71 Years of GT Football - A Comparison

GTNavyNuke

GTNavyNuke

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collegeballfan said:
In today's football and academic climate at GT Bobby Dodd would be fired after three years.
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True, he admitted to cheating on classes at Tennessee and not going to a bunch of classes. O'Leary did a lot less and got canned at ND before he started.

But from all I've read, Dodd made the players go to class, do their own work and was a disciplinarian. So people can change and Dodd apparently did.
 
Northeast Stinger

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collegeballfan said:
In today's football and academic climate at GT Bobby Dodd would be fired after three years.
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Well, to be more precise, he would never even be in positionof being hired today. Dodd saw where recruiting was headed and he got out while he still had his legacy intact. I honestly believe he was hoping a younger coach could figure out a way around the mounting obstacles Tech was facing. Little did he now those obstacles would get exponentially worse with each passing decade.
 

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dressedcheeseside said:
A couple of observations:

1. I found it interesting that you commented that Dodd's success was in a different time than O'Leary's and Johnson's. I agree and I'd add that even O'Leary's time was very different than now. It is much more difficult to bring in and keep borderline academic students to GT now than in the 90's. A little thing called APR happened.

Ironically, along with ensuring a quality academic opportunity for SA's, it was supposed to help level the playing field between the factories and everybody else. It fails miserably on both counts and actually widens the divide in talent dispersal. Academic schools (can't believe I just typed that) with no place to "hide" SA's can no longer keep non-academically interested students in developmental studies till their eligibility expires.
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Well that and O'Leary took some shortcuts that led to us being put on probation for academic failures (slash loss of institutional control). We got away with a LOT more then than we do now.

Not to mention that, while I loved O'Leary as a coach, he isn't the most standup individual out there (why didn't he get the Notre Dame job again). Very salty individual who may or may not have put booze in his coffee before practice.

CPJ is just as salty, but he's a pretty damn standup guy, especially with the track record at Navy. The only thing I think he hates more than losing would be winning but doing it the wrong way.
 

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iceeater1969 said:
I realized how far I am in the minority of we should expect and demand success (9 win) and how large the percentage of base is that embraces - that's all we can do - see Lewis, Rodgers, fuel her, - look at the base.

I argued that even if we have sucess this year we would not win over the " can't expect to win more than 7-8 games crowd " unless we kept winning into 2015 with a new cast on offense. I felt we should wait till mid season to decide on "is this the system and staff " ? - if we do great in 15 (freshman AB are fine in offense and we don't need 5th year AB who can perfectly block) would cement even guys like atomic.
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Not too long ago we were hoping to elevate our program to more than 7 wins a year. We've had 8 or more wins in 4 of CPJs 7 seasons. Gailey did that once in 6 seasons. O'Leary did it 3 in 6 seasons. Lewis none. Ross twice in 5. Curry once. Rodgers/Fulcher 0 and Carson once. Granted, it was fewer games, but Dodd only one 8 or more once in his last 10 seasons.

So since the 1956 season we've won 8 or more games 13 times.

Raise that to 9 wins? In that last 60 years that'd be 1966; 1970; 1985; 1990; 1998; 2000; 2006; 2008-2009; 2014.

So while I like the optimism and hope we get there, demanding 9 wins a season is a bit excessive. That said, we've done it 4 times in the last 10 years, so things are looking up.
 
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