Redditor's Take on Why Georgia Tech Struggles in Recruiting

Cam

Helluva Engineer
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Atlanta, Georgia
I saw this post on Reddit and thought you guys might like the read. He talks about the academic requirements at GT and actually argues it's not really a big deal (and backs it up well). However, he does touch on how having limited scholarships really hurts us. His main argument goes to branding though. Ordinarily I wouldn't say this is worth sharing, but I thought it was interesting to see the argument on why getting into GT (passing the Hill) isn't as hard as most of us think. Changed the way I view our situation. I also wasn't aware that calculus was made significantly easier. He sums up everything really well and it's a good source for when trying to explain this to friends.

 

65Jacket

GT Athlete
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1,168
Poor time to berate our recruiting. We will never be high in the rankings due to our offense. We recruit a different athlete than the factories. This was maybe CPJ's best class, and look at this w/l record with these "second class" recruits.
 

Cam

Helluva Engineer
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Atlanta, Georgia
Poor time to berate our recruiting. We will never be high in the rankings due to our offense. We recruit a different athlete than the factories. This was maybe CPJ's best class, and look at this w/l record with these "second class" recruits.
I am not berating our recruiting. I am sharing a resource that demonstrates why it is more difficult to do at Georgia Tech than most any other major program. I thought we did very, very well with this year's class, which makes it more impressive when you consider the self-imposed obstacles. On your second point, I don't know if you read the post, but he states just that: our offense recruits a specific type of athlete that allows us to outperform our rankings. Furthermore, I found further in the comments section that he said the level of offensive talent we had with Gailey was generally the same. My point in sharing was to show a well-constructed argument that shows problems that can be fixed. Stansbury himself has already said branding is going to be his major focus and rightfully so.
 
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Poor time to berate our recruiting. We will never be high in the rankings due to our offense. We recruit a different athlete than the factories. This was maybe CPJ's best class, and look at this w/l record with these "second class" recruits.
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.
 

jacobchbe

Jolly Good Fellow
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277
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.

https://n.rivals.com/team_rankings/2007
 

Enuratique

Jolly Good Fellow
Messages
333
Poor time to berate our recruiting. We will never be high in the rankings due to our offense. We recruit a different athlete than the factories. This was maybe CPJ's best class, and look at this w/l record with these "second class" recruits.
This is the time of year on /r/CFB where everyone circlejerks each other over their awesome recruits their team just landed. So invariably some discussion of Tech has probably come up, and GT fans on /r/CFB have defended the comparatively pedestrian recruiting ranks with the usual tacts. I don't think he was trying to besmirch GT's 2017 class.
 

mj claz

Jolly Good Fellow
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217
I really can't understand the academics argument. Is it a factor? Yes. Do we have a limited candidate pool compared to some other schools? Yes. Is it the reason we have never signed a five star? Not even close.

Under Hewitt, we had no problem going toe-to-toe with anyone on the recruiting trail. Basketball players take the same classes as football players. But GT basketball had a much better brand than GT football at that time, the ACC helps the brand more in basketball, and UGA is nowhere near the basketball brand that they are in football.
 

AE 87

Helluva Engineer
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I really can't understand the academics argument. Is it a factor? Yes. Do we have a limited candidate pool compared to some other schools? Yes. Is it the reason we have never signed a five star? Not even close.

Under Hewitt, we had no problem going toe-to-toe with anyone on the recruiting trail. Basketball players take the same classes as football players. But GT basketball had a much better brand than GT football at that time, the ACC helps the brand more in basketball, and UGA is nowhere near the basketball brand that they are in football.

Fwiw, basketballers can go pro after 1 year. Footballers can't. The academics / APR issues aren't apples and apples between the two sports.
 

dressedcheeseside

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It's not about having the academics to "get in" a it's about a) staying in (which he argues too) and more importantly b) wanting to actually put forth any academic effort whatsoever even your main focus is football.
I was gonna say the same thing. It's not the "getting in", it's the "staying in" and, particularly the want-to that's required. Most elite recruits want no part of GT's academic rigor. They usually are ok with busting their tails on the practice fields and weight rooms, but not so much in the classrooms, study halls and libraries.

I'd say the main hurdle is the lack of ego boosting factory culture. Stadium size, fanbase, media adulation, national title contention, treated like Roman gods on campus, etc, etc, etc.... It all points to satisfying the ego.
 

tech_wreck47

Helluva Engineer
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8,670
I stopped reading, but I find it funny to say you won't have to take calculus if you didn't want to because you could go pro after three years as if that an easy thing to do. Also our coaches preach academics to kids, so are they suppose to be hypocritical and also say you don't even have to take this class? If he thinks it's not hard at GT he's crazy, there is a reason we are ranked were we are in academics, and a reason a GT degree holds the weight it does over most other schools. kids know what GT brings to the table as far as academics, and a lot just don't want to put up with it because even GT's easy stuff is harder than UGA. We also have a lot less degrees to choose from, not sure if that was mentioned.
 

gtpi

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sorry but i just dont believe thats is a much branding as not having the same size staff that other programs we compete against.

our (4 ) staffers ARE NEVER GOING TO compete with the (30) staffers that a uga..a bama.. a tenn... an auburn... a clemson... etc have. NEVER. they use their staff not only to find gems but they also are used to coddle the recruits that they are recruiting.

there are over 1 MILLION hs football players in the usa. we see but a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of those players. branding has nothing to do with it once you get past the elite players.

the best thing we can do imo is increase our staff to.... 15 or so.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article...ball-top-sport-us-1088158-high-school-players
 

augustabuzz

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Grant Field, during the 1950s was not anywhere near the capacity of today. Grant Field didn't surpass 50k until the upper east was added in 1962. Even liberal arts at Tech are science degrees. Business administration is a science degree at Tech. These are just some points that jumped off the page to me as I perused his talking points. I wander why our football team leads p5 public schools in average SAT scores. Also, UVA has the better engineering school in Virginia.
 

Techster

Helluva Engineer
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18,237
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.
 

GTonTop88

Helluva Engineer
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Gibson, GA
Recruiting is really hard to rank pre 2002. To say we've never done really good in recruiting is really based on the past 14 years or so. I'm glad we have CPJ but it look like Chan had finally figured out what to sell to get top recruits his last year here. I always wondered if we would've kept that going with a pro style offense?
 
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