I’m not really upset about it, I just really am disappointed when looking back because I feel like in almost all of those years, there was potential for them to become really special. I know the overall winning percentage is
much higher through the modern era than it was in the previous one, but scheduling is also
way different now than it was then. Both in terms of who Tech is playing and how many games they’re playing. Any decent team nowadays is basically guaranteed to play 13 games. But just singling out the “best” years, winning 8 out of 13 is really no different than winning 7 out of 11. In fact 7 out of 11 is a higher winning percentage.
I think my biggest issues when looking at Tech’s overall success in the modern era are how wishy washy the fan base is when it comes to expectations
- People who say we should’ve easily won 6 in 2019
- People who say we’ll be underachieving if we don’t at least win 6 in 2020 (given a full season)
- People who are more than fine winning 7-8 games every year
- People who think not winning 10+ every year means the season was a failure.
I think if you just look at history (especially modern history), and look and what’s attempting to be built, 8-9 wins in the regular season should start becoming the standard for a decent season, not 7-8. Winning at least 9 in the regular season gives you a really good chance to play 14 total games (ACCCG + bowl game) and a much better chance to get to 10. Going back and looking at even some of Tech’s best years is painful because of how close we were to having a lot of special teams. 2006 and 2009 in particular, because those years included really tough losses to ranked teams,
and losses to unranked Georgia teams while both Tech teams were ranked in the top 20. 2001 included 3 losses by a combined total of 7 points, and a 14 point loss to the Dwags at home to end a winning streak against them.
There’s so many things that could’ve gone differently in this era. So many times Tech could’ve made that miraculous leap and be considered elite, even for just a short time frame, and it’s just always fell short. Now I fear it’s too late and will never happen. The rich will just continue to get richer, and while I’m very confident Tech will become a consistently above-average P5 team again, I don’t think there will ever be anymore opportunities to become elite. That’s what’s so disappointing about this time period to me.
