Thacker out at DC, now Safeties coach

gotech82

Georgia Tech Fan
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Thacker was one of two co-defensive coordinators. Coach Key brought in Coach Sherrer and also named him co-defensive coordinator for this season. That makes me wonder how much authority Thacker really had. Sherrer was Key’s hire. Collins hired Thacker and he was a holdover.
Geoff Collins sacrificed several coordinators after year three in an effort to save his job. That’s what coaches who have no loyalty to their staff do. Fire their assistants to save themselves. It rarely works but in the process, the head coach does significant harm to the careers of those he hired. Collins had no loyalty. It is not a good trait to possess. One coach he fired was the special teams coordinator, Coach Popovich, who ended up in Louisville the following year. Louisville had outstanding special teams under Popovich. Their FG kicker and Punter were top 20 and Collins was fired four games into the next season.
The point is in this situation, the problem obviously was not the ST coordinator and the other assistants Collins fired. Collins was the problem. That is inarguable.
Coach Key really impressed last season but GT blew a big lead against Louisville at home and now the Bowling Green disaster. There is a legitimate question that only time will tell. Was Key, who had no head coaching experience, the right hire?
I thought definitively yes but now I’m not so sure.
 

alagold

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slugboy said:
We’ve seen some bad play calls. However, all defenses look bad when people whiff on tackles
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Speaking of key calls--early in 1st qtr ,it was THIRD and 10 and BG on OFF came out in a different set (their QB hadn't even hit a pass yet), we somehow pulled a LB out from middle (and maybe spread the DTs )which resulted in instant 14 yd run up the middle. and a KEY first down.One play but it would have meant a punt to us when we had them on the ropes.There were others but this one was terrible.
 
slugboy

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alagold said:
Speaking of key calls--early in 1st qtr ,it was THIRD and 10 and BG on OFF came out in a different set (their QB hadn't even hit a pass yet), we somehow pulled a LB out from middle (and maybe spread the DTs )which resulted in instant 14 yd run up the middle. and a KEY first down.One play but it would have meant a punt to us when we had them on the ropes.There were others but this one was terrible.
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We spread out both LBs wide on that play—at least, there wasn’t a LB near the center
 
kg01

kg01

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stech81 said:
You do know there are other teams you can pull for if you don't like the Head Coach
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Ah, I'm resigned to just ignore them types. Some folks just live to be miserable. I pity them. I call them .... les miserables...

anne hathaway hope GIF
 

FencePost

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stech81 said:
You do know there are other teams you can pull for if you don't like the Head Coach
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Clearly you were a big Collins supporter. Did you say stuff like this to ALL of those Tech fans who were calling for his ouster? Nope. You follow the crowd. And in another year when the 'crowd' is calling for Key's ouster, you'll be among them.
 
4shotB

4shotB

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BuzzStone said:
Real question for business owners/ Managers here.

Have you ever demoted anyone and they stuck around and did a good job at their new position?
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For me, it has happened twice. They realized that the step up was not at all what they thought it would be and realized it at about the same time I did. Moved back into the spots they came from and were happy as clams.

When it does not work, which is the case most of the time, is when the person lacks self awareness and thinks they are doing a good job. Or else they know things aren't going well but they (or the spouse) have become attached to the new salary/compensation/benefits level.

Bottom line it can happen. But usually doesn't. Depends on what kind of gut Thacker is imo. From a distance he seems to be a standup guy and maybe got promoted a bit ahead of his time.
 
stech81

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FencePost said:
Clearly you were a big Collins supporter. Did you say stuff like this to ALL of those Tech fans who were calling for his ouster? Nope. You follow the crowd. And in another year when the 'crowd' is calling for Key's ouster, you'll be among them.
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No didn't say anything till after his 3rd year. Most people who know football will give a new Coach 2 to 4 years to get his players in place.

Guess you wanted Coach Ross fired after his first year he only won 2 games and the 2nd year only won 3 games till he got his players in Tech.
 

FencePost

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stech81 said:
No didn't say anything till after his 3rd year. Most people who know football will give a new Coach 2 to 4 years to get his players in place.

Guess you wanted Coach Ross fired after his first year he only won 2 games and the 2nd year only won 3 games till he got his players in Tech.
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There is a difference in potential and bluffing. You don't see it, I do.
 

stinger 1957

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okiemon said:
The one and only time I demoted someone it didn’t work, and he poisoned colleagues with his bad attitude. I had to terminate anyway, so in the future I just skipped over the demotion part.
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You're an executive and I expect a successful one, I worry that CBK has made his learning mistake by not terminating Thacker, CBK has enough problems, does not need to take a chance of adding more and having to later terminate after the man has done damage possibly. Hope this one is different and it works, just have to wait and see.
 
leatherneckjacket

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I have moved people out higher responsibility positions into ones with less responsibility where they could do little to no damage. One person quit on their own. The other person also failed to perform the basic job, and was eventually let go due to poor performance. I will give people some runway, as well as a couple of second chances with a warning before I put them on a PIP, but I rarely have had to do that. I consider demotions and firings to be my failure more than anything else.
 
roadkill

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Although I've never personally been involved in a demotion process, I've seen them work out ok, and I've seen them be temporary diversions while the demotee finds something else, and I've seen them fail. Depends on the individual circumstances.
Beyond the initial hires, this is Key's first big personnel decision as head coach. I like his style, but I fear he is learning on the job. I want him to succeed, but will we give him enough time to right the ship?
 
leatherneckjacket

leatherneckjacket

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My personal story is not so much a demotion, but the results were equivalent. I was Director of Continuous Improvement for a large Fleet Maintenance Organization. As part of my efforts, I developed a costing model that could predict the labor, parts, and operational costs to maintain the 150K trucks in the fleet with greater than 99% accuracy. One month I was off by less than $5K on a $27M spend. Yes, my model was that good. I always shared my model with the Finance Manager for the organization who not only was a good friend of mine but also needed the model to accurately predict OpEx costs for his presentations to leadership. Well, wouldn't you know that he got credit for my model and they promoted him three levels to be the new SVP of Finance and Engineering. Not only that, they made him my boss. I was nonplussed. At our first meeting, five minutes after it was announced that he was promoted to the new position and that me and my team now reported into him, he told me he wanted me to explain to him in great detail every activity that my team was working on and that I had to report results back to him on a weekly basis going forward. I told him to eff off. A month later I was fired.
 

bke1984

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The way folks on here talk about our D after the UCF game is interesting. Did it look different, yes. Was it enough to get some wins - sure. But let’s not forget we ended the year with the 85th ranked total defense and the 84th ranked scoring defense. That’s still pretty damn bad. Where we excelled was in turnovers. In fact we finished the year ranked 4th in total turnovers. While you can have an aggressive game plan to force turnovers you’re not going to force 20+ year in and year out. Thacker’s defenses have been in the bottom half (mostly near the bottom) every year he’s been here. It was time to change.
 
Techfan02

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Eli said:
Look at 2018 Tennessee the defense Sherrer was responsible for gave up 50 or more points 4 times. I’m willing to give the guy a chance but his linebacker crew has been below average thus far
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I did look at that I won't argue but the teams they did play had some real Good players and SR's on there
 
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