Redditor's Take on Why Georgia Tech Struggles in Recruiting

[Skeptic]

I had a Clemson friend argue with me once that since we won the MNC in 1990, it proves our academics for FB players are a sham. I asked him what the other 50+ years without a MNC proved. He said it proves we aren't good at football. Hard to beat that reasoning.

I think we are all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearing stating what had to be said.

 

[takethepoints]

I don't have much to add here, but Tech does have degrees in the social sciences. True, they don't call them that (B.S. in international affairs, B.S. in history, technology, and society, ect.) and they're easy to miss but they're there alright.

Now, how to sell that to a recruit is another story. I'd like to hear how they do that or if they even try.

 

[Towaliga]

I am not going to disagree with every point the OP is trying to make because (a) he/she obviously did a lot of research, and (b) there's a lot of info there and you guys would get bored with anyone trying to respond to it. I will comment on one of the points made. The write-up says "Schools can apply for permits and enroll students (and by that I mean athletes) that don’t meet these standards. In fact, UGA on average gets around 15 of these permits a year for just their football team and Georgia Tech gets 6." With regards to GT's 6, I'm not sure if that is true or not. I remember seeing a report in the early 2010's that said that at the time, GT had 4 exceptions on the team while over 70% of uga players were exemptions.

Even if the numbers are correct, if UGA gets on average 15 "permits" per year, that means on average that for 4 classes (freshmen through senior), they would have a team made up of 60 players that didn't meet their academic standards and GT would have 24 (60% less than the dwags). That would indicate that 70% (60 out of 85 scholarship players) of the dwags are exempted. Put it this way--the dwags could field a team with 100% of their starting and second string offense and defense, and their starting special teams players all being exempted from the academic requirements and still have 5 permitted players sitting on the bench.

With regards to the calculus factor, even it is easier, it's still calculus for Pete's sake. My experience with calculus in high school made me decide to head somewhere else than GT (I probably still could use professional counseling to get over the trauma of that class). Calculus for Dummies would be harder than any class a dwag player has to take.

 

[jacobchbe]

The difficulty of calculus is even more overrated than UGA's football team.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Put it this way--the dwags could field a team with 100% of their starting and second string offense and defense, and their starting special teams players all being exempted from the academic requirements and still have 5 permitted players sitting on the bench.

How does uGA get world class elite recruiting classes every year, but they finish unranked 3 of the last 4 years and can't even win their own sub-division, which is consistently ranked dead last in P5? This is one reason. They recruit based on rankings, not intelligence/fit to their schemes/disposition - nothing. So you get a bunch of dummies whose minds/bodies/tendencies don't in any way fit with what the coaches are trying to do, and voila. A big messy tangled up bowl of spaghetti.

 

[forensicbuzz]

The difficulty of calculus is even more overrated than UGA's football team.

You've got to remember that there are many kids that graduate from HS who's first math class in college is College Algebra. For someone qualified to take some version of Calculus, it may not be THAT difficult with all the extra instruction they get, but many kids (probably a higher percentage among athletes) don't have the fundamentals to handle calculus as their first college math class, or second college math class, or third college math class, or any college math class.

 

[GTRX7]

I will give the reddit poster for cropping my previous analysis of GT's major

I am not going to disagree with every point the OP is trying to make because (a) he/she obviously did a lot of research, and (b) there's a lot of info there and you guys would get bored with anyone trying to respond to it. I will comment on one of the points made. The write-up says "Schools can apply for permits and enroll students (and by that I mean athletes) that don’t meet these standards. In fact, UGA on average gets around 15 of these permits a year for just their football team and Georgia Tech gets 6." With regards to GT's 6, I'm not sure if that is true or not. I remember seeing a report in the early 2010's that said that at the time, GT had 4 exceptions on the team while over 70% of uga players were exemptions.

Even if the numbers are correct, if UGA gets on average 15 "permits" per year, that means on average that for 4 classes (freshmen through senior), they would have a team made up of 60 players that didn't meet their academic standards and GT would have 24 (60% less than the dwags). That would indicate that 70% (60 out of 85 scholarship players) of the dwags are exempted. Put it this way--the dwags could field a team with 100% of their starting and second string offense and defense, and their starting special teams players all being exempted from the academic requirements and still have 5 permitted players sitting on the bench.

With regards to the calculus factor, even it is easier, it's still calculus for Pete's sake. My experience with calculus in high school made me decide to head somewhere else than GT (I probably still could use professional counseling to get over the trauma of that class). Calculus for Dummies would be harder than any class a dwag player has to take.

That six number of exemptions per year definitely sounded high to me as well. Not to mention that, even when we have used these "exemptions" to get guys like Custis to commit, that doesn't mean we can actually always get them in school or keep them in school.

More than that, you have to believe that the exemptions are almost always going to highly rated commits. Schools usually aren't using the exemptions on a lot of 2 star kids. So, when considered in that light, 15 per year at UGA vs. 6 at GT is a huge difference in the resultant recruiting rankings.

Clearly there are a lot of factors that hinder Tech in recruiting, but it is naive to think that academics is not a major one.

 

[Yomanser]

LOL #1


LOL #2


LOL #3

When you do stuff like that within the same article, it should call credibility of the rest into question. I've heard these refrains/embellishments before, and they typically come from a GT guy trying to score points with his SEC friends. It's unfortunate because I think there are fair points in there that get lost when the writer proves he shouldn't be taken seriously.

Those things aside, while the post includes some of the story, it fails to paint the full story, as subsequent replies point out.

African American Studies (UF) --Tech doesn't have.

Agricultural Leadership and Development (Texas A&M) --Tech doesn't have.

Arts and Sciences (BC, Pitt, UVA) --Tech doesn't have.

Business (with rankings shown -- Ga Tech (#36), Georgia (#67), Missouri (#76), Alabama (NR), Auburn (NR))

Communication (UL, Syracuse, Vandy) -- Tech does have a BS in Literature, Media, and Communication

Exercise and Sport Science (UNC) --Tech doesn't have.

General Studies (Ole Miss) --Tech doesn't have.

Human Development/Science (Va Tech, Miss. St.) --Tech doesn't have.

Parks, Recreation and Tourism (Clem) --Tech doesn't have.

Recreation and Sport Management (Arkansas, Tenn) --Tech doesn't have.

Sociology (Duke) --Tech doesn't have.

Social Science (FSU) --Tech doesn't have.

Sports Administration (Miami, LSU) --Tech doesn't have.

Sport and Entertainment Management (S. Car.) --Tech doesn't have.

Undergraduate Studies (UK) --Tech doesn't have.

Advertising (Mich) --Tech doesn't have.

American Ethnic Studies (Washington) --Tech doesn't have.

Business (Nebraska (not ranked in Bloomberg's top 114))

Life Sciences Communication (Wisc.) --Tech doesn't have.

Sport Industry (Ohio St) --Tech doesn't have.

UGA ranks higher than us in every single one of the majors listed above.

LOL #4

I had no that when you took out Engineering and CS from Tech and just compared the rankings of the majors above that UGA would be ranked higher than nonexistent Tech programs. Truly eye-opening. Surely this is proof that UGA's academics are on par with GT's

I would absolutely and unequivocally agree with you Cuse. He makes some decent points, but because of all of the misleading or blatantly false info, and the fallacies that he uses in his post, it's harder for me to take it as seriously as it could have been. Really, it boils down to recruiting resources and GT's lack of them compared to other national powerhouses

 

[GTRX7]

LOL #4

I had no that when you took out Engineering and CS from Tech and just compared the rankings of the majors above that UGA would be ranked higher than nonexistent Tech programs. Truly eye-opening. Surely this is proof that UGA's academics are on par with GT's

The reddit guy may actually be one of us. That list of other schools' football majors with comments concerning whether they even exist at Tech was cropped directly from one of my posts on here a few months back.

 

[IronJacket7]

For some reason I don't think he was really talking about GT recruiting. Seems like he wrote the entire thing to draw attention to the fact his girlfriend (Kaylee) is a cheating ho....

And now we know.

That's what I took from it too

 

[dressedcheeseside]

The reddit guy may actually be one of us. That list of other schools' football majors with comments concerning whether they even exist at Tech was cropped directly from one of my posts on here a few months back.

The fact that you mention "football majors" is a huge red flag that the system has jumped the shark. People say there are two Americas, well there are two American college universes, the one for football players and the one for everybody else.

 

[Boss Ross]

If I read one more time about our offense......In my life time, Watching Tech since 1969, we have run every offense and formation there is. And we have never had a top 20 recruiting class. How many QBs from Tech have ever started in the NFL......none. How many running backs have been starters and top performers.......1 Dorsey Levens, a Notre Dame Transfer. Wide receivers, um really only 2 Calvin, and Bey Bey. We put a fair number of defensive players in and some O lineman. Fact is CPJ, with his feared offense is the most successful coach in Tech History. And as said recruiting stars mean very little.

Eddie Lee. Drew hill , jimmy robinson just to name a few says hello.

 

[Skeptic]

Eddie Lee. Drew hill , jimmy robinson just to name a few says hello.

was not Eddie Lee Ivory a GT man? And did I once read that Billy Lothridge played a couple of games at QB for Dallas? And there were several tight end types -- Billy Martin, Taz Anderson among them, all pre-dating Johnson of course. And all kinds of linebackers, several of whom had serious head injuries and repercussions.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Really tired of this discussion. Work load at Tech is heavier than most state schools. Most athletes who want to go pro want to spend their time in the weight room not the library. End of story.

Bill Curry talks about his days with Dodd and how this was a hurdle for recruiting even then. It is more so now because Tech is no longer trying to recruit the kid who would rather go to uga and be a lawyer, as in Dodd's day, but now must find the kid who actually wants a profession outside of the NFL.

 

[augustabuzz]

The difficulty of calculus is even more overrated than UGA's football team.

Not to the mathematically challenged!

 

[augustabuzz]

was not Eddie Lee Ivory a GT man? And did I once read that Billy Lothridge played a couple of games at QB for Dallas? And there were several tight end types -- Billy Martin, Taz Anderson among them, all pre-dating Johnson of course. And all kinds of linebackers, several of whom had serious head injuries and repercussions.

I don't know about Eddie Lee Ivory, but Eddie Lee Ivery from Thomson, GA, was the best running back I've seen at Tech.

 

[Captain killem]

Preach augustabuzz

 

[Skeptic]

I don't know about Eddie Lee Ivory, but Eddie Lee Ivery from Thomson, GA, was the best running back I've seen at Tech.

Musta been his first cousin once removed. The one I'm thinking of maybe was a piano player.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Really tired of this discussion. Work load at Tech is heavier than most state schools. Most athletes who want to go pro want to spend their time in the weight room not the library. End of story.

Bill Curry talks about his days with Dodd and how this was a hurdle for recruiting even then. It is more so now because Tech is no longer trying to recruit the kid who would rather go to uga and be a lawyer, as in Dodd's day, but now must find the kid who actually wants a profession outside of the NFL.

So much this.

 

[PBR549]

I think we are all indebted to Gabby Johnson for clearing stating what had to be said.

I saw what you did there.