There are things that I think Geoff Collins has really done well with and honestly proven some points with fundamentally those being recruiting can be better and fan engagement can improve with a coach who is willing to engage to a point. I like the plan that he has, but as they say, the Devil is in the details and the details are where his program is struggling. The defense is the worst it has been in decades and that is saying something.
Sitting in year three he has 9 wins in 32 games and it took him 28 games to hit that 9-win mark. It took his predecessor Paul Johnson 12 games to win, it took Chan Gailey 18 games, George O’Leary 17 games and Bobby Ross a whopping 30 games, but those guys didn’t lose four more games in a row after accomplishing that either.
Collins branded this a historic rebuild. Those who have been on the site long enough know that I balked at that, my point at the time was and remains they needed to find a couple of tight ends and improve both lines of scrimmage and find a quarterback that would suit the system. They found a tight end, though he wasn’t used in the way anyone envisioned and started to rebuild both lines through recruiting with Brent Key adding some key transfer pieces to bridge the gap there a little quicker. The rest of the roster was comparable to the rest of the division with some variation position to position. This wasn’t Marshall in 1971 with half the team deceased. That is a historic rebuild, Bill Curry starting up Georgia State football was a historic build, it was an oversell and a recruiting pitch. Cool, we get it and that is what it is and people overlooked things like the Citadel loss and some of the decisions with the offense in year one. The selling of the program started from the opening press conference as he leaned hard into preparing guys for the NFL and getting GT back to winning and being in the top 25 all the time.
Tech historically was in the AP poll for more than two weeks from 1990-92, 1998-2001, 2005-06, 2008-09, 2011, 2014, 2015, but whatever. He talked about his NFL offense and all that then he brought in his Temple staff with Brent Key, Tashard Choice and Marco Coleman plus Jeff Popovich as the lone non-former Jacket as additions. Choice and Coleman are both first-time P5 assistants with Key being the lone major name pickup. Cool.
The thing that got me from the jump was they decided to not embrace the 12 running backs or was it 13 that he referenced often in his pressers at the time and they went pass-happy but didn’t add a quarterback at all. They kept the three guys they inherited. They took two shots at grad transfers but stood pat going into a season with Lucas Johnson, James Graham and Tobias Oliver running an offense that did not suit the talents of any of the QBs. The losses piled up that season including the Citadel game and GT got blown out a bunch of times.
Year two comes around and you have covid and then Jeff Sims wins the job outdueling Graham, Jordan Yates a CPJ commit they kept in the initial class and Tucker Gleason who was their handpicked QB for that 2020 class. Sims plays like a freshman QB and they have a few bright spots like the opening game at FSU and beating Louisville pretty soundly and smoking Duke. The rest of the games were weird affairs probably due to a mix of covid stuff and some no-shows like the games at Cuse and BC in front of no fans. GT wins 3 ACC games plus one from the year before. Progress from year to year and the offense looks functional.
Now we enter year three, I said I expected them to win 5-7 games, the schedule looked hard early in the year but the two best ACC teams on it, turned out to be woeful in Clemson who has no offense and UNC who has no defense and a sometimes dysfunctional offense. GT should’ve beat the Tigers and smoked Carolina. The rest of the schedule was a bunch of average teams except Duke who is terrible. They somehow pulled out a win at Duke, but managed to blow chances to beat Miami, VaTech and Boston College and they end up with just 2 ACC wins, that is not progress. The only other win this season was against a FCS program, Kennesaw State. Collins is 3-7 against the Atlantic and 0-2 this year. In non-P5 non-conference games Collins is 2-4 right now, he beat KSU and a USF team that fired their coach after the season.
Something is off, there should be more progress than this at this point. They shouldn’t be folding late in games or unable to put teams away. The defense which is his calling card and how he got his first head coaching job shouldn’t be among the worst in the country right now. GT is tied for 103rd in the country in plays given up of 20 yards or more this season, the five P5 teams behind them are Mizzou, UNC who they beat, TCU who fired their coach midseason, Vandy and Duke who they beat. In 2018, GT was 19th in the country in that stat with a mediocre defense.
I said after the first four games if GT could stay in the 60s they would go bowling, clearly they didn’t.
Here are the defensive rankings:
Total Defense 114th
Scoring Defense (points given up) 93rd
Passing Defense 117th
3rd Down Defense 117th
Sacks 104th
Tackles for a Loss 80th
Interceptions T-122nd last in the P5 only UMass, FIU and ironically NIU are worse
Fumbles Recovered 8th about the only good D stat
Opposing Passing plays of 10+ yards 109th
Offensively they are not getting it done either and there is something not right with it given the amount of talent they have on that side of the ball regardless of the OL play.
Scoring Offense is 63rd
Rushing Offense is 51st despite having three of the best RBs in the ACC and a great running QB
Passing Offense 73rd
Plays of 10+ yards 77th
It is Collins’ job to fix this, he is a defensive coach and like Paul Johnson (offense) or Chan Gailey (offense) or O’Leary (defense) he will be judged harder on his side of the ball. If he sticks with the plan as ADTS has suggested that will not end well IMO, I believe there will be changes in the offseason or it will be a short leash and a warm seat going into next season for GC3. I still think he can get it done, but it will take some tough decisions and maybe even gambling on himself like Dabo Swinney did at Clemson early on to get some better hires on his staff with an eye toward the future. Scott Frost just did the same thing at Nebraska to save his own bacon. He needs to find guys who can get this team over the hump. There is no reason this Tech team should be 3-7 with the talent and where they are personnel-wise right now. They should have at least six wins and really should be 7-3 looking at how bad everyone is on the schedule and how tight they’ve played them despite being so bad in so many areas. I guess that is a credit to Collins coaching on one level because they are in these games despite being some bad statistically in so many key areas. Many including ADTS believe Collins is about to make the turn that Bobby Ross did after two horrid years in 1987 and 1988 where he won five games and then jumped up to 7-4 and then the magical 1990 season. Time will tell, but either way, something will give next year...
