11-24-2017, 08:51 PM
Pages: 1 2
11-24-2017, 10:40 PM
Not a bad assessment.
11-24-2017, 11:05 PM
He’s a great coach. Not sure what happened vs Duke, but I’ll bee pulling for them tomorrow. Would have liked to see them vs UCF early in the year; should have beat Tennessee.
11-25-2017, 04:38 PM
One big knock I have on Paul Johnson...his recruiting has just not been too great at the two most important positions on that offense....the B-back and the QB. Now some will just say that that has to do with recruits not wanting to play in an offense that's so different from what's in the NFL, but consider that Georgia Southern has more running backs on NFL rosters (2) than Tech does (1).
There is zero reason for Tech to not have an NFL running back (if not more) on the roster every season. And yeah, I know schools like UGA and Southern don't expect as much of athletes as Tech does, but you're in the ACC, not the Sun Belt.
I am also kind of underwhelmed with the QBs Tech has recruited over the years, though that's not quite as noticeable as the situation with the B-back. If you could just get another duo like Josh Nesbitt and Jonathan Dwyer then Tech would run over pretty much any team who doesn't have a defense full of top 100 high school players.
There is zero reason for Tech to not have an NFL running back (if not more) on the roster every season. And yeah, I know schools like UGA and Southern don't expect as much of athletes as Tech does, but you're in the ACC, not the Sun Belt.
I am also kind of underwhelmed with the QBs Tech has recruited over the years, though that's not quite as noticeable as the situation with the B-back. If you could just get another duo like Josh Nesbitt and Jonathan Dwyer then Tech would run over pretty much any team who doesn't have a defense full of top 100 high school players.
11-25-2017, 06:18 PM
I think he is a good coach. He is a bit old fashioned to attract the kind of recruits he needs to get to the next level.
His teams have been pretty consistent. It's when other teams are having a down year that his teams look better than they really are.
His teams have been pretty consistent. It's when other teams are having a down year that his teams look better than they really are.
11-25-2017, 06:56 PM
GT's problems are far bigger than Johnson. They're all big. They're all systemic.
In decreasing order of how much of an impact the problem has:
1) Recruiting. It's been sub-mediocre for almost 20 years. Chan managed to put together a good recruiting class ... why aren't we paying whatever it takes to get that kind of recruiting results? If the answer is "you have to cheat" then why aren't we turning into J. Edgar Hoover and taking everybody down?
2) There is a catastrophic lack of vision on the philanthropic front. This is due to the last three Athletic Directors being poor fits. Braine was lazy, complacent, and incompetent. Radakovich was a credit card fueled spending spree serving only as a career stepping stone. And Bobinski was an unmitigated disaster in every quantifiable way. The A-T Fund couldn't hold IPTAY's jock strap. The TECH Fund is the punchline of a bad joke. The A-T Fund needs to be completely burned to the ground and rebooted properly. Look at how ****ing pathetic "Swarm Week" is. OOOOOOooooooooooooooo wow GUYS GUYS GUYS WE HAD ALMOST 300 PEOPLE DONATE. I'm pretty sure the Salvation Army Santa outside the local Wally World gets more action than that in a weekend. You've had your honeymoon Todd Stansbury ... I want to hear and see REAL analysis, REAL vision, REAL drive, and REAL change. You can't shovel bullcrap to an army of engineers ... we'll smell it coming. You want buy in ... start with selling a real product instead of nostalgia and wild optimism fueled vaporware.
Many many many of the following problems stem from a lack of money due ultimately to #2.
3) Inferior Staff. Due largely to money I suspect, but I also think PJ has excessive loyalty to his own offensive assistants.
4) Inferior Facilities. Isn't the GTAA still carrying debt for the horrific hideous expansion and renovation of BDS in 2003? That project **STILL** galls me. Hey guys, we have a school full of architects which created the skyline which surrounds us. How about we throw a giant endzone in with terrible views and a massive upper deck that will either be empty or full of the other team's fans. And we'll make those seats so high so far away you can't even hear the band. But we will provide a sherpa, two mountain goats, and O2 tank to help you reach your seat. Bobby Dodd Stadium will probably take at least $500,000,000 (based on Minnesota's new stadium and additional expense of dealing with all the buildings right up on and indeed even IN BDS thanks to that ööööty '03 expansion. Stop dumping money on pretty band aids. Sell out and be a corporate whore and rename the stadium to Omni Black International Soulless, Inc. for 50 years if you have to to get the money. But stop chasing good money into this black hole unless you're pulling the plug and addressing the real problem.
5) Fans that cut off their nose to spite their face.... which is another way of saying too smart for their own good. GT fans, more than maybe any other fan base, love to withdraw their financial support to impress upon their own athletic department their dissatisfaction. I'd argue that's stupid. But I get the sentiment. I really do. When GT athletics is the unmitigated dumpster fire across all fronts like it is now, I too refuse to go to games. Why invest the 7 hours roundtrip driving and the 100's of dollars just to raise my blood pressure and give my cardiologist more grey hair? But DON'T close the purse strings. I instead take every dime I saved by NOT going to the games or NOT paying for cable TV to have incompetence beamed into my living room in hideously glorious high bitrate 1080p DTS 5.1 surround sound ... and give every bit of it directly to the A-T Fund itself. Because even Ted Roof can't f*** up an endowment. And the money I give to that endowment will keep working on behalf of GT Athletics every day even after I'm long gone. And that's simultaneously a middle finger to the GTAA showing my displeasure with the status quo and support for the overall mission. And unlike with ticket money, I get some say so in WHERE the money goes. The GTAA will always get my money. But they will only get my butt in a seat when I feel like they've taken it as seriously as I have. That isn't the case right now IMHO.
6) Politics. The Georgia Board of Regents controls what majors are offered by public universities and what financial support they receive. The GABOR is controlled by UGA. This is due to UGA having a law school and political science offerings and GT having neither as well as UGA having a large network of satellite campuses and GT having just GT-Savannah (literally GT has more international campuses than GA campuses). This is to the point where UGA was given an engineering school despite the public system already having GT and Georgia Southern for that. But when GT tries to broaden the curriculum to something not purely STEM the GABOR shoots it down. This is a problem because....
7) STEM doesn't matter, and education doesn't a whole lot either. Our society really only gives lip service to STEM. When the rubber meets the road we just don't care all that much. GT still takes education seriously and that's a problem in a game that is less and less student athlete and more and more farm league by the day. Most recruits care more about having a laser tag pavilion than they do about a diploma that guarantees them, on average, a million dollar income. Let that horrible truth sink in for a moment. Marinate in it. The truth isn't always pleasant is it?
Now to be clear, I still think GT can compete. But what it takes to compete is:
- An aggressive Stanford-esk endowment push
- Facilities built for the long haul instead of constant patchwork, which again means more capital needed
- A commitment to be willing to pay enough to get a good crack at bat when hiring coaches, and to then have no ceiling (other than contract years) if they demonstrate consistent high level achievement.
- A forward thinking athletic director who doesn't just have the vision for all this but the drive to do it and the ability to articulate that vision in a way that unites a fan base that is much more individualistic and prone to stepping back than most.
- A buy in of that vision by the university President, which means removing hard rigid rules and replacing them with guidelines. You can keep the spirit of the rule without killing your damn self in the process!
Everybody doesn't need calculus. Rewards ($$$$) should be given out though if everybody DOES, with even percentage based rewards.
Notice ... many of my solutions are essentially MORE $$$$$$. Wonder why the GTAA is so in debt? But GT has a wealthy fan base they just have to be won over by a demonstration of achievement and competence go to with an articulated vision. Also GT has some other advantages it can tap into such as it's foreign campuses leading to foreign media markets and foreign fans. There were actually a fair number of local Georgia Tech fans at the GT-UCLA game in China because of GT's Singapore campus and their Shanghai Initiative with SJTU in Shanghai. The sales pitch here needs to be GT is going to be the world leader in STEM focused higher education including online. And we're just going to take over manufacturing the most wealthy people in the world .... engineers. And from that we will derive an enormous piggy bank that will fuel not only the athletic program ... but the academic one as well. It's the Stanford model without any of those pesky social sciences and the degenerates they spawn.
In decreasing order of how much of an impact the problem has:
1) Recruiting. It's been sub-mediocre for almost 20 years. Chan managed to put together a good recruiting class ... why aren't we paying whatever it takes to get that kind of recruiting results? If the answer is "you have to cheat" then why aren't we turning into J. Edgar Hoover and taking everybody down?
2) There is a catastrophic lack of vision on the philanthropic front. This is due to the last three Athletic Directors being poor fits. Braine was lazy, complacent, and incompetent. Radakovich was a credit card fueled spending spree serving only as a career stepping stone. And Bobinski was an unmitigated disaster in every quantifiable way. The A-T Fund couldn't hold IPTAY's jock strap. The TECH Fund is the punchline of a bad joke. The A-T Fund needs to be completely burned to the ground and rebooted properly. Look at how ****ing pathetic "Swarm Week" is. OOOOOOooooooooooooooo wow GUYS GUYS GUYS WE HAD ALMOST 300 PEOPLE DONATE. I'm pretty sure the Salvation Army Santa outside the local Wally World gets more action than that in a weekend. You've had your honeymoon Todd Stansbury ... I want to hear and see REAL analysis, REAL vision, REAL drive, and REAL change. You can't shovel bullcrap to an army of engineers ... we'll smell it coming. You want buy in ... start with selling a real product instead of nostalgia and wild optimism fueled vaporware.
Many many many of the following problems stem from a lack of money due ultimately to #2.
3) Inferior Staff. Due largely to money I suspect, but I also think PJ has excessive loyalty to his own offensive assistants.
4) Inferior Facilities. Isn't the GTAA still carrying debt for the horrific hideous expansion and renovation of BDS in 2003? That project **STILL** galls me. Hey guys, we have a school full of architects which created the skyline which surrounds us. How about we throw a giant endzone in with terrible views and a massive upper deck that will either be empty or full of the other team's fans. And we'll make those seats so high so far away you can't even hear the band. But we will provide a sherpa, two mountain goats, and O2 tank to help you reach your seat. Bobby Dodd Stadium will probably take at least $500,000,000 (based on Minnesota's new stadium and additional expense of dealing with all the buildings right up on and indeed even IN BDS thanks to that ööööty '03 expansion. Stop dumping money on pretty band aids. Sell out and be a corporate whore and rename the stadium to Omni Black International Soulless, Inc. for 50 years if you have to to get the money. But stop chasing good money into this black hole unless you're pulling the plug and addressing the real problem.
5) Fans that cut off their nose to spite their face.... which is another way of saying too smart for their own good. GT fans, more than maybe any other fan base, love to withdraw their financial support to impress upon their own athletic department their dissatisfaction. I'd argue that's stupid. But I get the sentiment. I really do. When GT athletics is the unmitigated dumpster fire across all fronts like it is now, I too refuse to go to games. Why invest the 7 hours roundtrip driving and the 100's of dollars just to raise my blood pressure and give my cardiologist more grey hair? But DON'T close the purse strings. I instead take every dime I saved by NOT going to the games or NOT paying for cable TV to have incompetence beamed into my living room in hideously glorious high bitrate 1080p DTS 5.1 surround sound ... and give every bit of it directly to the A-T Fund itself. Because even Ted Roof can't f*** up an endowment. And the money I give to that endowment will keep working on behalf of GT Athletics every day even after I'm long gone. And that's simultaneously a middle finger to the GTAA showing my displeasure with the status quo and support for the overall mission. And unlike with ticket money, I get some say so in WHERE the money goes. The GTAA will always get my money. But they will only get my butt in a seat when I feel like they've taken it as seriously as I have. That isn't the case right now IMHO.
6) Politics. The Georgia Board of Regents controls what majors are offered by public universities and what financial support they receive. The GABOR is controlled by UGA. This is due to UGA having a law school and political science offerings and GT having neither as well as UGA having a large network of satellite campuses and GT having just GT-Savannah (literally GT has more international campuses than GA campuses). This is to the point where UGA was given an engineering school despite the public system already having GT and Georgia Southern for that. But when GT tries to broaden the curriculum to something not purely STEM the GABOR shoots it down. This is a problem because....
7) STEM doesn't matter, and education doesn't a whole lot either. Our society really only gives lip service to STEM. When the rubber meets the road we just don't care all that much. GT still takes education seriously and that's a problem in a game that is less and less student athlete and more and more farm league by the day. Most recruits care more about having a laser tag pavilion than they do about a diploma that guarantees them, on average, a million dollar income. Let that horrible truth sink in for a moment. Marinate in it. The truth isn't always pleasant is it?
Now to be clear, I still think GT can compete. But what it takes to compete is:
- An aggressive Stanford-esk endowment push
- Facilities built for the long haul instead of constant patchwork, which again means more capital needed
- A commitment to be willing to pay enough to get a good crack at bat when hiring coaches, and to then have no ceiling (other than contract years) if they demonstrate consistent high level achievement.
- A forward thinking athletic director who doesn't just have the vision for all this but the drive to do it and the ability to articulate that vision in a way that unites a fan base that is much more individualistic and prone to stepping back than most.
- A buy in of that vision by the university President, which means removing hard rigid rules and replacing them with guidelines. You can keep the spirit of the rule without killing your damn self in the process!
Everybody doesn't need calculus. Rewards ($$$$) should be given out though if everybody DOES, with even percentage based rewards.
Notice ... many of my solutions are essentially MORE $$$$$$. Wonder why the GTAA is so in debt? But GT has a wealthy fan base they just have to be won over by a demonstration of achievement and competence go to with an articulated vision. Also GT has some other advantages it can tap into such as it's foreign campuses leading to foreign media markets and foreign fans. There were actually a fair number of local Georgia Tech fans at the GT-UCLA game in China because of GT's Singapore campus and their Shanghai Initiative with SJTU in Shanghai. The sales pitch here needs to be GT is going to be the world leader in STEM focused higher education including online. And we're just going to take over manufacturing the most wealthy people in the world .... engineers. And from that we will derive an enormous piggy bank that will fuel not only the athletic program ... but the academic one as well. It's the Stanford model without any of those pesky social sciences and the degenerates they spawn.
11-25-2017, 07:23 PM
That sounds like an assessment of Pitt with GT officials and facilities.
Sent from my SM-N900P using CSNbbs mobile app
Sent from my SM-N900P using CSNbbs mobile app
11-26-2017, 04:33 PM
At this point GTS, Tech needs to spend a year at Mercedes Benz stadium and tear down the current BDS to get the rebuild needed. That dream can’t happen until the money is their to bankroll it.
11-27-2017, 11:15 AM
I think the ceiling at GT is always going to be rather low. There are only so many kids that are going to be qualified and interested. As a father of a hopeful GT applicant, even I am somewhat intimidated on her behalf by the course load. GETTING IN to Stanford is a daunting proposition...but once you're in, it's not necessarily a frightening prospect. I just don't think GT and Stanford are great comparisons like people want to make. It's closer to a military academy in my opinion, in terms of needing a very special student.
I think Johnson is a very good coach, and his offense is a good fit.
That said, I think Paul Johnson almost takes his anti-recruiting to an extreme. As mentioned above, they should not have any trouble recruiting running backs. They should have their absolute picks among 6' tall QBs that can run that system, because there's no reasonable competition for them on GT's level. GT should and must do better among that small slice of athletes that fit the system AND profile as a successful student. I get that PJ doesn't dig recruiting...but he needs someone on his staff that buys in, gets on these rare kids early, and can really sell the GT story. It's one thing for Paul Johnson to hold onto the curmudgeonly, anti-recruiting image, but behind the scenes he's got to give his blessing to a modernized recruiting philosophy and infrastructure...it doesn't even have to be huge. Given the boost given a class by just a couple 4-star athletes, and the massive talent base, GT classes should be in the 40s every year.
I think Johnson is a very good coach, and his offense is a good fit.
That said, I think Paul Johnson almost takes his anti-recruiting to an extreme. As mentioned above, they should not have any trouble recruiting running backs. They should have their absolute picks among 6' tall QBs that can run that system, because there's no reasonable competition for them on GT's level. GT should and must do better among that small slice of athletes that fit the system AND profile as a successful student. I get that PJ doesn't dig recruiting...but he needs someone on his staff that buys in, gets on these rare kids early, and can really sell the GT story. It's one thing for Paul Johnson to hold onto the curmudgeonly, anti-recruiting image, but behind the scenes he's got to give his blessing to a modernized recruiting philosophy and infrastructure...it doesn't even have to be huge. Given the boost given a class by just a couple 4-star athletes, and the massive talent base, GT classes should be in the 40s every year.
11-27-2017, 11:29 AM
At this point you have to hope that Johnson can right the ship because if he can't and you go in another direction you are looking directly at several years of struggling because of how the roster is built. Just look at the results every time Georgia Southern has hired someone who tried to get the away from the TO. That's your future.
11-27-2017, 12:35 PM
Unless GT expanded the curriculum to allow them to compete on equal footing, I don't see how changing coaches would help.
I do agree with You and the other comments about recruiting. No reason GT can't bring in better backs.
I do agree with You and the other comments about recruiting. No reason GT can't bring in better backs.
11-27-2017, 01:28 PM
I'd be delighted to see Johnson gone. His offense depends upon causing opposing players to legitimately fear knee injuries.
11-27-2017, 02:16 PM
(11-27-2017 01:28 PM)Hallcity Wrote: [ -> ]I'd be delighted to see Johnson gone. His offense depends upon causing opposing players to legitimately fear knee injuries.
Every offense depends on cut blocks.
11-27-2017, 02:32 PM
(11-27-2017 02:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote: [ -> ](11-27-2017 01:28 PM)Hallcity Wrote: [ -> ]I'd be delighted to see Johnson gone. His offense depends upon causing opposing players to legitimately fear knee injuries.
Every offense depends on cut blocks.
JFC. Kaplony as the voice of reason. I'm going outside to look for flying pork now.
11-27-2017, 02:34 PM
(11-27-2017 12:35 PM)Hokie Mark Wrote: [ -> ]Unless GT expanded the curriculum to allow them to compete on equal footing, I don't see how changing coaches would help.
I do agree with You and the other comments about recruiting. No reason GT can't bring in better backs.
GT can compete but they must recruit nationally to do so. It's a lazy trap to say "WELL WE'LL JUST GET ALL DEM THAR GAWJUH KIDS". Well the public education system in GA is among the worst of the 50 states. And they'll have grown up barking like an animal with an IQ (in theory at least) less than half of theirs. How's that going to work out? Answer: Poorly. GT does better out of state recruiting than it does in state. Basketball, due to small roster size, may be the only sport where the "set up a fence around the state" idea works. Mayyyyybe baseball too. But probably not there either.
11-27-2017, 02:35 PM
(11-25-2017 07:23 PM)ClairtonPanther Wrote: [ -> ]That sounds like an assessment of Pitt with GT officials and facilities.
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Pitt and GT are eerily similar stories. That's why they one to two teams north of the Potomac (other being ND) I don't mind playing.
11-27-2017, 03:25 PM
(11-27-2017 02:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote: [ -> ](11-27-2017 01:28 PM)Hallcity Wrote: [ -> ]I'd be delighted to see Johnson gone. His offense depends upon causing opposing players to legitimately fear knee injuries.
Every offense depends on cut blocks.
I've heard that before. However, it seems like there's no offense in college football that produces nearly as many knee injuries in opposing defenses as Georgia Tech's. I don't think that's accidental. If Clemson were in the same division as Georgia Tech and annually coming out of its game with Georgia Tech with a player requiring knee surgery you might feel differently about it.
11-27-2017, 04:11 PM
(11-27-2017 03:25 PM)Hallcity Wrote: [ -> ](11-27-2017 02:16 PM)Kaplony Wrote: [ -> ](11-27-2017 01:28 PM)Hallcity Wrote: [ -> ]I'd be delighted to see Johnson gone. His offense depends upon causing opposing players to legitimately fear knee injuries.
Every offense depends on cut blocks.
I've heard that before. However, it seems like there's no offense in college football that produces nearly as many knee injuries in opposing defenses as Georgia Tech's. I don't think that's accidental. If Clemson were in the same division as Georgia Tech and annually coming out of its game with Georgia Tech with a player requiring knee surgery you might feel differently about it.
The problem is Clemson does play GT every year and most years plays an in-state FCS team that runs the same offense and there hasn't been a knee injury against GT or the FCS team that was caused by their blocking scheme as long as Paul Johnson has been there. In fact the only knee injury I can remember against GT was Deshaun Watson's non-contact injury in Atlanta his freshman year.
I would like to see the evidence that Paul Johnson's blocking scheme produces more knee injuries to opposing defensive players. I've asked for it before and nobody has been able to provide any evidence that backs this claim up.
11-27-2017, 04:33 PM
(11-27-2017 04:11 PM)Kaplony Wrote: [ -> ]The problem is Clemson does play GT every year and most years plays an in-state FCS team that runs the same offense and there hasn't been a knee injury against GT or the FCS team that was caused by their blocking scheme as long as Paul Johnson has been there. In fact the only knee injury I can remember against GT was Deshaun Watson's non-contact injury in Atlanta his freshman year.
I would like to see the evidence that Paul Johnson's blocking scheme produces more knee injuries to opposing defensive players. I've asked for it before and nobody has been able to provide any evidence that backs this claim up.
If you don't like cut blocks ... make cut blocking illegal. Because every running back in the country cuts when staying in to defend on pass coverage. How else is a 225 ib back suppose to stop a 315 ib defensive end?
11-27-2017, 04:51 PM
(11-27-2017 04:33 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote: [ -> ]If you don't like cut blocks ... make cut blocking illegal. Because every running back in the country cuts when staying in to defend on pass coverage. How else is a 225 ib back suppose to stop a 315 ib defensive end?
Exactly.
If your offensive scheme isn't utilizing cut blocking then you probably aren't winning a lot of games.
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