, I will continue to respect those athletes who choose the road less traveled and come to play for GT. Most of them recognize the value of education to go along with their athletic dreams. More power to them. I hope I never complain about a GT athlete or their performance ever. (Coaches are fair game, however).

I don't want to relitigate -- as the lawyers on the board might or might not say -- the whole academic admission and course offering issue because neither can be changed for god knows how many years anyway. But as a sidewalk fan, a very longtime fan, I have on occasion gone to a Clemson game, in a town of 13,000 or so, and a total enrollment of about 23,000. And a football stadium for about 82,000 that has seated up to 86,000. And you know what the AD -- formerly of GT -- is under pressure to do? Fill in a portion of the stands generally reserved for students. It is showing gaps and the board of trustees does not like it. Pretty remarkable given the prosperity of the program, but an indicator of how seriously they take game attendance. But it makes me wonder how many there are just fans of is football team.

 

[redmule]

Why is that every single time CPJ and/or his scheme is the topic, those who support it assume that those who don't desire a return to Chan Gailey? Every Single Time.

I know of literally no Tech fan that wants Gailey back. Forget the Gailey comparisons. No one wants him back.

Because it's an apt comparison. Gailey was the coach with the most recent history against the ACC. He took us to the ACC Championship game. He recruited from the same pool CPJ is using, but with lesser academic restrictions. Gailey had a long track record of good results in both college and pro. Didn't he also win a NC at a small school just like CPJ? So you just assume we are going to vastly improve by bringing in a new coach. Our track record isn't stellar. You don't seem to like Gailey. O'Leary wasn't killing it until he was able to get Ralph back from the pros, and George hit the road as soon as Ralph left. Prior to O'Leary we hired the National Coach of the Year over both O'Leary and Ralph, and fired him less than three years later. Ross was a complete disaster his first two years. I remember Clemson fans calling him Coach Loss. Didn't we pass on Spurrier and hire Curry? What in that history gives you such complete assurance we are going to get the next Dabo?

 

[takethepoints]

The "Team that played for the MNC" boat-raced us at home 38-7. While 2014 was awesome, it took a disastrously-stupid squib-kick decision by CMR to pull that one out. 2016 was great too - thanks to passing the ball!

Meanwhile, we're 1-3 vs Puke over this same period and all 3 losses (to PUKE) involved being down at least 3 TDs in each game. Crickets chirping on that one.

Again - NO ONE HERE THINKS GAILEY COULD HAVE DONE SO WELL. I ask again why those in favor of the status quo keep holding CPJ to the low standard of "Well, he's better than Gailey!!" when no one else wants Gailey back. Again, "Crickets Chirping" will be my response.

And sorry but the argument that "Our scheme allows us to go after small-college players that bigtime programs don't want! Hell yes!!" is a terrible one. That we beat out GA Southern and other non-P5 programs for players isn't something I'm hanging my hat on. It's embarrassing, actually.

1. Oh, so you think (apparently) that games won because of good luck or poor coaching decisions by the other side don't count? Or that losing big against a team that looked like it had Bama beat until the last play of the national championship game was, in some way, indicative of something besides the inevitable good years that all programs have?

2. You were the one who brought up big time P5 programs. I based my comparison on that. If you had mentioned Duke, I would have agree that we are having more trouble recently and point you to our overall record under Coach. That's 7 - 3, btw.

3. Which, I suppose, is what leads so many in your camp to compare Coach and Gailey's W -L records? And that answer is simple: Coach isn't "… better than Gailey." He's a whole lot better then Gailey.

4. This point hangs on a common misperception: that Tech can actually recruit with programs like Bama if we just <your favorite instant solution here>. Even if we reduced standards to the O'Leary days - that would be hard to do under present NCAA rules, btw - Tech would still have the problem of being an engineering school. As George used to say, "Tech wants to be Alabama on game day and Harvard the rest of the week." One reason - personally, I think it was the main one - that Tech picked Coach is that he was used to recruiting at a school with limited general appeal and had shown good success with the players he had recruited there. He's done the same at Tech, but you can't please some people; there's a persistent rant here that we should be in the top twenty every year. Shoot, FSU and Texas and any number of other programs can't manage that. We've had two rough years over the last four and won - please, remember this - 11 and 9 games in the other two.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

Because it's an apt comparison. Gailey was the coach with the most recent history against the ACC. He took us to the ACC Championship game. He recruited from the same pool CPJ is using, but with lesser academic restrictions. Gailey had a long track record of good results in both college and pro. Didn't he also win a NC at a small school just like CPJ? So you just assume we are going to vastly improve by bringing in a new coach. Our track record isn't stellar. You don't seem to like Gailey. O'Leary wasn't killing it until he was able to get Ralph back from the pros, and George hit the road as soon as Ralph left. Prior to O'Leary we hired the National Coach of the Year over both O'Leary and Ralph, and fired him less than three years later. Ross was a complete disaster his first two years. I remember Clemson fans calling him Coach Loss. Didn't we pass on Spurrier and hire Curry? What in that history gives you such complete assurance we are going to get the next Dabo?

Except that it's not an apt comparison, since NO ONE WANTS GAILEY BACK.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

1. Oh, so you think (apparently) that games won because of good luck or poor coaching decisions by the other side don't count? Or that losing big against a team that looked like it had Bama beat until the last play of the national championship game was, in some way, indicative of something besides the inevitable good years that all programs have?

2. You were the one who brought up big time P5 programs. I based my comparison on that. If you had mentioned Duke, I would have agree that we are having more trouble recently and point you to our overall record under Coach. That's 7 - 3, btw.

3. Which, I suppose, is what leads so many in your camp to compare Coach and Gailey's W -L records? And that answer is simple: Coach isn't "… better than Gailey." He's a whole lot better then Gailey.

4. This point hangs on a common misperception: that Tech can actually recruit with programs like Bama if we just <your favorite instant solution here>. Even if we reduced standards to the O'Leary days - that would be hard to do under present NCAA rules, btw - Tech would still have the problem of being an engineering school. As George used to say, "Tech wants to be Alabama on game day and Harvard the rest of the week." One reason - personally, I think it was the main one - that Tech picked Coach is that he was used to recruiting at a school with limited general appeal and had shown good success with the players he had recruited there. He's done the same at Tech, but you can't please some people; there's a persistent rant here that we should be in the top twenty every year. Shoot, FSU and Texas and any number of other programs can't manage that. We've had two rough years over the last four and won - please, remember this - 11 and 9 games in the other two.

All credibility lost with your continued insistence that Chan Gailey is somehow still relevant to the topic.

NO ONE WANTS GAILEY BACK. CPJ is better than a host of other ****ty coaches. Gailey sucked.

If that's the bar we're supposed to aspire to - "To not suck", then it's true that "It Is What It Is" has infected our program with mediocrity.

 

[redmule]

Except that it's not an apt comparison, since NO ONE WANTS GAILEY BACK.

Agreed, but I suspect it is more likely our next hire will be like Gailey than Dabo, given our history. And I had lots rather have CPJ than another Gailey. Now you tell me how you can insure we don't hire someone like Gailey or Lewis. Or like Muschamp, or Sumlin or Strong or Freeze or McElwain or Butch Jones.

 

[MikeJackets1967]

Agreed, but I suspect it is more likely our next hire will be like Gailey than Dabo, given our history. And I had lots rather have CPJ than another Gailey. Now you tell me how you can insure we don't hire someone like Gailey or Lewis. Or like Muschamp, or Sumlin or Strong or Freeze or McElwain or Butch Jones.

I think someone like Appalachian State head coach Scott Satterfield or James Madison head coach Mike Houston would be prime candidates for the GT head coaching job if Paul retires or is fired. They would be easier for GT to hire than an established FCS coach at a major program or a retread with a good reputation for his past coaching.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

Agreed, but I suspect it is more likely our next hire will be like Gailey than Dabo, given our history. And I had lots rather have CPJ than another Gailey. Now you tell me how you can insure we don't hire someone like Gailey or Lewis. Or like Muschamp, or Sumlin or Strong or Freeze or McElwain or Butch Jones.

Obviously you can't. But we'll have to at some point soon when CPJ retires. We can't just drop football because no more B-Back dive plays.

I, for one, would be happy to see a different look on offense. I think we've seen the very-best we're going to out of CPJ and that we're bottoming out. I, for one, think we can - and will - do better.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

I think someone like Appalachian State head coach Scott Satterfield or James Madison head coach Mike Houston would be prime candidates for the GT head coaching job if Paul retires or is fired. They would be easier for GT to hire than an established FCS coach at a major program or a retread with a good reputation for his past coaching.

Agreed and for all the "Any hot young candidate will just leave in 3-4 years" arguments...well, that's the case for every single college job in America. Saban, Dabo, and Urban are probably the only coaches not looking for the Next, Better Gig.

We've had CPJ for a decade - we're clearly not a Coaching Carousel.

 

[Skeptic]

... What in that history gives you such complete assurance we are going to get the next Dabo?

With Dabo's outsized personality and his lockerroom dance recitals, there is room in the ACC for only one of him. But his first couple of years there was a lot of disdain, particularly on message boards. In effect Terry Don Phillips made two great hires his last, and both were Swinney. First to hire a coach who had never been a coordinator, had only coached WRs, then to ignore calls for firing him into his second year and making the hiring permanent. I suspect Swinney would walk through fire for Phillips, and maybe that is the position the new Tech AD will be in with Johnson.

 

[AE 87]

When talking about our offense, I think an apt comparison is all other power5 coaches. It's like people just ignore the facts that they don't like. Again, just looking at offense, FEI, here are the average team rankings for the last 10 years:

If you take out our OFEI ranking for 2015, tifwiw, our average OFEI ranking would be 22.6, which would be #6. Our OFEI rank was 21 in 2016 and 23 in 2017. For those who don't know, they try to account for strength of schedule and only count games against FBS opponents.

So, I can appreciate those who think that CPJ's O, or him being both HC and OC, somehow hurts us on D. However, apart from the injury-riddled 2015, our offense just has not been the problem.

When you want to critique a coach or a scheme, you need to look at all the games rather than just cherry picking particular games that fit your narrative.

 

[RonJohn]

What is the item u have seen? Please comment on your opinion of its effect?

The one item was intervening with professors who won't allow players any recourse from early morning exams (midterms) after a Thursday night game. I don't think it would be any benefit to the team, and only maybe a small benefit to recruiting. However it could be a great benefit for the student athletes affected.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[takethepoints]

All credibility lost with your continued insistence that Chan Gailey is somehow still relevant to the topic.

NO ONE WANTS GAILEY BACK. CPJ is better than a host of other ****ty coaches. Gailey sucked.

If that's the bar we're supposed to aspire to - "To not suck", then it's true that "It Is What It Is" has infected our program with mediocrity.

Uh, look above.

I didn't say people wanted Gailey back. What I said is that people persist in comparing Coach to Gailey and saying their record and performance is about the same.

It isn't. We've hit highs with Coach that Chan, good as he was, never approached.

 

[LibertyTurns]

The one item was intervening with professors who won't allow players any recourse from early morning exams (midterms) after a Thursday night game. I don't think it would be any benefit to the team, and only maybe a small benefit to recruiting. However it could be a great benefit for the student athletes affected.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

It’s this kind of anti-athletics BS that particularly infuriating. These pencil neck geeks that can’t even get a real job working for a company wantonly harass student athletes for no purpose other than to probably get back at them for the calluses they got on their palms in HS & college and maybe still have.

 

[MWBATL]

In administration are you referring to the school administration or the athletic association administration? If you are referring to the school, what specific actions do you believe they should take? I have seen complaints about the school administration constantly, but I have only seen one specific item that is actually in their power listed as something they should do. I am just interested to know what you believe they could/should do.

School Administration.

And there are a ton of changes they could choose form to make us more level with football factories. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• more admission exceptions;
• BA majors (everything currently is BS) with reduced science/math requirements;
• MUCH wider array of majors to appeal to a broader segment of youth.

GT Adminstration has refused to entertain ANY of these changes because of their academic objectives. It hasn't really hurt the reputations of other major Power 5 schools like Stanford or Cal Berkeley or Northwestern (or even UNC, for that matter).

 

[tech_wreck47]

When talking about our offense, I think an apt comparison is all other power5 coaches. It's like people just ignore the facts that they don't like. Again, just looking at offense, FEI, here are the average team rankings for the last 10 years:

View attachment 3683

If you take out our OFEI ranking for 2015, tifwiw, our average OFEI ranking would be 22.6, which would be #6. Our OFEI rank was 21 in 2016 and 23 in 2017. For those who don't know, they try to account for strength of schedule and only count games against FBS opponents.

So, I can appreciate those who think that CPJ's O, or him being both HC and OC, somehow hurts us on D. However, apart from the injury-riddled 2015, our offense just has not been the problem.

When you want to critique a coach or a scheme, you need to look at all the games rather than just cherry picking particular games that fit your narrative.

did we just become best friends?

 

[MWBATL]

I don't want to relitigate -- as the lawyers on the board might or might not say -- the whole academic admission and course offering issue because neither can be changed for god knows how many years anyway. But as a sidewalk fan, a very longtime fan, I have on occasion gone to a Clemson game, in a town of 13,000 or so, and a total enrollment of about 23,000. And a football stadium for about 82,000 that has seated up to 86,000. And you know what the AD -- formerly of GT -- is under pressure to do? Fill in a portion of the stands generally reserved for students. It is showing gaps and the board of trustees does not like it. Pretty remarkable given the prosperity of the program, but an indicator of how seriously they take game attendance. But it makes me wonder how many there are just fans of is football team.

The answer is ....tons. Clemson is outstanding is developing a sidewalk fanbase. However, they have also been MUCH more successful than we have (especially recently) and have had MUCH more success within their own state vs their SEC rival (compared to us). Those two issues have allowed them to develop a fan base within their state that we cannot match.

If School Admin would change their priorities, we could go down that same path. But it will take both things:

1. generally better results; and
2. going at least 0.500 against the Dawgs.

 

[Jacket in Dairyland]

My expectation short term - the 2018 season - is a return to a mid level bowl game with an 8-4 season record. This will be due to a slight improvement in offense, combined with a more aggressive and opportunistic defense.
For the longer term ( 5 years ), I expect us to win at least 8 games in 4 of those years with a 6-6 or 7-5 in the " down " year.
So, generally a noticeable improvement compared to the previous 5 years, primarily due to a more aggressive mindset on the defensive side of the ball.

 

[Jacket in Dairyland]

School Administration.

And there are a ton of changes they could choose form to make us more level with football factories. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• more admission exceptions;
• BA majors (everything currently is BS) with reduced science/math requirements;
• MUCH wider array of majors to appeal to a broader segment of youth.

GT Adminstration has refused to entertain ANY of these changes because of their academic objectives. It hasn't really hurt the reputations of other major Power 5 schools like Stanford or Cal Berkeley or Northwestern (or even UNC, for that matter).

The only perception that would change is the GT administration's perception of THEMSELVES...

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

School Administration.

And there are a ton of changes they could choose form to make us more level with football factories. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• more admission exceptions;
• BA majors (everything currently is BS) with reduced science/math requirements;
• MUCH wider array of majors to appeal to a broader segment of youth.

GT Adminstration has refused to entertain ANY of these changes because of their academic objectives. It hasn't really hurt the reputations of other major Power 5 schools like Stanford or Cal Berkeley or Northwestern (or even UNC, for that matter).

• BA majors (everything currently is BS) with reduced science/math requirements;

• MUCH wider array of majors to appeal to a broader segment of youth.

Neither are up to the Tech administration; they must both be approved by the BOR, which they have a history of not doing.