Is it Possible

[yellojello]

I didn't say Johnson did a bad job, because I can't think of a time where I would have done anything differently with the information he had available at the time (maybe I wouldn't have run that play where Stewart threw off the reverse in the rain against Miami, but that's all I can think of now). If you would like to have that discussion, I'm all ears. As for the balance of your comment, sure, I think that's reasonable. And I guess I'm comfortable with that. This year sucked. There's no way around that, but I don't think it's a trend. I'd like to know what your expectations are, though, because at the root of all this, that's the issue.

My expectation is an average of 8-9 wins on average with 6 being the floor. I think it's doable at GT. What we had this year was bound to happen. We have been kept afloat by the offense all these years. The year, our O has a relatively poor year, the house of cards held up by our duct tape of a D and ST has come crashing down.

At the core of it, that's my disillusionment with CPJ. 8 years is a long enough time to judge a head coach. He has had 3 chances at picking a DC and he has not managed to get us to a semblance of a D. Even last year, and my posting history will back this up, I was really disappointed by our D. Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

I don't want to see CPJ fired, but in my book, he has a short leash to figure out the D and ST.

 

[JorgeJonas]

My expectation is an average of 8-9 wins on average with 6 being the floor. I think it's doable at GT. What we had this year was bound to happen. We have been kept afloat by the offense all these years. The year, our O has a relatively poor year, the house of cards held up by our duct tape of a D and ST has come crashing down.

At the core of it, that's my disillusionment with CPJ. 8 years is a long enough time to judge a head coach. He has had 3 chances at picking a DC and he has not managed to get us to a semblance of a D. Even last year, and my posting history will back this up, I was really disappointed by our D. Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

I don't want to see CPJ fired, but in my book, he has a short leash to figure out the D and ST.

Well, whether any of us think he should be on a short leash is largely irrelevant. His buyout is, I think, $18MM. He's here through at least 2017, I guess.

Look, I agree about the defense. Turnovers are not a repeatable skill. My frustration with the defense is not about the scheme, or anything like that (not that I'm really qualified to comment on that). I am frustrated by the tackling. And I'm not sure what the solution set is there. If we do more live hitting in practice, that leads to two questions: a) does it even matter, and b) will it lead to more injuries. I guess my thought here is that I can live with getting beat by better players. That happens. But I struggle to rationalize things when I don't think our players suck, and they are in position to make plays, and they don't do it.

I don't think the special teams have been as bad as we think they are. Butker covers a lot of that up, but other than the snaps over Rodwell's head, they were okay this year. Not great, but okay. Maybe we shouldn't punt again to the Duke returner...

 

[yellojello]

Well, whether any of us think he should be on a short leash is largely irrelevant. His buyout is, I think, $18MM. He's here through at least 2017, I guess.

I understand that. Doesn't mean that I can't think what I want. If we started going by that premise, we should stop discussions on this board entirely. After all, we don't control the outcome of the games. So what does it matter, what we think and write?

The rest of your post, I'm in agreement with (with a minor quibble about our ST). But the bottom line is the buck stops at the HC. If he can't get it fixed over 8 years, I'm not sure it is going to get fixed. Maybe he'll prove me wrong next year.

 

[redmule]

Seems like most of the one score games came down to turnovers. Did we win the turnover margin in any game this year? As takethepoints said, we played a lot of games on wet or rainy fields with inexperienced players.

 

[bdsboy]

You first have to judge coaches by their long-term track record. It would be hard to find a head coach with a resume better than CPJ on that basis. Sure, there will be some younger coaches that have had a few years of success at a non-P5 level, or an assistant somewhere that looks like a genius, but you have to give credit to a head coach with decades of executive coaching experience and a long history of success. There might be some valid reasons for criticism of the coaching this year, but against the background of CPJ's history, I think you have to conclude that factors other than the head coach made us a 3-9 team this year.

 

[Skeptic]

See, this is what I like about Tech fan sites. You don't usually run into the phrases "regression to the mean", "gambler's fallacy", and "large enough sample" at SEC fan boards.

Shoot, I would like to respond except I don't know what the hell he meant. Is he talking about us?

 

[DrJacket]

IIRC - @DrJacket posted back in the spring/late summer that CPJ had commented to him something along the lines of "does that look like a bowl team?" I.e. we didn't look that good in the spring nor in the fall...

No. He actually chuckled that we didn't exactly "look" like everybody probably thought an Orange Bowl team should look. Just before the Orange Bowl.

 

[awbuzz]

Thanks for the correction

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I don't think we can technically regress to the mean next year. I would hope we would progress to the mean at a minimum...

 

[Essobee]

See, this is what I like about Tech fan sites. You don't usually run into the phrases "regression to the mean", "gambler's fallacy", and "large enough sample" at SEC fan boards.

Excellent point. On SEC fan boards you see "stupid ref", "stupid coach", "stupid call". Those guys know a whole lot about "stupid" except what to do about it.

 

[RonJohn]

Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

Turnovers are not a repeatable skill.

I don't remember if it was in a call in show or a press conference, but Johnson spoke to this about half way through the season. He said that last year after the UNC game, he told the defense that they needed to get off of the field. He said he didn't care if they: held the other offense, got a turnover, or let the other offense score -- he wanted to get the other offense off of the field. The reason was that the offense was so good last year that he felt we would score. The defense took more chances after the UNC game. They gave up more big plays, but they also created turnovers. He said that he had expected the offense to be less effective this year, but that he had expected the defense to improve with all of the seniors.

The offense was less effective, but the defense did not step up. That is what CPJ has been saying this year, not that all of the team problems are caused by the defense and that "his" offense is perfect. He admits that the offense hasn't been as efficient. If people actually listened to what he has said since spring practice, he consistently said that the offense was not very good. Last year there was a lot of senior leadership in the offensive backfield, and the offense thrived. He has been saying that he was expecting the senior leadership in the defensive backfield to take up the slack that the loss of leadership on the offense created.

If people actually listen to the words that CPJ uses, and not try to read something extra into it, they would realize that he usually just provides basic facts. There are industries created around: recruiting, betting, radio broadcasting, online media, etc. Those industries depend on hype. They want football to be exciting 24/7. Many of the SEC fans that I know believe that trash talk before a game is just as important as what happens on the field. The truth is that football is exciting for 60 minutes of play time. For the coaches and players, the rest of the week is a lot of work and a lot of study that most fans would not find exciting at all.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

My expectation is an average of 8-9 wins on average with 6 being the floor. I think it's doable at GT. What we had this year was bound to happen. We have been kept afloat by the offense all these years. The year, our O has a relatively poor year, the house of cards held up by our duct tape of a D and ST has come crashing down.

At the core of it, that's my disillusionment with CPJ. 8 years is a long enough time to judge a head coach. He has had 3 chances at picking a DC and he has not managed to get us to a semblance of a D. Even last year, and my posting history will back this up, I was really disappointed by our D. Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

I don't want to see CPJ fired, but in my book, he has a short leash to figure out the D and ST.

Quick question. Do you contribute our woes on D to be attributable to bag XnOs....bad recruiting, or both?

 

[yellojello]

Quick question. Do you contribute our woes on D to be attributable to bag XnOs....bad recruiting, or both?

Honestly, I wouldn't know. That's why the HC gets paid the big bucks and I'm sitting on my computer typing this message.

What I do know is this, given enough data (and I think 8 years is enough), one can make a reasonable deduction as to how the future might unfold.

 

[IronJacket7]

I'm interested to see what CPJ has in store for 2016.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

My expectation is an average of 8-9 wins on average with 6 being the floor. I think it's doable at GT. What we had this year was bound to happen. We have been kept afloat by the offense all these years. The year, our O has a relatively poor year, the house of cards held up by our duct tape of a D and ST has come crashing down.

At the core of it, that's my disillusionment with CPJ. 8 years is a long enough time to judge a head coach. He has had 3 chances at picking a DC and he has not managed to get us to a semblance of a D. Even last year, and my posting history will back this up, I was really disappointed by our D. Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

I don't want to see CPJ fired, but in my book, he has a short leash to figure out the D and ST.

I agree that we have bad defenses. But, from a roster standpoint, I cannot think of a unit hurt worse by bad luck off field attrition than the DL. The DL is the heart of the D and the hardest to recruit. Everybody wants the same players on the DL, there's no specialization that fits a unique scheme like there is on the other side.

 

[slugboy]

I agree that we have bad defenses. But, from a roster standpoint, I cannot think of a unit hurt worse by bad luck off field attrition than the DL. The DL is the heart of the D and the hardest to recruit. Everybody wants the same players on the DL, there's no specialization that fits a unique scheme like there is on the other side.

Didn't we run a 52 defense with Keith Brooking and Ron Rogers? There are options out there on D too.

 

[takethepoints]

I agree that we have bad defenses. But, from a roster standpoint, I cannot think of a unit hurt worse by bad luck off field attrition than the DL. The DL is the heart of the D and the hardest to recruit. Everybody wants the same players on the DL, there's no specialization that fits a unique scheme like there is on the other side.

Yessssss. The three DLs we lost before the 2014 season would have made a huge difference at DT. Akins was slated to be a possible starter and he was one of the few prototype DTs we've been able to bring in recently. Luckily we got four DT types last year - Cerge, Glanton, Morgan, and (the coaches seem to think) Summers. Given how the position works, I wish we had been able to redshirt Cerge, but Jabari quitting put paid to that. Problem = unless you're Warren Sapp, you need a couple of years in the weight room and getting into your 20s to be a real power at DT. (Fun fact: guess who was slated at DT for da U Sapp's freshman year? The Rock! He's thanked Sapp for that publicly, since it made him start thinking about pro wrestling and the rest is history.) We have the material now, but, unfortunately, we're having to play them all too early. If we had kept just Akins, I think our problems would be much less acute.

Oth, if Glanton (most likely, imho) or one of the others shows well in the fall and Kallon continues to improve, we could do something we did in 2014: move Gamble out to DE, at least on passing downs. He's not a natural out there, but he gets rid of the size problem. With him out at DE we would see fewer double-teams on Keshaun on passing downs. Let's hope that happens.

 

[AE 87]

My expectation is an average of 8-9 wins on average with 6 being the floor. I think it's doable at GT. What we had this year was bound to happen. We have been kept afloat by the offense all these years. The year, our O has a relatively poor year, the house of cards held up by our duct tape of a D and ST has come crashing down.

At the core of it, that's my disillusionment with CPJ. 8 years is a long enough time to judge a head coach. He has had 3 chances at picking a DC and he has not managed to get us to a semblance of a D. Even last year, and my posting history will back this up, I was really disappointed by our D. Turnovers are not a recipe for a sound D.

I don't want to see CPJ fired, but in my book, he has a short leash to figure out the D and ST.

I think that this is reasonable except that CPJ doesn't have total control of the hiring of our DC. The AD controls the purse. I've seen assertions that the purse was a determining factor in last two if not all three DC hires.

 

[GTRX7]

What I do know is this, given enough data (and I think 8 years is enough), one can make a reasonable deduction as to how the future might unfold.

That is probably fair, and where some of the current disagreement among Tech fans is coming from. I have been on record many times saying that I actually agree with Dave Braine that, while Georgia Tech is very capable of having great seasons (even competing for the NC in a given season), Tech will likely never "consistently average 9-10 wins a year." However, while I agree with the statement, I also think it was a horribly stupid thing for an athletic director to say publicly!

I agree that 8 years is a solid basis to judge CPJ. And, if you told me that we would play in 3 ACC championship games, 2 Orange Bowls, 2 eleven win seasons, and have a winning record in the ACC 6 of the 8 years (with a 500 record in one of the other two) I would take that. I would have liked to win at least 3 of the 8 against UGA, but it is not like most of the games weren't close or that CPJ couldn't win 3 of the next 8. I am as disappointed as everyone else with this season, but I also understand many of the reasons it happened. I am actually quite optimistic about the future and think that Johnson can get us back to 3 ACC championship games and 2 Orange Bowls over the next 8 years. Given the highs we have had over the last 8 years, I am okay accepting one truly stinker season, even if I don't like it. That is why I am still on board.

You also have to remember that, if we had a coach averaging 8-9 every year (with some 11 win seasons), there is probably a 75%+ chance that coach moves on from Tech pretty quickly. CPJ is here to stay. The last two coaches with his kind of successes at Tech both bailed quickly for better jobs at other schools and the NFL. What I don't want is some short success, the coach leaves, and then we go through Gailey-like mediocrity with the next coach, or worse. I love Tech with the best of fans, but lets be honest, it is not an ideal place to coach. It will never pay the best, has tons of recruiting disadvantages, and is a huge minority fan population within its own state.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

That is probably fair, and where some of the current disagreement among Tech fans is coming from. I have been on record many times saying that I actually agree with Dave Braine that, while Georgia Tech is very capable of having great seasons (even competing for the NC in a given season), Tech will likely never "consistently average 9-10 wins a year." However, while I agree with the statement, I also think it was a horribly stupid thing for an athletic director to say publicly!

I agree that 8 years is a solid basis to judge CPJ. And, if you told me that we would play in 3 ACC championship games, 2 Orange Bowls, 2 eleven win seasons, and have a winning record in the ACC 6 of the 8 years (with a 500 record in one of the other two) I would take that. I would have liked to win at least 3 of the 8 against UGA, but it is not like most of the games weren't close or that CPJ couldn't win 3 of the next 8. I am as disappointed as everyone else with this season, but I also understand many of the reasons it happened. I am actually quite optimistic about the future and think that Johnson can get us back to 3 ACC championship games and 2 Orange Bowls over the next 8 years. Given the highs we have had over the last 8 years, I am okay accepting one truly stinker season, even if I don't like it. That is why I am still on board.

You also have to remember that, if we had a coach averaging 8-9 every year (with some 11 win seasons), there is probably a 75%+ chance that coach moves on from Tech pretty quickly. CPJ is here to stay. The last two coaches with his kind of successes at Tech both bailed quickly for better jobs at other schools and the NFL. What I don't want is some short success, the coach leaves, and then we go through Gailey-like mediocrity with the next coach, or worse. I love Tech with the best of fans, but lets be honest, it is not an ideal place to coach. It will never pay the best, has tons of recruiting disadvantages, and is a huge minority fan population within its own state.

I agree with ALL of this.