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

[GT05]

A win is a win. IIWII

 

[stech81]

To do what?

I have been in your corner, but you can't tell me that was a well prepared team last night and well coached.

 

[wvGT11]

Just curious if (in your opinion) the staff is trying to do TOO much marketing/recruiting/peripheral stuff....i.e. all the various videos and social media things, uniform reveals, etc. Would stripping away all non-essential activities that don't directly lead to preparing for success in the upcoming week be suspended until this issue is fixed? The longterm will not be a problem for this staff if the immediate results don't get resolved.

It's marketing fluff and mostly for the kids to get exposure on social media.

The issue is that it's a false sense of who we are. At least under CPJ , when we hit top 25 and stayed in there, or got a good bowl win or beat uga that hype was earned . We were excited as hell when something big was built.

I've seen nothing so far that shows that the hype they build translates to better football on field.

For now, I want him to tone it down and earn it. Instead of saying we're an elite team, but then lose to a school we should crush.

 

[RamblinRed]

What is most concerning to me is that this just doesn't look like a program that is even remotely competitive with other P5 schools.
Of the 17 losses, 14 have been by double digits, 11 have been by at least 3 possessions and then 2 of the other 3 are Citadel and NIU.

If this season plays out as the first game suggests I have to imagine CGC will have to replace both coordinators. Then he gets a season 4 to see if new OC/DC can help turn things around.
if not I see him being replaced after the first loss in season 5.

 

[Pointer]

No, CPJ's offense was running wild on Butch Jones...but Butch Jones's had the advantage of playing against our crap defense.

Tennessee 42-41 Georgia Tech (Sep 4, 2017) Game Stats - ESPN

Complete team stats and game leaders for the Tennessee Volunteers vs. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets NCAAF game from September 4, 2017 on ESPN.

www.espn.com

If CPJ had some of the new resources the current staff enjoys, he would have had much greater chance of success. Not to mention having Ted Roof forced on him by the same money guys who got us into this garbage.

 

[TampaGT]

If Sims doesn’t get hurt, does gc pull him? I don’t think he does.
If Sims is health, does gc start him Vs KSU? I think he does.

 

[Pointer]

What is most concerning to me is that this just doesn't look like a program that is even remotely competitive with other P5 schools.
Of the 17 losses, 14 have been by double digits, 11 have been by at least 3 possessions and then 2 of the other 3 are Citadel and NIU.

If this season plays out as the first game suggests I have to imagine CGC will have to replace both coordinators. Then he gets a season 4 to see if new OC/DC can help turn things around.
if not I see him being replaced after the first loss in season 5.

Are there buyouts for coordinators?

 

[gtg936g]

Been debating how to approach my thoughts - within this thread or as a standalone one - because only a few thoughts are related to 'Fire Geoff Collins'. I'll break this up into separate posts today because I prefer responses that are in line with each point.

First, we have a coaching problem. It has been clear since Season 1. I called out the time management, pre- and post-snap penalties against The Citadel as my first, in general, 'oh s***, we have a problem' takeaways from the game. Despite confirmation bias from others, we did not lose that game because of the offense we faced. El Cid would not have scored 1-2 of their drives if it weren't for non-play related issues i.e., pre and post snap penalties. We lost the game due to discipline and preparedness, plain and simple.

To that end, yesterday was not a Jimmies and Joes issue. We have far better talent than NIU. It was also not an X's and O's issue. We schemed guys running wide open. We had a receiver drop a catchable pass. We fumbled an unchallenged mesh. We had 2-3 defenders jogging off the field on defense with NIU snapping the ball to cause a substitution infraction. We called a timeout and 2nd and goal after gaining 3 yards and had NIU's defense on roller skates. We called another timeout on 4th down not because we saw a look, but because WE WERE NOT PREPARED.

Because of the sidewinding nature of the thread, I feel compelled to repeat the main point of this post. On the order of magnitude where we are talking about most concerning and most pressing issue, yesterday was neither a talent issue nor an X's and O's issue. Therefore I don't understand the leap from some to go as far as 'how can GT compete as a program going forward?' We have a PREPAREDNESS issue. This is unacceptable in year 1, let alone year 3.

I’m not too sure I agree on the X and O point. The NIU corners were lining up 10 yards off the line and back peddling at the snap and we kept trying to run inside into their blitz. Their defense seemed to be concerned with our edge speed so they tried to keep everything in front of the corners. Quick passes to the edge were there for easy yards and for some reason we only went there a couple times. Dave P doesn’t seem to be able to take what is available in many cases. Maybe he is scripting the series to go fast but I scratch my head at a lot of his calls based on how the defense lines up.

 

[slugboy]

I’ll use bullets, because these are all disjointed thoughts

• Usually, when a new coach turns a team around, the latest it happens is year two. Because of the COVID mess last year, and because of that you weren’t going to get a team meeting where the leaders turned the team around, I could have seen that get pushed to this season. We’re out of runway and it’s time to take off. The coaches need to get themselves straightened out and the players do too.
• When I see the idea of Key being HC, I also have to ask why we aren’t blocking well after three seasons. Maybe it’s because our practices aren’t set up well, but this is way too long—on both the offensivee and defensive lines—not to have our acts together.
• If we fire assistant coaches mid season, who are we pulling in to replace them? Are we finding retired coaches to pull in? How is that supposed to work?
• I’ve seen Calvin Johnson drop a game winning pass in the end zone against NCST. I’ve seen Citadel and most of the Curry years and Gardner Webb. Being a Tech fan, at least for football, has more Furman memories than Orange Bowl memories.
• We looked like we don’t practice together, or know what we were supposed to do when we went on the field.
• Yates played a game that deserved a win against a bigger opponent instead of a loss to NIU. It’s a sin for the coaches to waste an effort like that.
• It’s picking a nit, but the time outs weren’t the problem—it was the 45 seconds before each of the time outs that were the problem. We could all see that almost the entire offensive 11 were confused.
• ^^ it wasn’t just the time-out plays, but the time out plays were bad
• I mentioned this in Chat, but we never blocked both NIU gunners during their punts. If we were lucky, we got one blocked, but at least one of them always had a clean shot at our returners.
• Our kickoff return blocking might have improved from last year, but it’s hard to believe. How can you not make blocks against a young NIU team on special teams?
• Our FG blocking was poor
• I was concerned about the Guard-Tackle handoffs, and I saw a few times where someone ran right between them.
• I don’t think NIU has a great coach, but he was good enough. If he’d been a little smarter, he could have made the game uglier.
• We could not get a good pass rush.
• I see Bill O’Brien mentioned. I don’t see Godsey mentioned. Both are “bring back the genius of Friedgen” ideas, but just because you coached for someone doesn’t mean you pick up their genius.
• There are some really great offensive and defensive minds out there, who know how to coach. I’ve been to College of Charleston, and it’s tiny. If those places can hit the jackpot, then so can we.
• We blitzed a lot. The blitzes didn’t get home
• I mentioned Yates, but so many other players stepped up and made plays. We wasted them all.
• We got a 3-and-out from NIU with about two minutes left in the game. We should have never given the ball back after that.
• There were a bunch of opportunities to punt out of bounds inside the 20, but we rolled them all into the end zone.

We’ve been here before. L**** was forced to hire O’Leary as a DC. We do need the train back on the tracks, though. We keep making the same mistakes over and over.

 

[tmhunter52]

As we have seen, swagger is earned, not wished into existence

 

[Richard7125]

Just curious if (in your opinion) the staff is trying to do TOO much marketing/recruiting/peripheral stuff....i.e. all the various videos and social media things, uniform reveals, etc. Would stripping away all non-essential activities that don't directly lead to preparing for success in the upcoming week be suspended until this issue is fixed? The longterm will not be a problem for this staff if the immediate results don't get resolved.

That’s what I’m wondering too. I’m also wondering how “laser focused” players can be when they are also concerned with figuring out the next cool thing to do.

 

[Tjacket]

Are there buyouts for coordinators?

Thats what I'm talking about lets start there. We have to learn to crawl before we can walk. Any change is a start in a new direction. Defense really needs a make over . Zero sacks against NIU. Please.!!!!

 

[CuseJacket]

The mods are all about protecting Collins. Already got a message....they never did that with all the harping on CPJ

Does that really help? I mean, Geoff's performance is out there for all the world to see. It's their board, but hardly helpful. In fact, you can make a case that it undermines confidence in the program by propping up incompetence. But I get it. Politics.

To dispel unsubstantiated myths...

Every single one of the mods was a CPJ supporter.

As another mod pointed out, this thread is allowed to stand, just as there was one during CPJ years.

We warned and banned users for attacks during the CPJ era. CPJ bashers and CGC bashers have had warning and bans administered due to violations of site rules... not protectiveness nor politics.

 

[RyanS12]

I’d like to apologize to @Animal02. When we met at the quick lane pre game you flat out told me you were pissed about the hire and didn’t like it at all! I thought to myself what the hell are you thinking?!? Welp, you saw something I didn’t.
I loved PJ, I really like GC too but yesterday’s loss was worse than the citadel. That was bad on paper but this one hurts as far as recruiting, fan base, direction of the program and trust with the players buying into what the staff is coaching…..
We better beat KSU by 50 next week. A last second W or worse yet, a loss to a coach from PJ’s tree will cause an all out civil war in this fan base.
I know it’s only one game and the first of a season, most teams struggled but this isn’t something new with this staff. This staff is on life support and the next 5 years of GT football is on thin ice….

 

[InsideLB]

Thoughts on defense:

Credit NIU for coming up with some creative packages we’d never seen and that worked really well. Credit them also for deciding they had to be able to run the ball and committing to it. Wish we had done so ourselves. I credit us with adjusting to their run game and stopping it in the second half. Lombardi was accurate and burned us on a few plays that were well-covered to their star receiver who made some ridiculous catches.

The final defensive series was a debacle. I am not sure how their guys got so wide open when we were dropping so many people. We absolutely failed to get any pressure whatsoever and seemed content to play really soft when there was plenty of time for them to move down the field. It seemed like after we scored the go ahead touchdown we checked out mentally while NIU steeled themselves to go get the win.

I like Charlie Thomas, and Wesley Walker played his tail off. I liked seeing the strip that Thacker had talked about in terms of attacking the ball and generating turnovers. I liked that we adjusted and stopped their runs although it took a whole half. I thought in general NIU looked stronger/more physical in their tackling. Excepting Mason who is a beast, Sims who is a beast, and Gibbs early, they were very stingy giving up extra yards. We seemed to let them fight for extra yards much more often, and they were pushing the pile effectively.

Had hoped the front seven in general would be more effective.

 

[ilovetheoption]

For what it's worth, I think you guys will beat Kennesaw State handily. FCS talent is as far from G5 talent as G5 talent is from P5 talent.

You guys should keep it simple, play base defense, run the ever living hell out of the ball, and by Midway through the second quarter, the game should be comfortably in hand.

 

[CuseJacket]

Just curious if (in your opinion) the staff is trying to do TOO much marketing/recruiting/peripheral stuff....i.e. all the various videos and social media things, uniform reveals, etc. Would stripping away all non-essential activities that don't directly lead to preparing for success in the upcoming week be suspended until this issue is fixed? The longterm will not be a problem for this staff if the immediate results don't get resolved.

I haven't been able to cover the team as closely over the last 3 years due to life circumstances, so I'll just point out that we had social media videos and uniform reveals before. Fewer? Yes. We also have a few more media content producers now, if I'm not mistaken. Absent insider information, it's anyone's guess as to how much more time the current coaches spend vs. the prior.

 

[InsideLB]

You guys should keep it simple, play base defense, run the ever living hell out of the ball, and by Midway through the second quarter, the game should be comfortably in hand.

Yes, we should. But will we?

 

[lv20gt]

I'll post here something similar to what I posted about Pastner and basketball a while back (I believe after the mercer game last year but maybe after the ball state game the year prior).

There are two general reasons to make a change. The first is what I point to as the Brian Gregory situation. Keeping him would have actively made our roster worse because he wasn't bringing in recruits. At the time I made this point about Pastner I said Pastner wasn't that and I don't think Collins is that. Basically I don't think bringing in a coach after next season will be worse than bringing in the same coach after this one from a "what he has to work with standpoint".

That is that you think you can have a significant upgrade. I'm sure someone is probably already thinking of a snide comment about a middle school coach or something, but even if you think 3 wins is what Collins will always have here, it doesn't make much sense to fire him just to land someone who is like a 4 win guy. Way back we fired Gailey for being a perpetual 7 win guy and we went a route we thought could improve us. When Johnson retired and it seemed that route was also limited to roughly the same level, we decided to go for a improving recruiting route which we thought could improve us. If we make a change, whether it is this year or 20 years, we need to get someone we think gives us a chance to improve. Otherwise we'd have the Brian Gregory DOA situation. I don't see any real reason to believe we can make an impactful hire this year. I know some people will scream about returning to the triple option but regardless of whether I think Monken would do well here I think he would be crazy to walk into this situation.

More realistically I think a change in staff is more likely this year. I don't think PNut had a bad game, as the plays were there to be made, but a new voice in the room could make the difference if things don't get sorted this year.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

No, CPJ's offense was running wild on Butch Jones...but Butch Jones's had the advantage of playing against our crap defense.

Tennessee 42-41 Georgia Tech (Sep 4, 2017) Game Stats - ESPN

Complete team stats and game leaders for the Tennessee Volunteers vs. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets NCAAF game from September 4, 2017 on ESPN.

www.espn.com

And GT not having a kicking game. Lack of a FG option is killing us...