A Thread to Rehash GT HC Comparisons

[RonJohn]

Why do we think academics at GT are too rigorous for football and basketball players but not for golfers? Or swimmers? Or volleyball players? Or cross country runners? Or baseball players? We are doing pretty well in those sports.

If you look at the people who are recruited in golf and in Olympic sports, they usually have much better academic records. Many of those sports, at least men's, are equivalency sports so the scholarships aren't necessarily full scholarships. They can be split among several players with partial scholarships. If you recruit players from Georgia, you can pay more players if they qualify for Hope. It probably wouldn't affect decisions about offering to excellent players vs good players. However, if you can get three players with great academics who you value athletically only slightly below one other player with bad academics having more players might make sense.

Without any inside knowledge, it always seems that the golf team has guys with very good academic backgrounds. I don't know much about swimming, volleyball, cross country, track, etc. I have paid some attention to gymnastics, even though GT doesn't have the sport, because of family involvement in the sport. A large portion of the girls who compete in national championship meets for the upper levels of USAG also happen to have GPAs above 4 and at least moderately high test scores. Once again, it wouldn't mean that a team wouldn't take a chance on someone who was able to win every single event by large margins. It does mean that there is a large enough pool of exceptional talent that also has very good academics. You can fill a gymnastics team solely with girls who would have been admitted to the school even without athletic intervention.

 

[4shotB]

It does mean that there is a large enough pool of exceptional talent that also has very good academics. You can fill a gymnastics team solely with girls who would have been admitted to the school even without athletic intervention.

Just an observation/opinion. As a high school teacher, girls handle academics and athletics much better than their male counterparts. I may get blasted but this is what I see. Perhaps it's their advanced maturity as adolescents (NOT an opinion). Maybe it's that pro sports doesn't exist for them for the most part so they are less inclined to put all their eggs in that basket.
Also, their identity is not wrapped up in athletics as much. I have known several female athletes who have advanced to college level athletics. Been all-state and/or on a state championship team. But you would never know that in the classroom. They speak of it only if asked. Their minds on on their schoolwork when at school nor do they use practice, travel or games as an excuse for missing work or doing poorly. In my time in education, I have seen 6 (at least) male athletes who were college level in football, some at the p5 level who were not eligible academically. Take this for what it's worth just sharing what I have seen.

 

[WreckinGT]

Whether the CGC era turns out to be good in terms of wins/losses, there's one thing I'm glad CGC has settled: Recruiting. This staff has proven that GT can recruit in the top 25, and possibly higher. In fact, we can start winning and going to higher tier bowls, I'd say it's not out of the realm of possibilities that GT can recruit in the top 15-20. It's been done before.

I hope to NEVER hear another GT fan bring up "STEM", calculus, narrow curriculums...we've all heard the excuses, and know what they are. We've heard it for the past decade. Yes, they are factors for some recruits, but not insurmountable that it would hold GT from having regular top 20-30 recruiting classes.

CGC is proving that. Now CGC needs to prove he can win 8+ games a year and make us regular Coastal division and ACC title contenders. That is ultimately what will decide whether the CGC era is successful.

Didn't Chan already prove that we can recruit that well at times? I agree for the most part on the STEM stuff though. It plays a role but it doesn't cripple recruiting as much as others think.

 

[RonJohn]

Just an observation/opinion. As a high school teacher, girls handle academics and athletics much better than their male counterparts. I may get blasted but this is what I see. Perhaps it's their advanced maturity as adolescents (NOT an opinion). Maybe it's that pro sports doesn't exist for them for the most part so they are less inclined to put all their eggs in that basket.
Also, their identity is not wrapped up in athletics as much. I have known several female athletes who have advanced to college level athletics. Been all-state and/or on a state championship team. But you would never know that in the classroom. They speak of it only if asked. Their minds on on their schoolwork when at school nor do they use practice, travel or games as an excuse for missing work or doing poorly. In my time in education, I have seen 6 (at least) male athletes who were college level in football, some at the p5 level who were not eligible academically. Take this for what it's worth just sharing what I have seen.

Gender may be part of it. I think there are other things that play a role. Size: The number of scholarship football players on a college team is much larger than the number of scholarship players in any other sport. The sheer number of players needed will mean that not all can be from the tip of the academic curve. Money: I doubt many, if any at all, Olympic sport athletes are going to base their entire future on the possibility of signing a $100 million contract to dive, swim, hurdle, etc. Golfers can believe that they are going to get extremely rich playing golf, but if they are that good there is no reason to even go to college. A golfer can just state they are pros and start trying to qualify for the tour. In football and basketball there are a large number or kids who have believed that their only possible future is in playing the sport since they were in little league. If your Uncle keeps telling you starting at 11 that you won't have to worry about anything in life because you will make so much money playing basketball, it will probably impact your attention to academics or anything else that isn't basketball.

 

[Skeptic]

These types of stories happen frequently when your HC is a horrific Recruiter

As much as that Guy throws the ball for Liberty under Freeze & his RPO Offense, GT had a less than ZERO chance to sign him

No one wants to get their Brains beat in running the "Service Academy Option" when they can run an RPO type option & still have a chance to get drafted

In an RPO System, your QB can be as small as Kyler Murray, and still not take too many hits while throwing the ball a Ton to keep their NFL Dreams alive

Freeze. Liberty. Enough said.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Freeze. Liberty. Enough said.

Continuing down the off topic direction, I still find it sadly humorous the once great Christian University has fallen to where it is today, where the head of the University's wife was having affairs with pool boys, where they hired the former Athletic Director from Baylor who was in charge during the sexual assault scandal, and where they hired Hugh Freeze from Ole Miss - the guy had more academic and recruiting violations than you could shake a stick at, including ordering prostitutes from his office on his actual work phone.

 

[Skeptic]

Not trying be argumentative, but you and the others that are clearly anti-CGC ask yourself this:

What's so wrong with me & other Fans wanting to see GT FB leave the dark ages and try to play Pwr5 FB the way everyone else does?

What's so horrible about being a cheerleader for the guy that's trying his damn best to make GT FB a "desired destination" for HS Recruits?

Why can't GT be the "go to school" for Recruits here in GA and the surrounding States?

It's almost like most of you guys don't know how to react to GT FB wanting to have "nice things"

I admit I'm a huge fan of CGC because HE HAS A DIFFERENT MINDSET than what our Fanbase has gotten comfortable with

Why can't we all just get behind the new Guy, instead of crapping on him at every opportunity?

What's so wrong with giving this experiment 5 seasons with 4 full Recruiting Classes and then see where we are?

You guys can't have it both ways, you want to hold CGC to an extremely high bar wrt on Field results in yr2, and then you don't allow Roster Mgmt & Processing like the big boys do that expect to see miracles in yr 2 of a Rebuild

Take a side; if you want him to honor the schollies of the previous Guy, then wait until yrs 4-5 before you start complaining, complaining in yr2 AND not allowing CGC access to the same "tools" as all the other Pwr5 HCs is beyond sound reasoning

And stop with the, "but I need to see sound fundamentals"!

When a player is at a huge physical & talent mismatch, that Player will on many occasions look as if he's Playing with poor fundamentals and that the Coach hasn't taught him properly

At game speed the PLAYER is trying his damnedest to succeed, and he knows that the opponent is better than he is, so in an attempt to make FANS like you guys happy and be successful, that Player will cut corners to try an succeed and to the untrained eye you think that he hasn't been properly coached

All Coaches that get to this Level, have trained at the same clinics & coaching camps and they all teach the SAME fundamentals, some are better than others, but the Gap isn't nearly as big as you'd think

Stop complaining and support CGC, you guys sap the energy from Fans trying to enjoy GT FB

I always thought "proper fundamentals" were supposed to help offset mismatches, and the coaching gaps are often huge. (There's a reason coaches always lobby for higher assistants' pay.) I am not a Collins fan, never was, but I am still hoping I don't get to say "I told you so." I'm willing to give him four years, not five and certainly not seven, a contract that indicates how little faith the AD had in this hire. Right now there is not enough energy to enjoy this kind of football, topped off his press conference babble about what he is accomplishing. He should just shut up and coach. (And actually this is one of my more optimistic days.)

 

[Skeptic]

Continuing down the off topic direction, I still find it sadly humorous the once great Christian University has fallen to where it is today, where the head of the University's wife was having affairs with pool boys, where they hired the former Athletic Director from Baylor who was in charge during the sexual assault scandal, and where they hired Hugh Freeze from Ole Miss - the guy had more academic and recruiting violations than you could shake a stick at, including ordering prostitutes from his office on his actual work phone.

Actually he said one was supposed to be a great pass blocker.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

No one can be happy, ever. We gave Johnson a decade, yet folks were bashing Collins after his 3rd game. It’s just ridiculous. I support GT and whoever our coach is. I loved Johnson and his system and fully supported him even when it was obvious the direction of our program was going down. I like Collins and believe he is doing what GT has needed for decades which is a reboot and rebrand. Too many of our fans are living in the long distant past. GT is no longer a relevant football brand. Players of today don’t even know who Bear Bryant is let alone Bobby Dodd. Collins is doing the one thing that actually matters to success in sports - creating relationships with high school players and coaches so maybe those players will come to GT.

The upside for Collins is that any whining by a small percentage of our fan base means nothing since our fan base is pretty irrelevant at this point. I don’t know whether he’ll succeed or not but he isn’t throwing in the towel. I expect we’ll see a lot of processing this off season as Collins should be tired of playing the nice guy.

 

[Skeptic]

No one can be happy, ever. We gave Johnson a decade, yet folks were bashing Collins after his 3rd game. It’s just ridiculous. I support GT and whoever our coach is. I loved Johnson and his system and fully supported him even when it was obvious the direction of our program was going down. I like Collins and believe he is doing what GT has needed for decades which is a reboot and rebrand. Too many of our fans are living in the long distant past. GT is no longer a relevant football brand. Players of today don’t even know who Bear Bryant is let alone Bobby Dodd. Collins is doing the one thing that actually matters to success in sports - creating relationships with high school players and coaches so maybe those players will come to GT.

The upside for Collins is that any whining by a small percentage of our fan base means nothing since our fan base is pretty irrelevant at this point. I don’t know whether he’ll succeed or not but he isn’t throwing in the towel. I expect we’ll see a lot of processing this off season as Collins should be tired of playing the nice guy.

"Let alone Bobby Dodd"? I am gasping for air here.

 

[Lee]

Ok here it is....do the year end and year out failure for USC to really matter and for what ever reason they have never been a recruiting power house...they decide to bring terror to the SEC. CPJ sitting home is tired of reading comments about him on the Swarm and goes to USC to prove he can do it again.

And his first order of business is to hire you for being his biggest defender against those mean GT fans on the Swarm...

The. Their 3 best OL, QB, 2 best WRs, and RB all enter the transfer portal. Next the entire DL follows.

Then we finally get to answer the question, is coaching or recruiting more important.

 

[Vespidae]

Here's an interesting factoid.

I was perusing stats actually used by coaches rather than those used by data analysts to predict game outcomes.

The number one stat with the highest predictive value for game winners?

It's Net Yards per Pass Attempt. Passing. Not running.

Even the best running teams have an average yards per carry in the 4-5 yard range. Teams with strong passing offenses generate 9-12 yards per attempt. In the pro game, this one stat predicts wins at an 80%+ rate since data was first collected in 1958. Alabama is around 12. Tech is around 7.3

The second stat most used by coaches? Turnovers. If you are -1 in turnovers, you lose 75% of the time. If -2, 83% of the time. If -3, it's 94% you lose.

I reviewed the stats for this year so far. In the games we won, we had NY/A of 7.8 and 11.7 compared to FSU (3.6) and Louisville (5.9). In all other games, our competitors have drummed us on passing. Clemson had 9.5 NY/A compared to our 2.6.

Moral? High percentage passes of 12-15 yards. No turnovers. And you should win.

While we have 7.3 NY/A ... if we give up a lot in sacks due to an inexperienced line ... it will drop like a rock. Insta-loss.

 

[takethepoints]

Didn't Chan already prove that we can recruit that well at times? I agree for the most part on the STEM stuff though. It plays a role but it doesn't cripple recruiting as much as others think.

Nobody disputes that we can hit the jackpot occasionally. The question is whether we can do it consistently. The jury is out on that. Today, 247 has us ranked about 40th in the country. I don't believe that is an accurate reflection of the player we have convinced to come to Tech for reasons I've been over here before. However, I doubt seriously that we can get into the 15 - 20 range in these rankings every year. I do think we could get to about where Minnesota is these days - they're in the low thirties - and win consistently with that.

And thinking that our curriculum isn't affecting that is just magical thinking. It does. It always has. It always will, as long as it is the Georgia Institute of Technology. It's a hurdle we can partially overcome, but it is a hurdle.

 

[Vespidae]

And thinking that our curriculum isn't affecting that is just magical thinking. It does. It always has. It always will, as long as it is the Georgia Institute of Technology. It's a hurdle we can partially overcome, but it is a hurdle.

I had to chuckle. Reading about Coach Alexander, when he diagrammed plays he drew super small x’s representing Tech players and super big O’s for the villains.

some things never change.

 

[Coloradojacket]

And his first order of business is to hire you for being his biggest defender against those mean GT fans on the Swarm...

The. Their 3 best OL, QB, 2 best WRs, and RB all enter the transfer portal. Next the entire DL follows.

Then we finally get to answer the question, is coaching or recruiting more important.

FYI...I still trade emails with him and have since 2008.

 

[slugboy]

Here's an interesting factoid.

I was perusing stats actually used by coaches rather than those used by data analysts to predict game outcomes.

The number one stat with the highest predictive value for game winners?

It's Net Yards per Pass Attempt. Passing. Not running.
...

That’s a good stat. If you have a low completion rate, it sinks. If you dink a lot of two yard passes with no RAC, it sinks. If you have speed, decent hands, a good QB, and a good OL, it’ll go up.

 

[Vespidae]

And thinking that our curriculum isn't affecting that is just magical thinking. It does. It always has. It always will, as long as it is the Georgia Institute of Technology. It's a hurdle we can partially overcome, but it is a hurdle.

I count myself fortunate in that Georgia Tech’s winningest coach was Dodd (70%) who mentored under Bob Neyland (80%). I‘ve followed both programs.

Both heavily advocated speed. We don’t see that at Tech anymore, but Dodd’s teams were FAST. Braun matters but Tech’s historical advantage was always speed.

 

[Coloradojacket]

I count myself fortunate in that Georgia Tech’s winningest coach was Dodd (70%) who mentored under Bob Neyland (80%). I‘ve followed both programs.

Both heavily advocated speed. We don’t see that at Tech anymore, but Dodd’s teams were FAST. Braun matters but Tech’s historical advantage was always speed.

Go read Bear Bryant. He said the same thing. Speed/quick beats size

 

[MacJacket]

Go read Bear Bryant. He said the same thing. Speed/quick beats size

If you have speed, size, and quickness like Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, etc you’re two steps ahead. It is what it is (which is coincidentally one of PJ’s favorite statements).

 

[Vespidae]

If you have speed, size, and quickness like Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, etc you’re two steps ahead. It is what it is (which is coincidentally one of PJ’s favorite statements).

Hard to say. Saban talks about running because of the line size but ... leads the country in yards per pass.

Meyer measured kickoffs not to give touchbacks but to land between the 10 and the goal line. He wanted returns because of the long march odds.

Every team needs an edge.