You think maybe his Navy experience helps him in this area? We're not gonna get the factory football players, so how do we compete? Do something they can't do. Get the smartest guys with the most athletic talent and run the most complex hardest to defend schemes with them. In all probability, you don't do that overnight. In 2008/2009, we whipped their butts with talent alone. Probably didn't matter what offense we ran during those years. We had a once every 20 year spike in talent, and CPJ was good enough to take advantage of it. When that spike had worked it's way through the system, we were back into the process of seeking smarts and talent. We are seeing the result of the smarts in the classroom. I think/hope the talent and schemes start to show this year and next. It would seem logical that this demonstration of success in the classroom will begin to influence some talented players and their parents. If, if, if the results begin to show on the field, then we will have the market niche of smarts/talent to recruit players that make us competitive with those people to the east.
Just suppose that we finally reach the goal that Bobby Dodd set before us when we left the SEC and that we Tech football supporting alums have been seeking for the last 50 years thru 9 coaches and a thousand players - becoming the Institution where the brightest football players come to get a real degree while kicking your sorry *** all over Grant Field. Once we reach that, it will become self replicating. The best and brightest football players will seek us out. We will be, in O'Leary's famous quote, "MIT during the week and FSU on the weekend." If it is possible to do this, WE CAN DO THAT, and no one else can. Not Stanford nor Vandy nor Notre Dame, nor Northwestern, nor Duke because they all have sham degrees created so that the dumb sons of rich alumni and football players can experience walking across the stage in a black dress. The Tech alumni and administration have not wavered from this goal in a half century. We have not diluted the degree programs, we have not shirked tough competition, we have not hired coaches that would break the rules or deviate from the goal. Because we are an engineering Institution, we keep devising solutions to the problem, and because we are Tech engineers, we are accustomed to it not being easy. I've been a Tech fan for 55 years, since my grandfather taught me the words to Ramblin Wreck when I was a small boy. I've been an alum for 37 years and a season ticket holder for 32. I would never want to see Tech football break faith with the goal of academic excellence as the fount of athletic excellence.