http://www.ajc.com/gatech/content/sports/gatech/1105/16houston.html Hopefully he’ll either be able to make an impact this year or appeal for a 6th year of eligibility. Anyone road tripping the Miami game. I’ll be flying down there with the team on Friday. Other than the game the trip should be fun. Going out on Miami Friday night and the beach on Saturday.
Cool, except Tech also just extended Chan's contract. You guys are flying out Friday? The small pep band is leaving on a redeye flight sat morning.
We go on the charter plane with the team. Here is an interesting write up about tech football(writting by a recent alum) Here we go... read on if you actually care about GT. It is long but should be worth your time if you want to know the true situation of our program. First of all... where are the facts to prove that UVA is a "lessor" team? They beat FSU who will be playing in the ACC division championship 2 games ago. According to Rivals here are the last 4 recruiting class comparisons as rated by the professionals... Year, UVA National Ranking (ACC Ranking) - GT National Ranking (ACC Ranking) 2005, 14 (3) - 48 (10) 2004, 25 (6) - 35 (8) 2003, 17 (4) - 34 (6) 2002, 10 (2) - 51 (7) I'll be the first to agree that recruiting is not everything, however it has been statistically proven that there is a direct correlation to wins as compared to recruiting rankings. According the the rankings, they should finish somewhere in the top of the conference and we should finish somewhere at the bottom. Strangely, they will finish somewhere in the middle where we are. So, the question is does there coaching staff suck or is ours overachieving in other games? Also take into consideration the following...we lost to a team that was under a must win situation at home in order to become bowl eligible (there next 2 games are versus Miami & VT), where by the way we have not won since 1990 (George O'leary never won there either) and it should be pointed out that in the last 4 years they are like 22 - 4 at home and are undefeated there this year. As you can see if we were to go based solely on recruiting your point is completely wrong and we should stop the conversation here. However, I would like for everyone else who is relatively removed from the program to know the ins and outs of what Chan Gailey and any coach moving forward will have to deal with at GT. 1. We are not UGA, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida State, Florida, Miami, Ohio State, etc. We will never be able to compete with these type of football factories year in and year out. All of these schools are typically the following... State Flagship Universities Have a much larger local fan base Have much broader curriculums to "hide" marginal students Accept JUCO transfers Most still participate in the NCAA "exception rule" which allows them to take up to 2 non-qualifiers a year. They generally accept "student athletes" with the NCAA minimum of 2.0 GPA or 800 SAT. 2. Let's look at GT the last 4 years under Gailey and what we have been through... We lost over that span... Greg Gathers & Tony Hollings to career ending injuries with 2 years each left to play. We have lost numbers of other star starters during that time for large spans at a time including... Nat Dorsey, Daryl Smith, Eric Henderson, Brad Brezina, Daryl Richard, PJ Daniels just to name a few. Injuries are part of the game but due to the kind of kids we can recruit when we lose players to injury it hurts us worse when they are superstars, because we do not have another all-american to plug in. We had another popular successful coach leave here because in his words "They want you to be FSU on Saturday and MIT the rest of the time". Any time you have a coaching transition (Ask Nebraska fans how they feel right now) especially at GT it can be difficult. We still have had winning seasons. On his way out O'leary got caught for resume gate... this not only affected O'leary but also GT. There was a lot of negative recruiting that went on during that time. GT was not put in the best light for a while after that. The next year we lost 11 players roughly 7 starters to academics. All of these players were recruited by the prior coaching staff. Since that time we have lost roughly 5 more who were recruited by the prior coaching staff. This normally kills teams. We were left with no talanted QB's in the cupboard when Gailey arrived. He had to struggle through his first two years here with AJ Suggs or a true freshman starting. We have done exceptional with a true freshman and sophmore at the helm the last two years. Look at Maryland, NC State, FSU & Miami's struggles at the QB position with arguably better talent at the position for those teams. The ACC has added Boston College, Virginia Tech & Miami over the last 2 years which making not only our conference tougher, but two of these teams are in our division and make our schedule tougher. By the way, all of these teams are ranked currently. We were caught with ineligible athletes playing due to the fact that our monitoring department under the last administration screwed up when we switched from quarters to semesters. We reduced our overall recruiting scholarships by 6 last year and 6 this year. Due to the emabarrassment caused to "The Hill" over flunk gate and a new rule among NCAA schools about staying up to date on your hours for graduation or you do not play... as of 2 recruiting classes ago Georgia Tech has instituted it's own policies on recruiting players for athletics. They are as follows...our minimums for student athletes are: They must take 4 years of math in high school There senior year grades do not count towards acceptance at GT (In other words they can't end up qualifying by GT standards their senior year with good grades - either they have them as a junior or we do not start recruiting them) This is huge and possibly the hardest hinderance. Because even the kids who want to come to GT cannot buckle down and get in. We have lost a number of All-American kids (Current player friends & relatives that would have loved to come to GT), but could not get in based on the new rules and have since signed with LSU, Auburn, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida and these are the ones that I know about. We do not recruit kids unless they have a minimum 900 SAT and a 2.5 GPA (Based on old SAT rules). Our average recruit last year had an 1150 SAT and a 3.0 GPA. These restrictions are harder than any other major conference school other than Stanford including Duke & Vanderbilt. Just in case you missed that. As of the past 2 recruiting classes we now have the hardest academic restrictions in the ACC including harder than Duke. On top of that once the kids get in school according to O'leary "we have no where to hide them at GT". Meaning our curriculum is so narrow there are no easy majors at GT. If anyone would like to hear more on this ask me about the Craig Sager story at a recent Touchdown club that I attended. I could go on and on about this, but ultimately you have to consider the following... Do you want 2-3 years of high success if we are lucky (8 - 10 wins) followed by a coaching change and 5-8 years of rebuilding and losing or do you want to go to a bowl every year and every so often have everything come together for a magical (8-10) win season? The first is true if we fire Gailey and hire the next great thing and that is if the next great thing will come here and then there is always the possibility he will turn into Bill Lewis? The second is true if we keep Gailey and let him build the program under the unfortunate restrictions. It will take more time, however we are building more depth under Gailey than I have ever seen at Georgia Tech under any coach. Our recruiting is not being recognized but we are getting kids that will stay in the program, are not thugs and many of them are diamonds in the rough that are coaching staff is getting the absolute most out of. Just a couple notes on this... Bobby Ross did not have a winning season until his 4th year, he won 7 games, 11 games & 8 games and then bolted, Bill Curry a GT alumni who played under Bobby Dodd coming off of 2 straight winning seasons at GT was offered the job at Alabama. He called coach Dodd and Dodd told him to take the Alabama job because it would be much easier to win there. He said that you will never be able to win consistently at GT with the way the academics were at that time. George Oleary left for the same reasons (FSU on Saturday MIT the rest of the week). When Ralph Freidgen took the Maryland job he said that he loved GT, but Maryland had much more potential because of a larger local fan base, a much broader curriculum, easier recruiting options in an area that was not as heavily recruited. We will never be able to keep great coaches at GT. It is too hard to win here consistently and this is widely known throughout college football. This job is viewed as a great stepping stone, because if you can win at GT you can win anywhere. Yet we are one of 8 teams (soon to be 7) that have gone to 9 straight bowls. In the last 25 years GT has had 12 seasons of 7 wins or more. Chan Gailey has 3 of those and could have 4 of those at the end of this year. He is doing it at a time when academics for recruiting have never been more stringent and our schedule has never been harder, and our chief rival has not been stronger. Look at the other teams on the list of 8 - Georgia Tech, Georgia, Michigan, Florida State, Tennessee(may not be there at the end of the year), Purdue(will not be there at the end of the year), Florida & Virginia Tech. Of those teams only 3 have had coaching changes and continued there streak. That is incredible company and think about some of the teams not on this list... Miami, Notre Dame, USC, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Auburn everyone else in the ACC, SEC, etc. Do you see my point? Incredible. It has never been harder to be a coach at GT. Imagine trying to do your job with these type of handcuffs on.
We are not the type school that by birth right we should win 10 games a year. We are GT. We are not a football factory. We are an academic school that has to scrape, scratch and claw for every win. Our coaches have done a heck of a job. When you know the truth you should be extremely proud of where we are. Do I wish that we would win 10 games a year. Heck yes! Is it realistic? Heck no. Why do you want to fire this coach? Do we have 1 win? Are we having a losing season? Has he had A losing season? No, No, & No. Complaining is easy. Understanding and supporting is the hard part. I know my choice. Clearly you are allowed your uninformed choice as well. Consider yourself informed, perhaps it will change your mind. If not, cheer for Florida State maybe they have what you are looking for - oh wait they got blown out this week by a team we beat 2 weeks ago. Not trying to be harsh, just showing you a realistic and different perspective on our program and what a coach must go through at GT. I for one am excited and encouraged at the thought of having Gailey as our football coach until he retires, but perhaps that is just me.
I sent it to one of my friends that goes to UGA. He's a big colege football buff and even has his own talkshow about it on some local station in athens. This was his response. _______________________________________________________________ I agree with alot of what he says. One thing he doesn't point out is Tech's inability to remain consistent. The thing I think that bothers many tech fans(this is an assumption since I'm sure you know more about this than I do) is that you'll beat Auburn at Jordan-Hare then you'll get beat by a not so good NC State team at home. This inconsistency reflects on the coaching staff, it is their responsibilty to get the players ready for EVERY opponent. This inconsistency has plagued Chan's teams from his first year onward (duke in 03, north car. 04, nc state 05). If Gailey's teams stopped losing games they shouldn't I don't think there would be such a division over whether or not to support him. Of course getting OWNED EVERY YEAR by them hairy dawgs from Athens doesn't help either(sorry had to write it). Hope everything else is good on the Flats, I'll see you Thanksgiving break. Have fun in Miami you lucky bastard.
The inconsistency is what makes my blood boil, I don't expect a 10 win season, but only to win the games we should. Chan does an ok job and the team is getting better, but I wish he could motivate his players better. Evidence was the 1st quarter of the UVA game. We looked like hell the first 2 drives and then all of the sudden we started playing???? Of course its not all Chan's fault, heck he has to deal with #1.