OC Chip Long Press Conference

[MidtownJacket]

This bit:
“Obviously, certain terminology is going to be different and whatnot. But as much as I can keep it and make it easier for them or someone they know or have a frame of reference. I've always had to do that of all my spot stops. And it's been good for me, but I'd rather have made it hard on one person instead of 40 and that's what I tried to do everywhere I've been.”

Makes me feel much better that he is coming out of the gate talking down the learning curve or transition. @Ibeeballin has broken down a lot of the similarity between what he does and what CDP was doing so I’m hopeful we will be able to move forward quickly.

I like his concepts around 12 personnel and the alignment between him and Key on being physically dominant and not so cute with play calling bodes well too I think.

 

[chewybaka]

DO NOT DRINK DIET SODAS THEY ARE POISON!!! FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE RIGHT HERE!!!

Sad…I love Diet Coke

 

[augustabuzz]

Over the many years I've watched Tech football, three OCs stand out: Frank Broyles, Ralph Friedgen, and Paul Johnson. I would love to see this guy join the circle.

Tom Moore and Steve Sloan should be added to that list. Frank Broyles was on the baseball team with my Dad at Tech.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

This is why I am leaning towards 8 wins this year. The next question is CGC really all that from a defensive perspective. and if he is, can he focus enough on the defense to apply his skills.

I think we will definitely see some significant improvement on Defense and I am expecting a huge improvement on offense from Long. (Plus a better offense makes the Defense better as well)

Is it official he’s running the D?

 

[slugboy]

Is it official he’s running the D?

Who knows for sure? Unless he announces it in some form, we won’t know until we observe Collins coaching the D in a game situation next season

 

[UgaBlows]

Who knows for sure? Unless he announces it in some form, we won’t know until we observe Collins coaching the D in a game situation next season

Maybe the spring game will offer some clues

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Is it official he’s running the D?

Honestly, at UF and MSU, he had NFL talent on the D line. I think he knows he doesn't have that at GT right now. Maybe some of the young guys will end up being NFL caliber, but that is not a given. I doubt he thinks he can magically make the D a lot better, but honestly, it was so bad last year, it is kinda impossible to believe it won't be better. I do think he will call the D plays, although he may let Thacker give him the calls from the booth, and he can change them if he likes. I do know this - we are going to learn this year if he is some kind of D "whisperer". I don't believe he is.

 

[stech81]

C

Maybe the spring game will offer some clues

Could unless we play touch football again

 

[GTLorenzo]

Maybe the spring game will offer some clues

So if he’s wearing socks, he’s coaching the D? No socks and it’s still Thacker?

If he’s wearing a jersey, is he coaching the D or playing?

 

[Ibeeballin]

I wrote this on Dec 8th 2021


I was extremely intrigued by the hire of OC Chip Long. I watched about 6 or so games of offensive snaps vs. quality competition to get an idea of where he wants take the offense. It appears we will be traveling in the same direction but the car has been upgraded with new features and capabilities.

The base offense is still inside zone with RPO attachments

The transition should be seamless as we already run the same concepts.

Ex: Duos

Counters/ Powers

RPO:

So other than verbiage, running the offense shouldn’t be an issue

Where i see some upgrades are:

Flexibility- you will see multiple looks to keep the defense guessing and rotating personnel

Inside zone out of 12per (1RB 2TE)

RPO out of 12per

RPO outta 11

Playing to your strength- 2 reasons i believe Chip Long was the guy chosen: 1) He’s schemed around QBs with Sims skill set in Brandon Wimbush. 2) He will scheme to get the ball into his playmaker hands.

We all thought Sims should’ve had more designed runs especially in the red zone. I’m sure we will see more of this under CCL

Whether it was Anthony Miller, Chase Claypool, or Cole Kmet, CCL ensured that those were fed and put in position to get key matchups


Miller on a Jet sweep

Miller in 1on1 cov. He wasn’t lying about throwing deep off of playaction.

Claypool is in Man coverage.

Versatility- Power and finesse in the offense. IMO this has been the reason his offenses has done so well in the redzone.

Want to play bully ball, he has that in the arsenal

Spread the defense out? Sure

Some creativity? Why not!

Cool middle screen here

I indeed believe CCL is an upgrade, but as we learned the offense is heavily dependent on the play Of the OL, but I’ve seen enough to get the sense that CCL will adjust his offense to what is working so we can perform at an high level

 

[ThatGuy]

I love a good tight end, oh wait y'all are talking about football

 

[bke1984]

DO NOT DRINK DIET SODAS THEY ARE POISON!!!

FIFY - If you're going to poison yourself with a carbonated beverage it might as well be with beer instead

 

[chewybaka]

FIFY - If you're going to poison yourself with a carbonated beverage it might as well be with beer instead

Liquid Bread...

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Liquid Bread...

The fast way to process carbs!

 

[slugboy]

I wrote this on Dec 8th 2021


I was extremely intrigued by the hire of OC Chip Long. I watched about 6 or so games of offensive snaps vs. quality competition to get an idea of where he wants take the offense. It appears we will be traveling in the same direction but the car has been upgraded with new features and capabilities.

The base offense is still inside zone with RPO attachments

The transition should be seamless as we already run the same concepts.

Ex: Duos

Counters/ Powers

RPO:

So other than verbiage, running the offense shouldn’t be an issue

Where i see some upgrades are:

Flexibility- you will see multiple looks to keep the defense guessing and rotating personnel

Inside zone out of 12per (1RB 2TE)

RPO out of 12per

RPO outta 11

Playing to your strength- 2 reasons i believe Chip Long was the guy chosen: 1) He’s schemed around QBs with Sims skill set in Brandon Wimbush. 2) He will scheme to get the ball into his playmaker hands.

We all thought Sims should’ve had more designed runs especially in the red zone. I’m sure we will see more of this under CCL

Whether it was Anthony Miller, Chase Claypool, or Cole Kmet, CCL ensured that those were fed and put in position to get key matchups


Miller on a Jet sweep

Miller in 1on1 cov. He wasn’t lying about throwing deep off of playaction.

Claypool is in Man coverage.

Versatility- Power and finesse in the offense. IMO this has been the reason his offenses has done so well in the redzone.

Want to play bully ball, he has that in the arsenal

Spread the defense out? Sure

Some creativity? Why not!

Cool middle screen here

I indeed believe CCL is an upgrade, but as we learned the offense is heavily dependent on the play Of the OL, but I’ve seen enough to get the sense that CCL will adjust his offense to what is working so we can perform at an high level

1. Thanks for the breakdown
2. I saw Patenaude try a few different personnel groupings (11, 21, 12, …). He didn’t seem to get many advantages out of them. I’d like to see how Long mixes and matches.
3. I saw us try to outrun UGA to the edge in the last game, and they were faster than us and had several tacklers waiting outside. That defense didn’t have a lot of weak links in it, but I hope Long does a better job of generating a mismatch.
4. There were several times I saw us try to run speed against speed or try to run our offense against what the other defense was best at. Hopefully, that becomes rarer.
5. The two back sets Patenaude ran had the advantage that both backs make a lot of effort to block and did pretty well. On the other hand, I saw the TEs miss a few blocks. It could be that I only remember the misses, but I can’t remember many times that one of our TEs sealed and edge and we got loose because of that. With Long coaching TEs I hope that improves.
6. We could really use some good H-Back blocking. If we’re going to recruits a lot of TEs, let’s get some advantage out of them.

 

[CEB]

1. Thanks for the breakdown
2. I saw Patenaude try a few different personnel groupings (11, 21, 12, …). He didn’t seem to get many advantages out of them. I’d like to see how Long mixes and matches.
3. I saw us try to outrun UGA to the edge in the last game, and they were faster than us and had several tacklers waiting outside. That defense didn’t have a lot of weak links in it, but I hope Long does a better job of generating a mismatch.
4. There were several times I saw us try to run speed against speed or try to run our offense against what the other defense was best at. Hopefully, that becomes rarer.
5. The two back sets Patenaude ran had the advantage that both backs make a lot of effort to block and did pretty well. On the other hand, I saw the TEs miss a few blocks. It could be that I only remember the misses, but I can’t remember many times that one of our TEs sealed and edge and we got loose because of that. With Long coaching TEs I hope that improves.
6. We could really use some good H-Back blocking. If we’re going to recruits a lot of TEs, let’s get some advantage out of them.

Item 3&4....
This is what I saw more than anything. Not that it was most prevalent, just that it seemed most notable to me watching games. We would often run sweeps / outside options and defenses consistently blew it it up at or behind the LOS. I didn’t rewatch or study to see why but I feel like it had to be something in personnel / formation. I couldn’t believe we were that slow. Maybe the decision in the mesh was taking too long (or wrong)? I don’t think we were missing corner blocks because it seemed like LB and S were there making tackles more often than CB or DE (and often it was gang tackles). Maybe no point in worrying about it since it is hopefully going to be fixed, but I felt like we wanted to get the edge often and were very rarely able. Were we tipping our hand somehow? It felt predictable to me... but maybe it was something else entirely.

 

[awbuzz]

Over the many years I've watched Tech football, three OCs stand out: Frank Broyles, Ralph Friedgen, and Paul Johnson. I would love to see this guy join the circle.

+1

 

[MidtownJacket]

I’m interested to see what we look like with him calling the plays and prepping the team week to week. Just really hoping for better continuity moments where we set things up based on a look or formation then come back to exploit the mismatch we expect.

Im looking for the chess against checkers match ups.

 

[Techster]

I wrote this on Dec 8th 2021


I was extremely intrigued by the hire of OC Chip Long. I watched about 6 or so games of offensive snaps vs. quality competition to get an idea of where he wants take the offense. It appears we will be traveling in the same direction but the car has been upgraded with new features and capabilities.

The base offense is still inside zone with RPO attachments

The transition should be seamless as we already run the same concepts.

Ex: Duos

Counters/ Powers

RPO:

So other than verbiage, running the offense shouldn’t be an issue

Where i see some upgrades are:

Flexibility- you will see multiple looks to keep the defense guessing and rotating personnel

Inside zone out of 12per (1RB 2TE)

RPO out of 12per

RPO outta 11

Playing to your strength- 2 reasons i believe Chip Long was the guy chosen: 1) He’s schemed around QBs with Sims skill set in Brandon Wimbush. 2) He will scheme to get the ball into his playmaker hands.

We all thought Sims should’ve had more designed runs especially in the red zone. I’m sure we will see more of this under CCL

Whether it was Anthony Miller, Chase Claypool, or Cole Kmet, CCL ensured that those were fed and put in position to get key matchups


Miller on a Jet sweep

Miller in 1on1 cov. He wasn’t lying about throwing deep off of playaction.

Claypool is in Man coverage.

Versatility- Power and finesse in the offense. IMO this has been the reason his offenses has done so well in the redzone.

Want to play bully ball, he has that in the arsenal

Spread the defense out? Sure

Some creativity? Why not!

Cool middle screen here

I indeed believe CCL is an upgrade, but as we learned the offense is heavily dependent on the play Of the OL, but I’ve seen enough to get the sense that CCL will adjust his offense to what is working so we can perform at an high level

Good stuff as always, 54!

I wrote in various threads over the years that just because offenses look the "same" doesn't mean they are the same. The whole notion that GT will fail "doing what everyone else does" is a product of low fanbase self esteem. I think fans get caught up in formations and the way something looks, that they don't realize that coaches have their own spin what happens to get from point A to point B. There's a lot that goes on in between, and that's what makes coaching unique...not formations, not how something looks.

For instance, Mike Leach has a LOT of successful Air Raid coaching proteges at various levels. Two of which are Dana Holgorsen and Lincoln Riley. Mike Leach is the "passing version" of Paul Johnson. Leach LOVES to put the ball in the air (much like CPJ emphasizes the running game). This year, Leach passed 700+ times versus rushing it 200+ times. He's as pure to the Air Raid as CPJ is to the spread option. Lincoln Riley uses the Air Raid passing concepts to set up RPO and play action. He's also starting to emphasize dual threat QBs to put even more stress on defenses. Oklahoma ran the ball more than they passed under Lincoln Riley every years he was the HC or OC (2015-2021). Some years by large margins. Holgorsen is much the same as Riley's. He loves to use the Air Raid schemes to set up his RPO and play action game.

Friedgen, IMO gold tinted view, is one of best offensive masterminds for his era...his concepts would still devastate defenses in the modern game. What he was doing wasn't too unique for his coaching period, he just had an uncanny ability to find your weakness then attack them, and his passing and running schemes were sound. GT didn't "out athlete" many teams during the Friedgen era, but look what his offenses did to FSU/Miami/UGA.

54's videos are great examples of the point I'm trying to make. It's not what we're running, it's who's running it. Hopefully, Long will be the OC breakthrough GT needs. GT isn't a school coaches can come to "out athlete" other schools. We need the "money ball" type of OCs (and DCs) who can outscheme other coaches, find and develop talent, and sign the 5-8 elite recruits every year.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Is it official he’s running the D?

Not a clue but if he wants to save his career as a head coach he needs to forget about most everything but the defense this year. I think it all works itself out in a good way