How do we ensure this doesn't happen again?

B

Bunger Henry

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It seems pretty clear now, the consensus is that Chan is gone. But the question that lingers, the question that still lurks in the air like an ancient fart, is "Why did it take so long?"

I'd like to know, how are we going to ensure this doesn't happen again? How are we going to ensure that mediocrity doesn't take THIS LONG to correct again?

6 years. SIX EFFING YEARS! All the wasted time! The better part of a DECADE! There are GT grads in the workforce today, people in junior roles at companies... who have NEVER WITNESSED TECH BEAT GEORGIA! They don't know what that feels like. That is totally inexcusable.

It should not take that long to correct. Ron Zook was replaced after a fairly short period, with a winning but mediocre record. Jim Donnan was replaced after losing to Tech only 3 times. Replacing a bad coach should not take 6 years and the payout of over 4 million dollars.

I have some suggestions to help prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but I'd like to see some of yours.
 
Two words: Dave Braine. Chan was Braine's perfect man because "you simply can't win 8-9 games on a consistent basis at Georgia Tech." What's the next closest number to 8? 7, as in 7-6, 7-6, 7-5, 7-5.

One part of the equation is already gone. We will see what Dan the Man does in December to complete the transition.

There are GT grads in the workforce today, people in junior roles at companies... who have NEVER WITNESSED TECH BEAT GEORGIA! They don't know what that feels like. That is totally inexcusable.
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As an aside, I'm 24 years old and I can only remember the 3 wins from '98-'00. Sure, I know all about Dewberry beating the sniffers in Athens in '84. I've seen the replay of Gary Lee & Co. running through the fog in '85. And as an older kid, I remember snippets of the '89 and '90 wins, but only the 3 wins that O'Leary brought are ones that I truly remember. It's been too long, friends. And it's once again hard to say if it'll happen this year...
 
I don't consider the last 6 years wasted time, and I think firing coaches every 2 years is a sure fire way to destroy a program. I also think the football program as a whole is in a better place now than it was in 2002.

As far as "what to do differently," I think shorter contracts, and incentive based contracts, are the key to ensuring you're not put in a bad position from an AA perspective.
 
i think jim donnan was at ugag for 6 years, he also had a better winning percentage than GOMER.
 
beej67 said:
I don't consider the last 6 years wasted time, and I think firing coaches every 2 years is a sure fire way to destroy a program. I also think the football program as a whole is in a better place now than it was in 2002.

As far as "what to do differently," I think shorter contracts, and incentive based contracts, are the key to ensuring you're not put in a bad position from an AA perspective.
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Putting in a buy-out clause helps too...
 
Buy-out clauses go the other direction - the "he wants to leave" angle instead of the "we want to fire him" angle, but I do agree that buyouts are an essential element of coach contracts. They're pretty common, though, and I don't see incentive based contracts very common.

The way I figure it, hire someone for 500k, +100k/win over 7 wins, on a 3 year deal. I'd be totally happy to pay a coach that runs the table 1.7 mil for that year, and I really don't want to pay any more than 500k for a 7 win (or less) season.
 
Bunger Henry said:
It seems pretty clear now, the consensus is that Chan is gone. But the question that lingers, the question that still lurks in the air like an ancient fart, is "Why did it take so long?"

I'd like to know, how are we going to ensure this doesn't happen again? How are we going to ensure that mediocrity doesn't take THIS LONG to correct again?

6 years. SIX EFFING YEARS! All the wasted time! The better part of a DECADE! There are GT grads in the workforce today, people in junior roles at companies... who have NEVER WITNESSED TECH BEAT GEORGIA! They don't know what that feels like. That is totally inexcusable.

It should not take that long to correct. Ron Zook was replaced after a fairly short period, with a winning but mediocre record. Jim Donnan was replaced after losing to Tech only 3 times. Replacing a bad coach should not take 6 years and the payout of over 4 million dollars.

I have some suggestions to help prevent this sort of thing from happening again, but I'd like to see some of yours.
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Finally a post from BH that has good substance and discussion points. Count me among those interested in hearing BH's suggestion about how to prevent this from happening again. Here's mine.

When Homer Rice hired Bobby Ross he knew what he was getting in the ACC based on his performance at Maryland. When O'Leary and Friedgen were brought back we again knew what we were getting and they knew what it takes to recruit and win at Tech. So, I like the idea of going after a Randy Edsall or Jim Grobe.
 
Note on Jim Grobe:

In the Wake/UVA game this past weekend, down by 2 looking at a 50 yard field goal to win, Grobe called a RUN UP THE MIDDLE, was stuffed, and missed the field goal.

De ja vu, eh?

I like Grobe, I think he's a good coach, but he's very similar to Chan in many ways.
 
beej67 said:
Note on Jim Grobe:

In the Wake/UVA game this past weekend, down by 2 looking at a 50 yard field goal to win, Grobe called a RUN UP THE MIDDLE, was stuffed, and missed the field goal.

De ja vu, eh?

I like Grobe, I think he's a good coach, but he's very similar to Chan in many ways.
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What kind of job does Grobe do in developing QBs and receivers?

Edited to add the following from the Wake Forest Magazine:

"I just don't know that you can overemphasize experience and having a staff that's been together a long time," Grobe says. "I think you get better play from your players if they have developed a sense of trust with your coaches. We're at the point where the kids are hearing a lot of the same coaching points and terms over and over and over again. We might tweak a little bit from time to time, but I might not say two things to any of my coaches during the course of a season that is of major consequence.
"What our coaches have done the very best job at here is adapting our system to our personnel. Each year we go through spring practice and then come back in August and add Xs and Os to try to emphasize the strengths of our players rather than just take a certain system of offense and defense and say, 'Okay, by God, you're going to fit into this system, no matter what.' I thought we'd have to run more option than we did to be successful here, but we just didn't have option-type personnel. John Stone, who was here when we first arrived, was not very big and didn't have great hands, but he was the ACC hundred-meter champion. We knew we couldn't make a living out of throwing him the ball downfield, so we ran all that sweep stuff and let him outrun everybody. He's a good example of the exceptional job this staff does of adapting our system to our talent.
"In any program, the head coach generally gets too much of the credit and too much of the blame," Grobe adds. "I truly believe that's what sets the very best programs apart from the rest—good staffs; good assistant coaches."
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I like Grobe. I think he would make a good head coach, and I would be excited to see him at Tech next year. I just want to be clear that firing Chan because he called a draw on 3rd down at 50 yd fieldgoal range and hiring Grobe as his replacement is dumb. If Grobe comes, expect draws on 3rd and 20.

You know, for the record and all.
 
Honestly, it's impossible to ensure this doesn't happen again. We can take measures to keep ourselves from being backed into such a poor position again, although whoever mentioned that we don't have the same dumbass AD is spot on, but there's no guarantee of success even once we get rid of Chan.

My thoughts so far:

1. Incentive based contract. However the Con here is that it would be hard to attract a name coach with one of these. I'm already worried about competing for somebody like Randy Edsall with other programs. He's not picking us unless it's for guaranteed money.

2. Stay away from the NFL. Other than Pete Carroll there really hasn't been much of indicator that moving up or moving down from NCAA to NFL is an indicator of success.

3. I'd like to see a known motivator. My biggest problem with the current Chan era has been all of the time the team has come out and not looked ready to play. I can forgive a vanilla offense if the damn thing is at least run with gusto.

College kids need a guy that will occasionally tear a door off of a locker and throw it across the room.
 
However the Con here is that it would be hard to attract a name coach with one of these.
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What if the base was increased?

2. Stay away from the NFL. Other than Pete Carroll there really hasn't been much of indicator that moving up or moving down from NCAA to NFL is an indicator of success.
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BC's HC comes to mind. I think there's plenty of success stories of hiring from the NFL, but there's plenty of failures too. I think a better way to phrase your comment would be that "NFL guys aren't inherently any better or worse than NCAA guys."
 
beej67 said:
BC's HC comes to mind. I think there's plenty of success stories of hiring from the NFL, but there's plenty of failures too. I think a better way to phrase your comment would be that "NFL guys aren't inherently any better or worse than NCAA guys."
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I like Jags so far, but he's only got 3/4th's of a season in with players that he didn't recruit. He might very well take that program to the next level, but it feels a little early to crown him just yet.

I tried to think of some NFL guys that have been truly outstanding in college, but right now at least there don't seeem to be many of them, if any. Pete Carroll even admitted that he had to re-invent himself as a coach to reach his current level of success.
 
I agree Bunger, we'll just start firing coaches after a year or two who don't immediately produce. Eventually, we'll find the right guy.

I think Gailey's situation is not indicative of future situations. In reality, had Gailey had a completely clean slate with no NCAA and academic problems (which aren't his fault in my opinion), he probably would have been replaced sooner. But he was lucky in that he was walking a very fine line between producing and failing all the while having instances arise that weren't necessarily a reflection on him, but we sure as hell used it as an excuse or a reason to extend the relationship.

Jim Donnan is a good example, but Ron Zook is not at all a good example of what should have been done. Zook took over a powerful program and made it above average. Donnan took over for an underachieving coach, and then did only slightly better. Gailey took over for a popular coach who had a disappointing year, had some hurdles to climb that he didn't cause, and just did average.

And FWIW, this ain't over. We very well maybe staring at ANOTHER year of Gailey football. Lets pray we don't.
 
And FWIW, this ain't over. We very well maybe staring at ANOTHER year of Gailey football. Lets pray we don't.
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IMO he doesn't stay unless he wins out, I pray he does because I like winning.
 
beej67 said:
What if the base was increased?
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I missed this question before. I think it's a possibility that could work, but I'm sure there's a break even in there somewhere.

Who knows what goes through a coach's mind though in situations like this.
 
JacketDan said:
I like Jags so far, but he's only got 3/4th's of a season in with players that he didn't recruit. He might very well take that program to the next level, but it feels a little early to crown him just yet.

I tried to think of some NFL guys that have been truly outstanding in college, but right now at least there don't seeem to be many of them, if any. Pete Carroll even admitted that he had to re-invent himself as a coach to reach his current level of success.
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There's June Jones at Hawaii too, but both him and Carroll failed in the NFL while Chan had some moderate success. There appears to be some mutually exclusive qualities between NFL and NCAA coaching.
 
I think you have to have clear expectations set for the coach. Tell him what kind of record we expect, how long he has to get us there, what kind of end of season ranking we want to have and by when, how often we should beat Georgia, etc. None of this "We expect to win every game" crap. That's BS. NO ONE really expects to win every game. That's a cop-out. Put a hard number on it. And keep the contract short and reasonable. Have an exit strategy in case the whole thing melts down. Don't bury yourself in debt like Braine did to us.
 
Bunger Henry said:
I think you have to have clear expectations set for the coach. Tell him what kind of record we expect, how long he has to get us there, what kind of end of season ranking we want to have and by when, how often we should beat Georgia, etc. None of this "We expect to win every game" crap. That's BS. NO ONE really expects to win every game. That's a cop-out. Put a hard number on it. And keep the contract short and reasonable. Have an exit strategy in case the whole thing melts down. Don't bury yourself in debt like Braine did to us.
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For once I actually agree with you.

Let's just hope DRad doesn't do what that dumsh!t Braine did.
 
BarrelORum said:
I agree Bunger, we'll just start firing coaches after a year or two who don't immediately produce. Eventually, we'll find the right guy.

I think Gailey's situation is not indicative of future situations. In reality, had Gailey had a completely clean slate with no NCAA and academic problems (which aren't his fault in my opinion), he probably would have been replaced sooner. But he was lucky in that he was walking a very fine line between producing and failing all the while having instances arise that weren't necessarily a reflection on him, but we sure as hell used it as an excuse or a reason to extend the relationship.

,<snipped>

And FWIW, this ain't over. We very well maybe staring at ANOTHER year of Gailey football. Lets pray we don't.
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I'll risk being labeled a die hard FOC'er and say that I think Gailey did a good job his first few years. I don't think many coaches keep us above .500 with the talent we had, plus Flunkgate, plus Probation, plus Gathers going out like he did. If we want to prevent this from happening again, stop flunking kids out in mass, and keep us off probation. Don't dig a hole for the coach to dig us out of. A coach can win at GT if we don't handicap him.

To me the last two years have been a disappointment. This year has been a major disappointment. Unlike Gailey's first years, aside from lacking a few scholarships, this is Gailey's team. We should expect more than we did after Flunkgate; but we are getting the same.

Finally, if Chan wins from here on out, including a big win over a ranked UGA team (possibly a top 10 team), it will be very difficult to fire him; but not impossible. If DRad does pull the trigger after Chan defeats UGA, he better have his top HC candidate in his pocket. However, if Chan loses any of the next 3 games and DRad doesn't pull the trigger...he'll have some explainin' to do.
 
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