Let's talk about ceilings

Many like to justify Chan's liquidation by identifying 7 wins as sorta a ceiling for him as a coach. Fair enough, altho I considered him a coach that would find a way to lose five games a year no matter what. Either way we have come to remember him as "limited" and mired in mediocrity. CPJ, OTOH, has been praised for having a better or higher ceiling. What is Johnson's ceiling then? I will admit that tailgating in Tampa post ACCCG victory in 2009, I thought maybe he didn't have one---success could be boundless. We went 20-7 from 2008 thru 2009 (with Chan's players!). Quite honestly I felt at the time we were better than that record, with at least 2 or 3 of those 7 losses being hiccups on our part like UVA & VPI in 2008 or Georgia and Iowa in 2009. In retrospect 20-7 is very good, and had we sustained that another year to 30-10 or 29-11, I might have swigged the Kool-aid.
So the question is: what is Paul Johnson' ceiling at Georgia Tech? Can he return to nine wins a year and maintain that over 3 out of four years? He did win 9, 11, & the 8 in 08, 09, 2011. He definitely cannot repeat that feat if we can't find a way to beat Georgia, Miami or VPI more than one out of five. I think he can be a nine win coach every year, but defense has got to be significantly upgraded. But I think that is about the limit. I wouldn't ever see us winning 30 or more games over a 3 year span. But 28-11 would be pretty nice.

The two major problems with Gailey (among many)was his "play not to lose" attitude, remember the Wake Forest ACCCG? and his disregard for cultivating more Tech fans. I can't say that PJ doesn't play to win,but he has a hard time closing out games. He ,however has limited knowledge in how to shmooze fans and influence enemys. I wish he would take a few lessions from Brian Gregory on how to deal with the public!!

the biggest problem I saw with Gailey was his apparent inability to improve players. Reggie Ball absolutely regressed during his 4 years at GT and that (IMO) was 100% the fault of Gailey.

CPJ needs to open up the offense, TR needs to get the D to play as it did the last 6 qtrs of 2012. Do that, and we should be a perennial 9-game winner in what is one of the nation's weakest conferences. Don't do that and the ceiling is 2012's season, complete with loads of excuses from the Johnsonian kool-aid drinkers.

Originally Posted by HelluvaMGTmjr

Chan's Achilles heel was mostly the inability to recruit and develop a QB that he needed to run his system. PJ's seems to be mainly the ability to build a defense. I don't think one is any lesser than the other.

I sometimes wonder if we'd be better off if we'd kept Wommack.
Wommack had some talent that Groh didn't have, for sure. But it's not like the Groh defenses were devoid of personnel. We'd probably have lost fewer games if our defense was on the low range of mediocre - Wommack - than if it was as bad as it was during the Groh years. Hindsight is 20/20 and it wouldn't change some of the terrible offensive performances (Air Force, BYU, etc.) buttttttttttttt

Praying for Roof. If we can just keep the defense playing like it was in the last 2 games....

Originally Posted by RamblinWreck92

the biggest problem I saw with Gailey was his apparent inability to improve players. Reggie Ball absolutely regressed during his 4 years at GT and that (IMO) was 100% the fault of Gailey.

CPJ needs to open up the offense, TR needs to get the D to play as it did the last 6 qtrs of 2012. Do that, and we should be a perennial 9-game winner in what is one of the nation's weakest conferences. Don't do that and the ceiling is 2012's season, complete with loads of excuses from the Johnsonian kool-aid drinkers.

Serious, serious, serious question:

What do you mean by "open up the offense"?
Call more plays?
Call more passing plays?
A wider variety of passing concepts (ie, hi-lo, vertical + horizontal stretches, choice routes, man-beaters, etc.) ?
A wider variety of running concepts?
More formations? Relatedly, more formations that are obvious to the average fan? (That is, the average fan might not notice much of a difference between our base formation and a "Brown" formation where the A-Back is on the line of scrimmage, though a defensive coordinator will treat those as very different things because they provide a different 'surface' for the defensive line. Conversely, the average fan might REALLY notice a difference between a 2x2 formation we run from under center and the same formation from the shotgun, though a defensive coordinator will treat these as mostly identical)
What?

I'm not *excusing* the poor performances we've had on offense - VT, BYU, MTSU come to mind from last year - but I'm saying these are primarily due to a combination of things, mostly the coaches not adequately preparing the players, which is really the meat of coaching. I am genuinely interested in what people believe "opening up" the offense means. Is Leach's offensive system "open" even though he only runs about 8-9 plays total? If so, I'm guessing "opening up" just means "having a higher percentage of passing plays."

Originally Posted by stylee

Serious, serious, serious question:

What do you mean by "open up the offense"?
Call more plays?
Call more passing plays? ....
I'm guessing "opening up" just means "having a higher percentage of passing plays."

Yes sir. We are far too one-dimensional on offense. Also, it'd be nice to have a real 2-minute offense. One that involves throwing passes to sideline WRs rather than RBs wheeling out of the backfield and trying to scurry OB to stop the clock. Or worse, having the QB tuck it and scramble for 7 yds before getting OB...and taking about 12 seconds to do so.

Originally Posted by RamblinWreck92

Yes sir. We are far too one-dimensional on offense. Also, it'd be nice to have a real 2-minute offense. One that involves throwing passes to sideline WRs rather than RBs wheeling out of the backfield and trying to scurry OB to stop the clock. Or worse, having the QB tuck it and scramble for 7 yds before getting OB...and taking about 12 seconds to do so.

Well spread them out and chunk it ! That would be fun to see but our ceiling in my humble opinion is a top twenty team year in and out playing good fundamental football.If we get beat by superior athletes not much we can do about it but during the Chan era RB hurt us and we lost too many games when WE had the hosses but he didnt let them run.PJ can open up this offense but it really depends on Val.......Val is the key and of course so is the lack of defense.jGood years from both and we are competitive in every game.

Our offense is like Derrick Zoolander,
It's only got one look! Here's hoping that Pj finds his "magnum" this year.

That's my daily knock on the offense.

Originally Posted by HelluvaMGTmjr

Our offense is like Derrick Zoolander,
It's only got one look! Here's hoping that Pj finds his "magnum" this year.

That's my daily knock on the offense.

or, at least "le tigre"!!!