GT vs Pitt Postgame

Vespidae

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This is a short response, but ...

The Hill could care less about football. Winning football increases applications, research money and helps fund capital expansion.

Tech is drowning in applications and has more top quality applicants than it can handle. There is no problem to be fixed.

Peterson has said so. “I’m not going to make a decision for the Institute based on 400 SA’s.”
 

MWBATL

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This is a short response, but ...

The Hill could care less about football. Winning football increases applications, research money and helps fund capital expansion.

Tech is drowning in applications and has more top quality applicants than it can handle. There is no problem to be fixed.

Peterson has said so. “I’m not going to make a decision for the Institute based on 400 SA’s.”
Then they should be more honest with the Alumni base, and see what response that draws. They hide that attitude and I think many of the alumni would cease their donations and support of that were the case. I know I would. (and I'd love to see you post that quote so I could see exactly where he said it.)
 

MidtownJacket

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I'm pretty sure, after every loss since I have participated in gtswarm there have been calls for the coach's firing. It just seems to be the knee jerk response of choice to express frustration. There will come a day when CPJ is no longer at the helm of GT football. Personally, I am in no hurry to get there, but I will not bore you with the argument to keep him, purely in the interest of time. In any case, such discussions have a great deal more merit towards the end of seasons rather than beginnings.

With that said, I am a bit disappointed in how we have answered the bell to 2018 as a team. In fact, I did text a friend (who could not watch the game yesterday) that was the worst half of football I have seen from GT in a decade. It was a text written in emotion, but now that I have had time to think and settle down, I am still very hard pressed to recall a worse one. Maybe blowing the huge lead against Miami after scoring something like 35 unanswered points at one juncture to take control (TW's tenure) would surpass this one. It would be and interesting, if not painful, debate.

At this point, GT has been maddeningly mistake prone. That is the bottom line. We have some areas of weakness personnel-wise, but that has not been the major contributor to our situation. I no longer have a DVR (in favor of youtube tv), so watching replays has been very limited, especially in terms of slo-mo review etc. However, for much of what is happening, I don't really need it and neither do you. Glaring STs mistakes, indecisive QB play, RBs cutting the wrong way in the open field, failure to protect the football, poorly thrown passes, dropped simple passes, poor gap responsibility, poor tackling angles in secondary, failure to wrap up, and the list goes on and on.

I guess the point I want to make is this: despite the incredible holes we have dug for ourselves and the mistakes committed, we have done enough to be competitive in those games on the scoreboard. Many teams would lose by 30 (and do every week) under similar circumstances. USF and PITT are not as bad as many on this board would like you to believe. There might be as few as 5 teams in the country who could make the kind of mistakes we did against them and still win. We put up 600+ yds against USF and won the second half decisively against PITT.

The thing to remember is mistakes are correctable. Whether we fix them or not is the question. Clearly, we are not a top echelon team in CFB. However, if we can manage to clean things up, we can go on to a very successful season from here. There are signs everywhere that this is possible if you just look for them. Just close your eyes for a second and imagine the flow of the games that would have been, IF IF IF we had simply avoided the most glaring, inexcusable and easily correctable mistakes. No game is ever perfect and I am not talking about perfection anyway - just the simple glaring stuff.

To be truthful, I have taken much of what has been said by players in the off season with a grain of salt, especially the stuff about how simple things are and we just run and react more on defense now. Anybody who knows boo about football knows that the complexities of running an odd front defense far outweigh those of an even front, or at least potentially can. Well, we are seeing a fair amount of confusion out there for such a simple situation, aren't we? In my mind, this has been expected in the early going. Even 4 year veterans are rookies in this system so leadership isn't blessed with system knowledge as an ingredient. I really really like some of the stuff I see on defense and I can visualize it coming together at some point. We are just far from consistent at executing anything at this point.

Welcome post this morning.


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THWG

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His offense worked when he had exceptional talent at QB (Nesbitt, Thomas). Nesbitt was a holdover from Gailey and Thomas was an Alabama recruit that was desperate to play QB and transferred. What top tier talent on offense has CPJ brought in as a recruit?
Um, Thomas didn't go to Alabama. He was committed to them, the decommitted and came here. He never enrolled at Bama. I will say that he brought in Graham under similar circumstances, so maybe Graham will turn out like Thomas.
 

MWBATL

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Um, Thomas didn't go to Alabama. He was committed to them, the decommitted and came here. He never enrolled at Bama. I will say that he brought in Graham under similar circumstances, so maybe Graham will turn out like Thomas.
I would be happy to see Graham at QB next week and let him spend the rest of this year learning ....4-8 is 4-8 no matter who plays QB
 

sgreer

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404
I'm pretty sure, after every loss since I have participated in gtswarm there have been calls for the coach's firing. It just seems to be the knee jerk response of choice to express frustration. There will come a day when CPJ is no longer at the helm of GT football. Personally, I am in no hurry to get there, but I will not bore you with the argument to keep him, purely in the interest of time. In any case, such discussions have a great deal more merit towards the end of seasons rather than beginnings.

With that said, I am a bit disappointed in how we have answered the bell to 2018 as a team. In fact, I did text a friend (who could not watch the game yesterday) that was the worst half of football I have seen from GT in a decade. It was a text written in emotion, but now that I have had time to think and settle down, I am still very hard pressed to recall a worse one. Maybe blowing the huge lead against Miami after scoring something like 35 unanswered points at one juncture to take control (TW's tenure) would surpass this one. It would be and interesting, if not painful, debate.

At this point, GT has been maddeningly mistake prone. That is the bottom line. We have some areas of weakness personnel-wise, but that has not been the major contributor to our situation. I no longer have a DVR (in favor of youtube tv), so watching replays has been very limited, especially in terms of slo-mo review etc. However, for much of what is happening, I don't really need it and neither do you. Glaring STs mistakes, indecisive QB play, RBs cutting the wrong way in the open field, failure to protect the football, poorly thrown passes, dropped simple passes, poor gap responsibility, poor tackling angles in secondary, failure to wrap up, and the list goes on and on.

I guess the point I want to make is this: despite the incredible holes we have dug for ourselves and the mistakes committed, we have done enough to be competitive in those games on the scoreboard. Many teams would lose by 30 (and do every week) under similar circumstances. USF and PITT are not as bad as many on this board would like you to believe. There might be as few as 5 teams in the country who could make the kind of mistakes we did against them and still win. We put up 600+ yds against USF and won the second half decisively against PITT.

The thing to remember is mistakes are correctable. Whether we fix them or not is the question. Clearly, we are not a top echelon team in CFB. However, if we can manage to clean things up, we can go on to a very successful season from here. There are signs everywhere that this is possible if you just look for them. Just close your eyes for a second and imagine the flow of the games that would have been, IF IF IF we had simply avoided the most glaring, inexcusable and easily correctable mistakes. No game is ever perfect and I am not talking about perfection anyway - just the simple glaring stuff.

To be truthful, I have taken much of what has been said by players in the off season with a grain of salt, especially the stuff about how simple things are and we just run and react more on defense now. Anybody who knows boo about football knows that the complexities of running an odd front defense far outweigh those of an even front, or at least potentially can. Well, we are seeing a fair amount of confusion out there for such a simple situation, aren't we? In my mind, this has been expected in the early going. Even 4 year veterans are rookies in this system so leadership isn't blessed with system knowledge as an ingredient. I really really like some of the stuff I see on defense and I can visualize it coming together at some point. We are just far from consistent at executing anything at this point.


I have been a CPJ supporter and I think the offense is awesome to watch when there is a passing threat. I would rather see a pitch to a back than a boring screen or 5 yard out. What I like does not matter- we have a trend here dating back to the Tennessee game last year and that is losing games that should be won. I am definitely ready for this to end. I thought CPJ would someday evolve the offense to help attract better players that can make the clutch plays. I will always support the team and the players respectfully but I am disappointed in the players that Tech cannit get due to CPJ’s style.
 

stech81

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This is a short response, but ...

The Hill could care less about football. Winning football increases applications, research money and helps fund capital expansion.

Tech is drowning in applications and has more top quality applicants than it can handle. There is no problem to be fixed.

Peterson has said so. “I’m not going to make a decision for the Institute based on 400 SA’s.”
YES that is the big problem , go back and look at the 70's same thing happened . Although the Hill did not call a fake punt but that is another story.
 

sgreer

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Um, Thomas didn't go to Alabama. He was committed to them, the decommitted and came here. He never enrolled at Bama. I will say that he brought in Graham under similar circumstances, so maybe Graham will turn out like Thomas.

If Graham is good he can be good in a different offense too. Tired of hoping and depending on outliers- Smelter, Gotsis, JT5 to carry the team while uga is loading up 3-5 deep at every position.
 

OldJacketFan

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On a personal note I want to say that I have NEVER seen such vile, despicable, embarrassing posts as I have seen on Facebook the last couple of days. For men to claim to be GT fans and post what they have and to speak to women like they have is unbelievable and unacceptable. I would suggest if any of this applies to anyone on GTSwarm please consider would you want your Mother, Wife, Daughter, or Sister to be spoken to like that? If not, then please do not speak to any other woman in such a shameful way.
If anyone who wrote that stuff is on GTSwarm I can assure you that you were talking to at least 2 women who belong to this blog.

One of the MANY reasons I am not on facebook
 

Heisman's Ghost

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I'm curious about something and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or confrontational, I would like open discussion. When I read posters saying CPJ "abuses players", "throws players under the bus", "points fingers" I'm assuming these comments are interpretations of what CPJ says during press conferences, shows, etc. When someone asks him about particular plays or problems as he sees it, would you rather the answer be an honest appraisal of the breakdown of a particular play or would you rather the answer be just some generic, canned response? I've seen posts on this blog, and elsewhere, that seem to agree with his descriptions of what went wrong with plays, even to the point of calling out specific players for making the mistakes. Yet, some of the same people who will call out specific players get upset when the coach does the same thing. In fact, I've seen some posters question the athletic ability and intelligence of some players but I don't ever recall hearing any of our coaches do that.

Please understand that I am not happy with the season so far and I'm wondering where GTFB goes from here. I understand the feeling of frustration of GTFB fans on this blog because I am frustrated also. I am positive Our Team and Coaches are equally frustrated. I just don't believe that this ongoing sniping, vitriolic language, spitefulness is good or helpful.

"...abuses players...throws players under the bus" If people think that Coach Johnson practices are abusive, they should read the definitive account of Bear's first practices at Texas A&M. The Junction Boys made it pretty clear that being mentally tough and finding out who wanted to pay the price to play football were part and parcel of the Bear's modus operandi. Bear Bryant would not tolerate the foolishness that has been going on at Tech this year. "Thrown under the bus"? Hell, they would be run over by the bus for the mental mistakes and lack of execution.
 

stech81

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OK question here not sure this is the best place but don't want to start a new topic.

This is a hypothetical question . It's 4 th down CPJ called a fake punt on our 33 yards line not theirs. I know unless we ask him we are only guessing but what do you think he was thinking?

1) I trust my opinion to pick up the first down.
2) I think we can fool them and the way the offense is playing they won't pick it up
3) I have no faith in our defense.
4 ) other
 

sgreer

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
404
OK question here not sure this is the best place but don't want to start a new topic.

This is a hypothetical question . It's 4 th down CPJ called a fake punt on our 33 yards line not theirs. I know unless we ask him we are only guessing but what do you think he was thinking?

1) I trust my opinion to pick up the first down.
2) I think we can fool them and the way the offense is playing they won't pick it up
3) I have no faith in our defense.
4 ) other


A little bit of 3 and
4) was ticked off about the offensive execution and acted off emotion.
 

Bogey

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And how has it changed? The percentage of players that go on to the NFL? The fact of the matter is that it is a miniscule amount of college ball players that make it to the NFL. Sure it can be a dream....but anyone that solely has their eye set playing in the pros does not belong at Tech.
So no Calvin?

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33jacket

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Then they should be more honest with the Alumni base, and see what response that draws. They hide that attitude and I think many of the alumni would cease their donations and support of that were the case. I know I would. (and I'd love to see you post that quote so I could see exactly where he said it.)

I stopped donating cuz of the disease called clough. And Peterson is as bad
 

ATL1

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Peep the tweet under Wolken’s.

93132380-3268-4D96-86EC-103AC8E310B3.jpeg
 

bobongo

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Going by this list as an example (https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/eng-rankings)

Stanford, Illinois, Berkeley, Purdue, Northwestern, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, NC State, Texas A&M, USC. are also all top 25 engineering schools.

Also, the majority of athletes are not doing STEM majors. They are taking up business administration and communications, and other non-engineering majors.

So I’m not sure I buy into the whole “we can’t do better because we are such a good school”argument.

I'm going by the Forbes list of the top 25 STEM-centric schools, which not only includes engineering, but science, technology, and math as well. We are the only one listed that is in a power 5 conference. Most of the schools on the list you cite have a much broader curriculum than Georgia Tech, and the few that don't have no football team at all.

I'm not making the "we can't do better because we are such a good school" argument. I'm trying to show how we CAN do much better, precisely USING the fact that we are such a good school to our advantage by recruiting NATIONALLY.
 

awbuzz

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This is a short response, but ...

The Hill could care less about football. Winning football increases applications, research money and helps fund capital expansion.

Tech is drowning in applications and has more top quality applicants than it can handle. There is no problem to be fixed.

Peterson has said so. “I’m not going to make a decision for the Institute based on 400 SA’s.”

Could or could not care less?

Assume that you meant the latter. Then again, maybe not. As I read it again, the Hill could care less because there is a tangible benefit to have good sport teams.
Obviously they want more research fundings, etc. coming for a multitude of reasons including the school staying viable.
 
Last edited:

YlJacket

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I'm curious about something and I'm not trying to be sarcastic or confrontational, I would like open discussion. When I read posters saying CPJ "abuses players", "throws players under the bus", "points fingers" I'm assuming these comments are interpretations of what CPJ says during press conferences, shows, etc. When someone asks him about particular plays or problems as he sees it, would you rather the answer be an honest appraisal of the breakdown of a particular play or would you rather the answer be just some generic, canned response? I've seen posts on this blog, and elsewhere, that seem to agree with his descriptions of what went wrong with plays, even to the point of calling out specific players for making the mistakes. Yet, some of the same people who will call out specific players get upset when the coach does the same thing. In fact, I've seen some posters question the athletic ability and intelligence of some players but I don't ever recall hearing any of our coaches do that.

Please understand that I am not happy with the season so far and I'm wondering where GTFB goes from here. I understand the feeling of frustration of GTFB fans on this blog because I am frustrated also. I am positive Our Team and Coaches are equally frustrated. I just don't believe that this ongoing sniping, vitriolic language, spitefulness is good or helpful.

While I was an engineer originally, I now do a good bit of marketing and PR so let me give you my view which has elements of both worlds in it.

The engineer side is looking for data, specific details, etc. that require specific comments about who didn't execute or was the play call into the wrong defense, etc. Some way to fix or analyze that specific issue. So I understand the desire not to have canned coach speak answers and like you there are times I really appreciate the candor he brings.

But recognize that even in the GT community, that dynamic is not the predominate need in the post game conference - and when you get to the broader community in Atlanta it becomes a miniscule issue in what the AA is trying to accomplish. Very few folks outside of this board (and even most on this board) are not going to replay the game and look for those specific things that he talked about when he was being candid and not doing coachspeak - so to speak :)

A much more important dynamic is how he says it. Tone, tenor, body language, etc. Does he look like he is engaging and likeable - or does he look like he is undergoing a root canal. Multiple studies have shown most folks don't recall what was being said by a spokes person but do remember whether they "liked" the person or thought they were engaging. IMHO that is where his major failure is. Yea we all like to say we want a gruff, old school bastard as the FB coach but that image doesn't sell outside of the core group. And the major purpose of any communication from the head coach - post game conference, AJC interview, whatever - is to engage the broader community and get them to purchase tickets to the game. And I don't see how his demeanor does that.

Now having said the above, at some point it doesn't matter how good of a "salesman" or PR person you are if you don't win. There has to be credibility in the person and the message. But you get a graduload longer leash if you do have the engagement factor.
 
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