CPJ interview - Nov 11

LibertyTurns

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Is it only a Tech fan thing to take a dump on your own school's past achievements? Good Lord. This fanbase sucks sometimes.
Yes it is. I’ve hung around a lot of different fan bases in my lifetime and we’re the only one that asterisks big wins, wins in general, etc we might have in order to make sure we understand it was not GT that accomplished it but the crappiness of everyone around us or the another team’s bad luck that allowed it to happen.
 

Augusta_Jacket

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I think it would be fair to say he left the program in the same position he found it, record-wise, but a worse position than he found it, talent wise. In the meantime, he had a couple of impressive seasons. This needn't be controversial to either side of the debate.

I think the problem is many people have different definitions of "talent." As far as recruiting rankings, it is no secret CPJ left a team less "talented" than the one he inherited. Our problem today is not lack of talent on offense, but lack of the specific talent needed to execute the scheme we are running. CPJ was able to coach the inherited players well enough to adapt them to his scheme quickly. CGC has had less success on that front, but it is not necessarily an indictment on him as a coach. I would posit that while it's not easy, it's less difficult to transition "normal" P5 recruits to an option heavy offense than the reverse.

Personally, I think CPJ will end up being remembered fondly by most of our fans as seasons go by. I don't have a good read on CGC yet, but he has done nothing so far to make me regret his hire, and has shown some indications of progress on both the coaching and recruiting fronts. I say "some indication" on recruiting because any normal coach with a pulse should have improved recruiting at GT once we stopped recruiting 4-5 ABs a year and started recruiting completely different OL and WR types. CGC pushing towards top 25 is a hopeful sign. He has yet to land his first full class though, so I don't want to count the chickens yet.
 

vamosjackets

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The difference is the fan support and recruting were worth a damn under Bowden, Paul’s last home game was 38k. Last recruiting class was 44th. That’s what Collins got to work with. He’s rebuilding from scratch, something Paul never had to do.
Do you blame Geoff Collins for the way the GT offense took MSU defense to the woodshed of embarrassment in 2014? Why not?
 

Jim Prather

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The difference is the fan support and recruting were worth a damn under Bowden, Paul’s last home game was 38k. Last recruiting class was 44th. That’s what Collins got to work with. He’s rebuilding from scratch, something Paul never had to do.

So here is an interesting argument -- our current coach can't win football games when there are fewer than 40K fans in the stadium and his recruits are ranked below 40...
Not certain how well this one will go over...
 

smokey_wasp

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The Bobby Bowden analogy explains my point. You don't just look at the beginning and the end point and then completely ignore what happened between them when assessing whether a coach elevated a program.



You mean to tell me CGC doesn't use that recent history to tell his story of what this program can be? Of course, he does. It's such an easier sell to do so than if he had to go the route of - I'm building on a dream that you can't actually touch, feel, or see for yourself. But, trust me anyway.

For example, which is more powerful to kids as to what Collins envisions for this program - the Orange Bowl trophy from 2014 or the Sugar Bowl trophy from 1956? Because, as far as big name bowl wins, that's the gap in our trophy case. Speaking about the '09 ACC title or the '90 or '98 ("shared") one? Competing for 4 ACC titles in the past 10 years or competing for 2 ('06/'90) in the past 20 years before that? How about clips of BDS at night with it rocking and thumping Top 5 teams? CGC likes telling those stories, right? Well, since we beat 2 Top5 teams at home in the last 10 years and it was something like 40 years since that happened, there's another chapter to our recent past.

The story of our program has been made stronger over the past 10 years. The fact that's even a debate is sad.

I think ya'll are debating different points. SteamWhistle said he left the program in worse shape in terms of talent. The 2014 Orange Bowl, while awesome and an impressive achievement, has no bearing on the talent left on the current roster.

As to whether CGC uses CPJ's achievements in his recruiting pitch, I have no idea. But I think there is less mileage in those great seasons than you might think. At least to those outside our fanbase. 2009 and 2014 were awesome, but is our national profile higher today than it was in 2007? I cant say that it is. Maybe it should be, but I dont think it is.

Bowden is a bad analogy. He had sustained success, which is what moves the needle, perception wise.
 

smokey_wasp

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To be completely accurate, CGC doesn't have to rebuild from scratch either.., We were a 7-6 team last year... Choices have been made, that may or may not pan out in the future, which have almost certainly cost us games this year...

I think that using the Citadel as passing practice for Lucas cost us that game, but that is probably it, IMO. Yes, CGC made the decision to accelerate the transition. He did not make the decision to be near dead last in college football in terms of returning production or to have tons of injuries. Last year's 7-6 team is not close to this year's team any more than the 2015 team was the same as the 2014 team. That is not how college football works.
 

SteamWhistle

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Do you blame Geoff Collins for the way the GT offense took MSU defense to the woodshed of embarrassment in 2014? Why not?
How stupid does comparing something Paul actually did, lose fan support and fail to recruit in 2018, to something that happened to MSU when Collins wasn’t there? Must of really struck a nerve there for you to ignore facts and bring up hypotheticals.
 

SteamWhistle

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So here is an interesting argument -- our current coach can't win football games when there are fewer than 40K fans in the stadium and his recruits are ranked below 40...
Not certain how well this one will go over...
Not an argument really just the facts, but Collins is a recruiter and he’s killing it there, if he makes good hires like Dabo Tech will be fine.
 

Jim Prather

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I think that using the Citadel as passing practice for Lucas cost us that game, but that is probably it, IMO. Yes, CGC made the decision to accelerate the transition. He did not make the decision to be near dead last in college football in terms of returning production or to have tons of injuries. Last year's 7-6 team is not close to this year's team any more than the 2015 team was the same as the 2014 team. That is not how college football works.

You are making the assumption that we only win games which were close with the current offense we are running... Had we made the decision to emphasize the fact of our outstanding rushing attack who know how differently games may have turned out...
 

jgtengineer

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To be completely accurate, CGC doesn't have to rebuild from scratch either.., We were a 7-6 team last year... Choices have been made, that may or may not pan out in the future, which have almost certainly cost us games this year...

I agree. This was a 6 win team at least if we had an offensive identity and stuck to it and didn't try to go square peg round hole. Even if you want to run a spread open offense if you don't have the lineman for it you can't do that. What we did have the lineman for was a run blocking power run based offense. Optically lining up in a singleback set, lining up in I, throwing in some shotgun sets and stickign with traps, powers, counters, and jet sweeps with some read option and triple mixed in would have looked very different from the previous offense WITHOUT really having to change the blocking scheme to much. You still backside cut and climb on a toss out of the I. You'd have JP and Jerry or Cotrell or Griffen on the field with JP at full back in the I and power back in single. Honestly our offense would look a lot like our 2006 one with Choice. or probably really the 05 one with Daniels. Playaction off power run. It's pro style. It's optically different. But your line can still do the stuff they already know how to do. Do we come out door busters? No but with this approach we probably have this record instead.

Clemson - loss
USF - win (we out run them and JP emerges)
Citadel- Win (We rush for 240 from JP and Jerry)
Temple - Loss (narrative to good for them here and we probably still have QB issues but we score a little more)
UNC - win
Duke-Loss
Miami-Win
Pitt- Win
UVA- loss
VT- loss but well we don't look as bad
NCstate-win
Uga- close loss chance at upset.

Does this offense make our defense play better? Maybe because I think we move the chains a bit more.
 

Jim Prather

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Not an argument really just the facts, but Collins is a recruiter and he’s killing it there, if he makes good hires like Dabo Tech will be fine.
Again, it is a perfectly fine opinion. If you really want to base your argument that better recruiting will lead to better results (along with the new qualification that CGC needs to hire better coaches I notice), you will need to show how CGC has improved recruiting averages at his various stops and how those recruiting averages translated into more wins.
Until you have those numbers, all you have is opinion which is no more valid than the opinions from those people who are still skeptical...
 
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