We've been here before; Again, Part 2

[BioJacket06]

There used to be talk of GA State and GT merging. It was shot down real quick because UGA football would have been severely threatened.

It is a real shame that this didnt happen. This would have solved a lot of the problems.

If majors are added they should not make Calculus or lab sciences a required course. That would be a good start.

 

[The Jacket]

It is a real shame that this didnt happen. This would have solved a lot of the problems.

If majors are added they should not make Calculus or lab sciences a required course. That would be a good start.

When did this discussion happen? Before they moved, I'm assuming?

 

[midatlantech]

33, I agree with you 100%. I also think we should drop the UGA game. If Tech nation wants us to be MIT all the time, so be it. But lets be smart about things otherwise. As a minimum the game should be moved to the front of the season and/or played irregularly. Fans aren't going to come anymore watching us play with our hands tied.

We are Duke with a gimmick right now. That's okay, but we're getting it handed to us across the board. Our snottiness is turning into ignorance about matters. UGA makes $50M a year over us! That will destroy us long term. We need the money to compete, particularly now that UGA can use their money to create whatever major they want.

Kids have made no bones about being treated poorly by the SEC football programs. We should stop being so friggin "nice" already. The kids don't care if you overbook, or run off the junk.

I have watched our kickoff teams this year and there are two guys that haven't touched a player yet. Run them off. Overbook. Bring in whatever the NCAA allows. Politic the progress to degree rules to make them more fair to us and other tough schools. Etc, etc, etc.

I didn't even watch the game today. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the unfairness of the state. But I'm really sick that the great Tech minds are so snooty and ignorant to matters at hand.

 

[gt7282c@prism]

I swear to god if someone mentions that our elitism is the problem, i will club a baby seal.

Don't club a baby seal 'cause ya want it for a meal;
club a baby seal 'cause ya wanna hear it squeal!

 

[LadyReck]

the fact is the fail of tech for the last decade is a systemic failure of leadership, conservatism, elitism, and a faction of voices that is convinced we can be MIT Mond-Frid and VT on saturday. We can't. If we truly want to fix this, we have to have systemic program changes, allow more 'exceptions' to compete, and move fwd. I am not talking about creating fake degrees. I am talking about letting in what we did in 2007 more often, or going back to the 1990's standards, and ensuring they get the support and rigor to get through school. Its really simple folks, simple to fix. However, as dismayed as I am about today, I am more frustrated that we will continue to pretend, stuck in the gray area, and 10 more years will go by where we win 1. Maybe 2. Lets hope soon, enough is enough and the school commits to fielding a more competitive team through allowing recruits that today would be below the line, yet still above NCAA mins.[/QUOTE]

Great post....don't disagree but my question is (even if through some miracle of God the standards are lowered somewhat by the academics on the hill): do you really think we could get better talent? What would make them want GT over an SEC school? CPJ isn't exactly a coach that a great receiver or even tailback is going to want to play for. The academic standard for Tech is no doubt an issue, but the fact we are in the ACC compounds the issue.

I don't think it's insane to think we could have many seasons of 8-10 wins and continued losses to georgie. Tech is not a football factory and never will be....in this day and age the football factories are the ones that end up in the top 5 every year AND mostly they are in the SEC.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

the fact is the fail of tech for the last decade is a systemic failure of leadership, conservatism, elitism, and a faction of voices that is convinced we can be MIT Mond-Frid and VT on saturday. We can't. If we truly want to fix this, we have to have systemic program changes, allow more 'exceptions' to compete, and move fwd. I am not talking about creating fake degrees. I am talking about letting in what we did in 2007 more often, or going back to the 1990's standards, and ensuring they get the support and rigor to get through school. Its really simple folks, simple to fix. However, as dismayed as I am about today, I am more frustrated that we will continue to pretend, stuck in the gray area, and 10 more years will go by where we win 1. Maybe 2. Lets hope soon, enough is enough and the school commits to fielding a more competitive team through allowing recruits that today would be below the line, yet still above NCAA mins.

Great post....don't disagree but my question is (even if through some miracle of God the standards are lowered somewhat by the academics on the hill): do you really think we could get better talent? What would make them want GT over an SEC school? CPJ isn't exactly a coach that a great receiver or even tailback is going to want to play for. The academic standard for Tech is no doubt an issue, but the fact we are in the ACC compounds the issue.

I don't think it's insane to think we could have many seasons of 8-10 wins and continued losses to georgie. Tech is not a football factory and never will be....in this day and age the football factories are the ones that end up in the top 5 every year AND mostly they are in the SEC.[/QUOTE]



THIS^^^

But, lady, I will say that if PJ can somehow get to a 75% level of talent as compared to georgie, he will beat them. Our talent in the trenches is only about 60% of georgie right now. Don't know how he does it, but I think he has to consider recruiting nationally to get some guys....the ones in the south are enamored with going to an SEC school.

 

[rain]

merging with Ga State? Now that WILL hurt the value of your degree! We immdeiately become the level of VPI - or less.

 

[beej67]

We don't need exceptions necessarily but I would like to see some diverse degrees added to our arsenal. That does nothing to take away from our academic prestige. Ask Stanford.

This would work, but in order to do so we'd need to go private, because the board of regents won't let us, because they know it'd be good for our football.

 

[floridajacket]

I'm not sure about lowering standards and all that. But this post is a good reminder who think that we should beat UGA every year, no excuses. The three in a row was pre-flunkgate and pre-Richt. If you're starting from behind WRT standards, then you can beat UGA routinely, but only with VERY good coaching to then get the ball rolling on better recruiting despite the standards issue.

That takes time, and quite honestly we had a setback with Gailey, especially with his 2007 and 2008 recruiting classes. As somebody said, standards had nothing to do with the reason Vandy won more against UGA than we did the past 10 years. Gailey had the talent and teams to win at least 25%, not 0%.

Right now, CPJ is at 25% and an honest observer would say 40% would be on the high end of expectations for wins as long as UGA has their öööö together and uses their talent. Maybe very good coaching in the years to come could raise that number, but lowering standards would also raise it.

 

[The M-Train]

Our elitism combined with the fact that Vandy has beaten UGA more in the past 10 years than we have is the reason today's game was a home game for UGA.

That's because we have a mental block when it comes to UGA. Look how many close games we have had since 2000 (within a TD). With the exception of a couple years, every game has been close and we have only won once. I think you can squarely place that on the player's heads.

UGA has the same sort of thing going with UF. Even when UGA was really good (2002 I think?), UF had Zook and still beat them because UF is in their heads. Same goes for UGA and us. And it blows.

 

[beej67]

That's because we have a mental block when it comes to UGA. Look how many close games we have had since 2000 (within a TD). With the exception of a couple years, every game has been close and we have only won once. I think you can squarely place that on the player's heads.

UGA has the same sort of thing going with UF. Even when UGA was really good (2002 I think?), UF had Zook and still beat them because UF is in their heads. Same goes for UGA and us. And it blows.

A lot of truth here.

 

[KillerGroove]

This would work, but in order to do so we'd need to go private, because the board of regents won't let us, because they know it'd be good for our football.

I'm sure they'd be ok with it if we could find the billions it would take to buy our way out.

Remember, Georgia is broke as a joke.

 

[beej67]

I'm sure they'd be ok with it if we could find the billions it would take to buy our way out.

Remember, Georgia is broke as a joke.

There's no "buy out," AFAIK. We would have to dial up 15% more gross revenue though, which would assuredly mean a tuition hike, and the transition would mean that HOPE no longer applies to GT students. That's the killer - lots of kids at Tech are on HOPE and would lose it if we were private.

So the real speed bump is how you get off the Government Teet vis a vis tuition.

 

[QuadF]

I love tech. I hate uga for their damn communications majors, criminals on the field, and their retarded, drunk fan base. I will never ask for tech to become that miserable school down the road in an effort to prove that football is king. I will never ask that tech become more like uga.

 

[stingpower]

You also,sadly,factor in 2 facts.The academic faculty people in power positions do NOT really want to make changes so Tech compete in sports,and remember too---AND IT PAINS ME--- to say this,the BOR is VERY restrictive in what they will,or will not let GT do.

 

[gtphd]

I also wonder what the other parts of Tech would think about adding more degrees. Would the engineering departments be pissed that money is being spent on new majors instead of a new AE building and try to block it? Do they even have a say or is it all top down?

My personal belief is that most departments, including engineering, would support adding additional programs. Engineering departments receive the lion share of their funding from research and grants, not from tuition (remember, only 1/3 of tuition Tech students pay goes to Tech, so there's not that much to spread around).

Given that, there are two major issues with expanding academic programs:

1. Georgia Tech is an Institute. While that may just be semantics to some of you, it's not in the real world. In a University design, schools have separate admissions processes to each program. In an Institute design, there is one admission standard to promote interdisciplinary cooperation. In short, the University of Texas is a University: the education school and the engineering school have different admissions standards. You can be admitted into UT, but not into UT Engineering or McCombs. GT is an Institute: if you're in, you're in to any and all programs.

For Tech to expand offerings, Tech would need to switch structures to a university (a much bigger deal than you realize). Otherwise, AP Calculus would be a requirement to go into a primary education or communications major, Math SAT would needlessly weigh much more than CR or Writing SAT in admissions and both of those majors would need to require calculus. Basically, you want different things from an education applicant and an engineering applicant and Tech would need to be able to handle that.

2. (And Most Importantly) UGA would never allow Tech to expand programs, especially into a field UGA offers. I honestly believe that UGA fears Tech academically as they know they cannot compete with Tech's national prestige and employer connections. Without the Board of Regents (which are effectively run by UGA), nothing will happen without a fight. Because of this, Tech has to be very strategic about how it expands. Bud Peterson's plan to expand existing programs (such as INTA) makes sense.

 

[gtphd]

I'm sure they'd be ok with it if we could find the billions it would take to buy our way out.

Remember, Georgia is broke as a joke.

We would have to dial up 15% more gross revenue though, which would assuredly mean a tuition hike, and the transition would mean that HOPE no longer applies to GT students.

Let's just take a quick look at the numbers:

GT Revenue Source (in millions):

Research Grants: $544.3 (40%)
State: $210.9 (16%)
Tuition: $253.3 (17%)
Auxiliary Services: $130.1 (10%)
Indirect Grant funding: $127.2 (9%)
Sales: $52.7 (4%)
Other: 56.7 (4%)

If Tech goes private, GT would lose $210.9 million in state funding. However, Tech brings in $351.3 million in annual tuition on top of the $253.5 million listed above (and that excludes tuition waivers). That $351.3 million is used to fund Macon State, Columbus State, Fort Valley State, etc.

So Tech would actually not need to increase tuition. In fact, Tech could decrease tuition and still meet funding standards (of course, there would be no in-state and out-of-state tuition differences, so Tech would actually probably level those to one tuition between the two).

That's the killer - lots of kids at Tech are on HOPE and would lose it if we were private.

That's a big issue. Tech's applicant pool would shrink greatly as a result of privatization. As a result, Tech would need to shrink its undergraduate programs substantially to keep academic standards high.

Fewer students = less tuition and less cost (although tuition falls faster than cost when you reduce students). I'm not sure how this would balance out. While the in-state applicant pool would fall off tremendously, the out-of-state pool would probably increase substantially with reduced tuition.

There's no "buy out," AFAIK.

The State isn't going to give Tech the land and assets for free. It would cost billions (if not tens of billions) for Tech to acquire that.

In the very long-term, it would make sense for the GTF to slowly buy land and property from the State and lease it back at a small profit. That would basically be a guaranteed investment to grow the endowment and would help Tech get more leverage over the State when it comes to budgeting and BoR issues.

 

[andrew]

I love tech. I hate uga for their damn communications majors, criminals on the field, and their retarded, drunk fan base. I will never ask for tech to become that miserable school down the road in an effort to prove that football is king. I will never ask that tech become more like uga.

Exactly. I would be very disappointed if we ever let football drive major academic decisions such as adding new majors. If that means losing to U[sic]GA on a regular basis, then so be it. If what it takes to compete on that level are academic exceptions who get suspended regularly and don't bother even showing up to class (at least our guys show up), then I don't want to compete on that level.

 

[mack]

Lost to UGA again right?

Student section a joke right?

Fans full of red and a joke right?

You guys ever look and wonder whats happened of the past decade to make our record one of the worst stints, if not the worst in the history of the rival?

Here are the facts

- in 2002, flunkgate happened. The admin ratcheted back what type of athlete Tech could accept. We still accept players well below the tech standard, but well above what we did in the 90s. Result. 1-9.

- No coach, no system, can compete with UGA with our standards today. Is PJ perfect, no, is he not doing as good as he could in some areas, yes, but the fact is our standards today are so high out of fear, APR reqs, and elitism we are doomed.

- Oleary got in thugs. I roomed next to em. They were UGA types. They smoked pot in their dorms. Two are in jail now and felons. One was on crack. A famous player had more prostitutes than heidi fleiss. But....

- We won 3 straight. We competed. UGA also had talent, but was not as well coached.

- Then 11 failed out, Oleary guys but after he left.

- We remember the 3 straight, we don't really remember the failed out.

- Your degree, wasn't lessoned during oleary's era, pre failouts or post failouts. Note to you, if you think that GT is clean you are a fail. We changed in the past 10 years. We ratcheted down the program. We need to go back to the older days. We don't need thugs. I am not saying that. We can recruit good kids to compete. Reference 2007. But we need a total school commitment to do it. Today it is not there.

- We already let below avg standards in, why not go the whole way and let kids in to compete? You can't be gray in this world. Be black or white but stuck in the middle pretending to be a football school, and pretending to be an academic school does nothing. Either have a serious program and feed it, or don't, but don't act like you do.

- Because they need to stay in school say you? Ha says I. We give them the ööööing tests. I know. I am good friends with the head of the academic advisors. Its not an issue. In 2007 Chan told the admin he can't compete. We got 12 exceptions. One was Nesbitt. He stayed 4 years. No problem with keeping Bebe in. Its a hoggwash excuse. We can keep these kids in school.

- Does tech want to fix this? Do we want to make it a rival again? We have to let in a Notch above NCAA requirements. We can compete. We have. We have scaled back. We already let kids in who couldn't get in on their own, so I don't want to hear it devalues this or that. It doesn't. We already do it. We can find a bunch of good kids to compete, below today's line, but still able to make it through.

At what point, after a decade of being inept, will folks stand up and demand some change? Another 10 years?

the fact is the fail of tech for the last decade is a systemic failure of leadership, conservatism, elitism, and a faction of voices that is convinced we can be MIT Mond-Frid and VT on saturday. We can't. If we truly want to fix this, we have to have systemic program changes, allow more 'exceptions' to compete, and move fwd. I am not talking about creating fake degrees. I am talking about letting in what we did in 2007 more often, or going back to the 1990's standards, and ensuring they get the support and rigor to get through school. Its really simple folks, simple to fix. However, as dismayed as I am about today, I am more frustrated that we will continue to pretend, stuck in the gray area, and 10 more years will go by where we win 1. Maybe 2. Lets hope soon, enough is enough and the school commits to fielding a more competitive team through allowing recruits that today would be below the line, yet still above NCAA mins.

Agree with you about the grades and athletes that we used to recruit.Our problem is that we still think a kid can take calculus and still play football and win on Saturday.In the early years with Dodd there was a Industrial Management field of study and many guys got elgille that way.Dont think its there now.Big problem is do we look the other way and get football players or student athletes.I think most schools that decide to rattle the cage get football players and they do well.

No question GOL had problems with athletes and grades and so did Georgie and Jan Kemp but.......they are able to schedule around and keep guys eligible. This is not new to tech fans,in 57 after Dodd played Pitt in a bowl game with a black player the board of Regents took courses away from tech and sent then to Ga.So what do you do ? Get athletes and find a way to keep them ready to play or some how find guys who want to be engineers etc.This is the choice.

I think Tech is under matched trying to get athletes that can compete with liberal art classes and until or unless the academics change we are only going to get diamonds in the rough once in a lifetime or so it seems.

Bottom line for us old farts is this,if we are going to play college football at the level of Ga or others then we need to have the same rules.If they can get guys in and shield them from tough courses we need to do the same.Yeah it may cheapen a Tech degree but I doubt it since only bout what 85 kids would be affected. What do we want wins or scholars present for graduation.Thats the choice we have in my humble opinion.

 

[mack]

never said that. I am merely pointing out those holier than nows in this tech world that think we have a bunch of great SA's is full of öööö, and that historically we let in kids we all would rather not be part of this program. Yet our degrees are still great.

My point is rather explained and simple, that we need systemic changes if we really want to improve results on the field, and I am not talking fake degrees, just a loosening of the ropes back to the 90's standards.

I agree,we either loosen the reins or we go to another league.When liberal art schools can get their wishes with the football team and we cant ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,how can we compete for the big time studs.