We need to jump ship

[GTrob21]

If GT gets left out in the cold, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

SEC: Dodd's hubris and short sightedness took GT from one of the most important members of the SEC to being stranded in the college desert for decades. If there was a decision that you can point to as the turning point of our athletics program, it was that decision. It also didn't help that Dodd and GT lorded GT's position in Atlanta over the SEC for decades causing enmity to build up towards us among the SEC schools. That enmity came back to bite us when GT tried to get back into the SEC multiple times. GT lost hundreds of millions over the years because of that decision. The kicker is, Dodd pulled us from the SEC for reasons that ALL schools fought for and got not long after GT left the SEC. Instead of working within the system, Dodd tried to be the system. In essence, Dodd didn't get his way, took GT's ball and went home...a decision that still haunts us to this day.

Big Ten: It's no longer a secret that GT was given an invite to the Big Ten in 2012...and of course we turned them down. The Big Ten has had one of the most lucrative, if not the most lucrative, media contracts in college sports. Last I checked, the average payout for a B1G member is around $20 million MORE than the average ACC member payout. Do the math on how much revenue GT has lost out on in media revenue alone over the past decade. Unless the B1G has some secret moves waiting, the SEC will probably eclipse the B1G media contract the next go around given SEC landed two of college sports royalties: Texas and Oklahoma. Whatever happens, GT voluntarily left or turned down the two most lucrative conferences.

Make no mistake, GT's fate has always been in our hands. We thumbed our noses at it with our hubris and short sightedness, and we got exactly what we deserve. GT isn't where we are today because we're a small fanbase with a limited academic curriculum, we're where we are because our decision makers have made bad business decisions after bad business decisions (and those decisions go beyond just leaving the SEC and turning down the B1G). Being an academically elite institution with a small fanbase has only amplified our stupid decisions because it's harder for us to bounce back from our business mistakes.

Ahh yes a good explanation of the arrogance that GT still possesses and why we have been screwed by it. I just shake my head at the Institute sometimes.

 

[GTpdm]

I think our current Navy would consider that treasonous and withhold all our back pay, and force the new navy to withhold all our future pay.

Jumping ship was always a last resort for sailors. Not only the risks inherent in the act itself, but the new port might not see you as a desireable addition to their community.

Maybe if we are lucky, British warships will start intercepting our program at sea, impressing all our fans as Royal Navy deserters. We could all root for an EPL team instead of GT Football. So what if it starts another War of 1812?

 

[Root4GT]

i think half our fanbase thinks it’s cool dodd did what he did cause they hate the SEC but that really F’d us and is the main difference between being perennially ranked and being a roller coaster team the last 2 decades

What makes you think we could have been competitive in the SEC all these decades?

 

[forensicbuzz]

I think our current Navy would consider that treasonous and withhold all our back pay, and force the new navy to withhold all our future pay.

Jumping ship was always a last resort for sailors. Not only the risks inherent in the act itself, but the new port might not see you as a desireable addition to their community.

Most sailors thought it bad luck to know how to swim, so didn't learn. Jumping ship was akin to committing suicide for many.

 

[forensicbuzz]

i think half our fanbase thinks it’s cool dodd did what he did cause they hate the SEC but that really F’d us and is the main difference between being perennially ranked and being a roller coaster team the last 5 decades

Fixed it for you.

 

[WreckinGT]

What makes you think we could have been competitive in the SEC all these decades?

Yeah, assuming we would have been a perennially ranked team when we didn't finish ranked the last 7 years we were in the SEC, with the best coach we ever had seems like wishful thinking.

 

[first&ten]

How much has being in the sec helped the bottom half of the conference ? Even with the payouts they still don't win the conference. Maybe it helps fund the non-revenue sports at these schools, but if being in the best neighborhood hasn't helped them win, why will it help us ? I know, we can fill HBDS with LSU, Auburn, Alabama, Tex A&M, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and uga, while getting the Wreck dismantled by their goons and the scoreboard reading "slaughter". We either get Cabrera fully on board or invest large sums in the lottery whenever it reaches 500 mil. or play RICE, Northwestern, Tulane, Stanford, Duke, etc.

During Christmas, I happened to be staying at the same hotel in Highlands NC as Mr. Cabrera. Nice enough man, told him I was a season ticket holder for years , but I along with many other Tech fans were concerned about the state of the football program. He said he is aware of the fan discontent and that it was being discussed. But, his last comment was " you win some and you lose some". Not really what I was looking for!!!

 

[tmhunter52]

During Christmas, I happened to be staying at the same hotel in Highlands NC as Mr. Cabrera. Nice enough man, told him I was a season ticket holder for years , but I along with many other Tech fans were concerned about the state of the football program. He said he is aware of the fan discontent and that it was being discussed. But, his last comment was " you win some and you lose some". Not really what I was looking for!!!

You win some (research grants) and you lose some (football games)?

 

[Vespidae]

During Christmas, I happened to be staying at the same hotel in Highlands NC as Mr. Cabrera. Nice enough man, told him I was a season ticket holder for years , but I along with many other Tech fans were concerned about the state of the football program. He said he is aware of the fan discontent and that it was being discussed. But, his last comment was " you win some and you lose some". Not really what I was looking for!!!

Cabrera's income is heavily dependent on what GTRI does in terms of research grant money. To my knowledge, none of his bonus has anything to do with athletics.

 

[JacketFan137]

Yeah, assuming we would have been a perennially ranked team when we didn't finish ranked the last 7 years we were in the SEC, with the best coach we ever had seems like wishful thinking.

you don’t have to be competitive in the SEC to be ranked. by now we would have had enough money to solve a lot of the problems we face as an organization.

i guess more money would bring more problems and we have shown to be pretty horrendous at managing money, so it’s no guarantee lol

maybe we’d be paying more basketball coaches since we had so much fun paying for hewitt

 

[slugboy]

During Christmas, I happened to be staying at the same hotel in Highlands NC as Mr. Cabrera. Nice enough man, told him I was a season ticket holder for years , but I along with many other Tech fans were concerned about the state of the football program. He said he is aware of the fan discontent and that it was being discussed. But, his last comment was " you win some and you lose some". Not really what I was looking for!!!

Well, he was not going to say “we have a secret plan to solve this, but since you’re at the same hotel I can tell you”.
I’m not saying he has a secret plan, but there are three times when you make a coaching announcement: hiring, extension, or firing. Everything else is “we love our team”. He’s in the “nothing to say” window now
It sounds like he was stuck for a segue when he couldn’t say anything more.

 

[ChicagobasedJacket]

Cabrera's income is heavily dependent on what GTRI does in terms of research grant money. To my knowledge, none of his bonus has anything to do with athletics.

Correct me if I am wrong, a number of the big 10 schools(and Uchicago) are part of some massive research consortium that averages hundreds of millions or billions each year. What I never understood was why GT didn’t want do everything it could to become affiliated with this research consortium

 

[GoldZ]

Yeah, assuming we would have been a perennially ranked team when we didn't finish ranked the last 7 years we were in the SEC, with the best coach we ever had seems like wishful thinking.

Yeah, assuming we would have been a perennially ranked team when we didn't finish ranked the last 7 years we were in the SEC, with the best coach we ever had seems like wishful thinking.

Interesting cut-off in ref to our sec years because 5 of the previous 6 years to the last 7, we were ranked. However, I don't think most .500 sec record teams today are ranked. Dodd saw what was coming in the form of the talented Black athlete, and knew full well they would for quite some time be academically challenged at Tech. We would have gotten nailed big time, and at best been a middle of the road sec team. Also, much less likely to have enjoyed the '90 MNC or the TIAR.

 

[RamblinRed]

Fans who think GT would have continued to be a strong FB program just because it stayed in the SEC are likely mistaken. The more likely outcome is GT becomes the Atlanta version of Vandy.

The schools that perform most consistently in all the conferences are state schools in large population states with large alumni bases and large walk-up bases (and not in large metro areas)

As soon as Atlanta became a professional sports town GT was going to be cooked. It is almost impossible to be in a major city and have a really strong college football program. USC is the closest to doing that, but even they struggle more now than they used to.

From a money standpoint not moving to the B10 if there was truly an offer on the table was a mistake. I'm not sure how much better of a program GT would have been, but it would have alot more money. Recruiting likely would have changed with a much larger focus on the midwest.

The research consortium you may be thinking of is the AAU (Association of American Universities) every B10 school except Nebraska is part of it. ACC Schools including GT, UNC, Pitt, UVA, and Duke are all part of the AAU.

From a culture standpoint the B10 is the only other conference besides the ACC that GT fits into at all. GT does not fit into the SEC in terms of school size, academic reputation, etc.

SEC would have no desire to bring GT into the conference as GT brings nothing to them that they don't already have. Multiple Universities in the SEC would vote no to admit GT.

As others have mentioned the GoR likely freezes GT into the ACC until the mid-2030's.
The other issue is that if you want to change conferences you have to be attractive to other conferences (just like if you want to hire a strong HC you have to be an attractive option to strong HC's).

 

[Northeast Stinger]

If GT gets left out in the cold, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

SEC: Dodd's hubris and short sightedness took GT from one of the most important members of the SEC to being stranded in the college desert for decades. If there was a decision that you can point to as the turning point of our athletics program, it was that decision. It also didn't help that Dodd and GT lorded GT's position in Atlanta over the SEC for decades causing enmity to build up towards us among the SEC schools. That enmity came back to bite us when GT tried to get back into the SEC multiple times. GT lost hundreds of millions over the years because of that decision. The kicker is, Dodd pulled us from the SEC for reasons that ALL schools fought for and got not long after GT left the SEC. Instead of working within the system, Dodd tried to be the system. In essence, Dodd didn't get his way, took GT's ball and went home...a decision that still haunts us to this day.

Big Ten: It's no longer a secret that GT was given an invite to the Big Ten in 2012...and of course we turned them down. The Big Ten has had one of the most lucrative, if not the most lucrative, media contracts in college sports. Last I checked, the average payout for a B1G member is around $20 million MORE than the average ACC member payout. Do the math on how much revenue GT has lost out on in media revenue alone over the past decade. Unless the B1G has some secret moves waiting, the SEC will probably eclipse the B1G media contract the next go around given SEC landed two of college sports royalties: Texas and Oklahoma. Whatever happens, GT voluntarily left or turned down the two most lucrative conferences.

Make no mistake, GT's fate has always been in our hands. We thumbed our noses at it with our hubris and short sightedness, and we got exactly what we deserve. GT isn't where we are today because we're a small fanbase with a limited academic curriculum, we're where we are because our decision makers have made bad business decisions after bad business decisions (and those decisions go beyond just leaving the SEC and turning down the B1G). Being an academically elite institution with a small fanbase has only amplified our stupid decisions because it's harder for us to bounce back from our business mistakes.

I agree with all of this except for one point.

Dodd leaving the SEC was undeniably a bad move in hindsight but it was not out of hubris. Dodd was an old school gentleman and he could not with a clear conscience have Tech associated with what was going on in the SEC at the time. Alabama was the most obvious perpetrator of abusing student athletes but they were not the only program doing this. Dodd felt like if other schools wouldn’t put a check on Alabama, but rather tried to emulate them, he had no choice.

The SEC seems to go through this every few years and then they clean up their act, as they did after Dodd left, but then they fall back into it. Dodd couldn’t get with Bear’s win-at-all-cost approach which continues to haunt the SEC to this day.

People complain that it is too easy to question in hindsight the hiring of CGC but that decision was far easier to find fault with at the time than Dodd leaving the SEC. The SEC was becoming a moral snake pit at the time and stories like Wally Butts and the Bear Bryant fixing games were easy to believe at the time.

 

[JacketFan137]

We need to embrace our identity and bring back what was working for us. It leveled the playing field. Go all in on a good DC and find a CGC to not coach, but coordinate recruiting. That's how we can compete and on a budget.

i don’t think we really need to go back and honestly at this point that’s even worse than abandoning it in the first place

maybe a different coach with some more variations to paul’s offense would have been a good idea but honestly a change really had to happen.

we were 24-25 our last 4 seasons under paul and didn’t make a bowl game 2/4. at that point it makes more sense to try SOMETHING rather than just waste away in the doldrums of 6-6 football. 3 win seasons is obviously a step back, and collins is almost without a doubt not the guy but we’d pretty much stalled out as a program and nothing indicated any change was coming so the money was gonna dry up fast. the transition i think got people somewhat interested again, but now the on field results have brought us right back to where we were

 

[Northeast Stinger]

i don’t think we really need to go back and honestly at this point that’s even worse than abandoning it in the first place

maybe a different coach with some more variations to paul’s offense would have been a good idea but honestly a change really had to happen.

we were 24-25 our last 4 seasons under paul and didn’t make a bowl game 2/4. at that point it makes more sense to try SOMETHING rather than just waste away in the doldrums of 6-6 football. 3 win seasons is obviously a step back, and collins is almost without a doubt not the guy but we’d pretty much stalled out as a program and nothing indicated any change was coming so the money was gonna dry up fast. the transition i think got people somewhat interested again, but now the on field results have brought us right back to where we were

I understand that you and some other fans were dissatisfied with Johnson. I never was. I always felt like every few years with him, barring player injuries and missing out on the right recruits, we could strike gold once again. We can agree to disagree but to suggest that fans as a whole were as dissatisfied with the program then as they are now does not fit my experience.

 

[augustabuzz]

The only SEC team that regularly played night home games during Dodd's time at GT was LSU. Miss State did occasionally, but none of the others. When uga played a night game it was on the road. I cannot remember them playing games at night.

I do not think GT played 8 SEC teams every year. Tulane was not an SEC member at that time and Arkansas and USCe had not yet joined.

It seems weird to think about right now, but Tech played Clemson at Grant Field every year because they (Clemson) could make more money coming to Tech.

Back in the 50s, UGA would play night games at Grant Field as part of a doubleheader. Tulane as a charter member, did not leave the sec until 2 years after Tech. Sackerliner did not join the sec for almost 30years, as they were members of the ACC through 1971.

 

[augustabuzz]

Yep. You are correct it was the opposite of what I posted on who played when. Johnny Vaught wasn't happy either way.

When it came to Tech, Atlanta and Coach Dodd, was he ever happy about anything?

 

[augustabuzz]

The only SEC team that regularly played night home games during Dodd's time at GT was LSU. Miss State did occasionally, but none of the others. When uga played a night game it was on the road. I cannot remember them playing games at night.

I do not think GT played 8 SEC teams every year. Tulane was not an SEC member at that time and Arkansas and USCe had not yet joined.

It seems weird to think about right now, but Tech played Clemson at Grant Field every year because they (Clemson) could make more money coming to Tech.

I'll give you partial credit on the schedule.
1950s SEC schedules