My Issues With Our Coaching

alagold

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If we are going to play with the big boys successfully we have got to score more than 1 TD ,NET ,a game like the last 2.
The DEf is holding down the score, but it is death by a thousand small cuts sometimes.You are right,at some point you GOT to be aggressive.

The only ONE thing that PJ could do RIGHT NOW to improve the Off is to go to a shotgun on SOME plays,esp 3rd and long.JT needs more time to see the field plus his running is more of a threat.!

The DBs are held back because they don't see a strong passer nor WRs in practice nor 3-4 wideout set much.
 

4shotB

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I agree with the comments about the vanilla D. However, remember when we used to play a game without seeing the other team's punter? Remember when we said all we need is D that will just get us 3-4 stops a game to be a top 20 program? well, we do have that now. The D, with all its warts, yielded 21 points net. I will take that every single game in today's game and take my chances on winning.The offense netted 7. Whatever else you might say, our trend is upward on the D side of the ball but declining on the O side.
 

AE 87

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I agree with the comments about the vanilla D. However, remember when we used to play a game without seeing the other team's punter? Remember when we said all we need is D that will just get us 3-4 stops a game to be a top 20 program? well, we do have that now. The D, with all its warts, yielded 21 points net. I will take that every single game in today's game and take my chances on winning.The offense netted 7. Whatever else you might say, our trend is upward on the D side of the ball but declining on the O side.

Our O gave mia 2 TDs, but as a result they only had the ball 3 times in the 1st half. They scored TDs on 2 of them. That's awful.

Our D plays great when it doesn't matter (up or dowm big) but is butter when it's close. If I was a DC who wanted the HC fired, it's exactly how I'd play it.
 

4shotB

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Our O gave mia 2 TDs, but as a result they only had the ball 3 times in the 1st half. They scored TDs on 2 of them. That's awful.

Our D plays great when it doesn't matter (up or dowm big) but is butter when it's close. If I was a DC who wanted the HC fired, it's exactly how I'd play it.

look, I am not saying the D doesn't have issues. It does. Our O and our D are at either end of the spectrum in terms of scheme....one is too basic and one is so complex a 5th year senior has trouble making reads and our OL often doesn't know who to block. neither situation is good...but at this point in time I believe the d is better than the o. which is somewhat like us debating whether McDonald's or Burger King makes the better hamburger. One has to win but it is a pyrrhic victory.
 

AE 87

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look, I am not saying the D doesn't have issues. It does. Our O and our D are at either end of the spectrum in terms of scheme....one is too basic and one is so complex a 5th year senior has trouble making reads and our OL often doesn't know who to block. neither situation is good...but at this point in time I believe the d is better than the o. which is somewhat like us debating whether McDonald's or Burger King makes the better hamburger. One has to win but it is a pyrrhic victory.

No worries. I disagree that the complexity of the O is a problem and the D is satisfactory, tifwiw.

I do think the D shows signs of improvement. If the O plays like CPJ apparently thinks it can, we should be able to win most of our remaining games.
 

COJacket

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I find that I have become more and more frustrated with our coaching as the years roll by. So I wanted to share my thoughts and see what others thought.

I have tried very hard to separate out the frustrations that come from losing football games because that in and of itself is not sufficient to the issue of coaching. I honestly think our talent level is such that we are never going to be able to take the route Clemson has taken, where they simply recruit pro type players and then can play and scheme they like and do it successfully because they have physical superiority. That has never been GT and never will be. Some will say our recruiting could be better. If true, I view that as an Administration issue, not a coaching issue. So I will speak no more to it here.

My coaching issues on each side of the ball:
DEFENSE-I find that I intensely dislike the vanilla "bend but don't break" defensive schemes that we play. I think in all cases when you are likely to face teams more talented than you (as we often will) that you must scheme to roll the dice to force errors. I am fully aware that such an approach may backfire, but it you are going to lose playing "vanilla" defense, does it really matter if you lose by a larger score because you decided to games on defense?

As an example, I spent yesterday's 3rd quarter really watching our defense. I watched how we lined up on every snap, how we played each play. Here we are, trailing by two TD's in the 3rd quarter against a team that clearly had equal to or slightly better talent on the field. Might this not be the time to gamble a bit on defense? Nope, not GT. We lined up in our standard package on every play. Only once did we shift our defensive players after our initial line-up. Only once did we blitz. Once in an entire quarter. There was NO attempt to disguise or confuse the QB. And there was NO attack or gamble on defense.

One can call this successful because we held on all but one series. I call it a failure because we did not play to win, we played to make it look good. We played a game where the only way we could have won was to hope that our opponent made the kind of dumb mistakes we made in the 1st half. I would much prefer to play a game where we game and try to force such mistakes. It seemed very likely to me by the 2nd half that Miami wasn't going to defeat themselves. Does it really matter to anyone that we lose 35-21 vs 49-21? Not to me!

And an attacking, aggressive Tenuta style defense was the ONLY way we realistically could hope to get back into the game. Without any turnovers or short fields, we would be doomed to getting at least 3 long TD drives in the 2nd half simply to force OT. With only 5 possessions likely, that's a very tall order.

OFFENSE-Once again, I want a scheme which recognizes the reality that we don't have the best athletes and still gives us a fighting chance to win games against superior opponents. For that reason, for the longest time, I have supported and liked CPJ's offensive scheme. However, the last two years, in watching this offense and others, I have decided that there is a problem. Essentially, the problem is that I think too many players have to execute well on any given play for our offense to work well. This shows up as "execution problems" or offensive line problems, when in reality it is that too may guys have to execute their assignment on each play for it to work and when just 1 or 2 guys fail (and often it isn;t just a lineman, often is is an A back or WR) then the play blows up and looks horrid.

When I watch some of th either offensive schemes out there, specifically the type of schemes that Clemson runs (for example) I notice that most passes are extremely short throws that can be executed so quickly it is almost impossible to get a pass rush on the QB. Heck, in the 1st half of our game with Clemson, their O line could have simply stood in our way without even trying to block and we couldn't have gotten to Watson on the vast majority of his passes. What that offense demands to have a chance is a good QB and some (a few, maybe 2) really superior WR's.. The number of guys who have to execute well on any given play is, often 2. The QB and the WR. The line doesn't matter because the pass is so fast their blocking becomes irrelevant.

I am no offensive genius, so while I use Clemson's scheme as a comparison, I am NOT claiming we could have the same success they have with it. They have superior athletes at every position and can execute many more plays and possibilities in ushc an offense than we could.

My point is simply that in CPJ's scheme, too many moving parts have to all work. While in other offenses, it appears to my uneducated eye that they can sometimes be effective with fewer moving parts working at the same time.

[Sid note,: I do also think that our opponents had some initial disadvantages in playing agains this scheme the first 5 years or so, but all have now gotten used to it and play it effectively on defense. However, that doesn't mean we have been "figured out". I think it means their players react more quickly now because they have seen it over and over again where in the first few years it was till new to them.]

This shows up in coach speak as discussions about how we need to simplify our offense. But CPJ will never really change this offense...it is what he knows and when it works it is a thing of beauty. I am not sure I would argue for CPJ to change things...but I am arguing that we change both our offensive and defensive schemes to recognize our physical disadvantages, and give ourselves a chance for the occasional upset.

I do tend to agree as well that CPJ hasn't done a good job in ht hiring and retention of assistants. This isn't a matter to me of looking at guys like Charles Kelly or Womack who have had some success elsewhere (they have also has failures, and much of their success is related simply to the superiority when they had great athletes.) But our line play has been such an issue for so long and we just really haven't made any changes there.

At any rate, my bottom line is that GT is likely to remind 6-6 or 7-5 type of program because we will not do the thing necessary to recruit superior athletes, BUT we could give ourselves a better chance sometime with more aggressive defensive schemes and simpler offensive schemes that take advantage of the skill sets of a few players. We might have lost to Clemson by 52-7 playing that way, but we might have beaten Miami 38-35 playing that way.

Just my 2 cents. I am really now bored with what I see with GT football and feel like the results are quite predictable.
I do appreciate a post like this MWBATL. Not ranting. Just laying out your thoughts in a rational manner. I am going to react which I rarely do but just have a different point of view (I graduated in 1975 so I have watched GT football intensely for 40 + years - in full disclosure, I am glass half full, optimist that will always be a full GT fan even when we are not so good - and I have seen much more "not so good" than "really good" over the 40+ years ):

1) To your first point about recruiting, I agree. What I do not understand at all is some of our fans that expect us to be Top 10 on a consistent basis (just read that in another post). There are 128 FBS D1 schools out there. At least 50% + (just guessing here) of those schools have larger student bodies, more money, and a more party like atmosphere on their campuses (all better recruiting pluses vs GT) . We have an Administration that wants us to be one of the top STEM schools in the world. and guess what, we are. We were just rated the 4th best engineering university in the United States. Our average SAT score for our incoming freshman was 1330 -1490 this year(some say the smartest freshman class ever) These are facts and no matter how much any of you want to say that these types of facts do not affect recruiting, guess what you are just flat out wrong. Thanks Coach Braun for pointing this out in your recent post. Can we get better than a 50+ rating maybe? But, clearly we have a different environment, and different goals as a school, than almost every FBS school out there. So, to expect Top 10 consistently is just crazy to me. I wish we could put this to point to bed. Unless we change the nature of the university this will not change.

2) I am not bored with our offense. We gave Miami a good game, except for a few mistakes. the play calling gave us a real chance to win. If Jeune or Lynch brings down the two passes they dropped (each totally catchable), if we do not have the two holds on the long passes that were caught, we could be looking at a different outcome, even with the two weird rapid fire turnovers. Yes, I would like the blocking to be better, and I would like JeT to be 3 inches taller, and I would like PJ to put a few more wrinkles in the offense and yes, I would like our receivers to get more separation, but the offense has given me too many happy moments over the past 8 years. And, I think there are more moments to come (just watching Mills, Lynch and Marshall gives me that confidence). I will always being rooting for our guys to get that one more block that breaks the long one. If we can win 7-9 games a year, with the occasional 10+ season, given Point 1 above, that is good to me. PJ has done that for the most part, so I am ok. Just being realistic. If that is being a wimp, like some of you suggest, so be it. I would rather enjoy what we have than be in a constant state of state of denial, anger, and unrealistic expectations. All of our historical data supports this realistic expectation. I am not going to be like most of the DAWG nation that always expect a NC no matter what is going on with their program (obtw, I do believe they have more fundamental reasons to think about a NC than we do).

3) I do agree with you that I get frustrated on our D during a game since it does look like we are so vanilla most of the time. It does not look to this untrained eye that we are trying to disguise anything ever once in awhile. I do not understand why Roof doesn't start bringing it faster. It always seems like Freeman, and now Simmons, don't really get going until later on in the game. I would like to see us unleash the beasts sooner. but this is from an uneducated fan, not a defensive guru.

Last thing I would like to say, is thanks for a great board. Most of our contributors are knowledgeable, do not rant and rave for ranting and raving sake. So Moderators keep doing a great job and thanks for all of you that are the "guru's" that bring great insight to the after game analyses. Much appreciated. And GO JACKETS!
 
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collegeballfan

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"bend but don't break"

Per Dabo that is what Clemson runs. See is comments after the UL game.

At any rate, my bottom line is that GT is likely to remind 6-6 or 7-5 type of program because we will not do the thing necessary to recruit superior athletes,
And, what is that "thing" we must do to recruit superior athletes?

Look 50% of the teams running ny scheme you can name have losing records. Period. Scheme is about as important as the weather.; it rains on both sides of the field.

Your problem is that GT decided that it is an academic institution first and an athletic institution last. Do you really, truly, want to change that?
Do you want to be top 10 in academics or football?
 

InsideLB

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Our D plays great when it doesn't matter (up or dowm big) but is butter when it's close. If I was a DC who wanted the HC fired, it's exactly how I'd play it.

In part that is due to the other team going conservative with a lead and running the ball more. But even in wins it seems our D starts slow then improves. Dont know what the answer is.
 

TheSilasSonRising

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Per Dabo that is what Clemson runs. See is comments after the UL game.


And, what is that "thing" we must do to recruit superior athletes?

Look 50% of the teams running ny scheme you can name have losing records. Period. Scheme is about as important as the weather.; it rains on both sides of the field.

Your problem is that GT decided that it is an academic institution first and an athletic institution last. Do you really, truly, want to change that?
Do you want to be top 10 in academics or football?

Too simplistic. Tell me, truly, of a university where the entire university is run by athletics. The entire university.

Places with more versatility, yes.

But we can do more.

Top 10 every year? Hell, USC, Texas, ND, tons of places CAN NOT do that.

We CAN goal to be top 25 every year.

We have to enlarge our recruiting pool, and that can be done without Academic compromise.
 

GTNavyNuke

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........ Your problem is that GT decided that it is an academic institution first and an athletic institution last. Do you really, truly, want to change that?
Do you want to be top 10 in academics or football?

Yes I want to change that. I want to be the best possible academic institution within Board of Reagents constraints and the best in athletics too.

There does not have to be a first and last; phrasing the question that way makes it rhetorical with it's implied and in my opinion invalid assumptions. (Have you stopped beating your wife/dog?) Now we get back into the endless curriculum discussion.......
 

orange14

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We run bend don't break for several reasons.
1) We don't get to the QB under 3.0 seconds with any consistency
2) We aren't as fast in the secondary as we were last year
3) We are pretty nasty in the red zone
we don't get to the quarterback in 6 or 9 seconds either much. We have our pass rushers skewered on some OL and there they stick mostly every play. I think our rush defense is solid though.
 

GTJake

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The Defense is not the problem, although yes we need a better pass rush.
The problem solely rests on CPJ and play calling.
#1) He still thinks the TO is unstoppable ... well it is stoppable.
#2) He will go to his grave trying to prove it ... stubborn.
 
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The Defense is not the problem, although yes we need a better pass rush.
The problem solely rests on CPJ and play calling.
#1) He still thinks the TO is unstoppable ... well it is stoppable.
#2) He will go to his grave trying to prove it ... stubborn.
Johnson hardly used the TO at all Saturday. Some plays, yes, but the majority, no. People think because that is his trademark, that that's the only thing he uses, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
 
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I probably need to go back and re-watch, after the back-to-back defensive TD's by Miami I might have gone slightly blind.
It certainly resulted in far more yardage gained this week than any in the past, other, I guess, than the Mercer game. Going to the no-huddle offense gave the team the opportunity to get their assignments right....or most of them. Would that have helped against Clemson? Who knows, but it sure couldn't have hurt.
 

takethepoints

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Other than the two fumbles, over which he had no control, I think the play calling Saturday was the best so far this season.
Yessss. If you hold the ball 19 minutes longer then your opponent and run up 361 yards total offense, the play calling isn't the problem.

As I said earlier, I thought the game would come down to a field goal late by one team or the other. And, without the turnover TDs, that's exactly what would have happened. Both sides of the ball delivered but we gave them the game. I hate that personally, but it happens. To do better, all we have to do is continue to improve marginally each week on both O and D and, above all, quit shooting our selves in the foot. This is mainly a matter of stopping penalties, particularly holding calls on passing plays. You won't see another pair of series like the turnover TDs anytime soon, but having to call back good pass plays due to holding is not acceptable. Something Coach will be emphasizing this week, I'll wager.

It also hasn't been helpful to have a starting OT out for three weeks and our starting RG out for 6 quarters against our best opponents of the season. What we need to do is get an OL on the field for two games that knows how to work with each other. Let's hope that happens soon.
 

Cam

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I just saw that it was reported that Charlie Strong has demoted his DC. Supposed to be an excellent recruiter and really connects with the kids, but just isn't getting it done as a play caller. Sound familiar? Would you think Ted Roof would stick around if we demoted him to LBs coach and brought in another person as DC? He'd take a significant pay cut and role cut, but he'd still be at his alma mater and a great asset given his recruiting prowess. He's already doubling as the LBs coach and DC, we'd just be taking away the DC duties. For what it's worth, I don't think he's actually as bad as people say. We're averaging 1.67 points per drive (I took out Miami's one play drive at the end of the half) on the entire season and 18 points a game. Clemson and Miami aren't pushover offenses and we gave up 24 and 21 points to them. That's with one senior on defense and our biggest play makers being young. But we'll see how the season plays out.
 
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