Think Citadel with MUCH better players.
Honestly, the TO is an offense that is designed for teams that have restrictions that do not allow them to compete on a level playing field with the big boys. The academies have adopted it because it was th inly way for them to remain competitive and the data is quite clear that it has worked nicely for them.
The argument has long been that big time players don't want to play in that offense and hence your recruiting will drop off. I had thought that was what happened at GT. I concede (and embrace)
@Longestday 's point that the recruiting problems may have simply been a lousy AD who starved the football program of the resources it needed. I guess we'll never know if the nay-saying fans who bitterly argued over this point were correct that it hurt recruiting or not. But the results did definitely tail off.
My one concern is that even with a good AD now in TStan, we still are an Institute with severe restrictions which will not allow us to compete head-on with the big boys. I don't think this can be overcome with hype, or even money (although that helps). I think the Institute will always hamper GT from competing the way the SEC (and now Clemson) competes.
Our fan base bravely declares that we don't want to be like them, but then complains bitterly when we lose to them consistently. As O'Leary famously complained, we want to be Harvard during the week and Notre Dame on weekends. (I think he actually used different schools as examples, but you get my point.) Clearly our fan base doesn't know how to run a football program.
Let's hope our AD and Head Coach do.