The Georgia Tech football program has been an unmitigated disaster under the leadership of head coach Geoff Collins. At the quarter-mark of year four, the team should be much further along than it is. Collins only has ten wins under his belt, and has never exceeded three in any season as head coach. In his last four games against FBS opponents alone, the Yellow Jackets have been humiliatingly demolished by a combined score of 183-10.
The transition from the triple-option offense was always going to be a difficult one, but the progression just has not inspired the necessary confidence in either him, nor the future of the program.
With his eventual dismissal growing increasingly imminent, College Football Gametime discussed the team's struggles, but additionally how this failed experiment should serve as a "wake up call" for the Georgia Tech program as a whole.
"[Georgia Tech] needs to ask itself some these questions," Jon Chuckery started. "Why is it not working out with Geoff Collins?"
The easy answer for Georgia Tech is simply to fire Collins, but that may not be enough to get to the root of the problem. Recruiting is the first thing that most will point to, but that wasn't a problem with George O'Leary in charge of the team, or even Bobby Cremins of the basketball program.
"We didn't get into these recruiting arguments when those guys were there," Jon said on Saturday morning. "They had plenty of players that had a big impact on that program."
The program won a national title in 1990, had a Heisman trophy finalist in 1999, and produced one of the most dominant wide receivers of the last 20 years in the early 2000s. The program is located in a recruiting hotbed, and there is no reason that they should fail in acquiring talented athletes.
So is it a facilities problem? That was the well-documented issue for Paul Johnson when he was in charge. Yet even still, Johnson was still able to put together consistent winning seasons, ACC Championship Game appearances, and even an Orange Bowl win.
"[Georgia] Tech is going to have to do some soul searching about where their athletic department, and their program, is because obviously they are not hiring the right people to get this thing turned around," Jon continued. "There is nothing about a kid in this state not wanting to go to a program like that - [they are] in a big-time conference [and would play] for a big time program. I don't know where the disconnect is over these past couple of years."
The once proud football program has quickly turned into a disaster, but the basketball programs fall into this conversation, too. The men's team was, at one point, paying three different coaches to do one job. To make matters worse, the program is already hearing rumblings about the guy they settled on after extending him in 2020. Additionally, the women's coach was fired in 2019 for mistreatment of players and the program has since been slapped with NCAA violations for those actions.
This problem may go beyond just the head coach.
Ultimately, the Geoff Collins experiment has not worked. His buyout is currently hovering around $10.5 million, but would drop to $7.2 million if they wait until the season ends. The only questions that linger at this point are whether or not they can afford to wait, and who will make that hire when it comes to time to do so.