GT hires Chip Long as new OC/QBs Coach

[Augusta_Jacket]

That’s not how stats work.

Stats only work when they confirm a preconceived narrative. Other than that they are just meaningless numbers... </Sarcasm>

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I don't trust coaches that use word play and narratives. I disagree with the time table. 4-5 years is way too generous. I think good coaches need 2-3 years. I get the first year.. You don't have your recruits in, that you picked to run your systems. 2 years....again...should be better, but expectations are you still need pieces. At year 3, those pieces should be in place and you should be very competitive. The angst is, we weren't remotely competitive. I cannot agree that we will look any better, next season. If we don't look better, than what? We get we got a new OC excuse? I have no faith in Collins. I hope Long can make up for his shortcomings.

That's the thing about living in America, you are totally free to express your opinion, even when it's wrong.

 

[MaconBacon IM88]

Well that is going to piss off CBK , really don't understand our AD

I hope they fix the org structure so that CBK reports to the OC and relinquishes the 'run game coord' title - whatever that meant. I'd love for CBK to be a long term coach here (as a GT legacy), but he has not put enough OL production up to get cranky about a new boss.

 

[IronJacket7]

We have lost 5 RBs so far..... I don't care what scheme we run. We need to be hunting a couple of extra running backs and fast.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I will repeat this again: that doesn't mean you win 3 games in the meantime and lose to lower level teams. You seem to excuse away the defense and that as a head coach there is more than 1 phase of the game.

No one is making excuses for the losses. We shouldn't have lost to NIU. That was a poorly coached and poorly executed game by everyone involved with the football team. Same with the Citadel. I gave as much grief as anyone over those losses. I said before we should have won minimum 4 games this year, with an off chance we could win 5 or 6. That was a correct assessment of where this team is.

As for "excusing away the defense" that just shows you have not been paying attention to what has been posted. Below is what I had to say. I bolded the parts where I stated that the defense is my major concern. This, however, is a thread on the OC, and by extension, the offense.

That's the thing. The offense didn't regress, the defense did. Yet our answer was to can the OC and shuffle the deck chairs on defense. The offense made slight improvements this year, which IMO, was about what we should have expected. We LOOKED a lot more competent leading to a lot more close games. (ND and uga were always going to be ugly and Pitt has proved to be a good team this year) OFEI supports minor improvements on offense, but the last two games made the entire season look worse than it was. Yet we are here talking about OCs as if that is going to solve the problem. I don't think the new OC is a world beater, but he should be an improvement over CDP and the offense is on track to make a big jump next year. It's the defense that has me worried.

All that to say, yes, you summarized the last part pretty well. CDP was a scapegoat to appease the fans but he definitely wasn't the major problem.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

We have lost 5 RBs so far..... I don't care what scheme we run. We need to be hunting a couple of extra running backs and fast.

I don’t understand. Did Collins not love them enough?

 

[g0lftime]

All the negative posts have me wondering...who do you think made the decision to hire Chip Long? Choose one or more of the following options:

A. Stansbury
B. Collins
C. The Money Men

One other question: If the "Money Men" had a say in the hire, then what do they know that the rest of us don't?

You forgot: All of the above.

 

[bobongo]

All the negative posts have me wondering...who do you think made the decision to hire Chip Long? Choose one or more of the following options:

A. Stansbury
B. Collins
C. The Money Men

One other question: If the "Money Men" had a say in the hire, then what do they know that the rest of us don't?

I would guess the one who didn't have much of a say was Collins. This is about the last guy he'd want to hire. It goes directly against his "culture" change to hire a hardass as his OC. He wasn't asked; he was told.

 

[Yoda]

That's the thing about living in America, you are totally free to express your opinion, even when it's wrong.

Only if you're on one side.

 

[stech81]

I don’t understand. Did Collins not love them enough?

Remember the question Collins would not answer " have you lost the locker room ( Players)" and all he did was smile and say you would have to ask them. I think we have the answer.

 

[GCdaJuiceMan]

Ya get what you pay for.

Is that right? We’ll have double the offensive production!!

We’ll be the best offense in the country.

 

[augustabuzz]

Curry had next to no line talent for any scheme. Ross had a similiar transition from stick in the mud step and zone lineman to agile ones to run friedgin's system.

Really? 3 played in the NFL.

 

[IronJacket7]

That's the thing about living in America, you are totally free to express your opinion, even when it's wrong.

Which is good.... And bad.....

 

[jgtengineer]

Really? 3 played in the NFL.

Yes but they were all very different, they weren't really tied to a scheme synergy is more what I am saying. And well curry's plan was line up in I and run it.

 

[Jmonty71]

That's the thing about living in America, you are totally free to express your opinion, even when it's wrong.

You are correct. We can agree to disagree and that's fine... While I don't think I am wrong, we'll see how season 4 works out. After we have another abysmal year, we'll see who was right. Or will we need a 5th, 6th or even 7th???? Just curious where it stops...

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

You are correct. We can agree to disagree and that's fine... While I don't think I am wrong, we'll see how season 4 works out. After we have another abysmal year, we'll see who was right. Or will we need a 5th, 6th or even 7th???? Just curious where it stops...

If we don't win 6 games, CGC will be gone. Period. He should be winning games next year. For the record, I've never been a CGC fan. Still am not a CGC fan. I do believe in giving people a reasonable chance to succeed, and I have stated from the very beginning that 2022 would be the season where it all had to come together or else. This was based on conversations I had with former players and current HS coaches who realized what we were about to go through.

 

[InsideLB]

Like everyone else I have no idea how OC Chip Long will work out.

On paper at least there some things that suggest he is a decent fit for GT:

• Has experience at schools where academics are important (ND, Tulane).
• Has a reputation as a good recruiter
• RPO-based scheme will not require a radical shift to something different/going back to square one on offense
• Has P5 coordinator experience / success at P5 level
• Has co-ordinated some very good offenses in the past.
• Like that he has coached TE. Hopefully we can have more depth and better overall performance out of this position going forward.

The article pasted below is a non-paywall post-mortem of Tulane’s 2021 season. For those who don’t want to read their defense was terrible, their OL couldn’t protect the QB, and they had terrible FG kicking. I read another article where Fritz seemed at wit’s end regarding untimely procedure penalties at key times. Fritz said they simplified the snap count as much as humanly possible and drilled it and OL kept having procedure penalties despite this. Hurricane may have messed with them some too.

My guess is that GT’s offensive line will have to develop more viable players / add players through the portal / be luckier with injuries next year for the offense to be much better than it was this year. Losing K. Kirby, A. Smith, K. Cooper, R. Johnson at guard (to fill in for J. Williams at T) this year really hurt us. At least P. Vaipulu got some good experience as did Weston Franklin. It would be helpful if Sims could stay healthy.

I don’t think Key forgot how to coach OL since leaving Bama, but I do think it’s taken longer longer to get OL recruiting going than we’d like. It seems we have either missed on some of the early OL we got, or they are just taking a long time develop, or Key isn’t great at developing lesser type recruits into good OL.

From the Basement | What went wrong with Tulane football?​

Mark Keplinger, Sports Editor
December 1, 2021

Willie Fritz looks to rebound after a disappointing season. (Parker Waters)
In short, everything. Both on and off the field, Tulane University football was plagued with issues and challenges that it needed to face. Analyzing both off and on the field issues will help illuminate why Tulane football went from being an early season contender in the American Athletic Conference, to being the doormat of the conference.
Off the field, the biggest challenge facing the team was the same challenge that Tulane University and the city of New Orleans faced: Hurricane Ida. Tulane athletics evacuated the team to Birmingham, Alabama to continue to prepare for the coming season.
The Green Wave showed great resilience in their first two games of the year, with a close loss in a hard fought game against the Oklahoma Sooners, then the second ranked team in the nation. Tulane then rolled over Morgan State for its first win of the season. Both of these games were originally supposed to be played in New Orleans, and were instead played in Norman, Oklahoma and Birmingham, Alabama respectively.
However, the biggest culprit to Tulane’s demise this season was, unsurprisingly, its defense. Time and again, the defense was ripped apart, giving up 61 to the Ole Miss Rebels, 52 to the East Carolina Pirates, 40 to the Houston Cougars and 55 to the SMU Mustangs.
In terms of points allowed per game, Tulane were 15th worst out of 130 schools, giving up 34 points per game. In comparison, during the 2020 season, Tulane had a middle of the pack defense, ranked 57th best and giving up 28.1 points per game.
Tulane sought to play an aggressive style of defense this season. This showed in many positive ways, as the hard hitting Green Wave forced 16 turnovers and sacked the quarterback 34 times. This is similar to last season’s unit, which had 17 turnovers and 37 sacks. So, where was the problem?
The Green Wave gave up too many big plays and too many yards each game. Opposing teams averaged over 400 yards a game, an abysmal number from Tulane’s defense. The worst pummeling came from the Ole Miss game, where the star studded Rebels had a staggering 707 yards of offense.
Two games later, Tulane’s defense hit their low point against East Carolina. The Pirates had 612 yards of offense, with 222 of those yards coming from their running back Keaton Mitchell.
Offensively, the Green Wave looked to quarterback Michael Pratt to lead them. Last season, Pratt proved to be a capable signal caller, throwing for 20 touchdowns, rushing for eight more and throwing only eight interceptions. He was also incredibly tough, as Pratt was sacked 33 times in 10 games.
This season started as more of the same for Pratt. In his first three games, Pratt threw for seven touchdowns, ran for one more, threw no interceptions and was sacked six times.
Unfortunately, the season turned on its head as he had bad games against University of Alabama Birmingham, East Carolina and Houston. His offensive line did him no favors either this season, as he was sacked 27 times in 11 games. It’s better than last season, but it is still not good. Against Houston, Pratt was sacked eight times.
Against SMU, Pratt took a vicious late hit after a slide, which injured him and forced him to sit out against Cincinnati. With the backup quarterback Justin Ibieta already out with injury, freshman Kai Horton was forced to step up. Horton deputized admirably, but Tulane’s offense clearly lacked the dynamism that Pratt provides.

Pratt struggled initially after returning from injury. He did not look his normal electric self in the losses to University of Central Florida and University of Tulsa, as he struggled to move the offense in both games. He did show off his incredible talent when the Green Wave dismantled University of South Florida, but finished out the season on a pedestrian note in the loss to Memphis.
From a coaching perspective, the team made many mistakes, and often seemed to not be able to play a full four quarters of football. Tulane’s season was filled with untimely fumbles, such as the several instances lost against Oklahoma, or undisciplined play, from the penalties Tulane committed, to Dorian Williams ejection against Ole Miss and the several unnecessary roughness penalties against the University of Cincinnati. Penalties, in particular, are an area that need to be cleaned up, as Tulane averaged six a game for 51.1 yards.
Things are not all bleak in uptown New Orleans, however. The defense did improve over the course of the season. They were able to keep the high powered UCF offense quiet, and kept Tulane in the games against Tulsa, Cincinnati and Memphis.
Offensively, Pratt is still a highly talented quarterback. Bad seasons happen to good players, and Pratt has shown over his two seasons that he has what it takes to be a great quarterback.
Willie Fritz will remain head coach of Tulane until 2026, and he has shown in previous seasons that he can both build a good football team but also a good program and culture. However, the coach will need to have a strong recruiting season with both incoming freshmen and transfers in order to make the team competitive again.
Next season, Tulane’s four non-conference games will be against Massachusetts, Alcorn State, Kansas State and the University of Southern Mississippi. All games will be at home, except for Kansas State.

 

[augustabuzz]

Yes but they were all very different, they weren't really tied to a scheme synergy is more what I am saying. And well curry's plan was line up in I and run it.

Which is what they had been doing for 2 years before Bill became head coach. 1978, ELI was the I TB. 1979, Ronny Cone was the I TB.

 

[Root4GT]

That's not it at all. I understand paying the market rate. The issue here is why fire CDP, then hire basically the same thing. What has happened here is CDP's alias and CGC just got 2 more years. Even if they are let go next year, this puts Tech in a worse position for the next coaching hire.

I'm of the belief that they should have given CGC next year as his last chance with the guys he hired. Now we just have another excuse to keep the guy for longer than necessary.

Come on man. Patenadue had zero P5 coaching experience before GT. ZERO. Long has been on the staff at SIX P5 schools including being the OC at ND in the CFP. Their resumes are in no way similar! 80% of FBS teams run similar offenses, It's about how well you run them and how talented your players are. Long may or may not be successful at GT but he is much more qualified than Patenadue was.

 

[TromboneJacket]

Hopefully, we don't send this thread off-topic.

Spoiler: Switching over a scheme doesn't have to take a lot of time. Our issue is that we're "rebuilding" an offensive line, which can take a lot of time. Three years is generally enough, though.

I found a few articles about how long it takes to move a football team over to a new scheme successfully. We also have another example within the last two years, though: Mississippi State went through a coaching transition in 2020. Joe Moorhead went to Akron and Mike Leach took over.

In 2019, Miss State went 6-7 and went to the Music City Bowl. The next year, Leach took over from Joe Moorhead, during COVID, and went 3-7. This year, they're back in a bowl.

There's a long story about how Moorhead got fired, but if the Miss State fan base liked him, he probably would still be there.

Moorhead runs an RPO "GoGo" offense, and it's a Pistol/RPO variant with a standard blocking scheme. Leach runs wide splits like we used to run. It's not apples-to-apples, but Mississippi State in a lot of ways went through the opposite transition that we went through. Their line gelled faster than ours did.

Leach and Dana Holgerson say that they can implement their scheme in 3 days. Learning the system shouldn't be a big deal.

http://smartfootball.com/gameplanni...r-political-thoughts-about-successful-offense

The offensive line can be more work, though. I did find an article about rebuilding a college offensive line from scratch: https://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-five-step-offensive-line-rebuilding-guide/.
I'll throw this in too: https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...hings-being-an-offensive-lineman-is-hard/amp/

There's no rule about how long to build an offensive line from scratch. Two to three years is usually enough. We've used some of the shortcuts, like taking transfers, but we still haven't gelled. To me, that says we've stumbled a few times, or failed a couple of tests. That needs fixing.

The other litmus test is our defense: it is worse now than it has been before. It didn't see a scheme change. We've been bringing in players we'd have loved to have on the defensive line previously. That's also a sign that we have problems to fix, rather than it being just a matter of needing more time.

Thank you! Finally someone is willing to get into the details. On offense, we could have gotten better than we have, but the OL transition has been the albatross around our neck. Not only did Collins start with a roster full of OL recruited with a completely different skill set, but he also didn’t have time to flip or recruit any guys with his preferred attributes in the 2019 class, so he had to wait a year to start developing his own recruits at the position group. In addition to that, we’ve had pretty high attrition at OL, mostly due to the age of the players already on the roster and the transfers brought in. Off the top of my head, here are the OL starters who we’ve lost or will have lost in these first three seasons while we’re trying to rebuild: Jared Southers, Jack Defoor, Zach Quinney, Kenny Cooper, Ryan Johnson, Devin Cochran. And that’s assuming Minihan comes back next year, which is far from guaranteed. That’s a lot of instability in a position that relies on rapport and familiarity between players. We could have done better recruiting, but Tech is a hard sell for a lot of the top players, and I think our failures in recruiting and/or development get magnified because we have no margin for error at this time.

As for defense, though, there’s really no excuse for the poor performances we’ve been seeing. The players we have now are no less talented than the players we had when Ted Roof was our DC, but we look so much worse (and being better than Ted Roof’s defenses really wasn’t that high of a bar to begin with). Collins is a defensive coach, and unlike on offense, there’s no huge personnel transition that needs to be made. I’m not super familiar with Collins’ scheme preferences (because I can’t seem to discern a schematic trend), but our corners should be capable of whatever coverages we call: there aren’t any glaring athletic deficiencies in our DBs. Oh lord! I just realized that I’ve been seeing similar coverage issues with the Seahawks this year! Please tell me Collins isn’t doing something stupid like trying to run a Pete Carroll purified Cover 3 defense with 3-man fronts!