More Proof That Our Staff Knows How To Find Talent

[Whiskey_Clear]

FSU had one of the very few Olines in the country last year that I thought equalled ours.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Because the commitment isn't equal. One side if making an all in choice that will impact the rest of their life. The other is making 1 out of ~22 commitments that year, and will repeat the process the next year. One is an 18 year old while the other is a coach making millions. On top of that the coaching equivalent to what Jackson did was continuing to recruit OLmen which we did, and always do. The idea that taking a visit to another college is the same as a coach pulling an offer or revoking a scholarship is absurd.

If a coach makes a wrong choice it's one scholarship out of 85. It ain't a big deal. If the kid makes a wrong choice, it's his one and only life, and could have a huge impact down the line. So no. It isn't equal, and shouldn't be viewed equally.

A couple years back we did the same thing to a guy, think his name was Aycock?, and he ended up doing nothing/getting booted and people said it was such a great decision by Johnson. Now the shoe is on the other foot and his decision bit us.

You make some good points, but if that is truly the case, then don't commit. Your word is your integrity, you break one, you break the other, at least that's what I was taught. Don't commit if you're not 100%. Or if you're just using it as an insurance policy, don't be miffed if your offer gets pulled when the coach find out you're still looking around.

 

[JorgeJonas]

Because the commitment isn't equal. One side if making an all in choice that will impact the rest of their life. The other is making 1 out of ~22 commitments that year, and will repeat the process the next year. One is an 18 year old while the other is a coach making millions. On top of that the coaching equivalent to what Jackson did was continuing to recruit OLmen which we did, and always do. The idea that taking a visit to another college is the same as a coach pulling an offer or revoking a scholarship is absurd.

If a coach makes a wrong choice it's one scholarship out of 85. It ain't a big deal. If the kid makes a wrong choice, it's his one and only life, and could have a huge impact down the line. So no. It isn't equal, and shouldn't be viewed equally.

A couple years back we did the same thing to a guy, think his name was Aycock?, and he ended up doing nothing/getting booted and people said it was such a great decision by Johnson. Now the shoe is on the other foot and his decision bit us.

The issue here is whether Johnson protects the offered scholarship to a committed player. To date, he has. If anyone has a single instance where Johnson has offered a player, he committed, and Johnson was forced to tell the kid he didn't have a place, then the policy is flawed. However, in the absence of such a circumstance - grades or behavior reasons for withdrawing the offer notwithstanding - there is no issue with Johnson's policy.

 

[lv20gt]

Pretty sure once the FSU offer materialized that was it for us with Tre. "Pulling" the offer was merely a formality. The only chance we had at that point was to hope that he would choose not to visit and receive his offer. Would have been a NASTY line though if it had worked out.

Except the FSU offer only materialized after we already pulled our offer. We pulled the offer prior to his visit with FSU, and on his visit to FSU he was told he might have to grayshirt and it wasn't until a couple of days later, after another FSU target went elsewhere that he received an actual offer. It's very likely that if we hadn't pulled the offer, he'd have ended up here instead of FSU.

And enough of the sanctimonious 'don't commit until you're ready to commit' stuff (not directed at this quote). The way the entire system works, including the way we work, completely incentives committing early. And in any case taking a visit to another school isn't breaking the commitment to play at GT any more than hosting other recruits, watching other recruits play, or calling other recruits/coaches is. We've also had commits take visits after committing with no issue. There isn't a policy in place here. This, like the aycock situation, was a stunt to try and gain an edge in recruiting. It's fine if Johnson wants to do it, but it just backfired in this case.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Except the FSU offer only materialized after we already pulled our offer. We pulled the offer prior to his visit with FSU, and on his visit to FSU he was told he might have to grayshirt and it wasn't until a couple of days later, after another FSU target went elsewhere that he received an actual offer. It's very likely that if we hadn't pulled the offer, he'd have ended up here instead of FSU.

And enough of the sanctimonious 'don't commit until you're ready to commit' stuff (not directed at this quote). The way the entire system works, including the way we work, completely incentives committing early. And in any case taking a visit to another school isn't breaking the commitment to play at GT any more than hosting other recruits, watching other recruits play, or calling other recruits/coaches is. We've also had commits take visits after committing with no issue. There isn't a policy in place here. This, like the aycock situation, was a stunt to try and gain an edge in recruiting. It's fine if Johnson wants to do it, but it just backfired in this case.

These two things don't add up. Why would he have likely ended up here had we not pulled his offer when he received an FSU offer two days after he received the greyshirt offer. That makes no sense. If he wanted to go to FSU he would have gone to FSU. A couple of days wouldn't have meant squat.

Also, there's nothing sanctimonious about being a man of your word. When a guy commits to GT with false intentions, he effectively pulls the offer for other deserving recruits which hurts our chances to improve our team as well has hurts those particular recruits. That's bogus in my book. We don't offer with false intentions, recruits shouldn't commit with them.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Except the FSU offer only materialized after we already pulled our offer. We pulled the offer prior to his visit with FSU, and on his visit to FSU he was told he might have to grayshirt and it wasn't until a couple of days later, after another FSU target went elsewhere that he received an actual offer. It's very likely that if we hadn't pulled the offer, he'd have ended up here instead of FSU.

And enough of the sanctimonious 'don't commit until you're ready to commit' stuff (not directed at this quote). The way the entire system works, including the way we work, completely incentives committing early. And in any case taking a visit to another school isn't breaking the commitment to play at GT any more than hosting other recruits, watching other recruits play, or calling other recruits/coaches is. We've also had commits take visits after committing with no issue. There isn't a policy in place here. This, like the aycock situation, was a stunt to try and gain an edge in recruiting. It's fine if Johnson wants to do it, but it just backfired in this case.

I find CPJ's policy very easy to understand and even easier to defend. A commitment is a commitment. We will never back out of ours. However, if you are still looking then we are still looking. Beyond that, if you play games with us and tell us one thing and someone else another, we will probably pull your offer because you are not Tech material.

If you are the kind of player who likes to wheel and deal your offers and play games, fine, you should probably go somewhere else. If you are unsure about your decision and are honest and upfront with CPJ about that then he will work with you and tell you exactly where you stand every step of the way, something some other coaches don't do.

This is so clean and straight forward to me I fail to understand why people make more of it than it is.

 

[PBR549]

The way around the whole issue is signing when you commit. This eliminates all the games by coaches and players.

 

[JorgeJonas]

The way around the whole issue is signing when you commit. This eliminates all the games by coaches and players.

Cosign. I cannot like this enough.

 

[lv20gt]

I find CPJ's policy very easy to understand and even easier to defend. A commitment is a commitment. We will never back out of ours. However, if you are still looking then we are still looking. Beyond that, if you play games with us and tell us one thing and someone else another, we will probably pull your offer because you are not Tech material.

Never back out? We have pulled scholarship offers multiple times, including with Jackson. Sorry but taking a visit doesn't constitute decommitting. The commitment is to play football here, and visiting another school doesn't break that committment. You can visit, and still play. Well, unless your offer gets pulled, but then that isn't on the player. Also as regards to the keep looking. We never stop looking. We never stop recruiting other players at the same position. It should be if we don't stop looking, and we don't, why shouldn't they? Even more so when the decision is far more important to the athlete than to the school.

And for the love of god spare me the tech material spiel. We've taken guys who backed out of commitments at other schools. We've heralded guys who turned out to not be able to cut it academically, either before or after getting in. We've taken guys who went on to commit crimes, be bad team mates, etc. NOthing Jackson has done, either in highschool or college, lends any support to the idea he isn't tech material.

These two things don't add up. Why would he have likely ended up here had we not pulled his offer when he received an FSU offer two days after he received the greyshirt offer. That makes no sense. If he wanted to go to FSU he would have gone to FSU. A couple of days wouldn't have meant squat.

If he still had an offer from GT, a place he had been committed to for a long time, then walking away from a visit to FSU, especially so late in the process, without a scholarship offer would have made a huge difference, and he likely makes his decision to stay before FSU ever got back to him. Instead, because we revoked the offer, he really had no choice but to wait, or at least no compelling reason not to wait on his other offers.

 

[Skeptic]

Except the FSU offer only materialized after we already pulled our offer. We pulled the offer prior to his visit with FSU, and on his visit to FSU he was told he might have to grayshirt and it wasn't until a couple of days later, after another FSU target went elsewhere that he received an actual offer. It's very likely that if we hadn't pulled the offer, he'd have ended up here instead of FSU.

And enough of the sanctimonious 'don't commit until you're ready to commit' stuff (not directed at this quote). The way the entire system works, including the way we work, completely incentives committing early. And in any case taking a visit to another school isn't breaking the commitment to play at GT any more than hosting other recruits, watching other recruits play, or calling other recruits/coaches is. We've also had commits take visits after committing with no issue. There isn't a policy in place here. This, like the aycock situation, was a stunt to try and gain an edge in recruiting. It's fine if Johnson wants to do it, but it just backfired in this case.

Would it surprise you to know that virtually every major football program has the same policy as Johnson?

 

[forensicbuzz]

Never back out? We have pulled scholarship offers multiple times, including with Jackson. Sorry but taking a visit doesn't constitute decommitting. The commitment is to play football here, and visiting another school doesn't break that committment. You can visit, and still play. Well, unless your offer gets pulled, but then that isn't on the player. Also as regards to the keep looking. We never stop looking. We never stop recruiting other players at the same position. It should be if we don't stop looking, and we don't, why shouldn't they? Even more so when the decision is far more important to the athlete than to the school.

And for the love of god spare me the tech material spiel. We've taken guys who backed out of commitments at other schools. We've heralded guys who turned out to not be able to cut it academically, either before or after getting in. We've taken guys who went on to commit crimes, be bad team mates, etc. NOthing Jackson has done, either in highschool or college, lends any support to the idea he isn't tech material.



If he still had an offer from GT, a place he had been committed to for a long time, then walking away from a visit to FSU, especially so late in the process, without a scholarship offer would have made a huge difference, and he likely makes his decision to stay before FSU ever got back to him. Instead, because we revoked the offer, he really had no choice but to wait, or at least no compelling reason not to wait on his other offers.

It's pretty easy. His policy is that if you take a visit to another school, you're not committed to GT. Therefore, your spot is available to another recruit if said recruit decides to take it. EVERY recruit is told by CPJ not to commit if they still plan on taking visits to other schools because when they commit, he expects them to be done with recruiting at that point. There are a few exceptions (Dontae and Tre) where CPJ says to them, it's too late in the process (Dontae) or you lied about visiting (Tre) and the offer is pulled. Both of those guys knew what would happen when they visited. They chose to visit, thus telling CPJ that they were no longer committed to GT. I think in Tre's case, if he'd been upfront with the coaching staff, his offer wouldn't have been rescended (at least as I can remember, too lazy to look it up).

 

[Skeptic]

It's pretty easy. His policy is that if you take a visit to another school, you're not committed to GT. Therefore, your spot is available to another recruit if said recruit decides to take it. EVERY recruit is told by CPJ not to commit if they still plan on taking visits to other schools because when they commit, he expects them to be done with recruiting at that point. There are a few exceptions (Dontae and Tre) where CPJ says to them, it's too late in the process (Dontae) or you lied about visiting (Tre) and the offer is pulled. Both of those guys knew what would happen when they visited. They chose to visit, thus telling CPJ that they were no longer committed to GT. I think in Tre's case, if he'd been upfront with the coaching staff, his offer wouldn't have been rescended (at least as I can remember, too lazy to look it up).

This gets revisited almost annually. But part of the mechanism is that once a team gets a commitment for a position, then it stops recruiting for it and moves on. So then to find its commitment is not committed, leaves them in a bind. so it it is to say if you are not committed, then neither are we, and we're going to the next person on the list before somebody snaps him up. What would one expect? It makes sense to me.

 

[forensicbuzz]

It's not that they necessarily "stop" recruiting, but they definitely go into the mode of "we don't have a commitable offer for you anymore."

My comment is the way I've understood it since Aycock was told not to get on that plane.

 

[PBR549]

Seems simple to me.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Sorry but taking a visit doesn't constitute decommitting.

You don't know that.

We never stop recruiting other players at the same position. It should be if we don't stop looking, and we don't, why shouldn't they?

That is a totally misleading statement. You either do not understand how Tech recruits or you are suggesting that CPJ is a bald faced liar.

And for the love of god spare me the tech material spiel. We've taken guys who backed out of commitments at other schools. We've heralded guys who turned out to not be able to cut it academically, either before or after getting in. We've taken guys who went on to commit crimes, be bad team mates, etc. NOthing Jackson has done, either in highschool or college, lends any support to the idea he isn't tech material.

You have lumped a lot of different situations together to build your case that we are two faced hypocrites. If that is what you believe then I doubt anything will change your mind. But please keep in mind that CPJ is very clear about his approach. He accepts human frailties, he understands that kids have underdeveloped prefrontal lobes and have trouble making decisions, he lives in the real world, understands human nature and he is willing to give guys a second and even third chance. He will work with you if you show honest intent and are not double dealing behind his back. The moment he picks up on the latter, however, he determines that if you will cheat at this you will probably be tempted to cheat while at Tech and that is not going to be a good fit for anybody.

But if this doesn't make sense to you then I suspect you will never be able to figure out this coach.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

I think in Tre's case, if he'd been upfront with the coaching staff

Bingo!

 

[lv20gt]

This gets revisited almost annually. But part of the mechanism is that once a team gets a commitment for a position, then it stops recruiting for it and moves on. So then to find its commitment is not committed, leaves them in a bind. so it it is to say if you are not committed, then neither are we, and we're going to the next person on the list before somebody snaps him up. What would one expect? It makes sense to me.

We don't stop recruiting for the position when we get a commitment. We didn't stop recruiting or even stop taking commitments from OGs after getting Jackson. The fact that we don't stop recruiting is why there is even a next person on the list to go to. Anyone that thinks we do is just kidding themselves. And een if we did stop recruiting for that particular scholarship, it's still just one of 20 or so in that class, and there will be 20 ish more next year. It's very different than the one singular choice that the receuit has to make.

You have lumped a lot of different situations together to build your case that we are two faced hypocrites.

Yup. Because this fanbase is exactly that and has shown on any number of occassions. And claiming that a kid making the biggest decision of his life taking a visit to a college is double dealing or in any way indicates that he will cheat just reinforces that. There is absolutely nothing that Jackson has done to indicate that he wouldn't have succeeded here, or would have had to resort to cheating.

 

[Madison Grant]

We don't stop recruiting for the position when we get a commitment. We didn't stop recruiting or even stop taking commitments from OGs after getting Jackson. The fact that we don't stop recruiting is why there is even a next person on the list to go to. Anyone that thinks we do is just kidding themselves. And een if we did stop recruiting for that particular scholarship, it's still just one of 20 or so in that class, and there will be 20 ish more next year. It's very different than the one singular choice that the receuit has to make.



Yup. Because this fanbase is exactly that and has shown on any number of occassions. And claiming that a kid making the biggest decision of his life taking a visit to a college is double dealing or in any way indicates that he will cheat just reinforces that. There is absolutely nothing that Jackson has done to indicate that he wouldn't have succeeded here, or would have had to resort to cheating.

Just curious, Iv20gt, do you know Jackson, his family or high school coaches personally? Because you seem pretty confident that Jackson didn't lie or mislead our staff about visiting FSU. I've always been under the impression that is why we pull scholarships from commits- because we have it on pretty good authority that they are lying to us or hiding from us about taking other visits or have plans to commit to another school the first chance they get and have led us to believe otherwise. And I'm not maligning Jackson personally. There are many players that go to factory schools like FSU that are decent kids. But to act like because we had one Reuben Houston that we don't shoot for a higher standard of kid is using an isolated anecdote as proof of a trend. Yes, we have some kids that get into trouble. One or two get dismissed every year seems like. But FSU, UGAg, Tennessee, LSU seem to have a trend of having much less of a standard for screening on personality basis, and put a much greater emphasis on athletic ability. In the case of Jackson, FSU did a good job of finding him, as they did the other OL from South Georgia (forget his name) that got drafted this year. Neither were particularly high profile recruits, but the Noles managed to find them.

 

[Skeptic]

We don't stop recruiting for the position when we get a commitment. .

To make a long story short, you are wrong. It would be nuts to recruit, meaning offer, a scholarship that no longer exists for a position in theory already filled. GT is not alone in this. The factories may stack 'em high, and toss them back, but not all.

 

[UgaBlows]

Hell he won a natty and got drafted, i'd say fsu worked out ok for him