Best Ga Tech coaches since Dodd Poll

[ronricks]

Pepper Rogers had terrible support
Had he came in after facilities upgrades and a better AD - who knows?
He was a pretty good coach
Did beat the dawgs twice- and should have had a 3rd one in 78
I always liked him

Agree. Pepper was a heck of a coach and did as good as anyone could with what he had. Facilities were awful, he had little support, and we were an Independent playing a bunch of football factories on the schedule.

 

[ronricks]

Pepper was not fired by Dodd, but by Doug Weaver, a former assistant of Pepper's at Kansas & UCLA. Weaver, a very unsuccessful (11-78-1) HFC in a couple of stops, was brought in when Dodd retired with Pepper's recommendation. The "real AD" from the late '60s til he retired in '79 was John McKenna. From personal experience seeing McKenna around the GTAA from 1968-1972, I can see McKenna not exactly being a Pepper Rodgers fan.

Weaver fired Pepper in '79 & promptly left to go back to Michigan State.

Also during the late '70s, the "Program Killer" Joe Pettit was President of The Institute.

Pepper's persona was always going to have him in hot water with the Piedmont Driving Club & Capital City Club sets, so it's not too surprising the conservative business-types (even some of the ex-HFCs) that run university AAs would shy away from him in that era.

I’ve heard it was also Pepper’s wife who was not liked by the conservative business types and caused problems. She was apparently very um eccentric to put it mildly.

 

[GT to AZ]

Huh?

Wins vs FCS teams
PJ 14 (11 years)
CG 3 (6 years)
GOL 1 (6 years)

There were also a lot more games against MTSU, Bowling Green, Tulane types that watered down win % as schedules expanded too

It was a lot harder to win 7 games in the 90s or 00s that it has been in the last decade

My point was that beating Vandy and UConn from '02-'05 really wasn't a whole lot better than beating an FCS team and I don't really think the schedule was much softer for PJ than Chan as you said. Average Sagarin schedule ranking for PJ was 73.0. Chan was 74.1. Pretty similar strength of schedules.