GTSaxophone
Jolly Good Fellow
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2007
- Messages
- 1,737
This isn't about being pigheaded, and emotional. Logically, few of your points make any sense. Your rationale about playing other big teams is counter-intuitive, unless you don't really care about the fact that we're losing to uga, rather that we're just playing the same team year in and year out. Losing every year to a marquee team sucks whether you're in BDS, South Bend, Austin, LA, or wherever. If you concede that we can never wish to compete against uga, you essentially concede we can never wish to compete against any of the football factories out there. They have the same set of advantages over us, and a few of them have even larger ones than uga does. You're trading one headache for another one, as the novelty of traveling to exotic locations, or having those teams come here wears off after a while when you're losing to them. (Again, this is all under the assumption we've made that we can't compete by running from uga)
You're also badly underestimating the ramifications the decision would have when it comes to recruiting instate. Maybe (only maybe) would the backlash subside nationally, but you can't tell me you don't expect any coach recruiting for uga, any HS coach with connections to uga, nor any one in this state to ever let anyone forget that we tucked tail and ran away from them. That we shouted to everyone, "We can't ever hope compete with uga, so we're taking our ball and going home!" You think uga kicks our ass with in-state recruiting? That would be on another level. This isn't about us finishing our recruiting on poor note because of the loss to them. This is about kids in-state being indoctrinated with the fact that Georgia Tech isn't a school to go to if you want to compete at the highest level. We wouldn't be able to dispute that in the slightest, because we would have been the ones who ran from the battle to begin with.
Like I said earlier, you're also dreaming if you think this will galvanize our fanbase. Yes, we get disappointed after losing to uga. Yes, there is a wave of excitement when we actually beat them. However, like recruiting, this is about more than just one week of the year. Our fans take the rivalry seriously, and many just would not be able to stomach dropping the series. Most of those in that category would likely just walk away from the program in disgust, I would think. You would completely fracture the fanbase with a move like this.
Moving the game is a far more productive discussion (although I have been staunchly on record as being against it), though I will point out that for all the crying about depth, playing this game at the end of the season actually benefited us. That is, unless you wanted to have to face them with Murray, Marshall, Mitchell, Gurley without the ankle issue he dealt with all season, and everyone else they lost to injury. Golden would have been a nice weapon for us to have, but do you really think that would have offset the advantage uga would have had with those guys in the lineup? Not to mention the experience in the offense Vad gained throughout the season. Most years, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to play them at the beginning of the year, when they're at full strength themselves (though we may benefit from their annual "Some dumbass gets arrested" suspensions). We definitely don't win in 08, though you could make an argument for it benefiting us in 09 and certainly 10.
At the end of the day, this is a pipe dream that, thankfully, has no chance of happening. Stop the dialogue about running away, and start the dialogue about how to make ourselves better. For all the advantages we complain about them having over us, honestly, it's rare they actually blow our doors off. There is a litany of years where we had a fantastic chance to win, and just crapped the bed. That has everything to do with us needing to have our houses in order first. What do you want from the program? I know I personally want to see us build on where we are now to a point where we can consistently get over the hump in the ACC (we are right there just about every year), and move the needle on the uga series to where we're winning 4 out of 10 minimum. I don't think either of those is a ridiculous expectation, as, again, we flirt with this every single year. We just need to do better, and stop trying to run and hide. This thread is an embarrassment to Tech football.
THWg.
You're also badly underestimating the ramifications the decision would have when it comes to recruiting instate. Maybe (only maybe) would the backlash subside nationally, but you can't tell me you don't expect any coach recruiting for uga, any HS coach with connections to uga, nor any one in this state to ever let anyone forget that we tucked tail and ran away from them. That we shouted to everyone, "We can't ever hope compete with uga, so we're taking our ball and going home!" You think uga kicks our ass with in-state recruiting? That would be on another level. This isn't about us finishing our recruiting on poor note because of the loss to them. This is about kids in-state being indoctrinated with the fact that Georgia Tech isn't a school to go to if you want to compete at the highest level. We wouldn't be able to dispute that in the slightest, because we would have been the ones who ran from the battle to begin with.
Like I said earlier, you're also dreaming if you think this will galvanize our fanbase. Yes, we get disappointed after losing to uga. Yes, there is a wave of excitement when we actually beat them. However, like recruiting, this is about more than just one week of the year. Our fans take the rivalry seriously, and many just would not be able to stomach dropping the series. Most of those in that category would likely just walk away from the program in disgust, I would think. You would completely fracture the fanbase with a move like this.
Moving the game is a far more productive discussion (although I have been staunchly on record as being against it), though I will point out that for all the crying about depth, playing this game at the end of the season actually benefited us. That is, unless you wanted to have to face them with Murray, Marshall, Mitchell, Gurley without the ankle issue he dealt with all season, and everyone else they lost to injury. Golden would have been a nice weapon for us to have, but do you really think that would have offset the advantage uga would have had with those guys in the lineup? Not to mention the experience in the offense Vad gained throughout the season. Most years, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to play them at the beginning of the year, when they're at full strength themselves (though we may benefit from their annual "Some dumbass gets arrested" suspensions). We definitely don't win in 08, though you could make an argument for it benefiting us in 09 and certainly 10.
At the end of the day, this is a pipe dream that, thankfully, has no chance of happening. Stop the dialogue about running away, and start the dialogue about how to make ourselves better. For all the advantages we complain about them having over us, honestly, it's rare they actually blow our doors off. There is a litany of years where we had a fantastic chance to win, and just crapped the bed. That has everything to do with us needing to have our houses in order first. What do you want from the program? I know I personally want to see us build on where we are now to a point where we can consistently get over the hump in the ACC (we are right there just about every year), and move the needle on the uga series to where we're winning 4 out of 10 minimum. I don't think either of those is a ridiculous expectation, as, again, we flirt with this every single year. We just need to do better, and stop trying to run and hide. This thread is an embarrassment to Tech football.
THWg.