Thoughts?

lonestarjacket said:
Interesting analogy that I identify with directly.

If I had an employee who was managing a product that I expected to achieve 20% growth and that employee merely maintained status quo then I might not fire him, but I would darn sure reassign that product to someone else. I might give him a year to get oriented. I might even give him three years in extraordinary circumstances. But after five years I would have to assume he had done as well as he ever could.

Chan isn't just an employee. He is managing our most important product. And he isn't meeting his goals. And I would never sit pat with an underperforming product because the replacement "MIGHT not be any better." Maybe we could reassign Chan to a less critical product to see if he improves, like the ultimate frisbee team.
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Yes! Absolutely! I'm so glad you put it so well! Because you're right, Chan isn't just an employee. He's the CEO of Georgia Tech football. And he took exactly the approach you recommended with Dave Wilson, with recruiting, and with Pat Nix. And made the right call, in the right time, with all of them. Which is why, as a program, we're in better shape now than we've been in years.

Guys, a program is not built around a single coach. It's built on depth, talent scouting, recruiting, good position coaches, stability and gameday coaching. Chan is accomplishing all of those things. (I'll let you argue the gameday coaching bit, though personally I think it's not bad, and getting better with Bond at OC)

At a school that has all the requisite ingredients already (depth, consistent recruiting, stability), then plugging in the right coach may be the missing ingredient. But we don't. Not even O'Leary had depth. Chan has had to build depth slowly and painfully. Why hamstring him now?
 
He isn't doing what he said he was going to do, period. Remember..."I'm going to beat UGA, win ACC championships and finished ranked"...remember that? He is 0-5, going 0-6...now what if a CEO told the board "I'm going to increase sales, decrease expenses and bring in more of the market share against our competitor" and 6 -years later everything is stagnant. Think he owes the stock holders (season ticket holders) an explanation?
 
MaconGTfan said:
Non-factor. I'll take Dwyer over RG anyway. Feel sorry for the guy, bum luck w/ injuries and all.
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He was playing well before his injury. We were getting him involved more. I would love RG to get one more shot out there.
 
demjackets said:
He was playing well before his injury. We were getting him involved more. I would love RG to get one more shot out there.
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Yeah, but I'm just not sure this is the game to bring back a cold, rusty RB coming off an injury, and I beleive Dwyer is better anyway, he runs it harder (puts his should pads down to take on the tackler and keeps his legs moving whereas RG just lunges forward).
 
I have a dream. :eek5:

Where GT beats UGA and wins its bowl game for a 9-4 season.

A wealthy fan makes a huge gift to the GTAA and DRad doubles the coaching budget.

Brilliant new hires are made for receiving and QB coaches.

GT awards its full quota of football scholarships and gets no player rated lower than three stars. Emphasis is strong on CBs, receivers and linemen.

GT fans all lock arms and look to the dawn of a new era of Tech football featuring the dynamic run and throw tandem of QBs Nesbit and Renfree along with receivers Jackson and Jenkins.

Beebad disappears along with Bbuzzoff as Tech goes 14-0 and Bunger comes to Stingtalk to say, "See, I told you all along what would happen." :D
 
elwoodGT said:
I do think you're presenting a false dichotomy. Our choices are not limited to keeping Gailey and accepting that we can do no better than 7-5, or firing him and trying to improve.
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Well see, here is where the rubber meets the road. For the GTAA, that's exactly what the two choices are as seen by the majority of the fanbase they are selling too.

While I agree with you that those really aren't the two choices you are making, its not about the choices, its about the message you are sending.

If we lose to UGA this week and decide to keep Gailey, then I think that the message the GTAA is sending becomes very apparent. It says that yes, we may have a special season every now and again, but you need to understand that 7-5 after year 6 is acceptable even when the coach admits this is "his best team".

Also, I think you give Gailey way too much credit. I think the positives in our program especially in recruiting are not reflections of Chan Gailey as a coach. I think they are inspite of his efforts as a Coach.
 
elwoodGT said:
Chan isn't just an employee. He's the CEO of Georgia Tech football. And he took exactly the approach you recommended with Dave Wilson, with recruiting, and with Pat Nix. And made the right call, in the right time, with all of them. Which is why, as a program, we're in better shape now than we've been in years.

Guys, a program is not built around a single coach. It's built on depth, talent scouting, recruiting, good position coaches, stability and gameday coaching. Chan is accomplishing all of those things. (I'll let you argue the gameday coaching bit, though personally I think it's not bad, and getting better with Bond at OC)
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You've touched on one of Chan's biggest problems elwood. Yes he resolved the issues with Wilson and Nix, but took entirely too long with both. We're in better shape than we've been in years since Chan has been here. He's the main reason he had to rebuild the staff, it didn't happen to him.

You think he's shown improvement, I think it's taken him 6 years to get the program back to where it was when it was handed to him. We have no more depth now than we did in O'Leary's time, it's just at different positions. Our D staff is great and our O weak, which is the opposite of O'Leary. Where are we better?
 
I spar a lot with BOR, but there's real wisdom in this:

While I agree with you that those really aren't the two choices you are making, its not about the choices, its about the message you are sending.

If we lose to UGA this week and decide to keep Gailey, then I think that the message the GTAA is sending becomes very apparent. It says that yes, we may have a special season every now and again, but you need to understand that 7-5 after year 6 is acceptable even when the coach admits this is "his best team".
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The issue of whether or not Chan can lead us to the promised land may be completely irrelevant at this point, because of the situation he's in.

He may very well be able to lead us to the promised land, but the fanbase is convinced that he can't. His job security is based on the impressions of the fans and GTAA supporters, which go back to the performance of his team on the field, when it counts.

He may very well be an amazing coach who's been shafted with bad luck and players who do really dumb things when it counts the most. But that's life, and somebody's gotta pay the piper.


Gotta beat UGA.
 
beej67 said:
He may very well be able to lead us to the promised land, but the fanbase is convinced that he can't. His job security is based on the impressions of the fans and GTAA supporters, which go back to the performance of his team on the field, when it counts.

He may very well be an amazing coach who's been shafted with bad luck and players who do really dumb things when it counts the most. But that's life, and somebody's gotta pay the piper.


Gotta beat UGA.
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Thanks Beej. You nailed it. The other message the GTAA is sending is that 0-6 is perfectly acceptable against your main rival, and I don't know of another school where that is ok.
 
ncjacket said:
You've touched on one of Chan's biggest problems elwood. Yes he resolved the issues with Wilson and Nix, but took entirely too long with both. We're in better shape than we've been in years since Chan has been here. He's the main reason he had to rebuild the staff, it didn't happen to him.

You think he's shown improvement, I think it's taken him 6 years to get the program back to where it was when it was handed to him. We have no more depth now than we did in O'Leary's time, it's just at different positions. Our D staff is great and our O weak, which is the opposite of O'Leary. Where are we better?
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I'm willing to concede taking too long to fire the deadwood. I don't personally agree, but really it's a style thing. There's a fine line between demanding excellence from your subordinates and being loyal to your staff, and where that line falls is more an issue of management style than anything. Gailey, being the kind of man he is, falls toward the 'loyalty to staff' end of that spectrum, and I can't really fault him for it. His loyalty isn't blind, and he did make the right move in time. Our special teams, you must agree, is completely turned around, and I think the OC position is a significant upgrade as well, though Taylor may not be the all-world QB we imagined he was when he was still that most popular player, the backup QB. I don't see anyone calling for the DB coach's head (Tenuta, BTW) because the cornerbacks aren't producing.

Where we might also disagree is with the state of the program Gailey inherited. Yes, O'Leary did some great things. With Fridge. '95, '96 and 2001, without Fridge, were distinctly sub-par. Furthermore, if you'll recall, as soon as O'Leary left, the psycho anti-football wing of The Hill, led by Carole Moore, immediately made moves to seriously curtail the program, leading almost directly to Flunkgate. Now Gailey has no QB, no RB, serious loss of defensive depth, and is starting well behind where O'Leary was.

Where we do, agree, I think, is that he is improving the program. Sure, I wish it were faster. I wish the ball had bounced our way during some of those tight Georgia games. But season ticket sales are up, recruiting is up, and our probation is finally gone. I want to continue improvement, not stop it just when it's starting to build steam, on the off chance a coaching change will recharge our market image.
 
Exactly, BOR.

This has been my stance since the Maryland loss, and especially since the VT loss. I have defended Gailey's coaching ability for a long time, when I felt it needed defending, and I've also done a whole lot of 'devil's advocate' stuff for many years to try and put our complaints into perspective from the eyes of a third party observer.

But the simple fact is that the circumstances (best team yet, UVA loss, Maryand loss, VT blowout, 5 strait to Georgia, never lost less than 5 games per season, fans hate him) dictate Chan gets fired unless he can beat Georgia. It simply doesn't matter how good a coach he is. At all. Given exactly the same circumstances, Dodd would have been fired, as would Ross, as would Heisman.


The only thing that would save Chan should he lose to Georgia would be if he had Weis's contract.
 
Well beej, I think the landscape of college football has decidedly changed since Heisman and Dodd, but whatever.

I just don't think DRad can afford to tie his ship to Gailey's for one more season if he loses to UGA again.

The problem with not firing Gailey for DRad becomes trying to explain his motives to the fanbase. Its not like he can come out and say "Well, its just not a good time right now so I'm opting for next season". That doesn't work. As an AD he either needs to support Chan or let him go. And it will be far too easy to let him go if he loses to UGA than it will be to retain him.
 
beej67 said:
He may very well be an amazing coach who's been shafted with bad luck and players who do really dumb things when it counts the most. But that's life, and somebody's gotta pay the piper.


Gotta beat UGA.
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BOR is right. You have hit the nail on the head.

I don't know if you mean it this way, but all too many of our fans want to fire Gailey not to improve our chances of actually beating Georgia in the future, but to see that somebody's head rolls because we haven't beaten them recently.

Using your rival as a litmus test, when that rival is on its best win streak in 30 years, and is consistently in the top 10, is of dubious wisdom even for a Florida (Spurrier started 0-4 against FSU) or a Georgia (Richt started 1-5 against Florida). For a Georgia Tech, it's program suicide.
 
elwoodGT said:
Using your rival as a litmus test, when that rival is on its best win streak in 30 years, and is consistently in the top 10, is of dubious wisdom even for a Florida (Spurrier started 0-4 against FSU) or a Georgia (Richt started 1-5 against Florida). For a Georgia Tech, it's program suicide.
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There's the real difference between us I think elwood. You don't seem to think we can do it. ugag's too good, etc. Some of think we can and that we should have beaten them before now.
 
elwoodGT said:
I don't know if you mean it this way, but all too many of our fans want to fire Gailey not to improve our chances of actually beating Georgia in the future, but to see that somebody's head rolls because we haven't beaten them recently.
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LOL, I like the way you tried to spin this by suggesting that fans who want to fire Gailey aren't out to improve our chances to beat UGA in the future. Come on. It certainly can't get any worse than what he's done already, 0-5, maybe 0-6 against your rival. What do you expect will improve? Gailey has had his best chances to beat UGA already and has failed miserably.

The arguement you are trying to make is about the most asshattery thing I've ever heard.

::Edited for Beej67 because I forgot to use the word asshattery:::
 
GT65_UGA89 said:
I watched my tape of the game yesterday --early in the game the idiot announcers actually said this about CCG --"He's known as an offensive genius." Did anybody else see this?
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That almost made me puke. Thanks a lot 6589. :p
 
ncjacket said:
There's the real difference between us I think elwood. You don't seem to think we can do it. ugag's too good, etc. Some of think we can and that we should have beaten them before now.
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I think you are being a little hard on elwood. You are projecting this idea that he believes there is no way GT can bring in a better coach than Gailey. I don't see him saying that. I think he is simply trying to look at the situation without emotion and look at the likely odds of bringing in a coach that will lead us to greater success in the near future.

For me it is really pretty simple. If Gailey does not beat UGA, I'm all for a replacement if Drad thinks his hire will make us a better football team. I would hope that Drad doesn't go, "Gailey is a pretty good coach and has had tough circumstances, but I've got to let him go because I can't sell him anymore." Drad is a salesman and he can sell Gailey if he thinks it is best to allow him to continue to build with classes like the one we just brought in.

I would also say that if Drad is thinking about letting Chan go after a loss to UGA I hope he already has the guy picked out. Honestly, if Drad doesn't already know the guy he wants and that this coach would take the job, then we need to be very cautious. If you tell me that we are firing Gailey only to begin the search for our next messiah, that would leave me very uncomfortable.
 
ncjacket, I think you misread me. I don't at all think we can't beat Georgia. I think we can, and we came close the last few years. We stand a better chance than most people give us credit for, with an OC who won't go away from the run. I'm just saying it's a bad idea to use that one game as a litmus test.

BOR, I'm not at all saying the people who want to fire Gailey aren't trying to improve our chances against Georgia. Aren't we all trying to do that? But for the most part (there are exceptions), their reasons are not reasoned and rational, they are emotional. It's "Gailey has to go because he's 0-5," not, "Gailey has to go because he's [recruiting/coaching/hiring staff] the wrong way if we want to improve for the long term."
 
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