Wes Durham handicapping GT

I think Jeff Monken will be a better recruiter than PJ. and I also think we need to adapt the 40-year plan strategy. I want players who want to play football and want to play football at the highest level. They also want to play at GT. I think we have too many players who use us as a backup school. I'd rather be a player's top choice.

I think Monken creates that environment we saw it in 2008 and 2009 and we saw an immediate change in locker room culture when he left in 2010.
 
If I have learned anything from watching college football over the past several decades, its that you can't win without talent.

So anything within our football program that impedes/enhances the ability to attract talent should be eliminated/added. I don't think its that complicated. And I don't think there is much disagreement that running an unorthodox offense has impeded our recruiting.

I really enjoyed the highlights of CPJ's tenure but its nuts to think that our ability to recruit against our factory neighbors will be improved by sticking with an offense with an image problem.
 
smokey_wasp said:
I dunno. Mixed feelings. I like the offense in a lot of ways, but it does seem to have lost its edge somewhat, whether that is because of other teams' preparation or the inability to get good enough players. I dunno. I do feel like we need a legitimate passing game and at least a somewhat different version of the option than what we run now. I guess Monken should get an interview and just see what his vision is. I just don't know how I would feel about ultimately hiring him. I feel like we need to shake up peoples' perceptions of us a little bit.

The only thing I know for sure is I don't want an NFL/pro-style guy.
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Miami 2008---loved the triple option. Miss State in the Orange Bowl---loved the triple option. LSU in the Peach Bowl, not so much. When it's working, it is beautiful.
 
MACHETE said:
Agreed. The fundamental issue is recruiting. There are two camps here: 1. the one that believes Tech will never be able to recruit well so we need some "unique" offense to compete and 2. the "build it and they will come" crowd who thinks the right coach can recruit better players. The jury is out on which camp is right...
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Camp 2 is delusional. Delusional.

We can recruit good enough to be competitive if we do anything different from the SEC meathead offense.

If we think we are going to outmeathead the meatheads we are not.
 
GTCrew4b said:
I think Jeff Monken will be a better recruiter than PJ. and I also think we need to adapt the 40-year plan strategy. I want players who want to play football and want to play football at the highest level. They also want to play at GT. I think we have too many players who use us as a backup school. I'd rather be a player's top choice.

I think Monken creates that environment we saw it in 2008 and 2009 and we saw an immediate change in locker room culture when he left in 2010.
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What insights do you have exactly that leads you to make such a statement about recruiting and locker room culture?
 
MACHETE said:
What insights do you have exactly that leads you to make such a statement about recruiting and locker room culture?
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I had heard from previous players that Monken was "the glue" that helped keep them sane under CPJ's initial reign of terror. When he left it was a big loss.
 
MACHETE said:
Was listening to Wes on the ACC radio network this morning and heard him say that Tech was a "unique" place that needed a differentiating offense to remain competitive in the ACC. Mentioned all of the things we have talked about - high academic standards, limited resources, narrow range of majors, yada yada yada.

He seemed to imply that we should stay with the TO and hire someone like Monken.

I get all this but it is simply a flawed perspective.
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You're wrong, and Wes knows more about GT than you do.
 
OK beej67, was trying to have a civilized discussion but...

First off, you don't know me. I've been involved with Tech since the 1980's and my father was also an alum dating back to the 1960's. But ok, I'll grant you that Wes probably knows more about GT than I do. However, that is not the point. His views that he states publicly in the media are damaging to GT and a self-limiting fallacy. You have to think big to be big. There is no reason we cannot overcome whatever real or imagined constraints GT football has with the right coach, support and vision.

If we are going to play, we should play to win.
 
MACHETE said:
Think Duke basketball in the early 1980's when Coach K arrived. Does anyone really think that Duke has any pre-ordained reason to be a basketball powerhouse?? Um, no. However, they had the vision to hire Coach K and gave him the tools to become successful.

Let's do this.
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This is a terrible analogy. Basketball requires - at most - 5 good players to be successful. 1 great player can take an okay team to a sweet 16 team.

Football requires 5x-7x as many good players to be successful. 1 great player makes a minimal difference.

Duke is a private school and can make up whatever major they want to stash student athletes in. We can't.
 
MACHETE said:
There is no reason we cannot overcome whatever real or imagined constraints GT football has with the right coach, support and vision.
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In order to overcome those constraints, we have to be honest with ourselves about what those constraints are, and we have to choose a coach that can mitigate those real constraints.

That is literally what Wes said.
 
MACHETE said:
OK beej67, was trying to have a civilized discussion but...

First off, you don't know me. I've been involved with Tech since the 1980's and my father was also an alum dating back to the 1960's. But ok, I'll grant you that Wes probably knows more about GT than I do. However, that is not the point. His views that he states publicly in the media are damaging to GT and a self-limiting fallacy. You have to think big to be big. There is no reason we cannot overcome whatever real or imagined constraints GT football has with the right coach, support and vision.

If we are going to play, we should play to win.
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I’m curious to know your list of real and imagined constraints. Differentiated between and provided with reasoning for their existence, real or perceived.
 
How is doing the same thing everyone else in college football does in every aspect of our program just make sure we do it better “Thinking big”?

People against the option are like this: “We just need to hire a hungry coach. Then we need to recruit better, run an offense players want to play in, and beat the big rival. THEN we’ll be where we need to be.” That’s the big plan.
 
GTCrew4b said:
How is doing the same thing everyone else in college football does in every aspect of our program just make sure we do it better “Thinking big”?

People against the option are like this: “We just need to hire a hungry coach. Then we need to recruit better, run an offense players want to play in, and beat the big rival. THEN we’ll be where we need to be.” That’s the big plan.
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Who said anything about "doing the same thing everyone else in college football does"? I'm talking about a brand of football that will appeal to top HS players. Maybe a new spread option combo, I don't know, I'm not a football coach. The point is the TO is a tired and old scheme that does not appeal to HS players.
 
MACHETE said:
Who said anything about "doing the same thing everyone else in college football does"? I'm talking about a brand of football that will appeal to top HS players. Maybe a new spread option combo, I don't know, I'm not a football coach. The point is the TO is a tired and old scheme that does not appeal to HS players.
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So you don’t have a plan. You don’t have a tangible target. You just want change. And you want change of the main thing that lead to one of the most successful decades of GT football since World War II.
 
MACHETE said:
OK beej67, was trying to have a civilized discussion but...

First off, you don't know me. I've been involved with Tech since the 1980's and my father was also an alum dating back to the 1960's. But ok, I'll grant you that Wes probably knows more about GT than I do. However, that is not the point. His views that he states publicly in the media are damaging to GT and a self-limiting fallacy. You have to think big to be big. There is no reason we cannot overcome whatever real or imagined constraints GT football has with the right coach, support and vision.

If we are going to play, we should play to win.
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How are Wes' statements damaging to GT? He points out that strong academic institutions do not face the obstacles we face because they all have a LIBERAL ARTS CURRICULUM available to student athletes. Comparisons of us to Notre Dame, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, etc are nonsensical. Kids at those schools can literally create their own majors whereas at GT we only have BS degrees which require calculus and CS. Wes straight up filibustered the idiot radio hosts and told it like it is. We are a unique school which makes recruiting more difficult. I'm amused every time someone says CPJ doesn't care about recruiting and doesn't try hard at recruiting, that is the most asinine line and I hear it regularly from people who regurgitate if from what they hear in the press.
 
RaiderJacket said:
CPJ's main issue to me was his stubbornness and not willing to tweak the TO so as to add in some RPO and use the athletic ability of the QB's we have. With the difficulties of pass blocking from a run heavy offense, the RPO gives the QB better downfield vision faster and he can see the pressure and coverage quicker. Imagine running the TO and all of a sudden going hurry up with RPO. Defenses would crap themselves trying to adjust back and forth and couldn't load up in the box as often, especially if we line up in the TO formation and then switch to RPO formation at the line. I do not know enough about Monken as to whether he is flexible with the TO.
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Monken hasn't shown any flexibility in his running of this offense. At least that is what someone who actually watches their games told me yesterday when the retirement news hit.
 
MACHETE said:
Was listening to Wes on the ACC radio network this morning and heard him say that Tech was a "unique" place that needed a differentiating offense to remain competitive in the ACC. Mentioned all of the things we have talked about - high academic standards, limited resources, narrow range of majors, yada yada yada.

He seemed to imply that we should stay with the TO and hire someone like Monken.

I get all this but it is simply a flawed perspective. Pigeon-holing ourselves into an option only school will be the slow death of GT football. Kids simply don't want to play in it. Ask any HS coach.

Stansbury et al need to get creative and change the paradigm. We can do it. Let's bring in the right coach who can win and give him the tools to do it. There is nothing etched in stone that says Tech can't be a football power while maintaining its "academic prestige". Think Duke basketball in the early 1980's when Coach K arrived. Does anyone really think that Duke has any pre-ordained reason to be a basketball powerhouse?? Um, no. However, they had the vision to hire Coach K and gave him the tools to become successful.

Let's do this.
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Weren’t you the one hat wanted to drop the UGA series cause we can’t “compete”?
 
goldbybirth said:
Monken hasn't shown any flexibility in his running of this offense. At least that is what someone who actually watches their games told me yesterday when the retirement news hit.
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They run a spread option offense yes. This person probably means inflexible means you don’t alternate between singleback, shotgun, and I Formation like you do in Madden.
 
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