Great AJC Article

Sheboygan

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Oostburg Wis. ( It's DUTCH !)
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND PEACE TO ALL JACKETS OF GOOD WILL
Martin Tv Show GIF by Martin
 

Eli

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You’re delusional man


Good lord @Eli. Do you get it now!! Go eat a snickers, man
Says the guy who literally posted after we went 3-9 last year “if we just run the called plays we would have won at least 6 games.” Lol 😂 Probably the worst defense I’ve ever heard for a coach
 

Ibeeballin

Im a 3*
Messages
6,082
Says the guy who literally posted after we went 3-9 last year “if we just run the called plays we would have won at least 6 games.” Lol 😂 Probably the worst defense I’ve ever heard for a coach

Your low football IQ is showing and you’ve shifted the convo since you’ve been proven wrong

When we ran and executed the same defensive scheme of the much maligned DC CAT we became the 41st in DFEI. Go take a nap
 

GCdaJuiceMan

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Key was just on a dysfunctional regime that acquired no less than four 4* in each of its full recruiting cycles. No need to set the bar low. He already has a 4* QB committed

I think it’s possible I simply think that won’t be the norm based on some of Keys comments. Winning early would certainly help.
 

yeti92

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3,193
Did you know?

Nick Saban has signed OL as light as 240 lbs while at Alabama?

Dabo Swinney has signed OL as light as 255 lbs at Clemson.

Mark Richt signed OL as light as 244 lbs at UGA. He actually had two OL in one class at that weight.

And none were in the first couple years of their programs either.
 

GCdaJuiceMan

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2,004
Let’s us all be optimistic with the knowledge (or at least very strong probabiity) that there is nothing that will not be better under Coach Key. Our darkest days are behind us.

Let there be great rejoicing

Y’all gotta stop saying ish like this.
 

iceeater1969

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9,789
Your low football IQ is showing and you’ve shifted the convo since you’ve been proven wrong

When we ran and executed the same defensive scheme of the much maligned DC CAT we became the 41st in DFEI. Go take a nap
I saw your note about being concerned who would replace the rush athletism by Zion.

I just saw a pro draft site discussing how freakishly athletic he is and how they expect his draft no improve after teams see him.

I now have 3 concerns
1. Is he the essential thing that made everyone around him on defense better - not the coaches. ?
2. If he had another year, can we get nil $ to keep him?
3. Without TFG will we have enough energy to recruit any top level? TfG had entire staff at gibbs house at midnight when recruiting was allowed + he had 2 gt nfl coaches take gibbs to bb game. I love Key and staff we have foir building our base, but we need to attract that special wr or te to make the playoffs.
 

Ibeeballin

Im a 3*
Messages
6,082
I saw your note about being concerned who would replace the rush athletism by Zion.

I just saw a pro draft site discussing how freakishly athletic he is and how they expect his draft no improve after teams see him.

I now have 3 concerns
1. Is he the essential thing that made everyone around him on defense better - not the coaches. ?
2. If he had another year, can we get nil $ to keep him?
3. Without TFG will we have enough energy to recruit any top level? TfG had entire staff at gibbs house at midnight when recruiting was allowed + he had 2 gt nfl coaches take gibbs to bb game. I love Key and staff we have foir building our base, but we need to attract that special wr or te to make the playoffs.

Zion?
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
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11,727
So, this topic has drifted a lot, but it started on the topic of how good this recruiting class is. There are a couple of questions here:
  1. how does this transition compare to the last transition?
  2. How bad a loss was The Citadel?
  3. how accurate is Ken Suguira’s story?
  4. how good is this class?

Last transition—2019: Coming off of 2018, we had very low returning production on offense—our QB was responsible for the largest chunk of yardage and points on the ground, and we didn’t sling the ball much that year. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway because Collins wouldn’t have used Marshall in the same way (or at all) even if he had stayed. We also lost key contributors off the defense, but (a) it wasn’t a high-performing defense that year and (b) there were solid contributors on that defense that could have played well if deployed correctly.

We were forecast to win about 3 games that year (I think the forecast was actually 3.5, so we slightly underperformed).

Would Johnson have won more than 3 games? I think so. We were trending down, but we’d have had continuity on defense with Nate Woody coming back, and I think our defense would have performed at least as well as Collins’ did. Graham and Oliver would have done well.

Johnson was getting tired, but he’d have put together one of his normal classes and I think would have just missed a bowl game.

Did Johnson leave the cupboard bare? It wasn’t well suited for what Collins wanted to do, but he had enough players to put together a good defense, and he didn’t. He had the mostly same kind of players in 2018 as he had on defense in 2022, and they were at least an above average defense this year, if they weren’t in the top third of the NCAA.

There are several components to estimating how good a team you’ll be after a transition:
  • The amount of returning production (not big)
  • The aggregate amount of talent on your roster (ok on offense, just fine on defense but a little weak on the DL)
  • The quality of the recruits and transfers you bring in that year
  • What you make out of the players you have (the coaching difference)
Collins definitely blew it on the last point.
He also blew it on the next to last point. He was a head coach changing schools. He wasn’t a coordinator, he wasn’t a position coach. If he was a good recruiter, players who loved him when he contacted them at Rutgers should have followed him. He could have done better in that first recruiting class. Or, another, better coach could have done better in that first class. I say that because other head coaches moving to a new gig HAVE done better in their first classes.

TL;DR: You can blame a little of 2019 on Johnson, but the vast majority of that record is on Collins.

The Citadel: OK, this is ridiculous. I watched the game too. The team was not ready to play. This was the worst loss in 40 years, and possibly longer (was Furman worse?). The team was poorly coached, showed up expecting that they could win without much effort. Comparing this to Gardner Webb is silly; for one thing, as bad as the Gardner Webb game was, it was a massively beaten up team with a third-string QB that shouldn’t have been that high up the depth chart WINNING compared to a team that was pretty healthy and just horribly prepared.

Collins also had a track record of repeated horrible losses—losses to teams he should never lose to combined with blowout losses to teams that he should at least be competitive with. We got our doors blown off by his old Temple team the next week. We looked inept against Syracuse the next year. He consistently underperformed. 2022 was the only year where there wasn’t a massive upset against us under his watch, and part of that was that he was fired four games in.

Before Collins, I have to go back to 1997 to find a game where we were shut out. He got shut out 4 times in 4 years, including back to back. And, today’s teams score more than teams in the past.

How accurate was Ken’s story: Early on we had some one-and done transfers, but that didn’t define how Collins used transfers. The bigger issue is that we had players not perform up to their billing—either through coaching, or development, or injury. Development and coaching were sub-par. Player evaluation may have been sub-par, and probably was.

So, no, not accurate—he missed the mark.

How good is this year’s class? You never know until you look back, and that’s what we’re counting on here.

If you ask one of our opponent’s coaches, I think they’d give a low grade to our class. We did get some highly-rated transfers. However, if you asked the coaches around the ACC to stack rank the recruiting and transfer classes, they would probably have us in the bottom 4. Maybe even at the bottom.

Key did have half of a season to put together the class—normally, you’re building it from the year before, though. Yes, I think a lot of the star ratings are bogus. Our high school recruits are at least 1/3rd “under the radar” guys, if it’s not the entire class. Rivals has us 11th out of 14 in the ACC, with 21 high school players, which is one of the larger high school classes. With opponents relying more on the portal than ever before, it should be easier for us to find that game changer out of high school

How well did Key manage the transition? During the season, he did make the team better. They played better for him than they did for Collins.

As far as player acquisition, he had more time than Collins and it looks like he did about as well (unless this class is severely underrated). He will need to step it up for future years, or he’ll need to be a magician at finding diamonds in the rough.
 

alagold

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My favorite quote: "Yet another priority – bringing in transfers who have more than one season of eligibility remaining. Of the six players coming to Tech through the portal, four have more than one year left to play. In Collins’ tenure, that did not appear to be of importance.

The two transfers with one season of eligibility remaining are linebackers, Andre White (Texas A&M) and Braelen Oliver (Minnesota). Both arrive as the Jackets lose Charlie Thomas and Ayinde Eley, who both started at linebacker for the past two seasons.

“When you’re developing a football team, you develop a team to win and win as soon as you can, but at the same time, you’re not going to forsake that for Year 2, Year 3, Year 4,” Key said. “So there’s got to be a process, and there’s got to be a way of doing things, and you can’t change.”"


I've been complaining a lot about the one year remaining eligibility transfers. Looks like Key aims to fix that issue.
Somewhat ironic that Key speaks of multi-yr transfers but maybe the key gets were with TWO SENIOR transfers so we may have this same situation again nexn next yr at LB.
 

forensicbuzz

21st Century Throwback Dad
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North Shore, Chicago
Somewhat ironic that Key speaks of multi-yr transfers but maybe the key gets were with TWO SENIOR transfers so we may have this same situation again nexn next yr at LB.
This gives our young linebackers that may not be ready to play big minutes effectively more time to develop and get well. We have LBs, there’s just not a lot of age or experience.

I do not expect the transfers to be logging Ace and Charlie minutes.
 

bobongo

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The Citadel: OK, this is ridiculous. I watched the game too. The team was not ready to play. This was the worst loss in 40 years, and possibly longer (was Furman worse?).
Furman went 10-2-1 in 1983, winning the Southern Conference title the year they won at Grant Field.
The Citadel was 6-6 in 2019. The Citadel was undoubtedly the worst loss of the two, and I don't know how far back you'd have to go to find a more abject and embarassing loss.
 

iceeater1969

Helluva Engineer
Messages
9,789
I saw your note about being concerned who would replace the rush athletism by Zion.

I just saw a pro draft site discussing how freakishly athletic he is and how they expect his draft no improve after teams see him.

I now have 3 concerns
1. Is he the essential thing that made everyone around him on defense better - not the coaches. ?
2. If he had another year, can we get nil $ to keep him?
3. Without TFG will we have enough energy to recruit any top level? TfG had entire staff at gibbs house at midnight when recruiting was allowed + he had 2 gt nfl coaches take gibbs to bb game. I love Key and staff we have foir building our base, but we need to attract that special wr or te to make the playoffs.
K WHITE! NOT ZION
SORRY
 

Dinner_Jacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
104
Citadel Loss:
We had 60+ players on the team who had played option football or defended against the option for 2 years or more (CPJ kids).
TFG had no clue how to stop the option.
Pretty much every kid on both sidelines and the entire Citadel coaching staff knew how to stop the option because they practiced against it everyday.
TFG could have let David Curry call defense and we would have won.
I knew that very day that we definitely had the wrong coach.
 

yeti92

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3,193
For the fifth time, the Minnesota bowl depth chart was posted bc it contradicted the original point made and Yeti contradicted himself with his own post





This is proving that RW.com weight was updated retroactively

These are the weights going into 2018

Thread 'Off-season Player Weight Changes'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/off-season-player-weight-changes.15172/

Now do the height and weight of the guy’s inherited (exclude Bryan B.Morgan, Braun, Toufele & Mckeehan)
How did I contradict myself? I'm just providing data from ramblinwreck.com

Here is the depth chart from the bowl game against Minnesota https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/gt-depth-minn.pdf

Here is the 2018 roster

Here is the 2019 roster
 
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