Several thoughts:
1) Johnson's buyout at the end of this year is just over $10 million IIRC. Therefore, I think he'll get one more year. Not because he deserves it...but because the perception will be that we cannot afford it.
2) Personally, I HATE this offense. I hate running the ball 85% of the time. (I think the actual # was like 82.x% when I took the time to calculate it prior to the beginning of the season. I don't care enough to go back and recalculate so I'll go with 85%'ish as my number).
3) Because of the offense, we have recruited smaller linemen. Many will say "Well Johnson didn't necessarily WANT smaller linemen, he'd love to have bigger linemen who could run." I'm sure he would...but how many 320 - 330 pound behemoths have the ability to run 70 plays per game where they have to scoop block a guy at the line and then get to the linebacker or safety to make a block. Hence, this offense ends up recruiting smaller linemen. That hurts you in games versus teams with very big, very fast defensive linemen on the interior (see the results versus Clemson, UGA, VT and Miami).
4) Because of #3, I personally believe that our next coach will have to run a spread offense to be successful in the short term. He can still run some read option plays out of the gun but it will need to be "true spread" offense...not this triple option offense from under center with your fullback (yes, I said fullback....when the guy has his hand on the ground and is less than 5 yards from the LOS, you call him a fullback...not a B-back). Said coach will be able to recruit bigger linemen and bring them in over time to replace the smaller guys who we have now.
5) You already have one of the key ingredients for success as a spread option team...we have 2 QB's who can run and throw. To be efficient and effective passing though they need: linemen who can pass protect (don't have), receivers who can get open and catch the ball (only 2 or 3 of those on the current roster because we prize blocking over route running), and practice doing it (we average 12 passes per game over CPJ's tenure).
6) Recruiting & limited majors - the biggest barriers to GT football success at this point IMO. Personally, I don't ever see it changing. Too many GT grads think that adding additional majors that don't require calculus will somehow tarnish a degree they received 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years ago. Personally, I think this is foolish and point towards Stanford and Notre Dame as evidence. Some degrees from those schools are world class while others are not so well thought of. Yet the "easy ones" don't seem to tarnish the "good ones". To solve recruiting, the next coach will only be successful if he negotiates as part of his contract: "I get as many academic exceptions as I want." I do think this is fine because the APR has made this pretty much a self-policing issue. If a coach wants to bring in 10 kids who wouldn't normally fit the GT profile, let him. If 7 of them fail out, the APR suffers and GT loses scholarships...which hurts HIM. Someone made the argument to me once that "the coach can leave at any time though and the scholarship reduction stays with the school." Fine, also add wording to the contract that, if a coach leaves the school on his own, he gets none of the guaranteed money (that's already in most contracts). ALSO, though...if he is relieved and there are scholarship reductions at that point or at any point over the period of the contract caused by APR, then the guaranteed money is reduced by the same percentage as the % of scholarships lost. That leaves it up to the coach to determine who he can or cannot recruit but forces him to use some common sense because it will eventually cost him $$ out of his own pocket if he goes crazy with exceptions.
