Collins report card after 2 seasons

[jacketup]

So let's rate Paul Johnson in his third year after Gailey's recruits were mostly gone. Many of the same posters criticizing Collins have called Paul Johnson a great coach.

2010--6-7 record. His wins included: SC State (FCS), Duke (3-9), WF (3-9), UVA (4-8), MTSU (6-7)
His losses included: Kansas (3-9), Clemson (6-7), Georgia (6-7)

When you look at the strength of schedule in 2020 as compared to the strength of schedule in 2010, I'd say Collins did as well in 2020 as Johnson did in 2010. Johnson had a win over an 8-5 UNC teams, but that's offset by a loss to a horrible Kansas team.

The point is this: give the guy time. As I have posted before, Curry, Ross and O'Leary all looked pretty bad after year 2, and all got better in time.

 

[InsideLB]

I find it hard to grade Collins at this point in time. There are things I see that I like and those I don't like.

Recruiting of course has picked up and we are seeing some top tier talent again on the Flats. I like the marketing of the program and the City, and I think the culture being built is genuine. Kids have bought in and give effort on the field when they could easily fold. There have been flashes of what the offense and defense could be, along with the maddening inconsistency. Last season we were among the top 30 least penalized teams. This year we are among the most penalized.

Watching this season I've felt like I have blue balls. We seem really close to putting things together, then we have untimely penalties, or get screwed by the refs, or turn it over, or have special team gaffes. So for all the folks saying coaching is an issue, I really do see where you are coming from. You could easily be right for all I can tell. Further, when plays don't work on offense or your defense is getting schooled it looks like the coordinator is an idiot. Could be the call, could be the execution, could be the talent/athleticism, could be lack of discipline, could be lack of experience, lack of development, or some mixture of all of these. Hard for me to tease it apart.

At the same time there are rational reasons for patience. Our D has sucked for years, we have no front 7 depth & sum of overall talent is low. New D system is predicated on long rangy defenders to shrink the field and tighten passing lanes. Those are being recruited but generally are not starters yet. D line attrition has been nutso. Need more war daddies and playmakers in the front 7, and this will help secondary a bunch. It takes awhile to develop D-linemen. Just the way it is. Will have to recruit, develop, and see what happens. I think Coleman is a good coach who has done a hell of a job developing Domineck, Ryans, Brooks, & Kennard. that's two walk ons, a tr-FR, and previously inconsistent 4-star.

Offense obviously has been a total rebuild. The line has come a long way—and has a long way still to go. I think Key is doing a good job, but absent lots of good transfers it will take time to recruit and develop. WR we have had flashes of different guys playing well; Adonicus, Camp, & Carter have had some big games. Three true frosh starters in Gibbs, Sims, and Jordan all show great promise for the future. We lost at least 2 games this year where we outgained opponents but due to inconsistency, turnovers, etc., we could not come away with the W. Also have had maddening periods of haplessness interspersed with effectiveness. Lots of turnovers from tr-fr QB who made some incremental improvement taking care of the ball. Still work to do there. We are set at RB. Could Coach P be doing better or could we get a better guy? Dunno. If we had a dominating OL suddenly he might look like a genius.

As for ST's, our KO coverage has always sucked and still does. Liked that we could put it in the endzone a fair bit though. FG problems well-documented…seems like kicking off the ground blew the young group of kickers minds that Collins brought in. Stewart appears to have figured how to get the ball high enough first. Harvin was obviously a stud. Overall I'd say a mixed bag with mistakes and inconsistencies. Some of that could be coaching and some of that could be the youth movement.

So I have blue balls and I don't know how to grade things. My story and I'm sticking to it!

 

[Vespidae]

Am I missing something?
A=4
B=3
.
.
F=0

Your grades would be 4+0+1+2+0= 7

7/5 = 1.4 a D or D-

Five point scale

 

[D-man44]

name experts, please.

Vegas lol the O/U was 2.5

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

For every fan that is ready to pounce on Collins, do you even know football? It’ll be awesome watching how fast you flip once he is a winner. I don’t think anyone could’ve done any better up to this point. In this fast food short attention span country we live In people expect instant results. The future is bright in my opinion, but some will only claim the sky is falling because they had to wait 5 minutes in line at McDonald’s.

Improve both lines and the wins will come. Don't improve the lines and you can expect more games like Pitt. Jeff Sims running for his life and eventually getting a mild concussion or head injury of some sort while the defense allows a running back with a career high of 69 yards to look like the second coming of Tony Dorsett with over 200 yards rushing. IIWII Coach Collins has had two mulligans, it is going to be time next year to start winning more games.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Those of you high on CGC... what do you think the ceiling is for this team under his regime?

Perennial 6-8 wins (good to better than good)?
OR
Cracking into elite status (competing with Clemson & UGA) & winning ACC titles... making playoffs?
OR
somewhere in-between?

Right now just beating Duke helps a lot but any season that you beat Miami and FSU like we have the last two seasons cannot be a total wash. Still 3 wins is not good. I will settle for 4 or 5 wins next year. Another 3 win season and it might start getting nasty.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Another 3 win season and it might start getting nasty.

No might about it.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

I really don’t see the schedule being that big of an issue. I mean, everybody plays a tough schedule if you only look at the best teams they play. The only teams you can say play “easy” schedules are the best teams.

South Carolina plays Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Texas A&M, with a 50/50 chance to play one of Alabama, Auburn, or LSU in addition to those 4 every year.

Auburn plays Georgia, Alabama, and LSU every year

Florida State plays Clemson, Florida, and Miami every year

Michigan State plays Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State every year. Ditto for that entire list playing each other every year, but Michigan even has to play Wisconsin too

Even Georgia has to play Florida and Auburn every year
Tennessee can’t be terrible forever. If/when they figure it out they’ll affect all of the SEC East’s schedule difficulty and Alabama’s

You can look at anyone’s schedule and say it’s top heavy. That’s the nature of sports.

In spite of my griping, you have a point. However, it is simply not fair to Coach Collins or Coach Johnson to have to play Clemson every year while the rest of the Coastal avoids them like the plague. All of those teams you mention have access to far more talent than we have had in the past and probably for the near future. Georgia has an easier schedule than we do as long as South Carolina, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Tennessee remain mediocre. The deal with UGA is that as long as they do not have to play Alabama or LSU as one of their rotation opponents they are in good shape. One thing that hurt Goff and Donnan during the 1990s was that Tennessee was so good and South Carolina was more competitive. They had no chance against Florida. Once those two slipped back into mediocrity life was good for the Rev. and now Kirby.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Could even nick Saban have done better with the roster and program that was inherited

Are you kidding? He would have had Falcon players playing at Tech if he could get away with it. Saban is too smart to get involved with any school that has academic integrity or would object to buying players.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

I find it hard to grade Collins at this point in time. There are things I see that I like and those I don't like.

Recruiting of course has picked up and we are seeing some top tier talent again on the Flats. I like the marketing of the program and the City, and I think the culture being built is genuine. Kids have bought in and give effort on the field when they could easily fold. There have been flashes of what the offense and defense could be, along with the maddening inconsistency. Last season we were among the top 30 least penalized teams. This year we are among the most penalized.

Watching this season I've felt like I have blue balls. We seem really close to putting things together, then we have untimely penalties, or get screwed by the refs, or turn it over, or have special team gaffes. So for all the folks saying coaching is an issue, I really do see where you are coming from. You could easily be right for all I can tell. Further, when plays don't work on offense or your defense is getting schooled it looks like the coordinator is an idiot. Could be the call, could be the execution, could be the talent/athleticism, could be lack of discipline, could be lack of experience, lack of development, or some mixture of all of these. Hard for me to tease it apart.

At the same time there are rational reasons for patience. Our D has sucked for years, we have no front 7 depth & sum of overall talent is low. New D system is predicated on long rangy defenders to shrink the field and tighten passing lanes. Those are being recruited but generally are not starters yet. D line attrition has been nutso. Need more war daddies and playmakers in the front 7, and this will help secondary a bunch. It takes awhile to develop D-linemen. Just the way it is. Will have to recruit, develop, and see what happens. I think Coleman is a good coach who has done a hell of a job developing Domineck, Ryans, Brooks, & Kennard. that's two walk ons, a tr-FR, and previously inconsistent 4-star.

Offense obviously has been a total rebuild. The line has come a long way—and has a long way still to go. I think Key is doing a good job, but absent lots of good transfers it will take time to recruit and develop. WR we have had flashes of different guys playing well; Adonicus, Camp, & Carter have had some big games. Three true frosh starters in Gibbs, Sims, and Jordan all show great promise for the future. We lost at least 2 games this year where we outgained opponents but due to inconsistency, turnovers, etc., we could not come away with the W. Also have had maddening periods of haplessness interspersed with effectiveness. Lots of turnovers from tr-fr QB who made some incremental improvement taking care of the ball. Still work to do there. We are set at RB. Could Coach P be doing better or could we get a better guy? Dunno. If we had a dominating OL suddenly he might look like a genius.

As for ST's, our KO coverage has always sucked and still does. Liked that we could put it in the endzone a fair bit though. FG problems well-documented…seems like kicking off the ground blew the young group of kickers minds that Collins brought in. Stewart appears to have figured how to get the ball high enough first. Harvin was obviously a stud. Overall I'd say a mixed bag with mistakes and inconsistencies. Some of that could be coaching and some of that could be the youth movement.

So I have blue balls and I don't know how to grade things. My story and I'm sticking to it!

Thursday nights game illustrates your concerns about the season. The first half we had 7 possessions. Three ended in punts, there were three turnovers, and one 99 yard drive that was a thing of beauty. Coach Collins will need some hair restorer before his time on the Flats is over.

 

[THWG16]

I'm not sure how anyone can properly grade this year when we had limited spring practice, a crazy fall with COVID and having young players across the board in a lot of key positions. We would have been a much better team this year if covid didn't exist, but still, our offense is much better than last year, and our defense has played better the past few weeks. We also still have a great recruiting class coming in to help our depth even more.

Covid has affected everyone not just GT

 

[THWG16]

B -The wins and losses are irrelevant for me. Anybody that is objective knew it would be a tough transition from CPJ regardless of who the coach was because of the lack of talent and lack of sizes on the lines. Add in he lost spring practice in year two and is playing through a global pandemic and there's nothing surprising about this whatsoever. Sure it would be nice to be winning more games but it takes time to rebuild.

I think Collins has done an excellent job of marketing his program and getting kids interested in us. I think that will pay off significantly in the coming years if our fanbase will quit crapping all over Collins. Every loss, every bad play, every kid that leaves there are guys that claim to be fans just waiting to pounce on the guy. The one thing I can't tell is if our fans recognize that he's talking to his team and not us in the press conferences. Last night, he was telling his team how proud he is of them for fighting not talking to us as fans. I think most of those guys on the team would run through a brick wall for him

Wins & losses are what counts

 

[THWG16]

No might about it.

I think some people will say it’s too early to judge him if we’re in year 6 & he’s only winning 3 lol

 

[THWG16]

You aren't grading Collins. You are grading Paul Johnson's recruiting. People who believe Vince Lombardi could have a winning record the past two years with our talent base are ridiculous.

I posted awhile back to look at the records of Curry, Ross and O'Leary their first two years and compare the first two years with their later record.

Most of the people on this thread would fire Ross or O'Leary after two years. And people can say what they want about Curry, but Alabama hired Curry. He did fine, but couldn't beat a cheating Auburn program.

Paul Johnson drove this program into the ground with poor recruiting, then said "I quit." That's the problem, and not Geoff Collins.

If this goes on by Collins' fourth year, I will agree with bad grades and making some changes. But for now, you are grading Johnson's recruiting.

I hope I’m wrong but I honestly think Bobby Ross is in a different league of coaching than collins

 

[THWG16]

Recruiting - A
Coaching - D
Bringing Georgia Tech back in the National conversation - Incomplete

Over the last two years I have seen Coach Collins lead Georgia Tech to the worst loss in the history of our program, set numerous negative records like the largest margin loss in the history of the conference. Allow multiple teams to rack up nearly 700 yards? Have the highest number of penalties in college football... I will always rember year 1 for A loss against the Citadel which was the Jackets' first loss against an FCS opponent since 1983, and a 45–0 loss to VT which was the Jackets' first shutout loss at Bobby Dodd Stadium since 1957. Year 2 I will remember the Clemson loss since it was the most points given up a Yellow Jacket defnse in the modern era.

As far as last night I think we did not deserve to win that game. Quez dropped one INT and the one he had he fumbled back trying to lateral it. Thomas had one go right through his hands as well. The Pitt QB was not the most talented but boy was he hard to bring down and was SMART. The flip out of bounds to avoid a 10 yard loss. Knocking the ball out of bounds to avoid a turnover even though it was 3rd down and it was a loss of 10-15 yards. That's the type of smart plays I want to see from us. Know the down and distance. Understand what you are supposed to do. Don't catch the punt inside the 10. On that exact point, I noticed we let a punt drop at the 20 when we could have easily caught it. Luckily it took a sideways bounce and was downed at the 17.

One final point I noticed. We rarely tried to tackle with our bodies. I saw us trying to strip the ball all night and as such Davis broke arm tackle after arm tackle. Is this something we are teaching or is this something else?

Key word there “smart”, we don’t play that way

 

[THWG16]

4 wins is what I predicted in the preseason poll we had. Coach Collins has a long leash and plenty of time to develop his program. He certainly has more leeway than the much maligned Bill Lewis. I had forgotten but the most hated coach in living memory at Tech was actually a semi respectable 5-6 in both years that he coached full seasons: His first season was 1992 and although the Jackets got slaughtered in the first big game against #20 Virginia 24-55 in typical Tech fashion they upset two other ranked teams Clemson and NC State. The killer that year was having #6 FSU on the ropes at home in the fourth quarter and let them come back to win. He never recovered from that although he went 5-6 the next year as well. Coach Collins has something that Bill Lewis never had, a residue to good will and support from both the Administration and the Alumni.

Back then I think we had an AD & administration that cares more about sports

 

[THWG16]

I want GT to win period ! I hope you people that keep saying Collins is gonna succeed are right . If my ex mother in law was coach I’d pull for her lol cause I love GT , we don’t know what the future is gonna hold , some people on here keep saying we’re gonna be good in future with certainty , but we don’t know that !! Collins does need time , it’s a huge transition , but 6 wins in first 2 years doesn’t give you warm & fuzzies !

 

[AUFC]

How many games do you guys think Nick Saban would have won this year with this roster (catching up on the thread I see somebody has already made this point)? Our juniors and seniors simply don't have FBS-tier talent. Games are won in the trenches and you need every starting lineman to have 4 years of eating and lifting to compete at this level. That aspect of our game was completely ignored by a previously unnamed coach who favored fast, small, shifty linemen who could dive at defenders' legs.

 

[4shotB]

I hope I’m wrong but I honestly think Bobby Ross is in a different league of coaching than collins

Bobby Ross is in a different league from most any of them. I'd go so far to say even Dabo or Saban. In terms of evaluating and recruiting talent, putting together a great staff, game management, player development, etc. (in other words, the entire package) he had few peers. You are talking about a 99.99% percentile guy. Take GT to a NC and go to the Super Bowl as an NFL HC??????? IMO, The list of his peers in the coaching fraternity can probably be counted on one hand.

 

[Coloradojacket]

Bobby Ross is in a different league from most any of them. I'd go so far to say even Dabo or Saban. In terms of evaluating and recruiting talent, putting together a great staff, game management, player development, etc. (in other words, the entire package) he had few peers. You are talking about a 99.99% percentile guy. Take GT to a NC and go to the Super Bowl as an NFL HC??????? IMO, The list of his peers in the coaching fraternity can probably be counted on one hand.

Just one thing on this....Ross was smart enough to hire CRF....that had a lot to do with his success.