johncu
Dodd-Like
- Joined
- Mar 17, 2011
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In discussions of PJ's tenure of Georgia Tech, critics often tend to completely throw out the results of 2008-2009, rationalizing this by saying that he had inherited an extremely talented team full of Gailey's players that would have been good under any coach.
I looked back at all of the 2008 preseason prognostications, and here's what I found (LINK)
Out of 15 major preseason rankings, only 2 thought we would finish better than 4th in the Coastal Division (2nd and 3rd). Several expected us to even finish behind Virginia and/or Duke in the conference. SI even expected us to go 0-8 in conference play.
This crap about Johnson inheriting some juggernaut is absolute horseshit. Gailey had left a few stars, but our OL was totally depleted, with tight ends, converted DLs, and friggin' walkons all over the 2 deep. We had ZERO depth on either side of the ball, and our back 7 was extremely thin and experienced, despite a couple of good players.
We all knew this back then - everyone expected even better after '08/'09 because we knew that those teams had a ton of issues. When the improvement didn't come, suddenly everyone totally forgot that Johnson had wildly exceeded expectations in his first 2 years.
My point is that you have to consider the whole picture. Of course the 2008/2009 teams had a lot of talent, but that's only in hindsight. Looking at those expectations from unbiased outsiders, clearly that talent wasn't evident until PJ became their coach. For that reason, I think the results of those seasons are every bit as valid as the results of the current ones. We have had a rough patch under PJ, but let's not pretend that that is the totality of his regime here.
I looked back at all of the 2008 preseason prognostications, and here's what I found (LINK)
Out of 15 major preseason rankings, only 2 thought we would finish better than 4th in the Coastal Division (2nd and 3rd). Several expected us to even finish behind Virginia and/or Duke in the conference. SI even expected us to go 0-8 in conference play.
This crap about Johnson inheriting some juggernaut is absolute horseshit. Gailey had left a few stars, but our OL was totally depleted, with tight ends, converted DLs, and friggin' walkons all over the 2 deep. We had ZERO depth on either side of the ball, and our back 7 was extremely thin and experienced, despite a couple of good players.
We all knew this back then - everyone expected even better after '08/'09 because we knew that those teams had a ton of issues. When the improvement didn't come, suddenly everyone totally forgot that Johnson had wildly exceeded expectations in his first 2 years.
My point is that you have to consider the whole picture. Of course the 2008/2009 teams had a lot of talent, but that's only in hindsight. Looking at those expectations from unbiased outsiders, clearly that talent wasn't evident until PJ became their coach. For that reason, I think the results of those seasons are every bit as valid as the results of the current ones. We have had a rough patch under PJ, but let's not pretend that that is the totality of his regime here.