Four Years Later It's Easy To See That The Paul Johnson Coaching Hire Was One Of The Best In The Country

but it’s like I told someone else, it’s real easy to say all you need to do is recruit some 4/5 * , real athletic players on offense / defense. No kidding…we should just go down to the gettin place and get us some.

Unfortunately there are things that work against us, and not other programs / big state schools. The curriculum is the biggest challenge working against us — and I know people from the Univ of GA like to say we use that as an excuse, but it’s not an excuse if it’s true. I’ve seen it argued many times, but if you look at a lot of the larger state schools in the SE, I’m going to say that GT & GA are two of the best public schools in the entire southeast, and have slightly more challenging requirements for graduation.

We could run a pro-style offense, but we’ve already tried that. The result? Consistent 7-5 seasons from the man in charge. I like our chances better with an option based offense. Now, if we ever regress to the point we’re having consistent mediocre seasons, then it’s time to look at making a change, but I will continue to make donations to the Tech Fund and buy season tickets.

Hell, I don’t care if we kick the ball on every down, as long as we get W’s.

if that’s why there is a heavy emphasis on recruiting just “ATH” — like having a good practice squad in the NFL? If you have really athletic, talented kids on your practice squad, that could only help you prepare that much more for game day.

It’s hard to simulate offenses that a team does not run. But the point we were discussing was less about weekly game preparation and more about whether “playing Defense at GT doesn’t prepare you for the next level because you are practicing against a one-dimensional offense all the time.” Over his tenure at Tech, I think a Tech defender will see less offensive variety because Tech generally recruits players and coaches to run and execute the option. The scout team will run pro-style or spread option or west coast, depending on the opponent, but it will always do so with players recruited to play option ball and coaches focusing on option ball. That degree of specialization trickles down into the scout team.

The point we were discussing is whether, as TBuzz put it, “playing Defense at GT doesn’t prepare you for the next level because you are practicing against a one-dimensional offense all the time.” He argued that the D didn’t just play against the offense, which is certainly correct. However, I pointed out that the scout team necessarily shares attributes with the first team offense, so someone looking at a GT defender could conclude that he sees less offensive variety than a defender at another school.

I’ll respond to your numbered points: (1) No. Players recruited to play option ball are different. Smaller, quicker OL, no TE( especially a hybrid TE that is emerging as a pass-catching threat in many offenses), and WRs with a heavy emphasis on blocking. The players are (generally) speciallized, not inferior. (2) No. Every team has walk-ons that are perpetual scout teamers with no hope of seeing the field and no offers to play elsewhere. These players are not as good as the scholarship players at the same school. I was not trying to compare them to players at other schools. (3) No. The offensive coaching staff is specialized in option football. Their study and emphasis is on using the specialized players to maximize results out of the system Tech plays. The same is true for every team: other teams’ coaches may be familiar with the option, but that doesn’t mean that their scout teams will be as well-coached at option ball as Tech’s. (4) Dang. Typo. The GA’s are NOT as high quality as the paid coaches.

Does that clear it up?

Are they a good fit for our community? Will they stick around? Do we have something to teach them?

This seems to reduce your overall sample size by quite a bit doesn’t it?

Tuition fees were introduced in England by Labour in 1998. They started off modest (~£1000/year, and an English degree is three years), then rose to ~£3,000/year. However, from next autumn, any EU student studying in England will be charged £9,000/year in tuition fees, which is on par with only the most expensive of public universities in the United States. Students from Scotland will have their fees paid by the Scottish government, regardless of which home nation they study in, and there are no tuition fees for Scottish or non-UK EU students at Scottish universities. Students from the rest of the UK will pay fees comparable to the new English rates.