What is stopping Tech?

Re: Barriers Can Be Overcome

ahsoisee said:
One problem that has always plagued GT is politics. Politics caused the teams of the 50's to become less able to compete when free substitution was abolished. There was strong evidence that it was abolished to punish such wining teams as GT who used free substitution to win.
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whats free substitution?
 
Yukonwreck said:
Our present qb situation is abysmal--no better tonight than when Gailey was here. That has to be fixed.

In what way in particular is it abysmal? Do you mean in terms of depth?

Our offensive line is killing us.

Have to wait and see what offensive linemen recruited by Johnson can do.

Our special teams play has been average at best.

This will improve if we can build more talented depth. Why do the elite teams have such good special teams? Because they can recruit guys that would start at some D1 schools and only play them at special teams.
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Yukonwreck said:
Our biggest advantage is also our biggest barrier. Paul Johnson has already shown an ability to get us to where we want to be----but---can he recruit (or manage the recruiting staff) at a level to get us to where we can compete with Georgia, LSU, VPI, and Iowa, etc. He has proven he can win a couple of match ups with this caliber of team, but the six games with that group we are still 2-4 when we were poised to make a splash. Our present qb situation is abysmal--no better tonight than when Gailey was here. That has to be fixed. Our defense is still an unknown quantity with a new system being implemented. Our offensive line is killing us. Our special teams play has been average at best. Is Paul Johnson the best coach we have had since (and maybe including) Dodd? Yes. Will we ever be able to do any better than these past two years? I say the jury is out. 20-7 is a raising of the bar like I never expected at any time since Ross left. But this may be as good as it gets. We need major improvement in so many areas before we can talk about being in the conversation with Texas, Alabama, et. al. A good start would be get to the point where we can beat a mediocre Georgia team, and win a bowl game--any bowl game. So far I have seen no guarantee that Coach Johnson can take us to the NEXT "next level."
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+1

Outstanding post.
 
I think GT needs to take care of this level consistently and win bowl games with a good deal of frequency before we get all chippy about the 'next level'
 
Academics, stadium size, and available degree programs (although the first and third are related).

When you have a smaller school (stadium wise), it's harder to succeed. It's also tougher that we have a very spread out fanbase (it reflects well on the global nature of Tech, but doesn't help game attendance). How many perennial national title contenders have stadiums smaller than 70k? None.

Academics will always be a problem, because many great athletes either aren't extremely intelligent or don't see the need for school when they know they are good enough to go pro. Also, degree programs for athletes are lacking. Communications, journalism, sports medicine, etc. are big athlete majors. As far as I know, we don't offer any of those majors.

We can still move up to the top tier (5+ star program), but it will be more difficult for us to do than it would be for some. Right now, I'd say we are a 4 out of 5 stars program (or 4.5 stars out of 6 if you prefer the NCAA video game method). We definitely can break into that top tier in the next 5 years if we continue to recruit well and win big, nationally televised games. In other words, we need CPJ to stick around for 10+ years (preferably long enough that it becomes Dodd-Johnson Stadium at Grant Field).
 
Re: Barriers Can Be Overcome

buzztheirazz said:
whats free substitution?
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Allowing players to be substituted in and out at will. Game change back and forth quite a few times from the late 1800s when everything started until the "modern" (1960s).

Everything from 11 men play whole game with only substitutions because of injury, to can't play in the same half/quarter if you're subbed out. Gave rise to the "specialist" aspect thats not really present in most sports.
 
Lack of Education and Liberal Arts majors. Shut Georgia State down and expand Georgia Tech. They were talking about GSU being closed in our State Legislator yesterday; no money to fund our many state Colleges. This would not hurt Tech's academics but make us more like University of Michigan and others like them with a great engineering and research program but many choices of Majors.
 
Crybabies. Every school has advantages and disadvantages. We have a lot of disadvantages, but we also have advantages of our own, not the least of which are a degree that actually means something, our location inside of a major city, and our relatively easy conference.

There is no reason we don't have just as good of a shot as being a consistently to be a top 10 team as U[sic]GA does.
 
To put Johnson up there with Dodd at this point is a little premature. And Ross was a damn fine coach, he just chose to jump to the NFL when the opportunity arose. While prospects of Johnson leaving to the NFL seem nill, if he were to put us National Title contention it would be hard to hold on to him without outbidding others.
 
I don't think it's academics in the sense that the school is too hard or demands too much time or is too hard to get into, because there are majors at this school that you can take full-time and be a full-time athlete without being a special kid like Bedford. You could compare several of our majors to those taken by SAs at Florida or Oklahoma without question.

I think it's the luster that goes with a dynasty that holds us back. Oklahoma, USC, Florida all play in front of 80,000 fans in stadiums where students aren't guaranteed tickets. You don't have to have a special pride as an alum to want to go to those games, you go because you grew up as a fan of those teams because your family has always been a fan of those teams. As long as GT remains a small, niche school we will not have that same appeal.
 
Interesting that no one mentions the ACC. It's a recruiting advantage in basketball (or has been) and a recruiting disadvantage in football. Some kids from this area just want to play in the SEC.
 
jacketup said:
Interesting that no one mentions the ACC. It's a recruiting advantage in basketball (or has been) and a recruiting disadvantage in football. Some kids from this area just want to play in the SEC.
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Playing in the ACC is an advantage. The conference sucks. It may hurt our recruiting some, but the fact that we don't have to play an SEC team week in and week out more than makes up for it.
 
To what extent is football a priority at the highest level of the institution?
 
See alan71 for thread winner. Johan, when your football team averages some 85-100 points higher on the SAT than your in-state rival, plus has nowhere to hide like the bottom academic half of the rival's players do (you know, the ones who actually play), then your recruiting pool is much smaller. This is especially true in a state with very poor high schools. eg1 also has a good point, regardless of whether you agree it should be higher or not.

If CPJ can demonstrate that we can recruit a legit top 25 two-deep group on BOTH LOS, we will be fine. Otherwise, we will still go 3-7 vs the unwashed and 8-4 or 9-3 in a weak conference. The good news is, imo we will be much better on both LOS by the 2012 season.
 
Maybe it would be nice to have a perennial top 5 team, but once you get there, I don't think you appreciate it as much as a team that performs at that level once every 3 to 4 years. I don't want to be a stick in the mud, but I would love to see Tech compete for the ACC title every year and be respected enough to have the pollsters rank us in the top 25 at the start of every year. When all the pieces come together and we go to a BCS bowl, I'd like to have confidence that we belong there and expect to win. Only 3-4% of div. 1 teams can claim more than that, and I don't think it's realistic to think Tech will be one of those.
 
alan71 said:
Lack of Education and Liberal Arts majors. Shut Georgia State down and expand Georgia Tech. They were talking about GSU being closed in our State Legislator yesterday; no money to fund our many state Colleges. This would not hurt Tech's academics but make us more like University of Michigan and others like them with a great engineering and research program but many choices of Majors.
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That's an excellent idea.
 
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