Best offense in the country, #100 defense, #22 overall

[GTpdm]

Agreed. I'm not for superficial analysis either. But let me ask you a different question.

What period of time, if any, is considered reasonable before you judge the track record of the HC and consider that as a trend?

I think that question has to be qualified by the following factor: how long has this HC led the team under this AD? I am convinced that part our our difficulty under CPJ's tenure has been the lack of resources (recruiting & compliance, specifically) that were provided to him by Bobinski's predecessor.

I think the clock has to be reset, to some extent, before we can fairly say that Judgement Day for Coach Johnson has arrived. We need to give the program time to get out from under the burdens placed on us by an AD that prioritized buildings over people.

 

[Longestday]

I think you can look at the trend of the school and fire the school. Changing head coaches has not produced a championship team or a significantly different record with the only logical constant being the school.

 

[jayparr]

I think you can look at the trend of the school and fire the school. Changing head coaches has not produced a championship team or a significantly different record with the only logical constant being the school.

I agree , but what?

 

[GlennW]

With the state of college football today, it seems like offenses have taken over and defenses have gone by the wayside for the most part, not just at GA Tech. So the fact that WE curretly have the TOP offense says a lot, if you ask me.

Regarding the state of the defense, I think we all have to put some of the balme on the Hill, not on our Head Football Coach. He's now on his third (permanent) defensive coordinator (fourth if you consider Kelly when he took over for Groh when he was fired in mid-season). He's, obviously, not satisfied, either, and is looking for someone to take ownership of that side of the LoS like he has on the offense...

 

[ilovetheoption]

With the state of college football today, it seems like offenses have taken over and defenses have gone by the wayside for the most part, not just at GA Tech. So the fact that WE curretly have the TOP offense says a lot, if you ask me.

Regarding the state of the defense, I think we all have to put some of the balme on the Hill, not on our Head Football Coach. He's now on his third (permanent) defensive coordinator (fourth if you consider Kelly when he took over for Groh when he was fired in mid-season). He's, obviously, not satisfied, either, and is looking for someone to take ownership of that side of the LoS like he has on the offense...

The thing is, ATL1 is right, he DOES own the defense. He's the head coach, not the offensive coordinator. I'm a huge Paul Johnson fan , he's the reason I follow Georgia Tech now, but I'm not going to act like the defense isn't his responsibility in the end.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Agreed. I'm not for superficial analysis either. But let me ask you a different question.

What period of time, if any, is considered reasonable before you judge the track record of the HC and consider that as a trend?

We have more than enough time at 6 years. Go back to my post on 70 years of GT football coaches. It's Dodd above all, the marginally O'Leary and then the grouping of CPJ, Gailey and Ross. The rest weren't as good on a Power Ranking basis. That is a relative ranking for the time against their peers. And it reflects the O, the D and the ST.

Here's the question I have. Why can't we get a good D? And I think AE has come as close as anyone in getting close to what may be the answer. {If anyone KNEW the answer, the problem would be solved.}

 

[4NatlChmps]

We have more than enough time at 6 years. Go back to my post on 70 years of GT football coaches. It's Dodd above all, the marginally O'Leary and then the grouping of CPJ, Gailey and Ross. The rest weren't as good on a Power Ranking basis. That is a relative ranking for the time against their peers. And it reflects the O, the D and the ST.

Here's the question I have. Why can't we get a good D? And I think AE has come as close as anyone in getting close to what may be the answer. {If anyone KNEW the answer, the problem would be solved.}

To me, the answer for GT on D might be to find a unique scheme (like we have now for O) that fits our limited recruiting ability yet can be competitive defensively against almost everyone. Like our current O scheme, there might be a few teams that can regularly beat it but it gives you a much better chance than undersized talent playing pro schemes.

 

[Dustman]

To me, the answer for GT on D might be to find a unique scheme (like we have now for O) that fits our limited recruiting ability yet can be competitive defensively against almost everyone. Like our current O scheme, there might be a few teams that can regularly beat it but it gives you a much better chance than undersized talent playing pro schemes.

Isn't that what we had with Tenuta?

 

[yellojello]

I think you can look at the trend of the school and fire the school. Changing head coaches has not produced a championship team or a significantly different record with the only logical constant being the school.

Not true. See Duke for example or if that's not enough of a trend, see Baylor. For that matter, see Alabama. What hasn't changed is those school's recruiting rankings. The right HC can change a lot. I'm not saying CPJ isn't the right HC. But I refuse to have blind allegiance to a coach. My allegiance is to GT and GT alone.

 

[awbuzz]

Duke, Alabama and Baylor all offer degree paths that don't require even basic calculus. MOST football players don't want anything to do with math if they can help it. JMO.

 

[AE 87]

My inexpert opinion is that CPJ has a base system on offense that he can recruit to but can also tailor to fit actual personnel. He wants a DC who can do the same thing. I sometimes wonder if all three of our DC's may have, or have had, a defensive philosophy that they believe in but which limits how much they can tailor it to the actual personnel. I know that was Groh's problem. He couldn't get our guys to execute his D, for whatever reason, and wasn't able to adjust it. I know that CPJ has said more this year about the need for guys to play better and knowing that they can play better than saying we need to simplify and get the calls in faster as in past years.

 

[yellojello]

Duke, Alabama and Baylor all offer degree paths that don't require even basic calculus. MOST football players don't want anything to do with math if they can help it. JMO.

I'm in agreement that the challenges at GT are unique. I was refuting the argument that changing coaches has not resulted in improvement at any school.

 

[DTGT]

To me, the answer for GT on D might be to find a unique scheme (like we have now for O) that fits our limited recruiting ability yet can be competitive defensively against almost everyone.

Wasn't that what Groh's 3-4 was supposed to do?

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I'm in agreement that the challenges at GT are unique. I was refuting the argument that changing coaches has not resulted in improvement at any school.

I like the way you restated that to be "any school". Yes there are exceptions from time to time. Stanford is another example of a coaching change that has led to a reasonable duration improvement in team performance.

There was an ESPN or other study about 2 years ago that showed, on average, the long term performance of the school contributed more to the school's performance than coaching changes. We see that at GT with the overall performance of CPJ, Gailey and Ross being about the same compared to their peers.

BTW, I agree Baylor appears to have a durable change since they have been doing substantially better since about 2011. Let's talk about Duke at the end of the season. Duke's best season in years was last year where they went 10-2 on a weak schedule and got killed in the ACCCG and bowl.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

With the state of college football today, it seems like offenses have taken over and defenses have gone by the wayside for the most part, not just at GA Tech.

There's a lot of truth in this. Offenses have evolved more over the last couple decades while defenses have largely stayed the same. On top of that, rules changes have been adopted that favor the offense and the scoring of points.

You just don't see that many dominant defenses out there anymore. Moreover, the players necessary to create dominant defenses are the rarest commodity in recruiting. It's no wonder teams at the bottom of the recruiting food chain have the worst defenses. It's a lot easier, though not easy, to make chicken salad out of chicken **** on O. It's damn near impossible on D.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

Given the lack of refs calling holding on the OL and BS targeting and interference calls on DBs, the O has a referee advantage too.

 

[Ash]

With the state of college football today, it seems like offenses have taken over and defenses have gone by the wayside for the most part, not just at GA Tech.

I have asked the rhetorical question for the last few years "Does anyone play defense anymore?" There are a lot of high scoring games these days, way more than low scoring defensive struggles (ignoring the games where two inept Os are going against each other).

To me, the answer for GT on D might be to find a unique scheme (like we have now for O) that fits our limited recruiting ability yet can be competitive defensively against almost everyone. Like our current O scheme, there might be a few teams that can regularly beat it but it gives you a much better chance than undersized talent playing pro schemes.

So something like what VT does? They have undersized DL personnel and are regularly able to get stops.

I am all for it.

 

[slugboy]

Wasn't that what Groh's 3-4 was supposed to do?

Groh's 3-4 scheme is a pro-style, and competes for the same players that Alabama and other factories use, putting a premium on big DT's and NT's.

Tenuta's scheme might be one that fits for tough recruiting situations, but he wasn't short on talent while he was here. Maybe schemes like Joe Lee Dunn used at Mississippi State would fit--he was doing crazy stuff. I think Wommack was trying to come up with an unusual scheme when he was here. and the 4-2.5 is primarily what Roof is running.

 

[UgaBlows]

I don't buy that Roof is CPJ's last chance at hiring a good D coord, and i'm not giving up on Roof, he deserves to get his players and his coaches in place, he needs a longer chance than 2 years before we declare him the next Wommack or Groh. How many D-coord's has Richt been through now?

 

[DTGT]

Groh's 3-4 scheme is a pro-style, and competes for the same players that Alabama and other factories use, putting a premium on big DT's and NT's.

Tenuta's scheme might be one that fits for tough recruiting situations, but he wasn't short on talent while he was here. Maybe schemes like Joe Lee Dunn used at Mississippi State would fit--he was doing crazy stuff. I think Wommack was trying to come up with an unusual scheme when he was here. and the 4-2.5 is primarily what Roof is running.

That is how it ended up in reality. I was commenting on how the hire was sold to us at that time: Unique scheme, competitive defensively against almost everyone, and the *pros* run the 3-4 so more future pros would want to play for Groh and his SB ring.

We found out later that there were very good reasons that Groh was nearly free.