Let me add DON'T LOSE TO CITADEL... (or Samford, SC St., etc.)
Doesn’t it depend on your strategy? Unless ADJB has changed it, the goal for GT Football is to create a path to the League for those who want that.
Ok, a new angle supporting your position that perhaps has an element of truth. It explains why Duke has as many players in the NFL as GT. Oh wait.
If Tech went 8-4 against a complete patsy schedule, we wouldn't end up in the top 25, nor would we deserve to be. And if we had a complete patsy schedule, we wouldn't even be any longer in the ACC.
Schedules are made at least ten years in advance. Actually, playing tough opponents will enable us to get out of the ditch quicker, it seems to me.
While I'm sure matchups factors in to the decision to an extent, talent is going to outweigh it by a lot. Otherwise players from North Dakota State, South Dakota State, Western Kentucky wouldn't be getting drafted in the first 3 rounds of the NFL Draft.
Good point. Here’s a breakdown of NFL draft picks by conference. You can’t recruit great players and offer them a possible path to the League if you don’t play those who do. For all the discussion of OOC only, the ACC is weak in terms of talent.
| SEC | 65 |
| Big Ten | 48 |
| Big 12 | 25 |
| Pac-12 | 25 |
| ACC | 21 |
The scheduling so far in advance is a challenge. I think ideally we'd have an easier schedule these next couple years just to get to consecutive bowl games and up the toughness from there. But as you said, with scheduling being made so far in advance that isn't possible. I do think there is a tangible benefit to going to a bowl game ($$, morale, additional practices, recruiting, exposure)
If I understood your point correctly (kind of like"iron sharpens iron"), it may be true. However, by "ditch", I mean our W/L record and getting it to bowl eligibility. I don't think we will get there quicker by playing teams we have let's say, a 15% chance of beating.
But the real answer is to figure out how to get ND on board and go to 9 conference games.
The problem with getting your teeth kicked in from a hard schedule year after year (especially as your team is trying to rebuild) is that it eventually affects your recruiting and retention of starters. Coaches with a losing record will not be able to recruit eventually and then they get fired and you start all over. Playing Clemson and UGA every year is brutal enough, we need to give ourselves a better chance to have a winning record and make a bowl for a few years. Like someone said above, nobody gives AF if your losing record is against really good teams, they just see a loser.
Bold statement, but your chart doesn't necessarily support it. It does support the notion that talent, along with measurables, is what gets players drafted. Check out which teams rank high in talent composite.
We will never have a patsy schedule with uga, clemson and the rest of a P5 conf schedule.
Talent that isn’t tested is difficult to evaluate. It’s fine if you’re more into having a weak schedule but to me, that only sustains the impression that GT is irrelevant. Even more so when you lose to a patsy like the Citadel.
We won't get to a bowl game quicker by playing a tough OOC schedule, but we will get to be a better team quicker for it and go to better bowl games down the road, IMO and we will have a better than 15% chance of beating them. Beyond that, beating up on patsies is boring and meaningless, and it doesn't stoke fan interest, bowl game or not. And fan interest is what we need. Ugag can get away with that, but Tech can't. We need to schedule tough opponents and beat them.
For 2023, the ACC was 3rd.
That's true. I was taking issue with a post that suggested we would be "saluted" if we went 8-4 against all patsies. Yes, the schools we are committed to play against ensure a fairly tough overall schedule even if we did schedule three patsies OOC otherwise, but I wouldn't want us to do that and think the schedule as it is going forward is about right.
I just want some wins, and to keep recruiting momentum going. I really believe that if this coaching staff has winning seasons to point to that we will see a level of recruiting that we have never even dreamed of here and from there a high level of success