Let's compare coaches, just for fun !

[slugboy]

This post is personally insulting to me.

Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to my posts here down through the years knows that I have always had the long-term success of the program as my major goal. That's why I like Coach: he helps mitigate our recruiting disadvantages and he knows what he's doing. You, like many fonts here, are suffering from a variety of delusions about our situation. Let's go over them, shall we?

• "The offense cripples our recruiting! If we were running something else it would be a lot easier to get premier athletes to come to Tech!"
Well, to put it briefly, no. Since the NCAA put in the graduation progress rules and the 85 player limit and Tech continued to ramp up entrance requirements, the situation we had in the Ross/O'Leary years is gone. We are also an engineering school; it's like MIT was playing P5 football. A change in our offense - which, you'll notice, has worked pretty well - won't change the context of our recruiting one whit. And, I might add, the only thing that is fueling these concerns is a few critical injuries and academic/discipline problems. We lost several really good recruits (Custis, Leggett, Mills, Jordan, Johnson, Benson, Klock, A. Marshall, and several others) to those in recent years. Get half those players back and healthy and our recruiting would look a lot better. So would our record.

I think our recruiting rankings are averaging the same as they were before CPJ. I'd prefer that they'd improved, but nothing changed, and Gailey had some good recruiters on his staff.

• "The Hill is the problem! If we only got an administration more interested in winning football, we'd be able to get better quickly!"
The Hill is concerned, as it should be, with the academic program of the school. The athletic programs are an inheritance that they tolerate because it helps with alumni relations. Some of them like going to the games, but most don't. Same with a lot of the students; they didn't come to Tech to watch football. Here I think we ought to be careful of what we ask for. If the drumbeat keeps up sooner or later the Hill will reply: "Ok, we're going to quit the ACC, join the AAC, play a much less demanding schedule (we should do that anyway), and win more! After all, you asked us to do that, right?"

​

I don't think the administration or the professors are hostile to the athletic department. Probably the opposite. The faculty academic representative position has been a laurel offered to someone well respected who is usually a fan. The main goal of the administration is to make GT the best university (*cough* *cough*) that they can. As long as the athletic department isn't actively hindering that, they're fine.

​

• "If we changed the curriculum we could attract better players!"
As others have pointed out, the BOR won't go along with this and for very good reasons. Having a premier technical university in Georgia is an immense selling point for hi-tech businesses and a major incubator of new ones. And, of course, the faculty wouldn't take to this at all well. Most of them came to Tech because of the curriculum and consider (I know some) the football program a costly distraction. Same with the Hill, of course.

What Coach does for us is the same thing he did for Navy: he gives us an avenue for overcoming many of these problems. That's why I was so enthusiastic about his coming to Tech and why I think he deserves support through this rough patch. We are just now getting around to doing things he has been calling for for years. We need to see what he can do with them.

I'm not sure why you've suddenly decided to simply ignore the actual situation of our football program the way you have been doing, but don't presume to think that I am some sort of Paul Johnson fan boy ever again.

If you want a new degree program, it needs to be funded and it needs to add to the prestige of Georgia Tech. Attracting athletes doesn't accomplish either of those, but it's gravy. We do focus on our mission of technical education, and that's something the administration will look for. One counterexample--Georgia State's law school basically started at GT and got rejected by our admin as "not in the mission of the school", but that was in the Petit days--I think we would have had one under any of our presidents after him if they had been in charge. However, that was a while ago, and if a degree makes sense, and it can be fit somewhere (like in the Management school), and it would pay for itself on an ongoing basis, I think the administration would probably act on it.

Most of the faculty I know of have liked football, and sports, and the ramblin wreck parade and everything that goes with the campus. Many of them are so busy on weekends that they can't make the games, but the faculty I've known aren't hostile to sports. Many of them love it. They wouldn't think of football as a costly distraction unless their funding was getting taxed to pay for it, and it's not.

 

[takethepoints]

The faculty I know are pretty indifferent to Tech athletics, but no doubt you're right. Sounds like you know more of them.

 

[Techster]

See Tech v. Ugag 2013. Tech = Hawaii in the 80s. If he had stayed, things would have been interesting, but that's how they turned out anyhow.

Ironically, I was just watching that game on Youtube and envisioning Vad in his 3rd and 4th years and CPJ opening up the offense a little more. Man, Vad threw a pretty ball, and his passing footwork was pretty to watch.

He might not have been in love with the 3O, but you watch that game and tell me he was scared of contact. The dude stuck his hat in the middle of the scrum to get our first TD, and he cerainly fought for yards.

I still say our offense would be viewed differently, and would be UNSTOPPABLE, if we could have somehow balanced more RnS with 3O running. That 2013 UGA game makes you salivate at the possibilities.

 

[Vespidae]

This post is personally insulting to me.

Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to my posts here down through the years knows that I have always had the long-term success of the program as my major goal. That's why I like Coach: he helps mitigate our recruiting disadvantages and he knows what he's doing. You, like many fonts here, are suffering from a variety of delusions about our situation. Let's go over them, shall we?

• "The offense cripples our recruiting! If we were running something else it would be a lot easier to get premier athletes to come to Tech!"
Well, to put it briefly, no. Since the NCAA put in the graduation progress rules and the 85 player limit and Tech continued to ramp up entrance requirements, the situation we had in the Ross/O'Leary years is gone. We are also an engineering school; it's like MIT was playing P5 football. A change in our offense - which, you'll notice, has worked pretty well - won't change the context of our recruiting one whit. And, I might add, the only thing that is fueling these concerns is a few critical injuries and academic/discipline problems. We lost several really good recruits (Custis, Leggett, Mills, Jordan, Johnson, Benson, Klock, A. Marshall, and several others) to those in recent years. Get half those players back and healthy and our recruiting would look a lot better. So would our record.

• "The Hill is the problem! If we only got an administration more interested in winning football, we'd be able to get better quickly!"
The Hill is concerned, as it should be, with the academic program of the school. The athletic programs are an inheritance that they tolerate because it helps with alumni relations. Some of them like going to the games, but most don't. Same with a lot of the students; they didn't come to Tech to watch football. Here I think we ought to be careful of what we ask for. If the drumbeat keeps up sooner or later the Hill will reply: "Ok, we're going to quit the ACC, join the AAC, play a much less demanding schedule (we should do that anyway), and win more! After all, you asked us to do that, right?"

• "If we changed the curriculum we could attract better players!"
As others have pointed out, the BOR won't go along with this and for very good reasons. Having a premier technical university in Georgia is an immense selling point for hi-tech businesses and a major incubator of new ones. And, of course, the faculty wouldn't take to this at all well. Most of them came to Tech because of the curriculum and consider (I know some) the football program a costly distraction. Same with the Hill, of course.

What Coach does for us is the same thing he did for Navy: he gives us an avenue for overcoming many of these problems. That's why I was so enthusiastic about his coming to Tech and why I think he deserves support through this rough patch. We are just now getting around to doing things he has been calling for for years. We need to see what he can do with them.

I'm not sure why you've suddenly decided to simply ignore the actual situation of our football program the way you have been doing, but don't presume to think that I am some sort of Paul Johnson fan boy ever again.

It wasn’t that long ago that 75% of UGA’s team were special admits. They could do anything with a football but sign it.

We have higher standards and need an edge. The TO suits us. We just need better ... everything.

 

[Vespidae]

The faculty I know are pretty indifferent to Tech athletics, but no doubt you're right. Sounds like you know more of them.

Saban had a rough time with the faculty at Alabama. He made them partners. “If we win and make money, we’ll give some that back in the form of new buildings and academic funding.” He has.

 

[Skeptic]

Actually, we've had two: Vad Lee and JT. And Tevin was close.

But you said "really". I sense a "No True Scotsman" argument lurking here: "Yes, I know about JT but he wasn't really a passing QB!" No way to overcome that or reason to waste ink trying.

I saw Tevin Washington. I loved his option work. I saw Tevin Washington throw the ball downfield. Or sideways. Unintentionally, because knuckleballs have little wind resistance. But to call him a passer is to call Phyllis Diller Miss America.

 

[Skeptic]

Issue with what you are saying is that we are in year 11. CPJ has yet to really develop a QB in passing and I hate to break it to you but 11 years and 3 ADs later CPJ ain taking media relations training.

What I had in mind has no training involved. It is his boss reminding him of his contract. Can't be that hard. And then we can just worry about the QB.

 

[slugboy]

The faculty I know are pretty indifferent to Tech athletics, but no doubt you're right. Sounds like you know more of them.

I did a while back. I’m an older alumnus. A lot of my professors have retired or passed on by now (and some of the younger ones are deans now). I think you get to know them better in grad school.
They used most of their ire on the undergrads; they didn’t have much left over for the athletic programs
Seriously, the younger professors were less crotchety, but I think all of them liked a good game, and disapproved of a student who hadn’t studied


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[RamblinWreck92]

Why do some of y’all hate the TO so much? Seriously, I Gailey’s offense was just terrible. That is something I would loathe to come back to GT. The TO has been very successful and actually has, for the most part, put up better numbers than Ralph Fridgen’s offense. While Ralph’s offense had advantages over CPJ’s offense, this offense has been much better than most of the current offenses in the NCAA. While it is frustrating to see how many mistakes are made that would have sprung runs or wide open receivers that were missed, you cannon deny that the offense has not been what has held us back.

Why do Johnson defenders always assume there are only 2 possible coaches for GT - Gailey and CPJ?

I don't like the TO. The deleterious effects on our entire program from it are clear in year 11. However, this doesn't mean I want to go back to Gailey. Why not try an offense like Friedgen's, which had no problems attracting Heisman candidates at QB, amazing WRs, awesome RBs?

Why the belief that Gailey and CPJ are our only 2 options? It's stupid - Gailey's not coming back and no one - NO ONE - wants him back.

The TO is nice for piling up rushing stats on cupcakes but that's about all. It got completely shut down vs Clemson and the mutts last year and most years. Duke shut it out for an entire half in 2017. Freaking Duke.

If it was so awesome, everyone would be running it but no one outside the service academies is. It's a niche offense for smallish, non-P5 teams but when woeful teams like PITT shut it out for an entire half, it's time to admit it doesn't offer us any advantage.

For all the talk about how great it is, it was 70th in Total Offense last year. Probably headed for a similar finish this year. And that doesn't take into account the negative effect on recruiting it has. NO KID wants to play in it. No kid wants to play defense against the stupid chop blocking scheme either.

Time for a change.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

PJ is not a perfect Gameday coach and he has had several mistakes over the years. Let’s not pretend he is some coaching mastermind. Because he isn’t.

When it comes to hurry-up scoring and moving the ball quickly and using timeouts, he's actually pretty bad. When it comes to running out the clock when we have a lead late in games, he's actually pretty bad. We take snaps with 10+ seconds on the clock with the ball and the lead late in the 4th. It's mind-bogglingly-stupid.

 

[smokey_wasp]

I saw Tevin Washington. I loved his option work. I saw Tevin Washington throw the ball downfield. Or sideways. Unintentionally, because knuckleballs have little wind resistance. But to call him a passer is to call Phyllis Diller Miss America.

Tevin became about as good a passer as his God-given arm would allow. His knuckleballs found a receiver more often than any of our recent QBs except JT.

 

[takethepoints]

I don't like the TO. The deleterious effects on our entire program from it are clear in year 11. However, this doesn't mean I want to go back to Gailey. Why not try an offense like Friedgen's, which had no problems attracting Heisman candidates at QB, amazing WRs, awesome RBs?

The TO is nice for piling up rushing stats on cupcakes but that's about all. It got completely shut down vs Clemson and the mutts last year and most years. Duke shut it out for an entire half in 2017. Freaking Duke.

If it was so awesome, everyone would be running it but no one outside the service academies is. It's a niche offense for smallish, non-P5 teams but when woeful teams like PITT shut it out for an entire half, it's time to admit it doesn't offer us any advantage.

For all the talk about how great it is, it was 70th in Total Offense last year. Probably headed for a similar finish this year. And that doesn't take into account the negative effect on recruiting it has. NO KID wants to play in it. No kid wants to play defense against the stupid chop blocking scheme either.

Let's take this one by one.

1. I liked Fridge's offense too. A lot, especially the option parts. But … the recruiting context has changed completely from the Ross/O'Leary days and it wasn't all that good then. (Remember how George used to complain?) As I mentioned before, the NCAA graduation progress requirement, Tech's increasing academic standards, the 85 limit, and our limited curriculum will not magically disappear if we brought in a new coach and a new offense. I think this idea that all we need to do is use another offense is a fantasy: if I were a 4 - 5 star kid knowing that we ran a spread wouldn't make any difference to me if I didn't want a Tech education.

2. True, we do lead the nation in rushing offense. Remarkable for a school that can't recruit top drawer athletes, isn't it? Running a system offense and having standard requirements for the recruiting really does help.

3. Now, think about this. What universities do we know that have very high admission standards, a limited curriculum, and good football programs? You know, sort of like Tech. That would be the service academies. (Well, and New Mexico.) And now you know why we hired Coach.

4. "NO KID wants to play in it." Well, except for kids like JT, for instance, or Dedrick Mills or James Graham. I might also point out that our D has a lot more 4 star athletes in it then the O; you can check.

Bottom line here: wake up and smell the coffee. Our situation won't be changed by anything but greater effort within the parameters we work with. If we decide to change coaches - absit omen! - they'll still be there. And, at present, there's no reason to panic.

 

[smathis30]

The major difference between OSU and Tech is that OSU can accept anyone who meets NCAA minimums and have no problems keeping their APR good. OKSU's acceptance rate is > 75 percent and they retain almost all of those thru graduation. It's a lot easier to recruit when you don't have to rule out 3/4 of the athletes before you begin.

The APR requirement is the biggest difference between the current college football environment and our runs in the 90s.

As someone who used to data a Poke (and had season tickets) , its pretty common in Big12 states to offer blanket acceptances to anyone over a certain ACT score. Tech's acceptance rate didn't fall below 50% until like 5 years ago. And Tech also has waivers to get potentially inelgible players. We only take 5 or so less people a year on academic waivers than UGA, and out average 2-part SAT score is only 50 points higher than UGA's for football players. Academic restrictions aren't nearly as big as they appear. The differences between us and other in-state schools exist, but they aren't night and day that people make them out to be. As a former athletics tutor, i whole hardheartedly believe academics are overblown here

 

[GTNavyNuke]

When does basketball start.

After we play a few baseball games I'm looking forward to basketball this year too.

 

[slugboy]

Watching the Falcons last week, they had a minimum number of rushing attempts (30) that they felt like they needed during a game. Regardless of how many yards they made, they felt it was needed to open up the entire offensive game. This was their argument, but it seems accurate to me.
It’s just a gut feel, but I think if we did the same thing for passing plays, with a target floor of 30 passes, it would take out most of the recruiting arguments against our offense. It would also put opposing defenses a little more on their heels.
Right now, we’re 3 games into the season, played catch up football twice, and we’ve thrown the ball 51 times. I’m not saying to go air raid, just have enough air cover to get defenses to respect it. If any offense can get someone to bite on play action, it oughta be this one.
UVA has thrown 81 times this year, Pitt has thrown 64, USF has thrown 117, and Clemson has thrown it 93. I think 30 a game is reasonable, even for us.


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[TheTimes]

I didn’t watch the last 3 quarters of the game and instead read through the pages of this thread... but thank you to the guy that brought up the Oklahoma State offensive coordinator. I think we could all get behind Yurcich. To those who want to keep CPJ, this is not a new coach. When your coach is struggling a decade in, it’s time to get a new coach. Otherwise, you’re a program that accepts losing. I would prefer Kiffin. My argument as one person did bring up earlier, if lane or any coach that can recruit well fails as a coach, at least they will leave behind talented players who will help the next coach. Chan Gailey left CPJ the best qb, rb, wr, defensive lineman, and safety he had throughout his tenure. I would also consider both coordinators of the falcons. Bottom of the list would be Bush Hamdan, he was the OC 4 years ago at davidison, a school that doesn’t even offer athletic football scholarships. He’s moved up fast, he’s clearly very good at his job or good at selling himself to others.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

Let's take this one by one.

1. I liked Fridge's offense too. A lot, especially the option parts. But … the recruiting context has changed completely from the Ross/O'Leary days and it wasn't all that good then. (Remember how George used to complain?) As I mentioned before, the NCAA graduation progress requirement, Tech's increasing academic standards, the 85 limit, and our limited curriculum will not magically disappear if we brought in a new coach and a new offense. I think this idea that all we need to do is use another offense is a fantasy: if I were a 4 - 5 star kid knowing that we ran a spread wouldn't make any difference to me if I didn't want a Tech education.

Plus, our offense is a huge turn off - no one wants to play in it. As recently as 2011, we recruited athletes good enough to beat Clemson.
The idea to continue using this archaic, dismal offense is masochistic, to put it politely. We are now bottom of the ACC barrel, thanks to CPJ and his outdated, predictable QB Keeper offense.

2. True, we do lead the nation in rushing offense. Remarkable for a school that can't recruit top drawer athletes, isn't it? Running a system offense and having standard requirements for the recruiting really does help.

We are also near dead-last in passing offense. When you run it as often as we do, you damn well better be a top-5 rushing offense. How'd we do today against a non-cupcake defense????

3. Now, think about this. What universities do we know that have very high admission standards, a limited curriculum, and good football programs? You know, sort of like Tech. That would be the service academies. (Well, and New Mexico.) And now you know why we hired Coach.

And Stanford and NW and now, it seems, Duke. All 3 of these teams would crush us in year 11 of the outdated CPJ offense. BC isn't exactly a factory nor easy to recruit to but has more upward trajectory than we do right now.

4. "NO KID wants to play in it." Well, except for kids like JT, for instance, or Dedrick Mills or James Graham. I might also point out that our D has a lot more 4 star athletes in it then the O; you can check.

JT wanted to play at Alabama, actually. Hopefully CPJ will put in a shotgun package for Graham, else he'll be wasted like highly-recruited Vad Lee was. Seeing as how CPJ still keeps thinking that A-back TQM is a QB, I'm not optimistic. CPJ seems determined to pound square pegs into round holes, damn the consequences.

Bottom line here: wake up and smell the coffee. Our situation won't be changed by anything but greater effort within the parameters we work with. If we decide to change coaches - absit omen! - they'll still be there. And, at present, there's no reason to panic.

Oh, the irony. In year 11 of CPJ's godawful, boring, hard-to-recruit-to offense, we just got blown out of our own stadium by a team we recruited similar to as recently to as 2011. Wake up and smell the coffee: CPJ has killed this program and any momentum we had from 2014 or 2016. It's time for a change, though I freely acknowledge we won't be getting a new HC for 2 more years.

This is called Bottoming Out. Better get used to it. Missed PATs, missed tackles, and now fumbling the simple QB-center exchange are the CPJ Norms now. We are dreadful at football fundamentals and this is a direct reflection of our HC. Wake up and smell the coffee. This wonderful offense has us 1-3 for the first time since the Bill Lewis Era. That's not a coincidence.

I do agree there's no reason to panic. This program right now is the result of years of CPJ as the HC. It shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone who pays attention to modern, college football. IIWII, as CPJ loves to say (before he blames a player for failing to execute)

 

[RiseUpATL]

Let's take this one by one.

1. I liked Fridge's offense too. A lot, especially the option parts. But … the recruiting context has changed completely from the Ross/O'Leary days and it wasn't all that good then. (Remember how George used to complain?) As I mentioned before, the NCAA graduation progress requirement, Tech's increasing academic standards, the 85 limit, and our limited curriculum will not magically disappear if we brought in a new coach and a new offense. I think this idea that all we need to do is use another offense is a fantasy: if I were a 4 - 5 star kid knowing that we ran a spread wouldn't make any difference to me if I didn't want a Tech education.

2. True, we do lead the nation in rushing offense. Remarkable for a school that can't recruit top drawer athletes, isn't it? Running a system offense and having standard requirements for the recruiting really does help.

3. Now, think about this. What universities do we know that have very high admission standards, a limited curriculum, and good football programs? You know, sort of like Tech. That would be the service academies. (Well, and New Mexico.) And now you know why we hired Coach.

4. "NO KID wants to play in it." Well, except for kids like JT, for instance, or Dedrick Mills or James Graham. I might also point out that our D has a lot more 4 star athletes in it then the O; you can check.

Bottom line here: wake up and smell the coffee. Our situation won't be changed by anything but greater effort within the parameters we work with. If we decide to change coaches - absit omen! - they'll still be there. And, at present, there's no reason to panic.

I can’t beleive you are making a argument that we recruit good players because off one player in JT and a player who hasn’t even taken his first snap in CFB. You have no idea if Graham is a good player yet. And this is my point and I think the majority of everyone else’s point, we can’t survive just recruiting a great player at one position every few years. We need good players everywhere. It can’t be the way it has gone after 11 recruiting classes. We have no depth because we have a very shallow talent pool. You have to damand better than one or two good players over 11 years.

Also of course we lead the nation in rushing. It’s 90% of our offense. Navy and Army are right there with us but would you call them great teams? Is that really where you think GT should be measured? Also we are 41st in total offense. If you are going to post stats at least post objective ones. Not just ones that support your claim.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

Plus, our offense is a huge turn off - no one wants to play in it. As recently as 2011, we recruited athletes good enough to beat Clemson.
The idea to continue using this archaic, dismal offense is masochistic, to put it politely. We are now bottom of the ACC barrel, thanks to CPJ and his outdated, predictable QB Keeper offense.

The Georgia Tech offense is one player off from being really good, and that is QB. TQM just isn't the guy. They made a mistake not going all in with Lucas Johnson who can clearly sling the ball around AND run.

We are also near dead-last in passing offense. When you run it as often as we do, you damn well better be a top-5 rushing offense. How'd we do today against a non-cupcake defense????

Wouldn't be the case with a different QB. We see the plays are there every game, TQM just can't execute them. There were 3 other TD's available in the SF game alone on passes that he couldn't get done. This is a QB problem, not an offensive style problem.

And Stanford and NW and now, it seems, Duke. All 3 of these teams would crush us in year 11 of the outdated CPJ offense. BC isn't exactly a factory nor easy to recruit to but has more upward trajectory than we do right now.

BC has gone 7-6, 4-8, 2-10, 7-6, 7-6, 3-9, and 7-6 in the last 7 seasons....

The talent is there..... it won't help this season, but there are now 3 QB's waiting for next year who can all throw the ball significantly better than TQM. CPJ made a gigantic error thinking he couldn't enough explosive run plays out of TQM to cancel out his total inability to throw. He was wrong.

QBs: Lucas Johnson (6'3'' 210), Tobias Oliver (6'2'' 185), James Graham (6'1'' 185)…
ABs: Nathan Cottrell, Dontae Smith, Tij Whatley.... Whatley is a 4.4 guy who rushed for 4,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in high school. Dontae Smith is a 4.35 guy who was the best RB in Tennessee and ran for 4300 yards in 2 years in high school.
BBs: Kirvonte Benson, Jerry Howard, Jordan Mason... This is a great group of BB's.

Give the defense another year to gel, make improvements in the kicking game and offensive line... that is the goal.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

The Georgia Tech offense is one player off from being really good, and that is QB. TQM just isn't the guy. They made a mistake not going all in with Lucas Johnson who can clearly sling the ball around AND run.

We're an entire OL away from decency, Braun aside. And at least one competent WR. And a PK who can make a FG inside 40 yards.

No argument about the QB nor the Lucas decision - I really hoped we'd get to see what LJ will do.

The lack of talent is absolutely a result of the system though I'll say one thing you may agree with: The system itself is NOT to blame for the complete collapse in football fundamentals I'm seeing each week by this CPJ-coached team. I don't blame the system for missed PATs, poor ST, poor blocking, tackling, and throwing. Nor the absolute ridiculous # of fumbles. Nor failed QB-center exchanges.

Nope. That's not the system, that's the fault of the coach.