Where the Program stands

[Ibeeballin]

Indeed he is. How about the other six? Just crappy players who lucked out, or what?

6 players who were given UDFA contracts.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

It is not realistic to say that anyone expected 9 wins in 3 seasons.

I mean, I predicted 3, 4, and 4 for the last three seasons. Most experts have expected us to be a losing team during this process. GT fans didn't expect it, but most of us here are homers that are used to CPJ outperforming expectations.

 

[slugboy]

Well, we've hashed this out a ton, but why not once more?

2018: CPJ's last year. New D-coordinator and system. Defense is statistically the worst of the CPJ era. Lose the bowl game. Most of the "offensive production" graduates (however, the QB kept the ball more often than not). Lots of defensive "production" also graduated.

2019: Collin's first season. Recruiting class was not terrible given a transition year. Defense improved but was not up to the average performance over the previous decade and wasn't good. It wasn't up to the Ted Roof defenses that got derided around here. Offensive numbers plummeted.
The expectation was that this would be a massive losing year--lost production off of offense, major change of scheme in all facets of the game, etc.
This was a "rip the band-aid off and have a bad year and be better in 2020" strategy, or it seemed like one. In some ways, it was still worse than expected (Citadel, for instance).

2020: Started out with a really good recruiting class. Top 25-ish. This is something to build off of.
COVID hits. Spring practice lost. Yes, COVID hits everyone, but this couldn't be worse timing for the Collins strategic plan. This doesn't mean that he was executing in an above-average fashion, but it was a sledgehammer to the knees of the long-term plan.
Collins spends a lot of focus on the offense--not his specialty, but he wants that to be a shiny bauble for the fans and for the program and for recruiting. Has a star QB and a star RB.
The season hits. In a season where teams dropped their hard game, we keep UCF.
We go 3-7.
The defense gets slightly better. The offense gets a lot better. They're still statistically awful.
We didn't have more injuries than most teams, but we had no depth, and it showed.
With the benefit of hindsight, 2018 and 2019 needed to be "get reps for your young players". That's hard to do when the offense goes 3-and-out, or close to it. It's also hard to do when you're banged up.
We need 4 or 5 linemen of the future to start gelling this year, and we kinda see 1 or 2. We haven't recruited the star LB to take the reins in the front 6 yet, or they're not seeing the field.
The strategic plan got derailed here and needed to get back on the rails in 2021.
li
2021: Hello NIL. Hello "coach's hot seat". Hello, "transfers are as important as high-school recruiting". A lot of the big changes to the college game are totally counter to the strategic plan, and Collins is also coaching for his life. We're plugging in transfers, some short term, as quick fixes. Some are injured and don't see playing time.
Collins stays focused on offense, defense actually declines, and you see players not listening to the coaches. In normal circumstances, this is a "sit the guys who aren't listening" event, but Collins is on the hot seat, so they stay in.
We win 3 games, but more importantly we don't see the foundations of a successful 2022 built as of yet.

2022: Massive coaching turnover. Some of the coaches look good. We lost some good coaches. We're playing the transfer market. We have about the same talent level as the last two seasons. Collins is coaching for his career (again).
If we were looking at this situation for NCST, South Carolina, FSU, Wake, or anybody else as fans of another team, we'd stay that this looks like a long shot at best. We're Tech fans, so we have more faith, but we're counting on the problems of past seasons being fixed. We haven't seen anything in practice, so it's blind hope.

 

[bobongo]

6 players who were given UDFA contracts.

Well 5 more, plus one draft pick. Yes, a total of 7 signed NFL contracts is not what one would expect from a 3-9 team. That's the other part of the equation: 3-9.
But if you don't see it that way we'll just agree to disagree.

 

[JacketFan137]

I'm with you on how I feel about JacketFan's undying defense of CGC (or just of the state of the program), but here I don't think that is what he was saying.... With better financial support we could have had a better staff (i.e. one that didn't include a never was like Patenaude), but of course with better financial support things might have looked different under CPJ too...

Just trying to be a little fair to JacketFan. I roll my eyes sometimes, but I admire the dedication....

i have never defended coach collins. i just don’t believe this is some unsalvageable situation and that some of the crazy over the top negativity is largely rooted in ulterior motives such as not being ready to abandon the option.

that being said you explained the point well. we paid collins vanderbilt salary and are getting vanderbilt results. yes, he could be better but i think the whole process was absolutely chalked the second we went into p5 football with a staff that is largely underpaid relative to where many of the fans feel the program should be. some of that is likely because any incoming coach with any pedigree or sense knew this was an uphill battle so it was probably gonna be a little more difficult to hire a great coordinator at different spots. i also think this is something collins needed to handle better as he left his OC last probably a year longer than he should have

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

i have never defended coach collins. i just don’t believe this is some unsalvageable situation and that some of the crazy over the top negativity is largely rooted in ulterior motives such as not being ready to abandon the option.

that being said you explained the point well. we paid collins vanderbilt salary and are getting vanderbilt results. yes, he could be better but i think the whole process was absolutely chalked the second we went into p5 football with a staff that is largely underpaid relative to where many of the fans feel the program should be. some of that is likely because any incoming coach with any pedigree or sense knew this was an uphill battle so it was probably gonna be a little more difficult to hire a great coordinator at different spots. i also think this is something collins needed to handle better as he left his OC last probably a year longer than he should have

Hard to get Ferrari performance on a Kia budget...

 

[JacketFan137]

Hard to get Ferrari performance on a Kia budget...

yeah and i’m not advocating for collins to get paid more. to continue the car analogy putting premium gas in a 97 kia won’t make it a porsche. hopefully we learn our lesson and going forward we buy a nice car next time instead of having to take it to the shop over and over and spend so much on buyouts

 

[RamblinRed]

Just like every school GT does not have unlimited resources including money, so it has to do the best it can with what it has.

If there is a coaching change I doubt the salary change will be much different from the current salaries.

 

[Ibeeballin]

Just like every school GT does not have unlimited resources including money, so it has to do the best it can with what it has.

If there is a coaching change I doubt the salary change will be much different from the current salaries.

Unless Tech gets crazy and do a mid-season firing then i expect the salary to be near the $4MM price

 

[slugboy]

Historical trend info. This is SP+ defense (lower is better). The dotted teal line is the ACC average, and the dotted grey line is the national average, which includes all the G5 teams. We were way below average last year. Some of that could be based on having the defensive backfield and the front 6 out of sync with each other. We're replacing a lot of pieces on defense. They'll have to step up and play a lot better.
"Good" is subjective, but I'd put it under 22 or thereabouts these days. It'd take massive improvement to get there. We've retooled our defensive staff, and we'll have to hope that has a huge impact.
If someone wants to argue that these stats are off based on what they see on the field, we can talk about that, but I think it's fair.
Where we stand: Lots of room for improvement. Bottom quarter of FBS (much less P5)

The offensive rating chart (below) works the other way. Higher is better. The Fridge days look awesome, but that's not here and now.
Again, we're below average for all of FBS.
Where we stand: 3rd year QB. Good RBs. OL issues.

Boston College was about the weakest ACC team to make a bowl last year. Here is our overall SP+ vs BC's (in red). Since our schedule is harder than theirs, we need to improve to at least get better than BC to go bowling. Miami went 7-5 with a canceled bowl and UVA went 6-6. We probably need to get around that good from last year. That's a big step up (Miami and UVA were both better than BC, overall).

 

[JacketFan137]

Just like every school GT does not have unlimited resources including money, so it has to do the best it can with what it has.

If there is a coaching change I doubt the salary change will be much different from the current salaries.

i would imagine a little more will be brought forward from the boosters and powers that be as that is typical when coaches are fired and replaced. hard to sell season tickets to (rightfully) disgruntled fans if you fire a guy from temple and then we just hire someone from some other g5 school and pay him the same.

i would expect we step up a little bit now that we have a much more manageable roster so we’ll have a little bit more appeal to prospective hires

 

[GT_05]

Historical trend info. This is SP+ defense (lower is better). The dotted teal line is the ACC average, and the dotted grey line is the national average, which includes all the G5 teams. We were way below average last year. Some of that could be based on having the defensive backfield and the front 6 out of sync with each other. We're replacing a lot of pieces on defense. They'll have to step up and play a lot better.
"Good" is subjective, but I'd put it under 22 or thereabouts these days. It'd take massive improvement to get there. We've retooled our defensive staff, and we'll have to hope that has a huge impact.
If someone wants to argue that these stats are off based on what they see on the field, we can talk about that, but I think it's fair.
Where we stand: Lots of room for improvement. Bottom quarter of FBS (much less P5)
View attachment 12626

The offensive rating chart (below) works the other way. Higher is better. The Fridge days look awesome, but that's not here and now.
Again, we're below average for all of FBS.
Where we stand: 3rd year QB. Good RBs. OL issues.

View attachment 12627

Boston College was about the weakest ACC team to make a bowl last year. Here is our overall SP+ vs BC's (in red). Since our schedule is harder than theirs, we need to improve to at least get better than BC to go bowling. Miami went 7-5 with a canceled bowl and UVA went 6-6. We probably need to get around that good from last year. That's a big step up (Miami and UVA were both better than BC, overall).

View attachment 12628

Looking at the defense numbers. Was the ‘85 Bears defense playing for us that year? Stellar D. I looked up the 1985 season on Wikipedia and we played three games against the SEC that year and we were 1-1-1. Lost to Auburn by a FG, tied Tennessee, and beat the Mutts by 4. 9-2-1 overall that season and beat Michigan State by a FG in the Hall of Fame Classic. Go Jackets!

 

[Pointer]

Hard to get Ferrari performance on a Kia budget...

Wasn't so hard not that long ago.

 

[JacketFan137]

Wasn't so hard not that long ago.

paul johnson is certainly the best coach we’ve had at tech in the last 30 years or so and i would never debate that but acting like we regularly exceeded expectations under him is a pretty big stretch. aside from 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016 we underachieved and more often than not ended up extremely disappointed with the season. collins is bad but we can’t rewrite history and act like we were a ferrari the whole time under johnson

 

[bobongo]

Wasn't so hard not that long ago.

Paul Johnson was a Ferrari sporadically but was most often a good, sturdy Ford.

But Collins has been a Trabant consistently:

Hoping to trade that in for something that runs this year.

 

[GT_05]

paul johnson is certainly the best coach we’ve had at tech in the last 30 years or so and i would never debate that but acting like we regularly exceeded expectations under him is a pretty big stretch. aside from 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016 we underachieved and more often than not ended up extremely disappointed with the season. collins is bad but we can’t rewrite history and act like we were a ferrari the whole time under johnson

I’m not sure Paul’s teams “regularly exceeded expectations” but I believe he was able to do more with less. Collins is doing less with more.

Bring on the boos.

 

[jgtengineer]

I’m not sure Paul’s teams “regularly exceeded expectations” but I believe he was able to do more with less. Collins is doing less with more.

Bring on the boos.

Paul's teams were often picked to finish lower than they did with the exception of tow years. 2010 and 2015.

 

[GT_05]

Paul's teams were often picked to finish lower than they did with the exception of tow years. 2010 and 2015.

I don’t remember 2010 but in 2015 everybody from the QB (and backup QB, IIRC) to the water boy was injured. I remember driving up to ND with high hopes and driving back thinking, “That is definitely not the team from last year.”

 

[JacketFan137]

I’m not sure Paul’s teams “regularly exceeded expectations” but I believe he was able to do more with less. Collins is doing less with more.

Bring on the boos.

not sure why you said this like it’s not the overwhelming opinion. kinda preaching to the choir and straw manning

 

[GT_05]

not sure why you said this like it’s not the overwhelming opinion. kinda preaching to the choir and straw manning

CGC seems untouchable to some on this board.