GT needed a change

stech81

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I appreciate your position on this. And as I said, I would have preferred 5 years, myself. But clearly TStan thinks the potential reward is worth the risk. And it's fair for you to say it leaves you with more questions. Of course neither you, nor I, know if Collins would have accepted less years with more incentives. Collins has less short term financial risk but if he fails here he may never get another HC gig at a major college so I disagree that there's little risk for him overall.

I think what we can clearly see, though, is that TStan feels very strongly that Collins is the guy to lead the football program. I think he's betting his own job on it. I believe, though I can't prove, that TStan feels that he has a pretty good understanding of what it takes to be successful at GT having been here before when Homer Rice was here (this is not me saying TStan absolutely knows, it's me saying I think TStan feels that he knows). I think he also most likely solicited advice from others who have walked the walk at GT and that they probably advised him that they feel Collins is a great choice. Again, that's not me saying definitively that he is, just that I would bet that TStan got that advice from people who know both GT and Collins. So he was willing to give Collins the job and a TON of rope. And like I've said before, I'm sure we both hope that Collins turns out to be the man to get the job done.
Too much rope makes it easy to hang yourself , time will tell.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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People who liked CPJ “never” called for you to support him because he was a GT coach.

People who liked CPJ presented data on why they liked him and others presented data on why they did not.

I don’t recall support him or you don’t support GT from anyone on the boards.

Shoot, if this guy wins with a clean program, he has my support.

"Shoot, if this guy wins with a (sort of, kind of, semi-) clean program, he has my support." FIFY
 

Heisman's Ghost

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AJ...succinct and sadly on point...

My expectations were low and pleasantly surprised that we stumbled thru a win with USF, but losing the way we did as a 27 point favorite brought me to a Popeye moment (all I can stands and I can't stands no more) - where is the can of spinach!

"Broken"? You want to see broken try the Tennessee website. One wise guy on there suggested that even Smokey the blue tick hound had decided to enter the portal.
 

85Escape

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It's always an experiment, right? I mean, we fool ourselves when we think otherwise, that's things are certain I mean. Who knows about tomorrow? So, yeah, it is always an experiment. Here's to going big and being willing to go out with a bang (said by a Chem E, who always love the bang! :D )
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I doubt this will happen, since you provided the "top 8" stipulation. I think if, and that is a big if, it happens again, it will be a team that doesn't believe they can get to the top 5-8 without it. I also think it would have to be a team that had already seen success in a previous era, like Nebraska. I really believe an offense of 50% triple O and 50% RPO would be a killer O to prepare for. Not sure if college players have the ability and time to learn and perfect that much information, though. That would be a very large playbook, most likely.

There are a few power 5 teams that could do worse, a whole lot worse, than to hire someone like Monken and install the triple option. God knows, teams like Illinois, Vanderbilt, and Oregon State have tried everything else.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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The easy ACC thing is BS. We had a higher percentage of ACC teams ranked during GOLs reign than any subsequent coach.

If GOL stayed he’d absolutely have won championships or if he left a year earlier and Fridge took over the same thing.

Just going off an admittedly defective memory, it would seem to me that there was more talent especially on defense back then in the ACC. Off the top of my head, I would consider Miami, FSU, NC ST, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech as having relatively better teams then than now. Clemson, Duke, and Wake Forest, possibly Virginia are better now. The linebackers in that era were extremely good as were many of the defensive backs. One thing is for sure, we could not beat FSU but we played UGA pretty even, if not slightly better.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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We are a very fragile fanbase.

Pretty fragile I will admit but what I saw watching the Buffalo and Temple game may be the future of much of college football. An oval stadium, not huge, but maybe 35 to 40 thousand capacity, perhaps. Hard to tell on TV but there was a large oval end with thousands of empty seats. I would be willing to bet there were not more than 20,000 fans at that game in reasonably good weather in Buffalo. They missed a pretty good game for the homestanding Bison too.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I wasn't the original poster, but I would guess that he means "must win" in the sense of if we don't when this one, the wheels may fall completely off this season. College football is a funny thing. Maybe we don't win this one (one can only imagine the meltdown on this board at that point), but then we turn it around against UNCheat and "find ourselves" and if not win several in a row at least make positive steps.

He did mean "must win" in that sense but young football players are much more resilient than we give them credit for. Whether we win or lose is not irrelevant, we want to win but we MUST show improvement across the board, offense, defense, kicking, coaching. All of it must get better. Do the little things better and the wins will come. Win a few games, recruit like crazy and see what happens. This is an "experiment" as some have said that is unique in Tech history. A coach willing to put all of his chips in on his recruiting acumen along with the culture change, the 404 jazz and Christ alone knows what other gimmickry he can dream up in the hopes that a recruiting bonanza will follow that will unite the fan base and increase support at unheard of levels on the Flats. More power to him but we have to do better with the horses we have now.
 

iceeater1969

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To be fair, at that point there had been 2-3 personal foul calls against our D at that point, and IIRC, they were all plays that happened right by our sideline. I'm sure the players were giving them an earful.

Not defending after the whistle behavior, however, the refs usually get in the middle to cool these things down. We should have never had another taunting foul. Plain stupid on steroids.


However when the sideline play happened right in front of our seats, the guys were cheering their teammate and not jeering the opponent . The guys in back were moving to get a look and the referre rushed in like there was some thing bad happening . Guys in front we trying to get back but they hit the guys in back. Ref got animated and coaches immediately movedxthe players back.
Imo, ref thought it was taunting again but when he saw it wasnt he got animated abiut the sideline .

I posted a picture of new sideline chairs verses benches we used to have. This is where the get back excitement happened.

If i post it again it can start a whole new point about cgc not paying attention to the little details .
 

Augusta_Jacket

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Not defending after the whistle behavior, however, the refs usually get in the middle to cool these things down. We should have never had another taunting foul. Plain stupid on steroids.


However when the sideline play happened right in front of our seats, the guys were cheering their teammate and not jeering the opponent . The guys in back were moving to get a look and the referre rushed in like there was some thing bad happening . Guys in front we trying to get back but they hit the guys in back. Ref got animated and coaches immediately movedxthe players back.
Imo, ref thought it was taunting again but when he saw it wasnt he got animated abiut the sideline .

I posted a picture of new sideline chairs verses benches we used to have. This is where the get back excitement happened.

If i post it again it can start a whole new point about cgc not paying attention to the little details .

I agree, I was just stating that our previous taunting calls probably impacted the way the refs were viewing our sideline.
 

GTRambler

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I appreciate your position on this. And as I said, I would have preferred 5 years, myself. But clearly TStan thinks the potential reward is worth the risk. And it's fair for you to say it leaves you with more questions. Of course neither you, nor I, know if Collins would have accepted less years with more incentives. Collins has less short term financial risk but if he fails here he may never get another HC gig at a major college so I disagree that there's little risk for him overall.

I think what we can clearly see, though, is that TStan feels very strongly that Collins is the guy to lead the football program. I think he's betting his own job on it. I believe, though I can't prove, that TStan feels that he has a pretty good understanding of what it takes to be successful at GT having been here before when Homer Rice was here (this is not me saying TStan absolutely knows, it's me saying I think TStan feels that he knows). I think he also most likely solicited advice from others who have walked the walk at GT and that they probably advised him that they feel Collins is a great choice. Again, that's not me saying definitively that he is, just that I would bet that TStan got that advice from people who know both GT and Collins. So he was willing to give Collins the job and a TON of rope. And like I've said before, I'm sure we both hope that Collins turns out to be the man to get the job done.
I appreciate your position on this. And as I said, I would have preferred 5 years, myself. But clearly TStan thinks the potential reward is worth the risk. And it's fair for you to say it leaves you with more questions. Of course neither you, nor I, know if Collins would have accepted less years with more incentives. Collins has less short term financial risk but if he fails here he may never get another HC gig at a major college so I disagree that there's little risk for him overall.

I think what we can clearly see, though, is that TStan feels very strongly that Collins is the guy to lead the football program. I think he's betting his own job on it. I believe, though I can't prove, that TStan feels that he has a pretty good understanding of what it takes to be successful at GT having been here before when Homer Rice was here (this is not me saying TStan absolutely knows, it's me saying I think TStan feels that he knows). I think he also most likely solicited advice from others who have walked the walk at GT and that they probably advised him that they feel Collins is a great choice. Again, that's not me saying definitively that he is, just that I would bet that TStan got that advice from people who know both GT and Collins. So he was willing to give Collins the job and a TON of rope. And like I've said before, I'm sure we both hope that Collins turns out to be the man to get the job done.

I agree with much of what you say, jojatk. If I may, however, I would like to add here, and repeat what I’ve already said in my previous posts in other threads, that CGC needs to be given no less than five years — from now to the completion of the 2023 season — to establish a sufficient baseline of work that would determine whether he can succeed at GT or not.

The seven-year contract, to me, really doesn’t matter all that much, because by the fifth year CGC would have shown whether his work is trending upward, or trending downward, or trending about halfway or so-so. Then TStan and the big GT athletic donor-alums will make a decision on whether to keep him or buy him out on the remaining two years of his contract.

In this way, five years would be giving CGC a fair shake, to show what he can or cannot do. By the completion of the 2023 season, CGC would have finished his seventh year of head coaching experience at the Division 1 level. He would also have had five full years of GT football recruits, and five full years of on-the-field results at GT, to input onto his performance graph. At that time, the appropriate decision will be made.

That’s the way I see it.
 

g0lftime

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So? Heisman coached both football and baseball at Tech. Who knows? Coach Pastner might like the idea of wearing two hats so if he got fired at one job he would still have another one.
Coach Whack Hyder was the head basketball coach and my PE basketball coach in 1965. We played 4 on 4 and full court. My team never lost a game that quarter. I am still.proud of that.
 

Whiskey_Clear

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If CGC is competitive, around .500 winning and going to bowls more years than not he will almost certainly get 5 years minimum. Well....if he beats Duke every year. That has become a must win game lately.
 

jandrews

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Tech is in a tough location for recruiting. CPJs offense was able to mask our lack of being able to recruit high star athletes consistently. Basketball tried to bring in a better recruiter and that hasn't gone anywhere. Time will only be able to tell on the football side. It does take time to get things rolling. My BIL (clemson grad) as well as multiple personalities in the upstate say Tech is a sleeping giant if they can recruit at a higher level. Looking at the class you can see the first year is a building block. We are missing some key depth on the OL as well as length. Our QBs may not be suited for the scheme but we can transition over a couple years. Just watching us play games and having CGC as a coach, one can tell we are going to be a field position team that will punt and play defense. Maybe that will change over time as well but it appears we are ok with punting and trying to pin the other team deep and make them work there way down the field. To me that is the hardest change for a fan because I am so used to being at the opponents 40 yd line and automatically thinking it is 4 down territory. I was hoping for a little cleaner of a transition between coaching regimes but that appears to not be the case. I still bleed white and gold and always will. I'll just sit here watching the games and hoping that the team makes strides as the season progresses.
 

GTRambler

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Tech is in a tough location for recruiting. CPJs offense was able to mask our lack of being able to recruit high star athletes consistently. Basketball tried to bring in a better recruiter and that hasn't gone anywhere. Time will only be able to tell on the football side. It does take time to get things rolling. My BIL (clemson grad) as well as multiple personalities in the upstate say Tech is a sleeping giant if they can recruit at a higher level. Looking at the class you can see the first year is a building block. We are missing some key depth on the OL as well as length. Our QBs may not be suited for the scheme but we can transition over a couple years. Just watching us play games and having CGC as a coach, one can tell we are going to be a field position team that will punt and play defense. Maybe that will change over time as well but it appears we are ok with punting and trying to pin the other team deep and make them work there way down the field. To me that is the hardest change for a fan because I am so used to being at the opponents 40 yd line and automatically thinking it is 4 down territory. I was hoping for a little cleaner of a transition between coaching regimes but that appears to not be the case. I still bleed white and gold and always will. I'll just sit here watching the games and hoping that the team makes strides as the season progresses.

This is one of the best posts and opinion-analyses I have read so far on this board, along with those from jojakt.

If I may also add, I believe recruiting in the ATL (Atlanta) Area — for both football and basketball — will still be tough, and will remain so. As has been observed so far with Coach P over on the basketball side, it has been difficult over the past several years of his tenure.
 
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g0lftime

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Whether one likes his style or not he is differentiating his program from others. I hope this attracts some kids that would not have even considered us in the past. He is getting attention and appears to be trying to make practices more interesting for the players. Time will tell whether his game coaching skills are at or above average.
 
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