Smoke Screen On Statistics

[thwgjacket]

Ok to be fair I went to law school which was harder. I just assumed grad school would be more difficult. I guess it depends on where you get your graduate degree and what you get it in.

 

[daBuzz]

I think it's a mix of both that are the problem for the school's football. I'm not commenting on that. I'm saying that what I've seen from the fanbase, there are a number of people who are too dismissive of how much of a disadvantage Tech is compared to the "glory days" they pine for. As as someone who's attended more than one school (went to Tech for my master's) and is closer in age to the players than most on here it's definitely there.



I don't know why you've singled me out because I'd not really have any problem with any of this stuff. Outside your APR comments, which I think are oversimplified and a bit off base, it seems to make sense to me.

Squints,
Although my first statement was in response to a statement you made, I didn't mean my comments to single you out. I just find it frustrating that so many Tech alums have come to accept the "this is the way Tech is, we'll never change" argument.

dressedcheeseside,
I realize the coach gets a few exceptions each year. However, the problem is that he has a finite number of them and, more importantly, admissions gets to decide who those are. I'm saying, "let the coach decide to get whomever he wants admitted to play football". Because if they fail out, he will be the one most directly affected. So let's set up the coach's contract to give him authority, but also responsibility and reward/punishment to insure he is doing his job properly".

But here's the single most important point I was trying to make: admissions for football players were tightened after Flunkgate, yet the failure of Flunkgate was due to Gailey's turning over more of the oversight of the academic support role to the academic side of the house. The lady that THE HILL put in charge of that *cough* Carol Moore*cough* failed to do her job properly. And now the football team is suffering from years of tightened admissions standards because of ineptitude on the academic support side of the house, not the athletic side at all.

 

[Essobee]

My Master's from Tech was light years easier than my undergrad. Don't know when you were there, but I've heard there has been a concerted effort to change the culture there. Don't know how true that is, but I've heard there's less effort to "weed out" undergrads.

"Weeding out" has declined as the average SAT of entering freshmen has increased. As bright as the entering freshman are these days, it doesn't make a lot of sense to weed out two-thirds of them...or even one-third for that matter.

 

[Squints]

Squints,
Although my first statement was in response to a statement you made, I didn't mean my comments to single you out. I just find it frustrating that so many Tech alums have come to accept the "this is the way Tech is, we'll never change" argument.

Fair enough. I wasn't mad or anything just confused.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

"Weeding out" has declined as the average SAT of entering freshmen has increased. As bright as the entering freshman are these days, it doesn't make a lot of sense to weed out two-thirds of them...or even one-third for that matter.

That doesn't mean the classes aren't as hard, it just means the average freshman is more capable of hacking it.

 

[Essobee]

That doesn't mean the classes aren't as hard, it just means the average freshman is more capable of hacking it.

Exactly. And that puts pressure on sports recruiting so that you get SAs who are capable of keeping up with the other students in class and on exams. The bar is set high.

 

[yellojello]

In other words, let the person who is affected most by the APR restriction (the coach) be the one who makes the decisions on whether or not he wants to take a risky chance on an athlete who may not make the grade.

Great idea in theory. But you have to remember that the ramifications of losing scholarships extends beyond a coach. What if a coach came in, took a number of borderline or sub-par athletes in, won big, but got the Institute docked for 5 scholarships because of APR? Sure, his buyout may go down or he may have some other financial penalty, but that doesn't do anything if he just decides to bail to a different school. That puts us in a bad situation when we want to hire a new coach, since that coach will have to start out at a disadvantage. The bottomline is that CFB coaching is rigged to the advantage of the coaches.

 

[daBuzz]

Great idea in theory. But you have to remember that the ramifications of losing scholarships extends beyond a coach. What if a coach came in, took a number of borderline or sub-par athletes in, won big, but got the Institute docked for 5 scholarships because of APR? Sure, his buyout may go down or he may have some other financial penalty, but that doesn't do anything if he just decides to bail to a different school. That puts us in a bad situation when we want to hire a new coach, since that coach will have to start out at a disadvantage. The bottomline is that CFB coaching is rigged to the advantage of the coaches.

Well, first of all, I'm not suggesting that you don't have oversight of the academics....checks & balances per se. There already is an academic advisor appointed by the Hill who is responsible for this (see my earlier post about Carol Moore's failings @ this job). And APR doesn't have immediate effects if a student fails. IIRC, it's a 4-year cumulative average, so while a couple of students failing in one year could be problematic, it could potentially be minimized over the next 3 years if the issue is corrected. So, this person who reports to the academic side of the house SHOULD be able to identify an issue and raise such an issue to the AD and/or others so that corrective measures could be taken.

Second, while coaches are competitive as the dickens, I think the potential to lost $1million or more would be enough incentive to help curb the desire to just bring in anyone & everyone...especially when you consider that losing a buyout early in a contract could mean much more. Two years ago, such a measure would have cost CPJ around $10 million.

Finally, wouldn't you really rather take the chance? Even on the off chance that we DID lose some scholarships, wouldn't that be preferable to the current situation where we just self-penalize ourselves by accepting that "things will never change" and have fans who are honestly discussing whether we should drop down to Division 2 or Division 3 football so that we can be competitive? (Yes, I realize those fans are overly negative, but the mere fact that people are discussing it is an indictment on just how much things have changed with GT football.)

Personally, I'd rather roll the dice. I'm sure there would be ways to game the system and our athletic department would have to reevaluate such a system on a somewhat ongoing basis to see where changes needed to be made. But heck, if someone can build the Iron Man suit at Georgia Tech, don't you think they can solve a simple problem like this?

 

[Rodney Kent]

This would never happen, but a coache's pay should be per year based on his record for that year. Give him 100% of his pay if he wins the National Championship, 90% if he wins all but one game, 80% if he wins a large proportion of his games, progressively lower, until he only gets about 20% if he loses all or nearly all the games. Of course, this would have to be across the board for all the coaches. Just dreaming!!!!

 

[GTRX7]

This would never happen, but a coache's pay should be per year based on his record for that year. Give him 100% of his pay if he wins the National Championship, 90% if he wins all but one game, 80% if he wins a large proportion of his games, progressively lower, until he only gets about 20% if he loses all or nearly all the games. Of course, this would have to be across the board for all the coaches. Just dreaming!!!!

Well, that would never happen for a ton of reasons. However, I do like contracts with a reasonable baseline plus healthy performance-tied incentives. I know that PJ certainly has some of that. We gave him a raise after the ACC championship, which I don't think anyone disagreed with. It has probably made his baseline higher than we would like based on the last three years' results, but things don't always go as expected. Live and learn. At least we didn't give him the Hewitt contract!

 

[AE 87]

This would never happen, but a coache's pay should be per year based on his record for that year. Give him 100% of his pay if he wins the National Championship, 90% if he wins all but one game, 80% if he wins a large proportion of his games, progressively lower, until he only gets about 20% if he loses all or nearly all the games. Of course, this would have to be across the board for all the coaches. Just dreaming!!!!

It does kind of work that way. Apart from academic incentives and coaching award incentives, CPJs salary for a regular season is about 85% what it would be for a MNC, less since that would most likely get him ACC and National coach of the year.