GT needed a change

[YellowJacketFan2018]

If things don't improve GT could again be looking for change in their football program in a couple of years

 

[Vespidae]

If things don't improve GT could again be looking for change in their football program in a couple of years

Josh Pastner might be coaching football

 

[gthxxxx]

I don’t think we needed a “change” from the triple option as much as maybe we needed a change from CPJs triple option. I kind of agree that it was time for him to step aside, but ONLY because he refused to evolve his scheme. I think if we had brought another 3O coach in that could/knew how to develop a credible passing threat...just a threat...that’s all that would have been needed to keep defenses from pinning their ears back and coming after us like good defenses did late in CPJs tenure...that it could have been a much easier transition for us offensively. And add to that a focus on defense..a strong defense could still be recruited for, as it’s independent of offense (for all the people that say we couldn’t recruit elite level talent because of the 3O). A passing THREAT and strong defense and the 3O’s efficiency on offense gets downright hard to beat week in, week out.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think CPJ refused to to develop a credible passing threat full stop, as much as that he just believed given his present personnel, particular opponent, the week's practice, and/or a series of plays during gameday that passing would not give him the best odds of winning. I remember a couple games that we won (can't remember which ones exactly) where we threw so much it surprised the commentators, the fans, and likely the opponent. Also, wasn't there a highly anticipated dual threat QB recruit whose career ended due to an accident before even starting school? It probably affected future planning around the personnel.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disputing that he recruited based on a heavy emphasis on the running game; I just don't think he was as opposed to a passing threat as you mentioned.

 

[Return of Jac]

I honestly figured it would be a tough season, like 3-4 wins tough, didn’t expect them to lose to The Citadel, nothing that can be done. Johnson has left and wether we like it or not, Collins is here for at least 4 or 5 years. If positive change was going to happen, it wasn’t going to happen overnight. You have players who were specifically recruited to play Johnson’s offense, change wasn’t going to happen quickly.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Folks: We have seen this movie before. We recruit a little better, with classes sometimes getting in the top 25 (hopefully because of 4 star guys, not just quantity). When our coaches are smarter than "their" coaches, we can win games. When the other team's talent level is superior and their coaching is not "stupid", we will have little chance of success. I am amazed at the number of our fans that think we can catch fire and become a recruiting factory. If you don't believe this, but you love the change, then you just wanted mediocrity (with occasional 9-10 win seasons) without the 3O, meaning you just hated the 3O. I don't care what competitive advantage we have, but without one, we cannot consistently compete with the factories, either in recruiting or on the field. Hype is not a competitive advantage on the field.

 

[smokey_wasp]

Johnson's refusal to adapt killed any chance at Monken getting the job here after him. I was at southern when he was coach there. I think he's a great coach, and am glad he isn't at GT because he'd have been walking into a terrible situation that would likely set his career back. Half the fanbase would already be against him because of the offense, and he'd be inheriting a team with a significant number of flaws that was going to need to be rebuilt no matter what. Some people don't want to see it but we were on a decline under Johnson the past several years. Our defense was poised to take a big step back due to losses, and it wasn't good to start, and the offense lost a good bit as well.

Also, Monken's a good coach but he isn't a miracle worker. He went 6-18 at Army his first two years just a one game improvement from the previous two years. For good reason. They weren't set up to win. Neither are we. He would have needed time to get things going here, and a big part of hiring him would have been to avoid that kind of thing.

People are seriously glossing over that we are 119th in college football in terms of "returning production", 3rd fewest seniors anywhere and with recruiting classes that were in the bottom quarter of the ACC and P5, in general, plus zero quarterbacks that a single other P5 school offered at the position. Could PJ have schemed his way to 6'ish wins with this group? Probably. It was a heck of a job to get to 7 last year. Was it likely to get any better than that anytime soon? I dont think so.

 

[iceeater1969]

Re bankruptcies, so what? It's just a financial issue. Re-organize and get back to work. One of the problems GT has is idiocy. MBob was investing in all sorts of non-rev sports, no? OK, fine ... but non-Rev is built on the backs of Rev so fix that first. So many decisions taken out of order ... but I only know what I read and hear.

U speak very factually- i suggest with your strong corporate knowledge, that you dig into the knight commission data base . When u drill down, u see the 200,000,00 debt was before cpj.

Our ad s have spent the money on stuff instead of coaches and player support. We all know the stem drag on football yet we don't spend more.
In last 10 years all thing gt except gtaa have made major increase financial.

 

[coldbeer]

Think Citadel with MUCH better players.

Honestly, the TO is an offense that is designed for teams that have restrictions that do not allow them to compete on a level playing field with the big boys. The academies have adopted it because it was th inly way for them to remain competitive and the data is quite clear that it has worked nicely for them.

The argument has long been that big time players don't want to play in that offense and hence your recruiting will drop off. I had thought that was what happened at GT. I concede (and embrace) @Longestday 's point that the recruiting problems may have simply been a lousy AD who starved the football program of the resources it needed. I guess we'll never know if the nay-saying fans who bitterly argued over this point were correct that it hurt recruiting or not. But the results did definitely tail off.

My one concern is that even with a good AD now in TStan, we still are an Institute with severe restrictions which will not allow us to compete head-on with the big boys. I don't think this can be overcome with hype, or even money (although that helps). I think the Institute will always hamper GT from competing the way the SEC (and now Clemson) competes.

Our fan base bravely declares that we don't want to be like them, but then complains bitterly when we lose to them consistently. As O'Leary famously complained, we want to be Harvard during the week and Notre Dame on weekends. (I think he actually used different schools as examples, but you get my point.) Clearly our fan base doesn't know how to run a football program.

Let's hope our AD and Head Coach do.

GOL said Harvard (Mon-Fri) and Fla State (Sat)

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

 

[Coloradojacket]

LOL...never see an option scheme, we run an option scheme now, it is just different. I guess if Coach Fridge said he wanted to come back to Tech we would say no since his base play was the triple option run out of multiple formations.......lol

 

[knoxjacket]

Think Citadel with MUCH better players.

Honestly, the TO is an offense that is designed for teams that have restrictions that do not allow them to compete on a level playing field with the big boys. The academies have adopted it because it was th inly way for them to remain competitive and the data is quite clear that it has worked nicely for them.

The argument has long been that big time players don't want to play in that offense and hence your recruiting will drop off. I had thought that was what happened at GT. I concede (and embrace) @Longestday 's point that the recruiting problems may have simply been a lousy AD who starved the football program of the resources it needed. I guess we'll never know if the nay-saying fans who bitterly argued over this point were correct that it hurt recruiting or not. But the results did definitely tail off.

My one concern is that even with a good AD now in TStan, we still are an Institute with severe restrictions which will not allow us to compete head-on with the big boys. I don't think this can be overcome with hype, or even money (although that helps). I think the Institute will always hamper GT from competing the way the SEC (and now Clemson) competes.

Our fan base bravely declares that we don't want to be like them, but then complains bitterly when we lose to them consistently. As O'Leary famously complained, we want to be Harvard during the week and Notre Dame on weekends. (I think he actually used different schools as examples, but you get my point.) Clearly our fan base doesn't know how to run a football program.

Let's hope our AD and Head Coach do.

This is what we were promised in 2008. What ended up happening is we ran Navy offense with Navy quality players.

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. We needed to use the offense to make up for a talent void (that didn’t exist) and all it did was create an actual talent void.

 

[iceeater1969]

Probably.....so we will just cycle through CCG and CBL type eras

You have pirked my interest in bill lewis.

 

[TheSilasSonRising]

Which team ranked in, let us say, the top 8 of their P5 conference will be the next to hire a strictly TO coach?

Take your time.

 

[jgtengineer]

Which team ranked in, let us say, the top 8 of their P5 conference will be the next to hire a strictly TO coach?

Take your time.

Probably a big 12 team hiring willy fritz.

 

[GTRX7]

People are seriously glossing over that we are 119th in college football in terms of "returning production", 3rd fewest seniors anywhere and with recruiting classes that were in the bottom quarter of the ACC and P5, in general, plus zero quarterbacks that a single other P5 school offered at the position. Could PJ have schemed his way to 6'ish wins with this group? Probably. It was a heck of a job to get to 7 last year. Was it likely to get any better than that anytime soon? I dont think so.

People are seriously glossing over that 247 has our current talent ranked 45th in the country with eight 4*s and seventy 3*s. Ahead of UVA, Syracuse, Boston College, and Wake Forrest and only one spot behind Duke. (LINK) I would have been incredibly disappointed if CPJ had only won 6 this year had he still been coach.

That said, I am absolutely not giving up on the new staff. This is something that is just going to take a while for us to find out if it is really going to work. As someone else pointed out, our staff is relatively inexperienced (aside from Patenaude). We need to increase recruiting, work out our own internal issues, and then hopefully get get back to the expectation of a bowl game and .500 ACC record virtually every year, with a win over UGA and big season 2 out of every 5 years.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Which team ranked in, let us say, the top 8 of their P5 conference will be the next to hire a strictly TO coach?

Take your time.

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.

 

[gthxxxx]

GOL said Harvard (Mon-Fri) and Fla State (Sat)

Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk

So professional networking 5 days a week and football 1 day a week?

On a more serious note, it takes a full week's commitment to excel in either, and I think GT's fundamental identity/purpose lies elsewhere... something something helluva engineer?

 

[stech81]

People are seriously glossing over that 247 has our current talent ranked 45th in the country with eight 4*s and seventy 3*s. Ahead of UVA, Syracuse, Boston College, and Wake Forrest and only one spot behind Duke. (LINK) I would have been incredibly disappointed if CPJ had only won 6 this year had he still been coach.

That said, I am absolutely not giving up on the new staff. This is something that is just going to take a while for us to find out if it is really going to work. As someone else pointed out, our staff is relatively inexperienced (aside from Patenaude). We need to increase recruiting, work out our own internal issues, and then hopefully get get back to the expectation of a bowl game and .500 ACC record virtually every year, with a win over UGA and big season 2 out of every 5 years.

If Patenaude is the experience ( wait he is the only one that doesn't seem to know what to do ) all the others coaches are fine they just need to understand to not let the players overlook any opponent which should not be hard cause we will be the underdog in each game.

 

[GTJake]

For me my concern isn't scheme or talent, at least not for now, my concern is did we really overlook this game and his player substitutions are ridiculous IMO.
And, as was said hype is great, but don't forget you have to prepare and actually play the game.
Looking at the glass half-full, maybe this was a good lesson to learn in a season where not much was expected ...

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Which team ranked in, let us say, the top 8 of their P5 conference will be the next to hire a strictly TO coach?

Take your time.

One that will win more games than previously.

 

[vamosjackets]

As I have said before, I was firmly in the Monken camp. I think it was the wrong decision not to hire him and to hire CGC instead. I won't go back into the details on that because I've already done so, and it's not the time for it.

But, I want to be fair to GT, to Stansbury, and to Collins in evaluating this new era as a fan. I understand that I am not infallible in my view, so I could be wrong about the decision ... Maybe we can recruit really well (like top 10-15 eventually). Maybe we can have a great defensive scheme with Collins, Thacker, and Burton heading it up. Maybe Patenaude is a very underrated offensive mind who can be a top OC eventually once the recruiting catches up.

I know this: it would not be fair to seriously criticize this Collins era in the first year. He has to have time to develop his "culture" and to recruit players to what he's trying to do. So, even though losing to the Citadel was embarrassing (and VERY ironic), I'm not going to take cheap shots at Collins or the program right now. This Citadel loss provides such a tempting opportunity to claim that my view about Monken/Collins and the Option and the philosophy of football hype vs substance and such is the superior view, I just don't feel it fair or right to do so at this point. It's a "love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others" thing. If the shoe was on the other foot and people were criticizing Monken or my view unfairly, I would think they were wrong for doing so, so I will try to abide by a consistent standard.

I have to confess that I did feel some morbid sense of satisfaction at losing to the Triple Option the way we did, even though I was pulling for GT the whole game. I was sick over losing when we missed that last field goal and they made theirs, and yet something in me cheered the way that option was churning against us with us having the far superior players. There was just something poetic about it.

For me, it's going to be a frustrating 3 years, but I truly don't think it will be fair to make any kind of serious evaluation of Collins until we get to year 3 or 4, with his players being entrenched in his schemes. Another poster (@jacketup , I think?) astutely pointed out our struggles during G'Ol and Freidgen's first few years with Little Joe. Seems to me those on our side of this view should consciously and publicly take the high road, cheer for Collins and GT for the next 3 years for better or worse, and then either be proven right or wrong. Once that time comes, we're either enjoying the success of our being wrong or we get to proclaim our view to be the one we should all follow from that point forward. And, hopefully, we would have a fanbase that would be as unified as possible and ready to hear it. GT's success moving forward (which an above average, unified, mature fanbase would help with in the long run) should be all of our priority.