Talent Questions

[stech81]

The ignore button is your friend

If we don't answer them or knowledge them it won't do them any good to say any thing unless the 4 talk to each other.

 

[GTonTop88]

We’re 2-2 against Uga the past 4 years. I guarantee you on paper we wouldn’t have a shot against their 3rd string. We’re talented enough to win 9+ games, just gotta find ways to win games not lose them.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Our O looked pretty fast against their D. They have a fast D however, Im not arguing that.

Getting blocked over and over will slow down any defense. One thing I noticed is that the perimeter blocking by both receivers and A backs would appear (to my admittedly untrained eyes) to be much improved over last year. Others more knowledgeable may disagree but we will see. Pitt will present an entirely different sort of challenge.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Dude, the last 30 years?

Well, since I was going to Tech games all that time, I can say that this team has more talent then most of the ones Tech has fielded during that period. I would caveat that by saying that this evaluation is in comparative terms; i.e. some teams in the past had better talent then other teams of their era, but not up to this outfit. Overall, the Joe Hamilton/Goose teams were better, the 1989 - 90 teams were better, but most were not as talented as this bunch, overall. But that's what makes these comparisons so dicey. Well, that and the differences in the game and the whole business of comparing the two sides of the ball and … well, a bunch of other stuff.

I get the feeling that you thought we would have clearly better talent the USF so we must be a lot less talented since we lost. I didn't think that and I still don't. USF has a good program, despite the weakness of their schedules. Any team that wins 10 games these days is a good one. We saw that in 2016. And, brother, how soon some of us forget.

Comparing talent and teams from different eras is a fool's errand but have at it. I firmly believe that most of our problems in the front seven are talent related. They just seem slow at shedding blocks and for some reason the linebackers take poor angles at times. Maybe it is just me and the frustrations of Saturday.

 

[lv20gt]

Getting blocked over and over will slow down any defense. One thing I noticed is that the perimeter blocking by both receivers and A backs would appear (to my admittedly untrained eyes) to be much improved over last year. Others more knowledgeable may disagree but we will see. Pitt will present an entirely different sort of challenge.

So far I don't think our backs and Wrs have shown any reason to really worry about blocking, but I also believe that USF has relatively new DBs and I'm not too sure how much of an indicator it is for the play against ACC teams. I wouldn't expect it to be a huge weakness like we've seen before, but I'm not sure about if what we saw yesterday will be done all year.

 

[DenverJacket56]

While I don’t like to admit it, I’ll agree the talent level on the D line is the weakest I’ve ever seen. However, I’m very impressed with the last 2 classes of recruits and their athleticism, so I’m hoping we can turn it around. What I don’t agree with is some of you taking shots at the entire team. If you look at the ebb and flow of football teams in general, it all starts and ends with the talent level of the QB. We’ve been spotty at best with QB’s and that is all on CJP. I do think this could be one of the better offenses we’ve had in a while, but Marshall limits us. Take a look at the Hurricanes and Gators over the last 8-10 years. They’ve been loaded with draft picks and they haven’t been any better than us, wonder why? QB

 

[knoxjacket]

Guys the only way to end this is do NOT comment on here to the few that try to divide our fan base.

A divided fan base would be preferable to what we currently have. An apathetic and shrinking one.

 

[Skeptic]

1. How far back do you have to go in Georgia Tech history to find a team with less talent than the current iteration?

2. How far back to find a pre-CPJ Georgia Tech team with less talent?

Would you be kind enough to articulate for us the basis for your sweeping conclusion, based on two games? Please, no generalized, anecdotal "whatabout" references. Begin with how much of the cited "Georgia Tech history" you are first-hand familiar with and conclude with your by-position talent evaluation.of "the current iteration", and perhaps while you are at it -- just a thought -- the same evaluation for the GT team you think was the most talented. Doubtless the coaches who do this for a living every day would benefit from a message board poster.

 

[knoxjacket]

Would you be kind enough to articulate for us the basis for your sweeping conclusion, based on two games? Please, no generalized, anecdotal "whatabout" references. Begin with how much of the cited "Georgia Tech history" you are first-hand familiar with and conclude with your by-position talent evaluation.of "the current iteration", and perhaps while you are at it -- just a thought -- the same evaluation for the GT team you think was the most talented. Doubtless the coaches who do this for a living every day would benefit from a message board poster.

1. Open up media guide
2. Turn to historical rosters
3. Turn to conference and national awards
4. Turn to NFL Draft history and Jackets in the pros.
5. Compare to current state

Not my evaluation. The evaluation of other coaches, the college football media, and pro scouts and coaches.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Are we going down the rabbit hole where you're complaining about someone not making it as an APB over someone who made it as a punt return when there isn't an APB spot on the team?

You would make a good voter.

No, that’s not what I’m saying.

 

[Skeptic]

1. Open up media guide
2. Turn to historical rosters
3. Turn to conference and national awards
4. Turn to NFL Draft history and Jackets in the pros.
5. Compare to current state

Not my evaluation. The evaluation of other coaches, the college football media, and pro scouts and coaches.

In short, you don't have a clue.

 

[knoxjacket]

In short, you don't have a clue.

Take your L.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

1. Open up media guide
2. Turn to historical rosters
3. Turn to conference and national awards
4. Turn to NFL Draft history and Jackets in the pros.
5. Compare to current state

Not my evaluation. The evaluation of other coaches, the college football media, and pro scouts and coaches.

Fake News. Fake Boos.

 

[alagold]

I missed the game due to family obligations, but lack of talent does not equate with the ability toto produce over 600 yards of offense. I am in Tampa often and my USF friends/ fans described our offense as "unstoppable" as compared to anyone they have played... including UCF. The defense is newly installed, we should remain calm and let this play out...

well, it is good but unstoppable is ridiculous--we were 3 for 12 on 3rd down and 1-2 on 4th, AND had 3 TOs (which is a function of this Offense generally)--that is hardly unstoppable,if we were unstoppable we would have won the game even with 2 runbacks and bad DEF
we have talent but not enough apparently

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Ball wasn’t QB in 07. Bennett was. Ball was 10000x better than Bennett. Ball would have been better with a competent OC.

I would take Taquon over Bennett in a 18 vs 07 comparison. Every other spot I’d take the guy from 07.

Yes you are right about Bennett starting in 07...I think I forgot he started because he did little and Nesbit looked promising. Our QBs today win this contest hands down.

Your take is fair. I’m not sure I’d agree none of the guys except TM today wouldn’t start over anyone from ‘07.

I’d take our entire Oline now over the 07 Oline with only one exception, Gardner.

Tashard Choice and our D were the main reasons we managed to pull out 7 wins. I’d take Choice over Benson. Dwyer was very promising looking but so is Mason today...edge to Dwyer with hindsight in effect.

Our stable of Abacks and WRs put up a pretty good fight over the 07 WRs and Peek at TE. Those guys as a group put up about 2k yards from scrimmage. Two highest receiving yards guys were around 580 and 550 for the year receiving I think. I think our Abacks gained about 1800 yards from scrimmage last year on most certainly fewer possessions.

I’ll continue with the D shortly....that is where 07 surges ahead. Except for depth.

But my slightly tic response to you about “maybe 2007” is quite debatable when you look at depth. You also have to let this season play out before anyone can make a definitive statement. (Reasonably anyway)

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Now the 2007 D. We had some ballers out there. Thank goodness or it could have gotten real ugly. There aren’t many guys on that starting 11 that U would want to replace with our current guys.

I think we had about 14 guys that got significant playing time. Michael Johnson might have been our best reserve coming off the bench. I think we stayed pretty healthy which was a good thing as I don’t recall an abundance of depth.

That starting unit on D was good. In 2007 we may have had more TFLs than we have had as a team the last 3 years. A good number of sacks and decent turnovers gained.

Tenuta and his Ds were the primary reason I wasn’t 100% sold on firing Gailey. After the Reuben Houston mess I was less reluctant to pull the trigger on Gailey. I really liked the CPJ hire and was crossing fingers and toes we would keep Tenuta as the DC. Alas it wasn’t meant to be. Oh Lordy what might have been.

I’ve been saying for a couple of years that our talent up front on D was our biggest Achilles on D. Said it repeatedly in the fire Ted Roof threads. We have slowly and incrementally been improving here. And I think we have a ton more depth across the board than we had 3 or 4 years ago. Our best talent and most athletic guys are probably our freshmen and sophomores.

Do we have enough talent to compete with Woody’s scheme? I think we do actually. There will continue to be some growing pains. Do we have the makeup on D to compare with the Ds under Tenuta? No. That will take continued improvement in recruiting and a year or two for our young guys to mature in the system.

 

[UgaBlows]

We have some real talent on defense, iirc we almost have a whole defenseive team of 4 star starters, plus for the first time in a long time we are building some real depth on Dline, the problem is all that talant is very young, that plus a new D coord/scheeme is not a recipe for instant success.

 

[Techster]

We have some real talent on defense, iirc we almost have a whole defenseive team of 4 star starters, plus for the first time in a long time we are building some real depth on Dline, the problem is all that talant is very young, that plus a new D coord/scheeme is not a recipe for instant success.

We have recruited better, from a recruiting rankings standpoint, on defense than we have on offense since CPJ has been here. Moreso the last few years. A higher proportion of our 4 star signings, as you touched on, has come on defense. There is definitely talent there.

We just need to recognize that it's going to take time because our beat players on defense are young, and on top of that, everyone is dealing with new schemes and mostly new coaches.

 

[GTRX7]

I think it is clear that Tech has had plenty of years with "more talented" players, and particularly at the skill positions - QB, RB, WR. I am not sure how that can be disputed. 2007 definitely had more talent. I don't know how that can be disputed. 2007 was also a crazy exception to the rule, however, and represents arguably the best recruiting class since integration, so is sort of a cop-out argument as a stand-in for the average talent of Tech over the years.

The argument in this thread seems to be that we now have some of the worst talent in recent Tech history compared to the average (not just compared to the 4 or 5 best cherry picked years). If one looks at Tech's record since integration, however, one would see that 1997 to 2014 represented an unprecedented run of consistent success. To me, the numbers indicate that O'Leary (1997-2001) probably had better talent than we have now and that Gaily (2002-2007) probably had similar talent (more consistent, but with lower highs). Prior to that (from 1960-1996), we failed to win more than 5 games in 17 of those 36 years. (We are still averaging 7.6 wins under CPJ, despite two of the last three years being disappointing.)

As others have said, I think the talent on this particular team lies not necessarily in its "star" players, but in depth and experience.

Bottom line, I don't know how anyone can look at the current talent and say it is any worse than average for Tech since 1960, unless you concede that CPJ is necessarily just a better coach than every coach but O'Leary since that time.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

Plenty of talent on offense. Indicators of decent talent on defense, but nobody has yet been able to coach them up the way Johnson has done on offense.

I respectfully disagree, SS. I think there is a ceiling to "coaching up", and on D, the front 7 guys that we are getting right now cannot get to the level we need them to get to, in general. We are small and slow in that group which is not a great combination.

On a sidenote, I posted in the "adidas swag" thread, but the bookstore had a pretty sweet fitted, gold GT cap now. Picked one up while traveling to the ATL airport last Saturday.