HC Candidate/Rumors/Info Thread

bobongo

Helluva Engineer
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7,574
From the ESPN article:
"Tech struggled to lure a big outside name because of the school's reluctance to guarantee large portions of the contract, with the amount of guaranteed money a nonstarter for some candidates."

In my humble opinion, this will ironically be looked back upon as a silver lining BENEFIT of having too little money to throw around. Tech ended up with the best option precisely due to its lack of funds. It's about time the GTAA spent its money wisely, and it begins with this hire. Now they can spend some of the money they saved not paying buyouts and exorbitant HC salaries on top-notch assistants and recruiting. This is where they begin to get their house in order.
 

EE95_curse EMAG!

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
112
Folks claiming the AD "dropped the ball" need to observe the money being tossed around for top candidates. Then they need to recognize GT doesn't swim in those waters and, for the most part, it's because we don't collectively give enough.

Well, that and hiring horrible coaches on ludicrous contracts that we end up paying for 5 years after they coached their last game. I'd say that is the bigger issue, ineptitude in the search, vet and hire process. It's not like we completely cheaped out on Collins or Hewitt.
 

1976jacket

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
22
For those of us old enough, this reminds me of Curry’s hiring: a Tech Man.

Who can’t get behind this? Go Jackets!
And being an offensive line coach right before becoming the Tech head coach. i hope Key has less of a learning curve than Curry did.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,235
From the ESPN article:
"Tech struggled to lure a big outside name because of the school's reluctance to guarantee large portions of the contract, with the amount of guaranteed money a nonstarter for some candidates."

In my humble opinion, this will ironically be looked back upon as a silver lining BENEFIT of having too little money to throw around. Tech ended up with the best option precisely due to its lack of funds. It's about time the GTAA spent its money wisely, and it begins with this hire. Now they can spend some of the money they saved not paying buyouts and exorbitant HC salaries on top-notch assistants and recruiting. This is where they begin to get their house in order.

This can most definitely be a win for GT and Key.

Key gets the job to HFC the school he played and graduated from. GTAA can "reset" without having to pay anyone a massive buyout to their school, or if they would have failed, another massive buyout to fire them.
 

WreckinGT

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3,159
It may not send the greatest message, if we're looking at it through the lens of an arms race. And that may be the game we want to play. But doing that would require us to either raise a ton more money to divert to escalating salaries (and not paying down our debt), and that might also make us more beholden to boosters, which would lead to more of the problems we seemingly encountered during this search.

IMO, the most important thing for us right now is not keeping up with the arms race - it's to get our athletic department back into the green, so we can sustainably compete in the arms race.

if Key stabilizes the program and gets us to consistent bowl eligibility - which I think he can do, with the right OC - thereby allowing us to sell some tickets and AD Batt to work on righting our financial ship...I'm convinced we'll be in a much better place the next time this whole coaching search thing comes around.

And who knows - Key could be the next Chan Gailey. Or the next George O'Leary. Or the next Bill Curry. All would be better than the current state of the program. And we could do a lot worse than having to worry about other programs coming in to poach our head coach, a la 'Bama.
The longer we spend like a lower tier G5 program while we stabilize things and pay off debt the further we will fall behind in college football and the more irrelevant we will become. In 10 years or so when the next round of expansion is going on how comfortable are you being the program that is paying near the bottom of P5 conferences (and well below many G5 program as well), pulling in attendance under 40k, and making bowl games some of the time? It's embarrassing that financially we can't compete with South Florida, Cincinnati and Liberty. It's embarrassing that we couldnt even get the head coach from Tulane that basically no one else was going after. Something has to give. Cabrera's words after firing Collins and TStan were somewhat exciting. Unfortunately they appear to be completely empty as well.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
Messages
18,235
And being an offensive line coach right before becoming the Tech head coach. i hope Key has less of a learning curve than Curry did.

He just iHFC 8 games on the fly and did better than most expected. Now he gets a full offseason, a staff he picked, and gets to recruit players he wants. He'll be going into battle with weapons he chose.

I'm pretty excited to see what "his" team can do.
 

Techwood Relict

Helluva Engineer
Messages
1,417
Im Out Exit Strategy GIF by truTV

I hope I'm invited as an honorary member.

If not, is there a "Juice Crew" opening?


(...I'll show myself out.)
I see what you did there, very subtle and graceful
 

Vespidae

Helluva Engineer
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5,326
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Auburn, AL
And being an offensive line coach right before becoming the Tech head coach. i hope Key has less of a learning curve than Curry did.
You know what? I respect Curry for saying he had no idea how to coach. Dodd taught him. I will be impressed with Key if he asks for input. He might be surprised with the number of people that want him to succeed.
 

Novajacket

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
218
The longer we spend like a lower tier G5 program while we stabilize things and pay off debt the further we will fall behind in college football and the more irrelevant we will become. In 10 years or so when the next round of expansion is going on how comfortable are you being the program that is paying near the bottom of P5 conferences (and well below many G5 program as well), pulling in attendance under 40k, and making bowl games some of the time? It's embarrassing that financially we can't compete with South Florida, Cincinnati and Liberty. It's embarrassing that we couldnt even get the head coach from Tulane that basically no one else was going after. Something has to give. Cabrera's words after firing Collins and TStan were somewhat exciting. Unfortunately they appear to be completely empty as well.
So what is your solution to this problem? Pay a lot for someone we can't afford? Even the ones with a lot of money can go long time without any success. See Nebraska and Tennessee. I'm hoping that begins a trend, that most of these coaches aren't worth the money.
 

WreckinGT

Helluva Engineer
Messages
3,159
So what is your solution to this problem? Pay a lot for someone we can't afford? Even the ones with a lot of money can go long time without any success. See Nebraska and Tennessee. I'm hoping that begins a trend, that most of these coaches aren't worth the money.
That's for JBatt to figure out, but we can't keep making mediocre hires, firing them, paying buyouts, making more mediocre hires, etc. etc. It's an endless cycle of frustration and mediocrity. If you have to fund raise just for the sole purpose of being capable of making a good hire then please do it. If it is found to be impossible then when we are left out of the next round of expansion, consider moving down to a level that we can financially compete in.
 
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