Are our athletes as good as we think?.....

Buzzilla

Buzzilla

I'm all out of bubblegum
Joined
Dec 31, 2001
Messages
926
Coaching problems? Sure. But coming out of late last season and now 7 games into this year, I'm wondernig if perhaps our biggest problem might simply be that we don't have the athletes we all think. Our secondary sux. It's sucked for years and years. Our D-line gets no penetration. And everyone knows the problems we have at QB. Our recievers aren't catching the ball. All of the coaching problems are certainly not helping. It was obvious we got out coached last night but I honestly am beginning to believe we simply don't have the horses we need. Truth is, since Joe Hamilton left, I believe this team has played over it's head against mediocre competition and now coupled with a 1st year coaching staff it's starting to catch up with us.
 
Interesting, Buzz. I think I tend to agree with that assessment. WE have some very good individual players, D. Smith, Houston, Fox, Watkins, etc. but like I heard today "the sum is not as good as the parts".

In the past, coaches maximized what we had pretty well, covering up weaknesses as best they could. GO always said that getting "big uglies" for d-line was virtually impossible at GT. The best ones u see around are not the studious type. They will go to schools that are football factories. Recruiting here is different than at most schools. Takes a special player to make it through.
 
I think we do have decent talent but it's not even throughout the team. We all know we have problems on the D-line. We just don't have the hosses that top programs have. When you can't rely on those guys to clog up the inside running game or get some push on passing plays you have to play games to get the job done.

I'm not as sure about the D-backs. I don't know if the problems there are the lack of pass rush or whether they are cheating to help the run defense and get caught out of position. I also don't know if part of the problem is that the LBs are having to key on the run and can't (or don't) get back into coverage like they are supposed to.

On offense, I think we're pretty solid on the line, our WRs have talent although I do agree we have too many drops and our RBs are actually pretty good especially when you consider how deep into our depth chart we've had to go. Not many teams can bring Daniels, Sampson or ACE in as their 4-5 and 6 (I think) RBs.

QB is our biggest offensive problem although I don't know if it's a talent thing. I think our offensive philosophy demands a QB who can be spectacular for us to be successful. We don't seem to run a scheme it seems in which a competent QB can get it done. We were spoiled with JH and Goose and need AJ or DeBo to step up and become a play maker.

Overall I think we're above average in the ACC, or at least were until the injury jinx hit. I still think where it's really hitting us is the D-Line though. Wake and MD especially have good, big offensive lines and they have totally negated our D-line.
 
And another thing: at least CG has not come out and said we do not have enough talent. Donnan said that once after a loss, and the fans went berserk. I believe, iirc, that he had to apologize on one of his call-in shows. he-he
 
You look at this Tech team on paper, and we look pretty darn good. Look at the stat sheet from Thursday night. 485 yards offense, 305 in the air, no ints. Problem comes when we go to convert that to reality. The pieces don't add up to the whole it should.
New coaching staff or not, there is no excuse for 3 substitution plays in the seventh game of the season. The offense has got to start getting into sync, and by that I mean getting into the end zone. How do you have almost 500 yards in offense and only get 3 points! (not counting our only td in garbage time.) I swear I kept looking for Bill Lewis to be somewhere on that sideline. Totally out of control and undisciplined. Everybody was saying what a nice and great guy Chan is when he was hired. Maybe he's just a little too nice. O'leary was a jerk, no doubt, but he kept the troops in line.
 
I think you're basically right, Buzzilla. And "injury jinx" is for sure right, ncjacket.

Also, in thinking about first year coaches who do well, it seems that they take over from an outgoing staff which had basically done its job. I mean, those outgoing have recruited well and taught basics. Maryland and Notre Dame come to mind. Certainly Donnan recruited well. We believe that GO'L recruited well, and he did get some outstanding players, but maybe "some" is the operative word. As for the basics, our tackling was not good last year. Our secondary got beat a lot. Our D-line got pushed around. We lost 5 games.

I think we had our hopes too high. I personally did. I thought last year's problems were an overbearing and distracted-by-ND-possibilities O'Leary, and I thought that a coach as good as Gailey could take talented, disciplined, well-taught veterans and with some O-line development and a breakout RB be a big winner.

Well, then, I was wrong , wasn't I? And I may still be. But I'm not going to blame my faulty analysis on Gailey and say he has botched the heritage of GO'L. The Tech team has had awful injury luck, and we really miss the outstanding football players and team leaders we've had at QB. But that's about as far as I'm willing to go in asserting what I think are facts. I SUSPECT that we weren't quite as talented, disciplined, and well-taught as I (and most all of us) thought, but that's probably something that only the coaches know for sure.
 
I disagree completely. I have heard this for over 50 years from the fans of most teams with poor coaching.

This excuse is used over and over and has been proven wrong so many times, it is pathetic. When a team is winning big, every one lauds and praises the athletes, their big plays, and how athletic they are.

When a team is losing, the same fans criticize the play of the individuals and moan about not having good athletes.

"A team is a mirror image of its coaching". "A good coach can take his and beat yours, or take yours and beat his". These are standards that have been around for ages and is still true.

We have lost to Furman, Navy, Army, and other 1AA schools in past years when we had poor coaching, but better athletes. The same old sad song was passed around about not having good athletes.

Maryland has been pitiful until Ralph arrived, and now some on the board are talking about their players being more athletic than ours. Pure BS.

We were beating UGA regularly and they were the team that could not win the big games. Posts were made to this and the Hive board about how UGA had fallen behind in recruiting. Now they are winning more games and beating some of the bigger opponents, and suddenly they have superior plays on offense and defense. Pure BS.

Wake Forest is a small school and the pure facts exist that they have less material than any team in the conference. They beat us with less material, and it can be proven by the past five years of rankings that we have been in the top 15-25 teams in the nation in recruiting. All of a sudden, we have less material than Wake Forest. Pure BS.

It happens with every team that has bad coaching, the team needs more good athletes. It happens with all teams with good coaching and consistent winning habits, they are loaded with excellent players. All of this is pure BS. "A team is a mirror image of its coaching".

We have better athletes over the past five years than any team in the ACC except FSU. Yes, some of the teams may have gained on us a little in recruiting last year, but those players are not generally counted on until their Junior and Senior years.

I will be very emphatic and demeaning on this issue on purpose. It is not the quality of athletes we have, it is the coaching they are receiving. It is pure BS to say differently, and anyone saying any different is an ostrich.

Not only that, here is another fact, and facts are truth. O'Leary did not have a winning record until Ralph came to Tech. O'Leary went straight downhill as soon as Ralph left starting with the Peach Bowl.

Not only that, but O'Leary was left with a team that had the most talent ever at Tech, except for the early 50s. It was supposed to be a top ten team, but fell flat without Ralph.

Ralph goes to Maryland, and they win the conference championship outright his first year without great athletes. Then, all of a sudden his athletes became great after their winning ways. It was pure and simple the coaching and not the quality of athletes.

"A team is the mirror image of its coaching".

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AF is playing ND tonight with a team of cadets that are 6-0.

As we discussed in some detail on the Hive, these kids face 5 year military obligations, 20 to 25 hour class loads and no redshirting.

Unfortunately, Navy doesn't seem to be learning anything from their cousins in Colorado. According to an article in the AJC, Navy is moving in the direction of lowering their athletic admission standards and lowering the military obligations of its student-athletics.

I'm beginning to think that lowering the standards and creating a premier athletic enviroment isn't nearly as important as putting together a high caliber coaching staff.

Maybee a better long-term strategy would be to put together a top 10% coaching staff, not just one that s better than average.

This is an area, where I do have some expertise (compensation). The difference in what you must pay to get the very best is exponential, not linear. We pay CG alot of money (probably the same for most of the staff). Div 1-A coaching is a career and for the most part coaches go where the money and opportunities are.

If I am right, and we recruited/retained a top 10% coaching staff, the cost would likely be double and more from our current staff. If so, the cost vs. impact on our program would make this a no-brainer. Heck, we spend that much on gold seats
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I'm not making any judgements here about the caliber of the current staff, just thinking about where our long-term focus should be if we want another NC.
 
I'll have to agree with ahso...Great athletes that lack fundamentals and preparedness become average. Suggs has twice the natural athletic ability of Goose but still has the "deer in the headlights" look about him.
 
Do you suppose that our rash of injuries are occuring mostly because our team is not in football condition? I read soon after CG took over
that he said that he had watched film of our games of last year and the thing that stood out to Chan was that most of our losses came late. He indicated that he would change our regimen to put special emphasis on running to improve our stamina. It is fine to emphasize running but not at the expense of the weight room. Our team doesn't seem to be as strong as before as evidenced by the way Maryland and WF pushed us around. We have wonderful weight room facilities
and there is no excuse for any team to be more physical than Tech. Any football coach will tell you that a player is most susceptible to injury
when they are either tired or out of shape. I don't know why we are having so many injuries but
we know we are having more than our share. I understand that Fox will miss the next two games and Hester and Ace are questionable for Virginia.
 
Yes, our overall talent is probably not as good as the football factories - but that's understandable since we are a golf factory.

Still, we've won national championships with inferior talent and we can win more with inferior talent - but only if we have good coaching.
 
Ahso, I think you've made some really good points. The problem is there aren't many Ralph Friedgens', Fisher DeBarry's, or Frank Beamers out there. I tell you who looks like a great up and comer is the head coach at Bowling Green, Urban something.
I don't know how things are going to shake out with Gailey, right now I'm VERY pessimistic and I'm just looking for anything I can that will give us a ray of hope. I see Gailey driving this ship right down the freakin tubes at the rate we're headed.
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Emotion, attitude and energy are great, but so are being in the right place and making the play. I still say our biggest problems are on D - our line doesn't hold their own. Don't know if it's strength, technique of what but it has been true for a number of years. On O - our QB has not made the superior play when we need it. Don't know if it's talent, confidence, or what but it's true.

I believe that if those two issues were straightened out we would be sitting here with no more than 1 loss and talking about what a great team we have.

The original question is if we have the talent. My guess is at QB probably, and the problem is either coaching or individual performance) and on the D line the answer is no.
 
One thing is for sure. Chan Gailey doesn't need mediocre players to lose. He had great players in Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith and the tradition of "America's team" and still lost.

It seems to me that our talent level is irrelevant.
 
goldbuzz if you think the Cowboys had the talent to win big in Dallas when Chan was coach you have proven your inability to rationally judge football matters. He had an injured Troy, and dinged up Emmitt, lost Michael Irvin, several O lineman, etc. The Cowboys were an old team which was in decline from a talent level. What you will hear if you care to listen to national, disinterested observors is that Chan was fired because he dared to question Jerry Jones' player moves which have led to the debacle Dallas has become.
 
Just another thought on the talent question. O'Leary always said what separated us from the top program was linemen. We can recruit skill position players but not the studs up front. I don't think he meant totally, we obviously have some real gems in Nat, Leon , etc. but overall we don't stack up. Even Wake has a bigger O-line man for man (our avg is high due to the left side). On D, the thing besides size is athleticism on the line.
 
Yes, but there's Jimmy Robinson. Oh, I know - he's not got the resume of DeBerry, et al. Nor does he have the resume of mediocrity of Gailey.

Sometimes the best things in life are right before your nose. A lot of experience Georgia Tech football people tried to let you know that Jimmy Robinson was just that. But - no - you wanted a high profile former Dallas Cowboys coach.

No one would be able to match Robinson's enthusiasm for Tech. The team would be foaming at the mouth before the game. And not contrived -he just loves Tech so much that his infectious zeal would keep the team in a permanent hyped up state.

He sent his daughter to Tech and she graduated with a 4.0 GPA. Robinson only had a 3.8 when the overall average GPA was 2.5.

There's a reason "Mr. Excitement" was called that.
He's damned exciting. Just talk to him about Tech. No recruit would be able to resist "Mr. Exciteman's" pull.

You know, sometimes you can over think things. Vince Dooley was an approximately 31 years old backfield coach when Geogia hired him as head coach.

We gotta go with Kim King and the other knowledgeable Georgia Tech football people.

If "Mr. Exciteman" were back here, we would all be excited - guaranteed.

Again, I know – you got all those reasons about lack of head coaching experience, lack of coordinator's experience. But you know, do you think we should bank on your judgment or Kim King's. By the way, it's your judgment that got us into this pickle. If you had accepted Kim King's judgment as well as others in the know – you would be happy now. So Mr. football expert, you got what you asked for.
 
Yep, they are as good as we thought they were. Just watch a couple of tapes from 2000. The players most refer to as key were on that team. They didn't become less athletic over the past 2 years.

Also, 71Bee has a very good point above. Use it in your letters to DB and Clough when and if the time comes. I'd cool it until Feb...if we don't sign an outstanding(not just good or ok) class, then the program is in for an extended downturn. Also look for Chan to address the current staff issues. THWG
 
Ahso, I agree up to a point. T Bowden made a big dif at Tulane, likewise Franchione at TCU. But in the end the players play and the players make the plays. Most of us have probably played team and individual sports, right? Well, ask yourself, where did the rubber hit the road? When YOU, the player, are in there, doing it or not doing it: that's what sports is. That's what GO'L was saying when he said, "We put them in position to win, but they didn't make the plays". It sounds like a self-serving cop-out, but hell it's true.

It's not, ultimately, about coaches, at least not on game day. Two quotes. Casey Clausen says in the paper today that if they had let him play with one good arm UT would have beaten UGaG. Well, maybe, maybe not (though I think Clausen healthy would have beaten them). But that's a PLAYER. He didn't say, "Gee, we had the same coaches as last week, we should have beaten them." And Dodd, when Pepper was coaching said, "When I saw that Memphis State had better athletes than we did, I knew we were in trouble." He was saying that Rodgers hadn't recruited.

Absolutely no slam on Suggs, he IS a better athlete (marginally) than Godsey, but the difference between them is NOT coaching.

You gotta have players to make plays, and we fans thought we had better players than we do. They're still MY bygod players no matter how good they are because I'm a Tech fan.
 
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