OC and DC replacement thoughts!!

[UgaBlows]

Not saying you're right or wrong, but looking at Army as reference, since 2018 they've increase number of big plays (40+ yards) per game. They were in the 80's ranking out of fbs teams and the past two years they are in the high 40's.

do you have GT’s rankings on this 2008-2018?

 

[Josh H]

I don’t ever watch them but isn’t their scheme a little more modern than CPJ’s version?

If you watch them play Navy, their scheme is more conservative.

Granted I think the last two navy v army games were in the cold/snow and not exactly the environment where you want to be throwing and pitching the ball all over the place.

Coastal Carolina is a fun offense if you haven't watched it. I always thought one of the weaknesses of PJs offense was that it married two very practice intensive offenses (run and shoot, with multiple routes that require every player to read the defense correctly) and the spread option (takes a lot of repetition to learn the assignment and blocking)

That's another advantage the service academies have, they don't have scholarship limits. So they are almost always starting juniors/seniors all over the field.

 

[MWBATL]

Would be nice , Hell right now I would take Elmer Fudd and Froghorn leghorn over the two we have now.

I don't think we could afford them.

 

[TromboneJacket]

I don’t think OC is the problem, but if we wanted to hire a guy who has had success in the past in that role, I’d very experienced, has been a head coach, would probably be willing to come to Tech, and is available right now, there’s Ken Whisenhunt.

For DC, I honestly don’t know a lot of guys who we could get who are any good. I’d be willing to give Nate Woody another chance though. CPJ retired before he really had a chance to install his defense. I’m just so flabbergasted by how bad we look that I don’t even want to watch anymore. I never thought I’d say that.

 

[Jim Prather]

I don’t ever watch them but isn’t their scheme a little more modern than CPJ’s version?

Actually ARMY may be an even more classic version of CPJs offense than what CPJ was running the last couple of years. You are probably thinking about Navy who has been trying to tweak it for a while and hasn't been very successful.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Monken tweaks it a lot. Haven’t watched Bohannon enough. Navy runs their backs closer to the LOS which I can’t understand.

 

[forensicbuzz]

There is a difference between well executed and well called. Heres what i do not see from coach P. I don't see things building upon themselves. If you want a good example of this watch any Ole Miss game kiffen seems to scheme runs open with pass concepts, passes open with run concepts and receivers wide *** open his team doesn't always execute but the scheming is there and the play calling is there. When Coach P is calling plays it seems like he has a script for the first drive a script for the first drvie fo the second half. and everything else is a ask madden crapshoot.

He's nto calling based on past success (the johnson method oh rocket toss worked to the left? lets see if it works to the right... oh it worked... call it left etc they stopped it? counter etc)

He's not calling based on future setup. Run up the middle, run left, Quick slant concept, TE Pass concept. Run up the middle PLAy action one 2nd and short of the same run action for a shot play. (the chan gaily pro style method)

He's doesn't seem to be calling in reaction to defensive tendencies either which you might think he'd be doing given the way we seem to be attempting to keep driving plays, but we will predictably run up the middle on an inside zone for no gain on short yardage situations even when the linebackers are cheating up we seem to have no true play action off of that ( which is ironic as this is pretty much what an RPO slant is supposed to eb fore but we aren't running that because our WR's are blocking on these plays).

All I can think is he's literally calling by analytics. And it doesn't work. The worse thing honestly is our plays seem to be "different for different's sake" game to game. Last game we came out in a pistol offset I for the first time all year I think. How much time did we practice that formation? SIms looked like he was as worried about getting to the right handoff spot as he was reading the defense. No one has time for things to become second nature constantly changign things up. We have no base formation that we can fall back on and say okay guys this is what we do. EVERY successful team has this. We don't.

I know there's a difference. I chose those words (altering yours) intentionally. I don't know that I can tell if what you're saying is true or not because the execution isn't there. When the plays are well executed, we look pretty damn good. I think he does call plays in reaction to what the defense is doing. We just seem to sputter occasionally. That's the problem with being so young; we're inconsistent. Hard to call a good game when the right plays get blown up. But I understand your concern.

 

[LongforDodd]

So in our fan base I have seen a lot of the fans asking what to do with the coaching staff.

I have been behind Collins this whole time. I was a big believer in Andrew Thacker. I have never liked Dave Patenaude and thought he was a really bad hire for the program (my opinion on Patenaude).

So thinking in the future and my opinion of what will happen after the uga game. I think Thacker and Patenaude are both gone. Just mine opinion but something has to change. On the defensive side of the ball. Coordinators that I would be okay with bringing to the flat. We are not going to bring a DC from other power 5 schools meaning your not getting Venables. Now if they are the Co-DC at a power 5 school then that's a different story. So this name was mentioned yesterday. Nate Woody, when he was here at tech for the one year. Our defense was in the top half of FBS schools. Except for points allowed I believe. Other coordinators are: Chad Staggs DC at CCU, Charlie Strong Assistant head coach & inside linebackers coach at Jacksonville *not likely but a name to throw out*, Charles Kelly associate defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Alabama. Kelly replace AL Grove at Tech in 2012 for a half season. Under him our defense was pretty good. Lastly, Jon Tenuta defensive analyst at Virginia Tech. When Tenuta was the DC on the flats our defense ranked in the top 25 in most categories. These are just name that's pops up first.

Moving on to the offensive side of the ball. Now I was reading an article yesterday from back when Collins was hired. Some of the fan base wanted to see Patrick Nix back as the OC. This would be a cheaper hire since he is the head coach of Centeral HS in Phenix City Alabama. Willy Korn Co-OC at CCU, Zach Kittley OC at Huston Baptist, Brent Key, Tashard Choice, Ian Shoemaker OC at Eastern Washington. These a few names that come to mind as replacements.

Now everyone will have different opinions and might question why to some of the names. At the end of the day if Collins replaces both DC and OC. I hope he does! Any of these names listed I would be perfectly fine with.

GO JACKETS!

Whatever happens the LOS's have to be stocked or restocked. Period. Nothing else will matter if that doesn't happen.

 

[Billhuss64]

An outside the box with some risk. George Godsey QB and OC. He has experience mostly in the NFL (some college) under some good coaches. He has bounced around, many coaches do (look at Saban he did the same in his early career). Godsey was a success at GT as a player not because of raw talent but "football smarts". He has been coaching a while now and is co OC at Miami Dolphins now.

 

[jgtengineer]

I don’t agree with this. CPJ was totally scheme and we always had excellent explosive plays until his last 2-3 years here.

We are talking about a spread but johnson schemed into athletic mismatches. The entire point was to get into a numbers game where a very athletic runner is acting on air. Or a A back/reciever was wide *** open on the play action. What I'm meaning is your entire scheme cannot just be "shot plays". IF we were relying solely on shot plays all johnson would have called was TO left and TO right.

 

[cthenrys]

Well at least we got a mention in The Athletic

 

[jgtengineer]

I don’t ever watch them but isn’t their scheme a little more modern than CPJ’s version?

Monken actually incorperates a lot more old school option formations than johnson did. Monken will role out there in the wing T and the bone as well as I form options, and he will even some times line up in single wing and direct snap to his QB like he's a tailback.

 

[Pointer]

do you have GT’s rankings on this 2008-2018?

I don't right now, but I'll look after work. That's why I was saying I'm not claiming you're right or wrong.
It's something interesting to look at though for sure.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I know there's a difference. I chose those words (altering yours) intentionally. I don't know that I can tell if what you're saying is true or not because the execution isn't there. When the plays are well executed, we look pretty damn good. I think he does call plays in reaction to what the defense is doing. We just seem to sputter occasionally. That's the problem with being so young; we're inconsistent. Hard to call a good game when the right plays get blown up. But I understand your concern.

Looks to me like he calls plays that are scripted against a generic opponent instead of having a plan against the team we’re actually playing. Must be that secret book that our coaches have.

 

[Animal02]

If you watch them play Navy, their scheme is more conservative.

Granted I think the last two navy v army games were in the cold/snow and not exactly the environment where you want to be throwing and pitching the ball all over the place.

Coastal Carolina is a fun offense if you haven't watched it. I always thought one of the weaknesses of PJs offense was that it married two very practice intensive offenses (run and shoot, with multiple routes that require every player to read the defense correctly) and the spread option (takes a lot of repetition to learn the assignment and blocking)

That's another advantage the service academies have, they don't have scholarship limits. So they are almost always starting juniors/seniors all over the field.

That and they don't have a lot of people transferring out.

 

[Animal02]

It seems like when they changed the blocking rules specifically to hurt our offense is when the explosion plays really died back, that or DC’s schemed to make us drive the length of the field hoping that we would fumble as we moved down the field 3.3 yards at a time

The other thing was, without a significant pass threat, it seems teams figured out that making the QB the "option" , you could beat up and gas the QB through the duration of the game.

 

[Lee]

I don’t agree with this. CPJ was totally scheme and we always had excellent explosive plays until his last 2-3 years here.

I haven’t looked up the numbers, but I feel like we were still pretty explosive in those years as well.

I feel like our issue was when we didn’t hit explosive plays we didn’t score. Honestly a little like our offers this year. More efficient but still struggled to match the ball down the field consistently.

I think it was due to our lack of a threat to throw the ball. We were always run heavy with CPJ, but when we were really good, we always had the threat to throw the ball.

Marshall was a gamer and super illusive with the ball in his hands, he just struggled throwing he ball. Same with To IRAs when he was in there.

I could also be misremembering as well.

Your overall point stands though. CPJ’s GT teams typically always was up there in explosive plays. 2014 was stupid.

 

[jgtengineer]

I haven’t looked up the numbers, but I feel like we were still pretty explosive in those years as well.

I feel like our issue was when we didn’t hit explosive plays we didn’t score. Honestly a little like our offers this year. More efficient but still struggled to match the ball down the field consistently.

I think it was due to our lack of a threat to throw the ball. We were always run heavy with CPJ, but when we were really good, we always had the threat to throw the ball.

Marshall was a gamer and super illusive with the ball in his hands, he just struggled throwing he ball. Same with To IRAs when he was in there.

I could also be misremembering as well.

Your overall point stands though. CPJ’s GT teams typically always was up there in explosive plays. 2014 was stupid.

We had plenty of times in cpj offenses wehre we just 5 yarded it down the field and still scored. 2015 was defintely an explosive plays only offense though and well i think that actually kinda proves the point i was making about it not being a viable offense. 2016 Had a couple of games like this too. (UVA) The difference was i don't think i've seen us have a clinton lynch type no one within 15 yards of him seam route since collins took over.

 

[Lee]

We had plenty of times in cpj offenses wehre we just 5 yarded it down the field and still scored. 2015 was defintely an explosive plays only offense though and well i think that actually kinda proves the point i was making about it not being a viable offense. 2016 Had a couple of games like this too. (UVA) The difference was i don't think i've seen us have a clinton lynch type no one within 15 yards of him seam route since collins took over.

Agreed. I was talking about the last 2 years which is what the OP referenced.

I actually used to love it when we would salt the last 9 minutes of the game away getting just enough to move the chains. Nesbitt led teams were the best. His QB follow was virtually unstoppable on short yardage.

McGowan has gotten free a few times, but almost no style of offense is going to lead to guys getting that free in the passing game Like the last one because we passed so little.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Having been out of town with family this past weekend, I was forced to watch most of the Tennessee v Kentucky game Saturday night. Kentucky held the ball for 46 out of the 60 minutes. They scored 42 pts putting up 612 yds of total offense while only giving up one turnover. Tenn had no return touchdowns (KO, punt or TO). Tenn somehow won the game 45-42.

Jabari Small had 55 yds rushing with a long of 37
Jaylen Wright had 50 yds rushing with a long of 21
Hendon Hooker (the QB of course) had 41 yds rushing with a long of 25

Velus Jones, Jr had 100 yds receiving with a long of 72
Cedric Tillman had 79 yds receiving with a long of 37
JaVonta Payton had 78 yds receiving with a long of 75
Jalin Hyatt had 1 catch for 41 yds

So their top three rushers (this includes all but 5 rushes for the team) and their top four receivers (only excludes 1 catch for 18 yds) had practically 50% (at a minimum) of their production come on a single play. If you do that math, 308 yds out of their total 461 (about 67%) came on 7 plays.

I'm not saying we should aspire to be TN (although 5-4 doesn't look so bad right about now), but saying "our offensive success is explosive plays" doesn't seem like a completely negative thing if we get more consistent.

Hendon Hooker has made two offensive coordinators look like geniuses. I can't believe Tennessee actually started the other guy, (whose name I cannot recall) with Hooker on the bench and ready to go.