Let's compare coaches, just for fun !

[TheTechGuy]

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.

If lack of talent is due to the system, then why do we recruit basically the same as we did under Gailey?

 

[RamblinWreck92]

If lack of talent is due to the system, then why do we recruit basically the same as we did under Gailey?

We don't recruit basically the same. There's not a Calvin Johnson, Derick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Dwyer, Nesbitt, Michael Johnson, etc etc etc in sight. Except our punter.

Our OL is small - kids do not want to play in this system and kids don't want to block in this system. It's why the USFs and PITTs of football are now better than we are. You can't even begin to compare yesterday's offensive talent to what we trotted out in 2008 and 2009. I don't think a single starter outside of Braun today would start on that team.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

 

[Eli]

We don't recruit basically the same. There's not a Calvin Johnson, Derick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Dwyer, Nesbitt, Michael Johnson, etc etc etc in sight. Except our punter.

Our OL is small - kids do not want to play in this system and kids don't want to block in this system. It's why the USFs and PITTs of football are now better than we are. You can't even begin to compare yesterday's offensive talent to what we trotted out in 2008 and 2009. I don't think a single starter outside of Braun today would start on that team.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

I'm by no means defending Paul's recruiting but he has out recruited Chan as a whole (ranking wise). Chan had one great class. What gailey did do very well was develop the two star. Go look how many 2-3 stars we sent to the NFL.

 

[stech81]

We don't recruit basically the same. There's not a Calvin Johnson, Derick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Dwyer, Nesbitt, Michael Johnson, etc etc etc in sight. Except our punter.

Our OL is small - kids do not want to play in this system and kids don't want to block in this system. It's why the USFs and PITTs of football are now better than we are. You can't even begin to compare yesterday's offensive talent to what we trotted out in 2008 and 2009. I don't think a single starter outside of Braun today would start on that team.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

This is where I have a problem I must be stupid I don't think USF and Pitt are better than us. Yes I know we loss but I don't think they are better.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

I'm by no means defending Paul's recruiting but he has out recruited Chan as a whole (ranking wise). Chan had one great class. What gailey did do very well was develop the two star. Go look how many 2-3 stars we sent to the NFL.

I don't think anyone would call CPJ good at player development. Outside of Butker, I can't think of any skill players who got better playing for CPJ. 2014 JT was far better than 2015 and 2016.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

This is where I have a problem I must be stupid I don't think USF and Pitt are better than us. Yes I know we loss but I don't think they are better.

PITT is something like 4-1 against us since 2014. They are a better team than we are, esp. where it matters most and have been for the past 5 years. So has Duke. UNC is 2-2 against us, so is UVA.

Forget Miami, Clemson, VPI - we are now losing to the bottom feeders with regularity.

 

[MWBATL]

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.

I fyou are correc tin all that you say, then we are doomed. Doomed, I say!

 

[stech81]

I seem to remember ( not this year ) CPJ saying that players today are not the same as they were 10-15 years ago. Maybe that is the problem communicating with todays players is not the same as it was 10 years ago. CPJ knows how to coach maybe it understanding how to communicate with todays players and how to get the light to come on for them.

 

[MWBATL]

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

I would *love* to see your data on this. The only data I have ever found on the SAT scores for universities is quite old and showed a much broader gap between UGa and GT.....(it was an old AJC study) so you will forgive me if I am skeptical of your information.

While I have *no* doubt that GT athletes are admitted when other students might not be, and get help with tutoring and the like, we also do still suffer from being extremely limited in our degree offerings. I also suspect pretty strongly that if you want to compare us to someplace like UGa the academic gap is MUCH wider than you suggest. The money gap is CLEARLY enormous.

 

[MWBATL]

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)…

Then he should be playing hem NOW. This season is toast. Lucas is (of course) hurt and can't play, Oliver was finally allowed the throw a pass, and it kinda didn't look all that bad. Graham may not be ready but I'd rather groom next year's QB than continue losing with this set-up we have now. (And I say that with a ton of respect for the PERSON that TQM is....)

 

[GTFLETCH]

I agree Play Tobias & James start TQM at Aback

 

[tmhunter52]

The only reason we lose to teams like USF, Pitt, etc. is the fact that we have no passing game. A one-dimensional running team, even as funky as ours, is infinitely more defensible than if we had any credible passing threat. For our offense, give me an average dual QB anytime over a good ABack in a QB’s jersey...

 

[slugboy]

We don't recruit basically the same. There's not a Calvin Johnson, Derick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Dwyer, Nesbitt, Michael Johnson, etc etc etc in sight. Except our punter.

Our OL is small - kids do not want to play in this system and kids don't want to block in this system. It's why the USFs and PITTs of football are now better than we are. You can't even begin to compare yesterday's offensive talent to what we trotted out in 2008 and 2009. I don't think a single starter outside of Braun today would start on that team.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

While Calvin Johnson played for Gailey, it was Fridge’s offense that recruited him. He grew up watching that offense and those players. That’s why I’m not as keen on a Pro-style offense; it’s what Gailey ran, but Fridge didn’t run a traditional pro-style offense.

So, there may be systems that kids want to play in, but a traditional pro style offense is going to be boring here and not attract big time athletes.

Gailey put a lot of recruiting talent on his staff, and they hit once big with one great class. Otherwise, Johnson is recruiting as well. Gailey started his first year with players who were going to the NFL and did squat with them. Will Heller was in the NFL until 2012. A lot of our great players were on the defense, where we were anything but conventional. Why didn’t they want to play in a conventional defense like the pros played against?

Maybe our offense was so bad because we practiced against that unconventional defense all the time.

There’s some stuff that CPJ deserves criticism for: he either didn’t master or didn’t put as much emphasis on recruiting as other coaches. I think he probably felt like players would want to come after the first few years after they saw him win. He hasn’t managed press relations well (and that’s been a sore spot for our athletic department in general—that they haven’t been the best with the press doesn’t help with him).

Over the years , our offensive line has had issues, but I don’t think it’s that kids don’t want to play in this system. The players we recruit are big enough to play. The average ACC lineman weighs 298 lbs and is 6’4” tall. Aside from some freshmen and walk ons, we’re there. Some of our younger players are huge.

I’ve never seen a CPJ practice, so I don’t know if it’s coaching, but we’ve had good lines before. So far this year, there have been a bunch of missed blocks, and injuries have played a part, but I expected the line to be a strength this year, and it hasn’t been.

I think Anree St Amour can make the league. I think Lynch might catch on as a slot receiver. Camp looks really good. So does Carpenter. Braun looks good too.


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[whitegoldsphinx]

The only reason we lose to teams like USF, Pitt, etc. is the fact that we have no passing game. A one-dimensional running team, even as funky as ours, is infinitely more defensible than if we had any credible passing threat. For our offense, give me an average dual QB anytime over a good ABack in a QB’s jersey...

That, and we seem to under perform badly on the road the last couple of years.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

While Calvin Johnson played for Gailey, it was Fridge’s offense that recruited him. He grew up watching that offense and those players. That’s why I’m not as keen on a Pro-style offense; it’s what Gailey ran, but Fridge didn’t run a traditional pro-style offense.

So, there may be systems that kids want to play in, but a traditional pro style offense is going to be boring here and not attract big time athletes.

Gailey put a lot of recruiting talent on his staff, and they hit once big with one great class. Otherwise, Johnson is recruiting as well. Gailey started his first year with players who were going to the NFL and did squat with them. Will Heller was in the NFL until 2012. A lot of our great players were on the defense, where we were anything but conventional. Why didn’t they want to play in a conventional defense like the pros played against?

Maybe our offense was so bad because we practiced against that unconventional defense all the time.

There’s some stuff that CPJ deserves criticism for: he either didn’t master or didn’t put as much emphasis on recruiting as other coaches. I think he probably felt like players would want to come after the first few years after they saw him win. He hasn’t managed press relations well (and that’s been a sore spot for our athletic department in general—that they haven’t been the best with the press doesn’t help with him).

Over the years , our offensive line has had issues, but I don’t think it’s that kids don’t want to play in this system. The players we recruit are big enough to play. The average ACC lineman weighs 298 lbs and is 6’4” tall. Aside from some freshmen and walk ons, we’re there. Some of our younger players are huge.

I’ve never seen a CPJ practice, so I don’t know if it’s coaching, but we’ve had good lines before. So far this year, there have been a bunch of missed blocks, and injuries have played a part, but I expected the line to be a strength this year, and it hasn’t been.

I think Anree St Amour can make the league. I think Lynch might catch on as a slot receiver. Camp looks really good. So does Carpenter. Braun looks good too.


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CPJ doesn't develop players very well. One thing CPJ-coached GT teams almost always do is turn over the ball in key situations. And miss tackles. And whiff on blocks. And miss PATs and FGs. In the case of our QB, he almost never pitches it and he's a senior. Why does CPJ keep letting him run the exact same QB Keeper play?

I'm not going to blame our SAs so that leaves CPJ - the one constant in all of this. 9 fumbles in one game isn't high-school offense, it's Jr. High offense. Yesterday was embarrassing. No kid who's watched is the past 2 years is going to be in a big hurry to come down here and play for CPJ. Tirades on the sidelines like yesterday's awful berating of DeFoors don't help either.

It's been 11 years and what will almost surely be 3 losing seasons in the past 4. 3 missed bowls in 4 years, in an age where 80 teams go bowling. I've seen enough to think that it's not going to get any better. I'm incredulous that there are fans that still think it will.

 

[UgaBlows]

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.

The only thing holding back Tevin’s passing game was his arm, i noticed the first time he came into a game vs. VT when Nesbitt broke his arm that he actually worked through his passing projections instead of locking in on one guy like most of CPJ’s qb’s seem to mostly do...

 

[TheTechGuy]

We don't recruit basically the same. There's not a Calvin Johnson, Derick Morgan, Morgan Burnett, Dwyer, Nesbitt, Michael Johnson, etc etc etc in sight. Except our punter.

Our OL is small - kids do not want to play in this system and kids don't want to block in this system. It's why the USFs and PITTs of football are now better than we are. You can't even begin to compare yesterday's offensive talent to what we trotted out in 2008 and 2009. I don't think a single starter outside of Braun today would start on that team.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

Per recruiting rankings, we recruit basically the same. As an FYI, the 08 starting OL featured three 2-star recruits (Voss, Howard, and Gardner), one 3-star OL (Gilbert), and a converted 255 lbs. 3-star DE (Brown).

Outside of one class, a traditional offense netted no positive for GT in recruiting. Additionally, Michael Johnson was a 215 lbs. 3-star TE coming out of high school, not some huge recruit. That 06 class had twelve 2-star players.

 

[TheTechGuy]

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

Based on your statement of “5 or so less a year.” Tech has approximately 20 less academic waivers on the team. That seems substantial when you’re only allowed 85 scholarships.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

Per recruiting rankings, we recruit basically the same. As an FYI, the 08 starting OL featured three 2-star recruits (Voss, Howard, and Gardner), one 3-star OL (Gilbert), and a converted 255 lbs. 3-star DE (Brown).

Outside of one class, a traditional offense netted no positive for GT in recruiting. Additionally, Michael Johnson was a 215 lbs. 3-star TE coming out of high school, not some huge recruit. That 06 class had twelve 2-star players.

If the system is so great, why are we headed for 3rd losing season in 4 years? Why are we losing to USF and PITT? Why are we no longer in the same stadium as Clemson?

Also, that single Gailey class was more than the zero great classes we've had and will ever have under CPJ. GT is hard enough to recruit to without having a system kids don't even play in HS, nor want to play in. Seasons like 3 of the last 4 aren't helping either.

 

[calvin forever]

As frustrated as I am now as a fan, I have to remember the highs CPJ and his system have taken us to. An ACC title, orange bowls, wins over the bastards in Athens...those are experiences we went a long time without knowing. Against FSU in the ACCCG, I sat in the stands thinking we could hang with anyone in the country with our offense. There is the potential for the offense to be great.

We still churn out the rushing yards (except against Clemson), but we make mistakes with the football and we have a very poor passing game. Outside of TQM, our most explosive playmakers (Lynch and Searcy) don’t get touches. It gets to be difficult to witness when it’s not being executed at a high level.

3 out of 4 losing seasons, without any reason to think that trend will change, is justification enough to make a change. Hopefully a more modern offense will help us tap into the vast recruiting resources in our backyard.