I joined the Bbuzzoff site years ago because I was frustrated with the direction of Tech football and with Coach Gailey not being able to turn the corner (e.g., win critical, season-defining games and beat UGA at least once). I was looking for a group of alumni online who wanted to find a new coach, and came across that site by accident. Coach Gailey was a very talented recruiter and brought in some good NFL talent, but was a poor game manager. (But then so was Pepper Rodgers, and I really liked Pepper; he at least beat Georgia). The problem I had with Coach Gailey wasn't so much the on-the-field performance, but a lack of zeal for his job. He seemed a poor fit for Tech. My initial gut reaction when he appeared at his first press conference as coach was that Tech made the wrong hiring decision and that fans would be stuck with him for five or six more years until people finally realized it. It never seemed like Coach Gailey ever truly wanted to be at Tech; it almost seemed like he was just collecting a pay check at times. Never really sold the public on the Tech program.
My thoughts on Coach Paul Johnson are different... I don't particularly want him gone. Like Gailey, his teams have a knack for losing critical, season-defining games, and he hasn't beaten Georgia -- except for his inaugural season in '08. And like Gailey, his teams sometimes find ways to win that occasional, unlikely game they shouldn't have won. But Coach Johnson has a zeal for Tech that CCG didn't have, and I think CPJ overall represents the program and the school very well. Unlike Gailey, CPJ has a much more brilliant football mind, at least where offense is concerned, but doesn't have the recruiting talents that Gailey had. And when you can't get the players you need, it makes it very hard to bring decent assistant coaches in... which in turn makes it hard to get talented players, etc. Considering that the Hill puts little importance on the football program and will not give the AD the waivers it needs to bring in better athletes, there's really little CPJ can do. Firing him or pressuring him to leave won't correct the situation when you don't have the proper support coming from the Hill. Remember the years leading up to the '90 season, Tech had a president in the person of Pat Crecine who valued athletics almost as much as academics -- was really fired up about Tech's athletic traditions and was willing to give the AD the tools they needed to win. Not so today.
So unless Tech completely collapses the rest of the way this season, there's no cogent reason to fire CPJ. He represents the school well, does as well as he can under the circumstances, and graduates his players. And in the end, what does a winning football program really matter when there are much bigger problems we all face? The billionaires seem to have decided that either Hillary or Jeb (or some other similar person) is going to be our next president; as in elections past, the news outlets are going make it all seem inevitable and thereby condition us to vote accordingly; neither party is likely to get rid of obamacare or fix the border; ISIS is raging out of control, and then there's ebola and the interovirus. Compared to these things (and to the eternal things of God), does it really matter how our alma mater does on the gridiron? <--- trying to convince myself daily of this...