CPJ

[OldJacketFan]

You mean these guys.....

You beat me to this!!!! LOL!!!!

 

[croberts]

Hire John Tenuta and everything is good again. He has single-handedly changed UVA's program from ACC-Cellar to ACC-Contender.

I'm half-kidding, half-serious. I like Roof, but I believe his defense's success requires more talent than Tenuta's. It's a coordinator's game in CFB and has been for a long time. It doesn't matter as much about the HC, it's the OC and DC that impact the game more. That's why I think CPJ should be a good choice for us. He's a 2-for-1 deal and we should have more money left over to make sure our DC is top-notch.

For what it is worth, UVA has 5 x 5stars and 16 4 star players on their roster. 3 of the 5stars are on defense. Mr. tenuta would never trade players with us. You may think that Tenuta requires less talent but he currently is operating with alot more.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

We haven't been a dominant program since the single platoon era of football. The success we have had under CPJ is better than we have experienced during other portions of the modern era. 2009 was the first major bowl we have been to in my entire lifetime. Over 40 years. CPJ may be the victim of the lofty expections he helped create. I remember 90 fondly. I remember 91 as well. 91 was a disappointing year in comparison. Banner years are often followed by down years unless you are one of about a dozen big time programs. And Tech unfortunately aint one. CPJ gives us the best chance to reach our lofty goals imo. Our woes on D suck. Same was true for the most part under Ross, O'leary, and Lewis. Chan had great Ds thanks to Tenuta. We rarely land elite HS Dline recruits. That goes back years and years. Greg Gathers was the most elite I recall and that pre dated recruiting services for the most part. Wishes and wants etc, etc. The world of football is a tough one for us to compete in. That would still be true if Saban took over tomorrow.

@JBR....still waiting to see if you accept my challenge. Put up or.......

 

[nodawgs]

Blocking is different (but not to hard to switch to as we saw GaSouthern do this weekend) , but for s skill player what you are asked to do is not much different. So there must be something besides scheme that keeps us from getting 5 star recruits. I wonder what that is?

The feature back's hand on the ground 2 yards behind center and no shotgun.

 

[ClydeBrick]

Wow.

I know it's hard it is to be a GT fan. But just wow.

I guess it could be worse, we could all be mutt fans and be complaining that our coach (who averages 10 wins per season) cannot get us to what is rightfully ours - a national championship.

I can see it now: Fire CMR. Fire CMB. We can hire better. Since we are a factory and we are not winning national championships, our entire program needs improvement.

Now, I know that some of the play calling can be mystifying over at the cesspool (but aren't all failed plays). Some of the failures over there are due to poor split-second decision making by 18-22 year olds being screamed at by 90k people. Additionally, there is no accounting for the Hand of God coming down out of the clouds to put a tipped pass into the opponent's hands - or steering a FG attempt around an upright.

A 0.731 over-all winning percent (while playing in the hallowed SEC) and yet the jackals are still not satisfied.

It took St. Dooley 17 years to produce a NC at UGAg. Remove one player from that team or if the Irish kept their heads in the 1981 Sugar Bowl (free kick coverage or the holding call) and he never gets that.

My best entertainment so far this week has been listening to The Game yesterday.

I can only hope that the mutt's fans get their wish and they fire CMR & Co. Then the mutt's can have a few years of what is going on at Tennessee and Florida.

 

[nodawgs]

Here is an article with quotes from Lou Holtz and Gerry Dinardo. Both won National Championships with the option and both abandoned it in the early 90's. Check out their quotes as to why they quit running it. Pretty straight forward.
http://www.onefootdown.com/2012/8/28/3270651/where-have-all-the-option-teams-gone

 

[dressedcheeseside]

@MWBATL :

"I do tire of those who complain about the realities of life....."

Your post makes a ton of sense and I definitely am with you on this point right here.

Btw, I love this thread because I have record amounts of "ignored content." It reads very amusingly to see the nice responses from fonts I read to those I don't. Ok, I will stop pointing this out but since I brought it up recently I couldn't resist.

So who, exactly, do you have on ignore?

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I am not a better fan, probably a terrible fan. Many have claimed "not a real fan" The misery is not in the defeats, it is in knowing, KNOWING we can and should do better. We rose from winning one game a year to winning the NC in ten years. Our tradition is exemplary in all of college athletics. To let it atrophy the way it is right now--that's the misery.

I suppose the landscape of college football hasn't changed one bit since the glory days of Dodd, either, eh?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I

I think we have the makings of a VERY SPECIAL QB in Justin Thomas, and that is very much of an upward trend. I personally think he is from the same mold as "little Joe" Hamilton. As has almost always been the case, it is up to the defense to give him the support he needs. I am not overly confident in this year's defense right now, but I sure as he'll haven't written the season off because of what I have seen thus far.

I have not made many comments yet about Thomas. I theoretically share your excitement and optimism about him but here is my thing. He has started 3 games. When I watched the tv broadcast of that game the color guy even tried to throe out Joe Hamilton's name there for Wes Durham. But then Joe on the sideline interview stressed how Thomas has to be the best Justin Thomas he can be.

Then you have CPJ on leadership and being asked about Nesbitt in the press conference. He was definitive and strongly praised Nesbitt for the leadership. For the story of going for it on 4th down against Wake where Nesbitt told him he had this. CPJ gave a very nice and philosophical soliloquy on what it means to be a leader, the walking the walk not just being a talker, etc.

I am not trying to be superstitious at all here in what I am about to say but while I do share the enthusiasm over Thomas I just can't get myself to express it so much yet. I want to see CPJ talking about Thomas with the same satisfaction and respect that he did in the press conference about Nesbitt. But to do that Thomas needs to get there. We can all see that he has all the potential in the world. But the frankly years of hype built up about Vad and the simultaneous (and concomitant) knocking of Tevin have kind of reshaped my approach to our QBs. I am much more like CPJ now on them in that I want to just take it steady and watch them develop and cheer them on. Then in his senior year I will be posting my bro-mance love fest posts like I did yesterday for Zach Laskey.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Oh yeah one more thing on our definitely special young QB.

Thomas has said how when he makes a bad read and gives the ball to Laskey that Laskey still makes a good play out of it. We can see that Thomas is starting to use the size of Waller and Smelter effectively in some of these throws he is making where he can confidently put it out there where the d-back can't make a play and the WR has to go up and get the ball. What we may be seeing here is the "perfect storm" of skill position players around our young electric newly starting QB to have the time to grow into himself and grow into this position in this offensive system. That is why while I love Synjyn Days so much as one of my favorite Tech players I am not worried so much about his playing time when it is Laskey out there.

Jim Grobe in the commentary on the GSU game said that Thomas really took his fumble from the first play against Tulane to heart. I think he has it in himself to be so special and I just think we may have the right complement of senior skill position players around Thomas (don't forget OL pass blocking) to give him that chance to blossom.

And when he does then look out.

 

[GTpdm]

Here is an article with quotes from Lou Holtz and Gerry Dinardo. Both won National Championships with the option and both abandoned it in the early 90's. Check out their quotes as to why they quit running it. Pretty straight forward.
http://www.onefootdown.com/2012/8/28/3270651/where-have-all-the-option-teams-gone

Wait--are you citing this article to explain why CPJ's outdated option-based offense is losing the recruiting game? Did you read the whole article? The author concludes we've been holding our own in recruit quality, specifically in the QB and RB categories--and have gained ground in the OL, relative to the CCG era.

Pretty straightforward.

 

[croberts]

We haven't been a dominant program since the single platoon era of football.
Bobby Dodd Blueprint could not win today. He knew this in 64 . I wanted PJ because he believes he can win inspite of GT. O'Leary has served the test of time concerning success but did not have to deal with the current guidelines concerning progress toward degree completion. I would add D. Morgan to the very short list of D. linemen we have had. Speeking of Saban and any of the top coaches on the college landscape that may change jobs over the next 12 months. I have a feeling that the new job checklist would not include any schools that would put them in a very real disadvantage concerning the recruitment of minimum qualifiers and JC transfers. Throw in limited Degree program and it starts to hit home. I agree that CPJ is still the best (option). I look back when we lost the National Coach of the Year(Bobby Ross) and everyone became energized with the new hire National Coach of the Year(Bill Lewis). What a great decision. New energy lasted about a week.

 

[Stinger90]

You mean these guys.....

Yep!

and here's their ringleader.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

To state the obvious, it is harder to win at Tech than at some other schools. This is not an excuse for mediocrity, it is just empirically true and needs to be taken into consideration. If we criticize CPJ I just hope we will be fair about it. If you criticize his recruiting you need to be able to show that other Tech coaches have recruited much better while having student athletes show academic progress and graduate. And you can't use as your standard of comparison a time before college football became the pro farm system that it is today with no expectation of players actually being students in the classroom. If we criticize CPJ for his defense it really would be helpful to also explain why Tech has not had a nationally ranked defense in modern history or why so few Tech defensive linemen ever make it in the pros. If you criticize CPJ for his won-loss record you will need to show how his record is way out of line with Tech coaches of the last few decades. It is easy to conceive of a mythical perfect coach for Tech against which to compare CPJ but it is quite another to compare him to reality. I think it is safe to say that most Tech fans want to go undefeated and win the National Championship. It is frustrating to have such aspirations at Tech. But scapegoating the coach has been a long tradition at Tech that does not help us think clearly about what might be done on an institutional level to maintain high standards not only in the classroom but also on the football field.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

So who, exactly, do you have on ignore?

What did you say? Kidding, obviously not you. I don't want to go there in a post as such behind the scenes talk should be off-board in pm. I do mean it that I will try and resist about posting about ignoring people going forward. Threads like this bring out the overwrought views on CPJ so it does amuse me because the thread reads funny when you have a string of responses but don't see the original comment that is being responded to.

Typically, I do not resort to hitting ignore until a poster has done one of the following more than a couple times:

1) Blamed the offensive system for anything in a poorly evidenced or reasoned manner. I appreciate this offense for one simple reason: so frequently a play seems to have been defended well and "blown up" and then I check the yardage and go "oh, we actually got 3-4 yards." This is psychologically comforting for a Tech fan who suffered through the offensive woes of some past staffs. I don't care what offense a coach runs all that much. But this offense has been the primary culprit in losses far less than the other two units in the CPJ era. That is enough for me to leave "the system" alone.

2) Made negative comments about a current player or kid being recruited in a manner I think goes too far. No matter who the coach is at Tech we do not get many semi-pro 4-5 star "paid" (wink-wink) amateurs who will not have to bust their backsides on and off the field to compete in the ACC and the classroom. These kids are always the future of the program. The future of the program is not the mythical second incarnation of Dodd just waiting to be hired when a current coach is fired.

Eric has built this site by his efforts to be a positive point of contact for high school coaches and players. He now he has some great moderators and content providers who make this a special place for kids and their families to learn about what Tech has to offer. They also get feedback on their own game as well as see who else Tech is going after. Special things need to be treated with respect and protected.

3) Turned themselves into a "crank" or a hackneyed ax-grinder. Even if I happen to agree with the ax being ground I see no point in reading posts by peoples who turn themselves into caricatures.

In all honesty, maybe most of all I have to ignore some people because I am close to completing a doctoral dissertation and my brother will give me hell if I post too much. I love to argue so if I don't use the ignore feature then I would get sucked into debates far more than I already do. I actually try and only post if I have something different to say from what I keep reading out there so the use of "ignore" is a must for me.

 

[Lexjacket]

Wow.

I know it's hard it is to be a GT fan. But just wow.

I guess it could be worse, we could all be mutt fans and be complaining that our coach (who averages 10 wins per season) cannot get us to what is rightfully ours - a national championship.

I can see it now: Fire CMR. Fire CMB. We can hire better. Since we are a factory and we are not winning national championships, our entire program needs improvement.

Now, I know that some of the play calling can be mystifying over at the cesspool (but aren't all failed plays). Some of the failures over there are due to poor split-second decision making by 18-22 year olds being screamed at by 90k people. Additionally, there is no accounting for the Hand of God coming down out of the clouds to put a tipped pass into the opponent's hands - or steering a FG attempt around an upright.

A 0.731 over-all winning percent (while playing in the hallowed SEC) and yet the jackals are still not satisfied.

It took St. Dooley 17 years to produce a NC at UGAg. Remove one player from that team or if the Irish kept their heads in the 1981 Sugar Bowl (free kick coverage or the holding call) and he never gets that.

My best entertainment so far this week has been listening to The Game yesterday.

I can only hope that the mutt's fans get their wish and they fire CMR & Co. Then the mutt's can have a few years of what is going on at Tennessee and Florida.

Listening to 680 the fan driving to work this morning the airwaves were filled with 'fire BoBo', 'Fire Richt', they are nothing but mediocre coaches who turn out mediocre teams full 4 & 5 star recruits. How the mighty have fallen from one week to the next.

 

[GTpdm]

Typically, I do not resort to hitting ignore until a poster has done one of the following more than a couple times:

1) Blamed the offensive system for anything in a poorly evidenced or reasoned manner.

Whew! I'm clear.

2) Made negative comments about a current player or kid being recruited in a manner I think goes too far.

Okay, I'm still good.

3) Turned themselves into a "crank" or a hackneyed ax-grinder.

Uh-oh! I have been cranky lately. Bruce? You seeing this, Bruce?


....Bruce.....?


(Seriously, though--the esteemed Mr. Wayne brings a lot of level-headedness to this forum. Thanks, Batman! [Yeah, I know your secret.])

 

[awbuzz]

Wait--are you citing this article to explain why CPJ's outdated option-based offense is losing the recruiting game? Did you read the whole article? The author concludes we've been holding our own in recruit quality, specifically in the QB and RB categories--and have gained ground in the OL, relative to the CCG era.

Pretty straightforward.

Glad you beat me to it. Read the article (worth the time to do so for those that haven't) and was pleasantly surprised regarding our average star ratings. I think after this year's and next year's class (assuming we can keep those we currently have committed) will pay dividends three years from now. Yes it bites to have to wait, but things really should get better.

 

[Eastman]

To state the obvious, it is harder to win at Tech than at some other schools. This is not an excuse for mediocrity, it is just empirically true and needs to be taken into consideration. If we criticize CPJ I just hope we will be fair about it. If you criticize his recruiting you need to be able to show that other Tech coaches have recruited much better while having student athletes show academic progress and graduate. And you can't use as your standard of comparison a time before college football became the pro farm system that it is today with no expectation of players actually being students in the classroom. If we criticize CPJ for his defense it really would be helpful to also explain why Tech has not had a nationally ranked defense in modern history or why so few Tech defensive linemen ever make it in the pros. If you criticize CPJ for his won-loss record you will need to show how his record is way out of line with Tech coaches of the last few decades. It is easy to conceive of a mythical perfect coach for Tech against which to compare CPJ but it is quite another to compare him to reality. I think it is safe to say that most Tech fans want to go undefeated and win the National Championship. It is frustrating to have such aspirations at Tech. But scapegoating the coach has been a long tradition at Tech that does not help us think clearly about what might be done on an institutional level to maintain high standards not only in the classroom but also on the football field.

Very well said. I will simply add that if I was a scholarship prospect with NFL hopes and I read the posts of many Tech supporters relentlessly arguing that my nfl dreams are far less likely by attending Tech, it might influence me to go elsewhere.
If I was an opposing coach I would use it to my advantage as well.

IMHO there are a couple positions (primarily QB) where CPJ's offense will be a liability to NFL hopes but too often Tech supporters seem to be hyperbolizing this viewpoint to recruiting's detriment.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Very well said. I will simply add that if I was a scholarship prospect with NFL hopes and I read the posts of many Tech supporters relentlessly arguing that my nfl dreams are far less likely by attending Tech, it might influence me to go elsewhere.
If I was an opposing coach I would use it to my advantage as well.

IMHO there are a couple positions (primarily QB) where CPJ's offense will be a liability to NFL hopes but too often Tech supporters seem to be hyperbolizing this viewpoint to recruiting's detriment.

Tech has a legitimate shot at having two wide receivers currently on roster that could get drafted. That would make 4 drafted in CPJs tenure and 5 total in the NFL. If any position was most logical to assume a kids pro prospects would suffer at when CPJ came here it was at WR.

If the system is a hindrance at this or that position is very hard to calculate in my view. Given that the logic has been so wrong about the WR position makes me tend to think that "talent will out" without regard to system.