How long?

[TampaGT]

1 If you get your preferred HC, how long before we get back to a bowl game?
2 You don’t get your preferred HC, how long before you call for firing HC because he hasn’t gotten to a bowl game?

For me both are two years. I know we aren’t hiring my preferred HC, but with the portal the next HC can quickly bring in players to become bowl eligible.

 

[swarmer]

Your seat is how if you aren’t in a bowl in 2 years given how pathetic our league competition is

 

[bke1984]

1 If you get your preferred HC, how long before we get back to a bowl game?
2 You don’t get your preferred HC, how long before you call for firing HC because he hasn’t gotten to a bowl game?

For me both are two years. I know we aren’t hiring my preferred HC, but with the portal the next HC can quickly bring in players to become bowl eligible.

1. Should honestly be next year
2. Three years. I want to say two, but I’m trying to be “reasonable” even though I think going to a bowl game is a pretty low bar to set these days.

 

[ibeattetris]

I haven’t looked at next year’s schedule. I thought we’d win 4-5 this year based on the schedule (but thought we’d look better doing it). If the schedule is any easier, we should be in puncher’s chance of 6 wins.

I’m always forgiving of injuries, so given there are no serious injury issues I’d expect one bowl berth the next two seasons.

 

[takethepoints]

Depends on how many players stay, doesn't it? If we only lose Sims (and I think we will) and a couple of others, then I'd say three years. A two year schedule is way too soon, imho. Anyone we bring in except Key is going to lead to a whole lot of change in a very short time. Everybody I would like to see in place will require awhile to get things adjusted.

There is, however, one candidate who has a record of turning things around quickly in a bad situation - Bill O'Brien - and one guy who is seldom mentioned nowadays who got a program on its feet almost overnight - Bohannon. If you want a quick turnaround, they would be the surest bet. But … I want Chadwell. And he'll probably take three.

 

[JacketOff]

3 games will almost assuredly be losses: Clemson, UGA, Ole Miss

2 games will be tough to win based on talent deficiencies alone : @Miami and UNC

2 games should be auto wins: Bowling Green and whatever FCS team we get on the schedule

Assuming all goes as planned, that’s 2-5 meaning the new guy will have to go 4-1 against our most evenly matched competition to get to a bowl. Louisville, Boston College, Syracuse, @UVA, and @Wake Forest.
I’d imagine Wake will take a pretty significant step back with Hartman gone, and winning at Virginia has always been tough for GT. The other 3; who knows

6-6 is 1000% in reach, but won’t necessarily be easy. For optics reasons I want to win at least 4 games in 2023. Depending on how we look in both the wins and the losses will give me my outlook on the new coach and the direction of the program for 2024. The schedule is much tougher in 24 than it is next year. We play Notre Dame, Florida State, and NC State in 24, and a pretty big measuring stick game against Georgia State. So we better get it figured out in 2024 or we’ll be done as a program. If we don’t go to a bowl in 2024 that’ll be 6 straight losing seasons, 7 out of the last 8, and 8 out of the last 10. That’s close to irrecoverable in this age of conference realignment. We’d fall so far behind financially there would be no way out.

 

[Techster]

LIST 1
Bill Curry
Bobby Ross
George O'Leary
Chan Gailey
Paul Johnson

LIST 2
Bill Lewis
Geoff Collins

Every coach on List 1 was able to win enough games to qualify GT for a bowl game by Year 3. List 2...well, we all know how those coaches ended up. It's not hard to make a bowl game...and the ACC isn't full of heavyweights. This roster is not bereft of talent. I think had Key been our coach since Spring Practice we probably have enough wins to go bowling by now.

If GT makes the right hire, we can probably make a bowl game by Year 2. By year 3 I definitely expect 6 wins. I expect Sims to portal out, but if Pyron stays, the next coach has a REALLY nice piece in the rebuilding process. Pyron is gamer...and he would fit in an offense like Jamey Chadwell's or a Bill O'Brien type offense. The bigger question is who else would follow Sims in the portal. I think the right hire would motivate players to stay at GT.

We're probably 2-3 weeks from finding out who our new coach is...so stay tuned...

 

[link3945]

Total number of wins is kind of a poor metric: football is a sport with a lot of randomness and variation. Better to look at root performance: How well do you do the things that usually lead to winning games? Are you balancing explosiveness and efficiency on offense? Are you breaking up passes and forcing 3rd and longs on defense? Are you maximizing your opportunities by making smart decisions on 4th down? Are you recruiting well against your peers? None of those guarantee success, but teams that are good at those usually end up winning.

I would look at things like FPI, SP+, Sagarin, etc;. If we're improving consistently and elevating our level of play, the wins should follow. If a coach went 4-8 in year 4 but had shown good progress in the underlying metrics, I'd be okay with waiting it out. The problem with Collins is that we never showed the underlying improvement, and actually regressed every year, more or less.

 

[JacketOff]

Total number of wins is kind of a poor metric: football is a sport with a lot of randomness and variation. Better to look at root performance: How well do you do the things that usually lead to winning games? Are you balancing explosiveness and efficiency on offense? Are you breaking up passes and forcing 3rd and longs on defense? Are you maximizing your opportunities by making smart decisions on 4th down? Are you recruiting well against your peers? None of those guarantee success, but teams that are good at those usually end up winning.

I would look at things like FPI, SP+, Sagarin, etc;. If we're improving consistently and elevating our level of play, the wins should follow. If a coach went 4-8 in year 4 but had shown good progress in the underlying metrics, I'd be okay with waiting it out. The problem with Collins is that we never showed the underlying improvement, and actually regressed every year, more or less.

That’s all well and good, but the bottom line is head football coaches are measured by their W/L record. Football is somewhat random, especially at the college level, but it’s not baseball. The team that executes more plays on both sides of the ball on any given day will win 95% of football games.

Advanced data is good when looking at year over year trends, but in reality there aren’t enough football games played to really build out a hyper accurate analytical measurement. If a coach goes 4-8 in year 4, and he hasn’t won many more games than he lost in the first 3, he’s going to get fired, as he should.

If year-over-year analytics are trending upwards, it’s a good sign the coach is building the program higher than it was when he found it. But analytics don’t mean **** if you don’t win games.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

With the portal, it could be a lot easier than before. With the right guy.

 

[Randy Carson]

With the portal, it could be a lot easier than before. With the right guy.

The right hire will do wonders via the portal.

 

[GT33]

2 years. The first year will be putting discipline back into the program, getting the level of organization required to be successful, evaluating the roster/staff and figuring out how to address the weaknesses & how to best attack our situation with the personnel we have.

If we get another clown show where we run some scheme regardless of whether or not we have th talent to run it, we'll be waiting for coach 3 or 4, not 3 or 4 years.

 

[MWBATL]

I'm unusual I guess in that I will forgive losses in the first two years IFF I see tangible progress towards our long term goals. If our roster talent is clearly improved, if our game day coaching looks better, if we are getting more and more competitive in results...that sort of thing. But by year 3 it had better translate into bowls, at the least.

 

[slugboy]

If your coach isn’t successful by year #2, they’ll probably never be successful. The Frank Beamer stories are the exceptions, like pulling an inside straight; most of the time they don’t pan out.

By year 1, you should see improvement. Bad luck could keep you out of a bowl game, but it’s a good sign to see one in year one.

By year 2, something exceptional should have happened to keep us out of a bowl game. Even then, I’d be concerned. For example, we should have qualified for a bowl game during COVID—maybe we didn’t go, but not qualifying even that year was a major coaching failure.

By year 3, if we’re not in a bowl game, a good coach is looking to another place where they can win because they aren’t the problem, and a bad coach is saying “don’t worry, we’re making progress”.

If you can’t see immediate results with our next coach (or with Key), that’s a problem. We should at least be bowling by year #2, and not by the skin of our teeth, either.

 

[Ramble1885]

It depends on how our roster looks. Year one I expect to struggle, we will have a lot of people transferring in and out of the program so I’ll say like 5-7. Year two we should be bowling.

 

[BuzzStone]

The ACC is top to bottom soft. Every ACC team is beatable this year. No reason we can't get to 6 wins very quickly.

 

[bobongo]

Total number of wins is kind of a poor metric: football is a sport with a lot of randomness and variation. Better to look at root performance: How well do you do the things that usually lead to winning games? Are you balancing explosiveness and efficiency on offense? Are you breaking up passes and forcing 3rd and longs on defense? Are you maximizing your opportunities by making smart decisions on 4th down? Are you recruiting well against your peers? None of those guarantee success, but teams that are good at those usually end up winning.

I would look at things like FPI, SP+, Sagarin, etc;. If we're improving consistently and elevating our level of play, the wins should follow. If a coach went 4-8 in year 4 but had shown good progress in the underlying metrics, I'd be okay with waiting it out. The problem with Collins is that we never showed the underlying improvement, and actually regressed every year, more or less.

A lot of factors go into W/L records, and you have to dig deeper than that, at least in the first two years. As Paul Simon wrote, "The line is thinly drawn 'tween joy and sorrow".

But that's only if I get MY coach. Anyone else will have to win immediately, or I want their head on a stick by game two.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

But that's only if I get MY coach. Anyone else will have to win immediately, or I want their head on a stick by game two.

I know this was meant tongue in cheek, but man have you summed up what's probably going to happen here next fall...

 

[slugboy]

I should add in, we just had 3 1/2 years with a coach who has left us at the bottom of the conference:

1. The first year was a transition year, so it didn't count
2. The second year was a COVID year, so it didn't count
3. I think the third year he needed at least 4 years to build an offensive line?

For any new coach, the first year counts. It may be bad, but it counts. It's the same with the remaining years. I've learned my lesson.

On one hand, you can see exceptional causes ruining a season. On the other hand, giving a coach an excuse means that they don't have to take responsibility. I don't know what Stansbury did after the first 3-9 season, but that was a mistake. The coach has to be accountable.

If we look at just our coaching transition history,

• Paul Johnson took a 7-5 team that lost players to transfer and had a shortened recruiting cycle and went 9-4. Lots of people point to the "2007 was our best recruiting class in 20 years", but a team with more recruiting talent won fewer games the year before he took over.
• Chan Gailey took a team that went 8-5 the year before and went 7-6. He had a high floor and a low ceiling, and we did not progress in the time he was here
• George O'Leary took a 1-10 team and went 6-5 the next season. He was interim in the 1994 season (and winless then), and did not go bowling until year #3 (1997) when he got Ralph Friedgen to come be OC from San Diego.
• Bill Lewis took an 8-5 team and went 5-6 with it, and went downhill and crashed and burned badly. Hindenburg badly.
• Bobby Ross took a 5-5-1 senior-laden team and went 2-9 with it the next year. He went 2-9, 3-8, 7-4, 11-0-1, 8-5. It took him three years to turn in a good result, and he had one magical season.
• Bill Curry took a 4-6-1 Pepper Rodgers squad and went 1-9-1 with them. We were on the struggle bus for most of his coaching tenure. We went to ONE bowl game with Bill Curry.

A lot has changed in college football over the last 40 years on the flats. Bobby Ross is the only coach that had two poor first years to turn the program around. For the rest, you saw immediate improvement if you were getting better, and if you didn't then it wasn't going to be a fun coaching tenure.

 

[UgaBlows]

1. Should honestly be next year
2. Three years. I want to say two, but I’m trying to be “reasonable” even though I think going to a bowl game is a pretty low bar to set these days.

Our OL is still going to be BAD next year, and no portal magic is going to save us there. We need to be realistic about our talent and temper expectations so the new HC can get his players, scheme and culture implemented. Any coach that comes in here running college standard rpo offense is going to struggle with the talent we have coming back. We have one WR that can consistently get open, we have nothing at TE, it’s not good and there’s no quick fix for all of our problems.