With a roster

05GTCorndog said:
Recruit the 50th best roster, and you end up with the 50th best team. That is how it is going to work this way more often than not. Some teams have have an exceptional coaching staff that can elevate players. Others have a öööö-show (FSU, I'm looking at you), that squanders talent. I don't think our coaching staff falls in either category. It is really, what it is.
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This is really the core of it. I've liked CPJ from the roller coaster ride of '08 on. I think much of the butthurt over the type of offense he runs has been vastly unwarranted from a pure Xs & Os standpoint. After watching the first five years of this era, I believed firmly that CPJ would live or die by recruiting going forward, and, as Corndog points out above, this is where we are. You can go back and look to see what this team can be under CPJ when we have that talent (From '14 and '09 to '08, and even years like '11 and '16 where we weren't top tier, but still a threat). We've been a bit unlucky losing guys like AJ Gray, Dedrick Mills, Marcus Marshall, Travis Custis and the like to various forms of attrition, but overall the influx of talent hasn't been there to the level we need to stay relevant as our neighbors and yearly rivals (ugag and clemmons) elevate their programs. I think there's a 1 in a million chance we could ever get to the level of consistent top ten recruiting classes, but I see no reason why we can't flirt around with the 30-35 range year in and year out (for reference, I believe that 07 class with Dwyer, Bay Bay, Burnett, etc was ranked somewhere around 33). Maybe not with CPJ, but if we were to move on this year or the next, I feel strongly that we could find a coach who could.
 
We will never be a top recruiting school ever, write it down, quote me on that. Georgia Tech is not structured to recruit top athletes and likely never will be. We can hire another coach, with a different style and hopefully he will marginally improve recruiting; but if you think Georgia Tech will ever consistently recruit to 25 classes then you really have a feeble grasp on reality. I think CPJ is starting to let GT beat him down, so maybe it is time to make a change; but don't expect 4 & 5 star athletes to sudden start flocking in here.

Oh, and here's the real kicker. Coaches all know that Georgia Tech has built in obstacles to recruiting. Some coaches even view us as career suicide; so keep that in mind with your coaching search. You have got to find a coach who can coach lesser talent up; which is what CPJ was supposed to be, and maybe what he was a few years ago.
 
Under CPJ, our recruiting has been about on par with his predecessor's average class ranking. The difference has been in our ability to develop the diamonds in the rough and that, seemingly, we've struggled retaining what 4 star talent we are able to recruit, be it injuries, discipline, or transfer.
 
BainbridgeJacket said:
Under CPJ, our recruiting has been about on par with his predecessor's average class ranking. The difference has been in our ability to develop the diamonds in the rough and that, seemingly, we've struggled retaining what 4 star talent we are able to recruit, be it injuries, discipline, or transfer.
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I came here to post this. Johnson's recruiting rankings are actually slightly better than Gailey's, yet the total absence of elite players makes a big difference. The only player we've recruited since 2008 that could be considered elite is Shaq Mason, and we won 11 games when he was a senior.

It seems like the 4 star guys we do recruit tend to be busts at a higher rate, and we just aren't getting the 3 star that plays like a 5 star. Bad luck? Poor talent evaluation? Both? I am at a loss.
 
johncu said:
I came here to post this. Johnson's recruiting rankings are actually slightly better than Gailey's, yet the total absence of elite players makes a big difference. The only player we've recruited since 2008 that could be considered elite is Shaq Mason, and we won 11 games when he was a senior.

It seems like the 4 star guys we do recruit tend to be busts at a higher rate, and we just aren't getting the 3 star that plays like a 5 star. Bad luck? Poor talent evaluation? Both? I am at a loss.
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Poor player development. Our players just don’t seem to improve much year over year.
 
Got curious so I went back and looked. Here are the 4 star players we've signed under Johnson. Feel free to help comment on how they panned out.

From the classes of 2008-2016:
Omoregie Uzzi (injuries derailed career)
J.C. Lanier (lol)
Louis Young (average starter)
Anthony Williams (???)
Ryan Ayers (transferred)
BJ Bostic (slightly below average starter)
Denzel McCoy (retired due to medical issue)
Jabari Hunt-Days (bust/academically ineligible)
Justin Thomas (I'd say he panned out)
Francis Kallon (never reached the hype - marginal starter)
Step Durham (solid player)
Jordan Woods (injured and transferred)

I'd say maybe 3/12 panned out to be good players, and at LEAST 6/12 turned out to be complete and total busts for us. That's really, really not good.


From the classes of 2017-2018:
Kaleb Oliver
Bruce Jordan-Swilling
Tre Swilling
Gentry Bonds
James Graham
Justice Dingle
Jaylon King

I'm pretty optimistic about the guys listed above, and the fact that every one of them is playing as a true freshman or RS. freshman/sophomore is a good sign. It does look like recruiting has trended upward, but it's probably too little, too late.
 
johncu said:
Got curious so I went back and looked. Here are the 4 star players we've signed under Johnson. Feel free to help comment on how they panned out.

From the classes of 2008-2016:
Omoregie Uzzi (injuries derailed career)
J.C. Lanier (lol)
Louis Young (average starter)
Anthony Williams (???)
Ryan Ayers (transferred)
BJ Bostic (slightly below average starter)
Denzel McCoy (retired due to medical issue)
Jabari Hunt-Days (bust/academically ineligible)
Justin Thomas (I'd say he panned out)
Francis Kallon (never reached the hype - marginal starter)
Step Durham (solid player)
Jordan Woods (injured and transferred)

I'd say maybe 3/12 panned out to be good players, and at LEAST 6/12 turned out to be complete and total busts for us. That's really, really not good.


From the classes of 2017-2018:
Kaleb Oliver
Bruce Jordan-Swilling
Tre Swilling
Gentry Bonds
James Graham
Justice Dingle
Jaylon King

I'm pretty optimistic about the guys listed above, and the fact that every one of them is playing as a true freshman or RS. freshman/sophomore is a good sign. It does look like recruiting has trended upward, but it's probably too little, too late.
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The next coach can win with Johnson’s players.
 
MoverofFridge2 said:
of two and three stars with a few fours added in, you can’t compete, IMO, on the D1 level. Our lack of talent has shown the past two or three years. I just don’t think you can coach up talent to compete with teams that have better overall talent. I don’t know that Pitt had better talent, but they looked to have better athletes on the field today.

I still say we beat one of the big boys, Clemson, Miami, VT, or ugag.........just don’t see us getting to six wins though and a bowl game.

Should be interesting to see if changes are made anywhere from top to bottom.
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I have stated this before; the “we can’t recruit the better players” assertion is not really true.
If you look at the current class, GT has offered (5) 5 star players and (64) 4 star players, and this includes a high percentage of the top 50 players in Georgia. There aren’t any takers so far.
Why is that? I would say it is due to a number of things that have been discussed by Tech fans for decades. But it has to be obvious that the coach and his system don’t help matters much.
No one is suggesting that Tech is gonna recruit some of the players UGA does, but there are a number of talented kids, particularly in the metro area, who could handle the rigors of Tech’s academics.
If and when Tech and PJ ever part ways, it would be interesting to see a charismatic coach who sells the positives of Tech and not sell around the negatives.
 
donsue said:
I have stated this before; the “we can’t recruit the better players” assertion is not really true.
If you look at the current class, GT has offered (5) 5 star players and (64) 4 star players, and this includes a high percentage of the top 50 players in Georgia. There aren’t any takers so far.
Why is that? I would say it is due to a number of things that have been discussed by Tech fans for decades. But it has to be obvious that the coach and his system don’t help matters much.
No one is suggesting that Tech is gonna recruit some of the players UGA does, but there are a number of talented kids, particularly in the metro area, who could handle the rigors of Tech’s academics.
If and when Tech and PJ ever part ways, it would be interesting to see a charismatic coach who sells the positives of Tech and not sell around the negatives.
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I think you need to normalize your statistics. There are ~30 5-star players, of which I assume we would take all 30 if they were interested. Thus why didnt we offer all of them rather than 5 of them? Is it because we cant take the others even if they wanted to be a Jacket? It's not like I know either, just noting a possible problem with your analysis.
 
TampaBayJacket said:
I think you need to normalize your statistics. There are ~30 5-star players, of which I assume we would take all 30 if they were interested. Thus why didnt we offer all of them rather than 5 of them? Is it because we cant take the others even if they wanted to be a Jacket? It's not like I know either, just noting a possible problem with your analysis.
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Actually you don’t just sling offers out to every highly rated kid. Bama doesn’t even do that. It is the fact that you have contact with a kid and you actually communicate an offer. If it were as simple as slinging offers, then Georgia State would offer all the 5 star players nationally.
My numbers come straight from the Rivals list of offers by GT. It isn’t something I made up.
 
If you were a 4 or 5 star kid, would you go play for Johnson's offense? Practice defense against it? His offense is used against him by other coaches in recruiting, both offenseand defense. It's an easy sell for those coaches too.
 
We will never recruit top 25 classses consistently, but we sure as hell can do a lot better than what we are doing now. You can listen to CPJ and his demeanor and tell right off that he does not enjoy (and maybe hates) the recruiting aspect of the job. He wants to call his offensive system, prove people wrong with it, and that’s it. In his mind the system is king.

I heard it on the first radio show when he was asked about the new locker room. Rather than talk it up as he should have, he dismissed it as “about like everyone else has.”

Recruiting here is already hard without having the Ho-hum attitude towards recruiting that our HC seems to have.
 
GEETEELEE said:
I don’t think it’s as significant as you and others claim. It probably has some effect, but not as much as calculus and lack of easy majors has.

We certainly don’t pay the players like the factories do.
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We've got bag men too, just like everyone else.
 
GEETEELEE said:
I don’t think it’s as significant as you and others claim. It probably has some effect, but not as much as calculus and lack of easy majors has.
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Probably has some effect? All highly regarded FBS recruits think they’re going Pro. Playing in an antiquated offense isn’t going to help those dreams. Practicing defense against an antiquated offense or 3rd string scout team isn’t going to help those dreams. This is a significant issue. The majors is a problem but we’ve recruited talented (bigger, faster, not soft) players in the past. There isn’t a single big play playmaker on our current squad.
 
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