Has the CPJ era ‘Jumped The Shark?’

JoeCakeEater said:
Discounting wins to fit your agenda is total BS. You could say the VPI win is not his, but the other issues mentioned are "them" problems. If you wanted to follow this narrative then you should discount the entire 2015 season, when injuries piled up around JT that were totally beyond his control. He had no help that season.



Why do you think we call them the Big 4? If we were going 4-0 against them every year then we would be the Big 4. If we have a team that goes 4-0 against Clemson, Miami, VT and UGA then that team is likely a top 10 team and fringe CFP contender. Since 1960 we have finished as a top 10 caliber team how many times?? 3 maybe...one of which was just a few years ago under CPJ.
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Top Ten finishes since 1960: 1966, 1990, 1998, 2014
 
RamblinWreck92 said:
I can't look at our offensive performances at Miami and UVA this year and even begin to call them "extremely good". "Extremely good" is Miss St. Orange Bowl type performances or the wins in Athens, or those long-ago days when we used to defeat Clemson. Not barely-200-yds-rushing.
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You're proving my point. The Miami and UVA games this year were indeed not very good, and even with those mediocre showings and the meltdown against Clemson, OUR OFFENSE IS STILL RANKED 19TH IN THE NATION. Same goes for basically every other season under CPJ. Those games that you are cherrypicking to showcase our failings are so far outweighed by the good performances that we are still statistically very good despite poor performances.

Why are we picking only a few games to look at when we've played well over 100 under CPJ?
 
RamblinWreck92 said:
The fact that, in 10 years, we've only once had the QB necessary to win in this system is an indictment.
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Agree 100%, which is why I said recruiting is a MUCH bigger problem than scheme. If Joe Hamilton was under center against UVA, he has a field day with all of the open receivers had. I don't mean that as an indictment of TM, but right now he is a running back playing QB.

RamblinWreck92 said:
And if anyone thinks we're as good as Miami, VPI, Clemson, and the mutts because of the outlier season of 2014, there's not much need to continue the discussion any further.
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I would argue that we are pretty even with VT, and our records would bear that out. The other 3 are clearly ahead of us right now, and I think the reason is pretty clear: Top 10 recruiting classes vs. Top 50 recruiting classes. With a good coach (which we have), you can occasionally punch above your weight and beat more talented teams, but you can't sustain that kind of success, especially when your opposition also has a good coach (Dabo).
 
johncu said:
You're proving my point. The Miami and UVA games this year were indeed not very good, and even with those mediocre showings and the meltdown against Clemson, OUR OFFENSE IS STILL RANKED 19TH IN THE NATION. Same goes for basically every other season under CPJ. Those games that you are cherrypicking to showcase our failings are so far outweighed by the good performances that we are still statistically very good despite poor performances.

Why are we picking only a few games to look at when we've played well over 100 under CPJ?
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I'm using 39 games (the 13-26 record vs the 4) as a measuring stick.

The O is ranked 19th in your particular cherry-picked stat which, btw, doesn't include the last 2 games (your link's website had us with a 3-3 record). It's in the 40s in other stats and 83rd in another that involves keeping the D off the field.

No argument that the D needs work but to continually excuse the O is short-sighted. Plus its effects on recruiting can't be overlooked (not that you have).

bottom line: Unless we win 2 of 3 (and we'll be underdogs in 2 of those games), we're headed for a 2nd losing season in 3 years, the first time that's happened since the mid 90s.

I think the whole program is open for critique.
 
johncu said:
Agree 100%, which is why I said recruiting is a MUCH bigger problem than scheme. If Joe Hamilton was under center against UVA, he has a field day with all of the open receivers had. I don't mean that as an indictment of TM, but right now he is a running back playing QB.


I would argue that we are pretty even with VT, and our records would bear that out. The other 3 are clearly ahead of us right now, and I think the reason is pretty clear: Top 10 recruiting classes vs. Top 50 recruiting classes. With a good coach (which we have), you can occasionally punch above your weight and beat more talented teams, but you can't sustain that kind of success, especially when your opposition also has a good coach (Dabo).
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I agree that we're even with VT and would extend that to most of the times we've faced them recently. Same goes for Miami until this season.

We're in agreement re:recruiting.
 
At QB, Nesbitt fit the system but wasn't a CPJ recruit. So scratch him.

Tevin was actually a good qb who fit the system. We scored pretty well under him. He had no BB and was done in by a terrible Groh Defense.

Vad was highly rated and didn't pan out. That happens a lot.

JT5 fit the system.

TM is a great runner. He hasn't played qb much in college and his throwing shows it. Let's see how he develops.

My biggest question is why we can't consistently find and develop BB. Although Mills and Benson have shown a lot of promise. Shame that Marshall didn't stay to compete for that spot.
 
gtzulu said:
We've only had one QB who was both an accurate passer and a good runner: Justin Thomas.

Big 4 in JT era:
Clemson: 1-2
Miami: 1-2
VT: 2-1
UGA: 2-1
Total: 6-6

Looks pretty good to me. Add in FSU if you want, 7-7. (Not to mention 3 of those 7 losses were to either the national champions, the national championship runner-up, or the undefeated defending national champions with a Heisman QB!)

So perhaps like any other college football offense we need a good QB to be successful. But unlike other offenses we can win with a QB who wouldn't have been a QB elsewhere. That's an equalizer.

If not for a fluke helmet bounce we would be 1-1 this year against Big 4 teams with a QB who falls into that category of QBs who wouldn't have been QB elsewhere.

Recent years' performance against Big 4 strongly supports Paul Johnson. If you're breaking even playing all of them, that means you're just as good as them
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Who decided these were the "Big 4" ?

I can see Clemson and UGA being the "Big 2", beyond that selecting 2 other ACC teams while ignoring the rest seems arbitrary.
 
goldmember said:
Who decided these were the "Big 4" ?

I can see Clemson and UGA being the "Big 2", beyond that selecting 2 other ACC teams while ignoring the rest seems arbitrary.
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This is another good point. Why are we choosing Miami as "Big 4"? They literally have never won the division. UNC has been a better team since 2008, and even Duke actually won the division.
 
johncu said:
This is another good point. Why are we choosing Miami as "Big 4"? They literally have never won the division. UNC has been a better team since 2008, and even Duke actually won the division.
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They get chosen *because* we've struggled to beat them.
 
The "dead period" of 2010 - 2013 really screwed those "big 4" numbers. I know that's four years of data, and it's not being removed from Johnson's coaching record but still.
 
johncu said:
So we're judging a program based solely on its perceived failures and completely ignoring its successes? I just want to make sure we're on the same page here.
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That is the complaint CPJ-defenders make about the cherry-picking 'Big 4' stats of the CPJ-attackers.

People don't realize how hard it is to 'beat the best' regularly. Alabama, perhaps the most successful CFB program of all time, is just over .500 all-time against the AP Top 25 (137-123-7). CPJ is batting .344 (11-21) at Tech (incl. this season). Consider the disparity between Alabama and GT, and that's not really that bad.
 
Well, just to clearly answer the original question of this thread: No.

2013 was significantly worse than this, and many of the same people were saying the same thing then as they are now. Then the next season we went 4-0 against your Big 4 and had one of the best seasons in GT history.

For 2014 to become closer to the norm, we have to recruit better. Barring that, regression to the mean is just a fact of life.
 
johncu said:
Well, just to clearly answer the original question of this thread: No.

2013 was significantly worse than this, and many of the same people were saying the same thing then as they are now. Then the next season we went 4-0 against your Big 4 and had one of the best seasons in GT history.

For 2014 to become closer to the norm, we have to recruit better. Barring that, regression to the mean is just a fact of life.
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The four years previous we were 1-15. So next year should be great, yes? Unless we get to 2-2 this year. :naughty:
 
The big four is a BS term. Power five is acceptable. So far this year the power five is not a good record, but I’ve seen this team play games close, real close. It’s up to CPJ to get our guys to focus on the next game and treat it like it’s a championship game.

A nooner, no rain, is probably what we need right now.
 
We need a win badly. If we win, we will gain some respect back. We also need to roll over Duke.

UGAg is beatable. I just had a discussion with a Gagger who claimed that Notre Dame is a top 10 defense. They aren't. They are #49.

War Eagle
 
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