Is GT keeping up with the ever changing landscape of college football?

[Jmonty71]

I am curious to the thought of others on this. The landscape of college football has changed. Once defense won championships, now it's high powered offenses. Once you ran the ball to set up the passing game, now it seems the passing game sets up the run game. Once you wanted fast and athletic DBs, now you want large, quick DBs, no less than 6 foot. I fully understand we are currently behind the curve on many of these aspects. But, how far? Is GT changing to keep up with the pace of the current game?

Does GT need to try to mirror other teams or come up with our own brand of football? These are all in part of the identity of a team. Do we have an identity yet? I know CGC is trying to install a process and a way of life. But, what is the identity of the team?

I know it's a lot of questions and I'm sure other have similar questions.

Really curious to see other thoughts and such.

 

[jatchet]

Change is constant. Football is a game, not a problem. You have an opponent that will try to counter your moves... it's not one team trying to the optimal solution. If you find success and attempt to repeat exactly that year after year, your opponents will adjust and you will be left behind. Evwrything you stated above will change in the next 10 years. Coaches/programs who don't recognize this will be left behind and eventually be forced to rebuild.

I think all you can ask for is a program that recognizes this, and is willing to play the chess game.

That being said, you can't fire an OC every year, worrying about this kind of thing 1 year into a major transition is kind of silly. Like you said, CGC clearly recognizes that an identity is important. I think the ATL motto shows he's willing to go with whoever or whatever is necessary to be successful. If that works for him soon awesome. If not, he'll need to adjust. If not he'll be gone.

 

[smokey_wasp]

We are working on it if you look at who we are recruiting and their measurables. Yes, we are modernizing and it won't take that long to catch up; couple of recruiting cycles.

For the 2nd question, I would need to know how you define identity. If you're talking about a brand and culture, I think we see that pretty clearly. If you're talking about an identity tied to x's and o's, I don't think we are gonna see that. Personally, I think the concept is kinda overrated.

 

[Gold1]

Doing better of it now than we have in a long long time

 

[Sidewalking]

Compare expenditures and you will know the story here.

 

[Novajacket]

Agree, we are going away from defining our identity based on X’s and O’s. Our identity is more based on the culture that CGC is trying to install. Doing whatever it takes to win.

 

[Vespidae]

Does GT need to try to mirror other teams or come up with our own brand of football?

A very interesting question, thanks for posting.

An article a while back looked at this from the pro level and the author's opinion was that yes, every football team plays to its own style. The more successful teams are better at executing their style simply because they may have been at it a while and done a better job of aligning recruiting, development, game planning etc. to get an edge.

I had a similar discussion about this with an Alabama booster and we talked about Bear Bryant. Bryant, simply put, didn't care what offense he ran. Or what defense he ran. He had clear objectives that in his style of play, as long as offense, defense, and special teams achieved X, Y, and Z, he was playing Alabama ball. Stallings (and his mentor Tom Landry) had a production method because Landry was an engineer and used a process orientation to coach football. Dodd wrote that his goal was to keep the score as close as possible by limiting the number of possessions and he'd figure out a way to win in the fourth quarter.

I think you'd reduce the variation in performance long-term if you adopted a "<insert school name> Way" that laid out specifics of your approach to the game. But I don't think it will happen. Gone are the days of coaches staying 25 years at a school. It's so results oriented now and the time frame too short. But I like the concept.

 

[Jacketsfan99]

I am curious to the thought of others on this. The landscape of college football has changed. Once defense won championships, now it's high powered offenses. Once you ran the ball to set up the passing game, now it seems the passing game sets up the run game. Once you wanted fast and athletic DBs, now you want large, quick DBs, no less than 6 foot. I fully understand we are currently behind the curve on many of these aspects. But, how far? Is GT changing to keep up with the pace of the current game?

Does GT need to try to mirror other teams or come up with our own brand of football? These are all in part of the identity of a team. Do we have an identity yet? I know CGC is trying to install a process and a way of life. But, what is the identity of the team?

I know it's a lot of questions and I'm sure other have similar questions.

Really curious to see other thoughts and such.

I believe we have fallen behind - we used to beat Duke almost every year. Changing to a pro-style offense should help and recruiting has taken a big step forward. These things, I think, will help us catch up.

 

[jacket_fan]

One of the qualities that I hear more about are coaches are looking for "length". CGC has uses that word.

I am not going to try to define what it means today, but I recall from my time in Texas and listening to Landry talk about what he looked for in a player. One of his characteristics was the "length" of a player from hips to shoulders. He believed them to be better athletes. I have no idea whether this is true, but wondered how I would have graded on Landry's scale. lol

If coaches are looking for the same thing today that Landry was looking for in the last century, I would find that interesting.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Let’s see: LSU, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma.
LSU and Clemson had great defenses.
Don’t see how the landscape has changed that much.
Just playing devils advocate.

 

[slugboy]

College football has changed in a lot of ways. Before Urban Meyer, Ohio State recruited mainly in the midwest. Meyer saw a skill position speed disadvantage, and started recruiting speed players from outside the midwest. So, even teams that “own their backyard” have to go national.

About style—there are a lot of different strategies out there. I thought the Titans/Chiefs AFC championship was a good matchup with the Titans playing ball control ground game vs the Chiefs going for a higher paced game. If the Titans could have kept answering a quick score with a slow one, they might have pulled that game out.

I don’t think everyone needs to play the same offense or the same defense, but you’d better be good at both, and special teams too.

Not everyone needs to run the same “multiple” offense, but it looks like offenses have gotten homogeneous in the last few years. We’ll probably start to see some branching off of that, with more variation again soon.


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[GSOJacket]

Let’s see: LSU, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma.
LSU and Clemson had great defenses.
Don’t see how the landscape has changed that much.
Just playing devils advocate.

And the Chiefs.... but check out the 49ers (8 passes vs 42 running plays against Green Bay in the NFC Championship)! The pendulum may be about to swing back.

 

[g0lftime]

We certainly haven't kept up with the kicking game since Butker. Need to put knockoffs into or out of the endzone . Make 50+ yard FG a reasonable chance of success. It has become a big part of the modern game.

 

[Coloradojacket]

We certainly haven't kept up with the kicking game since Butker. Need to put knockoffs into or out of the endzone . Make 50+ yard FG a reasonable chance of success. It has become a big part of the modern game.

and you have hit on a much overlooked part of the game that has not changed in 100 years. kicking and punting. Sure you need to make field goals and extra points but it is the extra yards that account for winning games. If your kicker can kick it out of the end zone the opposition has to drive 75 yards. Or if you punter can pin a team those are very important yards.

 

[HouseDivided]

College football used to be about dominating defenses win championships. Now its evolving more into you must have a potent offense coupled with an average to good defense. LSU is a prime example of the latter this year. Their defense was very average by the numbers across the board but their offense more than made up for it. The one thing all 4 playoff teams this year had is a game changer at QB. Alabama also has had that. Fromm at UGA, while a very good QB, is not a game changer thus their continued failures

 

[4shotB]

Alabama also has had that. Fromm at UGA, while a very good QB, is not a game changer thus their continued failures

I believe they were 12-2,11-3, and 12-2 under his tenure with a down to the wire loss in the NC game.. I'm not sure "failure" is the correct choice of words here. I hate them as much as anybody but we have to be realistic. I'f that is failure, sign me up for some.

 

[coldbeer]

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[joehamiltonfan14]

Yup. It’s only going to get worse with the SECs next tv deal. The money gap between us and Georgia/the SEC will grow.

 

[jacket_fan]

Yup. It’s only going to get worse with the SECs next tv deal. The money gap between us and Georgia/the SEC will grow.

And what worries me is the new NCAA rules allowing paying players, the big dollars are going to help the SEC and hurt the rest of college football. I suspect every car dealership and fast food joint in Tuscaloosa will have a paid player advertising for them.

And, Tech needs to sign a kicker....

 

[takethepoints]

Just an aside, since someone above mentions Tom Landry.

Probably the best quote I ever read about football coaches came from Roger Staubach. Someone asked him (after he had retired) what he thought of Landry as a football coach. Quoth Roger, "Landry's the perfect football coach. He's smart enough to manage a team and run a game and dumb enough to think it's important."

Ain't it the truth?