Georgia Tech Football: The Fast Track to Healing

Hey there, everyone.

After a couple days' absence, I'm back. I've had a little time to digest after Saturday's loss, and I think there's an important discussion we need to have.

We've now lost 3 straight games (to good teams, mind you), and in none of them were we nearly competitive enough to win. A lot of things have gone wrong, including but not limited to...

• Blocking: Both the O-Line and A-Backs have been pretty poor at setting up the Dive and Keep parts of the option, and pass blocking has been inconsistent as well.
• Offensive Reads: Vad is clearly still young and the offense hasn't yet become second nature to him. That's fine and understandable, but it's not helping things.
• Catching: This was mainly in the BYU game, but there have been some issues with catching passes that hit our players in the hands. Vad went 7-for-20 on Saturday, though he wasn't helped by at least 4 drops by WRs.
• Playcalling: I think it's improved, but I continue to be baffled by how much we want Vad passing from under center when he's clearly more comfortable in the pistol. This is where the "tailoring the system to your players" discussion becomes relevant.
• Tackling: This speaks for itself, and good grief it was bad.
• Coverage: I realize that our secondary is depleted hugely without Jamal Golden, Isaiah Johnson, and Fred Holton. However, the issue is worst with one of the guys who's a starter and supposed NFL prospect, who got burned BADLY 2-3 times in the first half Saturday. He will go nameless, but I think you know who I'm referring to.
• Penalties: It's infuriating how we struggle so hard to get even the simple things right, like not jumping before the snap and covering folks legally.

Clearly this stuff is all very frustrating, because it's the simple stuff you'd hope we could get right. I'd much rather have a discussion about Jonathan Dwyer having tippy toes or how we need to run more zone coverage as opposed to man, but the problems we're seeing are much more on the fundamental level, which is the most concerning part.

Over the last three weeks, we've also seen CPJ's record against Virginia Tech and Miami drop to a combined 2-10. He's also 1-4 against uga, and is buoyed only by his 5-1 record against Clemson when looking at Tech's rivals. Now consider that since the start of the 2010 season, CPJ has a composite record of 24-22, just a touch over .500, and he needs to win 4 of the final 6 games this season to maintain the lengthy bowl streak that Tech has been able to manage.

So here's the situation. You're the all-powerful controller of Georgia Tech's football program. You have the liberty to make any changes you want to get this team and program back moving in the right direction. Fire sale? Sure. Change play calling just a bit? Go for it. Anything in between? It's up to you.

So I ask you -- how do you solve this team's issues? Who gets fired? Who gets benched? What strategic changes do we make? The floor is yours.