Georgia Tech Fires Head Coach Geoff Collins
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Georgia Tech has officially decided to move on from their head coach Geoff Collins and is likely to move on from AD Todd Stansbury as well according to Ken Sugiura of the AJC.
Collins has struggled from the outset as the head coach of the Yellow Jackets in trying to rebuild this program and change the roster after Tech had run the triple option for more than a decade. Collins finishes with a record of 10-28 as the head coach.
He was hired after Paul Johnson left the program after the 2018 season and he came in with a lot of talk about trying to improve the recruiting at Georgia Tech and making Georgia Tech a recognizable brand in college football, but that never came to be. He did something similar when he was the head coach at Temple, by connecting the program to the city, but was unable to get that kind of branding and marketing going while the head coach at Tech.
Collins seemed like he could have been a fit when he was hired. Collins was a graduate assistant and tight ends coach at Georgia Tech under coach George O'Leary from 1999-2001. He returned to serve as recruiting coordinator at Tech under coach Chan Gailey in 2006.
Geoff Collins could never get the Georgia Tech program turned around the way that he wanted to
It is fair to point out that Collins did deal with two big obstacles in his way as the head coach of Georgia Tech. The roster turnover on offense when moving away from the triple option is one that any head coach would have a challenge doing and he had to overcome the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the various challenges that brought. It does not excuse the poor overall job that Collins did as a head coach, but it is fair to point out that this was an incredibly hard job from the outset and only got harder by circumstances out of his control.
The lack of progress was the most frustrating thing during Collins's tenure as the Yellow Jackets head coach. While things were expected to be bumpy in the first couple of seasons, Collins never showed that this program was making any serious strides in recruiting and on the field. No matter the challenges he faced, it is just inexcusable to lose to The Citadel and Northern Illinois. The number of blowout games was an issue as well. Tech could not compete against big-time teams that finished the season ranked.
Another thing that Collins was supposed to be able to do was coach defense, as he had been one of the top defensive coordinators in college football at Mississippi State and Florida. Georgia Tech consistently had one of the worst defenses in the country under Collins and defensive coordinator Andrew Thacker and while the offensive turnover is understandable, the defense should not have been this bad year in and year out under Collins.
It is also on Collins that some of Tech's best players felt the need to transfer out and seek other opportunities after the 2021 season. Transfers happen to every program, but Tech was decimated by losing their best player in Jahmyr Gibbs, their two best defensive linemen, and other players to the portal after the 2021 season.
The recruiting had some bright spots early on, but Collins could not build on those classes that brought in players like Gibbs, quarterback Jeff Sims, and other highly ranked high school stars.
The lack of development from Sims is also a reflection of Collins and the offensive staff that he hired. Sims was a very talented quarterback coming out of high school and showed major flashes while at Georgia Tech. Consistency was never there for Sims and there was never anyone that could seriously push Sims for the job.
The bottom line is that Collins did not win enough. There was never any progress in several areas and while he seemed like a fit at the time, Collins could not take advantage of the opportunity that he had at Georgia Tech to bring them into the new era of college football.
Stay tuned for more coaching updates as the search for the new Yellow Jackets head coach continues.
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