Get Over It

[jts1207]

Still irrelevant to the complaints that people are leveling about CGC, like game management, playcalling, motivation, and teaching fundamentals. Nobody's calling for him to be fired, but people are absolutely trying to figure out why we suddenly look like so undisciplined week after week. Collins has absolutely ramped up our recruiting efforts, but that's worth absolutely zero if we can't coach them up.

Those criticisms are extremely reasonable, and mocking people who expect better just make you look like a tool.

There are absolutely people calling for or implying he needs to be fired. I keep hearing how undisciplined this team is and talent has nothing to do with it.....that's wrong. There were always going to be some ugly losses as well as some surprising wins this year. Expecting anything different and complaining nonstop shows who the tools are.

 

[vapspwi]

Still irrelevant to the complaints that people are leveling about CGC, like game management, playcalling, motivation, and teaching fundamentals. Nobody's calling for him to be fired, but people are absolutely trying to figure out why we suddenly look like so undisciplined week after week. Collins has absolutely ramped up our recruiting efforts, but that's worth absolutely zero if we can't coach them up.

Those criticisms are extremely reasonable, and mocking people who expect better just make you look like a tool.

I know we’re only 1.5 years into this thing, so this is premature, but if we’re going to run the same system as most of our opponents and try to recruit the same kids (and end up with, at best, the factory leftovers), then we will have to win games by controlling stuff that’s in our control - being smarter, being more clever, executing cleanly and consistently, and maximizing our talent while minimizing our mistakes. It doesn’t look like we’re doing that yet, and people are starting to get a little antsy about it. You don’t have to be great to play your assignment or not commit a penalty. The other guy might beat you, but you can’t beat yourself.

JRjr

 

[johncu]

I just hope we don’t look SO bad that it backfires by driving away the fans, donors, and recruits. That’s why I’m so focused on how bad we look in some of the losses, more so than the fact that we’re losing.

Yes. This. Looking at stats from previous regimes, the magnitude of losses we've suffered is definitely notable. If we define blowout loss as 21 pts or more OR any game in which we were completely shut out, these are how many blowout losses each coach had. It's not a perfect metric, as Clemson, FSU, and to a lesser degree UGA were all much stronger during the regimes of some of these coaches. I also included a percentage to account for tenure length and # of games per season.

Ross - 5 total (9% of games)
Lewis - 7 total (21% of games)
O'Leary - 6 total (7% of games)
Gailey - 10 total (13% of games)
Johnson - 11 total (8% of games)
Collins - 7 total (39% of games)

That seems pretty significant to me. As predicted, Ross, O'Leary and Johnson all managed to keep the vast majority of their games competitive. Gailey did fairly well as well, but at least part of that was a function of low total score and defensive focus. Bobby Ross and George O'Leary both had to take over programs in much worse shape than the one Collins inherited, and Collins has already gotten blown out as many times as both did in their entire career. I'm more than willing to reconsider my definition of blowout, but know that neither of last year's lopsided losses to Duke/UNC nor this year's debacle at Syracuse even meet this criteria. Including those would push Collins beyond getting blown out in literally over half of his career games.

 

[johncu]

There are absolutely people calling for or implying he needs to be fired. I keep hearing how undisciplined this team is and talent has nothing to do with it.....that's wrong. There were always going to be some ugly losses as well as some surprising wins this year. Expecting anything different and complaining nonstop shows who the tools are.

Those people are absolutely tools as well. You don't fire a coach in the middle of a big transition in Year 1.5. But you absolutely do criticize him when things are going very badly without obvious signs of improvement.

 

[vapspwi]

I’d be curious (but not enough to do the work required) to see how those numbers compare to the trend in FBS, or to peer programs within the same time frame. There doesn’t seem to be a ton of defense this year, so there seem to be more shootouts and maybe more blowouts, but I don’t have the numbers to back it up.

In isolation, though, I see your point - it’s no so much that we’re losing more as that we’re losing “worse,” both stylistically and mathematically.

JRjr

 

[jts1207]

Those people are absolutely tools as well. You don't fire a coach in the middle of a big transition in Year 1.5. But you absolutely do criticize him when things are going very badly without obvious signs of improvement.

Year 1.5 and year .5 with his own recruits. I'm not going to pile on the guy because we got rolled by Clemson and lost to BC. Nobody was complaining when we beat FSU and Louisville when we weren't supposed to

 

[wesleyd21]

Maybe if we had more talent at LB and DL like we used to under Tenuta, I’d give Thacker a hard time. We had zero sacks on Saturday against a very slow QB.

Meanwhile, BC had 4 sacks and 7 TFL. Bad play on both sides of the line sometimes cannot be coached up. We are simply lacking in the talent Department.

My biggest question about this team is why in the hell does the secondary suck so bad???

 

[vapspwi]

Year 1.5 and year .5 with his own recruits. I'm not going to pile on the guy because we got rolled by Clemson and lost to BC. Nobody was complaining when we beat FSU and Louisville when we weren't supposed to

In retrospect, FSU and Louisville aren’t quite as good as we thought they might be (and yeah, it’s a weird year even by ACC standards), but people absolutely were concerned when we lost to Syracuse the way we did in between those two games.

There’s a cumulative effect to the historic (40 to 117 year time frames) futility and being non-competitive against other mediocre teams that’s going to keep happening until we show some signs of sustained improvement (even if it’s just close losses to the Dukes and NC States, rather than wins).

JRjr

 

[jts1207]

In retrospect, FSU and Louisville aren’t quite as good as we thought they might be (and yeah, it’s a weird year even by ACC standards), but people absolutely were concerned when we lost to Syracuse the way we did in between those two games.

There’s a cumulative effect to the historic (40 to 117 year time frames) futility and being non-competitive against other mediocre teams that’s going to keep happening until we show some signs of sustained improvement (even if it’s just close losses to the Dukes and NC States, rather than wins).

JRjr

FSU beat UNC and Louisville was in the ND game

 

[vapspwi]

FSU beat UNC and Louisville was in the ND game

Those fall into the “weird year even by ACC standards” category. Those things even out over time, and right now FSU and Louisville are both 1-4 in conference (as is Syracuse).

BC (at 3-2 in conference) might be our best loss after Clemson. (UCF is 3-2/2-2 in the AAC.)

JRjr

 

[gtchief]

Yes. This. Looking at stats from previous regimes, the magnitude of losses we've suffered is definitely notable. If we define blowout loss as 21 pts or more OR any game in which we were completely shut out, these are how many blowout losses each coach had. It's not a perfect metric, as Clemson, FSU, and to a lesser degree UGA were all much stronger during the regimes of some of these coaches. I also included a percentage to account for tenure length and # of games per season.

Ross - 5 total (9% of games)
Lewis - 7 total (21% of games)
O'Leary - 6 total (7% of games)
Gailey - 10 total (13% of games)
Johnson - 11 total (8% of games)
Collins - 7 total (39% of games)

That seems pretty significant to me. As predicted, Ross, O'Leary and Johnson all managed to keep the vast majority of their games competitive. Gailey did fairly well as well, but at least part of that was a function of low total score and defensive focus. Bobby Ross and George O'Leary both had to take over programs in much worse shape than the one Collins inherited, and Collins has already gotten blown out as many times as both did in their entire career. I'm more than willing to reconsider my definition of blowout, but know that neither of last year's lopsided losses to Duke/UNC nor this year's debacle at Syracuse even meet this criteria. Including those would push Collins beyond getting blown out in literally over half of his career games.

I'd be interested in the following:

What do these numbers look like for the same sample range, namely first year and a half for each coaching staff?

How does it look based on the assumption that this is Collins' worst stretch and compare it to the worst year and a half stretch for the rest?

Instead of point per game differentials what do the point per drive breakdowns on both sides look like to normalize for TOP?

 

[cbee]

Try applying this to his two years at Temple with "his" players. His number falls significantly but is still over 15% which is on the bad end of the spectrum. Again, nothing other than his recruiting, point to him being a good or successful head coach.

 

[WracerX]

Year 1.5 and year .5 with his own recruits. I'm not going to pile on the guy because we got rolled by Clemson and lost to BC. Nobody was complaining when we beat FSU and Louisville when we weren't supposed to

FSU and Louisville turned out to be ööööshows.

What has been or closest margin in a loss? 17 maybe. That’s not good.

We are doing some stupid things that are increasing the score that we are losing by. Lining up in the neutral zone. Jumping offsides on an obvious freeze play.

Those fall into the “weird year even by ACC standards” category. Those things even out over time, and right now FSU and Louisville are both 1-4 in conference (as is Syracuse).

BC (at 3-2 in conference) might be our best loss after Clemson. (UCF is 3-2/2-2 in the AAC.)

JRjr

That makes me feel a little better, but not much.
Excluding our games:
We are 2 for 3 against teams with a 0.25 win percentage (not ideal, but ok for a developing team)
We are 0for 2 against teams playing 0.500 ball. That doesn’t tingle anyone’s junk. But our ceiling this year was going to be 0.500 ball.
We are 0 for 1 against undefeated teams (which you would expect)

 

[WracerX]

Try applying this to his two years at Temple with "his" players. His number falls significantly but is still over 15% which is on the bad end of the spectrum. Again, nothing other than his recruiting, point to him being a good or successful head coach.

He was at Temple 2 years. So really only 1 year of ‘his’ guys v

 

[cbee]

He was at Temple 2 years. So really only 1 year of ‘his’ guys v

The way he fawned over the talent at Temple last year would lead one to believe that a good coach would do better than 15% in this metric.

 

[OptionJacket]

He fawned over Temples talent because after the spring he knew they had more talent than he inherited. This is a rebuild not a tweaking. We had No QB, no TE, wall ons playing across the OLine and defenders who spent a decade practicing against the option. And don’t give me the scout team line. The only thing I wish Collins would have done differently is to keep Wesley Wells. But his recruiting has been way ahead of schedule. The wins are not ahead of schedule but having Sims taking snaps as a freshman will pay huge dividends. But y’all can continue about what the scores are. Reminds me of the early Ross years.

 

[THWG16]

Way too much sandy vag on the board today. We are in year 1.5 of a complete rebuild, there was always going to be some pain. So can we please stop with the Dear Facebook letters and meaningless comparisons of how many points we let BC score compared to others. CGC isn't going anywhere for a long time. Get over it.

 

[THWG16]

Undefeated season and BCS championship like most year 3 coaches in a total rebuild

Yeah it’s awful that we’re unhappy about being 2-4 & getting embarrassed by a very mediocre team & not seeing improvement over year &
Half ! Not giving up on collins but if you’re ok with this you’re not a true tech fan

 

[THWG16]

He fawned over Temples talent because after the spring he knew they had more talent than he inherited. This is a rebuild not a tweaking. We had No QB, no TE, wall ons playing across the OLine and defenders who spent a decade practicing against the option. And don’t give me the scout team line. The only thing I wish Collins would have done differently is to keep Wesley Wells. But his recruiting has been way ahead of schedule. The wins are not ahead of schedule but having Sims taking snaps as a freshman will pay huge dividends. But y’all can continue about what the scores are. Reminds me of the early Ross years.

Recruiting was great last year , right now our class is ranked around 40, that’s not gonna cut it & the more we lose the more recruits aren’t gonna wanna be here

 

[THWG16]

What evidence is that there that we *are* disciplined? Like, what do we do consistently that you can look at and say "That's a sign of good coaching"?

Agreed