It is precisely because of our history in the modern era that I am concerned that we are going to fall into the same trap again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We let Braine make rash decisions TWICE, on Gailey and on Hewitt. Hewitt rode that one good season to a massive 6-year rolling contract, payable in full upon termination. Gailey was given a massive extension and buyout after a mediocre season. Does anyone remember the outrage following that? I sure do. The extension was done in secret, and it ended up costing the school dearly, and resulted in several wasted years of mediocrity. And if you're one of those who thinks Tech has never been that great consistently and therefore it is unreasonable to strive toward greatness, then you are a defeatist and a sad case who can't be helped. I happen to think that Tech can be just as great (consistently, year after year) as any of the Top 10 programs out there. But it starts with making sure we don't make a rash, hasty decision that locks us into another disastrous contract until we are reasonably sure we have a consistently highly performing football program.
Flexibility is a critical advantage, but a fear of committing to a plan is a uniquely crippling kind of inflexibility. The Gailey contract may have been a bad idea. At the very least firing him after one mediocre season was a grand exercise in reflexive podiatric target practice. The Hewitt contract was a really foolish decision. Hiring and firing based on season outcomes is the real dumbass move. Management that promotes based on bottom line results quarter to quarter with no insight to the state or dynamics of the business is arguably the central cause of the inefficiency of large corporations in spite of economies of scale. If that's 'management' I can write 20 lines of code that will render senior management redundant. You just check performance periodically, and if a failure state is reached, hire talent consultants and randomly pick from their list of replacements.
You have to examine why we are winning or not, and make a decision to commit to a coach based on your assessment of those trends and their likelihood of change. To win in the future, will Georgia Tech need to change the way it operates in a way that CPJ will hinder or make impossible? Do those possible hindrances outweigh the advantages that committing to that resource brings?
I'd argue that with Hewitt we lacked enough information to determine our strategic strengths under that coach. Gailey was, I think, just a poor decision. He made very solid gains in recruiting, and with Tenuta he managed to create some fine defense. But plugging increasing quality athletes into the O did not produce increasing competitive gains, and even the 06 season leading up to the ACCCG was not indicative of a sustainable competitive advantage. Small note, as I remember it DRad said he started deciding to fire CCG starting with the Georgia game in 06. That would make him an enormous idiot.
With CPJ we have the opportunity to start building an identity in football in a way we haven't had since Dodd. We're smart and hard workers and that's why we win so damn much. If we can maintain success for a while, kids across the country who hate the prima donna *******s out there start dreaming about winning a championship at Georgia Tech, where every one of your teammates has your back, and everyone counts on everyone to finish the game. Hell, give us 10 years of success and good recruiting and the NFL starts to notice the GT players that don't ever have issues with partying in 6 separate cities instead of practicing in the off season and always give their all to contribute however they can.
Being too afraid to be a lightbulb company because you might want to be a semiconductor company is a great way to never be good at anything you do. Sometimes you have to decide who you're going to be.
