Your choice for Head Coach

Who is your choice for Tech's next Head Coach?

  • Jamey Chadwell, Coastal Carolina

    Votes: 188 36.5%
  • Tyson Helton, WKU

    Votes: 5 1.0%
  • Mike Houston, ECU

    Votes: 2 0.4%
  • Charles Huff, Marshall

    Votes: 1 0.2%
  • Brent Key, Georgia Tech (IHC)

    Votes: 182 35.3%
  • Sean Lewis, Kent State

    Votes: 1 0.2%
  • Bill O’Brien, Alabama (OC)

    Votes: 21 4.1%
  • Deion Sanders, Jackson State

    Votes: 64 12.4%
  • Kane Wommack, South Alabama

    Votes: 1 0.2%
  • Other

    Votes: 50 9.7%

  • Total voters
    515
  • Poll closed .

jacketup

Helluva Engineer
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1,529
Coastal was 10-2 regular season last year. Sounds great, until you realize that they won 10 against teams with losing records and lost 2 to teams with winning records.

Coastal is currently No. 79 in Sagarin. Not far ahead of Tech.

Chadwell looks like the latest shiny object that can be hired cheap. He is not the "money is not an issue" guy that Cabrera promised. I can't say I'm surprised.

We will have to wait and see what happens, but the 247 guys are pointing to Chadwell--not that they have solid information.
 

jacketup

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,529
No idea the relationship between coaches. I mean, it’s be hard for chadwell to dump his DC if they came up together, despite how good Anthony Thacker is doing right now. I mean, how else do you figure Roof became DC at OU?
How do we know that Thacker is doing good? We have 3 new coaches on D this year and one of them is not Thacker. That (and more player experience and depth) is what has changed. Turner has more experience than Thacker. Why do people (and I'm not pointing at stebu) assume that because the D is better it's all because of the DC?
 

bobongo

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Messages
7,043
How do we know that Thacker is doing good? We have 3 new coaches on D this year and one of them is not Thacker. That (and more player experience and depth) is what has changed. Turner has more experience than Thacker. Why do people (and I'm not pointing at stebu) assume that because the D is better it's all because of the DC?
It's certainly not all because of the DC, but I think the assumption is that the biggest addition to the staff was made when Collins was subtracted from it.
At any rate, the whole defensive staff is doing well, Thacker and all.
 

steebu

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
625
Why do people (and I'm not pointing at stebu) assume that because the D is better it's all because of the DC?
Because rightly or wrongly, when you’re in charge and it’s good, it’s all because of you. And when you’re in charge and things are bad, it’s all because of you.

I have not had a chance to sit down and rewatch any game in its entirety so it’d be interesting to compare the line calls and coverages from Collins to post-Collins.

One thing (and someone confirm plz) it sure feels like we’re stemming a lot more than we did before.
 

WreckinGT

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,964
How do we know that Thacker is doing good? We have 3 new coaches on D this year and one of them is not Thacker. That (and more player experience and depth) is what has changed. Turner has more experience than Thacker. Why do people (and I'm not pointing at stebu) assume that because the D is better it's all because of the DC?
There is a narrative that Collins was single handedly destroying every aspect of the team so all past results are excused for the remaining coaches. Therefore any improvement this year is simply due to his departure and any unit still not performing well just hasn't recovered from his awfulness yet. Therefore we can't judge the work of any coaches currently on the staff, other than the games after Collins left. Ill leave it up to you whether you believe this nonsense or not.
 

leatherneckjacket

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There is a narrative that Collins was single handedly destroying every aspect of the team so all past results are excused for the remaining coaches. Therefore any improvement this year is simply due to his departure and any unit still not performing well just hasn't recovered from his awfulness yet. Therefore we can't judge the work of any coaches currently on the staff, other than the games after Collins left. Ill leave it up to you whether you believe this nonsense or not.
I have decided to stop putting in any effort and let my work got to complete crap. When confronted, I plan to blame CCG for my poor work performance since he is to blame for every bad thing related to Georgia Tech.
 

jojatk

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,349
Coastal was 10-2 regular season last year. Sounds great, until you realize that they won 10 against teams with losing records and lost 2 to teams with winning records.

Coastal is currently No. 79 in Sagarin. Not far ahead of Tech.

Chadwell looks like the latest shiny object that can be hired cheap. He is not the "money is not an issue" guy that Cabrera promised. I can't say I'm surprised.

We will have to wait and see what happens, but the 247 guys are pointing to Chadwell--not that they have solid information.
Those guys are being very clear they are just stating an opinion.

It is entirely possible Chadwell is the latest shiny object. I don't think interest in him is because he's "cheap." That may be a nice side-effect of where he is in his career right now but not necessarily the driving motivation. I think interest in him is because of what he's been doing the last three years especially at Coastal, not just this year. Going back to 2020 his team they beat 2 ranked teams (I have to also acknowledge that was the COVID year so some of that is a bit skewed, but they beat all but one of the teams they played and that team was Liberty and they lost in OT to a team whose QB was eventually drafted in the third round) and finished with only 1 loss. In 2021 they only had 2 losses and both of those were to teams with winning records and they even beat Northern Illinois, something we couldn't do last year. They can only play the teams that are on their schedule and at least they are winning those games.

Personally I don't have a strong opinion about who should be our next head coach. I am so torn because every candidate brings risk. And some of that risk is more related to the uniqueness of GT than it is any of the candidates. I can find negatives for all of them. I can also find positives for all of them. We aren't going to get someone who has a 100% successful career as a P5 head coach. Those guys are out of many programs's price ranges. Certainly out of ours. If we want someone who has a lot of success on his resume then it's going to probably be someone from a lower/different division. If we want someone who has lots of P5 experience as a HC then it's probably going to be someone who has some warts like having limited success and/or being radioactively toxic for other reasons (and we aren't going to consider those kinds of guys, anyway... the radioactive ones). Then we look at current coordinators at the P5 level, probably, though it SEEMS like we are focusing more on current HCs at the moment (SEEMS because there's zero solid information about who we are interviewing so we could certainly be talking to some and I have no idea about it). And then there's Brent Key. All he's done as a leader is take a team that was in obvious distress and lead them to a 4-3 record (probably 4-4 after this weekend) when most people here would say the team would have lost every remaining game had Collins still been around and then that we could not change the "culture" around the team at all. His record HERE as an OL coach is certainly questionable though also obviously there's some mitigating factors of the Collins effect. So who knows what kept him from having more success with his OL.
 

jojatk

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,349
There is a narrative that Collins was single handedly destroying every aspect of the team so all past results are excused for the remaining coaches. Therefore any improvement this year is simply due to his departure and any unit still not performing well just hasn't recovered from his awfulness yet. Therefore we can't judge the work of any coaches currently on the staff, other than the games after Collins left. Ill leave it up to you whether you believe this nonsense or not.
I don't think the Collins effect completely absolves everyone of everything that happened prior to the day he was fired. On the other hand it's pretty compelling evidence that he had a TREMENDOUS negative impact on the entire team. You just have to look at what's happening on the field to know that. It is equally nonsense to say his presence was NOT toxic to every unit on the field. So let's not pretend that isn't as obvious as the nose on your face, either.

I've seen lots of colleagues who were not awesome at their jobs as individual contributors become managers and be excellent managers. Similarly I've seen plenty of colleagues who are awesome individual contributors who turn into terrible managers. The point being that you just never know what the different requirements of different roles will do when people are confronted with them. When Brent was confronted with the new role he thrived. We know that. We don't know if that would continue were he to be named the permanent head coach. Personally this puts him in a similar risk category as many coordinators we might look at and some G5 or lower level head coaches. Not just because he has 7 games experience as an interim head coach. But because those 7 games as interim head coach are at GT and he does understand the GT environment better than most. That is one factor many other coaches can't match just like there are factors other coaches have that Brent can't match. I don't have a relative gauge for the importance of that factor versus others, I'm just pointing out that it does matter and should be considered. But I am most definitely NOT saying we should consider Brent only because of that. Just that it is one of many factors that his intimate knowledge of the environment helps him.

Truly I do not have a favorite among the candidates we keep hearing. I can get behind most of them.
 

Mattmc10

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
101
Coastal was 10-2 regular season last year. Sounds great, until you realize that they won 10 against teams with losing records and lost 2 to teams with winning records.

Coastal is currently No. 79 in Sagarin. Not far ahead of Tech.

Chadwell looks like the latest shiny object that can be hired cheap. He is not the "money is not an issue" guy that Cabrera promised. I can't say I'm surprised.

We will have to wait and see what happens, but the 247 guys are pointing to Chadwell--not that they have solid information.
And the losses came by a total of 5 points and he won the bowl game against a winning opponent.

In 2020 he beat 5 winning teams.

We can spin data positive or negative for every option that Tech will have. We aren’t hiring Saban, Day, or L Riley.
 

orientalnc

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Retired Staff
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Location
Oriental, NC
I believe there are legitimate points to be made for Chadwell. There are also legitimate points to be made for Key. It is not necessary to beat down one to promote the other. We have this thread approaching 50 pages and another at almost 200. Is anything new or interesting being posted? No. It's just two sides shouting to an empty room.
 

Root4GT

Helluva Engineer
Messages
2,356
There is a narrative that Collins was single handedly destroying every aspect of the team so all past results are excused for the remaining coaches. Therefore any improvement this year is simply due to his departure and any unit still not performing well just hasn't recovered from his awfulness yet. Therefore we can't judge the work of any coaches currently on the staff, other than the games after Collins left. Ill leave it up to you whether you believe this nonsense or not.
Nonesense
 

slugboy

Moderator
Staff member
Messages
10,755
I don't think the Collins effect completely absolves everyone of everything that happened prior to the day he was fired. On the other hand it's pretty compelling evidence that he had a TREMENDOUS negative impact on the entire team. You just have to look at what's happening on the field to know that. It is equally nonsense to say his presence was NOT toxic to every unit on the field. So let's not pretend that isn't as obvious as the nose on your face, either.

I've seen lots of colleagues who were not awesome at their jobs as individual contributors become managers and be excellent managers. Similarly I've seen plenty of colleagues who are awesome individual contributors who turn into terrible managers. The point being that you just never know what the different requirements of different roles will do when people are confronted with them. When Brent was confronted with the new role he thrived. We know that. We don't know if that would continue were he to be named the permanent head coach. Personally this puts him in a similar risk category as many coordinators we might look at and some G5 or lower level head coaches. Not just because he has 7 games experience as an interim head coach. But because those 7 games as interim head coach are at GT and he does understand the GT environment better than most. That is one factor many other coaches can't match just like there are factors other coaches have that Brent can't match. I don't have a relative gauge for the importance of that factor versus others, I'm just pointing out that it does matter and should be considered. But I am most definitely NOT saying we should consider Brent only because of that. Just that it is one of many factors that his intimate knowledge of the environment helps him.

Truly I do not have a favorite among the candidates we keep hearing. I can get behind most of them.
I don’t know what was going on with the coaches previously. However, if you’ve ever had a bad boss and thrived after you moved or they left, you have some understanding of how much damage a bad boss can do.

Key almost left and Choice did. We had talented players leave. So far, all of them have been too classy to say anything bad. And maybe they don’t have anything bad to say. But there’s some evidence that there were problems.

Key may have stayed out of loyalty, or because he was committed to fixing things. People do stay in bad situations.
 

ibeattetris

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,545
I know it isn’t happening, but you can still book me as believing in Prime Time
1669139549079.gif
 

85Escape

Helluva Engineer
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1,450
Key may have stayed out of loyalty, or because he was committed to fixing things. People do stay in bad situations.
Exactly this. Some people persevere through bad situations because they care enough to stay engaged and try to fix things. Those who just don't care leave for greener pastures and shake the dust off their feet as they cross the bridge.

If you care, you'll fight for it. If it's just a paycheck then you look out for #1 and hope the people left behind don't suffer too much.
 

WreckinGT

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2,964
I don’t know what was going on with the coaches previously. However, if you’ve ever had a bad boss and thrived after you moved or they left, you have some understanding of how much damage a bad boss can do.

Key almost left and Choice did. We had talented players leave. So far, all of them have been too classy to say anything bad. And maybe they don’t have anything bad to say. But there’s some evidence that there were problems.

Key may have stayed out of loyalty, or because he was committed to fixing things. People do stay in bad situations.
If it was impossible for Key to be a good OL coach with the interference going on by Collins then how exactly would he fix things by staying? Isn't that just signing up to keep beating your head on a wall?
 

85Escape

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1,450
If it was impossible for Key to be a good OL coach with the interference going on by Collins then how exactly would he fix things by staying? Isn't that just signing up to keep beating your head on a wall?
You protect people. You provide resistance to stupid things. You can't prevent all the damage, but you can do your d*mnest to mitigate the worst of it.

I've been there.

I had an idiot for a boss one time and everything fell apart. I was a good leader before, and I've been a good leader after (based on results and team engagement data.) But when he was doing stupid things my numbers were bad. I stayed to protect my team...I knew the guy would never last and I did what I could for the team and tried to keep the worst of the stink from sticking to me.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find that was Key's motivation...he seems to love GT and the young men enough to do that.
 

g0lftime

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How do we know that Thacker is doing good? We have 3 new coaches on D this year and one of them is not Thacker. That (and more player experience and depth) is what has changed. Turner has more experience than Thacker. Why do people (and I'm not pointing at stebu) assume that because the D is better it's all because of the DC?
Got to give credit to the guys in the trenches too. White has been exceptional this year. The DL has improved this year for sure and there just seems to be more effort. Those guys are in a fight with other big strong guys every play. They are a big part of why we have so many more INT's this year. Part of it is coaching but the players have to get after it every single play.
 

leatherneckjacket

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Got to give credit to the guys in the trenches too. White has been exceptional this year. The DL has improved this year for sure and there just seems to be more effort. Those guys are in a fight with other big strong guys every play. They are a big part of why we have so many more INT's this year. Part of it is coaching but the players have to get after it every single play.
This is not directed at you, but does Collins get credit for going to the portal for White and other players on defense?

If so, how do we rationalize the positive transfers on defense vs the criticism he seems to be getting for going to the portal for the OL?
 
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