Brent Key is not the answer

stinger78

stinger78

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stech81 said:
Kind of funny most the people on here wanted to keep Thacker at the end of season,
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What’s funny? They finished fairly well last season. However, we lost 2 starting DL, 2 starting LB, and a starting CB off that team, plus another 2-deep DL. Then we had the other starting DE go down for the season in fall camp. You simply cannot lose that much talent off an already thin D and still perform well.
 
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cpf2001

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Oldgoldandwhite said:
Those that are satisfied with 7 win seasons were disgruntled with Braine about a decade or so ago. We also, basically, ran off two coaches that averaged 7-8 wins per year Or better.
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I think it's a lot easier to get to 10 wins from 7 as a baseline than from 3 as a baseline, so I'd be happy with 2 years of 7 wins as *improvement* but not as the final destination.

Sabotaging Johnson was one of many dumb things GT did in the 2010s for football, possibly the dumbest.

Gailey... that one makes a lot more sense. While his recruiting had ticked up, there was no positive trend or indication that he'd figure out how to field a competitive offense, and betting on Tenuta staying forever and being effective forever would be dicey.

Firing Gailey also *worked* in terms of finally winning the conference and beating UGA and going to better bowls. So it doesn't even fail the hindsight test much.
 

bucknellbison31

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Sheboygan said:
After watching Key's press conference this morning, I agree with you. Despite squeezing out 4 wins last year, Key still has a major rebuild in progress, on the defensive side especially. IMO, 2024-25 will tell the tale. Even with a supposedly tougher schedule, with more of his recruits , a year of experience with King and the OC, and a decision on who will be the DC at the end of this season- not next spring, or later, I am expecting a big jump up.
I certainly hoped for more obvious improvements so far this year, we all did. But to say "Key is not the answer" at this point is really premature, IMO.
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All I would say is that we really don't know much about the strength of schedule for next year yet. Obviously u(sic)ga and ND are locks, and Clemson is probably a lock, so that's a pretty tough foundation. Outside of that, though, we could get Wake Forest, Cal, SMU, VPI, Boston College, and Pitt for all we know. Not saying that's necessarily going to happen, but we really have no idea what the new ACC scheduling model will mean for us.
 

RamblinRed

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Augusta_Jacket said:
Liberty's DFEI ranks 86th with the 111th ranked schedule strength. Their defense is worse than ours (85th) but their schedule is loaded with cupcakes.
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That's not how to read that.
DFEI says Liberty and GT's defenses are basically equivalent using strength of schedule adjustments.
Liberty's unadjusted defensive statistics are much better than GT's, but due to the different in strength of schedule GT's final DFEI is higher than most of its metrics and Liberty's is lower than most of its metrics.

Liberty's unadjusted metrics are in the 20-40's while GT's (with one exception) are in the 100-120's. Once both teams numbers are adjusted for SoS GT comes out at 85 and Liberty at 86. (Both -.12)

Overall Efficiency, OFEI and DFEI and special teams efficiency (SFEI) are all SoS adjusted numbers.
The FEI metrics say that if Liberty and GT played the same schedule their defenses would basically be the same, while Liberty's offense (OFEI .50, 19th) would be alot better than GT's offense (OFEI -.19, 65th).
GT's special teams (.13, 57th) would be alot better than Liberty's (.04, 122nd).
Overall efficiency is Liberty (.06, 56th) and GT (-.18, 83rd). Overall, FEI would expect Liberty to perform better than GT if they faced the same schedule.
 

takethepoints

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cpf2001 said:
I think it's a lot easier to get to 10 wins from 7 as a baseline than from 3 as a baseline, so I'd be happy with 2 years of 7 wins as *improvement* but not as the final destination.

Sabotaging Johnson was one of many dumb things GT did in the 2010s for football, possibly the dumbest.

Gailey... that one makes a lot more sense. While his recruiting had ticked up, there was no positive trend or indication that he'd figure out how to field a competitive offense, and betting on Tenuta staying forever and being effective forever would be dicey.

Firing Gailey also *worked* in terms of finally winning the conference and beating UGA and going to better bowls. So it doesn't even fail the hindsight test much.
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Yes, it is.

When Paul was hired I heard a load of people here and elsewhere who said they didn't mind a few down seasons - and they meant losing seasons - if Tech could occasionally grab the gold ring. That is exactly what Paul delivered, first with Gailey's players - that, btw, he knew how to use - and then with his own. And what that got us was a lot of people who "didn't like the offense" and wanted to play "big boy football" (whatever that means). So Paul never got the support that, for instance, transformed the Duke program. And Tech has been paying the price ever since.

Well, at least Key has the support Tech can muster, however limited that might be. If Paul had gotten a similar level it would be child's play to rev the program up even more today; there would be precedents. The hole Tech dug for the program has gotten bigger and our ability to fill it has gotten more questionable. The program has no one to blame for that; it was an own goal from the getgo. I think Key has a chance to get us back, provided the schedule in future is adjusted. But I don't envy him the job.
 
4shotB

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takethepoints said:
But I don't envy him the job.
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I agree with the spirit of your post but these gigs now are like CEO jobs in that, given the pay, there is simply no way to fail. It's why, though we all know the Tech job isn't a good job, we wll never lack for someone willing to take it. Never in our professional careers would we assess a job like this and say yes but, otoh, we weren't looking at these kinds of salaries and guaranteed contracts (assumptions of course being made here),
 
jojatk

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Root4GT said:
Good post. In spite of the evidence nearly 70% of posters on this site expected 6 or more wins this year. Goes to show how little logic is attached to posters opinions on GT Football.
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I had in my head 4-5 wins as much more likely than 6 or more. And that was just based on what I thought we were losing off the defense and the fact that I didn’t think we had brought in enough change on the defensive side of the ball.

However I did expect us not to look as bad as we did against BGSU to anyone not named UGA and certainly not BGSU. It’s not that I saw it as a gimme. I’ve been around GT far too long for that. I just felt we were, overall, a better team than they are.

My concerns right now are that I don’t see us doing the little things right and there doesn’t appear to be an experienced voice in the room who has been there and done that at any level of authority in our program. Brent is not an experienced head coach. Batt is not an experience AD. Buster is not an experienced OC nor is Sherrer an experienced DC. And by experienced I mean a decade plus of “been there done that in this exact type of position”. That doesn’t mean none of them are capable. But when you are all learning together it makes things much harder and I think that’s where we are. I think our inability to put together a game where we play all four quarters is completely indicative of that. At this point we just have to hope that they are learning from all these mistakes.

I haven’t written them off at all. I’m just disappointed with what I’ve seen so far mostly. For certain some of the problem is the players. But this thread is about the coach.
 
Thwg777

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4shotB said:
I agree with the spirit of your post but these gigs now are like CEO jobs in that, given the pay, there is simply no way to fail. It's why, though we all know the Tech job isn't a good job, we wll never lack for someone willing to take it. Never in our professional careers would we assess a job like this and say yes but, otoh, we weren't looking at these kinds of salaries and guaranteed contracts (assumptions of course being made here),
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Couldn’t agree more. And there’s also the accountability aspect and lack thereof. If CEOs are woefully negligent they can face civil and potential criminal penalties. If football coaches do the same, they may get called mean schoolyard names (but not here).
 

1979jacket

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Sheboygan said:
Kinda what I been thinking too.
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I agree with it being a big mistake to keep Thacker and I said that before season started and was surprised. However, I do think he is working hard and doing a good job at recruiting with bringing in high school coaches etc. and also that team plays better than in the past (but that is a low bar). He still needs to work on in-game coaching and talking to the media. I also think there is some internal discord. Smith is an example of that and he needs to get it cleaned up. I wanted Willie but that is water under the dam and I support Key and believe in him.
 
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