Wes Durham handicapping GT

MACHETE

MACHETE

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Was listening to Wes on the ACC radio network this morning and heard him say that Tech was a "unique" place that needed a differentiating offense to remain competitive in the ACC. Mentioned all of the things we have talked about - high academic standards, limited resources, narrow range of majors, yada yada yada.

He seemed to imply that we should stay with the TO and hire someone like Monken.

I get all this but it is simply a flawed perspective. Pigeon-holing ourselves into an option only school will be the slow death of GT football. Kids simply don't want to play in it. Ask any HS coach.

Stansbury et al need to get creative and change the paradigm. We can do it. Let's bring in the right coach who can win and give him the tools to do it. There is nothing etched in stone that says Tech can't be a football power while maintaining its "academic prestige". Think Duke basketball in the early 1980's when Coach K arrived. Does anyone really think that Duke has any pre-ordained reason to be a basketball powerhouse?? Um, no. However, they had the vision to hire Coach K and gave him the tools to become successful.

Let's do this.
 
We should hire Monken. It's a no-brainer. Only a complete moron would want to scrap the triple option. Most people's opinions of the team are based on personality problems with CPJ. Personality problems Monken does not have.

We have an identity now. Let's run WITH it. Not away from it.

See: Wisconsin for evidence of building an identity and running with it

See: Nebraska for evidence of building an identity and running from it.
 
CPJ's main issue to me was his stubbornness and not willing to tweak the TO so as to add in some RPO and use the athletic ability of the QB's we have. With the difficulties of pass blocking from a run heavy offense, the RPO gives the QB better downfield vision faster and he can see the pressure and coverage quicker. Imagine running the TO and all of a sudden going hurry up with RPO. Defenses would crap themselves trying to adjust back and forth and couldn't load up in the box as often, especially if we line up in the TO formation and then switch to RPO formation at the line. I do not know enough about Monken as to whether he is flexible with the TO.
 
MACHETE said:
Was listening to Wes on the ACC radio network this morning and heard him say that Tech was a "unique" place that needed a differentiating offense to remain competitive in the ACC. Mentioned all of the things we have talked about - high academic standards, limited resources, narrow range of majors, yada yada yada.

He seemed to imply that we should stay with the TO and hire someone like Monken.

I get all this but it is simply a flawed perspective. Pigeon-holing ourselves into an option only school will be the slow death of GT football. Kids simply don't want to play in it. Ask any HS coach.

Stansbury et al need to get creative and change the paradigm. We can do it. Let's bring in the right coach who can win and give him the tools to do it. There is nothing etched in stone that says Tech can't be a football power while maintaining its "academic prestige". Think Duke basketball in the early 1980's when Coach K arrived. Does anyone really think that Duke has any pre-ordained reason to be a basketball powerhouse?? Um, no. However, they had the vision to hire Coach K and gave him the tools to become successful.

Let's do this.
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It's funny how I can agree with like 95% of what you wrote but still vehemently disagree with your post. For GT to reach that level, they need to establish a clear identity and brand, just like Duke did. Duke's identity for years was to look for 4 year players who may not have been the best athletes but they bought into a system, played their role extremely well, and were intelligent basketball players. They've adapted that recently, but they absolute became a powerhouse because of that identity.

I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to the option, per se, but I think it's dumb and frankly self-sabotaging to run away from it. If Jeff Monken (or even Brian Bohannon) has the best resume/interview of our candidates, we need to hire him. My vision of "slow death" would be hiring a mediocre coach simply because he DOESN'T run the option and watching as we fade into UVA/Duke/Wake/UNC level irrelevance. At least now we have an identity, people talk about us and teams have to prepare for us, and we occasionally have great seasons.
 
RaiderJacket said:
CPJ's main issue to me was his stubbornness and not willing to tweak the TO so as to add in some RPO and use the athletic ability of the QB's we have. With the difficulties of pass blocking from a run heavy offense, the RPO gives the QB better downfield vision faster and he can see the pressure and coverage quicker. Imagine running the TO and all of a sudden going hurry up with RPO. Defenses would crap themselves trying to adjust back and forth and couldn't load up in the box as often, especially if we line up in the TO formation and then switch to RPO formation at the line. I do not know enough about Monken as to whether he is flexible with the TO.
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I am a huge fan, but I agree with this. CPJ is damn good at running his offense, but that's exactly what you get with him - his offense. I think if we bring in an option coach it needs to be with the understanding that some tweaks and modern adaptations will be necessary. As with any offensive scheme ever, defenses will adjust and the offense will need to adjust accordingly. We haven't been able to do that since 2014.
 
savbandjacket said:
Our identity right now is that we run an antiquated offense that you cannot recruit to in this current era where college football is viewed as the NFL minor league.

Things were somewhat different when Nebraska ran it, but even then it was killed by Miami’s superior athletes.
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Where do I sign up for winning the Heisman, going to the national championship, and getting killed by one of the best teams of all time?
 
savbandjacket said:
Our identity right now is that we run an antiquated offense that you cannot recruit to in this current era where college football is viewed as the NFL minor league.

Things were somewhat different when Nebraska ran it, but even then it was killed by Miami’s superior athletes.
Click to expand...
Oh sweet the collective group of talent that was assembled by rampant cheating beat the triple option? We totally should abandon it then.
 
I dunno. Mixed feelings. I like the offense in a lot of ways, but it does seem to have lost its edge somewhat, whether that is because of other teams' preparation or the inability to get good enough players. I dunno. I do feel like we need a legitimate passing game and at least a somewhat different version of the option than what we run now. I guess Monken should get an interview and just see what his vision is. I just don't know how I would feel about ultimately hiring him. I feel like we need to shake up peoples' perceptions of us a little bit.

The only thing I know for sure is I don't want an NFL/pro-style guy.
 
johncu said:
It's funny how I can agree with like 95% of what you wrote but still vehemently disagree with your post. For GT to reach that level, they need to establish a clear identity and brand, just like Duke did. Duke's identity for years was to look for 4 year players who may not have been the best athletes but they bought into a system, played their role extremely well, and were intelligent basketball players. They've adapted that recently, but they absolute became a powerhouse because of that identity.

I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to the option, per se, but I think it's dumb and frankly self-sabotaging to run away from it. If Jeff Monken (or even Brian Bohannon) has the best resume/interview of our candidates, we need to hire him. My vision of "slow death" would be hiring a mediocre coach simply because he DOESN'T run the option and watching as we fade into UVA/Duke/Wake/UNC level irrelevance. At least now we have an identity, people talk about us and teams have to prepare for us, and we occasionally have great seasons.
Click to expand...

I think you make reasonable points but my concern is recruiting. I know everybody will jump in and say that Tech has never been able to recruit top players so may as well stick with the TO. I just think this is narrow minded and self-limiting. Perhaps some version of the TO with spread option elements could work but we should not limit the search to coaches who only run that offense. I would be willing to suffer a few years of pain in exchange for hiring the right coach with a cutting-edge, exciting style who can recruit and make Tech an attractive alternative for top players.
 
GTCrew4b said:
Oh sweet the collective group of talent that was assembled by rampant cheating beat the triple option? We totally should abandon it then.
Click to expand...
The point of my post was not to attack the offense. I’m addressing the additional limitation that the offense imposes on recruiting. FCS level football is mainly won on scheme and there is more parity between team talent levels. FBS level football is mainly won on recruiting.

One of CPJ’s biggest faults to me was that he was so confident in the scheme that he believed he could run it with any players. We know that’s not true.

I do think if you had two identical teams in terms of personnel and one ran the option that the option team wins more often than not. This is what happens at FCS level. We don’t live in that world though and we have to have some level of recruiting success to stay competitive on a consistent basis.
 
Hey, remember when Paul went out and got the best quarterback in years here, and he tried to change the offense by throwing in some pistol and diamond-formations and then that kid went out and crapped away a 20-point lead to the mutts before transferring to a dickhead community college?

And then we went out the next year and had the best season since '98. I don't think not being innovative was Paul Johnson's problem.
 
johncu said:
It's funny how I can agree with like 95% of what you wrote but still vehemently disagree with your post. For GT to reach that level, they need to establish a clear identity and brand, just like Duke did. Duke's identity for years was to look for 4 year players who may not have been the best athletes but they bought into a system, played their role extremely well, and were intelligent basketball players. They've adapted that recently, but they absolute became a powerhouse because of that identity.

I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to the option, per se, but I think it's dumb and frankly self-sabotaging to run away from it. If Jeff Monken (or even Brian Bohannon) has the best resume/interview of our candidates, we need to hire him. My vision of "slow death" would be hiring a mediocre coach simply because he DOESN'T run the option and watching as we fade into UVA/Duke/Wake/UNC level irrelevance. At least now we have an identity, people talk about us and teams have to prepare for us, and we occasionally have great seasons.
Click to expand...

+1. I spoke about this with VT, if we don’t have an identity and system we will become bottom dwellers quickly
 
savbandjacket said:
The point of my post was not to attack the offense. I’m addressing the additional limitation that the offense imposes on recruiting. FCS level football is mainly won on scheme and there is more parity between team talent levels. FBS level football is mainly won on recruiting.

One of CPJ’s biggest faults to me was that he was so confident in the scheme that he believed he could run it with any players. We know that’s not true.

I do think if you had two identical teams in terms of personnel and one ran the option that the option team wins more often than not. This is what happens at FCS level. We don’t live in that world though and we have to have some level of recruiting success to stay competitive on a consistent basis.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The fundamental issue is recruiting. There are two camps here: 1. the one that believes Tech will never be able to recruit well so we need some "unique" offense to compete and 2. the "build it and they will come" crowd who thinks the right coach can recruit better players. The jury is out on which camp is right...
 
ibeeballin said:
+1. I spoke about this with VT, if we don’t have an identity and system we will become bottom dwellers quickly
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I want that identity. Just because we have had it for the last 10 years doesn't mean we need to live with it forever. See Oklahoma...
 
The NCAA literally spent the last 10 years handicapping PJ's offense. PJ didnt adjust as well as he needed to. Based on the results, Monken seems to be doing a better job of it.
 
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