Watched the press conference and read the whole thread. I absolutely love PJ and his no-nonsense approach to life and football. I will have to watch Army and Navy now to get my triple option fix. I also had a love-hate feeling with how utterly committed to he was to doing the right thing for his players and coaches up to and including his own and GT's expense. For example: if a player thought they'd be better off transferring, PJ would be brutally, murderously honest with them, but wouldn't do anything to change their mind besides give them the facts. If an assistant coach had an opportunity to get hired somewhere else and advance their career, he was all for that. I think he is a great man and have nothing but respect for his adherence to his principles.
I do think that he's been worn down and tired the last few years. I think the combination of rule changes pointed directly at making his offense harder to run along with a brutal lack of support from the invisible AD we had for a while, and the relentless whining of both the media and our fans that what he was doing didn't work just made him tired.
As for Geoff, color me cautiously optimistic. Maybe just downright torn on what to think. I hate to see the option go but I'm open to trying something different - I watched some triple-option highlights and man, a scary number of our best teams and best plays would get called back for "illegal block below the waist downfield". It makes me mad at the pansies that changed the rules because we had a schematic Xs and Os advantage and they couldn't compete unless they changed the rules.
I can definitely see how if we don't actually land some 4 star recruits and even a 5 star here and there, Geoff is gonna be our version of Butch. At the same time, I thought Dabo was a clown, but he's 110% responsible for building Clemson into consistently the 2nd best football program in the country (Alabama is an actual dynasty and Dabo is 2-3 more national titles from being on that level). So maybe Geoff can be our Dabo. I will say he says the right things. The degree you can get at GT is an advantage, and you need him and somebody like Calvin saying "I wanted to play in the NFL BUT JUST IN CASE FOOTBALL DIDNT WORK OUT" I think he really gets it.
As much as I love PJs spread option running brand of football, I'm not sure that it can survive and compete with the latest rule set. So let's see who Collins picks as his OC and DC and what they can accomplish. I'd love to see GT take over as the team known for insane special teams like VT used to be. I'd REALLY love to see us have a really good, aggressive, Tenuta-esk blitzing defense that defensive players love to play in. And most of all I just want us to have head coach with the vision an the passion and the skills to really leverage what GT can offer a student athlete and just get us all out of own way. I don't think we can be a perennial top 5 every year, but we can be a staple of the top 25 and a team that nobody wants to play on any given Saturday.
