Johnson

[Skeptic]

Recent 10+ win seasons:
2014 11-3
2009 11-3
1998 10-2
1990 11-0-1

Recent 9 win seasons:
2008 9-4
2006 9-5
2000 9-3
1985 9-2-1
1970 9-3


Recent 8 win seasons:
2011 8-5
2001 8-5
1999 8-4
1991 8-5

Recent 7 win seasons, where a maximum of 11 games were played:
1989 7-4
1975 7-4

I chose the 11 game cutoff for 7 win seasons because at 12 games, we get a lot of 7-5 seasons, and I don't think most people consider that success. If they did, we would not have released Gailey. I know 7-5 sounds great when you just went through 3-9, but we'd probably still be arguing about CPJ if he had gone 7-5 this year with a healthy team after the expectations going into the season.

You can go further back in time than I what listed above, but rest assured that you won't find any successes not listed above until 1966 unless you consider 7-5 and 7-6 to be a success.

I wouldn't disagree at all. But at the same time, how many division or conference championships?

 

[Skeptic]

LOL....was my first fact shaded with opinion? Sure. There are more hurdles to get over now, that's a fact, which makes it more difficult to achieve....more is required to win it. The ACC is larger now. Tech has to win its division, and then win a championship game now. If you can't recognize its harder now....well you are entitled to that opinion. FSU isn't consistently as elite as they were in Bowden's heyday...but they haven't fallen far and won a national championship a couple years ago. Clemson has a very good chance to do the same this year.

It is about to get a lot harder in the ACC, too. UNC, as much as they grind on me, seems to have a sustainable program now. Miami's hire is going to decide a lot of things, VT made a very good hire (by record, anyway), and Virginia and Syracuse are looking to upgrade coaches. It's gonna be a hard slog to championships in either division. As it should be.

 

[JorgeJonas]

Two things:

1. Our reputation lags behind Notre Dame? Admittedly, I live and work in the South, but in numerous contacts with IEEE people from all over the country I never got that idea.

2. Our school of business is now MUCH broader than it used to be. Want to specialize in HR? You can absolutely do that. Marketing? That too. It's a part of why they changed the name from Management to Business.

That also brings up an important point that may not be perceived by recruits, and which we as fans might be doing ourselves no favors in talking the way we do:

Getting a Business degree at GT on the Football team with all the support and handholding (if you want/need it) that that entails is really not the hardest thing in the world. Calc I is fundamentally different from the (****ty) way highschools teach algebra- it's about learning patterns and using them. Cognitively it has more in common with flappy birds or a jigsaw puzzle than algebra 'memorize this rule' drudgery. It's also highly visual and intuitive in a way that highschool math is not. I'd argue that any football player who has experience figuring out how to chase a runner has an intuitive grasp of normal vectors and instantaneous slope that puts him at a serious advantage to his peers. Hell, if you have the sort of brain that can follow an option offense or be a defender anywhere you have practiced all the skills you need to make an A in Calc I- Your brain handles "if qb falls back, attack gap X, if handoff, proceed to Y hauling ***" in exactly the same way it handles "if I see an odd power of trig functions, use the euler identity" or "if I see a known derivative, use u substitution"

Georgia Tech isn't only for people who can put up with a lot of pain now for a lot of gain later. Painting it as such to people who more likely than not have been pigeonholed their whole lives by teachers (probably well meaning) as Athletes who by that identity can't really cut it in the classroom, is only going to drive them away. And that's a damn shame, because I think anybody who has the guts to get smacked around by 300lb guys every day and twice on weekends has the guts to stick it out in an accounting classroom.

We ought to be painting the academic life at GT (especially the B school) as glamorous, and completely different and more fun than highschool anything. Yeah, you could go to B school at U(sic)gA or Bama, but they're not going to get you presentations in front of Fortune 100 executives (or something. I don't know- I'm just an Engineer with a minor in Business and Technology). Then lay on thick the comparison in average incomes of graduates. If they've got the NFL in their eyes, show them they're not dreaming big enough. Yeah, you can be comfortable on saved NFL earnings if you ration them well, but why accept living on limited money? Do you really want to be doing sad radio endorsements for South Georgia car dealerships like (name any famous UGA player old enough) when you're 45? That's a chump's game. A GT degree shows you how to take NFL earnings and keep on making millions- you can be a player until the day you die.

And then quietly, to the side, you show the parents the same thing, but with an emphasis on a 80k salary out of school vs. good ****in luck if they don't make the NFL.

I think most people would agree with this, but what if the kid wants to major in American History, or British Lit, or English, or Physical Education, and be a teacher/coach? Or, more importantly, what if they just don't know? That, to me, has always been the larger barrier.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Two things:

1. Our reputation lags behind Notre Dame? Admittedly, I live and work in the South, but in numerous contacts with IEEE people from all over the country I never got that idea.

2. Our school of business is now MUCH broader than it used to be. Want to specialize in HR? You can absolutely do that. Marketing? That too. It's a part of why they changed the name from Management to Business.

That also brings up an important point that may not be perceived by recruits, and which we as fans might be doing ourselves no favors in talking the way we do:

Getting a Business degree at GT on the Football team with all the support and handholding (if you want/need it) that that entails is really not the hardest thing in the world. Calc I is fundamentally different from the (****ty) way highschools teach algebra- it's about learning patterns and using them. Cognitively it has more in common with flappy birds or a jigsaw puzzle than algebra 'memorize this rule' drudgery. It's also highly visual and intuitive in a way that highschool math is not. I'd argue that any football player who has experience figuring out how to chase a runner has an intuitive grasp of normal vectors and instantaneous slope that puts him at a serious advantage to his peers. Hell, if you have the sort of brain that can follow an option offense or be a defender anywhere you have practiced all the skills you need to make an A in Calc I- Your brain handles "if qb falls back, attack gap X, if handoff, proceed to Y hauling ***" in exactly the same way it handles "if I see an odd power of trig functions, use the euler identity" or "if I see a known derivative, use u substitution"

Georgia Tech isn't only for people who can put up with a lot of pain now for a lot of gain later. Painting it as such to people who more likely than not have been pigeonholed their whole lives by teachers (probably well meaning) as Athletes who by that identity can't really cut it in the classroom, is only going to drive them away. And that's a damn shame, because I think anybody who has the guts to get smacked around by 300lb guys every day and twice on weekends has the guts to stick it out in an accounting classroom.

We ought to be painting the academic life at GT (especially the B school) as glamorous, and completely different and more fun than highschool anything. Yeah, you could go to B school at U(sic)gA or Bama, but they're not going to get you presentations in front of Fortune 100 executives (or something. I don't know- I'm just an Engineer with a minor in Business and Technology). Then lay on thick the comparison in average incomes of graduates. If they've got the NFL in their eyes, show them they're not dreaming big enough. Yeah, you can be comfortable on saved NFL earnings if you ration them well, but why accept living on limited money? Do you really want to be doing sad radio endorsements for South Georgia car dealerships like (name any famous UGA player old enough) when you're 45? That's a chump's game. A GT degree shows you how to take NFL earnings and keep on making millions- you can be a player until the day you die.

And then quietly, to the side, you show the parents the same thing, but with an emphasis on a 80k salary out of school vs. good ****in luck if they don't make the NFL.

Regardless of the methodology, this ranking is from a reputable source and defines, to some degree, perception as well.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+4

National University Rankings
Stanford #4 (they [#2] rank higher than us [#6] in Engineering, too. No, that's not a typo.)
Duke #8
ND #18
Uva #26
Wake #27
BC/UNC tied for #30
GT #36

GT is a good school, but it's not Nirvana to the geek athletes around the country. To think so is just wishful thinking, chest pounding, back patting or all the above (and I'm a grad). We get a lot of mileage on the return on investment angle and the "one in 6" line, but scholar athletes have plenty to choose from when they want a great education. Believe it or not, scholar athletes are such because they are forward thinking young men with life long goals. Unfortunately, many of them want to pursue career paths for which other schools are in a better position to sway them. We are narrow in scope. That hurts us with this subset.

Stanford is the holy grail for these guys and the fact that they recruit so well nationally with basically the same athletic spending as us is evidence.

 

[JacketFromUGA]

You forgot Vanderbilt at #15

 

[dressedcheeseside]

You forgot Vanderbilt at #15

Yeah, I didn't want to pile on. I left out other P5 schools like Michigan, Cal, Northwestern, etc...

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Regardless of the methodology, this ranking is from a reputable source and defines, to some degree, perception as well.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/page+4

National University Rankings
Stanford #4 (they [#2] rank higher than us [#6] in Engineering, too. No, that's not a typo.)
Duke #8
ND #18
Uva #26
Wake #27
BC/UNC tied for #30
GT #36

GT is a good school, but it's not Nirvana to the geek athletes around the country. To think so is just wishful thinking, chest pounding, back patting or all the above (and I'm a grad). We get a lot of mileage on the return on investment angle and the "one in 6" line, but scholar athletes have plenty to choose from when they want a great education. Believe it or not, scholar athletes are such because they are forward thinking young men with life long goals. Unfortunately, many of them want to pursue career paths for which other schools are in a better position to sway them. We are narrow in scope. That hurts us with this subset.

Stanford is the holy grail for these guys and the fact that they recruit so well nationally with basically the same athletic spending as us is evidence.

The difference though, as has been stated time and time again, is that ALL those schools are UNIVERSITIES; Tech is not and does not offer the broad range of majors that any of those schools offer. Geek or not, a scholar athlete in the truest sense of the word still may prefer a UNIVERSITY over a Technological Institute.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

The difference though, as has been stated time and time again, is that ALL those schools are UNIVERSITIES; Tech is not and does not offer the broad range of majors that any of those schools offer. Geek or not, a scholar athlete in the truest sense of the word still may prefer a UNIVERSITY over a Technological Institute.

Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University.

In the United States there is no nationally standardized definition for the term 'University', although the term has traditionally been used to designate research institutions and was once reserved for doctorate-granting research institutions. Some states, such as Massachusetts, will only grant a school "university status" if it grants at least two doctoral degrees.[62]​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

 

[IEEEWreck]

Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University.

In the United States there is no nationally standardized definition for the term 'University', although the term has traditionally been used to designate research institutions and was once reserved for doctorate-granting research institutions. Some states, such as Massachusetts, will only grant a school "university status" if it grants at least two doctoral degrees.[62]​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

Fair enough. I would argue that the methodology US News uses is silly, and explicitly penalizes GT for not having a literature major. I mean, do people actually think that Michigan is a better school than Harvey Mudd? I think only Presidents and Provosts of universities think that way. Which makes sense, because the US News rankings are mostly a poll of those people.

But, that's not really relevant to actual, national perception because no one ever reads the methodology section of anything. So point taken.

 

[B Lifsey]

According to the BOR, GT falls into the sector of a "Research University" along with UGA, GA State and Augusta University (formely GA Regents University). The Carnegie Classification is also Research University with very high research activity.

I think I've heard some rarely known football trivia question that GT is one of only 4 schools without University in it's name

 

[dressedcheeseside]

When you look at Stanford's roster, you'll see a ton of players with majors we offer. Now we don't allow "undeclared", but a good number of the declared majors on the list are ones we have. You'll also notice a lot of these guys come from the western US.

http://www.gostanford.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=749928&SPID=127013

For all you recruiting slugs, how many of these guys did we even offer anyway?

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University.

In the United States there is no nationally standardized definition for the term 'University', although the term has traditionally been used to designate research institutions and was once reserved for doctorate-granting research institutions. Some states, such as Massachusetts, will only grant a school "university status" if it grants at least two doctoral degrees.[62]​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

This ... "Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University."

You can use any definition that you wish, but the fact remains that Tech does not offer liberal arts majors, and that alone is a BIG difference.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

This ... "Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University."

You can use any definition that you wish, but the fact remains that Tech does not offer liberal arts majors, and that alone is a BIG difference.

I know, that's my point. I said narrow scope hurts us.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

When you look at Stanford's roster, you'll see a ton of players with majors we offer. Now we don't allow "undeclared", but a good number of the declared majors on the list are ones we have. You'll also notice a lot of these guys come from the western US.

http://www.gostanford.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=749928&SPID=127013

For all you recruiting slugs, how many of these guys did we even offer anyway?

A valid point, and yet another reason why Tech should at least to attempt to recruit more on a national level than just predominantly in the southeast.

 

[bravejason]

I wouldn't disagree at all. But at the same time, how many division or conference championships?

ACC division play did not begin until 2005, which was in the middle of the Gailey era. In division play, GT has a Division title or Conference title in 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014. Prior to division play, GT has ACC conference titles in 1990 and 1998. Checking just briefly, I can't find standings prior to 2005, so I don't know if GT had any 2nd place ACC conference finishes (Was going to use 2nd place as a proxy for a division title).

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

I know, that's my point. I said narrow scope hurts us.

Gotcha

 

[dressedcheeseside]

A valid point, and yet another reason why Tech should at least to attempt to recruit more on a national level than just predominantly in the southeast.

That takes a much bigger staff than we have now. We don't have national recruits knocking down our doors like Stanford and ND.

 

[IEEEWreck]

GT is a good school, but it's not Nirvana to the geek athletes around the country. To think so is just wishful thinking, chest pounding, back patting or all the above (and I'm a grad). We get a lot of mileage on the return on investment angle and the "one in 6" line, but scholar athletes have plenty to choose from when they want a great education. Believe it or not, scholar athletes are such because they are forward thinking young men with life long goals. Unfortunately, many of them want to pursue career paths for which other schools are in a better position to sway them. We are narrow in scope. That hurts us with this subset.

Stanford is the holy grail for these guys and the fact that they recruit so well nationally with basically the same athletic spending as us is evidence.

Well, here's how I see it. We're not going to convince any players who want a Literature PhD that we're the best. Those guys should be going to Northwestern or Cal Berkley and good for them. There's a larger pool, I think, of athlete scholars who have no idea what their goals are. They're scholars because they do well in math or science, or both. Or even English or History. I think that's about what you can see from the view at 17 for most people. Most people, like most electrons, follow the path of least resistance. They have ambition, but not crystal clear "I want to spend the rest of my life writing about international exchanges in leftist circles in the last half of the twentieth century" ambition. Business school fits most people like that (the other big paths being medicine, law, or engineering). Liberal arts just don't have a payoff without that kind of crystal clear certainty, and a clearheaded willingness to forego compensation in order to do what you love. That's relatively rare. And frankly if you're on the football team you don't really get the most time to enjoy reading Marlowe or researching New Right movements if you want to do that in undergrad because you like it, but ultimately want to work for Coca Cola because you want the money. Anyway, I think you can reasonably extrapolate from that 1 in 6 line to paint a picture that GT is a different kind of opportunity if you're like most students.

Plus, I think this is a place where some chest thumping is in order.


Vis a vis nothing in particular: GT has more engineers on its football team than Stanford. That's at least interesting to ponder.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

That takes a much bigger staff than we have now. We don't have national recruits knocking down our doors like Stanford and ND.

That's true, but since MBob supposedly has allowed CPJ to increase the recruiting staff, maybe we can at least start trying a little better than in the past.

 

[IEEEWreck]

This ... "Yep. Except there's a good argument GT is technically a University."

You can use any definition that you wish, but the fact remains that Tech does not offer liberal arts majors, and that alone is a BIG difference.

Hey now, don't leave out the brave, bold INTAneers.

http://www.iac.gatech.edu/