ACC explains how Georgia Tech’s primary partners were determined

BainbridgeJacket said:
If us playing Duke isn't a tradition, then the only tradition we have as a football program is getting our asses handed to us by UGA while eating Thanksgiving leftovers most of the time
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I know this is probably hyperbole, but I doubt playing Duke would make anyone's Top 5 Tech traditions list.

Even if you limited it to games only (i.e. no Ramblin' Reck, no Budweiser song, no fight songs, etc.), it would finish a very distant third behind U[sic]GA and Clemson. Honestly it might not even get third -- I bet a lot of people would put teams like VT, FSU, or Miami ahead, even though they obviously don't go back nearly as far. Probably the vast majority of fans don't even realize Duke is our longest-tenured opponent.
 
rghoae said:
Can we blame the ACC for screwing over Tech when our own AD thinks our series against Clemson isn’t important?
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That's true. When the decision makers inside the institution don't care about Tech's rivalries and traditions I guess we can't complain if others outside the institution follow suit.
 
clapper said:
I like having two very winnable games
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Some of y'all have a real ööööin loser mentality. By this logic, if the ACC collapsed some of y'all would rather Tech go to the SunBelt for an easier schedule than go back to the SEC and have more compelling matchups.

I get wanting to creampuff our way into a winning record, but this sport was built on rivalries, and it's easier to maintain a rivalry when the matchup is annual. Losing out on FSU, UM, VT, UVA, UNC, NCSt, or even Duke is worse for GT's longterm interests in staying in this conference. But maybe that's moot at this point.
 
MidnightJacket said:
Some of y'all have a real ööööin loser mentality. By this logic, if the ACC collapsed some of y'all would rather Tech go to the SunBelt for an easier schedule than go back to the SEC and have more compelling matchups.

I get wanting to creampuff our way into a winning record, but this sport was built on rivalries, and it's easier to maintain a rivalry when the matchup is annual. Losing out on FSU, UM, VT, UVA, UNC, NCSt, or even Duke is worse for GT's longterm interests in staying in this conference. But maybe that's moot at this point.
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Not what I'm talking about at all. We're not talking about the SunBelt. We're competing in the ACC. To get to the championship game, we have to be at least second in the league. Everybody bitched about having Clemson as our cross-division rival when competing in the Coastal. I see it as a chance to help even that score.

As for rivalries, if Duke is the measuring stick, we've had more of a rivalry with Wake that UM, VPISU, and NC State. UVA and UNC were not options. I don't give a öööö about Duke. It's been a lousy game on our schedule for over 50 years, especially when we had a road game.
 
I, for one, hated playing Duke in football and I’m glad that’s ending as an annual event. It’s a complete waste of a game every year and has the potential to turn out miserable (like when they broke the long ACC losing streak against is in front of a completely empty stadium…..and students ran from the basketball scrimmage to tear down the goalposts).
 
MidnightJacket said:
Some of y'all have a real ööööin loser mentality. By this logic, if the ACC collapsed some of y'all would rather Tech go to the SunBelt for an easier schedule than go back to the SEC and have more compelling matchups.

I get wanting to creampuff our way into a winning record, but this sport was built on rivalries, and it's easier to maintain a rivalry when the matchup is annual. Losing out on FSU, UM, VT, UVA, UNC, NCSt, or even Duke is worse for GT's longterm interests in staying in this conference. But maybe that's moot at this point.
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I agree that rivalries are the lifeblood of college football.

I just don't see how playing Duke (62-64 over the past decade, 6 hour drive from Tech, 27,115 average attendance) is a rivalry that generates compelling matchups which are important for GT's longterm interests, whereas playing Wake Forst (60-63 over the past decade, 5 hour drive from Tech, 27,081 average attendnace) is creampuffing our way into a winning record. They seem pretty comparable to me.

The other schools you mentioned? Yes, any of them would be a plus over playing Duke or Wake. But swapping out Wake for Duke does not affect GT's long term prospects one way or the other. Both of them are basketball-first schools at the edge of driving distance that don't generate excitement from a football perspective.
 
The Duke angle is pretty easy to understand. Duke got to pick their top 3 rivals, so did UNC and NCSt. That is how the ACC works. Wake is the odd man out in NC, but they get a better deal than they otherwise would is the vote in lock step with the other NC schools.

I am sure the process involved schools submitting their top three rivalries. If two schools selected each other, then than was a match. Only Clemson listed us, so we had to work from the leftover rivalries. Hell, UL probably picked us.
 
Beej1953 said:
We’re a state school. And Ugag has a lot more stroke in state government - powers that be are not gonna let Ugag lose a guaranteed Division 1 win every year.
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But under the new SEC there is a real possibility/probability that they won't be able to play us every year. Fact of life. Basically what happened in 2020 though covid was the driver, not SEC expansion.
 
READER'S DIGEST VERSION: Ted Strickland asked himself what three teams would screw over Tech football fans the worst, and decided it would be Clemson, Louisville and Boston College. But he had other plans for BC, so he substituted Wake Forest. The End.
 
TechRush said:
People were all like wahhhh, why would Tech want to move to the B1G? Will annual games against Northwestern and Illinois move the needle? Umm, well, our own conference just saddled us with WF and Louisville every year.
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Not just people. The president of the school.
 
andrew said:
I know this is probably hyperbole, but I doubt playing Duke would make anyone's Top 5 Tech traditions list.

Even if you limited it to games only (i.e. no Ramblin' Reck, no Budweiser song, no fight songs, etc.), it would finish a very distant third behind U[sic]GA and Clemson. Honestly it might not even get third -- I bet a lot of people would put teams like VT, FSU, or Miami ahead, even though they obviously don't go back nearly as far. Probably the vast majority of fans don't even realize Duke is our longest-tenured opponent.
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The lightning delayed Duke game at BDS may have been our worst Duke game ever. It was hot. There was a lightning delay. We were supposed to take Duke to pound town. We lost.
 
rghoae said:
My takeaways:
1) Contra the anti-ACC sentiment here, the fact that Clemson was retained as a primary rival because the ACC wanted it and despite Stanbury not wanting it indicates to me that the Tech leadership cares far less about GT than the ACC leadership does.
2) None of the big football players in the ACC seemed keen on playing Tech. Not Clemson, FSU, VPI, etc. But people here keep reassuring me that other conferences just want to swoop up Tech so they can visit Atlanta once a year. Yet that doesn’t seem to be a draw for schools that can achieve it without having to make massive conference realignment decisions.

Our location in Atlanta doesn’t seem to be the football draw mang seem to believe it is (it might be an attraction from a TV license perspective, but I’m finding that argument suspect as well).
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Must be that cut blocking
 
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