Yes, CPJ got away from his 2013 experiment, and in 2014 went back to his traditional offense....and how did that work out...oh yea 11-3 and an Orange bowl. As for the team revolt thing, where you around in 1993 and 1994? Well it did happen.
You know, I was thinking about this the other day. The repercussions of the 2013 and 2014 season.
Obviously, all speculation, but look at our schedule for 2013. Outside of 2 games (Clemson & BYU...btw, BYU was not as close as the score looks now) we were pretty competitive that year. We should have beaten UGA that year as well. We could have easily ended up 10-3 or 9-4 that season, but we ended the season at 7-6.
I believe we abandoned the "new" offensive schemes right after the VT game (which we lost 17-10...but it felt like we did squat on offense that night). Up till then we were undefeated, but CPJ decided to back to what he was comfortable with, which was his option heavy offense. The "what if" that keeps playing in my head is this: What if CPJ looked at the long view that year, bit the bullet and stuck it out with the new schemes? Had an entire year's worth of film to sell to recruits, and Vad stays. Work on adding more adjustments and wrinkles the following years. People forget, but that was Vad's first year as a starter after getting maybe 25-30% of the snaps in 2012. We saw glimpses of what Vad could become against UNC in 2012, Duke in 2013, UGA in 2013. Much in the same way we understand CNW's defense will go through growing pains, maybe we take some lumps in 2013, and possibly not have quite the year in 2014 we did, but still a very good year, but a GREAT year in 2015 when Vad is a senior and JeT is a JR, and a GREAT 2016 when JeT is a senior? (BTW, as "bad" as we remember 2013 being offensively, we still ended up 39 in OFEI). The long view here is that CPJ is willing to stick with the "new" offense that attracts better recruits who want to play in a more wide open offense, and the narrative of GT is different now. It's possible the majority of the roster on the offensive side of the ball could be different right now had CPJ stuck to what he originally intended with Vad...who BTW, went on to be one of the biggest offensive weapons at James Madison, which was obviously playing in a lower tier.
Did the success of 2014 make CPJ even more stubborn about his system and the program? What we do know is that 2014 was a great season (for GT standards) and 2016 was a very good year. But we also know that 2015 was a dud, 2017 was a dud, and 2018 isn't looking so bright, and the state of our program is heading in the wrong direction. It's possible CPJ may not survive to see 2019, and if he repeats this performance next season, there's a 99% chance he probably doesn't finish 2019. If we don't make a bowl game this season, and it's looking that way, we will have missed a bowl game 3 out of 4 years, and have a losing record 3 out of the last 5 years.
Obviously a LOT of "what ifs" and speculations going on here, but it certainly will be one of the bigger "what ifs" in GT history after CPJ's story has been written.
