Bottom line for me, he either has to go 8-4, or 7-5 with a victory over Ugag. Anything less and he should be let go.
I am really surprised at the poll results of the number of people that want to keep him no matter what.
'91.. I respect your opinion... For me, it's very difficult to evaluate a leader of ANY organization by looking at any single event (or a couple of events) during the course of a year and determine "they should go"... GT Football is a business, pure and simple, and like any other business, leadership is evaluated on many things. You will never see a serious business evaluate senior leadership based on this weeks Staff Meeting, or this months sales performance. They are evaluated on the direction of the organization, their impact on team morale, their ability to specifically address the obstacles standing between current results and the company's stated goals.
I do not know PJ, have never met him, and have ZERO personal bias one way or the other with him... I believe that if we look at things objectively we might conclude that running him off would be a terrible idea for our program.
We act as if our program was performing at the highest level until PJ got here and wrecked it.... that is simply not true.
The players respect him, he is, I believe, a "winner"...he has a defiant, winning attitude, and respects the players by believing in their ability and DEMANDING their very best. That is respect, and it is appreciated by competitors. The opposite, for comparison, is "Oh, bless their hearts, they're trying but just aren't that good".... a weak and pathetic trait that I have NEVER seen exhibited by Coach Johnson.
-He saw the need to improve Special Teams and he did something about it.
-He saw the need to improve graduation rates and has been very successful raising those rates
-He saw the need to recruit a QB that fits the offense and he successfully found JT... JT is good now and will only be better the next 2.5 years
-He saw the need to improve defensively and made a legitimate effort by hiring Coach Roof... he has not yet been successful in this effort yet. This one is critical and MUST be addressed... it is a deal breaker if not fixed quickly (next year or two)
-He saw the need to ramp up recruiting across the board and by all accounts has been successful in gaining some level of support from the administration to broaden the pool of prospects we can recruit and enroll.. the value of this cannot be over stated... that support most likely came as the result of them having confidence in PJ and his demonstrated results in monitoring academic performance by the players and rising graduation rates. The 2015 class, I think we would all agree, is loaded. It represents demonstrated improvement and "payout" for his efforts in broadening our pool of approachable prospects.
-He has been consistent, fair, and DECISIVE in dealing with disciplinary issues... that, in any organization, builds trust, confidence, loyalty. Those things build winning organizations. It fills each individual contributor with a desire for the "team" to reach it's desired outcome.
For all our challenges and frustrations (many of which I share) we would make a significant mistake running off the leader of our organization right now. In fact, we are doing ourselves a disservice even talking about it.
I'm not sure what the results will be from our "enhanced" recruiting capabilities will be but early results are very favorable. Let a few cycles play out and let's evaluate then. I will be investing my energy and whatever money and influence I can towards the support of our program. I want that 5th NC and I genuinely believe we can achieve that in the next 3-5 years. My part is small, but all of our small parts are huge.
Hope you have a great Sunday my friend!
