Stansbury and Collins Dismissed

[Northeast Stinger]

The academic funding at Tech is a much bigger deal and is much bigger money than the athletic money (that’s not the case at most of our surrounding schools).

The catalyst was really the optics of the Notre Dame and the UGA games last year. Cabrera took notice of some of the problems of the AA then. It’s not something he’d directly spend a lot of calories on since he has an all-consuming day job.

The only point that Cabrera had to make is that this problem is taken seriously at the top and that Neville is in charge and has support from the top. After that, Neville is the leader at the AA and gets all the questions because he’s the LEADER.




I’ll turn that question back on you—did you get the point I was making and the point of the meeting?

You can read my response to bke1984 where I say that Cabrera’s mission in his speech was to lay out that the situation at the AA is taken seriously at the top of the organization and that he’s appointed his best person to lead the AA while we fix it. At that point, Neville owned the room and all the questions. If Cabrera takes the questions, he’s saying “ask me and not Neville” which counters what he was doing at the meeting.

Schultz could have asked a ton of interesting questions if he had any antenna for organizational dynamics. He showed up ready to ask Cabrera a question and he wasn’t ready for anything else. Neville was the guy to ask.

Look at the timing. Cabrera sees an embarrassing situation at the AA at the Notre Dame and UGA games last year—especially the UGA game. The AA had been a functional but not welcoming front door to the university, but now it’s an eyesore. Stansbury is respected in the business community around Atlanta—he won “executive of the year”. While Stansbury was being given a chance to fix the football and AA problems, the administration evaluated the situation and dug in.

Neville is obviously the “fixer” from Cabrera for the AA problems. Schultz could have asked when Neville started looking into the AA and the football team. He could have asked how long the Board of Trustees has been discussing the state of the football team and the AA finances. He could have dug in on the need for someone who can handle the “new and shifting NCAA landscape”.

My bet is that Neville has been examining the AA dynamics since at least November. Cabrera doesn’t have time to fix the AA personally, or even dig into all the problems. Neville didn’t have that free time either, but Cabrera could rearrange responsibilities enough for Neville to fix the AA dumpster fire. Schultz or Suguira could have found out and confirmed by digging in with good questions yesterday. Neville is on the Board of Trustees and has been this whole time. Schultz misread the press conference and dynamics and wasn’t ready.

(Why didn’t Collins get fired in November? 1. Stansbury said “we can fix this” and 2. Cabrera and probably Neville preferred to use the offseason to gauge and plan their response and see what needed to be done at the AA. When no improvement was visible after 3-4 games and there were other issues at the AA, Cabrera and Neville acted)

Suguira wasn’t really prepared either, but he was more prepared than Schultz.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Schultz had his story mostly written before the press conference, and had pre-filled spots for Cabrera’s answers.



I’d say that was a pretty energetic speech for a university president.

But, we were always going to be in a “wait and see” situation unless he showed up and said the wrong things. He said the right things. Now it’s time to wait and see.

He put a big gun in charge of the AA. So far, the actions look right.

Excellent take in my opinion.

 

[GTLorenzo]

Excellent take in my opinion.

This COULD be the first institute wide actual show of support for the overall athletic program that I can ever remember. Likely helps that Cabrera is an alum, his wife is an alum and he has a son who is an alum. Presuming they went to some athletic events (and Cabrera seems to be a big supporter of our women's teams which is great), they don't want to see us suck and were likely embarrassed by the actions, statements and press conferences of our last coach, like most of us were. Actions speak louder than works, so let's see where this goes.

 

[LargeFO]

This COULD be the first institute wide actual show of support for the overall athletic program that I can ever remember. Likely helps that Cabrera is an alum, his wife is an alum and he has a son who is an alum. Presuming they went to some athletic events (and Cabrera seems to be a big supporter of our women's teams which is great), they don't want to see us suck and were likely embarrassed by the actions, statements and press conferences of our last coach, like most of us were. Actions speak louder than works, so let's see where this goes.

They definitely attend a lot of sporting events. He has tweeted pictures pretty often last couple years.

 

[85Escape]

You can read my response to bke1984 where I say that Cabrera’s mission in his speech was to lay out that the situation at the AA is taken seriously at the top of the organization and that he’s appointed his best person to lead the AA while we fix it. At that point, Neville owned the room and all the questions. If Cabrera takes the questions, he’s saying “ask me and not Neville” which counters what he was doing at the meeting.

This exactly. Cabrera handled it perfectly despite Schmultz'es (sic) whining. Don't worry about what Jeff thinks is a 'good look'...he's irrelevant. Which is probably why he's so grumpy all the time.

 

[LongforDodd]

Correct. But also there have been 'reports' that some of the players are upset about the sequence of events: finding out on social media their coach had 'been fired', showing up Monday and Collins is there with no information, Collins gets called in to a meeting and escorted off campus without another word. Made an already difficult time more dramatic, confusing and disruptive. Worry is that it will impact who decides to leave the team. IIUC, with the HC fired players have a window to transfer with immediate eligibility.

Most of all of this consternation can be layed at the feet of two people...the leaker inside the AA and segura who thought it was in his best interest to report it before the AA could make the announcement. F segura and the leaker.

 

[jojatk]

Nah man, you misinterpreted. It’s not what was said, but how it was delivered. The mighty yellow jacket thing was admittedly a little bit of a nitpick and not my main takeaway at all.

The speech in general had the right message, but was delivered without any energy whatsoever. It came across like a leader reading a statement someone had prepared for him that he was reading for the first time in front of the camera. And while maybe his head is in the right place, how information is delivered matters - especially from those in leadership positions.

Leaders not only need to deliver the right message, but need to instill confidence that what they’re saying is true and will be seen through. In short, I’m not sure I believe him, which leaves me in a “we will see” state.

I understand, and agree, that the delivery matters. I thought the delivery was perfectly fine and I didn't have any trouble believing athletics is very important to Cabrera. However I'll grant that it's not completely unreasonable to have doubts about our program given how much BS we've been fed the last few years. I just didn't feel Cabrera was delivering more BS. It sounded sincere to me but hey, maybe that's just my projecting what I want it to be.

 

[Bamajacket]

Most of all of this consternation can be layed at the feet of two people...the leaker inside the AA and segura who thought it was in his best interest to report it before the AA could make the announcement. F segura and the leaker.

Ken has a job to do. Now, whoever leaked the information, should be held accountable.

 

[rfjeff9]

Ken has a job to do. Now, whoever leaked the information, should be held accountable.

Correct. Do we blame a reporter doing his job for reporting a leak, or be pissed at the leak itself?

 

[GT33]

This COULD be the first institute wide actual show of support for the overall athletic program that I can ever remember. Likely helps that Cabrera is an alum, his wife is an alum and he has a son who is an alum. Presuming they went to some athletic events (and Cabrera seems to be a big supporter of our women's teams which is great), they don't want to see us suck and were likely embarrassed by the actions, statements and press conferences of our last coach, like most of us were. Actions speak louder than works, so let's see where this goes.

Cabrera and his wife go to a lot of GT athletic events. I've seen him videoing the games on his phone, texting, etc. He's a real fan.

 

[GTLorenzo]

Cabrera and his wife go to a lot of GT athletic events. I've seen him videoing the games on his phone, texting, etc. He's a real fan.

Good. That is exactly what we need. If we are going to move forward, we need a president and administration. It will support the athletic program.

 

[AugustaSwarm]

I will be amazed if anyone from the current staff besides Kenyatta Watson and maybe Mike Daniels are still employed by Georgia Tech.

It all depends on who the next HC will be and what they want. I would like to keep Tavares Tillman here too. More than all of them though, I'd like to see Tashard Choice brought back - he was a good recruiter and our RB's were one of the few offensive positives under CGC.

 

[AugustaSwarm]

My understanding was that they knew enough on Sunday from the media to cancel the player meetings, but CGC hadn't heard officially from anyone at the school that he was fired. So until he had the paperwork saying he was done, he had to just come to work as usual.

How else would this have worked? Nobody was going to call him and say, "Hey Geoff, can you come meet with us so that we can fire you?"

It was clear by CGC's response to the Ken's (I believe) question about his job that CGC knew it was over. He knew. The media knew. Everyone here knew. The internet knew. The rest of it is just noise. It sucks. It's not fun. But, it clearly needed to happen.

 

[AugustaSwarm]

This exactly. Cabrera handled it perfectly despite Schmultz'es (sic) whining. Don't worry about what Jeff thinks is a 'good look'...he's irrelevant. Which is probably why he's so grumpy all the time.

100% agree! The press is there to report on what they see happening. Cabrera was there to deliver a message and move things forward. Cabrera is under no obligation to write the piece for for the media, and the fact that Schultzy cried about not getting more attention tells you all you need to know about him.

As the president of the Institute, he did EXACTLY what I expect him to do - clearly state the situation, introduce the man that's going to clean it up, and move out of the way to let the dust begin to settle. CGC was the spilled milk...now it's time to fix the mess and move on.

 

[okiemon]

I think it’s time we give it a rest re how the termination was handled. It happened, it’s done, and we can’t change any of it. Let’s move on.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

How else would this have worked? Nobody was going to call him and say, "Hey Geoff, can you come meet with us so that we can fire you?"

He didn't have to be called. Collins and the staff work every Sunday to break down tape and start game prep for the next week. All the pres had to do was show up and can him.

 

[Vespidae]

He didn't have to be called. Collins and the staff work every Sunday to break down tape and start game prep for the next week. All the pres had to do was show up and can him.

It's not that simple. Collins did not work for Tech. He worked for the GTAA which had a leadership and governance structure. So first ... the AD had to be fired. (He was.) THEN ... the BoT could act on Collins. I'm not sure if it was Neville as acting AD that fired him or the BoT, on being the remaining power did, but again ... there are rules that have to be followed.

No one knows what conversations were happening with who (or when), who was traveling (or not) and the order is the order. I think we should all just move on. It's done.

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

It's not that simple. Collins did not work for Tech. He worked for the GTAA which had a leadership and governance structure. So first ... the AD had to be fired. (He was.) THEN ... the BoT could act on Collins. I'm not sure if it was Neville as acting AD that fired him or the BoT, on being the remaining power did, but again ... there are rules that have to be followed.

No one knows what conversations were happening with who (or when), who was traveling (or not) and the order is the order. I think we should all just move on. It's done.

It was a lot simpler than is being described here. Plenty of schools fire coaches on Saturdays and Sundays.

As for moving on because it's done, that's easy for us to say now. As of right now the coaches are working to keep several big names from doing just that BECAUSE of the way this was handled. That was the point I was making to begin with.

 

[Vespidae]

Plenty of schools fire coaches on Saturdays and Sundays.

Plenty of AD's do. That was not the case here. And my understanding is that Cabrera had previous travel plans that had to be canceled. So again ... lots of moving parts.

As to others moving on ... you can't prevent that. Players are 100% mobile now. Best you can do is assess the new situation and plan accordingly.

 

[85Escape]

Plenty of AD's do. That was not the case here. And my understanding is that Cabrera had previous travel plans that had to be canceled. So again ... lots of moving parts.

As to others moving on ... you can't prevent that. Players are 100% mobile now. Best you can do is assess the new situation and plan accordingly.

I don't imagine that many players that transferred in would sit a year to transfer again. So we at least have some players who'll stay through the transition. I expect we'll lose a starting QB, frankly. But depending on our coaching hire we might get a new starting QB candidate as a tag along. Sanders might bring a QB with him, after all. Maybe Chadwell would too, who knows?

 

[Augusta_Jacket]

I don't imagine that many players that transferred in would sit a year to transfer again. So we at least have some players who'll stay through the transition. I expect we'll lose a starting QB, frankly. But depending on our coaching hire we might get a new starting QB candidate as a tag along. Sanders might bring a QB with him, after all. Maybe Chadwell would too, who knows?

As of Monday, every player on this roster has a 30 day window for a free transfer without having to sit a year because the HC was fired. Key and staff are working hard to keep some big names on the team right now.