How do you evaluate a head football coach at Tech?

[Bruce Wayne]

My first thread suggested that evaluating the recruiting efforts of a Tech head football coach is a rather elliptical or impressionistic process given that we cannot just rely on where each class ranks in the recruiting sites rankings. If we were fans of a factory school it would be straightforward and we could just judge a coaches success at recruiting based on those rankings.

So, how do you evaluate the health of recruiting at Tech this year, and/or how do you evaluate any coaches recruiting classes at Tech in any given year (thus for whomever happens to be the coach, CPJ or otherwise)?

For my part I keep it very impressionistic and go by the "feel" of any specific year. So that 2008 "felt" rather lousy and 2014 "feels" pretty darn stout. So I "feel" like improvements are being made . . . at least this year . . . and I hope it can become a trend.

Otherwise, I do not really try and evaluate a head coach based on recruiting. Rather, I evaluate the head coach at Tech based on the following:

1) Wins and Losses - are we winning enough and are we competitive enough in our losses?

2) Eligibility, graduation, behavioral issues, team unity/disunity, depth and walk-on program. Basically, every other possible indicator for the health of a program as a program of student-athletes.

Clearly lumping in so many smaller factors in an evaluation as #2 means that ultimately the decisive factor is #1. BUT, if everything under#2 seems positive enough and trending in a healthy direction than I can be somewhat more patient with #1.

I think all of these are tangible results that an outsider can get at least a decent sense of in order to evaluate the head coach. Then I ask is the program trending in a positive direction or negative as regards all these factors? Is the current coach in control of these issues as best as can reasonably be done? Is he addressing these issues proactively and exhibiting he has leadership of the program?

 

[AE 87]

Two things (also subjective):
1) Do I enjoy watching the games because the team's playing competitively throughout the games
and
2) if not, do I feel like the coach is capable of and working toward correcting the problems

For both football and basketball, these two questions have led me to want us to fire Chan and Hewitt and to keep CPJ and to have a cautiously optimistic look at CBG.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Oh yeah I only answered my own question as to how I evaluate a coach at Tech's recruiting, i.e, by general feel such as last years class was "good but too small, missed our numbers by more than I like" while this years is "looking very good."

As to my criteria for overall coach evaluation above when I apply it to CPJ I would say that we have not won enough the past three years (overall as well as combination of which games won and lost) and were not competitive enough in the losses (again not a matter of competitive in this or that specific loss but just overall not competitive in enough of the losses) to satisfy me. However, all the other indicators of the health of the program that I lump into #2 are so positive under CPJ that I am interested to see what results he gets in wins/losses and competitiveness for the next two years before I throw the thumbs up or down sign in Imperial Roman gladiatorial battle fashion.

 

[vamosjackets]

Two things (also subjective):
1) Do I enjoy watching the games because the team's playing competitively throughout the games
and
2) if not, do I feel like the coach is capable of and working toward correcting the problems

For both football and basketball, these two questions have led me to want us to fire Chan and Hewitt and to keep CPJ and to have a cautiously optimistic look at CBG.

Just curious, but according to your two criteria above why would you have wanted to fire CCG?

 

[GTrob21]

I evaluate the coach at tech if he is winning ball games...period. Secondary but close to winning, is if the programs are graduating players and keeping themselves clean.

I for one don't want a national championship if it means selling the soul of this program. I might be in the minority on that one but that is one of the reasons why I still like CPJ,

Our graduation rate has drastically increased, and conversely it was one of the items I didn't like under gailey. At one point if I remember correctly, we were only graduating 55% of our players... Completely unacceptable.

 

[AE 87]

Just curious, but according to your two criteria above why would you have wanted to fire CCG?

I didn't enjoy watching our games, even when winning. We might have a 7pt lead in the 4th, and the team on the sidelines was hanking their head.

 

[jchens_GT]

Just curious, but according to your two criteria above why would you have wanted to fire CCG?

CCG was not a bad coach, just an average one. I also think he was a better fit in the NFL than at the college level. He often seemed to forget that he was dealing with fickle college students instead of paid professionals.

Based on his performance, it felt like he had reached his ceiling and we kind of knew what we were going to get out of him. Even the season of the ACC Championship game appearance was bittersweet and marred by average performances. Although we are now 3 years removed from CPJ's early success, we can look back at his record at Tech and have tangible reason for hope this season and next. We'll know in the next 4 to 5 weeks.

 

[SoCal_GT_Fan]

The biggest problem I had with CCG was his inability to recruit and develop a QB. I think if there was a QB that would have supplanted Reggie Ball, CCG might still be a coach here. Reggie Ball was a 4-year starter and no one couldn't supplant him on the depth chart even with stats like these:
Passing Rushing
YEAR CMP ATT CMP% YDS TD INT ATT YDS AVG TD
2003 181 350 51.7 1,996 10 11 139 384 2.8 3
2004 164 330 49.7 2,147 16 18 130 332 2.6 2
2005 182 379 48.0 2,165 11 12 104 381 3.7 4
2006 135 304 44.4 1,820 20 14 122 354 2.9 2
Totals 662 1,363 48.6 8,128 57 55 495 1,451 2.9 11

Not sure about you guys but we really couldn't find a guy that could throw with a better completion %? A guy who was more consistent? A guy who knew it was 4th down and shouldn't be throwing the ball away against our biggest rival? What if Megatron wasn't on the team, can you imagine the knock down on some of these stats???

As much flak as Tevin Washington gets, I believe he was better than the list of QBs under CCG:
AJ Suggs, Reggie Ball, and Taylor Bennett.

 

[vamosjackets]

I love CPJ, very glad he's here. I think he's the perfect fit for us. I also think CCG was a good fit for us and that CPJ is one of the few who has a chance to be better.
Reasons I was for CCG
Great defense.
Great running game.
Just beginning to become great at recruiting.
Had just landed best class maybe ever, with 2 very good QB prospects that would've certainly been an upgrade to Reggie. Had another QB recruit already committed for the next year in Sean Renfree.
Replaced the guys on coaching staff that weren't getting it done like (can't remember the old recruiting coordinator's name). Found Giff Smith and put him in the position to change our recruiting.
Brought in Derrick Moore, who is still having an immeasurable impact on our program and on the guys in it.
Was a good man with the highest character who would never knowingly do things the wrong way.

I think we saw success and were just starting to see a higher level, but we'll never know.

Again, I wasn't glad we fired him, but I'm VERY glad we replaced him with CPJ.

 

[SoCal_GT_Fan]

Back to the topic on hand........

Bruce Wayne,

I like your two criteria but I would also add a third which would be how well the coaching staff adapts to the changes happening around them.

Some examples I can think of under CPJ:
*utilizing social media more for communicating with the fans/recruits/boosters. This year that's exactly what the staff did. They all went on Twitter and the whole "Process" series on youtube was awesome.
*We had special teams issues. CPJ went out and got a special teams coach and also went out to get kickers on schollies.
*CPJ keeps tweaking his offense adding elements of the pistol offense.

In order to win, you need to make sure you are putting yourself in the best position to do so by bringing in good recruiting classes, tweaking the offense to tailor your personnel, trying to fix issues with any phase of the game, and etc etc.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

I love CPJ, very glad he's here. I think he's the perfect fit for us. I also think CCG was a good fit for us and that CPJ is one of the few who has a chance to be better.
Reasons I was for CCG
Great defense.
Great running game.
Just beginning to become great at recruiting.
Had just landed best class maybe ever, with 2 very good QB prospects that would've certainly been an upgrade to Reggie. Had another QB recruit already committed for the next year in Sean Renfree.
Replaced the guys on coaching staff that weren't getting it done like (can't remember the old recruiting coordinator's name). Found Giff Smith and put him in the position to change our recruiting.
Brought in Derrick Moore, who is still having an immeasurable impact on our program and on the guys in it.
Was a good man with the highest character who would never knowingly do things the wrong way.

I think we saw success and were just starting to see a higher level, but we'll never know.

Again, I wasn't glad we fired him, but I'm VERY glad we replaced him with CPJ.

I'm in this boat, as well.

 

[Tech First]

I'm in this boat, as well.

Me as well.

 

[daBuzz]

My criteria: does he win?

 

[SoCal_GT_Fan]

My criteria: does he win?

Well ya that's criteria number 1 for any football coach but I think what Bruce is saying is, what other criteria should be used to evaluate the HC at Tech.

I mean, if winning was all that mattered, we might as well oversign, have tutors do our players HW and tests, have guys we don't think can hack it take medical hardships to open up schollies, and etc etc. That's not what I personally want from a Tech HC. Winning isn't everything if you have to sell your soul to the devil. There should be a "Tech way" of doing things so what is it?