By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

I have to imagine Geoff Collins begins each day staring at the mirror, doing his best Stuart Smalley impression.

However, instead of repeating the self-affirmation quotes that end with “….and doggone it, people like me” I picture him reciting all the reasons he decided to take the Georgia Tech head coaching gig in the first place- $3 million dollars a season…it’s not Temple…close proximity to The Varsity.

I feel as though it’s pretty safe to assume most anyone who watches college football knew this would be a tough transitional year for Georgia Tech, but I’m not sure even the most ardent of Yellow Jacket fans thought it would be this rough.

Not only are they the worst team in the ACC, but you could argue they are the worst of all the Power Five schools. The team is really living up to the whole Ramblin’ Wreck nickname, but for all the wrong reasons.

It’s hard to find many bright spots when your opponents are out gaining you by over 100 yards per contest, you haven’t scored more than 24 points in any game and you lost not only to an FCS school, but a bad one at that.

I could go even more in depth, but it would be close to bullying at that point, especially since you can’t really blame the current coaches or players for what’s taking place.

When you’re struggling through a season like Georgia Tech is currently going through, you can usually point to a litany of reasons as to why it’s happening. While that’s true in this case, the main culprit has to do with recruiting; the talent just isn’t there.

Paul Johnson did a decent job early in his tenure of bringing in players that fit his system, even if they weren’t the most talented.

That wasn’t necessarily the case over the past few seasons, so what’s left is a group of players brought in to play in a system no longer being used, most of whom just aren’t talented enough to compete at this level on a weekly basis.

To use the “Cook the meals, buy the groceries” analogy from Bill Parcells, Johnson bought the groceries he thought he needed to make lasagna and now Collins is having to turn those ingredients into stir fry.

Given the circumstances it’s hard to tell how much of an impact the new head coach has made, but the free pass you could argue he should be afforded lasts for this year only.

Now, I know contracts don’t necessarily mean a lot in today’s game, but given the seven-year contract Collins was given I have to believe the administration is willing to give him an opportunity to turn things around, even though it won’t be immediately.

I doubt Tech will be favored in any of their games for the remainder of the season, and even though they could pull off an upset or two, they are looking at arguably their worst season in 25 years. At this point it’s about getting to the end of the season without completely embarrassing yourself.

More than likely it will be a few years before Georgia Tech is back to being relevant on the college football landscape, although being in the Coastal Division could certainly help speed up the rebuilding process.

In the meantime, Collins may need to find things to add to his daily mirror pep talk.