I Feel Confident

EastboundJacket

EastboundJacket

Damn Good Rat
Joined
Nov 27, 2013
Messages
1,255
Get your to;dr's ready, but I've been thinking-

This year sucked, didn't it?
It's hard to have a year where you lose excitement and don't feel like your team will compete with the other 11 guys on the field on any given Saturday- and that even if they do, things won't go your way. That's frustrating and it's something we haven't faced in a long time.

Still, I'm confident about the future and about next year. Rose colored glasses or not, I think CPJ can be summed up as "the best coach for Tech to succeed." He has already given us 2 exceptional seasons that really don't match the current state of our athletic stature. Sure, we've been a historically very good and very proud team, but the game has changed. If we changed and began allowing athletes of lesser academic prowess into Tech, this entire post could be invalidated; however, it doesn't seem like we'll do that right now.

Here's the hard thing: if we had a coach that ran a pro-style or spread offense like the other schools, we probably wouldn't have had as bad a year as we did this year. With the rash of injuries it could have been, but those injuries are magnified by the offense we run. We lost key cogs in a delicate but powerful machine and it hurt us. Other systems aren't as difficult for younger players to run, so we probably would've been a little better off. Plus, maybe our offensive line could've kept up wi... Nevermind.

But so what? This was a bad year and we played our toughest schedule in years (and years). Sure, I would've liked to have had the 2014 team in 2015 and witnessed the results but that's not the way it worked out. The thing that encourages me is that we had a 2014 team. An Orange Bowl winner. And I don't believe we would've had any of that with another coach and another system.

Paul is a genuinely good coach. This year is an outlier to a consistently good and sometimes great coaching career that mirrors what our program should expect to be right now. Good and sometimes great. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the man hates to lose and hates when people doubt him and his system even more. I don't think he'll sleep until he can get his team back on the field next year, fix the O line, coach up the young ones, and regain that "Top 3 in Rushing" offense we've had so often.

Agree? Disagree? Shut up?
 
If the Oline keeps playing like a ticklepile of Pillsbury Doughboys, nothing that Paul Johnson accomplished before this year is going to matter.
 
I truly believe that it depends, At This Point, on:

- Recruiting. I have read several posts about 2010, 2011, 2012 as being bad recruiting years. Not what was said then. This O prevents us from recruiting as many O & D lineman & LB as we need.

- Sewak. If he is not replaced it is a huge indicator that CPJ considers getting 350 yards rushing / game as the important result. Nothing else.

Just do not see how 14 - 24 vs our big 5 opponents in an 8 year time frame as being all that good.
 
We know that the system works when it has players.

So it's up to Paul to get us players. Even without all the injuries, it's inexcusable to have to replace 8 out of 10 skill positions from one year to the next. Must balance some classes.

And offensive line has to be dealt with, which is recruiting and then coaching. Fire Sewak would be step 1.
 
We were running our backup linebacker as our go to running back by the years end. We were starting his backup at LB. our slotbacks were as green as they come.

It was a truly horrible injury year.

Now people are bitching about depth and recruiting. Well, our freshman bback was better than a transfer from Stanford. We had a freshman WR starting all year. We actually have some talented guys.

The D? Who knows. I hate Roof's defense. Maybe it is the best D for us, maybe not. It is better than the crap Groh trotted out. I'd rather have Tenuta.

The OL was a trainwreck. Everyone knows the weak link there. If you don't want to fire Sewak or you think he is valuable up in the box, then make him the ST coach and give someone else the line.
 
Last edited:
texstinger said:
I truly believe that it depends, At This Point, on:

- Recruiting. I have read several posts about 2010, 2011, 2012 as being bad recruiting years. Not what was said then. This O prevents us from recruiting as many O & D lineman & LB as we need.

- Sewak. If he is not replaced it is a huge indicator that CPJ considers getting 350 yards rushing / game as the important result. Nothing else.

Just do not see how 14 - 24 vs our big 5 opponents in an 8 year time frame as being all that good.
Click to expand...

+1

Also, I don't think we're running some complex, difficult system here. GA Southern's players were able to run it pretty decently, albeit against much slower, smaller competition. Last I checked, our athletes should be a bit brighter than those rednecks in Statesboro. Not to mention the old Big 8 schools that ran variations of our offense in the 60s and 70s with success. Those corn-eaters weren't exactly rocket scientists.

I'm with the "Sewak's gotta go" crowd. Our veteran OL has no excuse for its performance this year.
 
Architorture23 said:
We know that the system works when it has players.

So it's up to Paul to get us players. Even without all the injuries, it's inexcusable to have to replace 8 out of 10 skill positions from one year to the next. Must balance some classes.

And offensive line has to be dealt with, which is recruiting and then coaching. Fire Sewak would be step 1.
Click to expand...

+1.

Every system works when it has players!
 
We were 1-5 in games decided by 7 points or less.

"From 2003 to 2013, there were 26 Power 5 teams that lost at least five games by seven points or less in a season -- an average of 2.6 per season -- and the results in the subsequent seasons for the group should provide ample optimism at both Pitt and Virginia Tech.

Overall, 20 of the 27 teams to lose at least five games by 7 points or less won more games the following season, and on the whole, this group increased its winning percentage from .405 to .573 from one year to the next."

http://espn.go.com/blog/acc/print?id=80197
 
RamblinWreck92 said:
+1.

Every system works when it has players!
Click to expand...

I should say, we know it works at an elite level, as it did last year. And in years past even when we weren't as talented, it was still very highly ranked. Not every system can do that.
 
For those interested, here's our record in games decided by 7 points or less under CPJ:
2015 1-5
2014 3-3
2013 0-2
2012 0-3
2011 3-2
2010 2-3
2009 5-1
2008 5-2

Total 19-21
 
Get the ol coached properly and these games are won by a larger margin than 7 points.
 
texstinger said:
This O prevents us from recruiting as many D lineman & LB as we need.
Click to expand...

How? Seriously, how? If you're going to trot out the worn out and unproven canard of they practice against 3O all the time, then you better throw the secondary in there, too, since we throw so little and it's not like they're defending against four- and five-wide sets when going up against our O. Oh, wait ... that doesn't fit the narrative?

Because we don't practice against the 3O all the time. In spring practice, yes, but that's only 15 practices tops and it isn't every practice then, either. In summer, for a couple of weeks. Once it gets to about two weeks before the first game ... nope. After that, it's other people's offenses the first two to three D units go up against in practice.
 
I really feel Trey Klock and Will Bryan are going to be the anchors of our offensive line going forward. And that 54 kid Henderson on the D-Line I think is going to be a star.
 
ChrisW said:
For those interested, here's our record in games decided by 7 points or less under CPJ:
2015 1-5
2014 3-3
2013 0-2
2012 0-3
2011 3-2
2010 2-3
2009 5-1
2008 5-2

Total 19-21
Click to expand...


This is really interesting. What this tells me is that the more talent he has, the more resilient we are in close games. Those 08 and 09 classes weren't running the option as well as it could be run...
That, and we consistently average 6 close games per year fwiw...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
gespacho_the_slender said:
This is really interesting. What this tells me is that the more talent he has, the more resilient we are in close games. Those 08 and 09 classes weren't running the option as well as it could be run...
That, and we consistently average 6 close games per year fwiw...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Eh. Most statistical analyses I've seen say close games are basically a coin flip. I'm not sure you can draw any real inferences from such a small sample size.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G850A using Tapatalk
 
Phil Steele is going to be all over us next year.

Teams in the bottom 25 in turnover margin are in the top 25 the following year sonething like 80 percent of the time.

Teams that lose a lot of close games usually finish with an opposite outcome(9-3 for us) at a very high clip

We have lots of returning starts because several guys got a chance to start with all this year's injuries

Only thing he won't like us on is recruiting but I bet he has us winning 8-9 games next year and with our schedule I'm betting he predicts 9-3
 
EastboundJacket said:
Get your to;dr's ready, but I've been thinking-



This year sucked, didn't it?

It's hard to have a year where you lose excitement and don't feel like your team will compete with the other 11 guys on the field on any given Saturday- and that even if they do, things won't go your way. That's frustrating and it's something we haven't faced in a long time.



Still, I'm confident about the future and about next year. Rose colored glasses or not, I think CPJ can be summed up as "the best coach for Tech to succeed." He has already given us 2 exceptional seasons that really don't match the current state of our athletic stature. Sure, we've been a historically very good and very proud team, but the game has changed. If we changed and began allowing athletes of lesser academic prowess into Tech, this entire post could be invalidated; however, it doesn't seem like we'll do that right now.



Here's the hard thing: if we had a coach that ran a pro-style or spread offense like the other schools, we probably wouldn't have had as bad a year as we did this year. With the rash of injuries it could have been, but those injuries are magnified by the offense we run. We lost key cogs in a delicate but powerful machine and it hurt us. Other systems aren't as difficult for younger players to run, so we probably would've been a little better off. Plus, maybe our offensive line could've kept up wi... Nevermind.



But so what? This was a bad year and we played our toughest schedule in years (and years). Sure, I would've liked to have had the 2014 team in 2015 and witnessed the results but that's not the way it worked out. The thing that encourages me is that we had a 2014 team. An Orange Bowl winner. And I don't believe we would've had any of that with another coach and another system.



Paul is a genuinely good coach. This year is an outlier to a consistently good and sometimes great coaching career that mirrors what our program should expect to be right now. Good and sometimes great. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the man hates to lose and hates when people doubt him and his system even more. I don't think he'll sleep until he can get his team back on the field next year, fix the O line, coach up the young ones, and regain that "Top 3 in Rushing" offense we've had so often.



Agree? Disagree? Shut up?
Click to expand...


Agree....gotta fix the O line! Have heard so many people say Justin should be a aback or b-back, not. QB. No one would have enough time to do anything with that O-line. JT is still good he just needs to heal up and get some protection so he can do his thang. Whatever it takes, O-line has to do their job.

Toughest schedule, 20+ injuries, freshman team with little experience = 2015 3-9

2016 will be better...it has to be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top