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

takethepoints

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Vespidae said:
That's really the decision. IF you think you have the resources to compete .... you try to take on the Factories at the Game. Tennessee can do it (even if they haven't) because of the massive cash flow the Athletics Dept generates. If you are University of Lower Slobodia, you need an edge.

As Jim Collins said, "Find one thing you can be the best in the world at, and exploit the hell out of it." We didn't do that. We were embarrassed at the propect of being the best at the TO.

There are all sorts of rule changes that are making even the TO difficult to deliver on in P5. But we need an edge. We don't have one. Not in players. Not in coaches. Not in resources. Not in facilities.

At some point, you have to realize that Hope is not a strategy.
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Eggsackley. It's like Billy Bean says in the clip I've already posted here several times. He's talking to his scouts and … well, here's the clip and apologies for the one f-bomb:



I sometimes feel like this board is full of the old scouts. And college football is now as unfair as pro baseball. We have to face this and respond accordingly. That doesn't mean giving up; it means finding ways to win that we can manage. I think our fanbase and athletic department have been seduced by a vision that they are incapable of backing enough to enable Tech to deliver. We need to get our minds right and find ways to win within the restraints the institution faces. If Wake can do it, then we can do it. We won 7 games four years ago and 9 six years ago. There's nothing really standing in the way of doing that again and consistently. Except that vision …
 
Vespidae

Vespidae

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takethepoints said:
I sometimes feel like this board is full of the old scouts. And college football is now as unfair as pro baseball. We have to face this and respond accordingly. That doesn't mean giving up; it means finding ways to win that we can manage.
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I did a lot of corporate strategy work during my active career days. Basically, you can "adapt" to the market environment (e.g., follow what the factories are doing) or you can try to "shape" the environment to compete in a novel way (e.g, a specialized offense).

I don't see TStan or Geoff making any attempt to do something unique ... it reminds me of hapless Marion Campbell when he was coaching the Atlanta Falcons with one of the worst rushing attacks in the NFL. "What's your game plan this Sunday, Coach?" he would be asked. "We're going to run the ball!". Same old thing. Same old results.

Don't like the TO? Ok. Run Air Coryell. But don't just copy everyone else if you don't have the horses.
 

MWBATL

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CEB said:
Completely agree. He was pretty successful at Tennessee too. He’s a good coach. I’m not knocking Auburn and I am not saying that other large state schools don’t have the ability to achieve similar results. I’m just saying the rise of Auburn is the rise of Auburn. I don’t see it as another shoe dropping in the “SEC Hostile Takeover” of the ACC and college athletics. Basketball is somewhat insulated... for now
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No. It's not. It's exactly the same as football with one huge exception. It takes fewer exceptional players to rise to power in basketball than in football. But the SEC has definitely targeted the gold mine that is the Big Dance and they are going after it big time.
 

MWBATL

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takethepoints said:
Eggsackley. It's like Billy Bean says in the clip I've already posted here several times. He's talking to his scouts and … well, here's the clip and apologies for the one f-bomb:



I sometimes feel like this board is full of the old scouts. And college football is now as unfair as pro baseball. We have to face this and respond accordingly. That doesn't mean giving up; it means finding ways to win that we can manage. I think our fanbase and athletic department have been seduced by a vision that they are incapable of backing enough to enable Tech to deliver. We need to get our minds right and find ways to win within the restraints the institution faces. If Wake can do it, then we can do it. We won 7 games four years ago and 9 six years ago. There's nothing really standing in the way of doing that again and consistently. Except that vision …
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THIS. Exactly this. We must find one place where we can have an edge over our competition because it is folly to think we can compete financially. The TO was that...for a while. Then the factories got the rules changed so they wouldn't be embarrassed like that anymore. We need another TO type edge. SOMETHING that allows us to compete.
 

MWBATL

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JacketFan137 said:
i think half the people just want the option back more than anything else
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You're dead wrong as so many TO haters are. Those of us who enjoyed the TO enjoyed it precisely because we recognize the reality that GT does not have the $$$ (or school support from the academic side) to compete in the traditional ways.

I don't want the TO back. The rules that gave it an edge were changed. I DO want something...anything...that will give us an edge. And doing what everyone else is doing results in 3 win seasons.
 

JacketFan137

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MWBATL said:
THIS. Exactly this. We must find one place where we can have an edge over our competition because it is folly to think we can compete financially. The TO was that...for a while. Then the factories got the rules changed so they wouldn't be embarrassed like that anymore. We need another TO type edge. SOMETHING that allows us to compete.
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be careful with that part about it working for a while. the TO cult loves to defend it like the last 4 years of it were the pinnacle of football
 

JacketFan137

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MWBATL said:
You're dead wrong as so many TO haters are. Those of us who enjoyed the TO enjoyed it precisely because we recognize the reality that GT does not have the $$$ (or school support from the academic side) to compete in the traditional ways.

I don't want the TO back. The rules that gave it an edge were changed. I DO want something...anything...that will give us an edge. And doing what everyone else is doing results in 3 win seasons.
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i’m not a TO hater at all. it worked for a while but it was getting figured out and paul didn’t do enough to grow the offense and make adjustments
 

MWBATL

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JacketFan137 said:
i’m not a TO hater at all. it worked for a while but it was getting figured out and paul didn’t do enough to grow the offense and make adjustments
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We agree, but we definitely need SOMETHING unique to give us a chance. Air Raid maybe? I dunno...but the points made by @takethepoints and @Vespidae are spot on. Collins is doing nothing in that regard.
 

JacketFan137

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MWBATL said:
We agree, but we definitely need SOMETHING unique to give us a chance. Air Raid maybe? I dunno...but the points made by @takethepoints and @Vespidae are spot on. Collins is doing nothing in that regard.
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i wouldn’t say he’s doing nothing cause everyone is able to watch the film. i don’t think we have THAT many yes men.

i think patenaude was a miserable hire from the jump. long seems to be a hire that is an attempt to modernize the offense. hearing what he’s said about going hurry up, involving the TE more, and incorporating the RPO as a staple seems like a step forward. that being said the best gameplan in the world is the gameplan given in the first press conference. we’ll see how it works in september
 
slugboy

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takethepoints said:
Eggsackley. It's like Billy Bean says in the clip I've already posted here several times. He's talking to his scouts and … well, here's the clip and apologies for the one f-bomb:



I sometimes feel like this board is full of the old scouts. And college football is now as unfair as pro baseball. We have to face this and respond accordingly. That doesn't mean giving up; it means finding ways to win that we can manage. I think our fanbase and athletic department have been seduced by a vision that they are incapable of backing enough to enable Tech to deliver. We need to get our minds right and find ways to win within the restraints the institution faces. If Wake can do it, then we can do it. We won 7 games four years ago and 9 six years ago. There's nothing really standing in the way of doing that again and consistently. Except that vision …
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The book is a lot different than the movie, but at the end the Boston Red Sox (flush with money, just behind the Yankees) offer Beane the GM job to try Moneyball with a lot of money. Beane turns them down and the big boys run Moneyball without him and win the World Series. Now everybody does Moneyball. To quote a line from The Incredibles "When everybody is super, no one will be".



We're also lumping in "schematic advantage" with Moneyball. RPO started as a schematic advantage. Everybody runs RPO now--or just about everybody. It started with the small schools, as a way to have an edge. Now, Alabama runs it, and OSU runs it, and so on. It was a CFB scheme advantage, and now it's the norm. Schematic advantages last for a little while, but if they really work then they're either outlawed or they become the new normal.

To be a Moneyball school, we'd need to be Moneyball first and fit our scheme to that. Our schemes in 2020 and in 2024 might not look the same in that system, even with the same coach.

Collins' scheme was to be Moneyball in recruiting. The problem is that he might have had a schematic advantage in recruiting (our program and practices and coaches are the coolest), but it wasn't enough of an advantage to overcome other things. Ole Miss is doing a lot of the same thing, but with more money and a cooler head coach. Kiffin is Collins, but cooler and with better hair, and knowing offense inside and out. Collins has to prove he knows defense half as well as Kiffin understands offense, and so far he hasn't shown that here. So, Kiffin has leverage in recruiting and offensive leverage on the field, and his team is in a "virtuous cycle" where success on the field bolsters recruiting, which bolsters success on the field, which ...

The good news is that the Oakland A's still punch above their weight class. You can keep "Moneyballing". But, the thing about Moneyball is that it's like a weird combination of value investing and arbitrage--a bargain in 2022 can be overpriced in 2023. It's a constant re-evaluation of your strategies every year to find where you can get bargains that others are overlooking, and it gets harder every year because most everyone is looking for bargains.

YearTmW-L%FinishGBPlayoffs
2021Oakland Athletics.5313rd of 59.0
2020Oakland Athletics.6001st of 5--Lost ALDS (3-1)
2019Oakland Athletics.5992nd of 510.0Lost ALWC (1-0)
2018Oakland Athletics.5992nd of 56.0Lost ALWC (1-0)
2017Oakland Athletics.4635th of 526.0
2016Oakland Athletics.4265th of 526.0
2015Oakland Athletics.4205th of 520.0
2014Oakland Athletics.5432nd of 510.0Lost ALWC (1-0)
2013Oakland Athletics.5931st of 5--Lost ALDS (3-2)
2012Oakland Athletics.5801st of 4--Lost ALDS (3-2)
2011Oakland Athletics.4573rd of 422.0
2010Oakland Athletics.5002nd of 49.0
2009Oakland Athletics.4634th of 422.0
2008Oakland Athletics.4663rd of 424.5
2007Oakland Athletics.4693rd of 418.0
2006Oakland Athletics.5741st of 4--Lost ALCS (4-0)
2005Oakland Athletics.5432nd of 47.0
2004Oakland Athletics.5622nd of 41.0
2003Oakland Athletics.5931st of 4--Lost ALDS (3-2)
2002Oakland Athletics.6361st of 4--Lost ALDS (3-2)
2001Oakland Athletics.6302nd of 414.0Lost ALDS (3-2)
2000Oakland Athletics.5651st of 4--Lost ALDS (3-2)
1999Oakland Athletics.5372nd of 48.0


Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/15/2022.
 

g0lftime

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JacketFan137 said:
be careful with that part about it working for a while. the TO cult loves to defend it like the last 4 years of it were the pinnacle of football
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It still works at some level - academies- but only seems to work if there is not a significant difference in athletes. Rules were changed to make blocking more difficult while at the same time relaxing holding for pass blocking.
I had no problem with us running it under PJ but I was also critical that we needed to pass more to keep defenses more honest. It is tough to recruit for it as well.
 

JacketFan137

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g0lftime said:
I had no problem with us running it under PJ but I was also critical that we needed to pass more to keep defenses more honest. It is tough to recruit for it as well.
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yeah it worked for a while and when we had a great QB. unfortunately outside of nesbitt and thomas it really seemed like we were just going through the motions out there and we weren’t really gonna be competitive with good teams.

no coincidence that the two qbs i mentioned were also the best passers by far.
 
bobongo

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JacketFan137 said:
.

yeah it worked for a while and when we had a great QB. unfortunately outside of nesbitt and thomas it really seemed like we were just going through the motions out there and we weren’t really gonna be competitive with good teams.

no coincidence that the two qbs i mentioned were also the best passers by far.
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We lost to some teams we should have beaten, but the only ones we weren't competitive with were the factories most everyone else was losing to.

Now that we've fixed our problem, we lose to just about everybody.
 

cthenrys

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The mistake was that ADTS and the money people were teed up to hear what they wanted to hear from CGC - i.e. we can win by recruiting elite talent and play the same "pro style" offense everyone else does. Oh and we needed to get rid of that awful TO and the culture associated with it. Give CGC credit - he must have killed the interview. It's hard to imagine but we've all see people in our career that others seem to lap up while we sit there going "you're actually buying this BS".

So far it's working great. We're playing the opposite of moneyball. Don't try to find an edge, just be the same as everyone else but be better in spite of lesser resources and a completely unproven HC (at a P5 level).
 
Vespidae

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cthenrys said:
The mistake was that ADTS and the money people were teed up to hear what they wanted to hear from CGC - i.e. we can win by recruiting elite talent and play the same "pro style" offense everyone else does.
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I think this is spot on. Another Moneyball quote sums this up nicely ...

“We’re not gonna compete with these teams that have big budgets. We’re gonna work with the constraints that we have and you’re gonna get out and do the best job that you can, recruiting new players. We’re not gonna pay 17 million dollars a year to players.” – Stephen Scott
 

JacketFan137

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bobongo said:
We lost to some teams we should have beaten, but the only ones we weren't competitive with were the factories most everyone else was losing to.

Now that we've fixed our problem, we lose to just about everybody.
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i mean we literally were competitive against every team that didn’t play ny6 this year. just couldn’t find the wins. we’ve been over this countless times and you continue to ignore it lol

i wish we stuck with the option after losing to duke 4/5 of johnson’s last 5 years. also loved watching us not get across the 50 against clemson until garbage time. that was great football.

the option and paul’s offense was basically done. it was time to move on. collins was the wrong hire. both things can be true.
 
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