Long before season, Georgia Tech president found football performance ‘worrisome’

GTFLETCH

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About a year ago, Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera sang the praises of then-athletic director Todd Stansbury. Up for his annual performance review in February 2022, Cabrera affirmed Stansbury for his leadership of the athletic department throughout 2021 – as the forces of the pandemic, the transfer portal and the rule changes that permitted athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness unsettled the world of college athletics.

“I thank you for leading the program throughout this time of transformation and doing so without accruing losses or increasing our outstanding debt – a result not many programs achieved this year,” Cabrera wrote.

There was one particular issue that Cabrera raised in the annual performance evaluation, dated Feb. 24, 2022 and obtained through an open-records request that was made Sept. 27, 2022 and received Feb. 10. (By state law, University System of Georgia sports programs are required to respond to records requests within 90 business days.)

“My biggest concern this year was our poor performance in football, which is worrisome given its outsized impact on our reputation, student and alumni engagement, and the revenues of the entire program,” Cabrera wrote.

“Since the change in coaches and system three seasons ago our results have been consistently poor, with a 9-25 overall record,” Cabrera wrote. “While it is reasonable to expect a leadership and system change to impact performance, the last three years have produced the worst three-year record since we joined the ACC forty years ago. Clearly you cannot control the outcomes of specific games, but these numbers indicate a problematic trend which, unless reversed, has the risk of damaging the whole athletic program, no matter the successes elsewhere.”



 

JJacket

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unless reversed, has the risk of damaging the whole athletic program, no matter the successes elsewhere.”


Absolutely. This is a dire situation for GT. We can seek to compete with FSU, UGA, Clemson and other top tier teams, or relegate ourselves to looking like Georgia State

The University of Miami has been mediocre for some time now, but dammit they are clawing and scratching to get back to relevance. Some of our fans seem to be of the opinion that we just can't possibly ever compete with an Ohio State so we should just accept being on the same level as Wake, Vandy, Duke....
 

Walton

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Well, I think you can justify a lot of things that happened (still mistakes but normal mistakes; bad coaches are hired all the time) The contract length was inexcusable but the main thing I’ll never understand is why T-Stan doubled down on Collins and went down with him. I think GT is obviously better off (Batt is an upgrade) but how stupid did TStan have to be to not see what everyone else was showing him?
 

Diseqc

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Well, I think you can justify a lot of things that happened (still mistakes but normal mistakes; bad coaches are hired all the time) The contract length was inexcusable but the main thing I’ll never understand is why T-Stan doubled down on Collins and went down with him. I think GT is obviously better off (Batt is an upgrade) but how stupid did TStan have to be to not see what everyone else was showing him?
He knew he was ööööed either way. I don’t think TStan survives even if Geff gets fired after 2021.
 

swampsting

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He knew he was ööööed either way. I don’t think TStan survives even if Geff gets fired after 2021.
Pretty much. He knew he was tied to Clown's fate one way or the other. May as well go all-in.

reading the story, though, it makes me think this happened...
Editor: Ken, we got the open records requests stuff.
Ken: Yeah? Anything in it?
Editor: Eh.
Ken: Oh. But ...
Editor: But yeah, you still need to write a story so we can justify the time and the expense.
Ken: Ok, I'll get it to you tomorrow.
 

swampsting

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Other than Cabrera's worries about the program (welcome aboard, Pres) at the time, there's not a lot of earth shaking stuff. It is interesting that there was so little comms between TStan and PAC toward the end. That shoulda sent a signal to TStan that he was on the outs.
I was kinda hoping for missives from Cabrera that went along the lines of "this sucks, dude, and you better find some buyout money yesterday" or "if I get one more call from a booster telling me this sucks and I'm hiding my checkbook, I'm coming down there myself to start kicking some ass."
That Cabrera came back early, IIRC, from an overseas trip to start handing out pink slips was evidence enough he cares about football and athletics.
 

aeromech

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He knew he was ööööed either way. I don’t think TStan survives even if Geff gets fired after 2021.
Probably; but I think the smarter play for TStan was to admit to his bosses that TFG was a mistake and beg for a second chance. He basically welded himself to TFG and was betting his career that TFG was going to finally win. I think there were some posters on here that still believed in TFG up until the end too.
 

clapper

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Probably; but I think the smarter play for TStan was to admit to his bosses that TFG was a mistake and beg for a second chance.
He wouldn't have had to beg. All he needed to do was start doing his ööööing job right. Everyone öööös up on the job sometime in their career. How you respond to it determines whether you get to keep it.
 

THWUGA

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Compare Bama enrollment, application volume, and SAT before and after Saban. Compare absolute figures and compare against changes across all Power 5 schools. Do the same for Clemson before and after Dabo.

In basketball, do the same for Nova before and after Jay Wright (using all D1 since P5 isn't as applicable). Do Gonzaga before and after their tourney success began.

I'm glad Cabrera sees this, but a $2.5MM matching campaign ain't gonna cut it. The school needs to step it up.
 

QuadF

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Compare Bama enrollment, application volume, and SAT before and after Saban. Compare absolute figures and compare against changes across all Power 5 schools. Do the same for Clemson before and after Dabo.

In basketball, do the same for Nova before and after Jay Wright (using all D1 since P5 isn't as applicable). Do Gonzaga before and after their tourney success began.

I'm glad Cabrera sees this, but a $2.5MM matching campaign ain't gonna cut it. The school needs to step it up.
Both of those schools have room to grow. Tech doesn't. We're growing the quality of applicants pretty steadily.
 
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