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

[CuseJacket]

So...I clearly do not fit your desired demographic with this (as I'm transparently somebody with an infatuation with the offense, and not somebody interested in GT's best interest at heart, with the exception of the fact that i've grown fond of the fanbase over the years), but I'll jump in. If it's not welcome, please feel free to delete this post, as "fans of other teams showing up after years when we're at our lowest to offer their opinions" might not be what you're looking for at the moment.

That said: what does your fanbase think should be your "expected value" as a football program.

If you didn't care about GT at all, but were a fan of East California State, and with no passion looked across the country, and assessed GT, what would you think their fans should reasonably expect?

You're a small school, with a tough academic program, in a great recruiting area, with a crappy fanbase (remember, external eyes. You don't show up to games, you don't have a great giving base, etc), with "meh" facilities, in a good but not great conference, and you're perennially short funds. There are some plusses, there are some minuses.

From this outsider's point of view, it's silly to think you "deserve" any better than middle of the road in the ACC, some years better, some years worse. This is true for recruiting, this is true for results.

I see no reason to believe you'll ever be a recruiting powerhouse. Even with Collins, who has a reputation of a great recruiter, his classses are as follows, nationally:
2021: #48
2020: #27
2019: #50
For 2022, you currently sit at #31

(source: https://247sports.com/Season/2019-Football/CompositeTeamRankings

That's.....meh. Given that there are ~65 P5 teams, it seems that Collins is recruiting "average" to "below average" vis a vis his peers.

If you're going to run vanilla schemes, and recruit at an average level, then unlesss you're just EXCELLENT teachers, you're likely to achieve average results. (As far as I'm concerned, conference record is what you judge by. Those are your peers).

IF YOU ALLOW that the "recruit our way to victory" looks to be not happening (given that you're not currently out recruiting your peers, and given the results on the field, recruiting is likely to get harder, not easier, as vision gets harder and harder to sell), and you want success, then scheme is the other way to do it.

There are relatively few outlier schemes these days, and the one most familiar to your fans is the one you just ran, and....it worked.

Paul Johnson had exactly 1 losing season in conference in his 11 years at the helm.

In my opinion, he consistently outperformed your "fundamentals" as a program.

He was never likely to win a national title, but (and you probably don't want to hear this), you are never likely to win a national title. Those days are over for you guys, as long as you are not playing to win like the powerhouses are.

Honestly, those calling for a CPJ scheme are (in my opinion) being realistic and accepting the cold, hard, Braine truth. Your school/program/donors/fanbase/etc are not willing to do what it takes to really be a powerhouse, so they should stop pretending like they're going to be a powerhouse by following the example of the other powerhouses. It's not going to happen. So either freaking BECOME Georgia, and drastically reduce your academic standards, and spend millions and millions on facilities and TV and marketing, and etc, or stay Georgia Tech, and punch above your weight via scheme.

I enjoy your opinions at all times. To your point, some might not like the timing or source of the perspective, but I greatly appreciate it.

There's two data points re: your projection of recruiting rankings that I greatly disagree with that are fundamental premises worth agreeing on, otherwise we'll never agree on the takeaways:
1) You attribute the 2019 class to Collins. He was in fact hired less than two months before the 2019 signing day. We can parse that apart, but I think it's fair that he does not own the final ranking of that class.
2) That leaves 3 years of data, two of which agree with my point. The class that does not agree/adhere with the top 30 principle was 2021 which was intentionally augmented by a record number of portal transfers. In other words, the HS ranking was an outlier with a clear and decisive reason. TBD on relative contribution of those transfers.

So, if you can come around to us looking more like a top 30 recruiting ceiling, what 'expected value' should we expect with top 30 classes? I would say top 30 results on average, or thereabouts. Regardless of scheme. To me that leaves open the door to upper-middle ACC and special seasons. Only in the last 10 years or so could a team finish as ACC runner-up and still make an Orange Bowl. You and we observed that first-hand with our respective squads.

Do you agree with my reframing of recruiting? And if so, does that change your opinion of 'expected value'? I still agree that there's a hurdle to overcome to be elite, and by no means am I saying that top 30 gets us near elite. But to win the Coastal does not require 'elite' based on its current formation.

 

[gtg936g]

I have been in shock and awe since about 9:30pm last night that Geoff Collins let a student section decide a 4th down for him. How completely spineless.

Kinda reminded me of “ask the audience” on a gameshow.

 

[CuseJacket]

@jgtengineer @AlabamaBuzz @takethepoints @gtg936g

Won't quote all of your posts given the length. Appreciate all of your perspectives. While each was slightly different, I agree with one general premise. We need better coaching and discipline first and foremost, regardless of which direction we go on scheme.

I also sense that you aren't necessarily married to Monken/Bohannan, which helps quell my main point of confusion and concern on timing of the posts yesterday/today. Certainly we will have to punch above our weight to compete with the Clemsons, Bamas, etc.

@AlabamaBuzz - I think you get to the heart of the 'what do we do long-term' when you point out the top 5 are in a different stratosphere than they've ever been. "Physical superiority cancels all theories", said a wise CPJ, and I think we reached a point of no return by the end of the last regime and potentially even now, despite better recruiting (gameday/preparation challenges aside).

I'm not sure what the answer is. My belief is something will change the landscape of NCAAF in the next 5-10 years that will dictate our fate and spot in the pecking order, to an order of magnitude that will dwarf whatever GT HC is in place. Probably better for the expansion talk thread. But I appreciate your points of view better now thanks to your replies.

 

[jacketup]

Lots of fans do not understand the disadvantages he was under.

If he was under such disadvantages as you and others say, why did he stay for 11 years? Would you work in an environment where the owners were holding you back? Why did he keep accepting contract extensions?

 

[ilovetheoption]

I enjoy your opinions at all times. To your point, some might not like the timing or source of the perspective, but I greatly appreciate it.

There's two data points re: your projection of recruiting rankings that I greatly disagree with that are fundamental premises worth agreeing on, otherwise we'll never agree on the takeaways:
1) You attribute the 2019 class to Collins. He was in fact hired less than two months before the 2019 signing day. We can parse that apart, but I think it's fair that he does not own the final ranking of that class.
2) That leaves 3 years of data, two of which agree with my point. The class that does not agree/adhere with the top 30 principle was 2021 which was intentionally augmented by a record number of portal transfers. In other words, the HS ranking was an outlier with a clear and decisive reason. TBD on relative contribution of those transfers.

So, if you can come around to us looking more like a top 30 recruiting ceiling, what 'expected value' should we expect with top 30 classes? I would say top 30 results on average, or thereabouts. Regardless of scheme. To me that leaves open the door to upper-middle ACC and special seasons. Only in the last 10 years or so could a team finish as ACC runner-up and still make an Orange Bowl. You and we observed that first-hand with our respective squads.

Do you agree with my reframing of recruiting? And if so, does that change your opinion of 'expected value'? I still agree that there's a hurdle to overcome to be elite, and by no means am I saying that top 30 gets us near elite. But to win the Coastal does not require 'elite' based on its current formation.

I don't agree with it, because everybody has access to the transfer portal, and thus over time, those guys are baked into the rankings. I'm sure if you dug around, half the teams in the country have a "yeah but" Factor they can make an argument if they wanted to.

I'm fine with point one (although if we are being fair, the two most effective offensive players last night were not Collins recruits).

We shall see where the 2022 class ends up, but even if he doesn't drop any spots and ends up around 30, my point is that that isn't anything special.

That's middle of the road for the p5.

Interestingly enough, each of our programs made the Orange bowl primarily via X's and O's rather than recruiting. Bronco can't recruit at all, but he's a very good Xs guy, and he's not afraid to just absolutely run his quarterback into the ground in the hope that he somehow stays healthy throughout the year and we read the advantages.

The real thing, though, is that if you are going to run the same thing as everybody else, and have comparable talent to everybody else, you have to be a special teacher.

Actually, let's reframe the discussion: do you believe that Collins is the best recruiter that Georgia tech is likely to get? That is, do you believe he represents just about the ceiling of recruiting that your school is likely to achieve?

 

[ilovetheoption]

Lolol, that was the most disjointed post I've ever made. This is what happens when you're driving around doing speech to text into your phone trying to think about football and also navigating DC traffic

 

[bobongo]

If he was under such disadvantages as you and others say, why did he stay for 11 years? Would you work in an environment where the owners were holding you back? Why did he keep accepting contract extensions?

My guess is that GT was his one and only shot at coaching at a P-5 school, but that's just a guess.

 

[billga99]

The real concern is not only wins and losses now brought primarily by a coaching staff that is getting out schemed, but future affect on recruiting. I really am concerned about our 4 star recruits and other recruits for the 2022 class. I am also very concerned about talented players on our current roster. I am sure they are tired of losing. The other big thing is with NIL in place, going to greener pastures could net a lot of dollars in a player's bank account. Once players lose confidence in the coaching staff, you have the Bill Lewis era again. The transfer portal will make this happen much more rapidly.

 

[tmhunter52]

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.

Are you new here?

 

[1979jacket]

I have been a steady Ga Tech fan for 50+ years. I cannot remember being so disappointed in a loss and the state of our football program.

Apparently hype, and pizazz trump substance in our program. Hats off to our players for their effort. Last night was a failure of Xs and Os, a failure to prepare our team, and a killer for our recruiting. As much as I enjoyed our Paul Johnson era and the triple option when it was clicking, the program had run " out of steam" and it was time for a change.

Hats off to the NIU team. They deserved to win. They were the better team, better coached, better prepared team last night.

Unfortunately we need a new coach.

You are right NIU deserved to win and are better than we are. The only time I was as disappointed was Furman loss under Curry. This was a epic loss because I don't think we recover. I predict a very bad season.

 

[bobongo]

Actually, let's reframe the discussion: do you believe that Collins is the best recruiter that Georgia tech is likely to get? That is, do you believe he represents just about the ceiling of recruiting that your school is likely to achieve?

Pretty close to it.

 

[Pointer]

@jgtengineer @AlabamaBuzz @takethepoints @gtg936g

Won't quote all of your posts given the length. Appreciate all of your perspectives. While each was slightly different, I agree with one general premise. We need better coaching and discipline first and foremost, regardless of which direction we go on scheme.

I also sense that you aren't necessarily married to Monken/Bohannan, which helps quell my main point of confusion and concern on timing of the posts yesterday/today. Certainly we will have to punch above our weight to compete with the Clemsons, Bamas, etc.

@AlabamaBuzz - I think you get to the heart of the 'what do we do long-term' when you point out the top 5 are in a different stratosphere than they've ever been. "Physical superiority cancels all theories", said a wise CPJ, and I think we reached a point of no return by the end of the last regime and potentially even now, despite better recruiting (gameday/preparation challenges aside).

I'm not sure what the answer is. My belief is something will change the landscape of NCAAF in the next 5-10 years that will dictate our fate and spot in the pecking order, to an order of magnitude that will dwarf whatever GT HC is in place. Probably better for the expansion talk thread. But I appreciate your points of view better now thanks to your replies.

Maybe we are so hamstrung by resources, including recruiting side, that in order for CGC to perform to his strength (recruiting), he has to dedicate much more time to it to make up for said lack of resources compared to other teams currently successful at recruiting. This in turn takes away from other areas of his responsibility on the actual coaching side. Probably the opposite was true for CPJ, choosing to focus his available time on coaching/scheming at the expense of great recruiting.
It reminds me of when I first started at Tech. A good family friend who had just gotten out sat me down and told me "good grades, social life, or sleep, pick two". The next level teams really get to pick all three of the football equivalent of this.
What's becoming more apparent is that if we want to continue down this path of elite or above average recruiting, we are going to need additional resources in order to be able to match the coaching to it as well.
I'm my opinion, the path to wins and program success would be easier if we increase resources and get a Monken/Bohannon since we will not be competing for the same players everyone else is necessarily (keyword). But again without additional resources, the ceiling will be similar to CPJ years anyways (which many, including myself, would love right about now).

I feel bad for CGC I'm a way. I think he really wants to succeed, but I honestly believe he bit off more than he can chew. Like politician who all over promise to get elected and then unable to make good on said promises, even though they had good intentions. It still pisses people off.

In summary, can Tech recruit at a higher level then we've seen over the past decade, maybe. But it comes at the expense of time to dedicate to actual coaching.

 

[ilovetheoption]

Are you new here?

Yes and no. I used to post more several years ago. I'm a UVA fan, so feel free to tell me to piss off

 

[jacketup]

I don't agree with it, because everybody has access to the transfer portal, and thus over time, those guys are baked into the rankings. I'm sure if you dug around, half the teams in the country have a "yeah but" Factor they can make an argument if they wanted to.

I'm fine with point one (although if we are being fair, the two most effective offensive players last night were not Collins recruits).

We shall see where the 2022 class ends up, but even if he doesn't drop any spots and ends up around 30, my point is that that isn't anything special.

That's middle of the road for the p5.

Interestingly enough, each of our programs made the Orange bowl primarily via X's and O's rather than recruiting. Bronco can't recruit at all, but he's a very good Xs guy, and he's not afraid to just absolutely run his quarterback into the ground in the hope that he somehow stays healthy throughout the year and we read the advantages.

The real thing, though, is that if you are going to run the same thing as everybody else, and have comparable talent to everybody else, you have to be a special teacher.

Actually, let's reframe the discussion: do you believe that Collins is the best recruiter that Georgia tech is likely to get? That is, do you believe he represents just about the ceiling of recruiting that your school is likely to achieve?

To your last point, yes. Collins is primarily responsible for the 2007 class, our best to date. We have more 4 stars on the current team than ever. Empirical evidence indicates the affirmative.

Your other points are valid. Bobby Ross brought in guys who were big enough and fast enough and taught them to play their positions the right way. It's this part that's mostly missing now, although we still are not where we need to be at some positions.

Bronco is a great coach. I have to admit my belief that he could beat his current UVa team with GT's talent, and GT will probably lose to UVa.

 

[ilovetheoption]

To your last point, yes. Collins is primarily responsible for the 2007 class, our best to date. We have more 4 stars on the current team than ever. Empirical evidence indicates the affirmative.

Your other points are valid. Bobby Ross brought in guys who were big enough and fast enough and taught them to play their positions the right way. It's this part that's mostly missing now, although we still are not where we need to be at some positions.

Bronco is a great coach. I have to admit my belief that he could beat his current UVa team with GT's talent, and GT will probably lose to UVa.

You like bronco more than I do

 

[tmhunter52]

I wonder who will have the most fans at this week’s game - Tech or Kennesaw?

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Are you new here?

Thats funny. He's been around for years

 

[jacketup]

You like bronco more than I do

I watched him some while he was at BYU. "Great" may be too strong, because he can produce some head scratchers. But I think he is above average at strategy and preparation.

 

[jacketup]

My guess is that GT was his one and only shot at coaching at a P-5 school, but that's just a guess.

I agree. And there is a reason for that.

 

[tmhunter52]

Thats funny. He's been around for years

He clearly does not appreciate our proclivities to self-immolate…