Willie Fritz and the spread option

[RickStromFan]

And, just for clarity, Willie “the pits” Fritz has what to do with any of this?

some weird fascination with GA Southern and the even stranger belief that we have to hire their ex-coaches (Monken, Fritz, PJ).

 

[Madison Grant]

some weird fascination with GA Southern and the even stranger belief that we have to hire their ex-coaches (Monken, Fritz, PJ).

Yes, and the "all we need is an offensive guru" crowd. Some people wanted Kendall Briles here. Well, look at what Clemson is doing to them today. No amount of wiz playcalling is going to change what FSU has at OL and QB. Sounds familiar.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

You have to remember that Fritz took over a program that was trying to run a pro style passing offense... He had to convert it back to a spread option.

Tulane has the #14 scoring offense in the country, and the #4 rushing offense in the country.

There isn't a single doubt in my mind that Willie would have been an easier transition for tech, with just as much upside. I will bet money that Geoff Collins never puts a top 15 offense on the field.

 

[Lee]

You have to remember that Fritz took over a program that was trying to run a pro style passing offense... He had to convert it back to a spread option.

Tulane has the #14 scoring offense in the country, and the #4 rushing offense in the country.

There isn't a single doubt in my mind that Willie would have been an easier transition for tech, with just as much upside. I will bet money that Geoff Collins never puts a top 15 offense on the field.

You do realize there is more to football than offense right?

I could have bet the same thing on PJ bringing in a top 15 recruiting class or fielding a top 15 defense.

There’s a lot more evidence to support my bet than yours. But even if yours is true and we have top 25 recruiting classes, a top 15 defense, solid special teams and a top 30-40 offense we will more competitive on a consistent basis than we have been.

Can CGC do all of the above? We don’t know, but I’m willing to give the opportunity instead of fawning over some coach we didn’t hire.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

You do realize there is more to football than offense right?

Of course.. and as I have stated previously the defensive coordinator should be the highest paid assistant on staff.

 

[Lee]

Of course.. and as I have stated previously the defensive coordinator should be the highest paid assistant on staff.

We tried 4, well 3.5. Could we have spent more money? Sure. Would it have mattered? I personally don’t think so

We always talked about how nobody’s scout team could run our offense to give their D a look. Same could be said on our end. Guys recruited to play in this offense aren’t going to give our defense a serious look. Scheme is great, but as any athlete and they will tell you reps are equally important. Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it is another. Only way to be able to react is to have repped it many times.

I also strongly believe the offense we ran impacted our ability to recruit Dlineman. Whether or not the offense actually cause more injuries to DL or not doesn’t really matter. The perception does and the perception is that our DL get cut all the time in practice.

I could go into more reasons why I don’t think we would’ve ever fielded a legit defense with the old regime or one similar, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

Lee,

Not a bad argument, I'm just not sure it's supported by the facts. Take this as an example....

Army, Navy, and Air Force are all top 39 in total defense this year. Air Force is at 21, and Navy is at 16. How is that possible?

Florida State is #118... Colorado#123.. Boston College#121... GT #93... USC #94...

#1, time of possession. Navy and Air Force in the top 10. Monken and army have led the nation in this state before.

#2, the defenses were rarely total crap.

2011 - #64 defense
2012- #44 overall defense
2013- #43 overall defense
2014 - #27 overall defense
2015- #70 overall defense
2016- #42 overall defense
2017- #63 overall defense
2018- #33 overall defense

Average ranking of 48... Including #33 last year. It stands to reason that another year with Woody, including an improved offense (which was going to happen), and the defense could have been a top 30 defense.

That's how you win 10 games.

 

[Madison Grant]

Lee,

Not a bad argument, I'm just not sure it's supported by the facts. Take this as an example....

Army, Navy, and Air Force are all top 39 in total defense this year. Air Force is at 21, and Navy is at 16. How is that possible?

Florida State is #118... Colorado#123.. Boston College#121... GT #93... USC #94...

#1, time of possession. Navy and Air Force in the top 10. Monken and army have led the nation in this state before.

#2, the defenses were rarely total crap.

2011 - #64 defense
2012- #44 overall defense
2013- #43 overall defense
2014 - #27 overall defense
2015- #70 overall defense
2016- #42 overall defense
2017- #63 overall defense
2018- #33 overall defense

Average ranking of 48... Including #33 last year. It stands to reason that another year with Woody, including an improved offense (which was going to happen), and the defense could have been a top 30 defense.

That's how you win 10 games.

Woody wasn't turning anything around last year. He was handcuffed by CPJ the way all the DCs before him were. He was told to play corners off and play bend but don't break. Part of the plan to 'shorten the game'. Do I have firsthand knowledge? Only if you consider watching the game and using your own eyes.

 

[Animal02]

Woody wasn't turning anything around last year. He was handcuffed by CPJ the way all the DCs before him were. He was told to play corners off and play bend but don't break. Part of the plan to 'shorten the game'. Do I have firsthand knowledge? Only if you consider watching the game and using your own eyes.

 

[Lee]

Lee,

Not a bad argument, I'm just not sure it's supported by the facts. Take this as an example....

Army, Navy, and Air Force are all top 39 in total defense this year. Air Force is at 21, and Navy is at 16. How is that possible?

Florida State is #118... Colorado#123.. Boston College#121... GT #93... USC #94...

#1, time of possession. Navy and Air Force in the top 10. Monken and army have led the nation in this state before.

#2, the defenses were rarely total crap.

2011 - #64 defense
2012- #44 overall defense
2013- #43 overall defense
2014 - #27 overall defense
2015- #70 overall defense
2016- #42 overall defense
2017- #63 overall defense
2018- #33 overall defense

Average ranking of 48... Including #33 last year. It stands to reason that another year with Woody, including an improved offense (which was going to happen), and the defense could have been a top 30 defense.

That's how you win 10 games.

Having the 60th, 68th, and 88th toughest schedules is a start.

Then when you look to see that they are playing offensive juggernauts like Holy Cross, Tulsa, ECU, Rice, TX-San Ant, W. Kentucky, and Morgan State you realize there might be more to it than that. Looking at some of those scores I find it hard to believe they are ranked as high as you say, but I have no reason to doubt you’re not telling the truth.

TOP is the biggest thing that offense has going for it and the nest defense for an option team.

You can say our defense wasn’t that bad, but I’m willing to bet there are very few times past 2009 that any GT fan felt comfortable up less than a td with the defense on the field at the end of the game. Most wanted the other team to just score fast so we had a chance to answer. That tells me all I need to know about our defense under the last regime. Could Woody have been the right guy? Maybe. We will never know. What we do know is the other 3 couldn’t figure it out.

 

[bhoffman123]

I hear all of the complaining about the current coach and if he has what it takes or not. With all of that complaining, name a coach we could have hired that would have done better converting from the Triple O. Another coach might have had one more win but nothing statistically significant. It's just where we are at. Must recruit to fit the new model and keep trying to get better. Year 2 or 3 is when you can make a realistic judgment.

 

[year_of_the_swarm]

I hear all of the complaining about the current coach and if he has what it takes or not. With all of that complaining, name a coach we could have hired that would have done better converting from the Triple O. Another coach might have had one more win but nothing statistically significant. It's just where we are at. Must recruit to fit the new model and keep trying to get better. Year 2 or 3 is when you can make a realistic judgment.

Willie Fritz doesn't run the triple option, but is used to this kind of personnel. Of course, the best option was Monken or Niumatalolo. Do that and the team is 5-1 right now.

Not tanking your program for 3 years should have been a legitimate consideration. Lots of damage can occur in 2-3 years of very bad results.

 

[Animal02]

Willie Fritz doesn't run the triple option, but is used to this kind of personnel. Of course, the best option was Monken or Niumatalolo. Do that and the team is 5-1 right now.

Not tanking your program for 3 years should have been a legitimate consideration. Lots of damage can occur in 2-3 years of very bad results.

Not taking the program for 2-3 years should have been a top priority. Hell some of these kid graduate in three years.

 

[RickStromFan]

Willie Fritz doesn't run the triple option, but is used to this kind of personnel. Of course, the best option was Monken or Niumatalolo. Do that and the team is 5-1 right now.

Not tanking your program for 3 years should have been a legitimate consideration. Lots of damage can occur in 2-3 years of very bad results.

Hiring another service academy coach just kicks the can of football irrelevancy down the road a few more years. Fan interest in that type of offense - and defense - was gone. Attendance was dwindling. Season ticket sales were cratering. We were 1000 miles away from a CFP berth. Outside of some vocal fans on message boards, no one took us seriously - we were seen as a gimmick offense on those awful Thursday night games we typically lost (and no one mentioned how badly we played defense). We were never winning the ACC again, trying to beat a Clemson with that sort of offense -- and defense. We weren't close to beating a kirby shart-coached team, now that he's got his kids in there, as the last 2 years have shown.

There's no logical reason to think a Coach Woody was going to turn things around on defense. Given the complete lack of fundamentals (tackling, angles to ball carriers, still playing that stupid soft pass coverage) we saw the entire 2018 season, it's likely things would've gotten worse on D, if that's even possible. We can see that we've actually got decent size in the secondary - not sure why Coach Woody couldn't do much with it.

Hiring another service academy coach would've likely killed the program. TStan knew it and hired the opposite and reversed the money flow and interest. Most fans understood this is a big rebuild and will give CGC the time required to get the Option Scheme effects out of the program. Those who don't understand that, or who wanted a Service Academy guy, weren't going to be happy with ANY hire unless it was a continuation of a scheme that was bottoming out.

If CGC has done nothing after 3 years, he'll almost certainly be replaced with a coach who won't be facing the type of rebuild/scheme-change CGC is facing. He won't be replaced with a service academy guy though. Those days are over - that experiment is done.

You should start placing prop bets on GT's 2020 and 2021 season now if you think we're going to tank for "2-3 years". PM me some "2-3 years" stock advice too, please!

 

[Sidewalking]

Logicless and unprovable is your statement about us being set up for a monster year with the option had it returned. 2014 was a clear outlier. No other year under Johnson outside of 09 was close to it and it took a convergence of several lucky breaks to make that year what it was including an injury forcing a better running back to play turning around a season that was headed for mediocrity. That's a fluke and wasn't going to happen again.

2016 wasn't a fluke. It was just a normal up year like 06 was for Gailey. Beating a 7-5 UGA team doesn't make it special just because you have a little brother syndrome. It wasn't close to 2014.

Football is a funny sport. Fluke plays happen. And a fluke play can be a deciding factor in a close game. Fluke seasons are a complete fallacy imo. You are what your record is / was.

 

[Lee]

Willie Fritz doesn't run the triple option, but is used to this kind of personnel. Of course, the best option was Monken or Niumatalolo. Do that and the team is 5-1 right now.

Not tanking your program for 3 years should have been a legitimate consideration. Lots of damage can occur in 2-3 years of very bad results.

The bolded above is why people can’t take you option enthusiasts seriously. You seriously think that we would be 5-1 with a depleted Oline, losing more than half of our offensive production, and the same defense? All this without the best option coach in our lifetime?

Would we have looked better offensively? Most likely, but that doesn’t mean we would have won significantly more games. I think the big issue is that a subset of our fans tied their identity to our offense. It made them feel special/different. The problem is, there is more to this game besides what our team does on one side of the ball.

 

[Sidewalking]

I think it's pretty clear that the prior scheme had a negative impact on recruiting. Apparently for both sides of the ball. Tech was never able to dispel the false narratives about the scheme on offense, for whatever reason though willful ignorance seems a large contributing factor. I think it's also pretty clear the offense was elite with the right pieces in place and even in "down years" was at minimum good. Defense was clearly subpar most years and maybe just decent in the best years. I think it's also pretty clear Tech doesn't wish to enter the funding war in athletics. I see little reason to think that will ever change. For every regime the good and the bad falls at the feet of the relevant staffs, the athletic administration, alumni support, and the school leadership.

I think Collins can recruit better than we have in a while. Heck he might end up recruiting better than anyone going back to Dodd. He will have to work extremely hard if Tech remains unwilling to fund the program like other school are today.

As to this season and the talent vs coaching debates. It seems pretty obvious that a season this bad thus far is due to some deficiencies in both areas. The season isn't over yet though and the last half of the year can potentially be a building block to a better season next year.

 

[lv20gt]

Football is a funny sport. Fluke plays happen. And a fluke play can be a deciding factor in a close game. Fluke seasons are a complete fallacy imo. You are what your record is / was.

It wasn't a fluke in the sense that we were bad. It was a great team. It was a fluke in the sense that year was unlikely to happen again. It saw a combination of unlikely heroes (a career journeyman backup only getting a chance because of an injury immediately improving production significantly, a WR a year removed from not playing football), uncharacteristic play (we forced 20% more turnovers that year than any other year under Johnson), and in general being on the receiving end of some fortunate things that (fumble against GSU and injury to Watson).

 

[Pointer]

It wasn't a fluke in the sense that we were bad. It was a great team. It was a fluke in the sense that year was unlikely to happen again. It saw a combination of unlikely heroes (a career journeyman backup only getting a chance because of an injury immediately improving production significantly, a WR a year removed from not playing football), uncharacteristic play (we forced 20% more turnovers that year than any other year under Johnson), and in general being on the receiving end of some fortunate things that (fumble against GSU and injury to Watson).

Garbage

 

[Sidewalking]

Garbage

I disagree with him but I don't think his opinion is garbage. Just like some have reason to believe an option scheme has and can succeed at the P5 level. There are plenty of reasonable people who think it will never appeal to the elite players that everyone covets. I don't agree with that but I can see why they have that opinion.