Selling academics at Tech AND CPJ's offense

[Whiskey_Clear]

So after reading this and the comments about the differences between 3 stars and 4 is height, weight, speed, then now I call total BS on the star ratings. How do you look at an 18 year old and determine this. When I went to college at 18 I was 6 feet tall. I grew 2 more inches in college. Speed can be improved as can weight and strength. But then we know this. And there is no way to determine heart. Jerry Mays comes to mind.

NFL is slap full of 3 stars

 

[dressedcheeseside]

There’s only one take away from this article: we finally have a coherent and focused strategy that everyone is on board with and actually makes sense: emphasis on finding and targeting good academic fits. It also sounds like there will be an appropriate resource investment to support it.

 

[Vespidae]

With the exception of hte folks here: gt has a pretty cruddy fanbase, tbh.

They don't show up to games, when they do they show up late, when they do show up they don't create a hostile environment for the other team, they don't give to the athletic association, I've literally never seen a "go jackets" bumper sticker or anything (and I've seen one from every other school here in the DC area).

I don't know, it's just not a very engaged set of folks, compared to the competition.

I’m not sure I agree with this. Tech’s attendance has been stable for a decade or more, averaging 48,000 and change. It leads most schools it it’s peer group. Comparing it to other urban campuses, it’s in the ballpark.

As to the rabid nature of the fans, I’m glad we don’t have uGA or UT style fans. Kids can go to our games without the jerks.

Tech offers a different product ... both in the school and the fan. Stop beating ourselves that we’re not UGA. Football changed forever during integration ... time to look ahead and the new normal.

 

[sgreer]

There’s only one take away from this article: we finally have a coherent and focused strategy that everyone is on board with and actually makes sense: emphasis on finding and targeting good academic fits. It also sounds like there will be an appropriate resource investment to support it.

And one shade of gold to wear!

 

[JorgeJonas]

Not to nitpick . . . okay, definitely to nitpick, but Bay Bay Thomas wasn’t part of the 2007 class. That was his redshirt year.

Also, he was a three star recruit with offers from Duke and Indiana (though South Carolina jumped in late).

 

[GT_05]

I’m not sure I agree with this. Tech’s attendance has been stable for a decade or more, averaging 48,000 and change. It leads most schools it it’s peer group. Comparing it to other urban campuses, it’s in the ballpark.

As to the rabid nature of the fans, I’m glad we don’t have uGA or UT style fans. Kids can go to our games without the jerks.

Tech offers a different product ... both in the school and the fan. Stop beating ourselves that we’re not UGA. Football changed forever during integration ... time to look ahead and the new normal.

I don’t want to be UGA but I don’t want to be Duke or Pitt either.

I do think some fans could certainly do better on Gameday. There are many times during games when people should be making noise but I see quite a few in my section who are sitting, texting, chatting, etc. Also, we have some embarrassingly late arrivals and the students may be the worst by this measure. I brought a friend to a game this season and he jokingly said, “They are having a game here today, right?” after looking around before kickoff. Finally, I know our average attendance is around 48,000 seats but there seem to be quite a few more than 7,000 empty seats. I even saw a tweet this season from Freddie Burden lamenting about poor attendance.


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[Vespidae]

I don’t want to be UGA but I don’t want to be Duke or Pitt either.

I do think some fans could certainly do better on Gameday. There are many times during games when people should be making noise but I see quite a few in my section who are sitting, texting, chatting, etc. Also, we have some embarrassingly late arrivals and the students may be the worst by this measure. I brought a friend to a game this season and he jokingly said, “They are having a game here today, right?” after looking around before kickoff. Finally, I know our average attendance is around 48,000 seats but there seem to be quite a few more than 7,000 empty seats. I even saw a tweet this season from Freddie Burden lamenting about poor attendance.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good perspective. But we’ll never fill the stadium playing Alcorn State, Jacksonville State, and others of this ilk.

 

[GT_05]

Good perspective. But we’ll never fill the stadium playing Alcorn State, Jacksonville State, and others of this ilk.

Very true.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[laoh]

This may upset some but the GT fans are what GT fans are... collectively, we're not the die hards of the Bammer, Climps, or ugag... or Aubuns or <insert school here>. We are a nerd school. There's a large body of students nerds. Some nerds could care less about football. Warcraft is more important on a Saturday afternoon. But that's fine. That's who we are. Let's stop trying to be like the others. One thing - yes, the funding/donations could do better.

 

[RLR]

Introduction
“If there was common agreement on what outcome was desired, then the discussion would be a pure engineering discussion: ‘what is the best way to achieve this goal?’ But it strikes me that there isn’t agreement on this underlying vision. And so, the engineering discussions get lost in the sound of people talking past each other or, worse, resorting to ad hominem arguments. If you’re arguing from different premises, you never get anywhere, sadly.”

I think GTAA is on the right track – I use this quote to remind GT fans to take a 1st-principle, engineering-approach to improving our athletics program. This is the approach that has made us one of the best academic institution in the U.S. and one of the best innovation incubators as well.

Positive anecdotal evidence that GT’s academic reputation will actually help its recruiting in the future:
(1) A recent reddit post discussed new types of high schools cliques. One of the most common answers was “Academic Jocks” (All the cool kids have 4.0 GPAs and Play sports).

(2) The kids we are recruiting now were in like 1st grade when the iphone came out. They grew up in a connected, hi-tech world. This should create a macro trend that funnels more high school kids toward tech-focused schools

(3) Biometrics, health infographics, fitness gamification. This is a bit abstract, but high school athletes these days seem to take their training & nutrition pretty seriously. It’s easier to do with the current generation of wearable devices and smart phones. I think this will generally lead to more athletes having a data-oriented mindset. Of course, any 18 year guy is going to be attracted to drinking in an Athens bar. But, there’s a good chance that it will become less of a predominate factor. GT should really integrate its world-leading IE / quant programs with its sports marketing / recruitment / sports development, as others have suggested

(4) Atlanta. The younger you are, the more likely you are to want to live a city. This has been a trend for some time that is continuing to move in one-direction. The people I graduated with (late 20s early 30s) all moved to SF, NY, Europe after graduating. A shocking number of them have moved back to atlanta. This city is blowing up. And it’s not close to stopping. There’s a good chance that atlanta becomes the silicon valley of health care / personalized medicine. We’re almost certain to land Amazon’s HQ2. The beltline + transit is going to make this city 10x better than it already is. We have culture. We have nature. We’re in the capital of college football. . . GT is going to start pumping out start-ups via its innovation centers. A lot of young gt folk will make a lot of money & are more likely to stay around atlanta. The entire westside is going to become one of the coolest neighborhoods in the U.S. GT’s awesome location is only going to get better.

Call to action
Continue to respect GT’s awesome tradition and history. But don’t let the past prevent us from building a better future. Don’t rely on one hero to fix our program. We are an entrepreneurial school. The only way this will work is if the institute creates a common, high-level vision and we all buy-in individually. We all have to do our part, be the hero of our own story, and give back in whatever way we can to build a stronger fanbase.

Repost about my high-level idea (I’m an option 1 guy myself)
Option 1:
Stadium

1. Major redevelopment of the entire stadium to make it multi-faceted asset that distinguishes GT from every other college program
2. Get rid of the current skyboxes that serve coke & bags of frito chips. replace them with WeWork offices (co-working spaces) and sell those offices to GT's corporate innovation hub partners (e.g Coke, Delta, Amazon, NCR, etc.)...any college can have a coke ad on the scoreboard. not every stadium can have a office sign for coke's interns that are part of a word-class research partnership.
3. Maybe even put a hotel with a large terrace overlooking the field in one of the corners. midtown needs additional hotel space. GT attracts a lot of vistors in need of a hotel...why not put one right on campus?
4. the office space & hotel serve the purpose of making the football stadium be used more than 5 times a year. this will allow investment in actual restaurants & bathroom renovations in the stadium. why build a dining hall when you can just use the stadiums?

Atlanta Culture

1. apologize to the entire world for wearing russel for so long
2. make atlanta's hip-hop community part of GT athletics
3. ludacris, TI, Outkast, Migos - these are all people who know how to build brands & have a entrepreneurial spirit. A Migos endorsement of GT would do more for this football program than anything anyone has mentioned so far. and i don't think many people realize that
4. Connect to the beltline, allow GT alumni who live within a 5 mile radium of the stadium to get there easier / safer. get more greenspace for alumni to tailgate. connect to atlanta business culture - get more than just gt grads to come to games - get the hundres of thousands of people with offices looking down of bobby dodd to be fans too.
5. Stop kicking people off the team for smoking pot. it's so dumb and just wrong.

Option 2:

1. Every year, get alumni to pay 10-15 18 year old kids $50,000 to $75,000 to play for GT...might have to start off at $100k to make a splash as a new entrant in SEC territory
2. Pay lobbyists and lawyers to collect dirt on other major schools doing this same thing as an insurance policy against anyone snitching on you
3. Hire a "big name" coach that makes $3 - $5 million more than CPJ. Then add another $20 million for assistants and support staff
4. Spend $100-$250 million+ building a "state of the art" dorm for athletes with a private put-put course
5. Purchase twitter troll bot armies & a few CS kids to game the way the NCAA makes money...mess with TV viewership "numbers", make social media stories go viral, make the numbers that people with marketing degrees measure but have no idea what they mean or how unreliable they are to make it look like people really care about GT.

 

[laoh]

This may upset some but the GT fans are what GT fans are... collectively, we're not the die hards of the Bammer, Climps, or ugag... or Aubuns or <insert school here>. We are a nerd school. There's a large body of students nerds. Some nerds could care less about football. Warcraft is more important on a Saturday afternoon. My suite-mates (twin bros) at Woodruff never left their room, ever... they were on the computer all day. But that's fine. That's who we are. Let's stop trying to be like the others. One thing - yes, the funding/donations could do better.

 

[Supersizethatorder-mutt]

Good perspective. But we’ll never fill the stadium playing Alcorn State, Jacksonville State, and others of this ilk.

But we don't fill the stadium for conference games either, including big ones like VT this past year. And even with all the fans that Clemson usually brings, there are plenty of empty seats for that game as well.

 

[MWBATL]

But we don't fill the stadium for conference games either, including big ones like VT this past year. And even with all the fans that Clemson usually brings, there are plenty of empty seats for that game as well.

I don't care what the seats sold numbers show, in my view attendance is declining.

 

[buzzwilder]

@RLR - I like it. Option #1 is what GT should do. But let's not kid ourselves, Option #2 is how the "big boys" do it...except for point #5...the factories aren't that smart.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Good perspective. But we’ll never fill the stadium playing Alcorn State, Jacksonville State, and others of this ilk.

Why the hell not? Those are fun games to watch even if not nail bighters. USCe sells those games out, UGA does, Clemson does. Why the hell cant we? Because our fanbase really only gets up for huge games. That’s pretty damn sad.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

This may upset some but the GT fans are what GT fans are... collectively, we're not the die hards of the Bammer, Climps, or ugag... or Aubuns or <insert school here>. We are a nerd school. There's a large body of students nerds. Some nerds could care less about football. Warcraft is more important on a Saturday afternoon. But that's fine. That's who we are. Let's stop trying to be like the others. One thing - yes, the funding/donations could do better.

If our fanbase cares more about Warcraft than football on game days we are well and truly screwed and their is no hope for us....ever.

 

[iceeater1969]

Introduction
“If there was common agreement on what outcome was desired, then the discussion would be a pure engineering discussion: ‘what is the best way to achieve this goal?’ But it strikes me that there isn’t agreement on this underlying vision. And so, the engineering discussions get lost in the sound of people talking past each other or, worse, resorting to ad hominem arguments. If you’re arguing from different premises, you never get anywhere, sadly.”

I think GTAA is on the right track – I use this quote to remind GT fans to take a 1st-principle, engineering-approach to improving our athletics program. This is the approach that has made us one of the best academic institution in the U.S. and one of the best innovation incubators as well.

Positive anecdotal evidence that GT’s academic reputation will actually help its recruiting in the future:
(1) A recent reddit post discussed new types of high schools cliques. One of the most common answers was “Academic Jocks” (All the cool kids have 4.0 GPAs and Play sports).

(2) The kids we are recruiting now were in like 1st grade when the iphone came out. They grew up in a connected, hi-tech world. This should create a macro trend that funnels more high school kids toward tech-focused schools

(3) Biometrics, health infographics, fitness gamification. This is a bit abstract, but high school athletes these days seem to take their training & nutrition pretty seriously. It’s easier to do with the current generation of wearable devices and smart phones. I think this will generally lead to more athletes having a data-oriented mindset. Of course, any 18 year guy is going to be attracted to drinking in an Athens bar. But, there’s a good chance that it will become less of a predominate factor. GT should really integrate its world-leading IE / quant programs with its sports marketing / recruitment / sports development, as others have suggested

(4) Atlanta. The younger you are, the more likely you are to want to live a city. This has been a trend for some time that is continuing to move in one-direction. The people I graduated with (late 20s early 30s) all moved to SF, NY, Europe after graduating. A shocking number of them have moved back to atlanta. This city is blowing up. And it’s not close to stopping. There’s a good chance that atlanta becomes the silicon valley of health care / personalized medicine. We’re almost certain to land Amazon’s HQ2. The beltline + transit is going to make this city 10x better than it already is. We have culture. We have nature. We’re in the capital of college football. . . GT is going to start pumping out start-ups via its innovation centers. A lot of young gt folk will make a lot of money & are more likely to stay around atlanta. The entire westside is going to become one of the coolest neighborhoods in the U.S. GT’s awesome location is only going to get better.

Call to action
Continue to respect GT’s awesome tradition and history. But don’t let the past prevent us from building a better future. Don’t rely on one hero to fix our program. We are an entrepreneurial school. The only way this will work is if the institute creates a common, high-level vision and we all buy-in individually. We all have to do our part, be the hero of our own story, and give back in whatever way we can to build a stronger fanbase.

Repost about my high-level idea (I’m an option 1 guy myself)
Option 1:
Stadium

1. Major redevelopment of the entire stadium to make it multi-faceted asset that distinguishes GT from every other college program
2. Get rid of the current skyboxes that serve coke & bags of frito chips. replace them with WeWork offices (co-working spaces) and sell those offices to GT's corporate innovation hub partners (e.g Coke, Delta, Amazon, NCR, etc.)...any college can have a coke ad on the scoreboard. not every stadium can have a office sign for coke's interns that are part of a word-class research partnership.
3. Maybe even put a hotel with a large terrace overlooking the field in one of the corners. midtown needs additional hotel space. GT attracts a lot of vistors in need of a hotel...why not put one right on campus?
4. the office space & hotel serve the purpose of making the football stadium be used more than 5 times a year. this will allow investment in actual restaurants & bathroom renovations in the stadium. why build a dining hall when you can just use the stadiums?

Atlanta Culture

1. apologize to the entire world for wearing russel for so long
2. make atlanta's hip-hop community part of GT athletics
3. ludacris, TI, Outkast, Migos - these are all people who know how to build brands & have a entrepreneurial spirit. A Migos endorsement of GT would do more for this football program than anything anyone has mentioned so far. and i don't think many people realize that
4. Connect to the beltline, allow GT alumni who live within a 5 mile radium of the stadium to get there easier / safer. get more greenspace for alumni to tailgate. connect to atlanta business culture - get more than just gt grads to come to games - get the hundres of thousands of people with offices looking down of bobby dodd to be fans too.
5. Stop kicking people off the team for smoking pot. it's so dumb and just wrong.

Option 2:

1. Every year, get alumni to pay 10-15 18 year old kids $50,000 to $75,000 to play for GT...might have to start off at $100k to make a splash as a new entrant in SEC territory
2. Pay lobbyists and lawyers to collect dirt on other major schools doing this same thing as an insurance policy against anyone snitching on you
3. Hire a "big name" coach that makes $3 - $5 million more than CPJ. Then add another $20 million for assistants and support staff
4. Spend $100-$250 million+ building a "state of the art" dorm for athletes with a private put-put course
5. Purchase twitter troll bot armies & a few CS kids to game the way the NCAA makes money...mess with TV viewership "numbers", make social media stories go viral, make the numbers that people with marketing degrees measure but have no idea what they mean or how unreliable they are to make it look like people really care about GT.

Thanks for posting
I remember when we discussed getting emory involved at tech. I know one of our ol men is interested in starting a career in higb tech rehab . What were your ideas on emory and g state?


I have sent tstan an idea to add buzz to bds as it is. It requires the nerds to make it under direction of the hill, the alumni association clubs to sponsor and get naming rights, and gtaa to market it. The big thing is to show high tech by gt students in a program that non football junkies liks can enjoy before kickoff , half time, etc. Buzz

Loved your ideas about Atl. The athletes in the very large excellent academic schools in the outer suburbs in cities like atl would love to go to school in atl. They know that their home big city has lots of jobs for ga tech grads that they can pursue after graduating. Houston dallas etc have lots of gt grads. Got to have a phased recruiting effort -target and area where the grads already live and let the coaches in the good school we are interested, then a few red eye meet and greet trips, build a few relationships, etc.

Off course we need to do more in atl.

 

[steebu]

Why the hell not? Those are fun games to watch even if not nail bighters. USCe sells those games out, UGA does, Clemson does. Why the hell cant we? Because our fanbase really only gets up for huge games. That’s pretty damn sad.

and even that's not true. Go watch our game against VT this year. Home game, top 25 opponent on TV, and 7 minutes in you can still see giant empty patches on TV.

 

[iceeater1969]

Trying to be nice here a put up some ideas(excuses) .
The band and cheer leaders are barely finished running all over campus when the gates open. Move their must do remote events earlier .There is nothing going on inside bds before and during the players warm up. The dancers and cheerleaders do the same routine over and over. Give away bobble heads or towels to first xxxx attendees or do something for fans in their seats early.
They dropped the fan favorite cheer Yellow Jackets . Does anyone know what the cheer leaders are yelling? I wonder if they are leading cheers or are performing for a video - like they are being graded.

Need more buzz. but I really don't know why folks miss the first 5 minutes

 

[SolicitorJacket]

We are a nerd school. There's a large body of students nerds. Some nerds could care less about football. Warcraft is more important on a Saturday afternoon. But that's fine.

No. No it's not.