I dont know if it is fair to gripe about the talent disparity w/UGA

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We have a handful of things going against us in recruiting. In no particular order, many top athletes:
a) don't want to take calculus
b) don't want to major in management
c) don't want to live in the middle of a large city like Atlanta
d) don't want to party with girls who made a 32+ on the ACT

Somewhere down the line is what offensive and defensive scheme we run. I never once heard a recruit at a hat ceremony 4 years ago say "I chose Bama because they run a plain jane offense with a drop back quarterback". Don't under estimate 'd', it speaks to the student life and culture of our school; which with a bunch of high caliber STEM students isn't going to complete well with even small universities.
I think ‘d’ is overplayed. I’m amazed at the amount of talent on campus now compared to when I was there. Even then, we had uga coeds, Agnes Scott, and the infamous Bauder Fashion College. But it still seems much better now. We just don’t have a party school atmosphere. It’s more of a work hard, play hard deal. Always has been, as far as I know.
 

andrew

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We have a handful of things going against us in recruiting. In no particular order, many top athletes:
a) don't want to take calculus
b) don't want to major in management
c) don't want to live in the middle of a large city like Atlanta
d) don't want to party with girls who made a 32+ on the ACT

Somewhere down the line is what offensive and defensive scheme we run. I never once heard a recruit at a hat ceremony 4 years ago say "I chose Bama because they run a plain jane offense with a drop back quarterback". Don't under estimate 'd', it speaks to the student life and culture of our school; which with a bunch of high caliber STEM students isn't going to complete well with even small universities.
Todd Stansbury actually referenced something tangentially related to D at a talk I attended.

He said they're asking people to stop saying "got out" in reference to graduation because joking/acknowledging that Tech is a somewhat miserable experience hurts us in the eyes of prospective recruits.
 

aeromech

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I think ‘d’ is overplayed. I’m amazed at the amount of talent on campus now compared to when I was there. Even then, we had uga coeds, Agnes Scott, and the infamous Bauder Fashion College. But it still seems much better now. We just don’t have a party school atmosphere. It’s more of a work hard, play hard deal. Always has been, as far as I know.
I used to think 'd' was overplayed; but I've known too many guys who were put off by intelligent women to ignore it. When you are a star athlete who is retaking the SAT to try and get academically illegible I would bet Ms. Biomedical Engineering degree is less attractive to you than Ms. Want-to-teach-Pre-K-or-whatever. Even you are referencing UGA coeds, which school has more of those?
 

Yukonwreck

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It doesn’t hurt at all. 85 scholarship athletes in a school of over 15k (or whatever it is now) is not going to do anything to academic reputation. Just keep them away from a microphone.
It is not just the 85 scholarship athletes. You would have to restructure some of the "general population" admissions requirements to get a more (less??) diverse student body that would eventually become the alumni fan base. I can't see that happening. One of the consequences of our academic success has been a decrease in the interest of the fan base in athletics.
 

Yukonwreck

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I used to think 'd' was overplayed; but I've known too many guys who were put off by intelligent women to ignore it. When you are a star athlete who is retaking the SAT to try and get academically illegible I would bet Ms. Biomedical Engineering degree is less attractive to you than Ms. Want-to-teach-Pre-K-or-whatever. Even you are referencing UGA coeds, which school has more of those?
And is there a Ms. Biomedical Engineering degree who wants to go to a football game dressed in the Georgia Tech equivalent of the Miami voodoo ibis costume seen at the Miami-Pittsburgh game?
 
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We have a handful of things going against us in recruiting. In no particular order, many top athletes:
a) don't want to take calculus
b) don't want to major in management
c) don't want to live in the middle of a large city like Atlanta
d) don't want to party with girls who made a 32+ on the ACT

Somewhere down the line is what offensive and defensive scheme we run
Maybe. Not that I really know, but I've heard variations of this list for decades and I've always had a little doubt.

I hear (a) a lot, but is that really a thing? I had to suffer through calculus way back when. Over the decades I've seen/heard interviews with some Tech players and I've thought, "There's no f-ing way that guy can find his calculus class, much less get through the first chapter of the textbook." Calculus is hard. I'm not sure how some of these guys get through.

I don't think (b) really matters. There are more majors choose from at GT than there used to be. The players who care about their degree have plenty to choose from. For the players who only care about football, I don't think they much care whether they're majoring in management or general studies.

Atlanta isn't the dump that it used to be. GT had some good players when Atlanta was a dystopian craphole. I'd think that (c) would be a selling point for many. It's maybe a draw.

(d) Regular students at large schools rarely or ever see the football players around campus, much less party with them. I'm pretty sure GT football players don't have a problem finding girls to party with when they're taking a break from all that calculus.

Regarding the scheme, it's a safe bet that high school players watch college football on Saturdays. Regardless of the merits, if a sedentary dork like me hears CPJ's triple option referred to as a "high school offense", I'm pretty sure they do too.
 

andrew

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(d) Regular students at large schools rarely or ever see the football players around campus, much less party with them. I'm pretty sure GT football players don't have a problem finding girls to party with when they're taking a break from all that calculus.
Definitely don't think this is true. Certainly at Tech I was friends with regular students who knew football players and partied with them, and I heard similar stories from friends at other schools.
 
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Definitely don't think this is true. Certainly at Tech I was friends with regular students who knew football players and partied with them, and I heard similar stories from friends at other schools.
Maybe you and your friends are just cooler than my friends and I are.
 

gtchief

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Ben Arndt lived down the hall from me in the GLC. Can't say that we ever partied together but when we hooked up a couple XBox's to play Halo and stuff he was there.
 

OmnipoTech

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We had multiple football players in my fraternity and probably a half dozen or more others were pretty regularly at our parties, so yea you are off base there.
 

BigDanT

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We were not getting in with losses to Duke and UNC. We needed several other teams to lose in order to get in.

We weren't jumping a 1 loss FSU team even if we were the team that beat them. We also weren't jumping a 1 loss Bama, OSU or Oregon.
That’s true but change about 3 plays in each of those games and maybe we are in.
 
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Definitely don't think this is true. Certainly at Tech I was friends with regular students who knew football players and partied with them, and I heard similar stories from friends at other schools.
I had friends who were Tech athletes. Bill Curry tried to integrate the athletes with the rest of the student body as much as possible.
 

GTCrew

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My roommate senior year was a QB (they did convert him to WR)
 

covingtonjacket

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The only way that makes sense is with new degree programs that are more appealing to people who are less academically gifted.
Who’s going to approve that?
I think it has been pointed out on here before that GT has never actually asked. At least ask and make the BOR say no. This would have to be a part of the major overhaul needed if we're going to compete (or at least be in the same zip code) with the factories.
 

manjano mdudu

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Quite a few comments about bringing us back to prominence, or at least more competitive, by holding back the strong teams thru financial and coaching restrictions, but more commonly, by dispersing the talent pool by implementing a lower scholarship cap. In years past, cutting available scholarships has been used by small schools as a tool to push talent down to them, with cuts from something like 110 slots to 95, and then 85 coming to mind. This may have helped to some degree in the past, but apparently it didn’t work as planned as the issue is still on the table.
Another aspect about going down such a rabbit hole, especially if we went to 65 mentioned in notes here, is the wear and tear on the remaining players. At that level, once you’re impacted by injuries, transfers, and recruiting mistakes, the players still standing would have little room for error, little time for rest, and be forced to endure the rigors of a potentially very long season. Don’t compare this to the smaller NFL teams, for as you know, they have the free agent market to replace downed players. Schools don’t have such a backup plan, so if you followed such a recommendation, I think the end result would probably follow the path we’ve seen in previous player reduction efforts, but all the more, put the few players having to carry the weight of a season in physical danger.
Rather than try to tear down the successful, I think our better chances would come if we had the right coach to take advantage of the talent abundance at our doorstep.
 

TampaBayJacket

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Rather than try to tear down the successful, I think our better chances would come if we had the right coach to take advantage of the talent abundance at our doorstep.
So which major are you going to suggest for that 4/5-star if he wanted to come to GT? Half of these guys can't even do algebra or write in coherent sentences.
 

GTCrew

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Quite a few comments about bringing us back to prominence, or at least more competitive, by holding back the strong teams thru financial and coaching restrictions, but more commonly, by dispersing the talent pool by implementing a lower scholarship cap. In years past, cutting available scholarships has been used by small schools as a tool to push talent down to them, with cuts from something like 110 slots to 95, and then 85 coming to mind. This may have helped to some degree in the past, but apparently it didn’t work as planned as the issue is still on the table.
Another aspect about going down such a rabbit hole, especially if we went to 65 mentioned in notes here, is the wear and tear on the remaining players. At that level, once you’re impacted by injuries, transfers, and recruiting mistakes, the players still standing would have little room for error, little time for rest, and be forced to endure the rigors of a potentially very long season. Don’t compare this to the smaller NFL teams, for as you know, they have the free agent market to replace downed players. Schools don’t have such a backup plan, so if you followed such a recommendation, I think the end result would probably follow the path we’ve seen in previous player reduction efforts, but all the more, put the few players having to carry the weight of a season in physical danger.
Rather than try to tear down the successful, I think our better chances would come if we had the right coach to take advantage of the talent abundance at our doorstep.
The disparity has gotten worse because the normal schools follow the rules and play with the 85 they recruited and the big boys play with the best 85 of the 135-150 they recruited and ran through tryouts.

Making them actually play with 85 is the plan. Yes, with turnover some could be stuck at 65. Or 45. But so what? If we need to make it a hard 100 to compensate for normal losses so be it. But 85 vs 135 is clearly a problem.
 

GoJackets89

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They need to expand majors/reduce admission requirements. It's not the only thing that should be done, but it would certainly help with the athletes Tech could attract. I'm also sure that would help with enrollment and getting asses in the stands in the future.
 

manjano mdudu

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So which major are you going to suggest for that 4/5-star if he wanted to come to GT? Half of these guys can't even do algebra or write in coherent sentences.
We do offer the vast majority of the state’s top 100 each year; just gotta return the place to being appealing.
 

manjano mdudu

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The disparity has gotten worse because the normal schools follow the rules and play with the 85 they recruited and the big boys play with the best 85 of the 135-150 they recruited and ran through tryouts.

Making them actually play with 85 is the plan. Yes, with turnover some could be stuck at 65. Or 45. But so what? If we need to make it a hard 100 to compensate for normal losses so be it. But 85 vs 135 is clearly a problem.
The NCAA rules are the same for everyone. If we aren’t utilizing the opportunities available, why should we find the answer in criticizing those that do?
 
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