A Thread to Rehash GT HC Comparisons

[SOWEGA Jacket]

We averaged 33 points a game his last season. The offense was fine. We’ve scored 30 points once since CPJ left. I think a younger coach like Monken who could use CPJ’s players could have easily rejuvenated the program. But doners felt getting blown out by BC while running a “normal” offense was better. *shrugs*

Scoring averages don’t mean a whole lot in college football because of the huge differences in talent. Coach Johnson’s system feasted on the sisters of the poor and occasionally showed up against the big boys (Miss. State). You said he averaged 33 his last season. A quick look revealed we scored 41 against Alcorn, 39 against South Florida, 63 against Bowling Green, and 66 against Louisville against whom we scored 46 this year with a freshmen QB. We scored less than 25 against Duke, Clemson, UGA, and Minnesota with a second year starter. Point is, we were less than an offensive juggernaut when it mattered. We all sat thru those games and watched BBack dive after QB keeper get stopped. Did we eat up some clock and keep scores closer, sure. But I also think as Sims gets better we’ll see more quality drives and higher point production. And, yes, we’ve scored over 30 once since. In 2019 we had no QB (part of why the coach retired). This year we are playing a true freshmen and are suffering thru turnover hades. That won’t last.

I loved Johnson‘s system but the death of it lays at his feet when he allowed the media to set the narrative which bled down to high school coaches and players. I’ve been told directly by several high school coaches in South Georgia that the only players they pushed to GT were those who didn’t have the offers to other P5 schools. Why would coaches push WR’s, RB’s, and defensive players to a system that everyone made fun of. I don’t agree with that but that was the prevailing thought.

 

[Vespidae]

Scoring averages don’t mean a whole lot in college football because of the huge differences in talent. Coach Johnson’s system feasted on the sisters of the poor and occasionally showed up against the big boys (Miss. State). You said he averaged 33 his last season. A quick look revealed we scored 41 against Alcorn, 39 against South Florida, 63 against Bowling Green, and 66 against Louisville against whom we scored 46 this year with a freshmen QB. We scored less than 25 against Duke, Clemson, UGA, and Minnesota with a second year starter. Point is, we were less than an offensive juggernaut when it mattered. We all sat thru those games and watched BBack dive after QB keeper get stopped. Did we eat up some clock and keep scores closer, sure. But I also think as Sims gets better we’ll see more quality drives and higher point production. And, yes, we’ve scored over 30 once since. In 2019 we had no QB (part of why the coach retired). This year we are playing a true freshmen and are suffering thru turnover hades. That won’t last.

I loved Johnson‘s system but the death of it lays at his feet when he allowed the media to set the narrative which bled down to high school coaches and players. I’ve been told directly by several high school coaches in South Georgia that the only players they pushed to GT were those who didn’t have the offers to other P5 schools. Why would coaches push WR’s, RB’s, and defensive players to a system that everyone made fun of. I don’t agree with that but that was the prevailing thought.

To add to this, Auburn ... which is not recruiting as well as it used to ... has operations and alumni support in all 67 counties of Alabama.

Does Tech have operations and alumni support in all 159 counties of Georgia? I would guess not.

Collins is a good recruiter. Time will tell what his “real” strategy is ...

 

[JacketOff]

The big donors owe CPJ a big apology. I guess their egos can handle a losing pro style better than they can handle a winning spread option. Phooey on all of them.

In CPJs last 5 years he was:

• 1-4 vs. Duke
• 2-3 vs. Miami
• 2-3 vs. North Carolina
• 2-3 vs. Pitt
• 3-2 vs. Virginia
• 4-1 vs. Virginia Tech

That’s 14-16 against the Coastal over the last 5 years of his tenure. Add in Georgia and Clemson

• 0-5 vs. Clemson
• 1-4 vs. Georgia

That’s 15-25 against his annual opponents over his last 5 years. Winning records against only 2 of his 8 annual opponents. How exactly was CPJ winning? I understand the Clemson and UGAg losses. Nobody really expects Tech to compete with those 2. But CPJ wasn’t even competing in the Coastal anymore. PJ relied on rotating Atlantic opponents, and G5 and FCS wins to make his yearly records respectable. Teams that didn’t see the 3O and didn’t know how to prepare for it. His annual opponents were no longer fooled by the “scheme” and knew how to compete against it. CPJ was a .500 coach against the FBS. Is that good? I don’t think so. It’s average. I’ve pointed out that Tech was one of the most average teams in CFB during the last half of CPJs tenure. The data backs that up.

The point? If you’re ok with having an average, forgettable football program, then go back to 3O and play .500 ball in-conference and beat up on a G5 team and an FCs team every year and be satisfied with 7 wins. That what CPJ did for the last 8 years of his career at Tech. If you’re ok with that, then I can see why you’re p*ssed off about what’s currently happening. I think the ceiling and floor for Georgia Tech’s football team is higher than that. I think Tech can be a legitimate contender in the Coastal every year. That means having a winning record against Coastal opponents. CPJ was not doing that towards the end. IMO, being an average program is not much better than being a bad program. I don’t believe there’s much more incentive in being a 7 win team than a 4 win team if you’re trying something different. As @ilovetheoption pointed out, we’re trying another experiment. I don’t believe that CGC has to or will be the guy that completely turns Georgia Tech football around. But I am pretty sure he is the right guy to put Tech in a position to find out if this experiment is a sustainable option. The talent on the team is much higher than it was under CPJ. If it turns out that CGC isn’t the guy after 4 years, whoever comes through the door next will be set up to have success. If the next guy is no more successful, then I think it will be safe to say that Tech probably can’t compete the same way everybody else can. If that turns out to be true, we can go back to the 3O, win 7 games every year and shut the hell up.

But as I’ve said in another thread. The greatest thing CGC has going for him is that he is still in control of his own narrative and destiny at Tech. If he turns it around, he can say he had one of the greatest transitions in the history of college football. If he doesn’t, well then everybody can point and laugh and say we hired Butch Jones 2.0 and we had a 404 error code or whatever they want to say. We’ll find out what kind of story CGC will end up writing for himself. But right now, we’re still in the introduction. The climax will occur midway through 2022. Stay tuned until then, I think some of you might be surprised.

 

[slugboy]

Good post, and thought provoking!

I'll give my thoughts, but you know my biases, and are free to grade on a curve, so to speak

1) I'm going to do something cruddy and re-challenge your challenge. Paul Johnson is, in my mind, not the be-all and end-all as a head coach. I DO think he might be the be-all and end-all as an offensive coordinator, though, but his failure to ever get an above average defense at Georgia Tech is his failure. The notion that the two are anything other than VERY tangentially connected I think is a falsehood. I fail to see a reason that Paul Johnson couldn't have an ounce more charisma, and hired Nate Woody 4 years earlier, and not had 1 standard deviation better defenses. That offense is going to hold down OFFENSIVE recruiting, and yeah there is maybe a SMALL degree of collateral damage from coaches saying "you don't want to practice against that, you'll get your knees hurt and it won't prepare you for the NFL", but a good recruiter/defensive coordinator tells prospects "you're going to be playing against the scout offense, and you're always going to be playing from ahead, which means lots of INT's".

Now, obviously that speaks to point 2 of your post, which is "why not have it all?"

Well, to my mind, you HAVE proven that you could succeed with the first model, and you HAVE NOT proven that you could succeed with the second model.

In the modern era, you have proven that you can have consistently excellent offense, and consistently "good enough" defense, you just haven't had them at the same time. You had "good enough" defense under Gaily, and you had excellent offense under Johnson. Now, maybe Paul Johnson himself wasn't the guy to recruit/coach a good enough defense to be "good enough", but there's no reason Jeff Monken, for example, could not be.

It was ALWAYS weird to me that Johnson hired "bend but don't break" defensive coaches, given that in my mind a high risk/high reward defense is a much better fit with Johnson's offense. I thought Woody was a GREAT hire for that reason, and I thought they were going to do really good things together at GT.

Well, I was right..... sort of. He's gotten together with Monken at Army, and those guys are a handful, despite having the worst football talent in America.

So, you've proven all the pieces can work at GT, you just never had them at the same time consistently enough.

What you have NOT proven is that you can consistently recruit and retain top 20 recruiting classes at GT.

Remember, when you're running the same schemes everybody else is (and I assure you, GT is. Their offensive schemes are just ABSOLUTELY bog-standard modern spread offense), you fail or succeed on A) teaching ability and B) recruiting (and really, more on recruiting). If you get top 35 classes, you're going to get top 35 results.

If top 35 results are good enough for you, then top 35 recruiting classes are good enough.

I assume you want top 20 results, which means top 20 recruiting classes, and (per 247) since the year 2000 (which is a relatively arbitrary measure, I admit, but it captures the sort of "modern era" of recruiting, with kids beings scouted since they were freshmen and the internet and all that jazz) you have had top 20 recruiting classes in:

2000 (number 19)
2007 (15)
...and that's it.

Now, that 2007 class came with Collins as head of recruiting, but he's had 2 classes as head coach so far, and they've been numbers 27 and 39.

The question this begs is: Is Collins a GREAT recruiter or just a competent one?

If Collins is a GREAT recruiter, then you're in trouble, because the number of people who are GREAT recruiters AND above average x's and o's guys is relatively slim, and they usually coach at places like Georgia, not places like Georgia Tech. If Collins is a GREAT recruiter, and what he can get at GT is top 35 classes, then it's really NOT a sustainable model, because there are relatively few GREAT recruiters, and your next coach isn't likely to be one, because there's no moneyball inefficiency there. Everybody wants a great recruiter, so they're really hard to come by, and the ones you can get are just statistically unlikely to be great x's and o's guys, too.

There IS a moneyball inefficiency with guys like Monken, because of the "undesirability" of the system. You can get better x's and o's results than your "expected value" at your school.

If Collins is just a competent recruiter, though, then maybe you're cooking something there, bbecause you ought to be able to find a competent recruiter who is a good x' and o's guy. If GT really CAN compete heads up with the rest of the ACC in recruiting, and doesn't require EXCEPTIONAL recruiting talent to achieve "slightly above average" recruiting results (which is what you're getting now), then good.

I'm just saying one model has been PROVEN at GT (in separate pieces) and the other has not. That said, Flight was always possible, we just didn't know it until the wright brothers came along. So maybe Orville Collins will be remembered similarly.

JJesus, sorry for the rambling, war and piece length answer, but it's sunday and I'm puttering around the house sore from doing yard work yesterday and I came back to this like 4 times, haha

This is a really short reply, but I find it weird and telling that his defensive coordinators did better everywhere else they were. Even Nate Woody is doing better at Army than he did here, with the same offense to “practice against”, in a faster time frame. After the first year, we aspired to average on defense.

Fridge stood out as an OC, and Tenuta was one of the rare DCs who was better here than elsewhere. Neither recruited—they just focused on coaching and X’s and O’s. That’s one of the reasons we had them. Our results last year and this would be better with a coordinator like that, but I don’t think we leave room on this staff for a coordinator that doesn’t recruit well and with a lot of volume. Getting that mystical coordinator who recruits and innovates and is a standard deviation ahead of other coordinators and not have a factory pick them up for 5x what we can pay is wishful thinking as far as I can see.

 

[Coloradojacket]

In CPJs last 5 years he was:

• 1-4 vs. Duke
• 2-3 vs. Miami
• 2-3 vs. North Carolina
• 2-3 vs. Pitt
• 3-2 vs. Virginia
• 4-1 vs. Virginia Tech

That’s 14-16 against the Coastal over the last 5 years of his tenure. Add in Georgia and Clemson

• 0-5 vs. Clemson
• 1-4 vs. Georgia

That’s 15-25 against his annual opponents over his last 5 years. Winning records against only 2 of his 8 annual opponents. How exactly was CPJ winning? I understand the Clemson and UGAg losses. Nobody really expects Tech to compete with those 2. But CPJ wasn’t even competing in the Coastal anymore. PJ relied on rotating Atlantic opponents, and G5 and FCS wins to make his yearly records respectable. Teams that didn’t see the 3O and didn’t know how to prepare for it. His annual opponents were no longer fooled by the “scheme” and knew how to compete against it. CPJ was a .500 coach against the FBS. Is that good? I don’t think so. It’s average. I’ve pointed out that Tech was one of the most average teams in CFB during the last half of CPJs tenure. The data backs that up.

The point? If you’re ok with having an average, forgettable football program, then go back to 3O and play .500 ball in-conference and beat up on a G5 team and an FCs team every year and be satisfied with 7 wins. That what CPJ did for the last 8 years of his career at Tech. If you’re ok with that, then I can see why you’re p*ssed off about what’s currently happening. I think the ceiling and floor for Georgia Tech’s football team is higher than that. I think Tech can be a legitimate contender in the Coastal every year. That means having a winning record against Coastal opponents. CPJ was not doing that towards the end. IMO, being an average program is not much better than being a bad program. I don’t believe there’s much more incentive in being a 7 win team than a 4 win team if you’re trying something different. As @ilovetheoption pointed out, we’re trying another experiment. I don’t believe that CGC has to or will be the guy that completely turns Georgia Tech football around. But I am pretty sure he is the right guy to put Tech in a position to find out if this experiment is a sustainable option. The talent on the team is much higher than it was under CPJ. If it turns out that CGC isn’t the guy after 4 years, whoever comes through the door next will be set up to have success. If the next guy is no more successful, then I think it will be safe to say that Tech probably can’t compete the same way everybody else can. If that turns out to be true, we can go back to the 3O, win 7 games every year and shut the hell up.

But as I’ve said in another thread. The greatest thing CGC has going for him is that he is still in control of his own narrative and destiny at Tech. If he turns it around, he can say he had one of the greatest transitions in the history of college football. If he doesn’t, well then everybody can point and laugh and say we hired Butch Jones 2.0 and we had a 404 error code or whatever they want to say. We’ll find out what kind of story CGC will end up writing for himself. But right now, we’re still in the introduction. The climax will occur midway through 2022. Stay tuned until then, I think some of you might be surprised.

Not to make the point but....O'Leary, Gailey, and CPJ...all were on average 7 win coaches. This of course on averages. If you take the high points, O'Leary, 10 wins, 9 wins and 8 wins. Gailey 9 wins. Johnson 2 9 wins, an 8 win and 2 11 wins. And Bobby Ross, 6 wins on average, with 1 11 win season. Maybe Braine was right.

 

[ilovetheoption]

This is a really short reply, but I find it weird and telling that his defensive coordinators did better everywhere else they were. Even Nate Woody is doing better at Army than he did here, with the same offense to “practice against”, in a faster time frame. After the first year, we aspired to average on defense.

Fridge stood out as an OC, and Tenuta was one of the rare DCs who was better here than elsewhere. Neither recruited—they just focused on coaching and X’s and O’s. That’s one of the reasons we had them. Our results last year and this would be better with a coordinator like that, but I don’t think we leave room on this staff for a coordinator that doesn’t recruit well and with a lot of volume. Getting that mystical coordinator who recruits and innovates and is a standard deviation ahead of other coordinators and not have a factory pick them up for 5x what we can pay is wishful thinking as far as I can see.

Yep. I firmly believe PJ is a FAR better coordinator than he is a head coach, and honestly, I think he enjoyed being a coordinator more than he did a head coach. it's why he was always trying to just hire a DC and let them handle the defense so he didn't have to worry about it.

 

[THWG16]

Decisions have consequences.

These are the things we knew would happen when you switch to something drastically different. If you didn't want to be bad for 5 years and potentially tank your program, you should have hired Jeff Monken and kept Nate Woody as defensive coordinator... he is now at Army with Jeff Monken.. Army currently is #4 in the nation in total defense, #3 in nation in turnovers gained, #9 in scoring defense, etc. Georgia Tech is #51. Does anyone really think Geoff Collins is a better football coach than Jeff Monken?

Head Coach: Jeff Monken
QB: Tobias Oliver
AB: Dontae Smith
AB: Tij Whatley
BB: Jordan Mason/Jerry Howard
WR: Jalen Camp
WR: Malachi Carter
WR: Adonicas Sanders

At worst, Georgia Tech is 2-1 right now with Monken depending on what happened against UCF (more on the schedule later). Could be 3-0 and ranked. Oliver would be in his 3rd year running the option, with who knows how many yards gained. The dude had 12 touchdowns as a backup QB, which led the team and was 4th in the ACC. He was born to run option. So GTech would have been settled at QB for 3 straight years of success.



That Syracuse team is terrible.... and that Florida State team totally sucks. It might be the worst Florida State team in history, and they barely won it.

Florida State is the easiest game on schedule.

Schedule coming up:
Louisville (loss)
Boston College (tossup)
#1 Clemson (loss)
#5 Notre Dame (loss)
#8 Miami (loss)
#23 Pittsburgh (loss)
Duke (win)
NC State (tossup)

2-3 wins max.

The recipe for success at Georgia Tech, and I have never waivered from this, isn't that difficult. You play in a BRUTAL conference. You can't do what everyone else is doing. Run the option, and schedule favorably.

Last year, if they had me as Athletic Director, here is what would have happened.

Jeff Monken takes the reigns from Paul Johnson. Nate Woody retained as defensive coordinator.

Game 1: UL Monroe.... win something like 55-3
Game 2: Middle Tennessee State.... win something like 55-3
Game 3: UAB.... win something like 63-10
Game 4: Georgia... get beat most likely

At this point you are 3-0... putting on a show, perfecting your timing, hitting your recruiting areas... leading the nation in rushing, rushing touchdowns, yards per rush, etc. Working on your passing game. Implementing the playbook, etc.

Then you go into your conference schedule.... Beat UNC, Pitt, Duke, Miami, NC State... Lose to Clemson, Georgia, VA Tech, and Virginia. Chances to beat VA Tech and Virginia. Only outclassed twice. Beat Virginia Tech 49-28 in 2018, 28-22 in 2017, 30-20 in 2016... Then lost to them 45-0 in Geoff Collins' first year.

Next season:

Game 1: Rice... win 60-0
Game 2: Charlotte... win 47-7
Game 3: Florida International... win 50-6

Rinse/wash/repeat

The Recipe
Play all non-conference games at home (except Georgia)
Schedule teams you will destroy. Each season you have 3 automatic wins to start the year
Play an insanely tough conference
In great years like 2014, you have a chance to do something special
In other years, you win 8 or 9 games and have a fun season
In really bad years, you win 5-7 games.

2011 is probably the best example of this strategy.... Played Western Carolina, Middle Tennessee, and Kansas to open the year.

Won 63-21, 49-21, and 66-24.

662 yards of offense against Western Carolina
596 yards of offense against Middle Tennessee State
768 yards of offense against Kansas

Finished 8-5 in an ok season. Got to #13 in country... Lost bowl game in overtime.

Fine season. Try to win those close games the next year.

How do I apply to be Athletic Director?

I do agree with part of this .. this is a total rehaul & tank for awhile , if by year 4 of collins we’re winning 6 games & by year 6 winning 8,9 then I think we’re going in right direction ! I wanna win now like everyone else though, I didn’t realize army’s defense is so good

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Good post, and thought provoking!

I'll give my thoughts, but you know my biases, and are free to grade on a curve, so to speak

1) I'm going to do something cruddy and re-challenge your challenge. Paul Johnson is, in my mind, not the be-all and end-all as a head coach. I DO think he might be the be-all and end-all as an offensive coordinator, though, but his failure to ever get an above average defense at Georgia Tech is his failure. The notion that the two are anything other than VERY tangentially connected I think is a falsehood. I fail to see a reason that Paul Johnson couldn't have an ounce more charisma, and hired Nate Woody 4 years earlier, and not had 1 standard deviation better defenses. That offense is going to hold down OFFENSIVE recruiting, and yeah there is maybe a SMALL degree of collateral damage from coaches saying "you don't want to practice against that, you'll get your knees hurt and it won't prepare you for the NFL", but a good recruiter/defensive coordinator tells prospects "you're going to be playing against the scout offense, and you're always going to be playing from ahead, which means lots of INT's".

Now, obviously that speaks to point 2 of your post, which is "why not have it all?"

Well, to my mind, you HAVE proven that you could succeed with the first model, and you HAVE NOT proven that you could succeed with the second model.

In the modern era, you have proven that you can have consistently excellent offense, and consistently "good enough" defense, you just haven't had them at the same time. You had "good enough" defense under Gaily, and you had excellent offense under Johnson. Now, maybe Paul Johnson himself wasn't the guy to recruit/coach a good enough defense to be "good enough", but there's no reason Jeff Monken, for example, could not be.

It was ALWAYS weird to me that Johnson hired "bend but don't break" defensive coaches, given that in my mind a high risk/high reward defense is a much better fit with Johnson's offense. I thought Woody was a GREAT hire for that reason, and I thought they were going to do really good things together at GT.

Well, I was right..... sort of. He's gotten together with Monken at Army, and those guys are a handful, despite having the worst football talent in America.

So, you've proven all the pieces can work at GT, you just never had them at the same time consistently enough.

What you have NOT proven is that you can consistently recruit and retain top 20 recruiting classes at GT.

Remember, when you're running the same schemes everybody else is (and I assure you, GT is. Their offensive schemes are just ABSOLUTELY bog-standard modern spread offense), you fail or succeed on A) teaching ability and B) recruiting (and really, more on recruiting). If you get top 35 classes, you're going to get top 35 results.

If top 35 results are good enough for you, then top 35 recruiting classes are good enough.

I assume you want top 20 results, which means top 20 recruiting classes, and (per 247) since the year 2000 (which is a relatively arbitrary measure, I admit, but it captures the sort of "modern era" of recruiting, with kids beings scouted since they were freshmen and the internet and all that jazz) you have had top 20 recruiting classes in:

2000 (number 19)
2007 (15)
...and that's it.

Now, that 2007 class came with Collins as head of recruiting, but he's had 2 classes as head coach so far, and they've been numbers 27 and 39.

The question this begs is: Is Collins a GREAT recruiter or just a competent one?

If Collins is a GREAT recruiter, then you're in trouble, because the number of people who are GREAT recruiters AND above average x's and o's guys is relatively slim, and they usually coach at places like Georgia, not places like Georgia Tech. If Collins is a GREAT recruiter, and what he can get at GT is top 35 classes, then it's really NOT a sustainable model, because there are relatively few GREAT recruiters, and your next coach isn't likely to be one, because there's no moneyball inefficiency there. Everybody wants a great recruiter, so they're really hard to come by, and the ones you can get are just statistically unlikely to be great x's and o's guys, too.

There IS a moneyball inefficiency with guys like Monken, because of the "undesirability" of the system. You can get better x's and o's results than your "expected value" at your school.

If Collins is just a competent recruiter, though, then maybe you're cooking something there, bbecause you ought to be able to find a competent recruiter who is a good x' and o's guy. If GT really CAN compete heads up with the rest of the ACC in recruiting, and doesn't require EXCEPTIONAL recruiting talent to achieve "slightly above average" recruiting results (which is what you're getting now), then good.

I'm just saying one model has been PROVEN at GT (in separate pieces) and the other has not. That said, Flight was always possible, we just didn't know it until the wright brothers came along. So maybe Orville Collins will be remembered similarly.

JJesus, sorry for the rambling, war and piece length answer, but it's sunday and I'm puttering around the house sore from doing yard work yesterday and I came back to this like 4 times, haha

Great post. Just excellent. I do believe that someone like Monken, knowing that he was going to have to be a better marketeer and ambassador for the program to improve recruiting somewhat, could have done what you say. Unfortunately, a huge swath of our fans hate the option offense and really believe we can get a coach that runs a standard O, but recruits better, who is able to win conference championships or more.

 

[ilovetheoption]

An addendum:

Obviously, the point that I left unsaid but probably shouldn't have is that a FURTHER option is that Collins will be banging out top 20 classes in the near future, and he's just getting rolling on recruiting, and once he's had 3 years of building relationships with kids he's going to start closing the deal on some EYE OPENING, like top 10 classes, and then it's Katy bar the door as stuff starts to steamroll, and 15 years from now, we're alll talking about "I can't believe anybody ever fell for the GT can't recruit BS" and "in hindsight, it was obvious how attractive a winning program, in the heart of the capital of the South, coupled with a degree that REALLY means something in the real world was, and it's just sort of weird that nobody figured out how to pitch GT correctly until collins came along" as you celebrate GT's 3rd NT in the past 7 years.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Great post. Just excellent. I do believe that someone like Monken, knowing that he was going to have to be a better marketeer and ambassador for the program to improve recruiting somewhat, could have done what you say. Unfortunately, a huge swath of our fans hate the option offense and really believe we can get a coach that runs a standard O, but recruits better, who is able to win conference championships or more.

I just can’t buy that and I love the option. Monken wouldn’t have been able to get the players needed at GT to compete in the ACC because the press spent a decade poisoning the well. Coach Johnson was a known entity in this state due to his success at Southern and he still couldn’t. And the fact that no player in middle school or high school has ever seen the option be successful in D1 football. Nebraska and GT 2008/9 were a long time ago for 14-18 year olds. The option is perfect for the academy’s because they get kids not looking to go pro.

I believe Collins thought process too build GT football is spot on. Use our location to differentiate ourselves so we get kids to GT that may not want to live in Auburn or Columbia. It’s already worked with Gibbs and I don’t think he’ll be the last. Losing stinks but we are moving forward.

 

[takethepoints]

In all honesty, I love the TO. It’s something Tech could have been the master of ...

You should hear Nick Saban talk about the TO. He thinks it’s a phenomenal offense. But it’s also one that is outlived.

The reality is ... kids want to be part of the sports-entertainmen-media nexus. And that’s never going to happen to a specialty program. Tech either goes big, adapts or ... is the ACC version of Vanderbilt.

Problem = we are well n the road to being just that.

The reason we hired Paul was that a) he had recruited at a school with a curriculum as squirrelly as Tech's b) he had been successful in winning despite this and c) he ran a system offense that was successful with the kind of players Tech could recruit and get through school. All of those reasons were valid and, imho, still are. Now we are trying an experiment to see if we can do like everybody else and succeed as well as Paul did.

Well, maybe. So far the results have not been encouraging. It remains to be seen if the players we have already attracted will remain if we can't win more regularly. It also remains to be seen if we can do as well doing what pretty much everybody else is doing. A post in another thread pointed out that Tech had succeeded in the past by playing innovative offenses and strong defenses. Let's hope we can developing one or the other soon.

If not, I'm betting Bo Bohannon would be willing to give us a try.

 

[Vespidae]

Problem = we are well n the road to being just that.

The reason we hired Paul was that a) he had recruited at a school with a curriculum as squirrelly as Tech's b) he had been successful in winning despite this and c) he ran a system offense that was successful with the kind of players Tech could recruit and get through school. All of those reasons were valid and, imho, still are. Now we are trying an experiment to see if we can do like everybody else and succeed as well as Paul did.

Well, maybe. So far the results have not been encouraging. It remains to be seen if the players we have already attracted will remain if we can't win more regularly. It also remains to be seen if we can do as well doing what pretty much everybody else is doing. A post in another thread pointed out that Tech had succeeded in the past by playing innovative offenses and strong defenses. Let's hope we can developing one or the other soon.

If not, I'm betting Bo Bohannon would be willing to give us a try.

CPJ was an experiment. Even he said that.

Can the TO work in D1 today? No. Kids today come into a program wanting to max their social media. That is not happening at Tech under the TO.

I don’t think Tech has any illusion of being NC again. I think they will be very happy being a legit 8-4. And that’s why Geoff is here.

 

[WreckinGT]

Scoring averages don’t mean a whole lot in college football because of the huge differences in talent. Coach Johnson’s system feasted on the sisters of the poor and occasionally showed up against the big boys (Miss. State). You said he averaged 33 his last season. A quick look revealed we scored 41 against Alcorn, 39 against South Florida, 63 against Bowling Green, and 66 against Louisville against whom we scored 46 this year with a freshmen QB. We scored less than 25 against Duke, Clemson, UGA, and Minnesota with a second year starter. Point is, we were less than an offensive juggernaut when it mattered. We all sat thru those games and watched BBack dive after QB keeper get stopped. Did we eat up some clock and keep scores closer, sure. But I also think as Sims gets better we’ll see more quality drives and higher point production. And, yes, we’ve scored over 30 once since. In 2019 we had no QB (part of why the coach retired). This year we are playing a true freshmen and are suffering thru turnover hades. That won’t last.

I loved Johnson‘s system but the death of it lays at his feet when he allowed the media to set the narrative which bled down to high school coaches and players. I’ve been told directly by several high school coaches in South Georgia that the only players they pushed to GT were those who didn’t have the offers to other P5 schools. Why would coaches push WR’s, RB’s, and defensive players to a system that everyone made fun of. I don’t agree with that but that was the prevailing thought.

There are more sophisticated offensive ratings which only take FBS games into account, exclude garbage possessions, and add weight for strength of opponents. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa/fei/overalloff/2018. We finished 19th in the country his last season.

 

[JacketOff]

There are more sophisticated offensive ratings which only take FBS games into account, exclude garbage possessions, and add weight for strength of opponents. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa/fei/overalloff/2018. We finished 19th in the country his last season.

• 2008: 49th
• 2009: 3rd
• 2010: 67th
• 2011: 13th
• 2012: 12th
• 2013: 38th
• 2014: 3rd
• 2015: 87th
• 2016: 31st
• 2017: 30th
• 2018: 19th

That’s an average of 32.5, with a median of 30.
For S&Gs 2019 was rated 100th, or 13 spots behind the injury ridden 2015 team. Sounds familiar. The 2020 data isn’t out, but I’d expect Tech to be somewhere in the top 40 or so of teams that have played more than 1 game so far, and probably finish the year in the top 60 after everyone plays their games. Just food for thought

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I'm not sure I'm welcome here right now, but I'm going to say the same thing I've been saying for 2 years:

When you hired Geoff Collins, you decided that you were going to run an experiment.

You ran an experiment with Paul Johnson, and that experiment was "because of the academic requirements of GT, we don't believe we're ever going to be able to recruit well enough to win by doing the same stuff everybody else does x's and o's wise, so we're going to do something completely different, and see if we can make people beat us left handed".

After 10 years, when he retired, you decided you wanted to run a DIFFERENT experiment, which was "You know what? I'm not ABSOLUTELY sold that GT can't recruit well enough to win that way, so lets get a staff of really really good recruiters, and see if we can make that happen".

So...fine...if you're going to hire a guy who is NOT particularly innovative in terms of x's and o's, but can recruit his balls off, then you give him 4 years to recruit his balls off, and have an entire program full of guys he recruited, and you just shut up and eat losses until then.

The reason is, when you don't do anything special scheme wise, and you just plan to win on having better jimmies and joes, you're going to get your *** kicked until you do, and when two guys are running the exact same scheme, a 21 year old is going to do it better than a 19 year old. When you win is when you have YOUR 21 year olds against THEIR 21 year olds, and yours are more talented, because they were higher recruited, and you landed them because you have a coach that can recruit well.

So basically, my point is GEOFF COLLINS IS WHO WE THOUGH HE IS. He's a slicky-boy recruiter who is nothing special with a play-sheet, and if you're going to win with him, it's likely going to be in a couple years. The downside is that you're going to suck for a while. The upside is that if it works, it's a SUPER sustainable model, because recruiting builds on itself.

When you hire a geoff collins type, you commit for 4 years, and you have to be willing to hear no evil and see no evil in the meantime.

It might suck, because you might get through 4 years, and realize that you were right in the first place, and GT really CAN'T consistently recruit well enough to win playing the same game everybody else does, but you have to give it those 4 years and REALLY find out. At least that way, you know one way or the other, really.

My only problem with this thread is I just wish we had even more coach comparison and uniform threads.

 

[4shotB]

My only problem with this thread is I just wish we had even more coach comparison and uniform threads.

My friend, if this is your wish, you will be more than pleasantly surprised this fall. I suspect even that your cup will runneth over! As they say, be careful what you wish for.

 

[wesgt123]

I stopped reading at brutal conference. I can’t believe this conversation is still being had

 

[Deleted member 2897]

My friend, if this is your wish, you will be more than pleasantly surprised this fall. I suspect even that your cup will runneth over! As they say, be careful what you wish for.

Oh my - I just remembered we get to go through all this with Josh Pastner next! Yee ha!

 

[Skeptic]

This is what I have never understood from an objective point of view. We had a coach that went 11-3 in 2014 and up until that point had played in several ACCCGs in spite of being underfunded and even intentionally sabotaged by the AD. The AA being happy he is gone is the epitome of stupidity to me. I just do not comprehend why people are so glad CPJ is gone when he won games in spite of the deck being stacked against him internally and externally.

Are they all happy now that they have a guy that is easy to get along with but doesn’t win?

You just gave us the new slogan: "He's Likable".

 

[Sheboygan]

Let me state that I am still hoping that CGC will take us to the proverbial next level. He certainly brings a lot of good things to the program: relentless recruiting, great marketing for today's players, obviously giving it a great effort in relation to time and exposure for our school. Their is a lot to like about the guy ! AND, I am not ready to give up on him yet. He is only in year 2 with a huge rebuild.
However, the problems I am seeing are on the trajectory of the rebuild. On offense we show glimpses of promise, but if an opposing team surprises us with their defensive play, we typically don't get it figured out until halftime. The defense has me really concerned. We have relatively experienced players still making freshman mistakes, IMO. Confusion, poor eye disciplne,poor tackling, etc. CGC is touted as a defensive genius, and I think he may be. But, he is the top guy now. He has a lot more on his plate.
For those of you not familiar with "The Peter Principle" it is simply stated as everyone will get promoted to the level of their incompetence. We have seen many examples of this in college football:

10 worst Power Five football head coach hires of past decade

Finding the right coach isn't easy.

247sports.com

I am literally ptaying that we have not made this mistake. I am not getting any younger and I want to see us get back in the national discussion, in a GOOD way. But we need to see some improvement this year. Maybe not even wins, but just better, cleaner, playing with evidence of preparation and disciplne. IF we get demolished by ND, I worry the wheels may start coming off.
Any comments ?