Some Of You Are Going To Dislike This

Techbert

Techbert

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But IIWII. Argue with facts. Downvote facts. It is still factual.

First, the frame of reference. From a nearby thread...

savbandjacket said:
This is my view. CPJ designed an offense that was very efficient in putting up grotesque numbers with average and below average players....
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I changed it to...
This is my view. CPJ designed an offense that was very efficient in putting up grotesque numbers with average and below average players against cupcakes and unprepared major programs...
Click to expand...

I got this response.
WracerX said:
lol. Self fulfilling prophecy. If they stopped it, they were prepared. If not, they were unprepared...
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So let's define "unprepared." I am defining it as head coaches facing our offense their first and second time, except for bowls when there is extra time to prepare.

I reviewed our record in conference games and UGA, as comparables. These are consistent opponents and have motive to prepare against us. I also define all conference games as non-cupcake.

The first time we faced a conference /UGA head coach, CPJ won at a rate of 77.8% He scored over 30 ppg. If you throw out CPJ's first season here, as his own players were still learning the offense and were not efficient, he won 83.3% of his games with a scoring rate over 35 ppg. If you try to identify when the team "got it" (the Miami and UGA games of 2008) and throw out the games before that, he won 85% of his games and averaged 36 ppg. That's amazing, against coaches the first time he faces them. Pick any number above you want, between 77.8% and 85%, scoring 30 ppg to 36 ppg. That's up to you.

The second time he faced a HFC, CPJ won at a rate of 65% and scored over 31 ppg.

The third time he faced a HFC, CPJ won at a rate of 46.1%. Still a good scoring average, but his inability to recruit and craft a defense hurt him. Fourth time, he won 50%, but the scoring dropped some. Fifth time he faced a HFC, he won at a rate of 28.6% with a scoring of 25 ppg. Beyond that, he won at a 33.3% rate.

So for 1st and 2nd time facing a HFC, he won 72.3% with 31.6 ppg.

The 3rd or more time facing a HFC, he won 38.5% of his games with 26.2 ppg.

What about his bowl record @GT? Is that consistent? He has won 3 and lost 6 (33.3%). He scored 20.1 ppg, and this includes a bowl where he scored 49! This is a smaller sample size and less statistically reliable, but it tracks with the above and suggests that a month or whatever to prepare for his offense is about the same as coaching against him several previous times in conference.

So we are left with a picture of a coach that humiliates cupcakes, beats coaches the first few times he faces them, and loses reliably against prepared opponents of his level. THAT is why he "retired."

IIWII.
 
JJacket said:
You've been telling me a genius since you were 17. And all the time I've known you I still don't know what you mean.

The weekend at the college didn't turn out as you planned. The things that pass for knowledge I can't understand.
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Yawn. You're embarrassing yourself at this point.
 
JJacket said:
Quarantine games for $1000....so funny!

InfatuatedFatalIrishredandwhitesetter-size_restricted.gif


How about, I will take @jts1207 is a dumbass for $600 (Federal) Alex?
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Don't you have a concert to be at? 3000+ :rotfl:
 
KrazieJacket said:
No spring practice to debate about coupled with no expectation of when/if the football season would start. Pretty sure we should make a thread like this for every former coach to help pass the time.
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Yeah, but none of that explains what jts is doing. Bert goes at CPJ and jts takes the thread to go at JJ and now CJP.
 
This is my view. CPJ designed an offense that was very efficient in putting up grotesque numbers with average and below average players against cupcakes and unprepared major programs...
Click to expand...

Great offenses of college football put up grotesque numbers against cupcakes and unprepared major teams. Great offenses of college football often do not put up grotesque numbers against prepared major teams. Your argument, therefore, is that CPJ designed a Great Offense Of College Football that could work with average and below average players.

So for 1st and 2nd time facing a HFC, he won 72.3% with 31.6 ppg.

The 3rd or more time facing a HFC, he won 38.5% of his games with 26.2 ppg.
Click to expand...

What you're actually highlighting here is something I called "the press conference effect," and truly was a tremendous drawback of the CPJ offense. Let me explain it:

Every time Clemson gets beat by some other team, the press conference goes something like "gosh their players sure did play better than your players today." Every time Clemson got beat by Georgia Tech, the press conference went "holy öööö you got outcoached."

Coaches can accept losses to players with better teams, or losses where another team's players made bigger plays. Coaches cannot accept losses when they appear to be outcoached. The former is just bad luck, the latter gets them fired. No coach wants to be fired. Go back and look at how many coaches CPJ got fired. The number is high, including Two Bowdens, one of which literally quit so he didn't have to coach against him again. That is a real thing that actually happened.

Since nobody wants the Bowden Fate, they rig their schedules to have two weeks to prepare for GT, and they drive their players harder the week or two before GT than they do to prepare against any other team. Statistics back this up. If you were to go back in time and bet against GT opponents the week after they played GT, you'd beat the spread something like 80% of the time. That statistic is staggering. The reason why comes from player interviews - they always hated GT week because their coaches would drive them twice as hard in practice. Further, this change in coaching by their coaches led them to lose more games on net, and was part of the reason the ACC Coastal became such a garbage division in terms of W/L. Coaches were willing to lose more games on net just to beat GT, because of the press conference effect.

So the real drawback of having CPJ as a coach, was it put a target on our heads, because he was too good of a coach.

Our new coaches have certainly removed the target from our heads, lol. We'll see how that plays. I'm not hopeful. I guess at least this year our opponents stands will be as empty as ours are due to Covid-19.
 
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1. I don't keep bringing up CPJ. Other people keep bringing up "CPJ is a genius" posts. He's not. Geniuses don't get stale the more you compete with them and lose most of their games. He had a tricky but inferior offense and no feel at all for defense. He's like a chess player who plays the Fried Liver Attack (yes, that's real). It's unsound, and sound play defeats it, but if you are not prepared to go against it you will probably go astray and lose.

2. Beej explain the reason he loses 2/3 of his games against comparable opponents is because opponents know CPJ is a genius and try extra hard. This is absurd on its face. Do any bowl opponents not prepare as hard as they can for their bowl opponent? The better analogy is playing against CPJ is like batting against a knuckleball pitcher who messes up your batting rhythm the next few games afterwards. Both are annoying, but not geniuses. And, the "real drawback of having CPJ as a coach" if you ascribe to Beej's theory, is that when you go against UGA and bowl opponents there is no week after for them and you have to accept you will probably lose.

Me? I want the games against cupcakes to set up future success, not be the main entree.
 
Techbert said:
1. I don't keep bringing up CPJ. Other people keep bringing up "CPJ is a genius" posts. He's not. Geniuses don't get stale the more you compete with them and lose most of their games. He had a tricky but inferior offense and no feel at all for defense. He's like a chess player who plays the Fried Liver Attack (yes, that's real). It's unsound, and sound play defeats it, but if you are not prepared to go against it you will probably go astray and lose.

2. Beej explain the reason he loses 2/3 of his games against comparable opponents is because opponents know CPJ is a genius and try extra hard. This is absurd on its face. Do any bowl opponents not prepare as hard as they can for their bowl opponent? The better analogy is playing against CPJ is like batting against a knuckleball pitcher who messes up your batting rhythm the next few games afterwards. Both are annoying, but not geniuses. And, the "real drawback of having CPJ as a coach" if you ascribe to Beej's theory, is that when you go against UGA and bowl opponents there is no week after for them and you have to accept you will probably lose.

Me? I want the games against cupcakes to set up future success, not be the main entree.
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I’d be curious to see a similar analysis for a random sample of coaches at other schools at our level, and also for other coaches at Tech. CPJ’s numbers are interesting, but are they different from the norm? Better or worse?

Also, I think the last 20 years or so of Tech bowl games have strongly indicated that the “don’t want to be there factor” is a key component of bowl outcomes. So no, bowl teams don’t always prepare as hard as they can to take home the coveted Shreveport Chemical Burn Bowl trophy.

JRjr
 
beej67 said:
Great offenses of college football put up grotesque numbers against cupcakes and unprepared major teams. Great offenses of college football often do not put up grotesque numbers against prepared major teams. Your argument, therefore, is that CPJ designed a Great Offense Of College Football that could work with average and below average players.



What you're actually highlighting here is something I called "the press conference effect," and truly was a tremendous drawback of the CPJ offense. Let me explain it:

Every time Clemson gets beat by some other team, the press conference goes something like "gosh their players sure did play better than your players today." Every time Clemson got beat by Georgia Tech, the press conference went "holy öööö you got outcoached."

Coaches can accept losses to players with better teams, or losses where another team's players made bigger plays. Coaches cannot accept losses when they appear to be outcoached. The former is just bad luck, the latter gets them fired. No coach wants to be fired. Go back and look at how many coaches CPJ got fired. The number is high, including Two Bowdens, one of which literally quit so he didn't have to coach against him again. That is a real thing that actually happened.

Since nobody wants the Bowden Fate, they rig their schedules to have two weeks to prepare for GT, and they drive their players harder the week or two before GT than they do to prepare against any other team. Statistics back this up. If you were to go back in time and bet against GT opponents the week after they played GT, you'd beat the spread something like 80% of the time. That statistic is staggering. The reason why comes from player interviews - they always hated GT week because their coaches would drive them twice as hard in practice. Further, this change in coaching by their coaches led them to lose more games on net, and was part of the reason the ACC Coastal became such a garbage division in terms of W/L. Coaches were willing to lose more games on net just to beat GT, because of the press conference effect.

So the real drawback of having CPJ as a coach, was it put a target on our heads, because he was too good of a coach.

Our new coaches have certainly removed the target from our heads, lol. We'll see how that plays. I'm not hopeful. I guess at least this year our opponents stands will be as empty as ours are due to Covid-19.
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I’m totally in agreement (minus some of your last paragraph*). Nothing was factually incorrect about OP’s ftfy post, but I thumbs-downed it because of the implication that 1) that’s somehow unique to the spread/triple option and 2) that our only offensive success came against teams that were bad or didn’t care enough to prepare.

*Even though I was a fan of CPJ, I’m optimistic around the current staff and love seeing the strides they’re making in recruiting, player development, and branding of the program.
 
Techbert said:
So for 1st and 2nd time facing a HFC, he won 72.3% with 31.6 ppg.

The 3rd or more time facing a HFC, he won 38.5% of his games with 26.2 ppg.

IIWII.
Click to expand...

A couple issues with this:

1) That 72.3% is skewed by 08-09 when we actually super talented teams (more talented than most of our opponents).
2) That 72.3% is also skewed by new coaches replacing fired ones. There was a reason that the coach was fired or retired.
3) The 38.5% is skewed by CPJ's later years when his crappy recruiting led to our least talented rosters since probably Curry.

In my estimation:
- CPJ was an offensive genius
- CPJ was not a genius head coach
- CPJ was a poor recruiter for reasons he controlled (his system, his personality, his antiquated recruiting policies, his effort, his loyalty to lazy recruiters) and reasons he didn't (limited budget)
- beej's post is tinfoil nuttery
 
Paul Johnson was a good play caller at his specific system. He also refused to evolve that system as the football world changed around him.

When he was at Southern and pulling in talent comparable to his opposition, he looked really good. When he failed at recruiting here and started really lagging behind his coaching peers in talent, his system wasn’t enough to bridge the gap.
 
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