Time to give some seious thought to . . .

[Jerry the Jacket]

. . . where we go from here. With the pending realignment of the ACC it would appear more schools are being added that give equal if not greater weight to athletics as academics. It appears Tech continues to struggle to stay true to it's academic mission yet be competitive in athletics. I see no willingness on the school's part to change the curriculum or requirements to allow for a greater pool of talent to be recruited to Tech. If all this is true about academic casualities it is a resounding bit of evidence that we have been recruiting some very marginal academic qualifiers who have not had the motivation either internally or externally to get the work required done. A loss of this many atheletes comes close to wiping out the equivalent to an entire recruiting class. No program can sustain such a loss without noticable negative impact on the on field performance of their football program.

This, if true, confirms my long standing belief, that Chan Gailey, is not the right guy to lead our program. That is another story for another day.

What I really wanted to put forth in this post was the idea of giving serious consideration as to where Georgia Tech really fits in the scheme of current competition in college athletics.

Certainly the ACC is going to be much tougher going forward. Schools like Duke, Wake Forest and Tech have a significant disparity in number of atheletes required to compete with the FSU's, Miami's and Maryland's in football. I think a total reassessment of aligning conferences based on ability to compete should be given serious consideration.

What if the Big East were to be refashioned on the basis of schools that had more parity in terms of ability to compete. Such a league might look like the following:

Gerogia Tech
Wake Forest
Duke
North Carolina
Vanderbilt
Rutgers
Temple
Conneticut
Boston College
Army
Navy
Central Florida

You can substitute one or two of these for some others, but basically you would have a league that would produce a competitive championship campaign with all schools having some opportunity to be on top at any given time.

The ACC might shape up as follows:

Clemson
FSU
Miami
NC State
Maryland
West Virginia
Pittsburgh
Virginia
Syracuse
Va. Tech
Penn State
Marshall

This would be an attractive league and again these schools would be closer to parity from a number of atheletes required to compete level.

The bottomline is Georgia Tech needs to decide what it wants to be. If there is no willingness to change the current environment, our chances of ever being successful in a big way in the ACC in football are minimal. If we are willing to make some changes, then I say let's stay, compete and fight for football fortune and fame. I would be interested in the thoughts of my fellow Tech fans on this topic.

Go Jackets!

 

[lurkbee]

I do not post very often, but if we played in the big east with those teams we might as well not participate in football. I guarantee a lot of people would would withdraw their donations. The administration needs to realize that a lot of the donations are contingent upon fielding a team that has an outside shot of reaching a bowl game or BCS bowl game in a perfect world. Being in that conference would definitely cause me to stop buying tickets. No, I would not be jumping off the bandwagon, but more or less conceding that we never ever have a shot at anything worthwhile on the football field. In summary, I would rather watch paint dry than be in the aforementioned big east. Personally, I think this is a travesty that this is happening at such a historically strong academic/athletic institution. sorry for the rants, but this is one fan's thoughts on the situation.

 

[Father WASP]

I'm more interested in confirming your assessment that Gailey is not the man to lead our program. Forget realignment for right now. When you lose an entire unit - 11 - to academics you've got bigger problems. Obviously, Gailey is as shadowy around the football day to day operations as he is with the public after getting thrashed 51-7.

Debating whether or not Tech needs to add a softer curriculum has been going on since Alexander's days and will probably always be with us. It is what it is and until it changes we don't need coaches who can't coach in this environment.

No doubt, Gailey will have his excuse makers. Maybe Danny Hall can use the same if his entire infield turns up ineligible.

Braine needs to take the first flight back from the ACC vacation and do what he should have done after the Georgia game - get somebody in here who can run a program.

 

[Jerry the Jacket]

Father Wasp my post was merely meant to point out what you have stated clearly in your message. Academic excellence and all that it denotes have been a long standing tradition and point of pride for Georgia Tech. Others have managed to work within the limitations of Tech's superior academic climate and achieve outstanding results. It now appears that we have an administration including the Athletic Director and Head Coach who give lip service to this but take no accountability for having those brought into the program commit to academic achievement. If that is going to be status quo going forward we are going to flounder unless the standards are modified. The other option, as you so eloquently point out, is to change the regime and get some people on board who can produce the desired result with the academic standards that remain in place.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Go Jackets!

 

[GoldZ]

Father, I'm no CG basher or promoter, probably more on the very concerned about him side of the debate, but the second coming of Bobby Dodd or Bobby Ross would struggle with the academic situation now at GT. Things were not easy at all for Ross or GOL, but now it's really out of hand...The HILL that is. When you get a chance, ask someone in Academic Affairs if Joe Hamilton would have been allowed to join this past recruiting class. Kinda sobering huh? THWG

 

[Father WASP]

I haven't seen one fact in Gailey's entire sorry tenure save for an upset win over NC State that indicates in any area we are improving - kicking, strategy, offense, defense, fundamentals, coaching, enthusiasm, strength,recruiting, etc. And now academics. All barometers point to a regression.

Let's cut the BS - fire him.