Attendance Down Significantly (AJC)

Heisman's Ghost

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Yeah, what the hell are you talking about TooTall? lol. This has easily been one of the luckiest Tech teams I’ve ever witnessed and we can’t win more than three games. Who gets three onside kicks in a season? We had four fumbles against Miami and only lost one. Miami had three fumbles and lost all three…and we still lost the game. This team is nowhere close to being 9-1, but keeping telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.


Regarding attendance, what do you guys expect? It’s never been our strong suit and we’ve now sucked for three years. It’s only going to get worse. I have taken a fan of the opposing team twice to a game this year (Pitt and BC). Even though those two are good friends, the initial idea was never to bring opposition to The Flats, but no one else wanted to go this year.
Curious as to what these opposing fans thought about the game, our team, our coaches, the game day experience in general? On the other hand, they may have been too polite to say what they really thought.
 

BleedGoldNWhite21

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Curious as to what these opposing fans thought about the game, our team, our coaches, the game day experience in general? On the other hand, they may have been too polite to say what they really thought.

They both had very positive things to say about Bobby Dodd Stadium. Both thought it was “pretty awesome” to have Power 5 football smack dab in Atlanta. I told them under the lights with a packed house it really is special and they seemed to believe it. This got us on the attendance discussion and they weren’t impressed, but also weren’t overly surprised at the lack of attendance, due to our record the last few years. They both felt the fans were nice(both live in Georgia and hate UGA almost as much as us, which is one reason I’ve become football buddies with them and said we were better than mutts), but one said he felt the atmosphere was a little too much like a baseball game in mid-July, meaning a lot of people were there for the social aspect, ocassionally looking on to see what was going on.

The BC fan said he was glad Johnson retired because they couldn’t beat him. Pitt fan thought Johnson was great at what he did, but he could understand why the program went another direction when he retired. He didn’t think there was an option coach impressive enough for P5 right now, but he thought our decade experiment was ultimately a success and that if another genius TO comes around, someone will give them a chance. They both were a little surprised when I told him Johnson was a little polarizing amongst our fans. The Pitt fan thought we won the Coastal “like five times” with him. Neither had much positive or negative to say about Collins. Everyone expected us to have a bit of a rebuild, but they both agreed that more wins should happen by year three(at the time of the Pitt game, this was more of a optimistic point. At the BC game, this was more of a negative, for obvious reasons). Both seemed to agree if we miss a bowl next year, it is probably best to move on. I pointed out that our irrelevancy causing them to not have very strong opinions of him either way was a negative against him. No one outside of Atlanta knows what we’re even doing the last few years. They both seemed to mostly agree with that, though the BC fan said that might be a good thing overall. If Year 4 does prove to be success, most people around the country will think of us from Option team to Year 4 without any thought of the years in between good or bad. Neither remembered that Collins lost to The Citadel.

Regarding the games themselves, they both thought Gibbs was the real deal, Thacker should be canned and neither knew what offense we were trying to run. I joked with both that I wasn’t sure we knew either.
 

GT_05

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Maybe we should start calling for TStan’s resignation and maybe he will give us CGC as the sacrificial lamb. Seriously though…what could happen that would get you optimistic about next year? Finishing by beating ND and/or the mutts? A stud QB transfer? A new coach? I’m not sure what would get me excited about buying season tickets at this point.
 

Heisman's Ghost

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They both had very positive things to say about Bobby Dodd Stadium. Both thought it was “pretty awesome” to have Power 5 football smack dab in Atlanta. I told them under the lights with a packed house it really is special and they seemed to believe it. This got us on the attendance discussion and they weren’t impressed, but also weren’t overly surprised at the lack of attendance, due to our record the last few years. They both felt the fans were nice(both live in Georgia and hate UGA almost as much as us, which is one reason I’ve become football buddies with them and said we were better than mutts), but one said he felt the atmosphere was a little too much like a baseball game in mid-July, meaning a lot of people were there for the social aspect, ocassionally looking on to see what was going on.

The BC fan said he was glad Johnson retired because they couldn’t beat him. Pitt fan thought Johnson was great at what he did, but he could understand why the program went another direction when he retired. He didn’t think there was an option coach impressive enough for P5 right now, but he thought our decade experiment was ultimately a success and that if another genius TO comes around, someone will give them a chance. They both were a little surprised when I told him Johnson was a little polarizing amongst our fans. The Pitt fan thought we won the Coastal “like five times” with him. Neither had much positive or negative to say about Collins. Everyone expected us to have a bit of a rebuild, but they both agreed that more wins should happen by year three(at the time of the Pitt game, this was more of a optimistic point. At the BC game, this was more of a negative, for obvious reasons). Both seemed to agree if we miss a bowl next year, it is probably best to move on. I pointed out that our irrelevancy causing them to not have very strong opinions of him either way was a negative against him. No one outside of Atlanta knows what we’re even doing the last few years. They both seemed to mostly agree with that, though the BC fan said that might be a good thing overall. If Year 4 does prove to be success, most people around the country will think of us from Option team to Year 4 without any thought of the years in between good or bad. Neither remembered that Collins lost to The Citadel.

Regarding the games themselves, they both thought Gibbs was the real deal, Thacker should be canned and neither knew what offense we were trying to run. I joked with both that I wasn’t sure we knew either.
Thank you for the thought you put into that reply. For some reason, I thought they may have come in from out of state or something but being in Georgia made for an interesting take as well.
 

sgreer

Jolly Good Fellow
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Math - it's our friend. Buyouts suck. The opportunity cost of not doing them at some point brings you to an inflection point. My opinion is that we're there. The UGA game will be really telling. If it's not done this year, a 1-3 or 1-4 start with 20k tickets sold will put the nail in the coffin. Is anyone supremely confident and wants to bet on CGC turning it around ? if you do and you don't hire a DC / HC in waiting then you are looking at a lost season next year anyway. You pay less on the buyout, but you're going to really take a bath on revenue next season. It's why schools pay them, as sickening as they are. IIWII
Maybe Kiffin leaves Ole Miss and Tech can steal that W next season
 

Skeptic

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Guess what. Boston College has very little to no following in the Southeast USA and Georgia Tech is playing crap football. Not much candy for a nickle. No surprise here.

Go Jackets!
Blow off attendance of 31,000 at our peril. I remember clearly a rising tide against Paul Johnson based solely on attendance -- meaning tickets, parking, concessions, programs -- and Johnson never approached that number.
Hopefully it holds true this year!
For those who still think the ACC has some weight, note that mighty Georgia in the mighty SEC has rolled over -- squashed, mauled -- every opponent. Save one. Clemson from the ACC is the only team that has stood toe to toe and slugged it out with them, losing on pick six and giving up only a field goal on defense. The Paul Finebaum's of this world will never mention that.
 

bke1984

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Or, we get the bounces we needed this year to win the close games. Best example is '14 when we got all the bounces and '15 when we did not. Like it or not, we are a few breaks from being 9-1. (Does that mean we are a good team or lucky team?; also a few breaks from being 1-9).
Please don’t try to compare this team to the 2014 team. The “bounces” that year were the difference between 8 wins and 11 wins.

A few breaks from 9-1? Seriously?

NIU - I’ll give you this one - 4-6

Clemson - No break here, just didn’t do enough to win - still 4-6

Pitt - moving on - 4-6

Virginia - we recovered two onside kicks at the end of a game and still would have needed a 2pt just to tie. How many breaks do you need? - 4-6

VT - I guess it would have been a break to convert on 4th instead of running into the back of the line on 4th and 2. If we score we have to get a stop, which we didn’t do right after this. I wouldn’t call any of this a break, again - failure to step up and make a play. 4-6

Miami - we got every break possible and still lose. 4-6

BC - Not sure on this one. We flubbed an xp to the the game. Then let them drive 90 yards to extend the lead. Failure to execute. 4-6

There are no real “bounces” or breaks this year. It’s more like a failure to step up at any point to make a play. Breaks get us to 4-6…MAYBE 5-5 if you want to count VT, but that’s a stretch.

Nowhere even close to 9-1
 

awbuzz

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SCARY REALITY ON HOW FAR INTEREST IN OUR TEAM HAS FALLEN:

The 2007 Boston College at Georgia Tech had an attendance of 51,112 (93% of our 55K seating capacity). This was #15 GT with RB Tashard Choice vs. #21 BC with QB Matt Ryan so “a game that actually mattered” with Chan Gailey as our HC.

19,601 less people (assume mostly GT fans) attended this year’s BC@GT. If the BC game was a $60 ticket, the GTAA lost $1.2 million in ticket revenue this year as compared to back then.

I was there in 2007 and 2021. How many others were? Only 57% of BDS was filled. Who owns that problem? With 6 other home games (I am excluding UGA) that had weak attendance, it appears that $6-7 million in ticket revenues were “lost” in 2021. That’s not chump change - especially over a 5+ year period!
I was there. Matt rained passes against real good GT team that game. He "earned his second ACC Player of the Week award after throwing for a career-high 435 yards in a win at Georgia Tech; completed 30 for 44 passes and one touchdown in the 24-10 victory".
 

TooTall

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Please don’t try to compare this team to the 2014 team. The “bounces” that year were the difference between 8 wins and 11 wins.

A few breaks from 9-1? Seriously?

NIU - I’ll give you this one - 4-6

Clemson - No break here, just didn’t do enough to win - still 4-6

Pitt - moving on - 4-6

Virginia - we recovered two onside kicks at the end of a game and still would have needed a 2pt just to tie. How many breaks do you need? - 4-6

VT - I guess it would have been a break to convert on 4th instead of running into the back of the line on 4th and 2. If we score we have to get a stop, which we didn’t do right after this. I wouldn’t call any of this a break, again - failure to step up and make a play. 4-6

Miami - we got every break possible and still lose. 4-6

BC - Not sure on this one. We flubbed an xp to the the game. Then let them drive 90 yards to extend the lead. Failure to execute. 4-6

There are no real “bounces” or breaks this year. It’s more like a failure to step up at any point to make a play. Breaks get us to 4-6…MAYBE 5-5 if you want to count VT, but that’s a stretch.

Nowhere even close to 9-1
I'm not comparing the us to 2014. I was comparing 2014 & 2015 seasons, one where we lost alot of close ones and one where we won the close ones.

This year we have only lost 1 game by more that 14pts, so yeah, a bounce this way or that way THAT DIDNT HAPPEN "could" have us at 9-1. Or we could be 1-9 using the same metric.

It's called reading comprehension....I believe in you.
 
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GTcanWINagain

Banned
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They shouldn't have spent the money to built it, but I don't see how it would benefit us to spend the money to tear it down.
DISMANTLE THE UPPER NORTH
Should have never built the Wardlaw building in the South End Zone. The old horseshoe structure in the South was both historic to some of our best years and architecturally appealing! The College of Architecture should be ashamed that the North End Zone tower of steel was built to regain the seats lost to bizarre brick monstrosity that looms behind the scoreboard! My 2 cents…
 

GT_05

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I'm not comparing the us to 2014. I was comparing 2014 & 2015 seasons, one where we lost alot 9f close ones and one where we won the close ones.

This year we have only lost 1 game by more that 14pts, so yeah, a bounce this way or that way THAT DIDNT HAPPEN "could" have us at 9-1. Or we could be 1-9.

It's called reading compression....I believe in you.
*comprehension

The Miracle on Techwood was in 2015…a lucky one that went our way. What I really remember about 2015 is that the entire team was hurt. I think the water boy was even on the IR list.
 

forensicbuzz

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I was there. Matt rained passes against real good GT team that game. He "earned his second ACC Player of the Week award after throwing for a career-high 435 yards in a win at Georgia Tech; completed 30 for 44 passes and one touchdown in the 24-10 victory".
He dinked and dunked us to death. I don't think he threw a pass that traveled more than 10 yards N/S in that game. It was the blueprint game to how to beat our defense that year.
 

bobongo

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Should have never built the Wardlaw building in the South End Zone. The old horseshoe structure in the South was both historic to some of our best years and architecturally appealing! The College of Architecture should be ashamed that the North End Zone tower of steel was built to regain the seats lost to bizarre brick monstrosity that looms behind the scoreboard! My 2 cents…
I also found the old horseshoe architecturally appealing, but I believe it was wooden and somewhat dilapidated, according to what I've read. They also weren't very good seats from a viewing standpoint. I never sat in them or even went to Grant Field while they were there, but that's just according to what I've read. I do agree that they had historic and aesthetic appeal. I also concur that the north stands are kind of ugly.
 
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