All this is a natural reaction . . .

[Jerry the Jacket]

.... to suffering the most humiliating defeat in the history of our program. Who do we blame for this? Well naturally, you look to the top of the organization, the CEO Dave Braine and the COO Chan Gailey. Performance disasters of this magnitude normally lead to a shake up in the leadership. The old regime bears the brunt of the responsibility and the Board of Directors moves to shake up things and look for new leadership and direction.

So I don't see the reaction of a large part of our fan base as anything but normal. It is the risk you take for assuming a leadership role. High reward ($) high risk. The stockholders (fans) are largely discontent with the performance and demand change. The leadership sits in silence hoping this too shall pass and we can get through the winter by cancelling the stockholder's meeting and ignoring the demand for explanations and action plans for improvement.

Will this be another ENRON meltdown or will we reorganize and find a way back to respectability. Status quo will likely produce similar results in the future. Only time will tell. In the meantime, our enemies take delight in our plight and revel in our apparent ineptitude. Tough times are here. Hopefully it will make us tough people and our leadership will take measures to right the ship. Tech stands for excellence not ineptitude.

Go Jackets!

 

[law_bee]

J the J,

Puts all this in the proper perspective. The fan is the only one not treating our sports program like a business.

CG was not following GT games b/f he became the coach. He is not a fan of GT sports. He is NOT a pro bono coach. There are 1 million reasons he is here in atlanta. That is not to say that he will not become a great coach and bleed gold one day, however that is not the case today.

Do you think he is not regretting leaving the NFL?

But to get back to J's post we need to do what is best for GT and the student athletes. We have seen too many coaches leave our program to extend loyalty to the coaches. They leave when it is in their best interest so we need to do the same.

At the very minimum I believe there has to be some sort of shakeup of assistant coaches. Just like J said it is a consumer confidence issue. When your company is floundering you bring in a hot new executive to right the ship.

Does that mean possibly you may have to sacrifice B'OB who one day may be a great coach? I think you do b/c he had his chance and for whatever reason he did not get it done.

I think the 2 or 3 people that are untouchable are:

CG for obvious reason him being a first year HC

Tenuta b/c he seems to be the best we have had in a very long time

Joe D'Alessandris b/c the line seemed to get it done NO MATTER who we stuck back there to run the ball

 

[oldfoggy]

I take my hat off to the 2 previous poster they have a sence of the problem and the way to help. They are both correct in that Ga Tech stands for excellence. As a small div 1A school we have excelled at all sport (possible exception is some womens sports) and that is what is expected by the loyal fan base. The ineptitude shown this years calls for change the only question is who.

 

[71YellowJacket]

Back in my younger days, I had the Chairman of a 1$B publicly-traded company tell me that one of the prime roles of each of his staff members was to take the fall if something went wrong. He was dead serious. I saw several good men dismissed before the Board finally concluded he was the problem.

Why am I bring this up? It happens all the time and Div I-A sports today, as I have said before, are very similar to business; the best and worse.

In our case, I would say Dr. Clough is the Chairman of the holding company, and Dave Braine is the Chairman of GTAA, with Gailey CEO of the subsidary GT Football, Inc.

I will personally be surprised if GT Football OC heads don't roll this year, then if I'm right Gailey's head will role next year; after Tech has flushed big time. Gailey's head will roll this year if Braine feels he can't survive the heat and keep Gailey.

I really hope I'm wrong, and everyone here has the privilege of telling me, "I told you Gailey would turn things around".

 

[ahsoisee]

JJ has stated the issue in a sensible manner. Others have followed with the same or similar view. My opinions are similar.

It has to be that way. There is generally always some grumbling and unrest with a change in the CEO. As stated the first thing to go is the problem identified by the CEO. That is why he was hired.

Once the CEO has supposedly corrected the problem, he is next in line. If he does not produce after his corrections, all eyes are on him.

I agree with law-bee with the protected personnel to a degree, but realize it is Gailey's call and Gailey's head.

As for my own personal wishes, I would let Gailey stay this year, but put him under a microscope for next year.

It is no secret, I think Nix would be an excellent offensive coordinator. I have no problem with the offensive line coach.

I am not overjoyed with Tenuta's pass defense, but realize he is supposed to have done well at all of his other stops. I could not make a case for his firing.

I thought the defensive backfield coach had very good results at his last coaching job, but I am unsure whether the soft coverage is his call or that of Tenuta. I would have to pass on this position without knowing for sure.

I am still enamored with Spencer's bio and the fact he is a Tech man.

As far as the rest of the assistant coaches, I have seen nothing to make me argue for retaining them.

Just a general overview of the coaching positions in conjunction with the topic and present status of the team.

 

[GT98]

Originally posted by ahsoisee:

I am not overjoyed with Tenuta's pass defense, but realize he is supposed to have done well at all of his other stops. I could not make a case for his firing.

I thought the defensive backfield coach had very good results at his last coaching job, but I am unsure whether the soft coverage is his call or that of Tenuta. I would have to pass on this position without knowing for sure.

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">As I have stated before, I thought that Tenuta did a terrific job this year. IMO, w/o his defense, we would not have won the UNC, UVA or NCSU games. Also, he did fantastic in the FSU game.

I think that our pass defense suffered from our d-line being inconsistent at best. I think that Henderson and Parker (both R-Fr) can develop into good linemen once they add more size. GT simply has not had great interior line play since Ross was here. Therefore, Tenuta was forced to send linebackers, db's, and safeties to get pressure on the QB. This of course leaves one on one coverage and at times, the coverage is intentially soft so that a bomb is not given up.

As far as the rest of the post, well stated and I agree w/a lot of the points raised by all in this thread. I am glad to see well thought out different opinions in this thread; I was worried that the board was not capable of this anymore.

 

[bellyseries]

Originally posted by GT98:
[QB

I think that our pass defense suffered from our d-line being inconsistent at best. I think that Henderson and Parker (both R-Fr) can develop into good linemen once they add more size. GT simply has not had great interior line play since Ross was here. Therefore, Tenuta was forced to send linebackers, db's, and safeties to get pressure on the QB. This of course leaves one on one coverage and at times, the coverage is intentially soft so that a bomb is not given up.

[/QB]

<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">This is pretty much what I saw. It's a bit of a puzzle that we stopped NCSU's running game so well and got nowhere with Wake and Musa.

 

[Father WASP]

Jerry The Jacket - you are a true, loyal follower of the White and Gold and have stated an eloquent opinion, and shared by many.

As for keepers, Tenuta deserves some credit. The defense - except for a few occaisions like Georgia- tackled well for the first time and years and executed schemes that made sense. Watching Roof, and I don't mean to get off on that topic, let UNC go down the field and kick the winning FG vs. Duke under the "bend but don't break" scheme made me thankful that we had one area of improvement - defense.

That being said, we have some problems folks. Jerry has pointed out that we start at the top - and the things I observed were the CEO type of responsibilities - days off, a general relaxing of discipline, etc. Perhaps most troubling were the opportunities to take little things and correct them before they became big things. Example: the most fundamental aspect of football - the snap. The Wake game was torpedoed on a key drive when AJ got the ball snapped on his ankle. This happened again two games later. I would have to watch the tape again to count how many times it rolled back vs. Georgia. Now this is not to direct blame at one of our players. This is to point out correctable technique and demand of excellence from players and assistants by the CEO. I assume our players are fine athletes. So the 6 or so rolled snaps are a result of either (a) lack of repetition to the point of execution (b) need to possibly rotate personnel so that our center can contribute at another position enabling someone who is more comfortable snapping to do so or (c) we have a fine center who just needs some coaching. Any of the scenario's are simply things that every team faces during a season, but we obviously did not.

The silence and low key response to our thrashing has not helped. I don't advocate a media blitz, but my gosh, let's hear some philosophy and some confidence building that it is not business as usual. Jerry is asking for that.

Certainly, I hope that our 51-7 response is to build some resolve, no matter what it takes.

 

[mustard]

Does anybody besides me not think that Strength and conditioning needs to be addressed?

 

[ahsoisee]

Mustard, I have seen several posts questioning the conditioning of our players. Personally, I think our players are either not conditioned to have the proper strength or have been taught poor techniques on defense or both.

 

[mustard]

I would like to see our taking the course of bulking and strength in combination with rotating more players. We ended up rotating a ton of players, but it was not just to keep our players fresh. It was because of injuries. But the fresh players got injured too.

Is our choice strength as over against endurance?

Perhaps we choose strength for all except WR and DB?

 

[ncjacket]

Just one question, the comments about days off has come up several times and the assumption that it means CG is taking things too easy. My question is isn't the time spent on your sport dictated by the NCAA? They don't care about how many days, but you can only spend, I think, 20 hours a week on your sport (don't know if that includes the games or not).

With that said, did we not use our allotted time? If that's the case I do have a problem with his approach. If we used our time, just did it in fewer days, then I don't see a problem. Anybody know?

 

[Father WASP]

Mustard, great question. I notice we get alot more players down that our opponents - charlie horses, cramps, etc. This year, even early in the year and in the rain, our guys were bent over in a tired way. Not good.

 

[Jerry the Jacket]

Ahso you may surpass Ms. Cleo in your ability to foresee the future. I think you sensed many of the changes that could or should be made. I congratulate you on your future vision.

I view these changes as very positive for the program. The status quo was not going to produce the desired improvement. The changes that are afoot may not produce the deired result either, but at least an effort is being made to shake things up and address some concerns. As a fan, this is a very positive development in my eyes.

I hope we can find an OC that is compatible with Coach Gailey's ideas on how to move the ball. I like the smashmouth running game, but if that is the plan we best have all of the offensive linemen eating weights this year and we better find a fullback that can lay some linebackers to waste. No more throwing or punting on fouth and inches.

Go Jackets!

 

[ahsoisee]

In lieu of the rumor and confirmation of several coaching changes, I am bringing this thread back to the top. I have a post in this thread that seemingly goes along with the rumored changes being made at this time on the team.

It is ironic, but appears the rumored changes and recent changes are in accord with my post under this thread.

A few variations exists. I really thought Nix would be the next OC, but have read the bios of the rumored favorites and have no objections. I do think Nix will work well with the QBs, but will not be at Tech long. I think he will be picked up by another team as an OC in the near future.

It is well known, I did not think BOB should have remained on the staff. I was also concerned about the soft pass coverage. It is still uncertain as where the responsibility for that lies. Since Tenuta may now be responsible for defensive back play, we shall find out this year if it was him or Modkins.

I had made the case in another post that you could have two good coaches with different philosophies, but one may not be effective using the other coaches rules to work under. It is possible, this might be the case with Modkins and Tenuta.

I had also questioned the drop off in efficiency by our receivers in another post, but was not sure of the reason. It could have been the receiver's coach or the lack of a good quarterback coach.

I agreed with most of the board on the special teams lack of big plays. If not for Rhino's and Manget's personal talents, it would have been even worse.

Anyway, the old post is interesting given the floating rumors and recent changes. It appears, Gailey is getting the house in order for a run next year.

Looking forward to Spring practice to see how the progress looks.