Mostly “Fire Geoff Collins”, some reminiscing, maybe bourbon or other distractions

FEWrecker

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
27
I have to wonder if Collins has goals for the program beyond wins and losses. He brought his brand manager from Temple to "re-brand" GT to excite the fan base and help recruiting. I see it as a distraction from the reality of the program. With 5 or 6 wins and an occasional upset win this might work. With three wins per season and no marquis wins the brand efforts just look silly.
Are you kidding me? When would Tech needs a much weaker brand to "rebrand" us to become a winner?
 

wvGT11

Helluva Engineer
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1,280
I think this game just about cements the fact that Collins fire thacker, and or stansbury must force a change or Collins resign.

Our offense is improving but just about every facet elsewhere seems to be regressing. Coach keeps claiming he is fixing the issues yet each week again we find some new way to lose.

At this point Todd must do something to force a new path . This is beyond embarrassing and Collins right now has dug himself in so deep he may never recover
 

ibeattetris

Helluva Engineer
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3,604
I think we could find someone like Curt Cignetti at JMU. He's experienced and proven (Granted, in FCS): He's 97–30 as a head coach, 30–4 at JMU. Played QB at WVU and coached QBs most of his career. Coached WR and was a recruiting coordinator under Saban at Bama before getting a (DII) HC job. His next step would normally be a G5 job. (JMU is moving up to FBS in 2023 if he stays.) But he's 60 and making $425k at JMU. He's probably not working his up way to a shot at a plum P5 job at this point in his career. He'd probably jump at a chance to make low 7 figures and be a P5 head coach before he retires (with a chance to do something special.) He's got a hotshot young OC that's been on his staff the last three stops. It would be a jump for him and a somewhat risky hire. But he's shown he knows how to lead a winning team.

I'm sure there's other guys like that out there...
If we are just going bargain bin shopping, Bill Clark from UAB. I know GT's transition wasn't small, but Clark was able to resurrect the UAB program from actual death.
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
11,471
Is Thacker running his defense or is is working CGC defense he used at Miss State and UF. I not picking on you I just really want to know which is the real problem .
I’m not IBeeBallin. I think you’re only going to get a solid answer on whether it’s Thacker’s defense or Collins’ by being one of the people at practice and on the sidelines.

Collins ran a 4-3 at Miss State back in 2014. A lot of teams have dropped that in favor of a 4-2-5 with all the spread/“RPO” offenses.
Thacker had one season as DC at Temple. Taver Johnson was the DC the year before (he’s coaching for the Las Vegas Raiders now, but with Gruden fired, who knows what happens next).

I see some coaches that are 3-4 coaches, and that formation is their philosophy. Same with 4-3 or 4-2-5 ,etc. There are some “positionless” coaches out there, like Jay Bateman at UNC. UNC has two Defensive Coordinators, and they took Bateman from Army after they had a fantastic defense—top 25, I think—and he was replaced with Nate Woody.

With Thacker, I’m not sure what’s going on, but even though he can go deep talking about defense, so far he’s not a Dean Pees or Monte Kiffin level mad scientist on defense.

I’m more of a “your formation isn’t your defense, it’s a tactic you run to counter an offense” kind of person, but I grew up when you’d swap from a 52 to a 4-3 to a nickel to a dime based on the offense, and high-speed offenses don’t let you do that. Thacker talks like a 4-2-5 or a 3-3-5 is your defense, but he doesn’t sound like a true believer in a particular defensive scheme.

There are other things more important than your alignment—mainly knowing and executing on your assignments.

Failed tackles led to 10-12-15 yard plays. 52 vs 4-3 vs 3-4 vs whatever doesn’t matter if you’re going to do that. We had tackles for loss that went for first downs. That’s not even an “assignment” thing. You can’t have that as a problem to solve more than halfway through the season. For me, that’s the biggest issue we have on defense, and nothing else is close.

On top of that, we have bad mistakes going on in the back end. Against UVA, we had a ton of lost 1:1 battles, but yesterday we had players getting behind a corner and running free, repeatedly. That’s happened a lot this year. I see receivers open in a second or two after the snap.

On one hand, I can look at players like Biggers and see the argument that we’re getting close. On the other hand, the lack of fundamentals in things like tackling and the wrong kind of chaos on defense has us going in the wrong direction. I do feel like other coaches could come in here and take the players we have and make them into a top 50 defense—and that’s not even asking much.
 

JacketOff

Helluva Engineer
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2,949
I know you hear resources ($) are limited but, your telling me that Tech is more strapped for cash than Ga Southern? They can hire Todd Helton, a coach with big school experience and the best that Tech can do is a CGC, a coach that went 15-10 at Temple with Matt Rhule's players?
Well first of all, they hired Clay Helton, not Todd Helton.

Secondly, they hired him at $800k a year, so I’m really not sure what that has to do with GT being more cash strapped that Southern? That’s 26% of Collins’ current salary, and would be good for about the 100th highest paid coach in the country. And it’s only $150k more than they were paying Lunsford.

Thirdly, Helton was at a USC program with all the resources in the world and did exactly nothing with it. In his last 3+ years there he was 19-14, which at a program with the stature and resources of USC is pretty embarrassing.
 

TruckStick

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
515
Best case scenario Collins takes a Director of Football Role to oversee recruiting and branding roll his salary long term and Todd is able to bring in a new coaching staff.

Worst case and most likely is CGC digs his heels in like he has, sees “nothing wrong”, gives lip to Todd who just takes it cause he’s a nice guy and wants to believe in anybody that remotely argues with him. And we continue the torture choo choo to nothing town.
 

Animal02

Banned
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6,269
Location
Southeastern Michigan
Best case scenario Collins takes a Director of Football Role to oversee recruiting and branding roll his salary long term and Todd is able to bring in a new coaching staff.

Worst case and most likely is CGC digs his heels in like he has, sees “nothing wrong”, gives lip to Todd who just takes it cause he’s a nice guy and wants to believe in anybody that remotely argues with him. And we continue the torture choo choo to nothing town.
Collins digs in, he will never coach again, he negotiates out, he could problem pick up a recruiter/ coordinator position elsewhere.
 

rfjeff9

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
443
And judging from all the comments, I am not going to bother watching the replay, though I was able to tune in on my phone the last few minutes, it looked bad.

I went to the aTm @ Ole Miss game, partied in the grove, visited my kid in the band while they were warming up. Great game, fine offense and defensive performances by the Rebels. I haven’t seen such from Tech in a long time. And it’s killing me.

I will be back in Oxford for the next two games, too - she’s a senior and these will be her last two performances, in case you wonder why. But it seems like I was better served walking away from GT Football for a few weeks after Miami, I couldn’t take the inept coaching clock management, and gameplay anymore.

I will watch if I can, but this season has destroyed the enjoyment of GT Football in me even more than the Bill Lewis years when I was a student. I am convinced now that CGC is not the guy.

I want him gone. Until then I am not going to make another drive across two states to watch in person. Or unless he turns it around next year, but who here really thinks this will happen? I don’t see it.
 

GTNavyNuke

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Featured Member
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Collins can't leave. He is an elite motivator. Here's what he motivated me to do this morning:
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1636910862696.png
 

ilovetheoption

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,812
I think we could find someone like Curt Cignetti at JMU. He's experienced and proven (Granted, in FCS): He's 97–30 as a head coach, 30–4 at JMU. Played QB at WVU and coached QBs most of his career. Coached WR and was a recruiting coordinator under Saban at Bama before getting a (DII) HC job. His next step would normally be a G5 job. (JMU is moving up to FBS in 2023 if he stays.) But he's 60 and making $425k at JMU. He's probably not working his up way to a shot at a plum P5 job at this point in his career. He'd probably jump at a chance to make low 7 figures and be a P5 head coach before he retires (with a chance to do something special.) He's got a hotshot young OC that's been on his staff the last three stops. It would be a jump for him and a somewhat risky hire. But he's shown he knows how to lead a winning team.

I'm sure there's other guys like that out there...
GT is probably a more attractive job than JMU right now, but the margin is probably not as big as you would think.

They are entering FBS, into a great fit of a conference where they'll be primed to compete right away, in a state with a lot of talent in which neither of the major programs seems inclined to recruit right now.

If jmu played UVA and Virginia Tech 10 games a piece, right now, JMU would win six or seven games out of those 20.

There is a world in which they are the next coastal Carolina.

(My brother played at JMU, so I follow them pretty closely, actually)
 

bobongo

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7,543
I know you hear resources ($) are limited but, your telling me that Tech is more strapped for cash than Ga Southern? They can hire Todd Helton, a coach with big school experience and the best that Tech can do is a CGC, a coach that went 15-10 at Temple with Matt Rhule's players?
I think we're over 200 million dollars in debt.
 

zzzboy25

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
42
Collins's issue is, He wanted to toughen up the player's image,(more rough or hood nature), Look at how he promoted the Tech brand, he had no game plan in the coaching level, but thought that the harder character players would have a better outcome. No.... Collins, you have to coach up the players you had and fit in the missing pieces. This is not a Georiga, Alabama Clemson, so you can't get rid of a lot of players and expect big-time players would come in by droves...Finally, young players have to be coached up, there not NFL players yet... so freshmen can't be throwing on the field and complete with top teams..and then expected BCS outcomes!!
 

tsrich

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
787
GT is probably a more attractive job than JMU right now, but the margin is probably not as big as you would think.

They are entering FBS, into a great fit of a conference where they'll be primed to compete right away, in a state with a lot of talent in which neither of the major programs seems inclined to recruit right now.

If jmu played UVA and Virginia Tech 10 games a piece, right now, JMU would win six or seven games out of those 20.

There is a world in which they are the next coastal Carolina.

(My brother played at JMU, so I follow them pretty closely, actually)
I think a big point was that the salary we could offer would be a big bump for him, and he is the type of coach who might be worth a risk given that we can't entice top tier candidates.
 

Spalding Jacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
431
The defensive issues just reminds me so much of 2012, CPJ told Groh to simplify the scheme cause we kept turning so many recievers loose deep. He refused so he got canned and our D got better instantly. I’d prefer for these last two games we get the younger D players lots of snaps running mostly base schemes so they can get in some good practice for next year.
 

jojatk

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,506
The defensive issues just reminds me so much of 2012, CPJ told Groh to simplify the scheme cause we kept turning so many recievers loose deep. He refused so he got canned and our D got better instantly. I’d prefer for these last two games we get the younger D players lots of snaps running mostly base schemes so they can get in some good practice for next year.
I read an article yesterday in The Athletic that talked about mid-season coordinator changes. Of course the point of the article was that they rarely work out but they used Ruffin McNeill taking over at Texas Tech mid-season one year and what he did to actually have success defensively. One of the things he said they did was have the entire defense meet either Thursday or Friday of every week and go over the game call sheet and if anyone found any play call confusing or they didn't understand it they should speak up and when that happened they would remove that play from that week's call sheet. Period. The goal was to prevent "cloudy mind, slow legs." That was his version of simplification.
 
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