ATLANTA — Georgia Tech closed out its third spring under football coach Geoff Collins with some semblance of a game Friday night. Although when the women’s basketball coach (Nell Fortner) is calling some plays for the offense and the men’s basketball coach (Josh Pastner) is directing the defense and several players are getting action for both squads — taking the transfer portal to a whole new level — calling this a game was probably a stretch.
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Just as well. Springs are about fun. Springs are about optimism. Springs are about trying to forget that last fall you provided Syracuse with its only season highlight.
Springs are made for people like Collins because nothing really counts and hope can’t lose. If you think it’s hard to knock the man off his positive talking points during the season, just try it in April.
But at some point, words must give way to more wins. There needs to be some sign of tangible progress, or he’s going to begin to lose his audience. That’s not meant as a criticism; it’s just the reality of sports in general and college football in the South in particular.
There were signs of progress Friday night. Quarterback Jeff Sims, talented but too often overwhelmed in his freshman season, looked more under control going through his checks and progressions, albeit not in real-game circ*mstances. He went 9-for-10 for 125 yards and two touchdowns. He will be surrounded by more depth and talent on the offense. The defense? Still a question.
From the time he landed at Tech, Collins has done things former coach Paul Johnson never really did (at least not enthusiastically). Collins markets. He hashtags. He sells, almost to the point of hyperventilation. He is a one-man pep rally, oozing hope like a scratch-off lottery ticket, only with flailing arms. He conducts interviews like a salesman starving for a commission check before the end of the month.
Georgia Tech needed that. Johnson deserved praise for great early success, winning an ACC title and beating Georgia three times in Athens. Even with a leveling off, his .580 winning percentage ranks fifth at Tech behind only John Heisman (for whom a trophy is named), Bobby Dodd (for whom the stadium is named), George O’Leary and William Alexander (for whom the athletic fund is named). But some at the school believed the old school, old football ways of doing things held back the program from a marketing and branding perspective (read: revenue) and a new face was needed to unite a somewhat divided fan base. So it figured when Johnson retired, athletic director Todd Stansbury — knowing his campus was sandwiched in recruiting and marketing hell between Georgia, Clemson, Auburn and Alabama — would veer in a different direction.
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“One thing that’s been positive for Georgia Tech is the branding and the marketing that they’ve done since Coach Collins came,” said one college coach who has watched the changes at Georgia Tech. “That’s something that was definitely needed there. … Now the next stage is: How do you translate that to winning games?”
Excellent question.Collins is 6-16 in his first two seasons, including 5-12 in the ACC. The Jackets lost to The Citadel and Temple in consecutive weeks in 2019 and last season fell 37-20 to Syracuse, which lost its other 10 games by a combined score of 340-159. Seven of the 16 losses have seen opponents score (chronologically) 52, 41, 45. 52, 49, 73 and 48 points, somewhat alarming given Collins specializes in defense. But when Stanbury gave Collins a seven-year contract, it was clear he was prepared for some early hiccups.
When he was interviewing for Tech’s basketball coaching job, Josh Pastner told school administrators he would get the program back to the NCAA Tournament in five years. He delivered. It seemed worth asking Collins if he delivered a similar promise during his interview.
“I don’t know if we had that conversation, specifically,” Collins said. “But my first contract was seven years, so the understanding was that it was going to be such a monumental transition going from the triple (option), going from the roster being built the way it was, to now more of a modern-day setup and schematic changes, the roster management, it was understood that it would take a heavy lift to get everything put in place. As you know I’m a very optimistic person, and I think we’re going to be really good but I never put a limiting time frame on anything.”
But Collins must’ve had something in mind in terms of how long it would take to be competitive or successful, however that is defined.
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“Every single day we try to be the very best version of ourselves. I don’t want to put a number like, ‘This amount of years,’ because every single day I want to go out there with the roster we’re building, the culture we’re building, the things we’re doing schematically to give us a chance to be really good right now,” he said. “I want us to have goals and dreams to be an elite program every day.”
You’re not going to answer the question, are you? “I’m not going to answer the question,” Collins said. “I want to be in the moment. I want us to be excited about who we are.”
Collins has tried to walk a fine line, publicly saying nice things about Johnson while saying he basically had to rip apart the entire program and start over. Collins inherited a roster that was built with undersized offensive linemen who hadn’t pass blocked much, small and unathletic defenders and more than a dozen running backs but nary a tight end.
There were changes in schemes, philosophies, strength and conditioning and pretty much everything else.
“It was a complete culture shock for everybody,” Collins said.
OK, but …
“Everybody in the football world understands the task we were assigned with,” he said. “We just go about that daily task with a level of enthusiasm and excitement and respect for what has happened in the past and understanding what it will take to get us to that elite level in the present and the future.”
OK, but … is 2021 when the Yellow Jackets start to win some games?
I’ll take a deeper dive into Georgia Tech in two weeks when The Athletic’s State of the Program series looks at the Yellow Jackets. But here’s what we can assume now. Jahmyr Gibbs should be one of the top running backs in the nation. Sims, who has been praised for his film study this spring, should be vastly improved, as should the offensive line. Collins’ hope: less chaos.
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The past two years have seen too many turnovers and pre-snap penalties, too many players going in the wrong direction. The coach accepts partial blame for that. In his first two springs, he intentionally sped up practices in hopes of better preparing the team. This spring, he intentionally slowed it down in hopes of cleaning up mistakes.
“Knowing what I know now, going through a season of COVID, there are things I would’ve done different (last spring),” he said. “But with the information that we had, we were just trying to put our guys in the best position.”
Collins, assistants and players will tell you it was a successful spring, notwithstanding the loss of linebacker Tyson Meiguez to a torn ACL. But there are so many unknowns. This is the poster program for the transfer portal, with 10 players entering and 14 exiting. Collins brought in five graduate transfers, and immediate impact from them will be needed, given the 2021 schedule that will include four games against potential top-10 teams: Georgia, Clemson, Notre Dame and North Carolina.
Collins can’t point to wins, yet. So he talks about improvement. He talks about a culture change.
“We’re there now,” he said.
The words have never been a problem. Now the wins need to follow.
(Photo: Hyosub Shin / pool via ACC)
