CPJ vs. CGO

[nodawgs]

If we're honest, Fridge beat the dwags three times. O'Leary did nothing before or after Friedgen.

O'Leary just beat UGA a few years ago in a bowl game. At UCF. Without Friedgen. O'Leary was slapped with losses taking over half the season from Bill Lewis. What the two inherited was nowhere near the same either. O'Leary had to rebuild a shattered program. Not to mention the ACC was not subdivided and was much stronger. FSU was in its hay day, Phillip Rivers was at NC State, UVA was a top 10 program, UNC with Mack Brown was legit, Clemson had Rich Rod signaling in plays to Woody Dantzler.

As for UGA being better now than back then... maybe, but not by much. Donnan also had it tougher than Richt. His main 3 rivals: Spurrier at Florida, O'Leary at GT, and Fulmer (w/ Cutcliffe as OC) was at Tennessee and Nat Champs in 97. UGA was 0-8 vs Tennessee with Cutcliffe calling the plays. That includes both Donnan and Richt.

 

[elwoodgt]

Fridge was great, no doubt. But this statement couldn't be further from the truth.

Whatever, man. I liked O'Leary too, but '97 through '00 we're clearly his best years, and the ones we look back fondly on.

1995 6-5, no bowl
1996 5-6, no bowl
1997 7-5, bowl game. (Friedgen)
1998 10-2, bowl game, beats dwags (Friedgen)
1999 8-4, bowl game, beats dwags (Friedgen)
2000 9-3, bowl game, beats dwags (Friedgen)
2001 8-5, bowl game

 

[awbuzz]

How'd the Friedgen regime go at Maryland? ... Just putting that out here...

 

[Minawreck]

How'd the Friedgen regime go at Maryland? ... Just putting that out here...

really well when taken relative to Maryland's recent history. He's also doing pretty well as Rutgers OC.

 

[Techster]

Don't know why people want to discredit O'Leary by saying "well, he had Friedgen". A large part of your job as a head coach is putting together a staff, and he was able to convince Friedgen to come back to GT. That's a credit to O'Leary. One of O'Leary's biggest strengths is finding coaching talent and getting them to work under him. I don't have time to name them all, but look at the list of guys who have coached under O'Leary: Bill O'Brien, Ralph Friedgen, Randy Edsall, Doug Marrone, Gary Crowton, Ted Roof. Those are just the prominent guys who have gone on to become head coaches...he's had various well established assistants as well go on to do become great assistants elsewhere.

You think Saban is Saban without some of the top assistant coaches in the country?

 

[jeffgt14]

O'Leary just beat UGA a few years ago in a bowl game. At UCF. Without Friedgen. O'Leary was slapped with losses taking over half the season from Bill Lewis. What the two inherited was nowhere near the same either. O'Leary had to rebuild a shattered program. Not to mention the ACC was not subdivided and was much stronger. FSU was in its hay day, Phillip Rivers was at NC State, UVA was a top 10 program, UNC with Mack Brown was legit, Clemson had Rich Rod signaling in plays to Woody Dantzler.

As for UGA being better now than back then... maybe, but not by much. Donnan also had it tougher than Richt. His main 3 rivals: Spurrier at Florida, O'Leary at GT, and Fulmer (w/ Cutcliffe as OC) was at Tennessee and Nat Champs in 97. UGA was 0-8 vs Tennessee with Cutcliffe calling the plays. That includes both Donnan and Richt.

I'm not arguing about who's the better coach between the two but outside of FSU being in their hay day, none of those other's happened at the same time outside of Dantzler and Phillip Rivers in 2000 & 2001 which were probably the strongest years of the ACC top to bottom.

 

[johncu]

Lots of unfair comparisons being made here. O'Leary did beat UGA more, but he also never won the conference. PJ has won the conference but lost more to UGA. PJ has, for the most part, played in a stronger ACC (outside of FSU), but he has also played a few more cupcake teams with the recent schedule expansion. Most importantly, O'Leary had much more leeway with the Hill in recruiting and keeping players eligible than PJ has.

Overall, I think you have to say they're about the same at this point. I'd put coaches in 5 tiers:

Tier 1: Elite (Dodd, Heisman)
Tier 2: Very good coach, but not quite elite status (Johnson, O'Leary, Ross)
Tier 3: Decent coach, but not particularly remarkable (Gailey)
Tier 4: Bad coach
Tier 5: Disaster (Lewis)

I'm only 27, so these are the only coaches I can comment on. But that's about how I'd rank their tenures at GT. Getting any more specific than that is just splitting hairs, IMO.

 

[CTJacket]

I will always love CGOL. I really, really, really, wanted to hire him back after flunk gate. Our idiot AD wouldn't consider it and most Tech fans were too butt hurt over his decision to jump to Notre Dame to push for it. He was great for GT and I have many fond memories from his era. Pull for him wherever he goes and really happy with his success at CF. Deserves a place of honor at GT imo. So does Ross. So does Fridge.

And I love CPJ just as much. We are fortunate to have CPJ here. The number of coaches out there I'm confident could do as well is very small.

I agree. I'm happy with what we have now, to be sure. I would've liked to have missed the B** L**** error though.

 

[bartoma]

I'd put Curry at Tier 3 and Rogers, Carson, and Fulcher at Tier 4, though, at 50 years old, I'm not qualified to judge the last three...