I’ve seen a lot of complaining about CGC and staff from the same group of people. This group will not acknowledge the hurdles in this transition and seem to focus only on the negatives. This same group also loves to point to PJ’s transition and how well it went without acknowledging the goldmine he walked into.
The purpose of this post is to point out the significant difference in what each coach walked into.
I want to take offense completely out of the equation to start and focus on 4 players that allowed Paul to have the start he did.
1. Darryl Richard (SR)
2. Vance Walker (SR) - mutli year NFL career
3. Michael Johnson (SR) - mutli year NFL career. Best pure pass rusher in the last 15 years
4. Derrick Morgan (SO) - mutli year NFL career. GT HoFer and arguably the best DL in the last 15 years.
Serious question for those doubting CGC and staff’s coaching ability. Do you think this season would look the same with this group on our team now? Need I mention we had 3 guys on the backend of that D played in the league as well? One of which is still playing 10+ years later.
In the first 6 games (same point in the season) of 2008, our defense gave up 10.667 points per game. How would our team this year have faired with those results? Is it possible, things would be a little different?
If we can, let’s talk about the offense now.
1. Dwyer
2. Thomas
3. Nesbitt
4. Howard
5. Gardner
Elite NFL WR, elite college RB, warrior qb, and two NFL olineman.
This post isn’t to take away from Paul being a good/great coach. This is to (hopefully) quell some of the ridiculous comparisons and (hopefully) open some eyes to the fact that there is a talent discrepancy whether you want to admit it or not. I’m not bashing any player either. Stating that we don’t have a D Morgan or M Johnson is just a fact. I won’t go much further on what CGC walked into other than to say we have some talent at the skill positions and on the backend. We lack the same size/ability that the 2008 team had along with the experience which is often overlooked. A lot of experience along both lines in 2008.
And please, don’t bring up Citadel. We all agree, that loss is inexcusable. Just like losing to Gardner Webb would’ve been in 2008 (which would happened with the 2019 defense IMO). Continuing to bring it up does nobody any good. It happened. It sucked. It’s over. This post is about the other 5 games we’ve played.