To bookend my post a moment ago, I believe the success of a program is a three-ingredient recipe: 1 part, quality of the coaches; 1 part, natural ceiling of the players; 1 part, commitment/work ethic of the players. So in the end the players have the greater effect on the results.
To explain this in my own experience: I am a musician; and most of you if you heard me would say I am very, very good. But I know that I’m just above-average in the greater landscape — I have a natural ceiling. And I worked hard in college (harder than most football players, and most musicians have to do), but no matter how many daily hours of practice (4-8hrs) there were works technically out of reach. My teacher wasn’t great, but you could have put me in Julliard and I know I wouldn’t have improved that much. I just wouldn’t have — my limit is due to my natural ceiling.
We can all think of players at Tech that had these varying levels of natural ceiling and/or overwhelming work ethic. Gibbs, Thomas, Gotsis, et al. And our best seasons are always the ones where we had enough players with enough of either of these qualities, and coach who at least didn’t drag the overall success.
I just believe that currently we’re lagging in all three categories, where the coach can’t make up for the players and the players can’t make up for the coach.