Very classy words. Good luck to JH. Hopefully there is nothing negative being held back here. Sounds like coaches let him know he wasn't going to be a contributor on the field if he stayed.
RE: Coach P. I share concerns but also agree that it is premature to draw conclusions about his ability to lead the team to success offensively. He is not a major innovator, and thus his offensive potential is limited by the strength of the team overall, the athletic ability of players, and our capacity to train players to execute what we are giving to them. This is where I have hope. Collins is checking those boxes, and the persona of the team is not going to revolve around the offense. Looking up and down the top programs, that is pretty common. But of course, we are still projecting the future here, and we're not going to be up there with Clemson, Alabama, UGA without the recruiting going even further. Maybe we peak at a top 15 type program with hopes of playing dark horse from time to time. If we get there, it'll be an advancement from where we've been for a long time.
No you can't make much out of last season despite success CPJ had running the option. Yes we could have done better if we had a more gradual transition, trying to hybridize and branch from there. But maybe also that would make 2020 and onward hampered. We made a clear choice to do things our way (now) without looking backward. Everything that I've heard is that the players love how we are doing things now, and that is no knock on CPJ. Yet the approach could not be more different. Different techniques and different athletes required to execute techniques, sure, but also in terms of trying to teach football as a whole rather than focus on executing a specific system. Neither approach is necessarily better in results, but there was very little for the staff to build from doing it their way. Instead of trying to bridge it more smoothly, they decided to deal with the consequences of throwing people into the new system. People are engaged, and whenever we have football next I expect to see a big difference.