HC Candidate/Rumors/Info Thread

[g0lftime]

AD's like to bring in their own guy. He may be shooting himself in the foot with this one. I am a little concerned that Batt is on a fast track and may not be around long. It's hard to hit a moving target as they say in industry.

 

[katlong]

One of the things I was talking to my dad about last night was that it's not just that Key did something with nothing. He made the decisions that needed to be made to move the team forward. Out of the gate he works on the blocked punts and (possibly overcorrects) we don't have that anymore this year - bad snap at UGA notwithstanding. UVA game...he puts in the backup who is not ready, has a bad game, whatever you want to say. So next game, he uses Pyron and moves Gibson back a notch. Pyron plays great at VT. D holds, and we squeak out a win. Miami - Pyron gets hurt (and we were in the game until he broke his collar bone - remember that 2nd interception by him was because of the injury he didn't know he had) so instead of just "next man up" he gets Weinke involved and makes a game plan for UNC. Then he plays UGA better than nearly any other team this year. (yes, bad 3rd qtr, but we are the first team to score TD in first qtr on them all year, and with a combo offense and a 4th string QB!)

There are still issues to be worked out if we had more games (punt/KO return coverage for one), but he started with a defeated team with ZERO hope and no chance to win anything and they beat the top 3 in the coastal under him in an impossible situation. 5-7 was not possible in anyone's mind 4 months ago.

The kids LOVE him. They play FOR him. They believe in him becuase he believes in them and makes matter of fact decisions to win. I like him! He knows how to coach P5, and I"m not sure these others they are talking to will. We will see. I'm for Key.

 

[Vespidae]

Maybe Key will still be on staff just not head coach. That’s still a possibility.

It's' amazing that there's a place for Jim Chaney who is all but retired, but possibly not Key.

 

[slugboy]

How is that a detriment? I'd argue a lot of schools should reduce their degree offerings?

A lot of private universities are in trouble. For a private school, I’d want to see the enrollment over time and the endowment.
Tulane has nearly a $2B endowment and 14k students. Our endowment is about $2.7B and UGA’s approaches $1.5B. Emory has $11B

Tulane seems stable currently.

 

[Papa Foxtrot]

I am very familiar with Tulane, it's campus and what it is today and what it was.

I spent a lot of time there about 10 years ago before I retired. They were a customer of mine. Great people and lovely setting, but it was obviously past its glory days then.

 

[tomknight]

So is that a yes or a no? I mean surely a .500 record as head coach speaks for itself right?

isn't there a bit of a difference in taking over a team mid season, losing your top 2 qb's, beating a couple top 25 teams, and finishing .500, vs taking 7 years to build up a .500 program?

 

[lv20gt]

isn't there a bit of a difference in taking over a team mid season, losing your top 2 qb's, beating a couple top 25 teams, and finishing .500, vs taking 7 years to build up a .500 program?

So what you are saying is you can't just look at the record and ignore the context?

 

[bobongo]

AD's like to bring in their own guy. He may be shooting himself in the foot with this one. I am a little concerned that Batt is on a fast track and may not be around long. It's hard to hit a moving target as they say in industry.

I've wondered that, too - if he's not considering Brent because he isn't "his guy". His job is to make the best hire fort Georgia Tech, not himself. But I think if he hires Brent, he should certainly get credit for doing so. Brent would become "his guy".

 

[bobongo]

So is that a yes or a no? I mean surely a .500 record as head coach speaks for itself right?

In a one-size-fits-all world? Yes, it does. No need to get below the surface of that. No need for context or circumstance. That's all you need to know.

 

[GTrob21]

This sums up this thread right now.

 

[stech81]

Maybe Key will still be on staff just not head coach. That’s still a possibility.

nope

 

[Techster]

Here is my 2 cents on the current situation. I think writing is on the wall that Key is not the hire. I think McCollum leaving signaled that much. Does that mean the team has been told who the coach is.... if so it's a thousand percent Fritz after this weekend. If the team has been told it's not Key but not named a coach yet that doesn't make sense to me. If it's not Fritz then I think it will be a name we are completely surprised by. Lastly, I do find it interesting Batt passing over Key if option 1 and 2 did not work out. Seems like Key would have been safe for Batt on a number of levels. So for him to go a different direction tells me he really liked Fritz or whoever it is. Secondarily what about Key was such a turnoff???

If the team was told, the world would know by now.

The reality is, very few know, and even fewer will know much at all now that Fritz leaked. I'm certain GTAA knows who's been leaking info right now and they've probably plugged it in their own way. I'm almost certain info was "leaked" in the AD and HCF search to various people to see how sensitive information is handled by people who were trusted with that info. Cabrera would have been really good at the intelligence and spycraft business. If you remember the presser to announce AD Batt, he said something that passed by a lot of ears but raised my attention. He said (paraphasing) "J will report directly to me, and will be a member of my cabinet". A member of my cabinet. Given Cabrera's background, you can see that he's going to run GT like a high functioning international conglomerate. GTAA is just one unit of GT's overall business. I've heard Cabrera is an extremely nice and gracious person, but don't cross him...he's ruthless. Just look at how Stansbury and Collins were dispatched. Batt understands the seat he's in.

All of it is to say, GTAA is under MUCH better leadership, and brighter days are definitely ahead...and not just for the football program. It's messy at the moment, and there's a lot of people used to the old ways that will be in for a shock, but as the saying goes "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

 

[wesgt123]

I think if Key was going to be hired it would have happened already.

Count me in as a Key-homer but Batt I think wants to hire someone new and fresh. He sees things from an AD view and a fan’s.

But if the best we can do is Willie Friggin Fritz then go ahead and dismiss us ever being relevant again. It would be the absolute dumbest thing but not surprising in the least. Making dumb decisions and being the smartest people in the room is what Tech does.

 

[jgtengineer]

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

Have you seen this? I know that the Tech people will cry about how the rankings are biased, but there is a little school that is ranked 49th and our Institute is ranked 44. I wonder how they do so well.

Also, there are better football schools ranked higher than us. The elitism that Tech people have are the reason why we aren't very good. Its also the reason why we don't have side-walk fans.

They changed how they ranked universities in that list awhile ago. Lack of major offerings really dings you hard in it.

 

[Randy Carson]

No, we wouldn't. GTAA was starving CPJ for resources. Now, had we INVESTED in the program at that time, we would be in a different space.

CPJ said one thing that has always resonated with me. Tech is closer to a service academy in the importance of athletics to the university, the resources, and the quality and skill of the athletes. We just don't want to admit that.

I do.

Which is why I've ALWAYS advocated for some variation of the <ahem> option offense to give us a competitive edge against opposition which doesn't encounter it every day in practice, etc.

 

[Techster]

I think if Key was going to be hired it would have happened already.

Count me in as a Key-homer but Batt I think wants to hire someone new and fresh. He sees things from an AD view and a fan’s.

But if the best we can do is Willie Friggin Fritz then go ahead and dismiss us ever being relevant again. It would be the absolute dumbest thing but not surprising in the least. Making dumb decisions and being the smartest people in the room is what Tech does.

Making dumb decisions is why GTAA is going through a sea change right now. Cabrera is trying to rid GTAA of all the cronyism and bad decisions that have led us here. Unfortunately, Key is stuck in the middle of it...just bad timing for him while tectonic shifts in GTAA are happening.

 

[tomknight]

That's an oversimplification.

Any conscientious position coach will do the best he can with what he has to work with. Any employee does. Any parent does.

But you must believe that Key is simply incompetent and unqualified to be OL coach. Why would you say that when both GOL and Saban felt otherwise?

I mean, I know you know this, but it's not like the dude's got no bona fides:

2001–2002	Georgia Tech (GA)
2004	Western Carolina (TE/RB)
2005	UCF (GA/OL)
2006–2007	UCF (TE/RC)
2008	UCF (ST/TE/RC)
2009–2011	UCF (OL/RC)
2012–2013	UCF (AHC/OL/RC)
2014–2015	UCF (AHC/OC/OL/RC)
2016–2018	Alabama (OL)
2019–2022	Georgia Tech (AHC/OL/RGC)
2022–present	Georgia Tech (interim HC)

So, IVY will respond with "yeah, but I hate Key" to anything you post. Sort of

[
Not even close to Collins. Tulane did not decrease in performance. They doubled their yearly wins. I agree that it’s hard to be excited about the record even though Fritz doubled their win percentage.

You could say Fritz decreased GSU performance, but not including their jump up in conference the year he arrived would be less than telling the whole story.

I don’t like that he hired Long as OC though.

Fritz is a good proven coach, just not a flashy record on till this year.

is Fritz on other's lists? would we be competing with him to come here?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

is Fritz on other's lists? would we be competing with him to come here?

Not that I have seen. It looks like we might be the only school, other than Tulane itself, interested in him at the moment.

That doesn't mean he would be a bad hire, though.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Only a Tulane alum understands the depths of despair that Tulane has been through over 5 decades with only brief interruptions for limited success. Only when Tommy Bowden coached and then Willie Fritz did the program truly improve consistently. Tulane v. LSU was like GT v. UGA when I was there, but Tulane dropped out of the SEC and dropped LSU and became irrelevant in LA. They built an on campus stadium about 8 or 9 years ago (they played in the Sugar Bowl when I was there and packed 10,000 into a 70,000 seat stadium and then played in the Superdome and did worse). This was not a rebuild but a resurrection. Now, I am not saying Willie is the best option for GT (that's above my pay grade), but I will say he can coach, the players, the school and the city love him and were I his agent I would tell him to stay put. I am sure he aspires to see what he can do in a P5 conference. I would not bet against him. In a lot of ways he is CPJ 2.0 not Chan 2.0 but without some of the stubbornness and combative nature.

Pepperidge farm remembers.

 

[Randy Carson]

I just can’t agree on the passing side. We threw mostly in proportion to the talent we had at QB, WR, and AB.

Are we actually in agreement here?

If CPJ had recruited more QB and WR talent, we would have been able to pass more successfully, and that would have opened up the run game (our bread & butter).

I always felt like the defenses could load up the box because it wasn't likely we were going to beat them passing the ball. Which is why...every now and then...we'd chuck the long tater over the top. It worked occasionally, but not as often as it could have with a real passing QB.

I guess what I'm thinking is that if we had been able to throw with accuracy on a consistent basis, defenses would have been back on their heels instead of teeing off on our OL.

Water under the bridge now. Unless we get Chadwell. Then we might see what is possible with the right blend.