Collins says players have 'chip on their shoulder'

[SOWEGA Jacket]

That’s not money from the school. UGA and LSU and Alabama aren’t diverting academic funds to players. That’s booster activity. For cars, it’s usually a car dealer. I don’t think a lot of our grads have car dealerships.

We probably have an edge if someone wants a few lasers, nice laptops, and 3D printers that slipped out the back door. Maybe we can get them some NFTs, DogeCoin, and Fortnite items.

How do you know those schools aren’t fixing the books? This is big time money and big time quasi professional sports. If you don’t think people bend rules or misappropriate funds for other reasons then I don’t know what to say. There are hundreds of ways to turn lasers, 3D printers, etc into chargers. The problem many posters have is they still believe in the tooth fairy. Higher education and athletics are every bit as corrupt as the five families. If GT wanted to get better in athletics it is easy enough to do. You just gotta be willing to play the same game as the successful teams. So far, GT would rather blame their fans than do what it takes.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

How do you know those schools aren’t fixing the books? This is big time money and big time quasi professional sports. If you don’t think people bend rules or misappropriate funds for other reasons then I don’t know what to say. There are hundreds of ways to turn lasers, 3D printers, etc into chargers. The problem many posters have is they still believe in the tooth fairy. Higher education and athletics are every bit as corrupt as the five families. If GT wanted to get better in athletics it is easy enough to do. You just gotta be willing to play the same game as the successful teams. So far, GT would rather blame their fans than do what it takes.

Ok. Time to take off the tinfoil hat.

Sure, college athletics is corrupt, but the big programs don't need their institutions to funnel money to athletics. They generate enough on their own, and have boosters willing to pony up. Let's face it, there are legitimate accusations every year of academic fraud and blatant bribery in regards to recruiting and retaining prime college football and basketball players. It's really not even a secret anymore. Never truly was. On that you are correct.

Where you are off base is in assuming that the academic research dollars can and are somehow being funneled to athletics at these football factories. That isn't remotely happening for a number of reasons. First, academic and research donations generally come in as designated gifts, which means they HAVE to be used for the purpose they were donated for. It's the same reason why our Golf team is fully funded. They have donors who give to the team and designate it solely for golf use. No matter how much the football team could use the extra cash, they can't touch it. Second, there are auditors that routinely check up on grants, and there would have been someone, somewhere, who would have cried foul already was this happening somewhere. Finally, researchers and academics are VERY territorial about their funding. They would be screaming bloody murder if schools were embezzling funds from research to give to football.

Football boosters and TV deals provide more than enough for the factories to keep themselves in the arms races for recruits. It's the schools light on boosters and/or with less than stellar TV deals that will still struggle.

 

[awbuzz]

You obviously aren’t getting what I’ve been saying - there are “other” ways to transfer money. GT has plenty of money. They simply don’t want to do what it takes to get the money where it would help. But yet they claim poverty and call the fans cheap.

But it’s the GT way. We wonder why we don’t win yet every school in our region has players driving Chargers or like Herschel, a Camaro and then we wonder why 5 stars don’t even pick up the phone. As the movie quote says “you can get busy living or get busy dying”. GT athletics are dying on the vine in front of our eyes while the school sits on billions. It’s all done purposely.

Can you provide a couple of examples?

Endowments and research funds have strings...

 

[gt69hjcollins]

It could be you're too youthful to grasp the complexity of what it takes to make a large organization successful, but it comes down to basics like blocking & tackling. Practice, hard work, planning, being organized. You spend your time perfecting dance routines, taking muscle flexing pictures, planning out stuff like pumping iron before the game on the sidelines, running disorganized chaotic practices, etc and you're so far away from focusing on the basics it's not even funny. You get what we got.

What if instead all that nonsense never happened & the OL spent 200 extra reps perfecting their footwork and hand work so they didn't whiff on blocks repetitively or the DBs spent an extra 30 mins a day in the film room diagnosing failures so they knew who was supposed to cover the WRs running right past them or we worked on how to get plays from the booth to the field in a timely manner so the team knew what play we were runig or what defense they were supposed to be in. You know, the crap us old farts care about. The things that put you into position to win games.

Every coach has to balance priorities. Ours thought if he could cheer his way to wins, that would be a successful path. I'm not sure that's worked anywhere, ever. I can speak for myself, if your team loses because the talent gap is too wide or you had a critical mistake once in a while that caused us to implode, I'm not happy but we gave it all we got. We would have played a solid game & had a chance. Next week will probably be better. I can accept that. What I can't accept is goofing around, acting like morons on the field while we're getting our butts kicked due to missed assignments. Games we could have had a chance to win or should have won, we really had no shot. That's a 100% leadership issue and only 1 man owns that. For me he's out of chances. He either starts running a football team or I'll vote with my feet until someone does what they should have done already.

Well said

 

[Squints]

Can you provide a couple of examples?

Endowments and research funds have strings...

I'll save you both some time. The answer is no because he has no idea what he's talking about on this topic and never has. Absolutely laughable to me anyone buys that bull****.

 

[flea77]

I was in Athens today. Talked with one of the sports announcers. He knew me from when my older Son played baseball @ UGA and Will played at GT. We talked about how GT used to be competitive. 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. Great competitive games . They kinda miss it being a rivalry and not a gimme.

 

[flea77]

You obviously aren’t getting what I’ve been saying - there are “other” ways to transfer money. GT has plenty of money. They simply don’t want to do what it takes to get the money where it would help. But yet they claim poverty and call the fans cheap.

But it’s the GT way. We wonder why we don’t win yet every school in our region has players driving Chargers or like Herschel, a Camaro and then we wonder why 5 stars don’t even pick up the phone. As the movie quote says “you can get busy living or get busy dying”. GT athletics are dying on the vine in front of our eyes while the school sits on billions. It’s all done purposely.

Excuse me. Herschel drove a Trans Am. Not a camaro, get your facts right

 

[JacketOff]

I was in Athens today. Talked with one of the sports announcers. He knew me from when my older Son played baseball @ UGA and Will played at GT. We talked about how GT used to be competitive. 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. Great competitive games . They kinda miss it being a rivalry and not a gimme.

Do they also miss when their games with Tennessee, Auburn, and South Carolina were competitive? Nobody outside of the top 5 is close to challenging UGA. I wish the COFH game was competitive too, but competing with UGA should be pretty far down on the list of objectives. That’s an unachievable goal for 95% of teams right now.

 

[slugboy]

How do you know those schools aren’t fixing the books? This is big time money and big time quasi professional sports. If you don’t think people bend rules or misappropriate funds for other reasons then I don’t know what to say. There are hundreds of ways to turn lasers, 3D printers, etc into chargers. The problem many posters have is they still believe in the tooth fairy. Higher education and athletics are every bit as corrupt as the five families. If GT wanted to get better in athletics it is easy enough to do. You just gotta be willing to play the same game as the successful teams. So far, GT would rather blame their fans than do what it takes.

Do I know that Wichita State isn't guilty of creative accounting? No. I haven't seen an audit of their books.

Georgia Tech just had four execs fired back in 2018 because of an audit: https://www.ajc.com/news/state--reg...ials-misuse-tax-money/KPhr38F6PupvqESYALWWIP/.

So, we audit spending. Those audits come from the board of regents down to us. There is auditing built into government contracts. Any commercial research contracts worth their salt will have some auditing involved--especially if the results aren't delivered. We've fired and possibly sought legal relief against people who misused funds.

Plus, if you're a company and you want to send money to GT for sports, just send it to the AA. Why would you hide that in a research grant?

And if you look at Wichita State, one of the Koch brothers did give tons of money to their AA. Other schools have businesses give money to their AAs. There's no reason to launder it through the academic side of the institute. It gains you nothing except legal problems and oversight.

So, redirecting research money or other legally constrained funds is going to get people burned. It's possible that someone would do it, but it would be stupid.

And back to the Camaros and fancy cars of the world--do Alabama athletes get cars? Sure. Does the money for them come from the academic budget? Why would it? It's just one more place to get caught. They're getting their Caddys and Dodge Chargers from a car dealer. Zion Williamson's family didn't get a house through research grants--that came through boosters. That money was never in the academic budget or the AA budget. As much as we are convinced that FSU and Duke and UNC are getting money and "impermissible benefits" to players, that stuff isn't coming out of the academic endowment. It's alums and fans.

The administration is not going to risk billions of dollars in research grants and endowments by sending millions to players, the risk is too great.

 

[awbuzz]

Can you provide a couple of examples?

Endowments and research funds have strings...

Now that I've read down further, I see that a few other folks have already pointed this out!

 

[Oakland]

The players have a chip on their shoulders according to their coach. I'll believe that when I see it. Truth, I'm sick of being embarrassed. I'll be there to watch again.

 

[flea77]

Do they also miss when their games with Tennessee, Auburn, and South Carolina were competitive? Nobody outside of the top 5 is close to challenging UGA. I wish the COFH game was competitive too, but competing with UGA should be pretty far down on the list of objectives. That’s an unachievable goal for 95% of teams right now.

This is kinda a sad statement. "Competing w UGA should be pretty far down the list " really... that's where the program is.

 

[SOWEGA Jacket]

Do I know that Wichita State isn't guilty of creative accounting? No. I haven't seen an audit of their books.

Georgia Tech just had four execs fired back in 2018 because of an audit: https://www.ajc.com/news/state--reg...ials-misuse-tax-money/KPhr38F6PupvqESYALWWIP/.

So, we audit spending. Those audits come from the board of regents down to us. There is auditing built into government contracts. Any commercial research contracts worth their salt will have some auditing involved--especially if the results aren't delivered. We've fired and possibly sought legal relief against people who misused funds.

Plus, if you're a company and you want to send money to GT for sports, just send it to the AA. Why would you hide that in a research grant?

And if you look at Wichita State, one of the Koch brothers did give tons of money to their AA. Other schools have businesses give money to their AAs. There's no reason to launder it through the academic side of the institute. It gains you nothing except legal problems and oversight.

So, redirecting research money or other legally constrained funds is going to get people burned. It's possible that someone would do it, but it would be stupid.

And back to the Camaros and fancy cars of the world--do Alabama athletes get cars? Sure. Does the money for them come from the academic budget? Why would it? It's just one more place to get caught. They're getting their Caddys and Dodge Chargers from a car dealer. Zion Williamson's family didn't get a house through research grants--that came through boosters. That money was never in the academic budget or the AA budget. As much as we are convinced that FSU and Duke and UNC are getting money and "impermissible benefits" to players, that stuff isn't coming out of the academic endowment. It's alums and fans.

The administration is not going to risk billions of dollars in research grants and endowments by sending millions to players, the risk is too great.

This proves my point. These guys got away with it for years until auditors from the school (not the NCAA and not the GBI or any law enforcement agency). There are schemes all over where the schools don’t look nor audit so funds can be used to effectively to “do what they gotta do”. GT sucks at sports because they don’t do it. I’ve wanted GT to pay players like we use to. Do you really believe that Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson, and Marbury came to GT without getting compensated?

But thanks for proving my point that these 4 dudes could fairly easily over a period of years use funds anyway they wanted. If only they were using those funds to buy 4 and 5 stars like every other school in the southeast does.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

This proves my point. These guys got away with it for years until auditors from the school (not the NCAA and not the GBI or any law enforcement agency). There are schemes all over where the schools don’t look nor audit so funds can be used to effectively to “do what they gotta do”. GT sucks at sports because they don’t do it. I’ve wanted GT to pay players like we use to. Do you really believe that Dennis Scott, Kenny Anderson, and Marbury came to GT without getting compensated?

But thanks for proving my point that these 4 dudes could fairly easily over a period of years use funds anyway they wanted. If only they were using those funds to buy 4 and 5 stars like every other school in the southeast does.

You should read the article. They misused taxpayer funds and exploited vendors for kick backs. What they didn't do was take designated grant money and send it to the GTAA. Fraud happens everywhere, so why haven't there been documented cases of athletic departments getting research money illegally at any major university? Because even dumb crooks are smart enough not to try it.

You're also conflating paying players, which I am sure has happened in the past, with using money from the academic side to pay them, which I am sure has never happened.

 

[MidtownJacket]

Just a quick note. Calling for the Institute to knowingly and intentionally break the law isn't the best of looks. Funding challenges exist, and in many cases could be fixed via more friendly treatment of the GTAA by the hill. No argument here - but calling for us to break the law isn't productive.

If people are interested in posting further about potential improvements to funding avenues for GTAA I'd ask we start a new thread or find one of the existing (for example):

Can we stay competitive in the NIL era?

The NFL has no interest in paying for a minor league when colleges willing do it for free I agree, this was a how it would need to be done not a I think they will do it thing

gtswarm.com

Where the Program stands

Ugh. We continually seem to trigger feelings without meaning to. My only point was that Ross’s teams, even when losing, looked better prepared and sharper. That just seems to me to be empirically true. Thus I was affirming the previous post which suggested comparing Collins to Ross was...

gtswarm.com

and continue the conversation (without the Grand Theft Alvarado style approach).

 

[JacketOff]

This is kinda a sad statement. "Competing w UGA should be pretty far down the list " really... that's where the program is.

“Competing w UGA” would literally put GT in the top 10 in the country. Their only loss was to the #2 team in the country. Their average margin of victory was 25 points. Georgia Tech won 3 games last year.

Competing with UGA would make us national title contenders. I’m not sure that has anything to do with where the program is

 

[slugboy]

Well, I missed it, but Collins was on 92.9 about 10 minutes ago:



Maybe there will be a recording.

 

[Ibeeballin]

 

[JacketFan137]

“Competing w UGA” would literally put GT in the top 10 in the country. Their only loss was to the #2 team in the country. Their average margin of victory was 25 points. Georgia Tech won 3 games last year.

Competing with UGA would make us national title contenders. I’m not sure that has anything to do with where the program is

uga demolished pretty much every team they played except clemson and bama. they would have done the same if we had bill o leary and coach heisman running the show and if we had a collective all star team from the last 10 years.

uga has pulled top 5 classes every year and put together the best college football defense ever. arkansas went 9-4 and lost to uga 37-0. i get it sucks cause it’s our rival but they did that to basically everyone. that’s never gonna be us and it hasn’t been in 30 years

 

[Techfan02]

not too much. same as usual.