The reports of the TO's death have been grossly exaggerated

[SteamWhistle]

Paul’s defenses were pretty average. I think everyone was so hard and complained so much about the Defenses of that era because we were a top 3 Rushing Offense every year and it felt like if only we had a better defense.

 

[GT_05]

it’s probably confirmation bias on both ends but i feel like here, especially due to collins, johnson has now been heralded as infallible.

Johnson had plenty of faults but he was a net positive. I also think he was a pretty good fit for the institution. The biggest thing that sets him apart from Geoff in my mind is the HOPE Paul gave me as a fan. I really felt that we had a chance against most teams. With Geoff I find myself twisted about beating teams we should destroy.

 

[takethepoints]

fortune favors the bold and all that but i’m more than willing to let some other p5 team try the option in the NIL/conference realignment era first and see if they can be succesful with todays rules

Hmmmmm. 10 - 27. Or, to be more precise, 10 - 27.

So much for the bold.

 

[JacketFan137]

Hmmmmm. 10 - 27. Or, to be more precise, 10 - 27.

So much for the bold.

wow i didn’t know that

 

[nod]

I can’t stand watching games where teams score at will. Not saying it’s good or bad but just my preference.
I love when defenses make it hard to score, seeing offense pound the middle, knowing they are opening up the edge, when will defense break? Type game.
Hats off to the teams that can just march down the field but its like watching a 7 on 7 scrimmage for me.
I’ve always been a defensive guy, at the spring game I’m the one cheering when defense makes good play.

 

[JacketFan137]

I can’t stand watching games where teams score at will. Not saying it’s good or bad but just my preference.
I love when defenses make it hard to score, seeing offense pound the middle, knowing they are opening up the edge, when will defense break? Type game.
Hats off to the teams that can just march down the field but its like watching a 7 on 7 scrimmage for me.
I’ve always been a defensive guy, at the spring game I’m the one cheering when defense makes good play.

how have you handled the last 20 years of tech football

 

[takethepoints]

Paul’s defenses were pretty average. I think everyone was so hard and complained so much about the Defenses of that era because we were a top 3 Rushing Offense every year and it felt like if only we had a better defense.

This is true, but often due top Paul not being able to keep or hire the DCs he wanted. And some of those Ds were decent. And Woody has proven himself at Army.

But this is a long standing Tech problem. It is built around having a hard time finding, then recruiting DTs. Shoot, we had to go to OZ to find Gotsis and even that was a long shot; he was recruited as an OL. But - again - this is a reason why we were successful with the spread option: we held the ball so long that our Ds didn't have to be on the field much in most games. You can cover up a multitude of D sins by simply sitting on the ball like a slug. One of our main failures of vision has been to not see that football is a team sport: if you have weaknesses on one side of the ball (and most teams do) then you must compensate with strengths elsewhere to be successful. I think this is actually one of Collins's main problems. He doesn't want to admit that and work with what he has.

 

[takethepoints]

if chan would have either played the offense to reggie’s strengths or went with a different qb he would have had a really crazy run all those years. reggie would have been really effective running a malzahn type offense

You're right, but it was not to be. Reg hurt his ankle when he was mid-season in his junior year. He wasn't effective running the ball after that. Also, Chan wanted to protect him since there wasn't a viable alternative. Too bad for us, because you are 100% right here. If Reg could have run for four years and still had Calvin to throw to we would have been muy dangerous.

Update: Others agreed. After the Tech - FSU game in his freshman year, Bobby Bowden came over to the Tech locker room after the game to see Reg. Quoth Bobby, "You're trying to make me retire early, aren't you, son?"

 

[lv20gt]

We didn’t have a qb in 2017 and 2018, that’s really the only thing keeping us back. Even then here are the last four years since you explicitly called those out.
Offense Fei rank
2015 - 78 (the most injury laden team I’ve seen)
2016 - 29
2017 - 23
2018 - 19

FPI offense efficiencies
2015 - 76
2016 - 21
2017 - 23
2018 - 23

So if anything, GT’s offense was at worst steady top 25, or improving (according to FEI) CPJ’s final four years, not getting worse.

It’s ridiculous how many times this needs to be said, but the offense was not the problem. CPJ fielded almost zero competent defenses. We lost games because we had no defense.

I don’t care what offense we bring to Tech in the future, but I really hope posters learn basic logic and reasoning skills so that they can at least whine about things that make sense (like for example having the 96th worst defense in 2018). Of course our top 25 offense didn’t win a ton of games when it was dragging behind a a bottom 30 defense.

How does that address what I posted?

We had an offense the last 4 years under Johnson that basically required the defense to hold teams under 30. I can't see how people think we had a great offense when we couldn't win shoot outs.

Looking at season long data when talking about a subset of games is silly.

 

[takethepoints]

How does that address what I posted?

We had an offense the last 4 years under Johnson that basically required the defense to hold teams under 30. I can't see how people think we had a great offense when we couldn't win shoot outs.

Looking at season long data when talking about a subset of games is silly.

Paul wasn't that worried. Somebody asked him about the D inconsistencies once and he said, "All I ask is three stops a game." Sure enough, when we couldn't do that we had trouble. I used to sit in the stands and count the number of 3 and outs.

 

[JacketFan137]

Paul wasn't that worried. Somebody asked him about the D inconsistencies once and he said, "All I ask is three stops a game." Sure enough, when we couldn't do that we had trouble. I used to sit in the stands and count the number of 3 and outs.

that’s honestly not a good quote

 

[jgtengineer]

Kinda, because you lose midline.

Everybody talks about the triple/veer as the signature play of the PJO, but honestly I think midline is the straw that stirs the drink. The threat of the back being in the secondary NOW forced everybody to defend inside-out and opened up all the rocket toss action, and the sprintout passing game for slant/rail and everything else.

IMO, midline was the play that everything else built off, not veer.

Veer is just a blocking scheme commonly used to run triple off the end man on the line. You can run the midline from Pistol but its not as effective because its not as fast hitting and requires a REALLY good read off the tackle and the danger of a 3 yard loss (all in all its jsut not as effective as using a splitzone read option to do the same constraint. But Midline was a hell of a constaint play under johnson when he had a B-Back that could house call from a dive. It really squeezed a defense in.

I suppose that's what i feel we've been missing most under collins's offenses. We don't really have constraint plays we can run that force the defense to defend them or give up 5 yards and it hurts us.

 

[ibeattetris]

How does that address what I posted?

We had an offense the last 4 years under Johnson that basically required the defense to hold teams under 30. I can't see how people think we had a great offense when we couldn't win shoot outs.

Looking at season long data when talking about a subset of games is silly.

In 2015 we scored 30 or more 3 times
In 2016 7 times
In 2017 6 times
In 2018 7 times

I also want to add that counting the number of points a team scores might be the stupidest thing considering it's much more important how many points per drive or points per play you have. Considering the arguments you are making here, I can tell it's in bad faith, so good day to you.

 

[iceeater1969]

Paul wasn't that worried. Somebody asked him about the D inconsistencies once and he said, "All I ask is three stops a game." Sure enough, when we couldn't do that we had trouble. I used to sit in the stands and count the number of 3 and outs.

When T Roof refused to tighten up during a particular game he was later promoted to Duke.

We were like clock work after the half if we received at half time.
DONT rush to get cokes at half time.
Wait for kick off and the successful gt drive. So great at half time adjustments.
Then go get refreshments w no line . You only missed the kick off and about 5 plays. Then other team was near red zone and the dbs came up in coverage/ int/ score / fg. Folks were standing up so u couldcgrt by to your seat. Fun times.

 

[stylee]

Kinda, because you lose midline.

Everybody talks about the triple/veer as the signature play of the PJO, but honestly I think midline is the straw that stirs the drink. The threat of the back being in the secondary NOW forced everybody to defend inside-out and opened up all the rocket toss action, and the sprintout passing game for slant/rail and everything else.

IMO, midline was the play that everything else built off, not veer.

I won’t debate what’s the centerpiece - midline is crucial and was huge for GT.

You can run midline from the pistol - I did - but, to your point, it becomes a very different play, even if blocked the same, because of the relatively glacial movement and the way the runner’s path would have to bow back against the grain. The veer would hit slower too, but you’d still have roughly the same path for the B-back.

 

[DavidStandingBear]

i agree. we all know johnson is better than collins and anyone would have preferred going 7-6 than 3-9. i just get the feeling that there’s a little too much rose tinted nostalgia goggles on sometimes cause at the end of the day paul averaged 7 wins a season and guys here are talking like we turned down 10 win seasons to run a regular offense

and saying this thread is about the offense is somewhat disingenuous. we all know triple option is a paul johnson discussion when it comes to tech football

So an average PJ team had a winning season and was bowl qualified.

 

[JacketFan137]

So an average PJ team had a winning season and was bowl qualified.

yeah and that wasn’t good enough for gailey so i’m not sure why we bend the rules for paul and call it ok for him

 

[GT_05]

yeah and that wasn’t good enough for gailey so i’m not sure why we bend the rules for paul and call it ok for him

Gailey couldn’t beat UGA. I think he was offered a large bonus to beat the mutts and couldn’t pull it off.

 

[tomknight]

In 2015 we scored 30 or more 3 times
In 2016 7 times
In 2017 6 times
In 2018 7 times

I also want to add that counting the number of points a team scores might be the stupidest thing considering it's much more important how many points per drive or points per play you have. Considering the arguments you are making here, I can tell it's in bad faith, so good day to you.

I guess we never lost a game. Never got blown out by anyone, never took a beat down in a bowl game.

CPJ was very good, but some of seem to think we won it all every year he was here due to his offensive scheme.

 

[ibeattetris]

I guess we never lost a game. Never got blown out by anyone, never took a beat down in a bowl game.

CPJ was very good, but some of seem to think we won it all every year he was here due to his offensive scheme.

In every season, every team but one is guaranteed to lose a game. Of course CPJ lost games, just like Collins does and just like whoever the coach after him will.