State of program

[iceeater1969]

I appreciate the venting and the need for venting. Not saying I'm right here, but some of the things I think:

1. I think the guy who does "Football Study Hall" asked "If you could spend 15 points into your ideal coach in these 4 categories, how would you spend them?" and his response was "Recruiting = 5; Player Development = 5; In-Game Coaching =3; Ethics = 2". I think CPJ comes out about "2/3/5/5", and I'm possibly rating him high on player development.
2. We do a little bit of moneyball with the triple option scheme because we aren't competing for exactly the same players, but we have a lot of QBs, A-Backs, and B-Backs. We lost our top two B-Backs in the offseason, and we still ended up with depth there. If we lost our top two DTs or OTs, we'd be done for the season, and we start two of each and rotate on the DL. We don't recruit enough linemen. We always seem thin on both lines. I think back to Matt Millen running the Detroit Lions, where he kept drafting skill players but no one who could block. We're a STEM school, we should be able to figure out how to manage our roster.
3. Stanford got their program where they are on player development (they blazed the trail with their strength and conditioning coaches). We seem to have the smallest football staff in the ACC http://www.roanoke.com/hokies/how-d...cle_1233aa48-3b03-11e7-a249-9b33d1436de1.html. We're concerned about recruiting support, but there are other areas where we have smaller staff also.
4. Looking at Wake under Jim Grobe: He didn't have the most amazing recruiting classes, but you knew everyone on the team could block and tackle when they got on the field. Our tackling looked rough yesterday, and Duke looked faster than we did--at least getting to their blocks and getting off of ours. The best cut block of the game was on one of their runs into the end zone.
5. Here's the pre-season All-ACC team: http://www.theacc.com/news/2017/7/19/596f73f3e4b0f351c08309bc_131480904154960570.aspx. We had Dedrick Mills on it. BC had a linebacker. Pitt had a tackle. We don't have to out-recruit FSU, but I'd love to have us out-recruit/out-develop BC, UVA, NCST, and others.
6. I bet CPJ would ridicule the heck out of me if I brought this up on his call in show though. I still think he's putting a lot of his chips on the wrong bets though.

thanks for the considered post.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Personally Id like to see fan support upon putting two good seasons back to back. Unfortunately this has not happened under Paul Johnson.

You cant expect GT alumns plus sidewalk ATL people to come to games when the product goes 11-2, then 3-9, then 9-4 then 5-6. Go back to 2009 and look at the crap 2010 season.

Failure to capitalize on success is the issue with attendance. Yall can sit here and blame the fans, but you are just deflecting and burying your heads in the sand. GT has a small student populace and alumni for that matter. We are in Atlanta. Start putting some 8-9 wins seasons together consectively and quit losing to MTSU, Duke, Kansas and other mindnumbingly bad losses who GT has no business losing and I bet attendance will go up.

No sidewalk fan or anything is going to spend the time and effort and money to watch a 5 win football team. Especially when GTs own students and alumni wont.

Remember our 1990 team? The best Tech team of my life. Remember what happened in 91? This stuff predates CPJ. The inconsistency is due to a lack of depth.

We are improving in our depth. But still somewhere in the middle of the pack in the conference. Lots of improving to do before we can equal the football elites.

I get the Duke hate but don't understand how some equate Duke to trash. That's just plain ignorant wishful thinking. They have a pretty decent program and have since hiring Buttcliff.

Other programs, some major ones I might add, have lost to lower division schools. If it can happen at Michigan and Texas it can certainly happen at Tech. Doesn't mean anyone likes it when it happens but it is a red herring to say it only happens to us. And sometimes small programs rise up to have a pretty good year. GSU played a national champ bama team tighter than anyone else that year.

Plenty of teams can and do play a bad game against teams with less talent and pay for it with a loss. If bama has lost to GSU that year should they have fired Saban. National championships are nice but losing to GSU is unforgivable right?

Point is you should look at the things you complain about in their entirety. But I know that doesn't fit your agenda and it's easier to scream at the sky and yell "MTSU!!!!"

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

CPJ doesn't think STs are important so no coach needed for them. CPJ is also the QB coach, as can be seen by the complete lack of proper throwing mechanics by our coverted RB, TM. QBs never get better under CPJ. Tevin was no better as a senior and JT16 was no better than JT14. These things just don't appear to be important to CPJ. Only crap about "the mesh" and A-Backs, B-Backs. Sadly, nothing about D-backs either.

IMO you are completely clueless if you truly believe the above garbage.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Gailey was one win away from both

Yeah, one win away. Against Wake, in the biggest down year for the ACC during my life. So maybe he got the tiniest of whiffs of both. I wouldn't trade that for an ACC champ, Orange Bowl champ, 2nd Orange Bowl appearance, multiple ACC title game appearances.

 

[steebu]

So think about this for a second...since beating Clemson for the ACC championship we are 34-32 in ACC games. That is not very good. The program is not in a great place, but it’s not a dumpster fire either. Needs improvement for sure.

Care to post Chan's ACC record? Here, I'll do it for you:
4-4
4-4
4-4
5-3
7-1
4-4

Doesn't look all that different.

But my bigger concern is this: college football is not sustainable at the rate it's going. Do you know what Dabo's buyout is? $40 million. Jimbo's? 39 million. Chris Peterson out at U-Dub? $30 million. Saban? He's pretty cheap at $26 million.

These are public institutions.

Let's say for some reason Dabo ends up wetting the bed and gets canned. How is the school going to come up with 40 million dollars? FORTY MILLION DOLLARS. Yes, sure, boosters would probably cover the majority of that, but I have a really big problem when that kind of money is being thrown around for football entertainment. We simply can't compete with that kind of money. Dabos' buyout is nearly our entire AD's budget! We have to scrape and scrounge for every last thing and both Chan and PJ have said that the margin for error at GT, particularly in this day and age of college football, are razor thin. One tipped pass and a miracle catch equals a loss. One blown PI call equals a loss. One missed recruit (or three) equals a bad season. Those margins are razor-thin, and I am concerned that it's going to be very tough to play on an already-unlevel playing field.

But more to the point: college football is getting out of hand. Considering the Louisville-Adidas scandal, who can honestly say that those kind of things don't happen in football? We all know they do. And when we have a coach who plays by the rules, who is forced to abide by the APR because there's nowhere to hide, who has to recruit a special type of kid in a region surrounded by football-first-education-last "schools", on a shoestring budget, it makes you realize what a tremendous job he's done.

Can things be better? Of course they can. Consider these recruiting misses: can you imagine starting DTs Tuitt (Steelers), Tomlinson (Giants), and DE Flowers (Patriots)? We had zero pass rush in 2014. We would've won the national championship with those 3 starting and that JT offense. And those were 3 guys who were either committed or close to committing. And as an aside, I get a kick out of the, "Why didn't you recruit Jadaveon Clowney, PJ? You're an idiot who loves 2-star players." (Clowney was an academic exception to South Carolina. Come on. To South Carolina)

But after all that drivel, here's my point:

No matter who we hire at GT, they are going to face similar struggles that Gailey and PJ faced. Tough, rigorous academics. A mostly-unbending Hill. And a CFB landscape that is rapidly changing to a small group of haves and a large contingent of have-nots.
​

It doesn't matter if we get that energetic young guy who runs an uptempo Air Raid and slings it 90 times a game, he's going to face the same problems:

JP Felck: "Hey, tall 6'5" white guy with a rocket arm. Want to come to GT for our Forty Year Plan?"
5* White Guy with Rocket Arm: "Naw, I'm going to Clemson cuz gurlz and Parks n' Rec. And dat slide!"

Now, all is not lost. We all have one great hope: Stansbury. Regardless of coach, Stansbury is the guy who can lead us into national (relative) prominence. He "gets it". He wants to succeed. And regardless who is the coach or what scheme we run he'll do his best, unlike other guys who said we can't win, or bolted for better jobs, or were just plain Sasquatch. [isn't that a Jack Links commercial? "AD'ing with Sasquatch, starring Mike Bobinsky"]

So my take on the state of the program: could be better, could be a lot worse. But considering we have to scrap and fight for every single thing, we haven't done too badly (2 OB's, 3 ACCCG appearances, a couple of 10-win seasons and an 11-win season). Could it be better? Of course it could. Nobody is satisfied with losing seasons or lower-tier bowls. But CFB can't be looked at in a vacuum - if you did, you'd have to fire Jimbo on the spot right now. Ultimately, I hope that Stansbury can reduce some of the hurdles GT football faces. I've mentioned this before and I'll do it again because it symbolizes some of The Golden Hurdles the team faces: PJ and D-Rad had to go to the school of management to talk to two professors who deliberately scheduled a required lab during football practice because "they didn't want dumb football players polluting their classes." This does not happen at Clemson or Georgia or Miami. Also, consider that the two times we played FSU in the ACCCG the entire football team had their final exams moved. Something in my gut tells me that probably didn't happen at GT; ask Sean Bedford about 09 and if he slept on the bus to the championship game or was cramming for his AE finals.

So taken as a whole and with all that backdrop in mind, I think we've done pretty well. This season, to be sure, has been an immense disappointment, but I'm hopeful that the ship can get righted.

Let's start on Saturday. Stupid mutts. Hate 'em.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

IMO you are completely clueless if you truly believe the above garbage.

hardly. There is no evidence whatsoever that CPJ gives a damn about ST. There's no coaching and, with the exception of Butker's years as PK, every other aspect of our ST have sucked entirely during the last 10 years. They never get better and that's all on ol' CPJ.

You are completely naive if you don't see that.

 

[gtkevin12]

hardly. There is no evidence whatsoever that CPJ gives a damn about ST. There's no coaching and, with the exception of Butker's years as PK, every other aspect of our ST have sucked entirely during the last 10 years. They never get better and that's all on ol' CPJ.

You are completely naive if you don't see that.

I think it had more to do with you spewing inaccurate information, yet thinking you are on top of the situation. GT has had several special teams coaches, Walkosky and Rychleski, off the top of my head. Also, CPJ is not the QB coach, you must have read that on CNN.

 

[Skeptic]

1. We do a little bit of moneyball with the triple option scheme because we aren't competing for exactly the same players, but we have a lot of QBs, A-Backs, and B-Backs. We lost our top two B-Backs in the offseason, and we still ended up with depth there. If we lost our top two DTs or OTs, we'd be done for the season, and we start two of each and rotate on the DL. We don't recruit enough linemen. We always seem thin on both lines. I think back to Matt Millen running the Detroit Lions, where he kept drafting skill players but no one who could block. We're a STEM school, we should be able to figure out how to manage our roster.

That's a really interesting POV -- Moneyball, I mean -- and the more I ponder the more right you seem. (A scheme which my Dodgers became the latest to prove doesn't work in short series.) And last season I think it was Johnson seemed to go out of his way to knock down praise for the 2014 Mason-anchored offensive line by saying the skill positions made them look better than they were. The context was some comments about the then current O line. But without a roster analysis it does seem to me we have a boatload of interchangeable A-backs, B-backs, and at least on paper QBs. You may be on to something here.

 

[Captain killem]

My question is has CPJ lost the respect and fire of the team as a whole. That includes coaches and players. Saturday was a total embarrassment, but as it’s always said tomorrow is a new day.

 

[Skeptic]

CPJ doesn't think STs are important so no coach needed for them. CPJ is also the QB coach, as can be seen by the complete lack of proper throwing mechanics by our coverted RB, TM. QBs never get better under CPJ. Tevin was no better as a senior and JT16 was no better than JT14. These things just don't appear to be important to CPJ. Only crap about "the mesh" and A-Backs, B-Backs. Sadly, nothing about D-backs either.

I am going to write some of this off as an effort to quench that fire in your hair. The part about the meaningless "mesh" is one of those, because you have to know more about football than that. Read and decide the first option is kind of important. Get that wrong and the play is history. Unfortunately, we see it all the time this season. Wrong read, wrong gap, wrong shoulder ... and either the QB or Bback goes into a trash compactor. I agree Thomas was no better passing in '16 than '14 and horrible in '15, but having read his comments about fundamentals and techniques , I don't blame coaches. (They were famously captured in just five words: "I just throw the ball.") Yet he was a terrific clutch passer. Go figure. The kid could win. He was, however, much better running the option, I think.

If I understand the assignments, Johnson is not the QB coach. Never has been. He does have the QB and Bback coach the same because of the, pardon me, mesh, but this season it is Craig Candeto, who did it a bit at Navy before getting into something more insurable, landing fighter jets on aircraft carriers in blue water. When they got bored they did it at night. Before him it was Brian Bohannan, i believe. He went on to a HC job. I stand to be corrected but I think this is correct.

 

[Techster]

Remember our 1990 team? The best Tech team of my life. Remember what happened in 91? This stuff predates CPJ. The inconsistency is due to a lack of depth.

Not many people mention this, but did you know we finished tied for 2nd in the ACC that year? GT finished 5-2 in the ACC in 1991. Our losses that year were to(ranking at time of game) #7 Penn St, #7 Clemson, #19 NC State, Unranked USCe, #25 UGA. If you look at 1990's schedule and 1991's schedule, the 1990 team got quite a few bounces their way, and the bounces went the other way in 1991.

Obviously 1991 was disappointing compared to 1990 (then again, there's a HUGE fall from national champs to anything), but GT still had a good season. Also remember, we went bowling that year in a time where bowl games actually meant something and there wasn't one for almost every team that barely made .500. Plus, there were some things going on off the field at the time that might have been a distraction.

 

[wvGT11]

Agree with the above, this feeling that we have after Duke, is the typical GT roller coaster. This feeling predates CPJ and the reasons why all predate CPJ in regards to the school's limitations. However, to me what is worrisome is there are issues CPJ can fix with coaching that have been plaguing for a while. I've heard several times over the years CPJ take the blame for not preparing the team well. There were times I can remember that CPJ seemed like a master with adjustments at the half or times we would have teams fall with the death march. I just havent seen that it seems like since the 2014 season. The Wake game this year was close with the adjustments but thats really about it. To me those are whats missing and have me worried that CPJ may not have the answers.

 

[stech81]

CPJ doesn't think STs are important so no coach needed for them. CPJ is also the QB coach, as can be seen by the complete lack of proper throwing mechanics by our coverted RB, TM. QBs never get better under CPJ. Tevin was no better as a senior and JT16 was no better than JT14. These things just don't appear to be important to CPJ. Only crap about "the mesh" and A-Backs, B-Backs. Sadly, nothing about D-backs either.

Obviously you are not a fan of CPJ. But you may want to do some checking and not make things up. Coach Craig Candeto is the QB coach.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

I think it had more to do with you spewing inaccurate information, yet thinking you are on top of the situation. GT has had several special teams coaches, Walkosky and Rychleski, off the top of my head. Also, CPJ is not the QB coach, you must have read that on CNN.

Whomever is our QB coach sucks. TM's throwing "technique" is the worst in all of college football. That he's regressed, or at minimum hasn't improved at all, is all on this mythical QB Coach that no one can name.
Edit: Craig Candeto is apparently his name. How much are we paying this guy? All he's teaching Taquon is How To Miss Reads, Run For Your Life, and Throwing Off Your Backfoot Before Falling Backwards Onto The Ground.

Surely I don't have to point out the laughably-bad state of our STs? Or are the CPJ fans so deluded, they'll defend those too?

 

[RamblinWreck92]

IMO you are completely clueless if you truly believe the above garbage.

IMO you are deluded if you aren't seeing the reality of this program. TM's throwing technique is the worst in major college football. Throwing off your back foot and then flinging yourself to the ground is not how a ball is properly thrown. As he has done this all year, that's a clear indication of a failure of coaching.

On the D side, our "tackling", for lack of a better word, is atrocious. The angles our guys take to RBs and WRs is at the junior-high level. Zero pass rush, even against a team with no athletes like Duke.

We've now lost 3 of 4 to Duke. 2 of 3 losing seasons. We're completely trending downward and this is 100% a failure of coaching. How any of you can have such an "Oh Well. IIWII" attitude is beyond me. Frankly, that segment of our fanbase is a HUGE part of our problem. The Hill knows there are plenty of fans who are satisfied with losing to Duke and losing seasons as long as we blast some cupcakes and have rushing stats.

 

[MikeJackets1967]

IMO you are deluded if you aren't seeing the reality of this program. TM's throwing technique is the worst in major college football. Throwing off your back foot and then flinging yourself to the ground is not how a ball is properly thrown. As he has done this all year, that's a clear indication of a failure of coaching.

On the D side, our "tackling", for lack of a better word, is atrocious. The angles our guys take to RBs and WRs is at the junior-high level. Zero pass rush, even against a team with no athletes like Duke.

We've now lost 3 of 4 to Duke. 2 of 3 losing seasons. We're completely trending downward and this is 100% a failure of coaching. How any of you can have such an "Oh Well. IIWII" attitude is beyond me. Frankly, that segment of our fanbase is a HUGE part of our problem. The Hill knows there are plenty of fans who are satisfied with losing to Duke and losing seasons as long as we blast some cupcakes and have rushing stats.

If GT stumbles to a losing season in 2018 do you think GT will have a new head coach in 2019?

 

[jeffgt14]

TM has not played well this year. Countless missed reads every game and he may be a worse passer than Tevin. You can somewhat get away with not passing well if you run the offense well but he just doesn’t have it down. That falls on the coaching staff. The kid is tough as nails and has made several great plays all year long but you can’t succeed playing QB that way in this offense. FWIW it always seemed Matthew Jordan was the same out there with regards to not being able to put the ball in anyone else’s hands correctly and trying to move the chains on his own. I’m really starting to question just how well coached we are. The only positional group that consistently looks good out there is WR.

 

[GTJake]

For me this loss ranks up there with some of the top head-scratchers.
But I think the "state of the program" argument is off-base, at least for now ...
These type of games, while totally unacceptable have come and gone for us way beyond the current coaching staff and AD tenure.

 

[stech81]

Whomever is our QB coach sucks. TM's throwing "technique" is the worst in all of college football. That he's regressed, or at minimum hasn't improved at all, is all on this mythical QB Coach that no one can name.
Edit: Craig Candeto is apparently his name. How much are we paying this guy? All he's teaching Taquon is How To Miss Reads, Run For Your Life, and Throwing Off Your Backfoot Before Falling Backwards Onto The Ground.

Surely I don't have to point out the laughably-bad state of our STs? Or are the CPJ fans so deluded, they'll defend those too?

If you don't like CPJ or the offense we run fine you don't have to like it. But to make things up to try and prove your point is not working. To say that CCC is teaching a player to miss reads run for you life and throw off your backfoot before falling backwards on the ground is not helping you prove your point. If you want to say we need to hire another coach to help fine but by now unless you have connections at Tech that is not going to happen. We are an option team the first priority of a QB coach in our offense is to teach and help him understand his reads. Do you think a QB coach who is at a team that runs a pro style offense first priority is to teach his QB how to run ?

And if you want to keep trying to help you make you point, pointing out we have lost to Duke 3 of 4 times. Then what does it mean that have we beat VT the last 2 years, or 2 out of the last 3 years we beat uga.

 

[RamblinWreck92]

I am going to write some of this off as an effort to quench that fire in your hair. The part about the meaningless "mesh" is one of those, because you have to know more about football than that. Read and decide the first option is kind of important. Get that wrong and the play is history. Unfortunately, we see it all the time this season. Wrong read, wrong gap, wrong shoulder ... and either the QB or Bback goes into a trash compactor. I agree Thomas was no better passing in '16 than '14 and horrible in '15, but having read his comments about fundamentals and techniques , I don't blame coaches. (They were famously captured in just five words: "I just throw the ball.") Yet he was a terrific clutch passer. Go figure. The kid could win. He was, however, much better running the option, I think.

If I understand the assignments, Johnson is not the QB coach. Never has been. He does have the QB and Bback coach the same because of the, pardon me, mesh, but this season it is Craig Candeto, who did it a bit at Navy before getting into something more insurable, landing fighter jets on aircraft carriers in blue water. When they got bored they did it at night. Before him it was Brian Bohannan, i believe. He went on to a HC job. I stand to be corrected but I think this is correct.

Yes I was certainly more pissed off when I wrote that than I am now and thank you for the respectful reply in kind.

What I continue to not understand is...The Basics. Why does TM continue to throw off his back foot and fall down (which causes those poorly-thrown, poorly-timed passes we all roll our eyes at)? Why do our defenders continue to have horrific angles at ball carriers? Why is our D so reactive rather than pro-active? These are things that ARE fixable, without a change in coaching or philosophy.

Yet they haven't been changed. All year, in the case of TM's throwing and for the entirety of Roof's tenure here.

As the Post Bomb is our only pass play, it's absolutely imperative that it be a damn-near perfect throw, in terms of placement and timing. TM's mechanics need a ton of work but, at least on Saturday, I saw nothing that indicated any difference between Duke and going back to the UT game. Did you? Same, obviously, goes for the basics on D, which appear to actually have gotten WORSE. Again, these aren't "better talent needed. Different coaching needed". This is Football 101 stuff and our team is apparently skipping that class.