Coaching

[BeeStorm]

Bobby Ross also used us to get to the NFL but I'll still take the national championship he got us.

Bobby Ross was a KNOWN commodity. A proven winner.

He was up front before hiring that his dream job was NFL head coach. He left the NFL to bail us out. You are delusional if you think that anyone today is going to get us a national championship in 4 years or that they would even stay after one 11 win season.

Think Curry told us his dream job was Alabama?

 

[flushed 01]

Roof is earning his paycheck.

And he could remain on with a new coach, it would make transition easier. What do we have to lose, we are losing now.

 

[BeeStorm]

The guy who in two seasons before he left beat Alabama, Clemson, Tennessee, Michigan State, and Georgia (back to back), yes I would take that for a couple of years right now.

you make my argument for me. you are perfectly happy with mediocrity.. or a loser.. 31–43–4 .. beat a "traditional" rival and then lose 7 games.. thats good with you.

 

[white&gold]

Reported.

Lol

 

[jdubjacket]

Yes our OL is struggling, however they are young, last year we had E. Joe and B. Chamberlain who were 5th year players wiffing.... We have 3 really young guys on the OL and by all counts seem to be learning on the fly and improving every week.

The first part of your statement is so telling. We have had upperclassmen year-in and year-out on the OL that don't know what they're doing yet we're supposed to be optimistic about the OL's future?

 

[stingmeyall]

I think what stuns me most about our coaching staff is having the incorrect personnel on the field, for example, Brandon Adams plays super in the middle against Vandy and has not played since. Simmons was the best DL on the field on Saturday and he only played after Kallon was poked in the eye. JT makes too many negative plays for us. I know the OL is horrible but a few time JT held the ball too long or panicked and looked for plays that were not there to make. We can't afford a -3 TO deficit and win against a decent team. Finally in closing it's not necessarily poor coaching that loses games but poor execution ala dropped passes by Jeune and Lynch.

 

[BeeStorm]

I try to believe that, but then I remember when we had a team with Calvin Johnson, Derrick Thomas, Michael Johnson, Tashard Choice, Vance Walker, etc. We act like it's impossible to attract good players to Tech. It's not impossible, challenging sure, but not impossible. We don't HAVE to run a gimmick offense to find success every 6 years.

your definition of success is lost on me.. Since 1956 we have FOUR 10+ win seasons. Our current coach has half of them in a span of 8 years.

 

[BarrelORum]

your definition of success is lost on me.. Since 1956 we have FOUR 10+ win seasons. Our current coach has half of them in a span of 8 years.

Not necessarily arguing with you but a better stat would be winning percentage since we play more games now than we did then.

 

[GEETEELEE]

The sad fact is, since Lewis, our overall success in football has been pretty much the same regardless of who was coach. PJ has been the most successful, but not by all that much.

Before you fire PJ, tell me what else you'll change to make the next coach more successful.

 

[BeeStorm]

Not necessarily arguing with you but a better stat would be winning percentage since we play more games now than we did then.

percentage is obvious, but to the media, a 10 win season seems to be a standard regardless of how many games we play..

 

[RaiderJacket]

you make my argument for me. you are perfectly happy with mediocrity.. or a loser.. 31–43–4 .. beat a "traditional" rival and then lose 7 games.. thats good with you.

That's not my point. I'll take two seasons of victories like 1984/85 over last year and what's happening this year even if we run the risk if losing a coach. At least it would once again prove we can beat top tier programs. It seems the era of coaches sticking around long term are over anyhow with few exceptions like Saban.

 

[WracerX]

We'll see how the season plays out. We got motorboated by Clemson. We had (another) fumble fest against Miami.

We can still win the division, but we won't. We need to go out and compete and make a decent bowl. Beating Pitt is a must. Beating Duke, UVA, and GaSo are a must. We can lose to VT and UNC, but we need to beat the worst coach UGa team in a decade.

 

[staggerwing]

Letting Johnson go would be retarded, unless The Hill is going to untie the recruiting hand tied behind GT's back. He's the best GT can get if it's going to cling to the delusion that it's somehow better than Stanford, Michigan, and other top engineering schools that manage to recruit actual football players.

 

[BeeStorm]

That's not my point. I'll take two seasons of victories like 1984/85 over last year and what's happening this year even if we run the risk if losing a coach. At least it would once again prove we can beat top tier programs. It seems the era of coaches sticking around long term are over anyhow with few exceptions like Saban.

your argument on those merits is even more ridiculous. those two season under curry were the aberration, he is a proven coaching failure (if you are tallying records, not mentoring young men).. last season under Paul was the aberration, a proven winner everywhere he has coached. and heads up, we still have a winning record this year. So your tears of victimization are a little premature.

 

[JJacket]

My daughter has constantly commented this year on how the other teams seem to operate their offense so crisply and how the other teams just look better coached and organized. We seem to just be winging it. Our pass plays are a prayer. Our run plays aren't "reads" they are more "let's go this way and hope the defense plays the play incorrectly". Well, it seems that the defense is reading us a lot better than we are reading them.

I remember in the past an opposing defensive player say after the game that our QB was tipping off our plays more often. I wonder if that is happening or if Thomas is just too predictable nowadays.

Of course. The lack of blocking is killing us. Several of the edge plays were blown up by AB's and WR's just missing blocks, even when we had good numbers. It was sad.

I also think that Thomas is just too small to play QB in our offense.

 

[WracerX]

If CPJ likes Sewak in the booth, I am fine with keeping him there. Just get that guy away from the OL. That group is too important to have year after year of blown assignments. We aren't often going to have NFL quality receivers available to bail us out.

Let Mike coach ST, or recruit, or do whatever it is he does other than coach the OL.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

Letting Johnson go would be retarded, unless The Hill is going to untie the recruiting hand tied behind GT's back. He's the best GT can get if it's going to cling to the delusion that it's somehow better than Stanford, Michigan, and other top engineering schools that manage to recruit actual football players.

This is commonly stated in these parts but I could use an actual explanation why CPJ's system is the only way we can compete given our recruiting restrictions? To me, it's putting handcuffs on the handcuffs you already have on since very few players want to play in the system or practice defense against it. You make a hard job even harder and will eventually have academy-level recruits on hand. I think we're there now. To me, this is the long-term reason it has to go. I like it because it's quirky, but like all gimmicks, it eventually runs its course.

So here's my guess on why people think its the best way for us to compete:
1. You dont need huge linemen due to cut blocking
2. You dont need great skill position players to run the system (almost always gets 3 yards)
3. It's rarely seen at this level so very few teams know how to defend it
4. It requires smart players to run and we have smart players
5. When run to perfection, it's nearly impossible to stop

My thoughts on the above five reasons:
1. This may no longer be true. NFL has place significant restrictions on cut blocking that will eventually trickle down to CFB. It's happening.

2. This is true but as Dwyer and Demaryius Thomas showed us, great players make any offense great (and showed how bad Gailey's offense was)

3. The ACC has seen it enough that it's no longer mysterious. It's almost a disadvantage now against the teams that know how to defend it because they can completely sell out with their junk defenses with no way for us to take advantage of the unguarded areas of the field (mid level passes).

4. I used to think this but I still dont know why this system requires intelligence. Quick decisions I guess?

5. 2014 was damn near perfection. That was only two years ago. CPJ didnt go from genius to idiot in two years. What has changed? Losing Shaq hurt but there are still 4 other guys on OL. He didnt do it all by himself.

 

[LeonardWood]

We had senior NFL caliber talent at WR, OL, and DT. Shaq's impact can't be overstated, he was basically orchestrating the o line on the fly.

We had senior RBs that could both play hard nosed and stayed healthy enough to play all year. Our defense forces and recovered way more fumbles than we should have, most of which was luck (as are a lot of things in football).

Replace PJ with Art Briles or Chip Kelly or anyone else, and our record probably doesn't change that much. Most likely, based on most coaching hires, it gets worse.

 

[BeeStorm]

and showed how bad Gailey's offense was

but..but... didn't Gailey run the most awesomeness nfl offense the PJ haters want to return to?

We had an NFL offensive coordinator "genius" as a head coach.
We had an offensive coordinator that is now an NFL head coach.
We had a stream of NFL quality players.
We had the best receiver in college football history and one of the best in NFL history.

and... we were mediocre.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

but..but... didn't Gailey run the most awesomeness nfl offense the PJ haters want to return to?

We had an NFL offensive coordinator "genius" as a head coach.
We had an offensive coordinator that is now an NFL head coach.
We had a stream of NFL quality players.
We had the best receiver in college football history and one of the best in NFL history.

and... we were mediocre.

I think I speak for 95% of us that nobody wants to go back to Gailey's *ultra* conservative offense that required an NFL QB and Alabama's OL to run to perfection. It was designed for the NFL where the talent field is level and the team that makes the most mistakes is usually the loser. That translates to loserville in CFB because you keep the Dukes and WF's in the game until the end while getting blown out 51-7 by superior teams. I'd rather have a college type spread offense that uses option and passes together, something like UNC for example. Now everybody seems to line up in the pistol and run the read option these days so it will require an innovative offensive mind to do a variation of this to keep it fresh. I would actually like PJ's offense if he could figure out short to medium passes and do it on any down, not just run a wheel on first down or throw on 3rd and obvious. I mean when we hit the wheel on the first play against Vandy, I was thinking did Vandy not watch any film before this game? Most teams have tendencies but we have chiseled in stone tendencies.