Ted Roof's job

Jmonty71

Banned
Messages
2,156
So, now that we are comparing apples to apples, the next part of your argument comes into play. You specifically asked us to justify being outperformed by "lesser" school who didn't recruit as well as us. With the exception of possibly Minnesota, every one of these new schools routinely get's higher rated recruits. Three of those teams are routinely ranked in the top-25 in recruiting.

Again, I am not saying that the D isn't bad this year. I was merely pointing out the major flaw in your argument. You simply refuse to miss an opportunity to bash CTR, and if that opportunity doesn't exist, you create one.
I can't see how NC State recruits better than us. They seem about par as us. Nebraska...meh.. But, those are the teams that match near our SoS. I gave Roof props for the VT game. He got more aggressive. Which led to mistakes on VT's part. Take that as an olive branch being extended. We'll see how he does in the next few games. I just hope we give UGA a beat down!!
 

Augusta_Jacket

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
7,868
Location
Augusta, Georgia
I can't see how NC State recruits better than us. They seem about par as us. Nebraska...meh.. But, those are the teams that match near our SoS. I gave Roof props for the VT game. He got more aggressive. Which led to mistakes on VT's part. Take that as an olive branch being extended. We'll see how he does in the next few games. I just hope we give UGA a beat down!!

We routinely rank in the low 50s in recruiting. NCST is in the high 30s low 40s normally. Nebraska is generally on the edge of the top 25.

uga isn't capitalized.
 

IronJacket7

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,544
As a proud member of the CTR hate train I can see that, acknowledge it, and appreciate it. But I'm also not going to let a single game wipe the slate clean. Let's see what happens the rest of the year before pounding our chests shall we?
Lol. Pounding Chest???

Giving credit where it is due. CTR called a great game. The defense played a great game. Thats all.
 

danny daniel

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,476
Between a few bad plays by VT and a few good plays by GT I still saw a lot of the usual soft GT defense. Several good VT drives were stopped as a result of one of those bad VT plays or good GT plays. We did cut down on the pre-snap confusion and we did bring more pressure on the passer. Overall IMPROVEMENT. Still too many tackles by Davis and the safeties and too few elsewhere define our D. I especially liked the big plays by Gamble and the Austins in this game.
 

Augusta_Jacket

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
7,868
Location
Augusta, Georgia
Which that in itself is troubling. So, we can't recruit any better?

Because we develop a lot of players by redshirting, we have smaller classes. Because we have smaller classes, we get fewer recruits. Fewer recruits mean fewer total points. Fewer points mean lower rankings. We can go into a long argument over lack of choices in majors and academic hurdles, but the reality is that if we recruited 25-30 a year and pushed non-productive players out the door, as many factories do, our recruiting rankings would jump most likely jump at least 10-15 spots.
 

AE 87

Helluva Engineer
Messages
13,015
You cant switch between yards/attempt and yards/game when it's convenient. Go listen to CPJ talk about this. We are talking an extra sack per game. This is such marginal improvement that you can honestly draw it up to chance. They were 96th in yards/attempt last year and 114th this year. Both bad. They allowed 3.6 yards/carry last year and 4.3 yards/carry this year. I'm sure they are facing less passes this year because it is easier to run on them.

This is all semantics. Duke has been a pretty bad defense the past two years whichever way you slice it up. My point is that they were good when they had guys like Jeremy Cash, DeVon Edwards, and Ross Cockrell. They don't have those talented DBs and now they are struggling despite having the same coaches.

Yeah, I've been posting a points per drive stat on here for a few years and have regularly made the point about the use of per drive, per play and per game stats. I hardly need you to tell me to listen to CPJ on the topic.

The point with the use of any statistic is to understand its strength and weaknesses. If you want to discuss ranking of various teams against each, then efficiency stats like points/drive and yards/play is better than per game stats due to the significant variability in number of drives and number of plays per game currently. However, if you want to assess the strength of a defense against the pass, then you want to look at more than just one stat. If defensive pressure is decreasing the number of pass plays and increasing the number of sacks, then perhaps yards/attempt goes up for some teams. Moreover, if you want to assess the quality of a coach, then you don't look at one game or one season but a series of games/seasons.
 

mj claz

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
217
Yeah, I've been posting a points per drive stat on here for a few years and have regularly made the point about the use of per drive, per play and per game stats. I hardly need you to tell me to listen to CPJ on the topic.

The point with the use of any statistic is to understand its strength and weaknesses. If you want to discuss ranking of various teams against each, then efficiency stats like points/drive and yards/play is better than per game stats due to the significant variability in number of drives and number of plays per game currently. However, if you want to assess the strength of a defense against the pass, then you want to look at more than just one stat. If defensive pressure is decreasing the number of pass plays and increasing the number of sacks, then perhaps yards/attempt goes up for some teams. Moreover, if you want to assess the quality of a coach, then you don't look at one game or one season but a series of games/seasons.

I agree with all of that and you are correct when you challenged my use of ONLY yards/attempt when evaluating a pass defense. However, I think it does the job just fine when we are talking about a big difference. Michigan State's 2013 defense gave up 5.2 yards/attempt and Pitt's 2016 pass defense gives up 8.5. One is a very good pass defense and one is very bad, both coached by Pat Narduzzi. No further analysis needed. With Duke, I was trying to compare its 2014 pass defense against its 2015/2016 pass defenses. I wasn't trying to compare the 2015 and 2016 groups because they are pretty similar (both bad) units and, you are correct, one single stat won't do the analysis justice.

I included the statistics for people who may not be as familiar with the non-GT defenses. But the stats weren't really necessary for these comparisons:
Narduzzi's MSU defenses>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Narduzzi's Pitt defenses
Wommack's Ole Miss defenses>>>>>>>>>>>Wommack's GT defenses
Auburn's 2016 defense>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Auburn's 2015 defense
Duke's 2014 defense>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Duke's 2015/2016 defense

The main difference between these teams: PLAYERS. It's not the opponents, the DL coach, the schemes, etc.

The whole point was to prove that talent matters way more than the DC. If you asked me if I would rather have 2 first round defensive talents on this team, or a "first round" caliber DC (like Narduzzi or Muschamp), then I would definitely take the players.

If Roof wasn't showing improvement in recruiting over Groh and Wommack, then I'd say fire him! But he is. I believe we could do a better job at developing our talent as well, but I hold the positional coaches more accountable for that (maybe some former players could correct me here). I think Torrian Gray (VT DB coach) has had a huge impact on Bud Foster's success. And just as I judge Roof, I think we should fire the positional coaches UNLESS they are doing work on the recruiting trail. Only CPJ and Roof know the answer to that.
 

DaddyBill

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
340
Location
Hahira, GA (It's near Valdosta)
I agree that the D played outstanding against VT...sacks, hurries, turnovers. But in the second half CTR switched from base to a soft/prevent scheme and VT scored twice. I did notice that #40 and 51 played the entire game at LB. I don't think Vic nor Alford nor anyone else got any snaps on D. Puzzling to me.
 

Squints

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,254
Lol. Pounding Chest???

Giving credit where it is due. CTR called a great game. The defense played a great game. Thats all.

It was more of cautionary statement than accusatory. Didn't mean to imply otherwise.

The defensive side of the ball was great on Saturday without a doubt. I hope it continues.
 
Last edited:

18in32

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
68
The main difference between these teams: PLAYERS. It's not the opponents, the DL coach, the schemes, etc. The whole point was to prove that talent matters way more than the DC. If you asked me if I would rather have 2 first round defensive talents on this team, or a "first round" caliber DC (like Narduzzi or Muschamp), then I would definitely take the players.
The entire question of 'great coaches' vs. 'great players' makes little sense to me. Don't high caliber coaches attract high caliber players, and don't high caliber players inspire high caliber coaches?

And its not like our previous failed DC's haven't had some talent to work with. In 2009, Wommack had long-term pros like Derrick Morgan and Morgan Burnett to work with... yet we gave up 24.8 ppg and he was fired. (We're giving up 25.6 ppg this year.) While I'll grant you that Ole Miss generally has more talent that we have (especially under uber-recruiter Hugh Freeze), I think there's more going on than simply an upgrade in talent. Sometimes people need new situations, new colleagues, new offices, etc. to really get comfortable and thrive. Let's stop being reductionist.
 

Milwaukee

Banned
Messages
7,277
Location
Milwaukee, WI
The entire question of 'great coaches' vs. 'great players' makes little sense to me. Don't high caliber coaches attract high caliber players, and don't high caliber players inspire high caliber coaches?

And its not like our previous failed DC's haven't had some talent to work with. In 2009, Wommack had long-term pros like Derrick Morgan and Morgan Burnett to work with... yet we gave up 24.8 ppg and he was fired. (We're giving up 25.6 ppg this year.) While I'll grant you that Ole Miss generally has more talent that we have (especially under uber-recruiter Hugh Freeze), I think there's more going on than simply an upgrade in talent. Sometimes people need new situations, new colleagues, new offices, etc. to really get comfortable and thrive. Let's stop being reductionist.

No. We have a talent deficiency, it's painfully evident.
 

mj claz

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
217
The entire question of 'great coaches' vs. 'great players' makes little sense to me. Don't high caliber coaches attract high caliber players, and don't high caliber players inspire high caliber coaches?

And its not like our previous failed DC's haven't had some talent to work with. In 2009, Wommack had long-term pros like Derrick Morgan and Morgan Burnett to work with... yet we gave up 24.8 ppg and he was fired. (We're giving up 25.6 ppg this year.) While I'll grant you that Ole Miss generally has more talent that we have (especially under uber-recruiter Hugh Freeze), I think there's more going on than simply an upgrade in talent. Sometimes people need new situations, new colleagues, new offices, etc. to really get comfortable and thrive. Let's stop being reductionist.

Obviously there are multiple factors that go into how good of a defense you will get. I'm not reducing it to ONLY talent even if my posts came across that way. My argument is that it's somewhere around 85% talent and 15% all other variables (including DC).

You mention 2009 being a below average defense, but why don't you bring up 2008? In comparing 2008 and 2009, you can pretty much hold all variables constant except for the players. The 2008 team had All-ACC performers Michael Johnson, Darryl Richard, and Vance Walker, in addition to Burnett and Morgan. This was far and away CPJ's best defense and it finished in the top 25 nationally. How can you possibly argue that other factors had an impact in this difference other than losing those impactful players? The coaches were the same, the ACC landscape was generally the same, etc.

I agree that 2009 was a failure by Dave Wommack and I believe it has been discussed on this board by former players how poor of a job he did. I'm not saying that coaches don't matter, they just matter much less than the players who actually play the games. Al Groh has a great resume and I'm sure he is a much better DC than Wommack, yet Wommack is the only DC under CPJ to field a top 25 defense. I think your comparison between the 2009 defense and 2016 defense is actually an endorsement for Roof since he doesn't have 1st round NFL talent on this roster and the ACC as a whole features much better offenses than in 2009. If Roof was coaching the 2009 defense right now, then I'd be much more anti-Roof. However, he hasn't had a fair shake and is actually helping to solve the problem that has done him in thus far. But yeah, let's get rid of him so that we can get some "fresh blood" in the program. That will really solve the problem.
 

RonJohn

Helluva Engineer
Messages
4,470
Sweeting, Barnes, and Thomas were only freshmen in 2009 and Butler was a sophomore on the 2008 team who played in 13 games.

Your post implied that Burnnet and Morgan were the only two P5 quality players on the team, suggesting the Wommack had no talent to work with. I listed 4 additional players who played and/or started that year, several of which are still playing in the NFL. He didn't have Johnson, Richard, or Walker, but to imply that the defense didn't have anyone who could play is not accurate.
 
Top