HC Candidate/Rumors/Info Thread

ibeattetris

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,557
You might mean one of the other boards. Here’s the first post on this board from 2013:
Thread 'Your first subject'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/your-first-subject.1/

We were definitely all about recruiting in 2013, because that was Eric’s passion. But the board was started well after Collins went to Alabama.

Giff Smith stayed here until 2010, when he went to the Buffalo Bills, and still had a reputation as a recruiting ace. Glenn Spencer is up at Wake as their LB coach, and he also had a sterling reputation as a recruiter.

This is just my personal opinion from ages back, but I think that Gailey hadn’t figured out how to run a program and run recruiting until the last half of his tenure, and by then he was trying to overcome “Flunkgate”. I also feel like he didn’t set his goals high enough until it was too late. However, by the end he’d put together a great recruiting staff.

Collins was a piece of that staff. One of the posters said that Collins was good with social media in 2006-7. Twitter had just been launched and Facebook just added photos. Instagram didn’t exist until 2010. The hot phones of 2006 were the Blackberry and the Motorola Razr. Sidekick phones were still really popular. The iPhone launched June of 2007, after the signing day. Data plans were really expensive. I think we were probably seeing more text messaging than anything. Unless one of the players wants to talk about how some social media played a part, I’m gonna doubt that theory.

We’d also had three years of people seeing Calvin Johnson on the flats, and that probably helped make us cool to high school players.

Back to the class. My best guess is that it was both a team effort and lightning in a bottle. A couple of the players decided that they’d come to Tech together and pulled in more players they new. Collins helped. We had good relationships with the high schools by then. I’m trying to remember all Gailey’s coaches, but he had a LB coach that was great. I think Collins was an ingredient in the successful recipe, but he wasn’t the only one, and we kept recruiting well after he left.

What percentage impact do you tie to Collins in 2006-7? Was he 5% responsible for the class? 10%? 30%?
(I don’t think he was 30% of what pulled players to Tech—that seems too high to me).
I just spent a few minutes going over old ST posts. From them, I found two posts that primarily attributed 2007 to CGC and the rest seemed to always include both Giff and CGC. I also found quite a few interesting post about his negative recruiting once he moved on but that seems to be the norm (Key has had similar accusations tossed his way).
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
10,846
FWIW:


From the article:
Older Georgia Tech fans might recognize Geoff Collins as he was the recruiting coordinator at Georgia Tech in 2006. That 2007 class that he helped recruit remains Georgia Tech’s best of all-time as Collins gained 6 4 star commitments, 3 top 100 prospects, and eventually 2 draft picks. 2 of the commits from that year, Roddy Jones and Derrick Morgan, both spoke to Ken Sugiura...

“He did a good job facilitating the chemistry amongst the recruiting class, that was one of the main reasons I went to Tech, the great relationships with the guys in my class.” — Derrick Morgan to Ken Sugiura

It would have been interesting if Suguira had asked Jones and Morgan in 2007 who the biggest factor was in them coming to Tech (instead of “Did Collins have an impact?”).

I think if you asked players to assign a percentage impact to all the people involved in recruiting them, the percentages would add up to 300%+

Your first profile as a coach is going to be a puff piece, and Suguira was probably fishing for a positive quote. That’s not even that positive of a quote; “facilitating” vs “I would run through a wall for that guy”.

Right. This wasn't around yet. You and I aren't disagreeing. Look at my original post. I essentially said the same thing. However, when Collins left for Alabama, there was talk about his involvement in that class and Giff Smith, as the Recruiting Coordinator, gave his a lot of credit for keeping that group together. Kyle Jackson was called the "Ambassador" because he was a popular guy and after committing he went hard at other recruits to get them to join the team. Lots of people were associated with the success of that class. My only point was Collins did get credit, even back then.

Yeah, I think there’s a big range between 0% credit and 100% credit. And also, being a young grad assistant/recruiting coordinator is a lot different than being a HC. He’s 51 now; he was 35 then. Even at 35, you’re an “old guy” to a high school player, but you’re not the really old guy that a 51-year-old is (I know whereof I speak, here ;) ).

I go back to “Collins was a guy in the wrong job, and there was too much friction to be able to back out”. He might have been the right guy to be the GA/RC in 2006, but the wrong guy to be HC in 2018, and the recruiting skills that were great as a 35-year-old might have been the wrong skills to pull in great classes (and build a team) as HC.
 

Jim Prather

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,021
You might mean one of the other boards. Here’s the first post on this board from 2013:
Thread 'Your first subject'
https://gtswarm.com/threads/your-first-subject.1/

We were definitely all about recruiting in 2013, because that was Eric’s passion. But the board was started well after Collins went to Alabama.

Giff Smith stayed here until 2010, when he went to the Buffalo Bills, and still had a reputation as a recruiting ace. Glenn Spencer is up at Wake as their LB coach, and he also had a sterling reputation as a recruiter.

This is just my personal opinion from ages back, but I think that Gailey hadn’t figured out how to run a program and run recruiting until the last half of his tenure, and by then he was trying to overcome “Flunkgate”. I also feel like he didn’t set his goals high enough until it was too late. However, by the end he’d put together a great recruiting staff.

Collins was a piece of that staff. One of the posters said that Collins was good with social media in 2006-7. Twitter had just been launched and Facebook just added photos. Instagram didn’t exist until 2010. The hot phones of 2006 were the Blackberry and the Motorola Razr. Sidekick phones were still really popular. The iPhone launched June of 2007, after the signing day. Data plans were really expensive. I think we were probably seeing more text messaging than anything. Unless one of the players wants to talk about how some social media played a part, I’m gonna doubt that theory.

We’d also had three years of people seeing Calvin Johnson on the flats, and that probably helped make us cool to high school players.

Back to the class. My best guess is that it was both a team effort and lightning in a bottle. A couple of the players decided that they’d come to Tech together and pulled in more players they new. Collins helped. We had good relationships with the high schools by then. I’m trying to remember all Gailey’s coaches, but he had a LB coach that was great. I think Collins was an ingredient in the successful recipe, but he wasn’t the only one, and we kept recruiting well after he left.

What percentage impact do you tie to Collins in 2006-7? Was he 5% responsible for the class? 10%? 30%?
(I don’t think he was 30% of what pulled players to Tech—that seems too high to me).
This is really off the track of this question, but I've always wanted to know. Who was Eric connected to on the staff? He had such amazing insights, that he had to be related to someone back then...
 

bobongo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
7,075
It would have been interesting if Suguira had asked Jones and Morgan in 2007 who the biggest factor was in them coming to Tech (instead of “Did Collins have an impact?”).

I think if you asked players to assign a percentage impact to all the people involved in recruiting them, the percentages would add up to 300%+

Your first profile as a coach is going to be a puff piece, and Suguira was probably fishing for a positive quote. That’s not even that positive of a quote; “facilitating” vs “I would run through a wall for that guy”.
Yeah, that's why I prefaced it with "FWIW". Doesn't sound like Collins was the main guy. But he had the title of "recruiting coordinator", so he took credit.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
17,876
FWIW (which is nothing), I've been told that most rumors are just that...rumors. This is "the most radio silence from a GTAA coaching search...ever". The circle of people involved in this coaching search is very small the few involved are known for their discretion. There are donors that are upset they are not being kept in the loop. This makes me nervous about Chadwell who is my #1 choice. Ya'll remember the "leaks" from the AD search...and how some of the candidates that were supposedly on the list ended up not even being a candidate? Then the candidate that was fired from Auburn was supposed to be "the guy"? Well, that ex AD wasn't even on the list and Batt was named a few days later out of nowhere. There's a similar pattern emerging here as we're in the redzone of the HFC search.

I'm guessing we won't know until after conference championships.
 

ibeattetris

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,557
Yeah, that's why I prefaced it with "FWIW". Doesn't sound like Collins was the main guy. But he had the title of "recruiting coordinator", so he took credit.
Giff Smith was the recruiting coordinator. According to literally everything on the internet.

2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Georgia_Tech_Yellow_Jackets_football_team#Coaching_staff
2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Georgia_Tech_Yellow_Jackets_football_team#Coaching_staff
 

bobongo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
7,075
FWIW (which is nothing), I've been told that most rumors are just that...rumors. This is "the most radio silence from a GTAA coaching search...ever". The circle of people involved in this coaching search is very small the few involved are known for their discretion. There are donors that are upset they are not being kept in the loop. This makes me nervous about Chadwell who is my #1 choice. Ya'll remember the "leaks" from the AD search...and how some of the candidates that were supposedly on the list ended up not even being a candidate? Then the candidate that was fired from Auburn was supposed to be "the guy"? Well, that ex AD wasn't even on the list and Batt was named a few days later out of nowhere. There's a similar pattern emerging here as we're in the redzone of the HFC search.

I'm guessing we won't know until after conference championships.
Indeed, it wouldn't be unheard of to leak rumors intentionally just to throw the bloodhounds off the scent. I'm pleasantly surprised at the dearth of info coming out.
 

bobongo

Helluva Engineer
Messages
7,075
Giff Smith was the recruiting coordinator. According to literally everything on the internet.

2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Georgia_Tech_Yellow_Jackets_football_team#Coaching_staff
2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Georgia_Tech_Yellow_Jackets_football_team#Coaching_staff
Well, not exactly. We have conflicting information:


2006 – Georgia Tech (recruiting coordinator)


2006Georgia Tech (RC)
 

ibeattetris

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,557

Randy Carson

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,248
Location
Apex, NC
We are likely going to end the season losing 5 of 6 games, 4 of which were blowouts and people will still be calling for the interim coach to get the job. Smh.
Maybe that's because those people think he ought to have a shot at recruiting his own players, hiring his own staff, running practices they way they ought to be run, etc.

Is this REALLY so difficult to understand? :rolleyes:

Personally, I'm hoping for Chadwell, but I can understand the thinking of the Key supporters, and I'd be okay with CBK if Chadwell turns us down.
 

lv20gt

Helluva Engineer
Messages
5,572
Maybe that's because those people think he ought to have a shot at recruiting his own players, hiring his own staff, running practices they way they ought to be run, etc.

Is this REALLY so difficult to understand? :rolleyes:

Yes? Why should he have a shot? ? His time as an assistant wouldn't have warranted him getting a first thought about the job much less the second, and we've looked just as bad the past 4 weeks as we did under Collins.

So does he just deserve a shot because he was made interim? If not, what has he actually accomplished to warrant getting looked at?
 

whitegoldsphinx

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
782
This just goes to show that CGC misrepresented reality more than anything. I am going to trust sources from 2006 and 2007 over anything released after CGC was hired.
It doesn't really matter who gets credit because it was a team effort among the staff.

I seem to remember that Kyle "The Ambassador" Jackson was very important for holding the class together and preventing defections.
 

Randy Carson

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,248
Location
Apex, NC
We're 162 pages into this thread...the pro-Key people have been making the case for their guy for some time. But since you asked...

Let's see...I think the argument goes (in no particular order):
  • he's a Tech man and understands the Institution;
  • he talks (and dresses) like a REAL football coach (love the sweaty t-shirts and the pressers);
  • he won't embarrass us with off-the-field indiscretions (personal, recruiting, etc.);
  • he has done well under difficult circumstances (the VA game is the fly in that soup)
  • he has PAC and ADJB's endorsement (if hired), which means he will have the resources he needs from the top. (This would be true of other candidates, also.)
That last point is interesting in that I'm not sure CPJ always had everything he needed to run a first-class program. Folks think he was making-do with less.
 
Top