Here's a thought

yeti92

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Blue&Gold1034 said:
This is kind of misleading. The ESPN article highlights Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas (both players Johnson did not recruit) as the reason why Tech is #1. You think they would've signed LOI to play for CPJ if he had recruited them? I honestly don't think so. The only player he did recruit ended up going to a Pro Bowl was Darren Waller and it wasn't even at the WR position.
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Seems like you are just nitpicking. Recruiting is full of misleading information, and Thomas still played in the option for several years. Let's not act like TE and WR are wildly different positions either.
 

Blue&Gold1034

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yeti92 said:
Seems like you are just nitpicking. Recruiting is full of misleading information, and Thomas still played in the option for several years. Let's not act like TE and WR are wildly different positions either.
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In regards to the ESPN article? Thats not nitpicking. That's stating the reason we are on the list is because of two guys and not that we are a program that develops NFL wide receivers consistently. It would be like having Tennessee as the best QB factory because of Peyton Manning. As for Thomas, you're right he did play in the option, the question is would he have committed to play in the option out of high school. I know you think he would've, but I dont believe so, so I guess we can agree to disagree.
 
Augusta_Jacket

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Blue&Gold1034 said:
In regards to the ESPN article? Thats not nitpicking. That's stating the reason we are on the list is because of two guys and not that we are a program that develops NFL wide receivers consistently. It would be like having Tennessee as the best QB factory because of Peyton Manning. As for Thomas, you're right he did play in the option, the question is would he have committed to play in the option out of high school. I know you think he would've, but I dont believe so, so I guess we can agree to disagree.
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My question is what does this debate really solve at this point?
 

Heisman's Ghost

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bobongo said:
I imagine Thacker is still here because Collins needs an assistant to carry out his strategy and most of his tactics, allowing him to concentrate on being HC on game day. Hopefully it will be Geoff preparing the defense and running the show every day but Saturdays. And hopefully he's up to the task. He's done pretty well elsewhere as DC.
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Hell, just for kicks let them swap roles. Let Coach Thacker be the game day coach and Coach Collins can be the defensive coordinator. Can't hurt.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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Heisman's Ghost said:
Sometimes, like against UNC and Clemson last year. Miami last year and the year before, I think.
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Upon further review and correcting for increasingly frequent senior moments it would seem that we have had a number of games that we either won or played well enough to win. This is, of course subjective but I am drawing upon an ever decreasing number of brain cells here

From 2019 We played well enough to win South Florida Miami, (a memorable upset) and NC State, plus it seems we could have won the UVA game.
From 2020 We beat FSU (always a pleasure), played really well against a talented Louisville team and got an upset. Beat Duke handily and played decently in a loss to NC State as I recall
From 2021 Big upset win over ranked UNC and came within a whisker of pulling an upset against Clemson. Beat Duke and played well enough to win in losses to UVA; and Virginia Tech. Memorable game against Miami but I am not sure I would characterize our play as being "good" as much as Miami doing their dead level best to give it to us.

It would seem that Geoff has had some wins slip though his fingers but that can be said of any coach and any program in any given year.
 
forensicbuzz

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Blue&Gold1034 said:
This is kind of misleading. The ESPN article highlights Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas (both players Johnson did not recruit) as the reason why Tech is #1. You think they would've signed LOI to play for CPJ if he had recruited them? I honestly don't think so. The only player he did recruit ended up going to a Pro Bowl was Darren Waller and it wasn't even at the WR position.
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If CPJ would have sold his program the way CGC sold his program, we would have been a TOP25 team every year he was here, potentially challenging for championships. CPJ knew his system would work and didn't battle for the recruits the way Collins has. CPJ wanted all these outstanding recruits and recruited everyone, but he let his program do the talking for him instead of going toe-to-toe with those that negatively recruited us. It feels like his response to the negative recruiting was "Look at my record. My system has worked everywhere I've been," and he's right. The problem is he didn't go full-on nuclear mode against those who talked down our program. If he took the CGC approach, he might still be here and we might have another MNC or two.
 

yeti92

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Blue&Gold1034 said:
In regards to the ESPN article? Thats not nitpicking. That's stating the reason we are on the list is because of two guys and not that we are a program that develops NFL wide receivers consistently. It would be like having Tennessee as the best QB factory because of Peyton Manning. As for Thomas, you're right he did play in the option, the question is would he have committed to play in the option out of high school. I know you think he would've, but I dont believe so, so I guess we can agree to disagree.
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I don't think he would have picked Tech, but who he would've picked out of high school is irrelevant. He played in the option as a WR and got to the NFL doing so, and so did all the other guys I mentioned. That's a positive for recruiting.
 
Northeast Stinger

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JacketFan137 said:
it ultimately takes both, literally no one ever argued that you can do it ONLY being a good recruiter. you also can have the best scheme in the world but eventually you come up against teams that are in such a different stratosphere as far as athleticism and talent you can no longer control that gap. see clemson after 2014, uga after smart year 1.

the issue when people present option coaches to come in is that almost every one of them come from environments that either don’t recruit the same way as p5 (service academies like monken who is brought up a lot) or just don’t recruit close to the level needed like chadwell at coastal carolina (who is recruiting anywhere from the 80s-120s in recruiting). i understand it may be different when they show up at a p5 school with more resources and less restrictions than an academy but i’m not so sure they’ll magically recruit at the level we need.

so if any of these guys could come in and prove me wrong i wouldn’t be opposed on the basis that they’re an option coach. obviously on field coaching is extremely important but as long as we continue to play clemson, uga, notre dame and other big OOC games like ole miss, it’s basically penciling in a guaranteed loss unless you have the athletes to compete. if you don’t wanna do that then we might as well drop to the sun belt or something now and quit wasting our time
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This is a reasonable post. And I think this is where the so called anti-option and
so-called pro option fans meet in the middle. No one on “either side” ever said we can get this done without good recruiting or good coaching.

I confess to being one of the more naive fans who thought Collins might fit the Dabo Sweeney model of great recruiting and
rah-rah boosterism of the program and make it work with good assistants. I may be admitting too much to say this but I still harbor a secret hope that this might work out.

But I don’t think Collins alone has the coaching acumen to pull this off. That’s why I remain open to either getting much better assistants or tweaking the system with a different coach who runs an unusual scheme. None of us know what the exact formula is at this point but it is not unreasonable to me that running a super generic system is going to require a top 10 to top 20 recruiting class to be competitive with everyone on our schedule. Running a more unusual scheme might allow us to get by in the top 30 to top 40 range depending on other factors. But in either case, great coaching by someone who runs a tight ship is in order. Most “scheme” coaches, by the way, seem to run tight ships. I think having the fortitude to be different requires that.

One other caveat is that recruiting rankings are not always the same as actual ability on a college football field. Some excellent pro football prospects are average college players for their team and some dynamic spark plugs on their college teams don’t make it in the pros.

But, to reiterate, we ALL accept that recruiting alone will not get it done. We watched for years as uga squandered top rated classes even as FSU and Miami made top 20 classes look like bottom 60 classes.
 
orientalnc

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Northeast Stinger said:
This is a reasonable post. And I think this is where the so called anti-option and
so-called pro option fans meet in the middle. No one on “either side” ever said we can get this done without good recruiting or good coaching.

I confess to being one of the more naive fans who thought Collins might fit the Dabo Sweeney model of great recruiting and
rah-rah boosterism of the program and make it work with good assistants. I may be admitting too much to say this but I still harbor a secret hope that this might work out.

But I don’t think Collins alone has the coaching acumen to pull this off. That’s why I remain open to either getting much better assistants or tweaking the system with a different coach who runs an unusual scheme. None of us know what the exact formula is at this point but it is not unreasonable to me that running a super generic system is going to require a top 10 to top 20 recruiting class to be competitive with everyone on our schedule. Running a more unusual scheme might allow us to get by in the top 30 to top 40 range depending on other factors. But in either case, great coaching by someone who runs a tight ship is in order. Most “scheme” coaches, by the way, seem to run tight ships. I think having the fortitude to be different requires that.

One other caveat is that recruiting rankings are not always the same as actual ability on a college football field. Some excellent pro football prospects are average college players for their team and some dynamic spark plugs on their college teams don’t make it in the pros.

But, to reiterate, we ALL accept that recruiting alone will not get it done. We watched for years as uga squandered top rated classes even as FSU and Miami made top 20 classes look like bottom 60 classes.
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Right now we are not doing it with recruiting or coaching. If we still have as a goal to be competitive in the ACC, both need to improve. I expect we need 5-6 wins to retain Collins and his staff. If that happens I think the recruiting part will improve. Getting an education at GT is still a very strong attraction to young men. It is not enough to grab a bunch of 5* players who have their entire life plan centered on the NFL. We can be competitive with the players we can actually recruit. But more money needs to directed to football. Is that possible or reasonable in 2022?

At some point GT will have to decide if P5 football is worth what it takes. Maybe those discussions began last year when the decision was made to retain Collins. If we cannot be competitive, I don't see us remaining a P5 school.
 
Northeast Stinger

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Blue&Gold1034 said:
This is kind of misleading. The ESPN article highlights Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas (both players Johnson did not recruit) as the reason why Tech is #1. You think they would've signed LOI to play for CPJ if he had recruited them? I honestly don't think so. The only player he did recruit ended up going to a Pro Bowl was Darren Waller and it wasn't even at the WR position.
Click to expand...
Incorrect.
 
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