Quick poll on the pulse of the fanbase....

[Mack]

I voted yes since I have seen little sucess in the PJ era.I think he is good fellow and good coach but unless we get the athlets we need seven and five is about our tops.Of course again run another poll and list ages who voted.Bet young guys 40 under are for him and us old guys are split.

 

[Eastman]

I voted no because I think PJ is a good fit for Tech in this era. PJ tells it like it is, has a strong record in academics, and considering the level of athletes he has had, seems to be in virtually every game. Had the Groh hire not occurred, (yes he made that call) I would think his overall record would have been exceptional. Although his personality doesn't change much I think he is continuing to learn how to coach Tech better. IMHO the staff is better, and although recruiting for Tech is tougher than most schools, I think improvements have occurred (looking good this year) and with the young talent we currently have, the future should be bright.

 

[hdgtfan]

I'm a big fan of CPJ and hope he can get it together at Tech.

Have to say I was initially a big fan but after recent seasons I am definitely wavering a good bit these days

Sad thing is I think he has done good things in some areas but the results and what seems to be very average recruiting at best has caught up with us along with opposing teams playing much better against our O

Continually losing to the big 4 opponents is disconcerting though we have had some close games including OT but just come up short too often along with consistent bowl game losses

At the same time the lack of a D that can actually win games for us affects not only the overall record but appears to impact play calling

Hope I am wrong but I will be pleasantly surprised if we can keep the bowl streak intact this year

It's been a tough year at work so maybe my mood has just soured a good bit

 

[alaguy]

I voted to still back PJ although the coming period may completely change that.Starting in 2 wks AND next yr will be a HUGE challenge. If he can get a 7-5 record out of this relatively weak inexperienced team and a 7-5 next yr vs some killer teams-- then he may have turned corner esp as to recruiting finally.

 

[Gtyellowjackets]

He's made all the correct personnel moves in a relatively timely manner (as opposed to Chan). Like firing 2 D-coordinators, strength coach, ST coach, recruiting coordinators. Recruited larger linemen when the smaller ones didn't work as expected. You could argue that he made bad hires to begin with but all hires are 50-50 and he had Ellis Johnson locked up and DRad wouldn't pay the extra $100k/yr. So he has had his hands tied in several areas to a large degree.

The only move he has failed to make (in my opinion) is doing something with Sewak. But even that, he has shored things up with the new ST coach helping out on the line.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

A technical complaint on word usage but I never put "faith" in humans, that is reserved for someone higher. So I will read this poll as asking if I have lost "confidence" or "trust" in CPJ.

Short answer is "no."

Long answer is that the biggest factor in continuing to run the GT football program is winning games against the top yearly opponents faced as well as in conference and postseason games. He has not won enough of those overall. But, he has been very competitive and close to winning in almost all of them. Close may only count in horseshoes and hand grenades but in reality it does make decisions to fire coaches more difficult. This is because gut wrenching OT losses and letting teams come from behind hurt more than getting blown out and not being competitive to begin with but only the latter kind of loss make a decision to fire a head coach easy.

On the other components besides winning enough high profile games CPJ is clearly doing fine to better than fine. His recruiting has been historically typical for Tech overall but trending up and he has earned a loosening of reins by the Hill as well as convinced the AD to invest more in staff. He also deserves credit for trying to bring Joe Hamilton in very early in his tenure here and then giving him the second chance once Joe proved he deserved it. I like the way CPJ handles his business in that regard. He does respect tradition, the importance of continuity with a program's past and both disciplines players and staff as well as forgives them in a judicious manner. He seems to have pretty sound judgment overall. I know it is not the highest priority to have a coach who is not an embarrassment but in a conference that now has Petrino in it I actually value this aspect because as always I am a fan of the program, the name on the jersey and not any specific coach.

I do think that today of all days with what the NCAA decided to do about Penn State it is a day to be thankful that Tech has never seemed in danger of letting any head coach become bigger than the Institute itself and its educational mission.

Frankly, I can easily see my agreeing one day to firing CPJ and yet never have lost my confidence in him as a head coach. At some point too many losses can make a change necessary despite all the positives a coach has. I think this was the case with Cremins who is rightly remembered fondly and revered by Tech fans even when the overwhelming view was that it was time to make a change.

My preference is to never have that day come so it is still as easy as ever to root for Tech to win every game!

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I voted yes since I have seen little sucess in the PJ era.I think he is good fellow and good coach but unless we get the athlets we need seven and five is about our tops.Of course again run another poll and list ages who voted.Bet young guys 40 under are for him and us old guys are split.

I'm old and I am completely behind him. I'm sick and tired of changing coaches every 5 or 6 years.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Oh Bruce....that sentiment hurts my heart. I was very against firing Cremins. I thought then it was a over hasty decision based upon very high expectations he had worked to create. I think time has shown that to be a bad decision. I truly believe Cremins would have turned things around nicely in short order. Great recruiting can do that quickly in Bball. (Sorry for the somewhat off topic)

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Of course I was also in the minority of Tech fans pushing to bring O'leary back after his ND debacle. We were too proud to do it. And got Chan instead.

 

[jchens_GT]

I'm old and I am completely behind him. I'm sick and tired of changing coaches every 5 or 6 years.

I almost think continuity is more valuable at Georgia Tech. We can't fire a coach and expect to blow the doors off in recruiting within 2 or 3 years like a handful of the factory schools can do. With the inherent challenges to recruiting at GT and the learning curve it creates for coaches, I'm all for giving a guy time to build something.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

I almost think continuity is more valuable at Georgia Tech. We can't fire a coach and expect to blow the doors off in recruiting within 2 or 3 years like a handful of the factory schools can do. With the inherent challenges to recruiting at GT and the learning curve it creates for coaches, I'm all for giving a guy time to build something.

I agree with this mostly. What I need to see is PJ expanding the recruiting nationally even more than we are now. I think to find D-linemen like Derrick Morgan and linebackers like Jeremiah, it will take a national campaign, which I realize they are attempting to do now. Hopefully, it will reap success.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I almost think continuity is more valuable at Georgia Tech. We can't fire a coach and expect to blow the doors off in recruiting within 2 or 3 years like a handful of the factory schools can do. With the inherent challenges to recruiting at GT and the learning curve it creates for coaches, I'm all for giving a guy time to build something.

I repeat what I referred to in an earlier post, if Frank Beamer had been at GT and had the record he did in his first 6 years at VT, he would probably have been fired after year 3 and definitely after year 6. Well, look what he has done since year 6 at VT. There's no guarantee that Johnson will have similar results, or that even Beamer would have done the same at Tech, but in the majority of cases, 6 years just isn't enough time to be sure a coach isn't going to work out. With Bobby Ross' successor, it was obvious from the start, but with most, you just need to be patient and see how things are going to go. Johnson isn't perfect (but what coach is?), but he sure hasn't had the 1-, 2-, and 3-win seasons that Curry did, or even Ross in his first 2 years. And his 6 years at Tech have certainly been better than Beamer's at VT.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Oh Bruce....that sentiment hurts my heart. I was very against firing Cremins. I thought then it was a over hasty decision based upon very high expectations he had worked to create. I think time has shown that to be a bad decision. I truly believe Cremins would have turned things around nicely in short order. Great recruiting can do that quickly in Bball. (Sorry for the somewhat off topic)

Yeah it would get off topic and deserves to be a thread in the Basketball Forum probably. I was a bit young and didn't fully grasp why Cremins was being moved on out. Probably a lot of background noise impacted it such as his flirting with other jobs at the wrong time given fan sentiment.

My impression as the years have passed and I became more aware of things was that if coaches could go on "sabbatical" the way professors do and take a couple seasons off then that would have been the way to go for Cremins. Too bad in the head coaching profession it is much more of a "you can never go home again" kind of scenario. It would be nice to have the option like how the Braves under Turner could have Bobby Cox as manager, fire him, but then bring him into the front office for awhile and later back to game day in the clubhouse. Sometimes a fan base and a head coach both need a reprieve from each other and could come back stronger for it.

So I vote for a "coaches sabbatical year" like tenured professors get.

 

[GT Man]

I am really happy with the fact that he hired Sisk. The conditioning of the team was on full display at Tulane. That was brutal heat and they kept chugging along.

 

[zhavenor]

I really screwed that up... I read the question wrong. For the record I have not lost faith in Coach Johnson. Subtract a yes and add a no.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

I repeat what I referred to in an earlier post, if Frank Beamer had been at GT and had the record he did in his first 6 years at VT, he would probably have been fired after year 3 and definitely after year 6. Well, look what he has done since year 6 at VT. There's no guarantee that Johnson will have similar results, or that even Beamer would have done the same at Tech, but in the majority of cases, 6 years just isn't enough time to be sure a coach isn't going to work out. With Bobby Ross' successor, it was obvious from the start, but with most, you just need to be patient and see how things are going to go. Johnson isn't perfect (but what coach is?), but he sure hasn't had the 1-, 2-, and 3-win seasons that Curry did, or even Ross in his first 2 years. And his 6 years at Tech have certainly been better than Beamer's at VT.

I think college football is just a different kettle of fish than many or most other head coaching gigs. It is part of why salaries are so ballooned in it.

a) You have very few games.
b) It is "amateur" athletics of college students who (at least at Tech) actually have to take school seriously.
c) You have a ton of moving parts and most of them are 18-21 years old.
d) The overall structure of the sport is heavily against your success recruiting at a place like Tech.

A college football head coach needs more "rope" in terms of years than possibly all other coaches in professional or amateur athletics to truly prove what kind of program they can create and sustain.

I emphasize that last word because I really think it is important to deciding when to fire a head football coach. Plenty of guys out there can create a 10+ win season and then jump for greener pastures and then . . . oh lookie! . . . the school ends up with NCAA sanctions or a dumpster fire left that was hidden behind a "successful" facade (looking at you Florida). The last thing Tech needs is a hot shot who runs a dirty program. My lord, if Tech ever got busted like that the NCAA would redefine the "death penalty" from what SMU got given the b.s. manner in which they operate.

 

[AE 87]

He's made all the correct personnel moves in a relatively timely manner (as opposed to Chan). Like firing 2 D-coordinators, strength coach, ST coach, recruiting coordinators. Recruited larger linemen when the smaller ones didn't work as expected. You could argue that he made bad hires to begin with but all hires are 50-50 and he had Ellis Johnson locked up and DRad wouldn't pay the extra $100k/yr. So he has had his hands tied in several areas to a large degree.

The only move he has failed to make (in my opinion) is doing something with Sewak. But even that, he has shored things up with the new ST coach helping out on the line.

I think this first point can't be over emphasized. We have a head coach who has fielded a top flight offense practically every year and has not been sitting on his hands trying to get a defense to match. I had not heard how close we were to Ellis Johnson, and man that sickens me. What could have been!!! We would have had Johnson and Johnson, no more tears! Oh well. I'm of two minds when it comes to Sewak, so I'll leave that for others.

 

[GruffyMcGuiness]

I didn't renew my season tickets after having them for 3 years. Take that for what it's worth.

I think the records vs. Miami VT and ugag speak for themselves. I think we're taking a step in the right direction recruiting wise but took a step back with the huge losses on the DL which isn't really CPJ's fault.

 

[4shotB]

When we hire a coach, I am always disturbed when we are having this debate this far into his or her tenure. 7 years is a long time. I am a fence straddler on this issue and am keenly interested in how this season plays out. However, I am cautiously optimistic for some strange reason.

 

[Animal02]

A technical complaint on word usage but I never put "faith" in humans, that is reserved for someone higher. So I will read this poll as asking if I have lost "confidence" or "trust" in CPJ.

Short answer is "no."

Long answer is that the biggest factor in continuing to run the GT football program is winning games against the top yearly opponents faced as well as in conference and postseason games. He has not won enough of those overall. But, he has been very competitive and close to winning in almost all of them. Close may only count in horseshoes and hand grenades but in reality it does make decisions to fire coaches more difficult. This is because gut wrenching OT losses and letting teams come from behind hurt more than getting blown out and not being competitive to begin with but only the latter kind of loss make a decision to fire a head coach easy.

On the other components besides winning enough high profile games CPJ is clearly doing fine to better than fine. His recruiting has been historically typical for Tech overall but trending up and he has earned a loosening of reins by the Hill as well as convinced the AD to invest more in staff. He also deserves credit for trying to bring Joe Hamilton in very early in his tenure here and then giving him the second chance once Joe proved he deserved it. I like the way CPJ handles his business in that regard. He does respect tradition, the importance of continuity with a program's past and both disciplines players and staff as well as forgives them in a judicious manner. He seems to have pretty sound judgment overall. I know it is not the highest priority to have a coach who is not an embarrassment but in a conference that now has Petrino in it I actually value this aspect because as always I am a fan of the program, the name on the jersey and not any specific coach.

I do think that today of all days with what the NCAA decided to do about Penn State it is a day to be thankful that Tech has never seemed in danger of letting any head coach become bigger than the Institute itself and its educational mission.

Frankly, I can easily see my agreeing one day to firing CPJ and yet never have lost my confidence in him as a head coach. At some point too many losses can make a change necessary despite all the positives a coach has. I think this was the case with Cremins who is rightly remembered fondly and revered by Tech fans even when the overwhelming view was that it was time to make a change.

My preference is to never have that day come so it is still as easy as ever to root for Tech to win every game!

Don't want to drag this off topic........but regarding PSU, you are completely wrong.