Ok, you might be right. Which of those coaches did tstan hire and give 7 year contracts to? I actually don’t know.
He extended Danny Hall, and gave enough money to hire Ramsey, who in all likelihood will succeed CDH
He extended Pastner before his NCAAT run
He hired Nell Fortner
Since TStan has been AD, just about every athletic facility has been upgraded, including massive upgrades to Russ Chandler and the Zelnak basketball facility. The Edge building is scheduled for a
massive upgrade
Hiring/firing coaches is a large part of an AD’s job, but it’s far and away from being the
only job they have. I’d almost say it’s not even the most important. Raising money and allocating funds might be the most important, which TStan has done as good at as any GT AD ever and on par with Homer Rice. Also duties of note are: providing a good environment of leadership, being a good spokesperson, media relations, and the relationship with the fans.
People are looking back in hindsight and saying the Collins contract is bad and therefore TStan should face repercussions aren’t being logical. We weren’t going to hire another 3O coach so Monken was off the table. There was nobody in the hunt who would’ve accepted a contract much different than what Collins eventually got. Satterfield got 6 years at $3.25M per at Louisville and he was a “proven” G5 coach moving to a program that had plenty of recent success. You think we could’ve got him for cheaper or less years to turn over a 3O roster than what we gave Collins? No.
Tony Elliot has never been a HC of any team, and he can’t seem to figure out how to move a team full of 4 and 5 stars down the field. You think he would’ve been a good hire? We probably could’ve signed him to a 5 year contract, but no shot he takes $3M a year. He’s making $2M being just an OC, and judging his year at Clemson this year absolutely no guarantee he would be any better than what we are.
Whisenhunt has a pretty terrible career as an NFL coach, with no signs of being better as a college coach. Most NFL coordinators are making north of $1M, and there’s absolutely no reason he would’ve accepted less than $3M to accompany all of the additional hassles that come with being a college HC
Bohannon is about the only coach who we realistically probably could’ve got for a decent amount cheaper than Collins. But he has no experience as an FBS HC, and barely any as an FBS coach at all. Plus runs an offense similar to CPJ’s 3O. Would he have been dramatically better than CGC? Maybe, but there’s nothing that says he definitely would be.
CGC was hired
because he’s a salesman. He was hired to try and get Tech as far away from the 3O narrative as possible and to focus on recruiting to raise the talent level as much as possible. Our team talent composite went from 50th in 2018 to 33rd in 2021. That’s a substantial bump. I don’t think anyone really foresaw Collins only winning 3 games in each of his first 3 years. I think 2019 it was “acceptable” because it was year 1, and 2020 was weird because of Covid. But I guarantee you nobody including TStan or CGC actually believed 3-9 would repeat itself this year. TStan saw a coach who could change a narrative, increase talent, maybe make a couple of low level bowl games, and set up a great scenario for the next guy. That’s the rational way to look at things. Or you could just stay mad and call TStan an idiot and refuse to help GTAA and watch as every GT athletic program goes down the sh*tter because you don't like the head football coach
www.ajc.com
