Pointer
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I say we send a GT Swarm rep into the program to help lead the change from within. Go from armchair coach to the real deal
Mostly “Fire Geoff Collins”, some reminiscing, maybe bourbon or other distractions
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Northeast Stinger
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Exactly. We’ve tried and used up every available excuse. If someone even attempts to explain away horrible losses at the beginning of the season this site will incinerate them.
tmhunter52
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No
tmhunter52
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Geoff missed the starting gun, TStan didn’t tell him when to run…
tmhunter52
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I can give you a few million reason$ he will not leave gracefully. It will be tough saying goodbye to his career. It will be impossible to find another employer anywhere and in amy field as gullible as TStan. And he would have to sell boatloads of snake oil to make the same kind of $$$ he can snag just by getting fired.
stech81
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Damn I forgot the question
gville_jacket
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Unfortunately the way the contract is written with Collins, we save major $$ if he finishes his 4th year. He will be coaching Saturday after thanksgiving regardless. I think it’d be wreckless for us to fire him before that.
Now with that said, I hope it’s a moot point because we win 12 games in the regular season. THWg
SOWEGA Jacket
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There is always hope when you are a fan (fanatic). That’s the beauty of sports. We are just experiencing the wrong side of that euphoria. As much as I bought into Collins (due to the fanatic part) at the beginning, I just can‘t now. There are just too many holes in his coaching during practice (which none of us see) and that is exacerbated by his missteps in coaching on game days (which we all see). This isn’t a young Spurrier making mistakes while building a career. This is a 50 year old man with 29 years of coaching experience who has simply failed as a head coach. And even with that said he’s ours so there is always hope.
Heisman's Ghost
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The first four games may tell the tale...Clemson, Western Carolina, Ole Miss, UCF. Coach Collins really needs to bat .500 on those first four games. A daunting task but he can do it. An awful lot riding on Jeff Simms. He has to play better. Between him and Yates, there were 10 interceptions thrown last year. Jeff will have to be near perfect for us to win along with much better line play. No, I don't think the defense will be much improved though it is hard to imagine it being any worse. They gave up almost 34 points a game last year and over 450 yards total offense per game. IIWII
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I think fans should be positive and encouraging rather than negative and pessimistic.
OP, how Does your post contribute anything positive to GT football?
**Your post is all about Collins…all about Collins. It is nothing about the players or team.
That type of prevailing attitude may make you feel better, might make all the Collins haters feel entertained, but it does nothing to support the program. Look, I get 3-9, 3-9 and 3-9 sucks, sucks and more sucks. I go to a lot of games.
I get disgusted too. But to sit on these boards and blast the head coach time after time after time after time …
does not help. I get OP is just expressing frustration with Collins but fall brings a new season and new opportunities.
My beef is OP assumes defeat and surrenders success before the first game. Maybe we go 0-12 but between now and the first game is it asking too much to at least attempt to not be so darn negative?
OP, how Does your post contribute anything positive to GT football?
**Your post is all about Collins…all about Collins. It is nothing about the players or team.
That type of prevailing attitude may make you feel better, might make all the Collins haters feel entertained, but it does nothing to support the program. Look, I get 3-9, 3-9 and 3-9 sucks, sucks and more sucks. I go to a lot of games.
I get disgusted too. But to sit on these boards and blast the head coach time after time after time after time …
does not help. I get OP is just expressing frustration with Collins but fall brings a new season and new opportunities.
My beef is OP assumes defeat and surrenders success before the first game. Maybe we go 0-12 but between now and the first game is it asking too much to at least attempt to not be so darn negative?
Randy Carson
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No. All goodwill (and then some) has been used up.
I'm a "glass half full" kind of person, but I also consider myself to be a realist. Here's my week by week break-down of next season (forgive the formatting problem; apparently the forum doesn't like tabs or spaces):
Week # Record
1 0-1
2 1-1
3 1-2 (While other schools play multiple tune-ups against Wofford, and Middle Tennessee State, etc., we scheduled Ole Miss two weeks after Clemson. Who do we fire for that?)
4 1-3 (Whether CGC is retained after this game is anybody's guess.)
5 1-4
6 2-4
7 3-4 (Annual quota met. It's a home game, so fans can tear down the goal posts.)
8 3-5
9 3-6
10 3-7
11 3-8
12 3-9 (Forfeiting now would be less embarrassing.)
Concerning our annual game against UGA, may I ask, "What is the point?" In the last 20 years, we've won this game three times by a combined total of 10 points. One of those wins was in OT. It's not any better going back 30, 40 or even 50 years. That's right, in the last 50 YEARS, we've won this game 12 times. Does the word "parity" come to mind? No?
Then, WTH? Drop this game.
Yeah, I went there. We used to play Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, etc. Now, we don't. Big whoop. It's time to get real about where we are and where we WILL be in an era of NIL, the transfer portal, and big television $$$. Tech is simply too small and too academically challenging to compete with the big state universities. We're becoming the team that other schools want to schedule for THEIR homecoming games.
Unfortunately, I'm no longer convinced that the ACC as a whole can compete with the other P5 conferences - even in basketball. I grew up in North Carolina watching State (yep, State), Carolina and Duke cutting down the nets fairly regularly. Who's ranked #1 right now in basketball? Auburn - with three other SEC teams following. How many ACC teams are ranked? One. And Coach K is singing his swan song this year.
I graduated from Tech. My dad graduated from Tech. I have more cousins and family friends who graduated from Tech than I can count, okay? So, it pains me to say it, but it's probably time to re-think Tech's place in the collegiate sports universe. Why put off the inevitable?
FWIW, I noticed that Harvard went 8-2 last year while Army was 9-4. Do you think that either of those fan bases was disappointed with their record? Or were their post-game, tail-gating parties a bit more fun than yours?
I'm a "glass half full" kind of person, but I also consider myself to be a realist. Here's my week by week break-down of next season (forgive the formatting problem; apparently the forum doesn't like tabs or spaces):
Week # Record
1 0-1
2 1-1
3 1-2 (While other schools play multiple tune-ups against Wofford, and Middle Tennessee State, etc., we scheduled Ole Miss two weeks after Clemson. Who do we fire for that?)
4 1-3 (Whether CGC is retained after this game is anybody's guess.)
5 1-4
6 2-4
7 3-4 (Annual quota met. It's a home game, so fans can tear down the goal posts.)
8 3-5
9 3-6
10 3-7
11 3-8
12 3-9 (Forfeiting now would be less embarrassing.)
Concerning our annual game against UGA, may I ask, "What is the point?" In the last 20 years, we've won this game three times by a combined total of 10 points. One of those wins was in OT. It's not any better going back 30, 40 or even 50 years. That's right, in the last 50 YEARS, we've won this game 12 times. Does the word "parity" come to mind? No?
Then, WTH? Drop this game.
Yeah, I went there. We used to play Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, etc. Now, we don't. Big whoop. It's time to get real about where we are and where we WILL be in an era of NIL, the transfer portal, and big television $$$. Tech is simply too small and too academically challenging to compete with the big state universities. We're becoming the team that other schools want to schedule for THEIR homecoming games.
Unfortunately, I'm no longer convinced that the ACC as a whole can compete with the other P5 conferences - even in basketball. I grew up in North Carolina watching State (yep, State), Carolina and Duke cutting down the nets fairly regularly. Who's ranked #1 right now in basketball? Auburn - with three other SEC teams following. How many ACC teams are ranked? One. And Coach K is singing his swan song this year.
I graduated from Tech. My dad graduated from Tech. I have more cousins and family friends who graduated from Tech than I can count, okay? So, it pains me to say it, but it's probably time to re-think Tech's place in the collegiate sports universe. Why put off the inevitable?
FWIW, I noticed that Harvard went 8-2 last year while Army was 9-4. Do you think that either of those fan bases was disappointed with their record? Or were their post-game, tail-gating parties a bit more fun than yours?
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Vespidae
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This is mostly true. We have become Vanderbilt. Re UGA, I would rather OPEN the season with UGA than keep it on Rivals Weekend and play it after we are worn out. I think there is a value in playing UGA so I'm not ready to can the series, but we probably need to rethink it. I will say this ... everyone I talk to has said ... "NIL will change EVERYTHING".
While I agree with your week by week breakdown, it is getting clearer and clearer to me every year many Tech graduates are not the best football fans. Not picking on you and I appreciate your thoughts, but the people I'm talking about probably don't read blogs like this. Many (pretty sure thousands) of Tech graduates don't care. And those that follow from a distance don't buy tickets or donate. They don't even go to the homecoming games. Then I run into those that stopped buying season tickets. Oh sure they'll go to a game on a freebie and a parking pass. I really don't want to hear that many Tech graduates live out of state or are from a foreign country. There are a lot in Georgia and they don't care enough to make the football program good. They must teach a course at Tech called Cheap or Quit.
Northeast Stinger
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Winning consistently builds the fan base. This isn’t rocket science.
I was a huge fan of the Atlanta Braves many decades ago. Other than opening night or the 4th of July most games I attended had fewer than 5000 fans in the stands. I loved it because I could get tickets either on the 3rd base line or behind home plate. One game I attended had 800 fans present.
When the Braves started winning it became harder and harder to get good seats. “Beautiful people” who didn’t even pay attention to the game grabbed all the “see and be seen” seats. Last year the Braves had the second best attendance in all of baseball and averaged close to 30,000 fans a game. When the Braves came to Atlanta in 1966 it was not unusual to pack the stadium but long losing slumps changed that. Winning changed it back again.
Exactly; and the spring game last year I was so excited that it was going to be on tv! BUT the first 2 plays cgc acted like it was just practice! I just turned the tv off!! I knew then the team was not ready!!!! And least of all cgc!!!!!!
Vespidae
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I have a different perspective. After corporate life, I taught in the University System of Georgia and currently teach at Auburn. So, let's start there.
Tech, like many mechanical schools, was founded in the late 19th century in response to the rapid industrialization of the South. (Did you know that Tech's original location was to be Macon?) Schools like Auburn, Texas A&M, VA Tech, etc ... were the "mechanical" schools in each state, as compared to the land grant universities that usually bore the name of the state (e.g., Georgia, Alabama, UNC, etc.)
Tech, like Auburn, had a primary mission to educate and train skilled employees to meet the demand, especially in the textile mills. Auburn, even today, has a state mission to address the needs of citizens of Alabama and has operations in every county of the state. The University of Alabama is seen as the flagship brand and professional school (law, medicine, etc) but ... does NOT have a majority of students coming from the state ... they come from out of state. Also, Auburn is viewed by the state government as THE university of Alabama ... the workhorse. Alabama by contrast, is the brand.
This was similar in Georgia. However, unlike Auburn ... Georgia Tech took its Experiment Station under Petit and retooled it to be the Georgia Tech Research Institute and focus on delivering research. The state of Georgia makes about $1 Billion a year from Tech and THAT ... is the mission for Tech today. It is NOT to educate future technologists for the state (KSU, UGA and others now teach engineering) ... Tech's role is to deliver the money. Global reach, global students, global mission. Operations in every county of Georgia? Forget it.
That's why "students don't care". The demographics have evolved along with the mission. On game day, Auburn has multiple generations show up en masse for tailgating because the experience, the education, the environment ... are largely the same. That's not the case at Tech anymore.
I graduated 40 years ago. The school today bears little resemblance to the same GT I knew. Yes, many of the buildings are the same (although repurposed) but ... many of the traditions have been changed or dropped, the faculty is much less supportive of athletics (Auburn, by contrast, values athletics as part of a healthy lifestyle and actively encourages students to involve themselves in Auburn Athletics or enjoy the athletic facilities ... much more so that Tech did when I was there.)
Do we have bad fans? No. We have different fans. And that is reflective of the changing demographics, brand and mission of the Institute. I remain proud of the school but ... I also recognize that football is not a priority and probably hasn't been from about 25 years. Realistically, I don't expect that to change. I hope (and we probably will) remain D1, but our best shot at future championships is probably in baseball, basketball, golf and similar sports.
At least, that's the view from my perch.
iceeater1969
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That's another thing that is done everywhere so he does it. Imo, he should have a short full go to end of practice on high point. Yea, the plays would be conservative but fans in bds are so close to field they would love it. Players get message finish strong.
Has he stopped working on the 80% that fixes if done right 20 % . I am thinking he does this out of love and energy,but without a seasoned eye.
CEB
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I think you’ll find a lot of support for your football assertions but this will be a lonely room. Pretty doom and gloom for a glass half full guy. There is no reason we can’t field a 12 man team to compete with anyone and certainly no reason to think ACC teams on the whole won’t either.
And Auburn is certainly having their day, but if your going to point to a conference to challenge for basketball supremacy look a little further north to the one that’s been neck and neck with the acc for a while.
GT33
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I think what @Randy Carson is alluding to is if you look at college sports strategically, the ACC looks like a prototypical business takeover target. Another conference is going to swallow up the ACC because they can get it cheap, take the teams that give them market reach & discard the table scraps to the AAC or some other 3rd rate conference. The only question remaining is if GT is a table scrap or actually brings something to the table. We’re a wounded brand in a wounded conference.
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Thank you. You made my reading of the last two pages worthwhile (I have read about 50 of the 350+ pages).
The core of the problem is that GT / GTRI should go private but can't since we bring in too much money for the State of Georgia. We are bound by our own success.
And I think the best chance for a national championship is probably (in order of current likelihood) golf, baseball, WBB, volleyball and MBB. I've heard great things about lacrosse, but that is a whole different system.