The cold hard facts of GT Offense, Defense, Head Coaches

[LibertyTurns]

Regarding the offense during GOL and fridge's impact, which was no doubt great, but it's a little bit of a stretch to say we we're only good because of Ralph.
You discount that by thentimt Ralph arrived in 97, we had gone through 2 rebuilding seasons after Lewis. Ralph also had the best QB and probably best player in GT history in Joe ham at QB. Really the only season you could point to in 2001. .I disagree with your opinion...
We we're 7-5 in 97 with fridge and Joe and 7-5 in 01 without both

Somebody decided to play Lil’ Joe and multiple careers were launched.

 

[up state jacket]

Hey Knox thanks for the debate. I've never understood the Johnson without Gailey's players thing. Nesbitt was a second string tight end under Gailey.
Gailey would not have beaten UGA in anther 10 years. He never had a second team QB ready to play, hamstrung Calvin Johnson's college career with mediocare QB play, and we all look back fondly on the loss to Wake.
Gailey wasn't winning with Gailey's players. How does the Gailey player thing fit into Johnson's the 11-3 season? Blind squirrel?
Your going to give credit to O'Leary for pulling us out of the BL mess, but call Gailey's program a Porsche ready to be driven?

Second string tight end is showing lack of knowledge on the recruiting of Josh Nesbit as a QB. He was one of two four star QB in that class. Jonathan Dyer has never been replicated or even been close to having a B back close to that good. Bebe is still the best WR in the Johnson era. Smelter a close second. He only played FB because his baseball days were done. He had eligibility and excelled. We have not had any where near close to the talent on defense as we did that 08 and 09 teams. Roddy says hello by the way. So yes Gailey could say if I had Nesbit maybe I could of. Just like Paul can say if I only I had Graham or Yates I could of, but both didn't and can't . Yes Gailey's players excelled the success of Paul's offense in the early days.

 

[up state jacket]

@Bibb Stinger Thanks for the Fridge info. I’ve liked a lot of GT coaches, admittedly even had a soft spot in my heart for Gomer, but Fridge’s offensive prowess was absolutely fascinating and he remains my favorite of all time.

He was a master game caller. He would run some many different formations in one game it would be amazing to watch. Kelly Campbell and Dez and those scat backs we had at the time were all over the field. Then he'd line up with a FB in a power set. I really miss him.

 

[strong90]

All:

New poster, diehard fan. Reading these posts comparing HC, win percentages, bowl games, ACC titles, appearances etc., it’s interesting to discuss until Collins starts, then we have new topics.

Bottom line: GT has enjoyed substantial success three times since 1980’s.
Bobby Ross- God bless Homer Rice and Bobby Ross- named my dog after him. A Ross among dozens of Herschels.
George O’Leary- There's more to the story.
Paul Johnson.

Post after post comparing head coaches, who’s the best, who won more, who had injures, who won with someone else’s talent, O’Leary slightly ahead of Johnson, Gailey did a decent job. My head starts exploding.

The two best coaches at Georgia Tech, since Pepper- Ralph Friedgen and Paul Johnson. That’s it , that’s the list.
Yes, Ralph was not a head coach. Just an unquestioned offensive genius. Problem is, we didn’t know to what extent he carried programs, until a few years after he left for Maryland. A bit of history:
Ross / Friedgen- 3 ACC titles at Maryland, National Championship at Tech, Super Bowl appearance with Chargers
O’Leary / Friedgen- One of the best 4 year runs in Tech history. 34-14, 3 and 1 in the season ending non-conference game.
Friedgen leaves for Maryland, 10-2 initial season, wins 27 COY awards, O’Leary goes 7-5 and leaves for Notre Dame.
O’Leary record at Tech without Ralph- 18-16 (not counting 0-3, to finish BL season).
Why do you think Notre Dame changed its mind on O’Leary? A 20 year old fib on his resume? Come on now.

Friedens’s career as a coordinator and head coach;
Maryland- 3 consecutive ACC titles
Tech- National Championship
San Diego Chargers- Super Bowl appearance
Tech/O'Leary- 4 year run: 34-14 Co- ACC title

Leaves for Maryland, officially known as the dumpster fire. One winning season in the past 10 years.
Year 1- 10-2 Orange Bowl
Year 2- 11-3 Peach Bowl. Maryland first bowl win in 15 years
Year 3- 10-3 Gator Bowl win
In four years at ‘Dumpster Fire’, Ralph set the record for wins in ACC (for a 4 year period)

Overall record at Maryland 75-50. Ralph was fired after going 9-4 and a bowl game win. Apparently, the AD thought Maryland was now Nebraska. Last and not least for all of us. Ralph’s record versus the Mutts: 5 and 4. ‘Nugh said. Build a statue.

So on my Mount Rushmore of Georgia Tech Head Ccoaches:

Bobby Dodd
Bobby Ross- absolutely won a National Freaking Championship
Paul Johnson- Offensive genius, Sideline genius, improved the academic performance every year he was here.
#4- Open to debate. But it ain’t O’Leary.

All this to highlight there is more to the numbers than wins, percentages, titles, especially for Tech. Tech will not win consistently with defense and special teams. Tech football for the past 40 years, we have only won with tremendous offensive innovators. We won a National championship with good/greet defense and a offensive innovator.

Great defenses have to be great at the point of attack, wherever that may be. Coach Collins won’t be great everywhere. Not at Tech. He must have an offensive innovator who can wrong foot a defense, set up plays that grab big chunks of yards. Keep the ball and score, consistently.
Collins will improve recruiting, defense, special teams. That bar is set low. More than likely the offense will not improve, but take a step back.
But if Collins wins similar to Johnson, 11 years in, 82-59, 3 ACC championship appearances, 11 win season, etc.
Will we be satisfied, after his considerable upgrade in talent? Improved recruiting, increased expectations.

Let's bring this discussion back home. I'm requoting the OP because I, along with ~35 others like it so much. I'm somewhat new to this. Is that a record?

 

[Milwaukee]

Let's bring this discussion back home. I'm requoting the OP because I, along with ~35 others like it so much. I'm somewhat new to this. Is that a record?

Back home to what? Another coaching opinion/debate thread? Stop acting like the people that don't agree with all the thread OP's are trolling the thread to make it off topic. They're simply disagreeing with the op thread for the hundredth thread.

OP loves 2 coaches. Others are gonna agree and disagree. How about we just stop allowing these threads when anyone has an opinion and just consolidate them?? But I'm not a mod so wth do I know.

 

[Vespidae]

All:

New poster, diehard fan. Reading these posts comparing HC, win percentages, bowl games, ACC titles, appearances etc., it’s interesting to discuss until Collins starts, then we have new topics.

Bottom line: GT has enjoyed substantial success three times since 1980’s.
Bobby Ross- God bless Homer Rice and Bobby Ross- named my dog after him. A Ross among dozens of Herschels.
George O’Leary- There's more to the story.
Paul Johnson.

Post after post comparing head coaches, who’s the best, who won more, who had injures, who won with someone else’s talent, O’Leary slightly ahead of Johnson, Gailey did a decent job. My head starts exploding.

The two best coaches at Georgia Tech, since Pepper- Ralph Friedgen and Paul Johnson. That’s it , that’s the list.
Yes, Ralph was not a head coach. Just an unquestioned offensive genius. Problem is, we didn’t know to what extent he carried programs, until a few years after he left for Maryland. A bit of history:
Ross / Friedgen- 3 ACC titles at Maryland, National Championship at Tech, Super Bowl appearance with Chargers
O’Leary / Friedgen- One of the best 4 year runs in Tech history. 34-14, 3 and 1 in the season ending non-conference game.
Friedgen leaves for Maryland, 10-2 initial season, wins 27 COY awards, O’Leary goes 7-5 and leaves for Notre Dame.
O’Leary record at Tech without Ralph- 18-16 (not counting 0-3, to finish BL season).
Why do you think Notre Dame changed its mind on O’Leary? A 20 year old fib on his resume? Come on now.

Friedens’s career as a coordinator and head coach;
Maryland- 3 consecutive ACC titles
Tech- National Championship
San Diego Chargers- Super Bowl appearance
Tech/O'Leary- 4 year run: 34-14 Co- ACC title

Leaves for Maryland, officially known as the dumpster fire. One winning season in the past 10 years.
Year 1- 10-2 Orange Bowl
Year 2- 11-3 Peach Bowl. Maryland first bowl win in 15 years
Year 3- 10-3 Gator Bowl win
In four years at ‘Dumpster Fire’, Ralph set the record for wins in ACC (for a 4 year period)

Overall record at Maryland 75-50. Ralph was fired after going 9-4 and a bowl game win. Apparently, the AD thought Maryland was now Nebraska. Last and not least for all of us. Ralph’s record versus the Mutts: 5 and 4. ‘Nugh said. Build a statue.

So on my Mount Rushmore of Georgia Tech Head Ccoaches:

Bobby Dodd
Bobby Ross- absolutely won a National Freaking Championship
Paul Johnson- Offensive genius, Sideline genius, improved the academic performance every year he was here.
#4- Open to debate. But it ain’t O’Leary.

All this to highlight there is more to the numbers than wins, percentages, titles, especially for Tech. Tech will not win consistently with defense and special teams. Tech football for the past 40 years, we have only won with tremendous offensive innovators. We won a National championship with good/greet defense and a offensive innovator.

Great defenses have to be great at the point of attack, wherever that may be. Coach Collins won’t be great everywhere. Not at Tech. He must have an offensive innovator who can wrong foot a defense, set up plays that grab big chunks of yards. Keep the ball and score, consistently.
Collins will improve recruiting, defense, special teams. That bar is set low. More than likely the offense will not improve, but take a step back.
But if Collins wins similar to Johnson, 11 years in, 82-59, 3 ACC championship appearances, 11 win season, etc.
Will we be satisfied, after his considerable upgrade in talent? Improved recruiting, increased expectations.

Excellent Post. I think you have to give GOL his due ... part of being a head coach is selecting a staff. If he thought enough of Ralph to retain him, that's a head coach decision.

As to Geoff ... I do think he will bring a A LOT more discipline to the fundamentals. If we just don't make the big gaffes ... we are already ahead. I'm excited.

 

[Bibb Stinger]

Second string tight end is showing lack of knowledge on the recruiting of Josh Nesbit as a QB. He was one of two four star QB in that class. Jonathan Dyer has never been replicated or even been close to having a B back close to that good. Bebe is still the best WR in the Johnson era. Smelter a close second. He only played FB because his baseball days were done. He had eligibility and excelled. We have not had any where near close to the talent on defense as we did that 08 and 09 teams. Roddy says hello by the way. So yes Gailey could say if I had Nesbit maybe I could of. Just like Paul can say if I only I had Graham or Yates I could of, but both didn't and can't . Yes Gailey's players excelled the success of Paul's offense in the early days.

Up State, I recollection is Nesbitt requested to be moved to tight end to get on the field. He was not listed as QB when CPJ came on board. Looked back at 2007, his stats were QB with 13 passing attempts, but third leading rusher in yards and carries. Guess he was a Wildcat QB.

 

[Bibb Stinger]

Back home to what? Another coaching opinion/debate thread? Stop acting like the people that don't agree with all the thread OP's are trolling the thread to make it off topic. They're simply disagreeing with the op thread for the hundredth thread.

OP loves 2 coaches. Others are gonna agree and disagree. How about we just stop allowing these threads when anyone has an opinion and just consolidate them?? But I'm not a mod so wth do I know.

3 coaches, loved Bobby Ross, named my dog after him. Ross was a F O O T B A L L coach. Loved to listen to him talk at TD club meetings. He hated them, got there late, just enough time to wolf down his food. Then talked X and Os.
Told a great story once. Ross at Maryland ran a screen inside the 5 and scored. Press tried great call. Ross, " the running back made a great catch, totally juked a guy, then ran over two more guys to get in the end zone. It was all player."
Cremins got to Alumni meetings early, loved to meet and greet. Collins will be a meet and greet person I suspect. Best living room salesman we've had in a long time.

 

[Bibb Stinger]

I did. Gailey never had a losing record even removing FCS games. Troy became FBS (I-A) in 2001. They were in the Sun Belt in 2006. We've basically played a Sun Belt team plus at least one FCS team every year CPJ has been coach.

Gailey played Samford 3 times. Those were his only FCS (I-AA) opponents.
O'Leary played The Citadel once and Furman once. Those were his only FCS (I-AA) opponents.

To do any real comparisons between the three you have to remove those games.

Define real comparison. Bobby Ross first two years 2-9, 3-8. I guess your real comparison would be to throw out the 2 non major conference wins each year. So the real comparison is 0-9, 1-8.
That second year, the team made great progress, lost 4 games by less than 10 points, killed South Carolina 34-0.
We can twist the numbers to fit our personal narrative. My narrative, Gailey- medicore coach, with no gas in the tank at the end of the year. Guess his record is the best measure 7 wins. Ouch 9 wins one year. That's the only year we didn't put a Bowl game out of business.

 

[ncjacket79]

Up State, I recollection is Nesbitt requested to be moved to tight end to get on the field. He was not listed as QB when CPJ came on board. Looked back at 2007, his stats were QB with 13 passing attempts, but third leading rusher in yards and carries. Guess he was a Wildcat QB.

Your recollection is poor then. Nesbitt was recruited as a QB and was always aQB. Gailey wasted what could have been a RS year by trying to use him like Tebow sporadically but rarely let him throw and didn’t have much of a package for him. There wasn’t as fair amount of debate at the time about misusing him. He was never a TE although given the kind of player he was I wouldn’t doubt he would offer to play another position to help the team. We had more talent in that class than any since probably the mid 90s at least and more than any class since. We can
argue about coaching but that is a clear fact and Johnson benefited from it.

 

[alagold]

Your recollection is poor then. Nesbitt was recruited as a QB and was always aQB. Gailey wasted what could have been a RS year by trying to use him like Tebow sporadically but rarely let him throw and didn’t have much of a package for him. There wasn’t as fair amount of debate at the time about misusing him. He was never a TE although given the kind of player he was I wouldn’t doubt he would offer to play another position to help the team. We had more talent in that class than any since probably the mid 90s at least and more than any class since. We can
argue about coaching but that is a clear fact and Johnson benefited from it.

yep, that class was amazing.I said at time, we could ride this talent horse for 3 yrs at least.

 

[WreckinGT]

Your recollection is poor then. Nesbitt was recruited as a QB and was always aQB. Gailey wasted what could have been a RS year by trying to use him like Tebow sporadically but rarely let him throw and didn’t have much of a package for him. There wasn’t as fair amount of debate at the time about misusing him. He was never a TE although given the kind of player he was I wouldn’t doubt he would offer to play another position to help the team. We had more talent in that class than any since probably the mid 90s at least and more than any class since. We can
argue about coaching but that is a clear fact and Johnson benefited from it.

He did benefit from it, he also had to deal with the two awful recruiting classes that came before it full of guys who were recruited for a completely different system, and a 2008 class that wasn't great and that he had little involvement in. The cupboard wasn't full. It had some nice pieces in it but he didn't inherit what anyone would consider a talented team.

 

[Dustman]

Your recollection is poor then. Nesbitt was recruited as a QB and was always aQB. Gailey wasted what could have been a RS year by trying to use him like Tebow sporadically but rarely let him throw and didn’t have much of a package for him.

Yes and no. We recruited him as a QB but I'm pretty sure that Ugag recruited him as a safety. I loved everything Josh did for us, but Threet and/or Renfree may have come in and won the job. I agree that Gailey didn't have much of a package for him that first season (remember all the Kordell Stewart/Slash hype we heard?) - my recollection was a wildcat, and I remember thinking he's gonna fake a run soon and throw to a wide open receiver. He did, and threw it over the head of said wide open receiver. That's my recollection of Josh in 2007. Thankfully he gave us some great memories after that to define his legacy.

 

[Madison Grant]

Yes and no. We recruited him as a QB but I'm pretty sure that Ugag recruited him as a safety. I loved everything Josh did for us, but Threet and/or Renfree may have come in and won the job. I agree that Gailey didn't have much of a package for him that first season (remember all the Kordell Stewart/Slash hype we heard?) - my recollection was a wildcat, and I remember thinking he's gonna fake a run soon and throw to a wide open receiver. He did, and threw it over the head of said wide open receiver. That's my recollection of Josh in 2007. Thankfully he gave us some great memories after that to define his legacy.

My favorite memory of Nesbitt is of the "wtf?!" look on the face of opposing linebackers when, instead of trying to dodge left or right, a QB was lowering his hat into their chest to truck them.

 

[COJacket]

Define real comparison. Bobby Ross first two years 2-9, 3-8. I guess your real comparison would be to throw out the 2 non major conference wins each year. So the real comparison is 0-9, 1-8.
That second year, the team made great progress, lost 4 games by less than 10 points, killed South Carolina 34-0.
We can twist the numbers to fit our personal narrative. My narrative, Gailey- medicore coach, with no gas in the tank at the end of the year. Guess his record is the best measure 7 wins. Ouch 9 wins one year. That's the only year we didn't put a Bowl game out of business.

And he had a cupboard pretty full with all the great recruiting GOL had done the previous years

 

[bravejason]

... We had more talent in that class than any since probably the mid 90s at least and more than any class since. We can argue about coaching but that is a clear fact and Johnson benefited from it.

I think what is more to the point about Gailey is everyone lost confidence that he would ever be able to win a championship. He did four straight seasons of 7-5 or 7-6, gave a ray of hope of in 2006 where he went 9-5, and then returned to 7-5 the next season and the hope was gone.

 

[LibertyTurns]

My favorite memory of Nesbitt is of the "wtf?!" look on the face of opposing linebackers when, instead of trying to dodge left or right, a QB was lowering his hat into their chest to truck them.

Dude I really miss those days. How about the “hey I’m taking the f’ing ball back from you bastards” play against FSU? Somewhere there has to be a compilation of defenders avoiding contact when Nesbitt went trucking down the field. I’d love to watch it.

 

[JCTNJacket]

My favorite memory of Nesbitt is of the "wtf?!" look on the face of opposing linebackers when, instead of trying to dodge left or right, a QB was lowering his hat into their chest to truck them.

Best memory is of him losing a fumble and then taking it back from the linebacker and running for 5 yards...

 

[ncjacket79]

I think what is more to the point about Gailey is everyone lost confidence that he would ever be able to win a championship. He did four straight seasons of 7-5 or 7-6, gave a ray of hope of in 2006 where he went 9-5, and then returned to 7-5 the next season and the hope was gone.

I remember exactly when I gave up on Gailey. Someone will remember the details better than me but it was against MD and we were trailing. We had the ball and Gailey played for the FG to win. It would have been about a 40 yarder I think but then we had a penalty. We ended up missing but was screaming at the TV to play for the TD. We had time and could have either scored or gotten closer if we tried. That’s when i decided he was a pro coach. Even if your kicker should make it in college ball you have to be more aggressive.

 

[Bibb Stinger]

2-Light Bulb moments, Gailey will never get Tech over the hump. Athens muck game, David Greene goes out. Tech gets ball inside the 50 about 75 times, Critical last series QB doesn't know it's fourth down.
ACC Champ game, 3rd Quarter, T Choice is getting 3 yards before getting to the new line of scrimmage. We end several possessions with incomplete passes. Wake hangs around.