General News about Key and his Staff

GTRambler

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It’s impossible to know what’s going on with Key’s OC recruiting efforts. But I suspect-guess the OC who has agreed to come to GT is most likely with a team that is currently going to a bowl game, and not on one of the four top-ranked teams in the playoffs.

I also tend to think that it’s likely to be an OC that Chris Weinke likes, as I think Weinke prefers remain a QB coach. Perhaps he just loves to coach quarterbacks.

(These are just my guesses to add to all the other speculation here.)
 
BainbridgeJacket

BainbridgeJacket

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GTRambler said:
It’s impossible to know what’s going on with Key’s OC recruiting efforts. But I suspect-guess the OC who has agreed to come to GT is most likely with a team that is currently going to a bowl game, and not on one of the four top-ranked teams in the playoffs.

I also tend to think that it’s likely to be an OC that Chris Weinke likes, as I think Weinke prefers remain a QB coach. Perhaps he just loves to coach quarterbacks.

(These are just my guesses to add to all the other speculation here.)
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Maybe not OC for one of the CFP teams, but on staff with one of them...
 
mts315

mts315

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stinger 1957 said:
Is it possible we already have our OC on campus and we're working on getting the pieces around him that can really help him? Just a thought I had. Think someone else a few days back mentioned that maybe we already have him, they did not say we do, just threw it out there.
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If JBatt gave CBK $5million for staff salaries and we make someone (Weinke) currently on staff our new OC, then that hire has failed. Especially in light of the fact that we appear to be keeping Thacker on as DC.
 
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Novajacket

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mts315 said:
If we are waiting on a non-OC to our OC, then we are making a huge mistake. I'm sorry but being our OC right now for recruiting is more important that being Offensive Quality Control to another team.
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Why? Because you said so? Give me one concrete example of this being true. The recruits we have committed seem good with it. Are you expecting some 5 star magic recruit that doesn’t care about NIL to come along but only if we have a named OC? Maybe we can have secret practices where the team learns the new offense, so we magically dominate next year?
 
Techster

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Madison Grant said:
We could have afforded Ellis. Key, in my opinion, probably looked at Ellis's experience and also felt that style of offense didn't fit his vision of the team. Georgia Southern was 41st in OFEI this year. Barbay at App State was 36th. So, yeah, I kind of think it is you are just stuck on a style of offense you love. One year as an OC all by himself is all Ellis has. Key did his dilligence and obviously thought Ellis was not the OC brain behind WKU's offense. Maybe if Key could've lured someone like Garrett Riley, he might have switched offensive styles. But that is where the bucks were not there.
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Let's see, you're trying to minimize Ellis's history as OC, but defend Barbay with a one year performance at App State? Yes, his OFEI of 36 this year was impressive, however, App State already had a decent to pretty good offense (OFEI: 2021 - #56, 2019 - #39, 2019 - #45) BEFORE Barbay went there, and the HFC Shawn Clark at App State was the Co-OC/Assist HC there before being promoted after Satterfield left. Barbay was an OC for only two seasons previously (2021 Central Michigan, 2018 Stephen F Austin) and they were not impressive stints. Ellis was not only a record setting OC (Co-OC) at Western Kentucky, his 2022 GSU offense actually made enormous improvement over what was previously at GSU (From OFEI of 118 to 41 from 2021 to 2022!!!). It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Ellis was mainly responsible for GSU's improvement. BTW, if you want to do a deeper dive of the WKU OC situation, Zach Kittley (who Key was rumored to have pushed for) was the other Co-OC at WKU with Ellis. Before Kittley arrived at Texas Tech, their OFEI was #25, this year with Kittley at the helm it was #45. So maybe Ellis is pretty darn good with or without a Co-OC, huh?

But let's back further up and do a better analysis of Barbay and Faulkner than your superficial one year "analysis". Note that previous years OFEIs may have been under a different regime...I wasn't going to spend time investigating further, but in an effort to give a deeper look at the offensive situations at the respective schools I went back 3 years before each coach's OC tenure.

Barbay's OC history (OFEI):

CMU OC 2021
2021 - 88
*CMU previously had OFEIs of 67 (2020), 73 (2019), 130 (2018)

Stephen F Austin OC 2018
2018 - No OFEI data
*I'll let the readers decide how he did at SFAU
www.espn.com

Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks 2018 College Football Players Stats - ESPN

Get the full Players stats for the 2018 Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks on ESPN. Includes team statistics for scoring, passing rushing and offense.
www.espn.com www.espn.com


Buster Faulkner OC history (OFEI)

Southern Miss OC 2019
2019 - 97
*USM previously had OFEIs of 120 (2018), 102 (2017), 86 (2016)

Arkansas State OC 2016 - 2018
2018 - 82
2017 - 92
2016 - 100
*ASU previously had OFEIs of 80 (2015), 67 (2014), 95 (2013)

Middle Tennessee State OC 2012-2015
2015 - 61
2014 - 78
2013 - 81
2012 - 61 (*This is the team that beat GT at home with Al Groh as DC)
*MTSU previously had OFEIs of 112 (2011), 114 (2010), 96 (2009)

I think Faulkner did well at MTSU relative to MTSU's previous offenses (pretty well comparatively), but his other stops at OC were not anything you would look twice at. Barbay's history at OC would make me think REALLY hard about hiring him at a P5 school. Is his 2022 OFEI of 36 at App State a product of what was already there, or was he truly the architect of change? I would like to see another year or two at the same level in order to risk hiring him. His OC background isn't extensive or productive enough to say he could replicate that 36 OFEI at GT.

Am I "stuck on a style of offense"? Yes, I'm stuck on GT getting an OC that has an effective offense regardless of scheme. My HFC top choices were Bill O'Brien, Jamey Chadwell, Mike Houston, Willie Fritz, Curt Cignetti, Jeff Lebby. None of them have similar offenses...but they all have effective offenses. At the end of the day I don't care how we get from Point A to Point B with the football, all I care about is getting from Point A to Point B.
 
mts315

mts315

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Novajacket said:
Why? Because you said so? Give me one concrete example of this being true. The recruits we have committed seem good with it. Are you expecting some 5 star magic recruit that doesn’t care about NIL to come along but only if we have a named OC? Maybe we can have secret practices where the team learns the new offense, so we magically dominate next year?
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Why? Does it help us in any way? We are without an offensive identity at the moment, I'm sure that helps with recruiting.

At this point we need all the help we can get and having a guy choose to stay with his current team as an back of the house analyst over coming here now to be our named OC and helping recruit is, in my opinion, an issue.
 
bobongo

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mts315 said:
We are without an offensive identity at the moment, I'm sure that helps with recruiting.

At this point we need all the help we can get and having a guy choose to stay with his current team as an back of the house analyst over coming here now to be our named OC and helping recruit is, in my opinion, an issue.
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Well, I guess. But it's more important that we get the right OC for next season and beyond.
 
Techster

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bobongo said:
Who knows? But it's quite possible. Hope for Ugag's early exit from the playoffs.
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Sounds like a LOT of smoke with Buster Faulkner. If that's truly the hire, then let's hope his time with Todd Monken was enlightening for Faulkner and GT gets all the best parts of UGA's offense and Faulkner's past offenses (his MTSU offenses weren't bad, they were better than just serviceable at times).

This will be Key's biggest hire. If it doesn't work out, and GT struggles on offense, his tenure as our HFC could be short. I hope for his sake and GT's sake it does work out.
 
bobongo

bobongo

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Techster said:
Sounds like a LOT of smoke with Buster Faulkner. If that's truly the hire, then let's hope his time with Todd Monken was enlightening for Faulkner and GT gets all the best parts of UGA's offense and Faulkner's past offenses (his MTSU offenses weren't bad, they were better than just serviceable at times).

This will be Key's biggest hire. If it doesn't work out, and GT struggles on offense, his tenure as our HFC could be short. I hope for his sake and GT's sake it does work out.
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I sure wouldn't mind a little Todd Monken influence on our offense. And why isn't he a head coach somewhere? That's what I can't figure. Took a winless Southern Miss and in three years built them into a 9-5 team.

Todd Monken - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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