Hey Boomers! The man who Killed GT football was...

Th
daBuzz said:
1963, huh?
What else was happening in the US, and more specifically in the South, around that time that just might have affected the landscape of college football?
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This is waaay over his head, just like it is for most who look at it in a simplistic manner. It's a weak troll job. I'm amazed at how butt hurt people are, over not being Vandylite since the 60's. Somewhat better attendance nos. doesn't do much for being a whipping boy, huh?
GEETEELEE has a much better grasp of this than the OP.
 
aeromech said:
Because every school in the region went through desegregation and civil rights, it wasn't isolated to Atlanta or the GT campus. It might would explain part of dropping out of the top 20 in the nation; but not losing to UGA.
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My goodness---do ya think that just maybe, perhaps, possibly, that this sea change (which was long overdue), impacted Tech football just a wee bit more than ugag!? You might wanna go back and read some of Vince Dooley's quotes during the Jan Kemp trial.
Give us one, just one, example of dropping standards helping anything in society.
 
aeromech said:
So if other schools had more flexible academic standards for athletes, then the problem was self imposed by GT correct?
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I'm not sure I would say a recruiting problem was "self-imposed by Tech" if the problem was essential to the nature, purpose and history of the school. That's some serious cart-before-horse-ism. But even if it was "self-imposed by Tech," it doesn't reduce the validity of the desegregation observation.
Desegregation was a factor.
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So it sounds like we agree!
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GoldZ said:
My goodness---do ya think that just maybe, perhaps, possibly, that this sea change (which was long overdue), impacted Tech football just a wee bit more than ugag!? You might wanna go back and read some of Vince Dooley's quotes during the Jan Kemp trial.
Give us one, just one, example of dropping standards helping anything in society.
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15th amendment
 
aeromech said:
This twisted Dodd morality has been a problem for decades, hopefully in the next decade we can shake this 'but GT does it the right way' arrogant mentality that acts as a self imposed probation on the football program. The morally correct thing to do would have been to play by the rules, not to pout and try to run away because you got out voted. The morally correct thing to do would have been to be flexible with academic standards for athletes and give newly recruitable athletes a chance.
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Well, while it may well have helped our football program to be more like the other schools, you'll have a very hard time convincing me doing so would have been more morally correct.
 
aeromech said:
This twisted Dodd morality has been a problem for decades, hopefully in the next decade we can shake this 'but GT does it the right way' arrogant mentality that acts as a self imposed probation on the football program. The morally correct thing to do would have been to play by the rules, not to pout and try to run away because you got out voted. The morally correct thing to do would have been to be flexible with academic standards for athletes and give newly recruitable athletes a chance.
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So your idea is to fundamentally alter the Institute for the sake of football.
 
ciegetanks said:
I agree there were serious philosophical differences between Tech and the SEC (read Bear Bryant). And there was a serious personal dispute between Dodd and Bryant steming from a dirty play that ended a Tech player's career.

So yes, there were good reasons to leave the SEC. However, there was this other Southern Conference filled with dissatisfied SEC schools including two that we played annually anyway that was more academically focused and whose champion had an automatic bid to the Peach Bowl, in Atlanta.

Why didn't we join the ACC in 1964? We would've done to them in the sixties and seventies what FSU did to the ACC in the nineties.
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I don't think so. The cupboard was relatively bare when Dodd quit the coaching job.
 
ciegetanks said:
I agree there were serious philosophical differences between Tech and the SEC (read Bear Bryant). And there was a serious personal dispute between Dodd and Bryant steming from a dirty play that ended a Tech player's career.

So yes, there were good reasons to leave the SEC. However, there was this other Southern Conference filled with dissatisfied SEC schools including two that we played annually anyway that was more academically focused and whose champion had an automatic bid to the Peach Bowl, in Atlanta.

Why didn't we join the ACC in 1964? We would've done to them in the sixties and seventies what FSU did to the ACC in the nineties.
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I graduated Class of '62. The story when we left the SEC was that we thought we could make more money as an independent than as a member of a conference where we would have had to split bowl money with other members. IMO the ACC is the best fit for Tech, and it's too bad it took us so long to get there.

I agree with other posters that Dodd was at best an average AD.
 
aeromech said:
Do you actually think our football recruits meet the academic standards of the incoming freshmen now??

https://www.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/georgia-tech-freshman-profile-2019.pdf

Our football team in no way reflects the general student body. Letting D. Mills play football would not fundamentally alter the Institute any more than letting J. Hamilton did.
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Good one aeromech! I've used this line of thought myself many times. I don't care for academic snobs. However, just as you can't compare someone who gets in an occasional bar fight to a serial killer, you can't compare the charter and reason for existence of an internationally elite institute, to that of an average land grant college. The key words to understanding how flawed your posit is: that we'd be more than Vandy by following the rules everybody else plays by if we had stayed in the sec, are Institute and Bachelor of Science. Standards exist for a reason. In this threads' context, it's one of likelihood of success. The wave of superior athletes thrust upon CFB in the 60s were not likely to succeed at Tech, and it's extremely frustrating that to a significant degree, they aren't now either.

Following the same rules as you say, is too much of a good thing, much like having 36 cold beers on a hot day. The gap between Tech's football players and regular students, IF combined with a few academic exceptions (per AA standards---not Tech's), is a good thing. That is, as long as we continue to graduate them, like we have in this most recent decade.

Sorry for the soapbox, but it's how I see it. Z
 
ciegetanks said:
Bobby Dodd.

My granfather is also a Tech Alum. He graduated in the late fifties and tells me that Dodd was so embarassed by the Cumberland game that he called games and used substitution to keep scores close.

In the 60's, when the NFL became a more viable career path many recruits avoided Tech because they would not acquire the stats needed to get drafted.

Also Bobby Dodd is the one who left the SEC. For twenty years we were athletically homeless with no automatic avenues to Bowl Games and National Championships.

The majority of the decline in Tech Football took place between 1963 and 1983.

Oh, one last thing: in 1963 when we left the SEC COFH was 27-26-5 in our favor. Since leaving the SEC GT is 14-42 against the Athens Community College.

So, old people who venerate Dodd, remember he was Dodd not God. His idea to go independant is what tanked GT football.
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Let’s be clear about a few things:
First of all, he built a football program that was envied throughout the country, and was loved in the state of Georgia as much as UGA was. People all over the Southeast wanted their kids to play for him, and he put together a network of high schools that sent kids to Tech who could actually handle the curriculum. He basically got zero help from the BOR and the Administration in providing a break in that curriculum that would allow him to recruit some of the kids that UGA, Bama, Tennessee, etc. did.
In the early 60’s there were so many things up in the air about the coming football landscape. No one has a crystal ball into the future. We can debate all day long if remaining in the SEC was the right thing to do. I certainly believe that without any help from the BOR and the Admin. coupled with a lack of facilities and commitment would have kept Tech mired in mediocrity, and made it very hard to compete with the big state universities. Keep in mind that conference solidarity wasn’t at all then what it is now.
With regard to his ability as an AD, maybe that’s another story.
But for people to come on here and disparage a guy who really put Tech football on the map is beyond pathetic.
 
ciegetanks said:
Maybe this was just spun self-promotion, but during my tour of Tech as a prospective student, Tech claims they integrated peacefully in 1963. So on civil rights we were good, or at least better than a lot of other southern universities.

Also, yes the ACC was not a "football" conference in 1963. That is the point. Imagine being the perenial Conference Champion with almost guaranteed appearances in the Peach, Citrus, or Gator bowl each year. That would impress recruits.

We could have been a big fish in a small pond and slowly lent credibity to the ACC. Instead we became also rans in a rapidly changing landscape.

Not to mention that after Dodd stepped down as AD we tried to rejoin the SEC, but were rebuffed (largely thanks to the Athens Daycare Center and Bear Bryant).
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you have it backwards. Bryant told Dodd (through Curry as a proxy) that he would make sure GT could get back in the SEC. Dodd told Curry to tell Bryant thanks but no thanks it is never going to happen. Bryant wanted GT back in the SEC.
 
Quite a stretch.

Why the heck would CBD be embarrassed by the Cumberland game? Absurd.

No, recruits did not avoid GT due to stats and NFL.

They started going elsewhere because ( whether anyone wants to admit it) the SEC.

DODD - very good Coach. Horrible AD.
 
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