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

AlabamaBuzz

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In a week, UGAG is playing Alabama for the SEC Championship. No way Kirby tries anything stupid against Tech. There is zero up side. Run the score up to 35-0 by the half and then, put in the scrubs. Easy game.
Exactly, and I still believe that CKS would like to see Collins continue to coach at GT as long as we let him. I promise he would never want to prepare for something unusual or difficult.
 

Jetdrive3

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Armchair analysis has the problem about frankly not understanding what the heck is going on, but I’m gonna try it anyway.

If you’re a startup and you’re trying something new or innovative, one of the hardest things to figure out is when to “pivot” and when not to. Pivoting can range from making minor adjustments to what your plan is, to major adjustments, to wholesale starting over.

One thing that makes it hard is trying to figure out when to push ahead harder because “we’re smart, we can make this work with more brains or more effort” vs “it’s time to make a small change” vs “it’s time to make a big change.

Collins is not running an innovative offense. He’s not running an innovative defense. What he is trying to do is innovate in “culture” and that shows up in recruiting, training, practice, and on gameday. He’s trying to attract and develop a winning football team through fun and positive feedback. Some of that is enthusiastic 5 am workout sessions. Some of it is DJs at practice. Some of that is the Juice Crew and Money Down. Some of that is the constant use of phrases like “high level”.

He gets players to aspire to be their best and put all their energy into being their best and giving maximum effort. In that, I think he’s been successful.

The problem is, players are blowing coverages and missing blocks with high energy. They’re unfocused and undirected and making fundamental mistakes. Players are bought in on playing at 100%, but they’re freelancing instead of following the system and doing their assignments; they’re trying to strip the ball instead of making a tackle; they’re trying to bring down a player with a big hit instead of wrapping up and gang tackling; they’re trying to make up for their teammate’s errors and getting out of position.

We are “all gas, no brakes, and not much steering”.

Collins keeps giving the players a big jolt of confidence, and it backfires sometimes. They walked into the Citadel game a couple of years ago, and were overconfident. Probably the same thing against NIU and Syracuse and a lot of other games.

He needed to make a pivot in year 1, but he didn’t “have his players yet”. He needed to pivot in year 2, but there was COVID and it disrupted his system, and he still didn’t have his players yet. It’s year 3, and he should have his players by now. He really does have his players by now. But Stansbury is saying that we need to get in more talent.

We have as much or more talent that Wake or BC or Pitt or UVA or VT. Outside of FSU, Miami, Clemson, and UNC, our guys should match up favorably against our opponents. I get that the recruiting rankings are kinda bogus, but if you look at the 247 “talent composite”, we’re 5th in the ACC and we’re 33rd in the country. That’s enough to have a winning conference record and go to a good bowl, and be “getting votes” in the top 25.

By the way, the teams leading the ACC in the “talent composite” are not having good years. Possibly FSU is not below their preseason expectations, but that’s only because they had massively lowered expectations. Clemson, UNC, and Miami are definitely below their preseason top 25 expectations.

When things go wrong, there’s no “one problem”. Problems come in bunches, and I’m just writing about one of them.

Confidently giving 110% in the wrong way isn’t going to win you many games. Getting more athletic players confidently giving 110% will get us to a Miami Hurricanes level of going 6-6 with a top 15 recruiting class.

In the past, I’ve called it “attention to detail”, but there needs to be a pivot to doing the basics before trying to do the fancy stuff. In Collins’ system, I don’t know if that’s a substantial adjustment or a major overhaul or a complete abandonment, though.

=====

@bke1984 I found the “10 points” comment to be ridiculous. My hope is for good coaching to make a positive 2 point swing. If you’ve fallen to needing a 10 point swing, you’re in the ditch with your car on fire.
Enjoyed your reflection…. I especially enjoyed :
“The problem is, players are blowing coverages and missing blocks with high energy. They’re unfocused and undirected and making fundamental mistakes. Players are bought in on playing at 100%, but they’re freelancing instead of following the system and doing their assignments; they’re trying to strip the ball instead of making a tackle; they’re trying to bring down a player with a big hit instead of wrapping up and gang tackling; they’re trying to make up for their teammate’s errors and getting out of position.


We are “all gas, no brakes, and not much steering”.

Player led teams do not happen until they’ve had proper coaching. Most college players come from programs in high school that are sub par and allow the rare physical talents to freelance. They’re afraid they’ll lose them. Sound familiar?
 

bke1984

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The announcement that CGC will be back is one of the most obvious decisions that was always going to happen.
If you look at it rationally, there is no way GT will fire Collins while he is in the 'fully guaranteed' part of his contract.
I felt that way too, but then the AJC posts an article that indicates Todd had the donors ready to pony up the buyout…this thing is a runaway train headed for a bad ending.

I’m just wondering where the bar is set. Anything less than 6 wins next year with the same mistakes and you’ve got to pull the plug. Problem is that replacing the coordinators makes that difficult because you’ve almost got to give them two years.
 

gt02

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In a week, UGAG is playing Alabama for the SEC Championship. No way Kirby tries anything stupid against Tech. There is zero up side. Run the score up to 35-0 by the half and then, put in the scrubs. Easy game.
The problem with this is that the UGA scrubs can drop another 40-50 on us with no problem. So getting to 70 will not be hard.
 

slugboy

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Enjoyed your reflection…. I especially enjoyed :
“The problem is, players are blowing coverages and missing blocks with high energy. They’re unfocused and undirected and making fundamental mistakes. Players are bought in on playing at 100%, but they’re freelancing instead of following the system and doing their assignments; they’re trying to strip the ball instead of making a tackle; they’re trying to bring down a player with a big hit instead of wrapping up and gang tackling; they’re trying to make up for their teammate’s errors and getting out of position.


We are “all gas, no brakes, and not much steering”.

Player led teams do not happen until they’ve had proper coaching. Most college players come from programs in high school that are sub par and allow the rare physical talents to freelance. They’re afraid they’ll lose them. Sound familiar?
There are so many plays I forget. Of course, the big plays (pro and con) stand out.

Even though I said we’re going all out, I’ve seen some plays where the linebackers get caught in no-mans land. It’d be good to review the defense after the season, but right now I don’t feel drawn to do a lot of that.
 

RonJohn

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Player led teams do not happen until they’ve had proper coaching. Most college players come from programs in high school that are sub par and allow the rare physical talents to freelance. They’re afraid they’ll lose them. Sound familiar?
That is an interesting thing to ponder. Another example is Michael Vick at VT vs Vick with the Falcons. At VT he was so much better an athlete than anyone else that he could win games basically by himself improvising. With the Falcons, he was still the most athletic person on the field, but the gap wasn't as wide. He still improvised a lot of the time. The result was a few huge plays that made SportsCenter, but no consistency. Just at first thought, a few huge plays but no consistency does seem to match GT's performance this year.
 

bke1984

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This is my thinking as well. The first 4 games next year will tell us what we need to do.
Man I’m not sure. I guess in a sense that helps because we just wouldn’t have a new HC to pay and would be paying an interim, but we’d still have to the the full value of years 5-7
 

Northeast Stinger

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Enjoyed your reflection…. I especially enjoyed :
“The problem is, players are blowing coverages and missing blocks with high energy. They’re unfocused and undirected and making fundamental mistakes. Players are bought in on playing at 100%, but they’re freelancing instead of following the system and doing their assignments; they’re trying to strip the ball instead of making a tackle; they’re trying to bring down a player with a big hit instead of wrapping up and gang tackling; they’re trying to make up for their teammate’s errors and getting out of position.


We are “all gas, no brakes, and not much steering”.

Player led teams do not happen until they’ve had proper coaching. Most college players come from programs in high school that are sub par and allow the rare physical talents to freelance. They’re afraid they’ll lose them. Sound familiar?
My problem is that this was what I thought I was seeing last year. It is why I was willing to be patient. I thought CGC did not want players over thinking, just reacting and playing with energy. This year we are still blowing assignments but also look sluggish and lethargic at times. Some kind of regression occurred and still not sure exactly why except for the obvious answers.
 

bobongo

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Collins is not running an innovative offense. He’s not running an innovative defense. What he is trying to do is innovate in “culture” and that shows up in recruiting, training, practice, and on gameday. He’s trying to attract and develop a winning football team through fun and positive feedback. Some of that is enthusiastic 5 am workout sessions. Some of it is DJs at practice. Some of that is the Juice Crew and Money Down. Some of that is the constant use of phrases like “high level”.

He gets players to aspire to be their best and put all their energy into being their best and giving maximum effort. In that, I think he’s been successful.

The problem is, players are blowing coverages and missing blocks with high energy. They’re unfocused and undirected and making fundamental mistakes. Players are bought in on playing at 100%, but they’re freelancing instead of following the system and doing their assignments; they’re trying to strip the ball instead of making a tackle; they’re trying to bring down a player with a big hit instead of wrapping up and gang tackling; they’re trying to make up for their teammate’s errors and getting out of position.

We are “all gas, no brakes, and not much steering”.

Collins keeps giving the players a big jolt of confidence, and it backfires sometimes. They walked into the Citadel game a couple of years ago, and were overconfident. Probably the same thing against NIU and Syracuse and a lot of other games.
What it boils down to is that we have a Head Cheerleader instead of a Head Coach.
 

33jacket

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In a week, UGAG is playing Alabama for the SEC Championship. No way Kirby tries anything stupid against Tech. There is zero up side. Run the score up to 35-0 by the half and then, put in the scrubs. Easy game.
agreed, except when he puts his scrubs in they are still better than our starters, better coached and that 35 could become 70
 
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