Future schedule news

[swarmer]

Not all HS teams play every game on Fridays; some now play on Thursdays or Saturdays. But even those who play on Saturdays wouldn't be able to come to a Friday night college game because of practice and preparation. The Friday night conflict, whether it be with HS games or HS practice and prep, is a real issue

I assume someone cut us a check and the $$$ outweighed the obvious negatives

 

[ramblineck]

So that means there is only 4 Saturday games at Bobby Dodd this year

Already been said. One less hot september noon game. Also, this might even increase student turnout. Early season game most people dont have class late afternoon fridays so students will be tailgating well before kick go to game then head to bars after. We might even catch some curious fans as friday night at 8 PM can be someone's fun night out and then relax on saturday

 

[DH9387]

Cedar Grove High coach Miguel Patrick said he told Collins that he supported the move, as it was an opportunity for Tech to play on a national stage and elevate the team.

“I thought it was a good thing,” Patrick said. “I don’t think it’ll take anything away from high-school football in the state of Georgia. Our fans are our fans, and people are going to be there (at high-school games) on Friday nights.”

Bobby May, coach at Westlake High, backed Collins on similar grounds, saying it was a valuable opportunity to draw attention.

“I think maybe it hurts a couple people here and there,” May said. “I don’t think it’s anything like nobody’s going to show up at the high-school games because they’re going to Tech.”

Troup County High coach Tanner Glisson was similarly supportive. Further, he said that Collins seemed genuinely interested in the response of Glisson and his colleagues, as he told Glisson that he wouldn’t play on Friday night if the feedback was negative. Glisson was appreciative of Collins’ proactive position, saying it shows his connection with the high-school coaches in the state.

“That was awesome,” Glisson said. “I just really appreciate him doing that.”

It does mean that one group of people that Collins has particularly sought to make an impression on — recruits — will be almost unanimously unable to attend. The athletic department is exploring the possibility of treating a different group, such as first responders or military personnel, to the game-day experience normally offered to recruits.

 

[Gtbowhunter90]

With the guaranteed primetime kickoff, Georgia Tech has designated the contest as its annual Whiteout game.

Lets white up the ATL night sky!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[GCdaJuiceMan]

Exactly. Absolutely hate it! There are several of us who actually work/volunteer for local high school ball games and this just sux. I was already going to have to miss the Clemson opener because we are having to play a dreaded Thursday night road game - now this. I never thought a traditional southern college team would ever move a game to Friday night -- like someone else said, that other atlanta team 70 miles east of BDS would NEVER do this. And i call BS on 'consulting with local HS coaches' --- this is all about the TV contract. Plus, a non-Saturday night game is a real PITA for those of us that don't live in the immediate Atlanta area!

You can call BS on Collins intentions when he consulted the HS coaches but I doubt Ken put fake quotes from real people in a published AJC article.

I can absolutely understand the disappointment in this schedule change if it makes it more difficult for people to attend.

 

[NorthsideJacket]

You can call BS on Collins intentions when he consulted the HS coaches but I doubt Ken put fake quotes from real people in a published AJC article.

I can absolutely understand the disappointment in this schedule change if it makes it more difficult for people to attend.

Oh, I'm not saying that the quotes are fabricated; i'm saying the whole point of it was a 'cover your butt' move making sure that you got 3 quotes to be in the paper that were all 'positive' indicating 100% of HS coaches think that this is a great idea. I'm saying that is an intentionaly skewed 'survey' of coaches.

 

[Gtbowhunter90]

It's gone be ight folks.

 

[jojatk]

I am now hearing that the move was "necessitated" by the fact that UCF has a game on Thursday of the following week. So their problem becomes our problem. Hmmm

Where did you hear that it was "necessitated?" I'm not trying to be argumentative, I promise. I just hadn't read that it was necessary for us to agree to the move. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive to the choice of words and if so I apologize. It has been sounding to me like UCF really didn't want to play an away game on Saturday at GT and then an away game at ECU on the following Thursday. I don't blame them not wanting to play back to back away games so close together nor for asking if our game could be moved. Of course maybe I'm not understanding the relationship between the ACC, GT, and ESPN in terms of what it means for ESPN to "request" that we move the game. Maybe that does equate to us having to do it. But from the AJC article it sounds like CGC and GT had the option not to agree to it if we judged it was too harmful to us.

As for folks objecting to it I totally get it. I don't blame anyone for disliking the move. I do feel like this is an opportunity for GT to chart a different course than we've been on and garner some eyes that might not be HS football fans but are college football fans. I think CGC has also turned it into an opportunity to tell the HS coaches that they are important to him and GT. And I have to believe he has a pretty good handle on how to mitigate the impact of not being able to host HS players that night otherwise he wouldn't agree to this. Or at least he's pretty clever at turning things most people perceive as negatives into positives.

 

[jojatk]

Oh, I'm not saying that the quotes are fabricated; i'm saying the whole point of it was a 'cover your butt' move making sure that you got 3 quotes to be in the paper that were all 'positive' indicating 100% of HS coaches think that this is a great idea. I'm saying that is an intentionaly skewed 'survey' of coaches.

For years people have been accusing Ken of sabotaging us with timing of articles or spinning things a bit negatively for us. But now he's a shill for GT sports?

 

[NorthsideJacket]

For years people have been accusing Ken of sabotaging us with timing of articles or spinning things a bit negatively for us. But now he's a shill for GT sports?

I didn't say that at all; but are saying that he, Ken, randomly selected 3 coaches to interview on this subject, and all 3 just happened to have been part of this "survey" of high school coaches and all 3 just happen to think it's a great idea??

Yeah, i'm just pissed that this happens after season ticket renewals without any kind of survey of season ticket holders. I have been the statistician for 25+ years for our local team, and i've made a committment to be there each week; high school football is a big deal around here. I am not tin-foil hat conspiracy guy. I just think this is a very shady deal.

 

[Oakland]

You guys do realize that ESPN also televises high school games on Friday nights. This will probably tick a lot of you off, but here goes. Coach Collins is doing a fine job with recruiting and getting the GT name out there. However, he may not have a good understanding of the Tech fan base. People are not beating the doors down to buy football tickets. If the weather is bad on that Friday night, the UFC fans don't travel, or we lay an egg on the field, people are going to be ill. He needs to get a better grip on this so-called culture change. Either the GTAA, Todd Stansbury, or Collins needs to nurture the current fan base and grow from there. If we were filling up our stadium routinely, I wouldn't be writing this.

 

[takethepoints]

This UCF business strikes me as a bad move. The old saw is that if you let the fans influence how you coach, you will join them soon. If the story is true and Collins let his decision on this be driven by the opinions of high school coaches … well, I don't feel very warm and fuzzy about that. It's the recruits we need to concentrate on, not their coaches.

But I believe this was, as mentioned above, pure CYA. The decision was made for ESPN, then Tech turned the schedule upside down to do it. I can understand that and, as a retired person, I could make a Tech game on Tuesday without a whole lot of trouble. I feel for the rest of you folks, however.

 

[jojatk]

I didn't say that at all; but are saying that he, Ken, randomly selected 3 coaches to interview on this subject, and all 3 just happened to have been part of this "survey" of high school coaches and all 3 just happen to think it's a great idea??

Yeah, i'm just pissed that this happens after season ticket renewals without any kind of survey of season ticket holders. I have been the statistician for 25+ years for our local team, and i've made a committment to be there each week; high school football is a big deal around here. I am not tin-foil hat conspiracy guy. I just think this is a very shady deal.

I totally understand being upset. I try to be very respectful of other people's opinions and I'm not at all trying to convince anyone to be happy about this change. I happen to like it though for people who have commitments on Friday evening for whatever reason I absolutely feel for you. It does suck when you plan on being able to use your tickets or go to games and then have this sprung on you. And I see what you're saying about getting the quotes. He probably went to guys he knew would give him quotes who for sure have had interactions with CGC.

 

[Gtbowhunter90]

You guys do realize that ESPN also televises high school games on Friday nights. This will probably tick a lot of you off, but here goes. Coach Collins is doing a fine job with recruiting and getting the GT name out there. However, he may not have a good understanding of the Tech fan base. People are not beating the doors down to buy football tickets. If the weather is bad on that Friday night, the UFC fans don't travel, or we lay an egg on the field, people are going to be ill. He needs to get a better grip on this so-called culture change. Either the GTAA, Todd Stansbury, or Collins needs to nurture the current fan base and grow from there. If we were filling up our stadium routinely, I wouldn't be writing this.

I completely understand and I do agree to some extent, but the fan base will be much more consistent on gamedays when we start stringing multiple winning seasons. Thats the way it will always be. We dont have the draw YET as other bigger schools. The bottom line is it's about the players FIRST then the fans.

 

[JacketOff]

T

You guys do realize that ESPN also televises high school games on Friday nights. This will probably tick a lot of you off, but here goes. Coach Collins is doing a fine job with recruiting and getting the GT name out there. However, he may not have a good understanding of the Tech fan base. People are not beating the doors down to buy football tickets. If the weather is bad on that Friday night, the UFC fans don't travel, or we lay an egg on the field, people are going to be ill. He needs to get a better grip on this so-called culture change. Either the GTAA, Todd Stansbury, or Collins needs to nurture the current fan base and grow from there. If we were filling up our stadium routinely, I wouldn't be writing this.

Bobby Dodd Stadium isn’t going to be full for a September game vs. UCF anyway. The only times BDS is full is when it’s full of orange or red. I understand people being upset with this change being sprung upon us with little to no warning. I understand STHs who may have other plans on Friday night being upset they can’t attend the game. I understand people being upset they won’t be able to tailgate like they would a Saturday game. But for people to act like CGC and GT are going to make this change and it’s going to hurt the program without gaining any positives are ridiculous. Collins and ADTS understand that GT still needs to rebuild its brand. That’s not going to happen playing noon Saturday games. Playing on Friday night in prime time with maybe 1 other game going on is a huge opportunity to build national recognition. While UCF isn’t what they once were a couple years ago, they still hold some national credibility as being a good program. Playing them in prime time is a guaranteed way to get millions of eyes on the game that otherwise wouldn’t care at all about this game. Might it backfire if Tech comes out and lays an egg? Sure. But you have to take risks to get any reward. You have to risk pissing a few thousand folks off in order to get a few hundred thousand interested in your program. Just like the Mercedes-Benz games.

 

[TooTall]

I happen to like it though for people who have commitments on Friday evening for whatever reason I absolutely feel for you. It does suck when you plan on being able to use your tickets or go to games and then have this sprung on you.

For those saying this was "sprung" on us....How in the world is an event almost 200 days away (kickoff vs Clemson is 189 days away) being moved forward by 18 hours considered sprung?? I can understand it if it was changed the week of or even the month of. But 200 days!!!???

FYI, high schools don't release their football schedules until late summer.

 

[TechCubed]

I am now hearing that the move was "necessitated" by the fact that UCF has a game on Thursday of the following week. So their problem becomes our problem. Hmmm

I'd be curious to know your source on that. I texted that to a friend in GTAA, and this was his response:

That's 100% false. ACC/ESPN approached us last week, and Coach Collins had the final say on it. His primary concern was about HS football on Friday nights and contacted a bunch of coaches. They were supportive since it would help raise the profile of the program. If they had responded negatively, game would not have been moved. Not sure where that UCF info from, but I can tell you without a doubt it's completely wrong. Feel free to pass this along to whomever told you that.

 

[NorthsideJacket]

For those saying this was "sprung" on us....How in the world is an event almost 200 days away (kickoff vs Clemson is 189 days away) being moved forward by 18 hours considered sprung?? I can understand it if it was changed the week of or even the month of. But 200 days!!!???

FYI, high schools don't release their football schedules until late summer.

absolutely not true; our schedule has been out for a month -- the first thing i do every february when both schedules come out is to sit down and look for conflicts; so i had already resolved with myself that i had an issue with the Clemson game and i would just have to deal with. so this does feel like it was "sprung" on me - especially when it is barely a month AFTER the always anticipated release of the schedule

 

[Sarrick]

absolutely not true; our schedule has been out for a month -- the first thing i do every february when both schedules come out is to sit down and look for conflicts; so i had already resolved with myself that i had an issue with the Clemson game and i would just have to deal with. so this does feel like it was "sprung" on me - especially when it is barely a month AFTER the always anticipated release of the schedule

Well now you have another 6 months to fix the new conflict you might have. I think you’ll be okay.

 

[RyanS12]

I sure wish this was a nooner on the ACC Network that no one outside of the state of Georgia gave a **** about watching.....
Come on now!
We have two prime time games on ESPN in 3 weeks! When’s the last time we had that? The amount of viewers were getting now compared to what it would’ve been at noon Saturday is on another level! The only other game that night is Minnesota vs I have no idea who. We need exposure, now we’re getting it!