Can we stay competitive in the NIL era?

[GoldZ]

You are correct. We are structurally unsound as is. The successful programs are backed by the academic side, the school President, their state board of regents, usually the Governor, the alum, sidewalk fans, and the local media. Of those GT has half of one - the sports minded alum. We are right where our academic side, our school president, the board of regents, and the local media wants us to be - wandering from coach to coach decade after decade and not raising any issues for the real program in our state.

This. Sad but true. Without Tech's version of Oregon's Phil Knight, or an Homer Rice type AD who will offer atypical benefits, even temporarily, to some 20,000 supporters to cough up a grand, I fear NIL and Free Agency will be the proverbial nails in our coffin. The game is passing us by and it started in the 60s (no, not our sec withdrawal).
A program in our situation who can't even scrounge up 20,000 fans/supporters that would fit in the North stands to donate a $1,000 to possibly save the program, in addition to what they now do, doesn't have a chance to survive in what is now a diseased cFB world.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

It is not now diseased. Been diseased for decades. Fans are just now reading the diagnosis and waking up because they are led by the media. The media didn’t talk about it before so fans followed like cattle. Now the media acts like the sport is falling and the fans again like cattle are being led by the media. NIL has nothing to do with GT’s fall. GT is to blame for their own fall. And college football is not dying at all. If anything the future will be brighter, at least for the schools who want to take part. GT stopped taking part a long time ago.

 

[GoldZ]

It is not now diseased. Been diseased for decades. Fans are just now reading the diagnosis and waking up because they are led by the media. The media didn’t talk about it before so fans followed like cattle. Now the media acts like the sport is falling and the fans again like cattle are being led by the media. NIL has nothing to do with GT’s fall. GT is to blame for their own fall. And college football is not dying at all. If anything the future will be brighter, at least for the schools who want to take part. GT stopped taking part a long time ago.

The disease of today is far far greater than the disease of yesteryear. A lot of people have made CFB a very important part of their life and have very well kept up with it's status. Therefore, they know good and well, it is sicker now than at any time in the past. Maybe a portion of those under 50 fall into the category you describe, but most who knew what CFB was about decades ago, knew it was not perfect, but compared to recent times and most certainly after NIL/Free Agency, it was much much better before. Everything is relative.
Agree with Tech's own undoing, but what's happening now greatly accentuates it. Your definition of college football must be significantly different than mine, because it's damned well dead to me. Of course, we may be different ages and have different perspectives. If you think the future will be brighter, then you must be talking about the level of play for a much smaller group of schools, and not the college aspect of the game. CFB has most of my lifetime been a LOT larger than 30 or so schools. cFB is NFL Lite. CBR, CGOL, and CPJ weren't that long ago, but Tech's structure as outlined in your earlier post, combined with activism and metooism, has imo added up to a dicey future for GT football.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

The disease of today is far far greater than the disease of yesteryear. A lot of people have made CFB a very important part of their life and have very well kept up with it's status. Therefore, they know good and well, it is sicker now than at any time in the past. Maybe a portion of those under 50 fall into the category you describe, but most who knew what CFB was about decades ago, knew it was not perfect, but compared to recent times and most certainly after NIL/Free Agency, it was much much better before. Everything is relative.
Agree with Tech's own undoing, but what's happening now greatly accentuates it. Your definition of college football must be significantly different than mine, because it's damned well dead to me. Of course, we may be different ages and have different perspectives. If you think the future will be brighter, then you must be talking about the level of play for a much smaller group of schools, and not the college aspect of the game. CFB has most of my lifetime been a LOT larger than 30 or so schools. cFB is NFL Lite. CBR, CGOL, and CPJ weren't that long ago, but Tech's structure as outlined in your earlier post, combined with activism and metooism, has imo added up to a dicey future for GT football.

I feel you and hear you. I’m 52. I was 10 when I realized college football was a sham because I had relatives in high school football circles who openly talked about UGA buying Herschel. As a 10 year old I simply asked how they could just buy a player. I was then explained the truth. When I became a GT student my angst grew at the hypocrisy of it all when I was in class with players who were quasi literate and definitely not GT student material. I cheered them all because winning is fun and I fully understood why schools play the pretend student-athlete game.

As to your point I simply disagree. People are lemmings and are once again being led by the media. And who are these pundits ypu put all your faith in? They are media people looking for clicks. Sure, Saban and many others don’t like it because NIL levels the playing field against their money laundering operations. I find it laughable they are mad at Jimbo and Riley for playing the game of NIL better than they are so far. And we all see the media piling on those two. In 2 years from now all this hysteria will be died down, the media will have moved on and I predict Bama and Clemson will be buying top tier recruiting classes because their fanbases expect it. And the media won’t vilify them like they are Jimbo and Riley.

And the future is brighter because all the cheating and hypocrisy is being exposed by NIL. That is a great thing. A school like GT will definitely be playing at a lower level than those who buy players but that’s fine by me. At least I won’t have to spend every season watching my team play and lose to teams playing a different sport. I’m 52 years old which means I probably have about 34 GT football seasons where I watched my team have little to no chance against the big boys. Sure, upsets happen from time to time but I am one GT fan who is glad that all this is being exposed and changes are forthcoming. Nobody cared when GT’s 11 were going against 11 bought players by UGA. Now, people are paying attention which will lead to a better sport. I look forward to fall Saturdays of watching GT play NC State and then watching the big boys play each other. That will be way more enjoyable than watching GT get waxed by Clemson or NC state getting waxed by another buyer.

 

[Billygoat91]

Just listened to the latest Late Kick episode where he was discussing Lane Kiffin's take on NIL and he brought up a good point. He asked what was going to happen to the coaches that were A+ recruiters but C level X's and O's guys because recruiting is increasingly becoming an NIL and money game. I can't help but feel as if CGC falls into this boat and it is a pertinent question. I sometimes think CGC was a hire we should have made in 2007 whereas CPJ is the hire we should have today.. we don't have the NIL infrastructure to recruit top level talent nor keep our talent here. Scheme is now definitely the way to go because we are armed with a knife in a gun fight.... that and our top guys in an unorthodox system won't be poached as easily.

Time will tell, though. I have to say that this has been a super quiet offseason from our coaches. Let's hope a lot of teaching and scheme development is going on so the staff has a leg up coming into the season

 

[GoldZ]

I feel you and hear you. I’m 52. I was 10 when I realized college football was a sham because I had relatives in high school football circles who openly talked about UGA buying Herschel. As a 10 year old I simply asked how they could just buy a player. I was then explained the truth. When I became a GT student my angst grew at the hypocrisy of it all when I was in class with players who were quasi literate and definitely not GT student material. I cheered them all because winning is fun and I fully understood why schools play the pretend student-athlete game.

As to your point I simply disagree. People are lemmings and are once again being led by the media. And who are these pundits ypu put all your faith in? They are media people looking for clicks. Sure, Saban and many others don’t like it because NIL levels the playing field against their money laundering operations. I find it laughable they are mad at Jimbo and Riley for playing the game of NIL better than they are so far. And we all see the media piling on those two. In 2 years from now all this hysteria will be died down, the media will have moved on and I predict Bama and Clemson will be buying top tier recruiting classes because their fanbases expect it. And the media won’t vilify them like they are Jimbo and Riley.

And the future is brighter because all the cheating and hypocrisy is being exposed by NIL. That is a great thing. A school like GT will definitely be playing at a lower level than those who buy players but that’s fine by me. At least I won’t have to spend every season watching my team play and lose to teams playing a different sport. I’m 52 years old which means I probably have about 34 GT football seasons where I watched my team have little to no chance against the big boys. Sure, upsets happen from time to time but I am one GT fan who is glad that all this is being exposed and changes are forthcoming. Nobody cared when GT’s 11 were going against 11 bought players by UGA. Now, people are paying attention which will lead to a better sport. I look forward to fall Saturdays of watching GT play NC State and then watching the big boys play each other. That will be way more enjoyable than watching GT get waxed by Clemson or NC state getting waxed by another buyer.

When drinking was finally made legal, did more or less drinking take place? There's your answer about NIL.

No team at any point had players who were the equal of regular students. After the 60s it was much worse. Tech at one point had the highest SAT scores among football players in the Nation among public schools. Uga's best player on the team couldn't read past a 3rd grade level in 2016. Do you actually believe players are going to be more academically qualified because of NIL/TP?

The people I was referring to were not lemmings about college football. They saw it for what it was...flawed. Those same people (I'm 72), see it now as much worse. Legalizing bagmen does not make them a source of enlightenment. Nor do fake online courses. "Paying attention" will not change spit, but it will make the highest bidders have an even greater upper hand than before. Enjoy your new "sport".

 

[Vespidae]

When drinking was finally made legal, did more or less drinking take place? There's your answer about NIL.

No team at any point had players who were the equal of regular students. After the 60s it was much worse. Tech at one point had the highest SAT scores among football players in the Nation among public schools. Uga's best player on the team couldn't read past a 3rd grade level in 2016. Do you actually believe players are going to be more academically qualified because of NIL/TP?

The people I was referring to were not lemmings about college football. They saw it for what it was...flawed. Those same people (I'm 72), see it now as much worse. Legalizing bagmen does not make them a source of enlightenment. Nor do fake online courses. "Paying attention" will not change spit, but it will make the highest bidders have an even greater upper hand than before. Enjoy your new "sport".

I think of NIL changing college sports much like free agency did for MLB. I can envision to the top teams paying top $ for the best recruits, but they can't get everybody ... there's a limit. So, smaller schools will become a developmental league ... e.g., can't get into Texas A&M? Go to Tech for 2 years, put on 20 lbs, get some experience and ... transfer.

I doubt very seriously we will have players who play all four years (if they are any good). There's going to be the Yankees and the Brewers. We are the Brewers.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

When drinking was finally made legal, did more or less drinking take place? There's your answer about NIL.

No team at any point had players who were the equal of regular students. After the 60s it was much worse. Tech at one point had the highest SAT scores among football players in the Nation among public schools. Uga's best player on the team couldn't read past a 3rd grade level in 2016. Do you actually believe players are going to be more academically qualified because of NIL/TP?

The people I was referring to were not lemmings about college football. They saw it for what it was...flawed. Those same people (I'm 72), see it now as much worse. Legalizing bagmen does not make them a source of enlightenment. Nor do fake online courses. "Paying attention" will not change spit, but it will make the highest bidders have an even greater upper hand than before. Enjoy your new "sport".

So what you are saying is that you enjoyed the era of bagmen and under the table cash and watching every high level GT recruit get poached by cash the week before signing day. Its folks like you who allowed the corrupt NCAA to continue year after year because you had your head stuck in the sand. I like NIL because now it’s all out in the open. You want Trevor Lawrence as your QB then pay up. No more of this BS recruiting dance and fake crap when we all know he is going to the highest bidder anyway.

And why does anyone ever mention academics like you mentioned SAT scores. Neither have been relevant in college sports for years. Who cares what GT’s players average SAT score or UGA’s or Bama’s. No one watches a sports event for that stuff. That is nothing but code for you accepting losing by your team. I use to say it too until I realized all having quasi literate players did was make us lose. I like ypur passion but you are living in a world that hasn’t existed for many decades. The sport you love hasn’t been around for a long time even though you’ve been fooling yourself. I will enjoy the future of college football because now at least when my team gets blown out they can put up a nice graphic of our NIL vs our opponents NIL. I don’t recall the media ever doing that with under the table money. The hypocrisy is now exposed.

 

[JacketFan137]

people need to stop saying “college football is becoming the nfl!” awful point to make. college football becoming the nfl would be amazing because there’s a salary cap and the league has actual parity. it’s wayyyy past the nfl now. this is complete free market with zero checks and balances. the rich just getting richer

 

[GoldZ]

So what you are saying is that you enjoyed the era of bagmen and under the table cash and watching every high level GT recruit get poached by cash the week before signing day. Its folks like you who allowed the corrupt NCAA to continue year after year because you had your head stuck in the sand. I like NIL because now it’s all out in the open. You want Trevor Lawrence as your QB then pay up. No more of this BS recruiting dance and fake crap when we all know he is going to the highest bidder anyway.

And why does anyone ever mention academics like you mentioned SAT scores. Neither have been relevant in college sports for years. Who cares what GT’s players average SAT score or UGA’s or Bama’s. No one watches a sports event for that stuff. That is nothing but code for you accepting losing by your team. I use to say it too until I realized all having quasi literate players did was make us lose. I like ypur passion but you are living in a world that hasn’t existed for many decades. The sport you love hasn’t been around for a long time even though you’ve been fooling yourself. I will enjoy the future of college football because now at least when my team gets blown out they can put up a nice graphic of our NIL vs our opponents NIL. I don’t recall the media ever doing that with under the table money. The hypocrisy is now exposed.

If you knew me, which you certainly don't, it may dawn on you that I don't fool myself much. The hypocrisy hasn't been exposed, because bagmen were known about by us lemmings. Rather than exposed, it's been made legal, which means a LOT more of it will go on now. If it bothered you so much before, why are you so thrilled about a tremendous increase in it now!? Hypocrisy, huh? Maybe the thing to have done was reduce it while it was illegal, which many of us lemmings were in support of. Now that it is legal, you will not enjoy the new college football. You may or may not enjoy NFL Lite, technically played on college campuses, but it won't have any semblance of "college" in it.
My passion comes from a sport that having played it for many years, changed my life for the better. Was it flawed? For sure. Was it a relatively more level playing field then? For sure. Being legal or being new, does not equate to being better, but you seem to think it does. We will have to agree to disagree.

 

[AlabamaBuzz]

I think of NIL changing college sports much like free agency did for MLB. I can envision to the top teams paying top $ for the best recruits, but they can't get everybody ... there's a limit. So, smaller schools will become a developmental league ... e.g., can't get into Texas A&M? Go to Tech for 2 years, put on 20 lbs, get some experience and ... transfer.

I doubt very seriously we will have players who play all four years (if they are any good). There's going to be the Yankees and the Brewers. We are the Brewers.

The Brewers can catch lighting in a bottle once every decade or 2, but we will not. I think using a baseball analogy, we are closer to the Rome Braves. Again, I would rather compete with teams in a lesser division than try to do this ridiculous exercise.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

If you knew me, which you certainly don't, it may dawn on you that I don't fool myself much. The hypocrisy hasn't been exposed, because bagmen were known about by us lemmings. Rather than exposed, it's been made legal, which means a LOT more of it will go on now. If it bothered you so much before, why are you so thrilled about a tremendous increase in it now!? Hypocrisy, huh? Maybe the thing to have done was reduce it while it was illegal, which many of us lemmings were in support of. Now that it is legal, you will not enjoy the new college football. You may or may not enjoy NFL Lite, technically played on college campuses, but it won't have any semblance of "college" in it.
My passion comes from a sport that having played it for many years, changed my life for the better. Was it flawed? For sure. Was it a relatively more level playing field then? For sure. Being legal or being new, does not equate to being better, but you seem to think it does. We will have to agree to disagree.

Yeah, we just disagree. I get what you are saying. A little cheating is ok but a lot of cheating is bad. We probably agree on 99% of this stuff. I just don’t see what the difference is between NIL and what Bama and UGA have built the past decade. Those two teams used the under the table way to build NFL rosters. Where is the parity in that? The only difference today than how Bama and UGA built their teams with bagmen is that the bagmen don’t have to hide now. I believe NIL will bring more parity than what we’ve seen with Bama, UGA, and Ohio St signing all the top guys. We haven’t had parity in decades.

Regarding our GT team, we are hosed in either system whether it invoked a little cheating or a lot of cheating. So, yes, I will continue to enjoy college football like I always have. I will root for GT in the games that don’t matter category and I’ll root for the underdog in the games people actually care about. I feel bad for fans like you who have just woken up. Welcome to my world since Herschel. You get use to it and every once in a while we’ll luck up with a decent defense and a legit QB to win some games.

 

[JacketFan137]

Yeah, we just disagree. I get what you are saying. A little cheating is ok but a lot of cheating is bad. We probably agree on 99% of this stuff. I just don’t see what the difference is between NIL and what Bama and UGA have built the past decade. Those two teams used the under the table way to build NFL rosters. Where is the parity in that? The only difference today than how Bama and UGA built their teams with bagmen is that the bagmen don’t have to hide now. I believe NIL will bring more parity than what we’ve seen with Bama, UGA, and Ohio St signing all the top guys. We haven’t had parity in decades.

Regarding our GT team, we are hosed in either system whether it invoked a little cheating or a lot of cheating. So, yes, I will continue to enjoy college football like I always have. I will root for GT in the games that don’t matter category and I’ll root for the underdog in the games people actually care about. I feel bad for fans like you who have just woken up. Welcome to my world since Herschel. You get use to it and every once in a while we’ll luck up with a decent defense and a legit QB to win some games.

yeah i think the ceiling for a school like us is one miracle run a decade or so. at least that’s been our pace. we had 2 years we got it right since 2000 in 2009 and 2014. it took a perfect whirlwind of every player peaking at the right time, defense playing above their talent and having a true game changer at qb. we were great then immediately followed up those years with massively disappointing seasons.

to have sustained success over several years hasn’t seemed like something in the cards for us in a long time

 

[wesgt123]

So what you are saying is that you enjoyed the era of bagmen and under the table cash and watching every high level GT recruit get poached by cash the week before signing day. Its folks like you who allowed the corrupt NCAA to continue year after year because you had your head stuck in the sand. I like NIL because now it’s all out in the open. You want Trevor Lawrence as your QB then pay up. No more of this BS recruiting dance and fake crap when we all know he is going to the highest bidder anyway.

And why does anyone ever mention academics like you mentioned SAT scores. Neither have been relevant in college sports for years. Who cares what GT’s players average SAT score or UGA’s or Bama’s. No one watches a sports event for that stuff. That is nothing but code for you accepting losing by your team. I use to say it too until I realized all having quasi literate players did was make us lose. I like ypur passion but you are living in a world that hasn’t existed for many decades. The sport you love hasn’t been around for a long time even though you’ve been fooling yourself. I will enjoy the future of college football because now at least when my team gets blown out they can put up a nice graphic of our NIL vs our opponents NIL. I don’t recall the media ever doing that with under the table money. The hypocrisy is now exposed.

Here, here. I couldn’t care less what the players grades are or how smart they are.

Just win some damn games.

 

[RamblinRed]

I've been in the mode of lets just blow up CFB and start over for a good half a decade or more.
Like a couple of others said, I understand where GT is and understand where all this is headed. Let's just get to a place where the teams that just want to operate professionally can do so and those that have a little different model in mind can do that as well.

NIL will create more separation not less. It will create a level where maybe 20-25 schools are really going to play the game and all the others need to do something else.
As another poster said, the current CFB isn't even a "professional" sport like like the NFL, NBA, MLB or others, it is basically pure capitalism without any real rules or regulations. Any 'pure' system without an agreed upon set of rules is not actually a system (or a game) - it is just chaos. That's why every system, be it an economic system, a political system, etc. has to have rules (or laws).

 

[GoldZ]

Yeah, we just disagree. I get what you are saying. A little cheating is ok but a lot of cheating is bad. We probably agree on 99% of this stuff. I just don’t see what the difference is between NIL and what Bama and UGA have built the past decade. Those two teams used the under the table way to build NFL rosters. Where is the parity in that? The only difference today than how Bama and UGA built their teams with bagmen is that the bagmen don’t have to hide now. I believe NIL will bring more parity than what we’ve seen with Bama, UGA, and Ohio St signing all the top guys. We haven’t had parity in decades.

Regarding our GT team, we are hosed in either system whether it invoked a little cheating or a lot of cheating. So, yes, I will continue to enjoy college football like I always have. I will root for GT in the games that don’t matter category and I’ll root for the underdog in the games people actually care about. I feel bad for fans like you who have just woken up. Welcome to my world since Herschel. You get use to it and every once in a while we’ll luck up with a decent defense and a legit QB to win some games.

The difference in what Bama and Uga did before, and are about to do, is degree (in a big way). If you didn't enjoy post Herschel Tech football during the Ross, O'Leary, and Johnson tenures, because as you say, the game was flawed, and yet you will look forward to playing Furman and Kennesaw State when the game is even more flawed, then who is it that has just woken, and who is it that has yet to become woke? How does the rich getting richer improve parity? If your answer is the rich playing the rich and the poor playing the poor, then get ready for Tech dropping the game altogether after HBDS draws 15,000 fans, most of which will be rabid Purple Paladin fans from Greenville.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

I've been in the mode of lets just blow up CFB and start over for a good half a decade or more.
Like a couple of others said, I understand where GT is and understand where all this is headed. Let's just get to a place where the teams that just want to operate professionally can do so and those that have a little different model in mind can do that as well.

NIL will create more separation not less. It will create a level where maybe 20-25 schools are really going to play the game and all the others need to do something else.
As another poster said, the current CFB isn't even a "professional" sport like like the NFL, NBA, MLB or others, it is basically pure capitalism without any real rules or regulations. Any 'pure' system without an agreed upon set of rules is not actually a system (or a game) - it is just chaos. That's why every system, be it an economic system, a political system, etc. has to have rules (or laws).

Yeah, I think we all believe this. You’ve been wanting it blown up half a decade. I’ve wanted it blown up since around 1980. It’s not going to get blown up. It will morph a little just like it did with the BCS, playoffs, and TV money.

In your 2nd paragraph you just described college football for the past 40 years so I don’t understand why NIL is suddenly the boogey man. The best part of NIL is that it has woken the masses but we all know the sport is now run by TV execs so the masses have little sway.

I see the future as the top teams breaking away and taking the money and TV rights with them. Teams like GT will be playing on streaming services with less than 20,000 in the stands. In other words, the top tier will be what it is now and those not willing to play the game will become the new Valdosta States. I hope we are in the top tier but it sounds like our own fans don’t want us to be.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

The difference in what Bama and Uga did before, and are about to do, is degree (in a big way). If you didn't enjoy post Herschel Tech football during the Ross, O'Leary, and Johnson tenures, because as you say, the game was flawed, and yet you will look forward to playing Furman and Kennesaw State when the game is even more flawed, then who is it that has just woken, and who is it that has yet to become woke? How does the rich getting richer improve parity? If your answer is the rich playing the rich and the poor playing the poor, then get ready for Tech dropping the game altogether after HBDS draws 15,000 fans, most of which will be rabid Purple Paladin fans from Greenville.

We agree here. That is where we are heading. Listen, sure I enjoyed some years and some games as we all did. But, you and I both knew going into each season that we had no shot in many games because they were using bagmen and we weren’t. Lord knows I wish we were so we could have had some Cam Newton’s and Roquan Smiths on our rosters. Look at this coming season. We have zero chance to beat Clemson, UGA, and Ole Miss. None. No matter how much optimism we can find we are losing those 3 games because they have bought and paid for players. We don’t. How is that fun? I will absolutely enjoy us playing the Furmans and Kennesaw States in the future because at least those programs are playing the same sport. Watching GT get clubbed by those buying players isn’t fun at all and leads to the famous NBC graphic.

What I wish is that previous GT admins had actually used bagmen to keep us relevant so we wouldn’t have to worry about playing KSU and Furman. But we all know what our future is because the admin has been telling us with their silence. When we look back in 20 years we will see many programs who fell off the map because they chose not to play the game (GT) and you’ll see many who used NIL as a springboard to become relevant again (see USC as a year 1 example bringing in a Heisman caliber QB). Did we offer a contract to Riley? Did we offer money to Williams? I’m sure we didn’t just like we haven’t. And hence here we are watching a program on a death spiral.

 

[GoldZ]

We agree here. That is where we are heading. Listen, sure I enjoyed some years and some games as we all did. But, you and I both knew going into each season that we had no shot in many games because they were using bagmen and we weren’t. Lord knows I wish we were so we could have had some Cam Newton’s and Roquan Smiths on our rosters. Look at this coming season. We have zero chance to beat Clemson, UGA, and Ole Miss. None. No matter how much optimism we can find we are losing those 3 games because they have bought and paid for players. We don’t. How is that fun? I will absolutely enjoy us playing the Furmans and Kennesaw States in the future because at least those programs are playing the same sport. Watching GT get clubbed by those buying players isn’t fun at all and leads to the famous NBC graphic.

What I wish is that previous GT admins had actually used bagmen to keep us relevant so we wouldn’t have to worry about playing KSU and Furman. But we all know what our future is because the admin has been telling us with their silence. When we look back in 20 years we will see many programs who fell off the map because they chose not to play the game (GT) and you’ll see many who used NIL as a springboard to become relevant again (see USC as a year 1 example bringing in a Heisman caliber QB). Did we offer a contract to Riley? Did we offer money to Williams? I’m sure we didn’t just like we haven’t. And hence here we are watching a program on a death spiral.

Yes, we do agree on a great deal of this. The survival of the scale down approach to the KSU/Furman level depends a lot on the timing. For that to have a chance in hades, a great many supporters like myself would have to die off. The youngsters will show up for the small ball way more than those with a memory of CBD, CBR, CGOL, and CPJ. 15-20k in HBDS is not sustainable. The good news for the small ball fans is: we are dying off rapidly. I've posted before on different contexts, Gawd this World is soon gonna really miss my parents' WWII generation. New, modern, and change in general, is not always an improvement.

 

[JacketFan137]

We agree here. That is where we are heading. Listen, sure I enjoyed some years and some games as we all did. But, you and I both knew going into each season that we had no shot in many games because they were using bagmen and we weren’t. Lord knows I wish we were so we could have had some Cam Newton’s and Roquan Smiths on our rosters. Look at this coming season. We have zero chance to beat Clemson, UGA, and Ole Miss. None. No matter how much optimism we can find we are losing those 3 games because they have bought and paid for players. We don’t. How is that fun? I will absolutely enjoy us playing the Furmans and Kennesaw States in the future because at least those programs are playing the same sport. Watching GT get clubbed by those buying players isn’t fun at all and leads to the famous NBC graphic.

What I wish is that previous GT admins had actually used bagmen to keep us relevant so we wouldn’t have to worry about playing KSU and Furman. But we all know what our future is because the admin has been telling us with their silence. When we look back in 20 years we will see many programs who fell off the map because they chose not to play the game (GT) and you’ll see many who used NIL as a springboard to become relevant again (see USC as a year 1 example bringing in a Heisman caliber QB). Did we offer a contract to Riley? Did we offer money to Williams? I’m sure we didn’t just like we haven’t. And hence here we are watching a program on a death spiral.

question, do you watch college football at all? we lost to clemson on the road by 6 with our backup qb. ole miss last season had their first winning season with a record above .500 since 2017 and just had a qb taken in the 3rd round. uga i will give you but to say we don’t have a chance in those games is a pretty major stretch

you also aren’t gonna attract a coach like riley anyway based on the talent we had on the roster. usc even though they haven’t had great records has players littered all over the nfl still.

gt dropping down to play with ksu and furman would probably end gt football because we sure as hell aren’t making close to enough money to sustain the team unless we are in p5