He Gets It

[MidtownJacket]

[HYPERBOLE ALERT]

Guys I just woke up from a nightmare where people are hopping up and down complaining about recruiting and saying the coach/hill/administration/fans/players/family dogs/etc don’t care about bringing in top level players.

Those same people fell into two categories:

Those that haven’t wanted to engage in a conversation about the changes coach has been begging for, and TStan made: new locker rooms, more assistants with recruiting focus, better branding, new uniforms, additional funding for staff, additional social media presence, etc. and the positive effect that will bring.

Or they realize all these changes are happening and want to switch horses midstream for a new coach (which smells like a proxy plan to just continue to say “I don’t like CPJ” and/or “TStan doesn’t know as much as I do about building winning programs / he does know more but doesn’t care - this money he is raising and spending is a smoke screen to hide his hatred for all things successful”.)

[FRANK DISCUSSION]
We have to be realistic and wait and see.
I want to win the games.
I want strong representatives of the Institute dressing for us each week.
I want to continue to be proud that we put students in classes that are real, will prepare them for life post college, and learn skills that will allow them to have a career beyond sports.
Most (if not all but a very vocal few here) want the same things.

This is a process. We are finally in a cycle where the resources are being marshaled and the donors are stepping up to bring change to the program. If CPJ/Woody/TStan can’t get this thing moving in the right direction than I agree we are in need of a change, but to call for that dramatic a departure of the course we have charted now seems foolish to me. Dance with the one who brung you and pick a new date for the next party if you’re unhappy when it’s over.



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[Milwaukee]

Nah man CPJ can coach em up LMAO

Umm...he actually can and that's what he's great at. I'm not on your side about PJ, I want him here until he retires. I'm stating the obvious in regards to his recruiting. It's abysmal. If we can bring in a good recruiter to help him then the sky is the limit.

 

[slugboy]

W/respect to major market city, is it your opinion that Atlanta is a Georgia Tech city with respect to the market and not just physical location?

On what is that based?

If you don't think that, you have your answer on why it's not raised.

Why is it an advantage in Basketball recruiting? Answer: big city, things to do, interesting climate and culture.
Should be the same for football.

 

[Gold1]

Umm...he actually can and that's what he's great at. I'm not on your side about PJ, I want him here until he retires. I'm stating the obvious in regards to his recruiting. It's abysmal. If we can bring in a good recruiter to help him then the sky is the limit.

So missing 2 bowl games in the last 3 years is coaching them up? That's news to me

 

[dressedcheeseside]

So missing 2 bowl games in the last 3 years is coaching them up? That's news to me

Cherry picking. Look at his entire GT career, then get back to me. Also, you already know I prefer higher highs coupled with lower lows to mediocrity every year.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

Is it fair to say last year was a fluke?

Virginia.... Miami... Tennessee. They had no business losing any of those games, and lost all 3. Virginia and Miami to 1/1000 plays, and Tennessee in a game they dominated.

 

[AE 87]

Why is it an advantage in Basketball recruiting? Answer: big city, things to do, interesting climate and culture.
Should be the same for football.

I think all that is. I just think that the difference between GT vs u[sic]ga, ACC vs SEC, in basketball vs in football are still bigger factors which drown out its effect.

 

[Lavoisier]

Wasn't our recruiting staff one of the smallest in the conference until the fundraising drive this year? Any kind of evaluation of recruiting really has to start now (the 2020 cycle). I don't think anyone was going to be successful recruiting to a place like Tech with the resources that were available under the old AD.

 

[Animal02]

Good points, but the problem we are facing is we're not recruiting enough good players that provides quality depth. Look no further than our special teams coverage and tackling. Last year we lost a linebacker for about four games and replaced him with a true freshman. The freshman played well, but after him the pickings got slim. Also, remember how we struggled at the tackle position last year. We need players that can step in and that can push us to a higher level. Good players can make a program consistent and not go on roller coaster rides like we've seen for the last few years. I can agree with you about recruiting rankings somewhat, but we should be better than 40 to 60 in any ranking that the services gives us.

Schools like Tech will always have a difficult time recruiting a bench.

 

[Oakland]

Schools like Tech will always have a difficult time recruiting a bench.

It does seem that way, but no one recruits for the bench. It is my understanding the GT coaching staff is pretty much up front with recruits. We've do need to figure how to retain guys who are not seeing the playing field. I can't think of any player that left GT in the last three years except for Marcus Marshall that has become a starter on another team. I could be wrong and I'm not counting junior college teams.

 

[GTRX7]

Why is it an advantage in Basketball recruiting? Answer: big city, things to do, interesting climate and culture.
Should be the same for football.

For some reason, the "big city" aspect does not seem to be a big draw in recruiting -- and I don't just mean for Tech. Look at the pre-season top 25. You won't find many schools located directly in a major metropolitan area. There are a few exceptions like USC and I guess Ohio St. (or those in a remote suburb), but most of the best programs are based in places like Tuscaloosa, Athens, Tallahassee, Ann Arbor, Lincoln, and towns so small they have the same freaking name as the school like Auburn, Clemson, etc.

It does seem to be a bit different in basketball, but I am not sure why. Schools like St. Johns, Villanova, Georgetown, UCLA, have much better histories of success in basketball than football. Maybe competition from pro sports and severely diluted fanbases in large cities negate a lot of the potential benefits? I also suspect the percentage of recruits that were raised in urban cities is much higher for basketball than football, where the rural recruits tend to dominate. I suspect most kids who grew up in rural Georgia just don't look at Atlanta as a major selling point. A huge percentage of folks who grew up in rural areas prefer to live in rural areas. That fact alone probably makes it easier to get 2-3 difference making recruits in basketball (which is all you need) vs. 15 in football.

 

[AE 87]

It does seem that way, but no one recruits for the bench. It is my understanding the GT coaching staff is pretty much up front with recruits. We've do need to figure how to retain guys who are not seeing the playing field. I can't think of any player that left GT in the last three years except for Marcus Marshall that has become a starter on another team. I could be wrong and I'm not counting junior college teams.

Fwiw, I think you may have misunderstood, "recruiting a bench," as the same as recruiting "for the bench." IIuc, his point was that GT will always have a hard time recruiting as many top-talent guys as places like Klimpsen. As a result, we can't handle injuries and rotate depth as well as they can.

I think if our D can actually start getting off the field, then we might be able to use our ball-control on offense so that we don't need as much depth on offense.

 

[MidtownJacket]

Great article up on The Athletic where they ask CPJ some questions about the upcoming season.

An excerpt:
Q: In regards to recruiting, you haven’t finished higher than eighth in the ACC, as far as recruiting rankings are concerned. How do you get better?

A: “Well, I think we’ve got some good players here. I’ll be honest, I don’t give two ****s about recruiting rankings. If the people doing those rankings really knew what they were talking about, they would be making a lot more money working for the schools in the recruiting department. A lot of it is also numbers. If you’re signing 28 guys every year, your recruiting ranking is certainly going to be higher than a team that is only signing 16 or 17. We haven’t had the attrition that some schools have had. Our biggest class has probably been 25 one year. The average class for us has probably been around 17 or 18. So you’re never going to get there. Typically, if you take the top recruits, the same top schools get the same top 50 recruits every year. It doesn’t vary, unless you’re cheating. There were a few schools who slid in there in recruiting, and they are paying for it now.”


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[TheSilasSonRising]

Because those valid reasons didn't save the last HC, and didn't save they the defensive coordinators. Those legitimate reasons become excuses when they are used to try and cover up valid criticisms. We're 10 years in and our passing game is horrid and our defense is terrible, and none of that gets put at the feat of the HC by too many of our fans. That's when valid reasons become excuses. Just like the valid reasons for recruiting being hard here don't make the argument that Johnson is a poor recruiter any less. Too many people refuse to accept that our struggles recruiting are a combination of those valid reasons and a poor recruiting coach. We can't do much about the former. We can do something about the latter. But not if our fanbase continue to act like it's the weather that is the reason we were bad last year.

In the last 6 years Johnson is 25-23 in conference and 42-35 overall.
In the 6 years his predecessor was here he was 28-20 in conference and 44-32 overall.

Johnson should have a bonfire under his seat right now. Instead he has an extension and fanbase that are already setting up excuses for 3 years down the road.

Have a friend that commented that he believes if CCG had not been fired, that a majority of the fan base would still be perfectly happy with him going into year 17 while averaging 7 - 5.

 

[Gold1]

Have a friend that commented that he believes if CCG had not been fired, that a majority of the fan base would still be perfectly happy with him going into year 17 while averaging 7 - 5.

And thats not true

 

[TheSilasSonRising]

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. California Institute of Technology
3. Harvey Mudd College
4. United States Naval Academy
5. Rice University
6. Johns Hopkins University
7. United States Air Force Academy
8. Carnegie Mellon University
9. United States Coast Guard Academy
10. United States Merchant Marine Academy
11. Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
12. Lehigh University
13. Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
14. University of Rochester
15. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
16. Case Western Reserve University
17. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
18. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
19. Colorado School of Mines
20. Clarkson University
21. Stevens Institute of Technology
22. Stony Brook University
23. Illinois Institute of Technology
24. Missouri University of Science and Technology
25. Michigan Technological University

Anybody care to guess what this list is all about and why it's relevant to our football success?

*how many P5 programs do you see?

Well hell, just move the team off the "Main Campus" and we can recruit better.

 

[TheSilasSonRising]

Why do you think no other top STEM school plays P5 football and only 4 even play FBS? Why aren’t all the great players attracted to the elite academics?

Because they don't want to be associated with any list that has the name Mudd in it?

I just never realized how many of our guys major in ARCH, Aero Eng, Physics, Chem Eng and things like that.

Or how many brilliant S/As are being recruited by troy, gsu, Elon and schools like that that we are competing against for recruits.
.
Yea, we have some,academic challenges (some would say opportunities) in recruiting.

But we have one other big problem that many will forever refuse to accept.

 

[Animal02]

It does seem that way, but no one recruits for the bench. It is my understanding the GT coaching staff is pretty much up front with recruits. We've do need to figure how to retain guys who are not seeing the playing field. I can't think of any player that left GT in the last three years except for Marcus Marshall that has become a starter on another team. I could be wrong and I'm not counting junior college teams.

No one "recruits" for the bench, but you would be foolish to believe that kids don't go to Bama for football, Duke or UNC for basketball willing to ride the pine for a couple of years with the possibility of being on a championship team as well as an eventual starter, knowing they can take easy (or no existent) classes. At Tech, not so much.

 

[okiemon]

Factories recruit on their own, he wouldn't need to be a worldbeater recruiter at those places was the point. There's nothing contradicting.

I agree, but only to a certain extent. A bad - or less than good, at least - recruiter can’t even recruit well at a factory over the long term. Miami didn’t recruit well for years until Richt got there.


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[MacDaddy2]

You're missing the point. It's not about whether CPJ deserved it. Extending Johnson was literally the only option that Stansbury had available to him that wouldn't hurt us in some major way. Even if he wanted to fire CPJ, the fact of the matter is that we are a cash poor program that cannot afford to pay the remainder of the contracts for Hewitt, Gregory, CPJ, and whatever new coach we hire. Firing is not an option right now. And if you do not provide an extension, you're basically telling every recruit to not bother coming to Georgia Tech because we're going to nuke the program in 1 or 2 years and start from scratch. It is a standard in college athletics to make sure your coach has enough years left on their contract to make recruits feel like they're coming to a stable program. It's just how it works.

Aside from that, Stansbury came out and publicly stated he's going to put as much support and resources into the football program that he can manage. One way he demonstrated this was issuing an extension and showing that he has confidence that his head coach can get it done. Honestly, he has essentially put CPJ on a 3 year clock. He's saying, "Here's everything you've asked for. New facilities, larger recruiting staff, your top choice at DC. No more excuses, make it happen." After the 2020 season, we'll have enough money built up from the Gregory and Hewitt contracts ending and (hopefully decent) ACC Network money to make the decision whether to extend CPJ again or kindly ask him to retire.

Wait, so if I am following if CPJ doesn't have a five year contract then recruiting would suffer. Remind me again how our recruiting classes have been stack up nationally within the P5? The gap between GT and the Top 10 programs in the country may be as wide as it was in the late 80's.