Here’s the Thing

There are great seasons (1990), really good seasons, good seasons, okay seasons and losing seasons. A six and six with a bowl loss is an okay season. But it is better than a losing season where you lose to UGA and the football season comes to an end with no bowl game. Gailey gave us a mix of good and okay seasons. CPJ has given us about three or four really good seasons (maybe one great), a few good and a couple of okay seasons. He also has coached one losing season. The chance of a second one in three years exists this season. I did not want Gailey to be fired. I do believe CPJ has been an upgrade and hope he coaches us for a long time to come. But, I do appreciate the accomplishment of any coach who avoids losing seasons with no bowl game. And, for me, losing seasons, several in a period of a few years, would be the reason an AD should consider a coaching change.k
 
Here's the Thing:

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18in32 said:
I'm curious your source of information that O'Leary was allowed exceptions that CPJ is not...? As I understand it, CPJ has built a lot of trust with the hill, and gets the exceptions he asks for.

Of course, getting an exception doesn't mean much if the player doesn't stay academically eligible. But as Adam Gotsis once said — marveling at how American college football is run — there's so much academic support you really have to try hard to mess up.
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Adam Gotsis was real student interested in learning as well as playing football. Now try to get Nick Chubb to pass business calculus class and tell me how successful you will be no matter how much support you give the kid. My info on exceptions came from the Hive insiders board when flunk gate came out. Things couldve changed in the past couple of years but as of 3-4 years ago, no more exceptions were allowed.
 
BuzzLaw said:
2002: 62
2003: 50
2004: 56
2005:62
2006: 57
2007: 18

Again, I'd say we've been pretty consistent at recruiting since 2000.
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Yes, that is consistent. But maybe not the kind of consistency to brag about. I am not trying to say Tech should recruit on a par with Bama, FSU, Clem, UGA, etc. But it does bother me that a large number of 4 and 5 star athletes are right under Tech's nose, (and BTW, Tech did try to recruit them, but they just had no interest). Again, I am not saying Johnson should be run off, but I will never believe him and his "system" are the best Tech can hope for.
 
TampaBayJacket said:
Adam Gotsis was real student interested in learning as well as playing football. Now try to get Nick Chubb to pass business calculus class and tell me how successful you will be no matter how much support you give the kid. My info on exceptions came from the Hive insiders board when flunk gate came out. Things couldve changed in the past couple of years but as of 3-4 years ago, no more exceptions were allowed.
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OK, it was CPJ who told me he gets the exceptions he needs. Whether things have changed since he told me that several years ago, I don't know. Obviously the school's academic profile (curriculum choices, graduation requirements, potential majors, fellow students) are all recruiting issues — but that's not the same thing as 'exceptions,' i.e., whether a school admits a football player who wouldn't otherwise have been admitted because he's a football player. Every school in the country does that, including the Ivy Leagues. It's a practice at Tech, too. I realize we like to complain, but let's not manufacture more things to complain about unnecessarily.
 
I believe I read a tweet that Quinlan put out that said he got 5 exceptions a year? I may be misremembering that.
 
18in32 said:
OK, it was CPJ who told me he gets the exceptions he needs. Whether things have changed since he told me that several years ago, I don't know. Obviously the school's academic profile (curriculum choices, graduation requirements, potential majors, fellow students) are all recruiting issues — but that's not the same thing as 'exceptions,' i.e., whether a school admits a football player who wouldn't otherwise have been admitted because he's a football player. Every school in the country does that, including the Ivy Leagues. It's a practice at Tech, too. I realize we like to complain, but let's not manufacture more things to complain about unnecessarily.
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It's not that I'm complaining, it's just that our definitions of "exceptions" are different. Every school, including Ivy league, Stanford, academies, GT, etc. have a different admissions standard for athletes than the general admission standard. This standard goes down to whatever minimum level the conference will allow regarding SAT/GPA, which is pretty danged low in some conferences. Kids who meet this minimum are not exceptions even though they wouldnt get admitted to the school as a real student. Some schools have special reasons why their minimum standard is higher than the conference standard. This is where GT comes in. Our minimum is much higher than the conference standard but much lower than the general admissions standard. Kids who dont meet this minimum floor are exceptions wrt GT, even though they would qualify at almost every other school. It's these exceptions I am referring to. As far as CPJ saying he can get any exceptions he wants, it must be true if he said it to you. I am also pretty sure he was talking about exceptions in the same frame of reference as I am.
 
TampaBayJacket said:
It's not that I'm complaining, it's just that our definitions of "exceptions" are different. Every school, including Ivy league, Stanford, academies, GT, etc. have a different admissions standard for athletes than the general admission standard. This standard goes down to whatever minimum level the conference will allow regarding SAT/GPA, which is pretty danged low in some conferences. Kids who meet this minimum are not exceptions even though they wouldnt get admitted to the school as a real student. Some schools have special reasons why their minimum standard is higher than the conference standard. This is where GT comes in. Our minimum is much higher than the conference standard but much lower than the general admissions standard. Kids who dont meet this minimum floor are exceptions wrt GT, even though they would qualify at almost every other school. It's these exceptions I am referring to. As far as CPJ saying he can get any exceptions he wants, it must be true if he said it to you. I am also pretty sure he was talking about exceptions in the same frame of reference as I am.
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I don't follow you. Let me just plain about what I'm saying 'exceptions' mean, and see if you agree.

My view is that while there are plenty of academic constraints on GT football, the staff of the admissions office is not among them. If a player wants to come to GT, and if the football staff have a good faith belief that the player can succeed here, then the admissions office works with the coaching staff to get the kid eligible. In the first few years of CPJ's tenure, there were some prominent recruits who couldn't get in bc of X, Y or Z — but as CPJ has demonstrated a commitment to kids' academic success, and proved it with grades and graduation rates, there's been administrative pressure to trust the staff and get kids in. We've obviously also had plenty of examples where kids got in but couldn't hack it and never saw the field. But again, that's not on the admissions staff.

My conversation with CPJ was not some in-depth behind-the-scenes exploration of this issue. It was a handful of boosters asking him if this was a problem, and him saying it wasn't.

I don't understand what else the word "exception" could mean. It means an applicant who wouldn't be admitted, but because the coaching staff wants him, he's granted an exception from the regular admission standards.
 
I don't think we should hire another flex coach. I love CPJ and he's the best in what he does but let's be honest, the scheme is yet another handicap in recruiting and we have plenty of those. There are other great coaches who can win against better talent. And I would like us to shed ourselves of everything that makes us get 2nd class talent. That's the only way to be successful consistently.
 
18in32 said:
If you want to know, you're going to have to do the research yourself, I'm afraid.

The problem with this line of argument — "frankly, look how good we are despite the recruiting rankings!" — is that this discrepancy could be explained either by the fact that we're GT and we outperform expectations via hard work, fan support, excellent coaching, etc. or by the fact that recruiting rankings are inaccurate indicators of 'talent' levels for the vast majority of college athletes.

(As CPJ has said many, many times — everybody knows the five star guys are incredibly talented athletes. But when you get down into the 4 star, 3 star and unranked players, it's a lot less obvious, and opinions vary.)

And if the latter is the explanation, then poor recruiting isn't actually the reason we can't beat UVA.
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Recruiting rankings have a strong correlation with on-field success, especially over an extended period like 10 years. Teams might catch lightning in a bottle over a few years but always regress to a mean that is relatively close to their recruiting rankings.

And I don't buy the "we're GT" thing for a second. Our basketball and baseball teams have perennially underachieved relative to their recruiting rankings for over a decade. Our football team has done the exact opposite. Can you think of another reason than coaching?

Lastly, our NFL output pretty much matches our recruiting rankings. It's not like we had a bunch of 3 stars that turned into 1st round draft picks. We've had average recruiting and above average results. Our offense has been very good and our defense has been very bad. Those are just facts. Obviously there are ups and downs, but those trends are undeniable.
 
donsue said:
Yes, that is consistent. But maybe not the kind of consistency to brag about. I am not trying to say Tech should recruit on a par with Bama, FSU, Clem, UGA, etc. But it does bother me that a large number of 4 and 5 star athletes are right under Tech's nose, (and BTW, Tech did try to recruit them, but they just had no interest). Again, I am not saying Johnson should be run off, but I will never believe him and his "system" are the best Tech can hope for.
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I agree it's not consistency to brag about. And I do think we should do what it takes to recruit on par with Bama, FSU, etc. But we don't. And changing coaches is not going to change that. It takes institutional change, direction and priority. And all the smart people at GT think that you can't give priority to both education and football. As such, we are stuck with what we are. IIWII.

And @77GTFan I'd rather miss a bowl two years and then go to the Orange Bowl than play in the Humanitarian Bowl three years in a row. Neither option is great, but if I had to choose between the two, there it is.
 
I'll ask this again, because I think it is an important question:

Can anyone name another team that recruits less star players than us and has had consistent success in the last 10 years?
 
donsue said:
To carry your point a little further, there really is a reason that basically only the service academies run this type of system. I don't deny he has had success, and Tech is not the same as all programs, but the system (and to a degree, his personality) do limit things a bit.

Consider that there is a ton of major talent in the metro area (and a lot of those kids could handle the academics at Tech), and due to the system, among other things, very few of these kids consider Tech. Frankly, most kids who have aspirations of football after college don't want to play in this system on either side of the ball. Sure, winning an Orange Bowl was great, etc. , but since 2009, he is 55-45.

I will leave it up to each person as to what seems acceptable for Tech football. But it seems that 6-6 is as likely, or more likely most years than 9-3
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You might be very disappointed as to how few of those Atlanta area kids (especially the difference makers), can handle academics at Tech. A great many of these coaching recommendations would make sense IF they could bring their players with them (AND keep em in school and out of da slammer). Why is it we have had such long term trouble recruiting DL guys who play like Bama's, Clemson's, ugag's etal, looong before CPJ arrived?
 
GoldZ said:
You might be very disappointed as to how few of those Atlanta area kids (especially the difference makers), can handle academics at Tech. A great many of these coaching recommendations would make sense IF they could bring their players with them (AND keep em in school and out of da slammer). Why is it we have had such long term trouble recruiting DL guys who play like Bama's, Clemson's, ugag's etal, looong before CPJ arrived?
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We had two nfl DTs the day cpj arrived.. none since ( not to mention d.morgan and m. Johnson)
 
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