Mostly “Fire Geoff Collins”, some reminiscing, maybe bourbon or other distractions

ilovetheoption

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4 would in fact be more than 3, no?

And if you would rather see GT football win 7 games than see GT baseball host a regional, basketball play in March Madness, and golf and other non revenue sports compete for conference and national titles then that sounds pretty miserable to me. Football is what draws most college fans in, but it doesn’t have to be the end all be all for fandom. Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, and UCLA seem to have a great time being mediocre at football and basketball powerhouses. Arkansas, Vandy, Oregon State, Mississippi State have a great time making it Omaha even though their football teams are afterthoughts.

Football is fun because it’s the biggest event, but it’s not worth firing the AD over because football is struggling. If football was winning 9 games a year and every other program was in the state that football currently sits, that would be pretty miserable.
Mississippi State fans would trade their baseball success for comprable football success in a New York second. They are far far more invested in whether Mike Leach can beat Ole Miss than their college world series title.
 

AlabamaBuzz

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Would someone translate that gibberish for me? "...whenever those explosives happen...that they are organizational issues and that's on every single level. "...and when a couple of them happened, there weren't (in the back)" I know its "coach speak" but damn that is some pretty heady stuff there.
I will give it a shot:

Our guys weren’t organized in their assignments. This allowed guys to run free behind us. It also hurts that our front 7 didn’t get off their blocks.

Basically, he makes it sound like player errors - so, in my mind, poor coaching or basically letting the players make their own decisions. I don’t see any real accountability that coaches are responsible for creating.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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Lost the fans, lost the media
If we think he’s gone after next year, is it worth the extra 3 million to rip off the bandaid? I think so.
Well, Miami had to pay Temple something like that to get Manny because he had already signed a contract. To make matters worse, Manny never coached a game at Temple and he is on the cusp of being fired at Miami after yesterday's meltdown late in the fourth quarter against FSU.
 

billga99

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These are the NCAA statistics through yesterday. Net is mediocre on offense and horrible on defense. I compared the last year of Johnson and his defense were definitely better. Part of it was clearly the number of possessions in a 3O game. But bottom line is more effective on defense and comparable on offense with fewer possessions. Regardless of the Johnson comparison, we are in the bottom 20% on most defensive categories. With the standard offense we are running, we are locked into 3 wins per year. If there are no coaching changes at the end of this year, Season Tickets and Funding will definitely take a significant hit. I have been a Season Ticket holder for over 20 years and I am debating about next year.

Defense

Total Defense 114 out of 130 (2018 33 out of 129)

3rd Down Conversion Defense 115 out of 130

Passes Intercepted 122 out of 130

Passing Yards Allowed 117 out of 130

Team Sacks 105 out of 130

Team Defense Passing Efficiency 126 out of 130

Scoring Defense 93 out of 100 (2018 64 of 129)



Offense


Total Offense 65 out of 130 (2018 74 out of 130)

3rd Down Conversions 86 out of 130

Passes had intercepted 79 out of 130

Passing 73 out of 130

Sacks Allowed 79 out of 130

Team Passing Efficiency 68 out of 130

Scoring Offense 62 out of 130 (2018 70 out of 129)
 

Heisman's Ghost

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It’s funny. I started noticing the ball placement and his athletic trainer routine midway thru year 1. Initially I thought it was just a year 1 thing to show recruits and their mothers that he cares and building up the family atmosphere stuff. I figured surely he would stop that and actually start coaching his team during those precious few minutes a player is down. He kept doing it. Last year, while watching a Bama game a Bama player went down about 10 yards in front of Saban on their side of the field. I saw Saban start walking towards the injured player which I knew he normally goes to the huddle. For a second I thought “well maybe he‘s pulling a Collins since it happened right in front of him”. As he got to the player Saban stepped over the trainer’s legs who was over the player so he could reach the referee. After he gave the ref his 2 cents he turnd and almost stumbled over the injured player while walking directly to the defensive huddle to chew some backside. I was laughing my backside off. Point is, the players would rather win than have him dab them up while lying on the ground.
Saban? The wonder is that he did not step ON the trainer's leg and that he even bothered to step over them. My father once remarked that he did not see how Saban did not have a heart attack on the sidelines. I told him that Saban gives other people, players, trainers, assistants, etc. heart attacks.
 

Augusta_Jacket

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Yes, but you were predicting based on a preseason schedule that looked incredibly daunting. A preseason schedule that had Clemson as almost a lock in the CFP, and UNC and Miami having outside shots at the CFP but staying ranked all year. A strength of schedule that was supposed to be among the top 5 toughest in the country. It currently sits at 44th, and out strength of record is 94th. ND and UGA will build up the SOS a little and it’ll probably end up being like ~25th, but that’s still not close to what we thought we were dealing with preseason. Nobody expected our defense to be as bad as it is. If they were just average we’d probably be 6-4

If you read closer in my posts, I have also spoken repeatedly on depth of the OL as a problem. I have acknowledged my bewilderment as to why the D isn't playing better, but people who were following football closely, like most of the people who predict the seasons, predicted between 3-4 wins this year. Sure, some was based off schedule, but I still think Clemson is a much better team than us. I doubt we can hold uga's offense to just a field goal. I think we lose to Pitt 8/10 times this year. They are much better than us right now. I doubt we could beat UNC again this season. MOst of the teams we lost to are plain better than us right now. As @Ibeeballin said, this team is close. I can see it. We are frustrated precisely because we are CLOSE. If owe were still losing the third and fourth quarters but looking competent elsewise, it would be easier to take. I really think we will see the ship start to turn next year on offense.

Now, all that being said, I still have no answers for the D. I cannot understand what the issues are there, and someone like Ibeeballin could probably illuminate us more, but we've got to be willing to defensive experts opinions without imposing our biases. We may disagree, but his opinion probably reflects reality more than ours.

I also cannot completely excuse CGCs game management. He really needs to work on that area. I am not sure where the disconnect is, but he's got work to do there.

In the end, we will have CGC for at least one more season. Let's all hope that he gets this thing turned around soon, because firing him means we let another coach get a crack at the rebuild, and he might not get off to a fast start either.
 

AlabamaBuzz

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Saban? The wonder is that he did not step ON the trainer's leg and that he even bothered to step over them. My father once remarked that he did not see how Saban did not have a heart attack on the sidelines. I told him that Saban gives other people, players, trainers, assistants, etc. heart attacks.
Yes , his stepping over a player in Miami (when he was Dolphin’s HC) that was having a health emergency in the lockerr room is legendary. He is a mercenary for sure. That is why I refer to him as sa(t)an.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I’m not IBeeBallin. I think you’re only going to get a solid answer on whether it’s Thacker’s defense or Collins’ by being one of the people at practice and on the sidelines.

Collins ran a 4-3 at Miss State back in 2014. A lot of teams have dropped that in favor of a 4-2-5 with all the spread/“RPO” offenses.
Thacker had one season as DC at Temple. Taver Johnson was the DC the year before (he’s coaching for the Las Vegas Raiders now, but with Gruden fired, who knows what happens next).

I see some coaches that are 3-4 coaches, and that formation is their philosophy. Same with 4-3 or 4-2-5 ,etc. There are some “positionless” coaches out there, like Jay Bateman at UNC. UNC has two Defensive Coordinators, and they took Bateman from Army after they had a fantastic defense—top 25, I think—and he was replaced with Nate Woody.

With Thacker, I’m not sure what’s going on, but even though he can go deep talking about defense, so far he’s not a Dean Pees or Monte Kiffin level mad scientist on defense.

I’m more of a “your formation isn’t your defense, it’s a tactic you run to counter an offense” kind of person, but I grew up when you’d swap from a 52 to a 4-3 to a nickel to a dime based on the offense, and high-speed offenses don’t let you do that. Thacker talks like a 4-2-5 or a 3-3-5 is your defense, but he doesn’t sound like a true believer in a particular defensive scheme.

There are other things more important than your alignment—mainly knowing and executing on your assignments.

Failed tackles led to 10-12-15 yard plays. 52 vs 4-3 vs 3-4 vs whatever doesn’t matter if you’re going to do that. We had tackles for loss that went for first downs. That’s not even an “assignment” thing. You can’t have that as a problem to solve more than halfway through the season. For me, that’s the biggest issue we have on defense, and nothing else is close.

On top of that, we have bad mistakes going on in the back end. Against UVA, we had a ton of lost 1:1 battles, but yesterday we had players getting behind a corner and running free, repeatedly. That’s happened a lot this year. I see receivers open in a second or two after the snap.

On one hand, I can look at players like Biggers and see the argument that we’re getting close. On the other hand, the lack of fundamentals in things like tackling and the wrong kind of chaos on defense has us going in the wrong direction. I do feel like other coaches could come in here and take the players we have and make them into a top 50 defense—and that’s not even asking much.
"...go deep talking about defenses..." eh? The only people I saw going deep yesterday was Flowers and company wearing that deep maroon jersey.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I have been following as "truly" as anyone, whatever that's supposed to mean. I have been preaching patience with CGC and his transition. I predicted 4 wins. (Didn't see NIU as a loss) Many who have been watching this rebuild recognized that we probably weren't ready to turn the corner just yet.
This rebuild has turned a corner...right into the wall.
 

bke1984

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We are frustrated precisely because we are CLOSE.
How many coaches go down making excuses while they’re CLOSE? I think it’s quite a lot actually.

If we get over the hump will the head coach still not know how to manage the clock, or will that be what makes us arrive and stop being close?
 

AlabamaBuzz

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How many coaches go down making excuses while they’re CLOSE? I think it’s quite a lot actually.

If we get over the hump will the head coach still not know how to manage the clock, or will that be what makes us arrive and stop being close?
Well, to start with, to fix an issue,you have to realize you have an issue.

Just curious - does anyone believe CGC is self-aware enough to believe he has time management issues?
 

AE 87

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Assuming we lose the next two, CGC's 9 wins in 36 games will tie Coach Alexander's 7 wins in 28 games 1929-1931.

Well, not quite. We had a couple of tie games in 30 & 31. Plus, Alexander won the National Championship in 1928.

We're living through the worst head coaching 3 yr record in Tech history.
 

Oakland

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Something like it. Here’s a good read on the topic:

Regarding their "Solutions for a Modern Age" to make money, sell the stadium naming rights. Google Stadium, Amazon Stadium, Adidas Stadium...schools around the country are doing this. I'm sure under the present circumstances Bobby Dodd wouldn't mind one bit.

 

Vespidae

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Regarding their "Solutions for a Modern Age" to make money, sell the stadium naming rights. Google Stadium, Amazon Stadium, Adidas Stadium...schools around the country are doing this. I'm sure under the present circumstances Bobby Dodd wouldn't mind one bit.

At this point we'd be fortunate to have Taco Mac as the name. Or The Cheetah.
 

AlabamaBuzz

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But we didn’t. We literally tried to run some obscure offense with Tobias and it didn’t work.


As hard as it may seems, we are close. Right now, we just give up waaayyyy too many chunk plays on defense. 60 plays of 20yds or more in 10gms. That’s a little over double of what you’ll see in typical yr. CGC just need make some tough decisions and get rid of buddies and some GT alums. Next yr is the deadline. You’ll finally have your first class of your upperclassmen and some war daddies that should be to compete
Butch Jones was very close at UT as well. Sometimes, incompetence can overcome all other advantages you might have, including better & more mature players. I realize we will all get to see next year, but these next 2 weeks could & probably will be horror movie-type games.
 

AlabamaBuzz

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Guys, you can call me a “bad” fan, but I really don’t give a **** about volleyball or golf. I think if most were honest, they’d say the same thing. Football and men’s basketball are the only two collegiate sports that are mainstream. Let’s just be honest. That’s all most people care about.
Honest and unwoke response. I like it.
 
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