We are saying mostly the same thing
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JOJA,
The limited curriculum angle is as worn as the "too tough" excuse. To believe this argument is to believe that Mr. "Take Yourpick" at uga went there because of their excellent Parks and Recreation (or whatever) program.
Tech could be broader but its broad enough to recruit nationally for 20 SAs per year. A kid will want to come to Tech to play for a championship and to get a world renowned degree.
If we miss on a few brilliant SAs that want to study Latin, that's the way it goes.
Believe me that very, very few high school seniors going on to play D-1 football know exactly what they want to study.
If someone is capable of Ga. Tech, he will find a very suitable degree program.
I know what I dream of isn't close at the moment, but I believe it could be with the right people and the right approach.
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Your response actually indicates that you did NOT get what my point was. You continue to want to make what I said into an excuse for not getting top athletes and that is not anywhere close to my point. I think you actually understand and mostly AGREE with my point but you didn't see that that was what I was getting at.
Think of putting together a list of athletes to recruit (I'm not talking about winning recruiting battles here, I'm just talking about putting together a list of kids to start out recruiting) like pouring a 10lb bag of pebbles through a strainer. UGA, Florida, FSU, USC (both east and west), Texas, etc... use a strainer that can let through pebbles through that are as big as 100mm in diameter. GT looks at the same 10lb bag of pebbles and instead of picking up a 100mm strainer has to pick up a 1mm strainer. Obviously the 100mm strainer will let through a larger number of pebbles than the 1mm strainer. I'm exagerating as I have no idea what the ratio really is so please don't harp on the 1/100 ratio. I will concede that the ratio may be 1/50 or 1/10 or whatever. But the ratio is NOT in our favor.
The different size strainers are representative, in this case, of both admissions AND curriculum interests. So what we are left with is a much smaller pile of pebbles than many other schools from which we can choose.
Now I know you DID understand that part so don't get all up in arms yet.
Where you seem to be tripping is that I'm not suggesting that this is preventing us from getting top athletes. I'm suggesting that in order to be successful we need to have better aim because we have a smaller list from which to choose than many other schools and many of those other schools can recruit from their larger lists AND our smaller list. So when we go out we absolutely MUST do a great job of executing on our recruiting plans and we had better be right about the athletes to whom we offer scholarships. This means that recruiting has got to be absolutely more laser focused than at some other places and now add in the probation and it has to be even more laser focused because we can't afford to miss on a single kid right now (meaning that the kids we bring in HAVE to be contributors, not that we can't afford to have a kid we target NOT commmit).
So again, this is not to be confused as an excuse for not bringing in top athletes. It is merely to point out that it is a very real limitation that makes the list of kids we can look at smaller than other schools with whom we compete both on the field and for recruits.
In truth you actually made part of my point for me. I agree that many athletes don't know what they want to study when they come to college. In fact I think that that certainly extends to many students in general. And many of them know that they don't know what they want to study and will be more likely to avail themselves of places that have larger varieties of curricular offerings.
