WSB Trashing TECH RECRUITING

[dressedcheeseside]

Really there is no excuse for being this poor in recruiting.
Metro Atlanta is ranked 3rd in high school football talent producing D1 prospects.
The state of Georgia only trails California, Texas, & the border state Florida.
GT is offering 4 & 5 * talent.

These types of classes would get coaches fired. I'm not knocking the kids either.
There is just no excuse for this level of poor recruiting. It's not calculus, The Hill, STEM, or otherwise.

I don't know if its arrogance or ineptness. Either way this is poor.
Here's to a ridiculous level of player development, cause that's what gonna be needed.

If only we had a big cry emogee.

 

[herb]

How many of you grew up as Tech fans? There aren't that many in Georgia, especially in small towns. The path of least resistance and most acceptance is that other school. It is no wonder that we have trouble as kids grow up want to play for their team and, like it or not, that ain't us in the vast majority of cases. Until that changes, and I really don't see how it will given the media coverage, this is where we are likely to be, for the most part. It is a real and built in disadvantage that we have to overcome and it has been that way for a LONG time. We can get the kids who grew up in homes that place a real emphasis on education, ala AJ Gray, but otherwise it is an uphill battle. And that pool of talent is a shallow one.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Really there is no excuse for being this poor in recruiting.
Metro Atlanta is ranked 3rd in high school football talent producing D1 prospects.
The state of Georgia only trails California, Texas, & the border state Florida.
GT is offering 4 & 5 * talent.

These types of classes would get coaches fired. I'm not knocking the kids either.
There is just no excuse for this level of poor recruiting. It's not calculus, The Hill, STEM, or otherwise.

I don't know if its arrogance or ineptness. Either way this is poor.
Here's to a ridiculous level of player development, cause that's what gonna be needed.

You do realize academics is one of, if not the, top selling points for us don't you? Do you think that's what Bammer, Clemson, Uga are selling the top recruits to get 'em hooked? lol.

 

[dressedcheeseside]

Unless duke is going full unc/clem and offering recreation sports something degrees...

What do you think their basketball players have been taking all these years? Not a bunch of Rhodes Scholars playin' round ball.

 

[AE 87]

Don't say that too loudly around here...you'll get a bunch historical charts, someone saying something about STEM majors (nevermind 90% of our SAs don't have STEM majors), lack of enough liberal arts majors, APR, the Ratio, Russell uniforms, jocks not wanting to do the school work, GT being in SEC country, Stanford stealing all the good recruits with academic credentials, Duke has majors to hide their SAs in, kids growing up brain washed by all the UGA fans, GT only has a 55,000 seat stadium, the Varsity gives you the poops, the uniform isn't the right shade of gold, too much traffic during rush hour, and so on...

This. It is just nonsense to listen when a Georgie fb player and grad who has had a son transfer from there to Tech and have another son visit there and commit to Tech talk about the vast difference in culture and academic expectations at Tech compared to where most elite choose to go.

 

[Techster]

This. It is just nonsense to listen when a Georgie fb player and grad who has had a son transfer from there to Tech and have another son visit there and commit to Tech talk about the vast difference in culture and academic expectations at Tech compared to where most elite choose to go.

I respect everyone's opinion. But that's just one POV.

GT is only around 2 wins away every year (except last year...ahem) from being what the poster said: a regular top 25 program. That's about 9 wins a year, and CPJ has consistently won around 7 games a year (except last year...ahem). Let's face it, CPJ doesn't have the hottest recruiting track record, but what if he did 25% better than he'es doing now? You think that's worth 2 more wins a year? I do. I think with a few tweaks, CPJ can definitely get bump in recruiting. We're thisclose to being a consistently VERY good team.

Now, if the poster said we should be a top 10 team every year, yeah...maybe that's a little out of the realm of realism for GT. Maybe every 4-5 years. Winning around 9 games a year should not be an issue for GT, because if you haven't noticed, we're already pretty close to that right now.

 

[sidewalkGTfan]

Well what is true is that I'm in a much better financial situation now than the Gailey years, but I became a fan during the O'leery years. What it also true is that I don't like the persona that CPJ carries. I personally have met him and think he is an A$$.

So my assumption was correct.

 

[Josh H]

I respect everyone's opinion. But that's just one POV.

GT is only around 2 wins away every year (except last year...ahem) from being what the poster said: a regular top 25 program. That's about 9 wins a year, and CPJ has consistently won around 7 games a year (except last year...ahem). Let's face it, CPJ doesn't have the hottest recruiting track record, but what if he did 25% better than he'es doing now? You think that's worth 2 more wins a year? I do. I think with a few tweaks, CPJ can definitely get bump in recruiting. We're thisclose to being a consistently VERY good team.

Now, if the poster said we should be a top 10 team every year, yeah...maybe that's a little out of the realm of realism for GT. Maybe every 4-5 years. Winning around 9 games a year should not be an issue for GT, because if you haven't noticed, we're already pretty close to that right now.

I'd argue that aiming for 9 wins a year, consistently, should be our goal. The goal is a National Championship, but we aren't going to the athletes to simply overpower teams the way that an Alabama. LSU, USC in their day or Ohio State can.

Aiming to be a consistent nine win program is doable and gives us the opportunity to have one of those Auburn type seasons where the ball just bounces our way.

 

[PBR549]

Well what is true is that I'm in a much better financial situation now than the Gailey years, but I became a fan during the O'leery years. What it also true is that I don't like the persona that CPJ carries. I onally have met him and think he is an A$$. You can tolerate people like that if they win, but the truth is that he is coming off a 3-9, where he was expected to complete He had a seasoned quarterback, who regressed because the OL looked like they forgot to play football, He blames his D-coordinator a whole lot and I feel HE is too personally connected to a OL coach that should have been released a couple of years ago.

Add onto that our recruiting being lampooned nationally, and the excuses you read on a daily basis on these type of forums and you get disgruntled fans... who don't want to spend money on a program they feel could be in a much better shape but is simply being mismanaged.

In my opinion there is NO WAY we should be losing so many top GA recruits. WE either don't know how to sell our school and the benefits of going there or we don't care.

CPJ could easily change my mind, I didn't dislike him at the beginning, I supported him, cheered for him and even defended him, but after 7 years of data, my conclusion is that we could do better at GaTech

You need to go back and check 40 years of data. We've always lost the big in-state recruits. In my opinion we have as good of recruiters as we have ever had during the last 40 years based on personal experience for most of that time. The recruiting problem didn't start with Coach Johnson and will not end with him unless something else changes.

So you're blaming the OL coach for last year. That's very uninformed. When the defense puts nine in the box because you can't press the field deep it makes things difficult. Hopefully the last two recruiting classes will help with that situation.

So you're solution is to pull your financial support and bad mouth the coach. This is not a solution to the problem but only serves to make the problems worse. CPJ hasn't mismanaged anything in fact except for last year his offense has been extremely effective. The D is only going to get better as Roof gets more time with them.

CPJ has been a winner wherever he has been. He didn't forget how to recruit when he got to Tech. Come on man we all are frustrated with the " expert evaluation " of this class but it's the parameters that we have in which we have to recruit.

Consistency in staff is the BEST thing we have going for us. Pulling the rug out now would be a disaster.

 

[croberts]

Really there is no excuse for being this poor in recruiting.
Metro Atlanta is ranked 3rd in high school football talent producing D1 prospects.
The state of Georgia only trails California, Texas, & the border state Florida.
GT is offering 4 & 5 * talent.

These types of classes would get coaches fired. I'm not knocking the kids either.
There is just no excuse for this level of poor recruiting. It's not calculus, The Hill, STEM, or otherwise.

I don't know if its arrogance or ineptness. Either way this is poor.
Here's to a ridiculous level of player development, cause that's what gonna be needed.

I like a lot of your posts and generally agree with most. This is not one of them. As an old coach in metro ATL, I think it has everything to do with (STEM, The Hill, Ga HS academics Calculus and others) . When talking about the large # of kids from Ga being up in the top 5 on a national level, let's remind ourselves what we pay our coaches and spend on recruiting. Then realize the region of the country and understand that every SEC school outside of Vanderbilt has a larger stadium, as big or bigger combined budget, (coaching pay + recruiting budget). I did not even mention Clemson and Fla State. I wish I had a answer. I don't. The one disturbing thing is that now Duke is recruiting where I have always said we would have to be (around 25 - 35) to beat GA on a regular basis.

 

[AE 87]

I respect everyone's opinion. But that's just one POV.

GT is only around 2 wins away every year (except last year...ahem) from being what the poster said: a regular top 25 program. That's about 9 wins a year, and CPJ has consistently won around 7 games a year (except last year...ahem). Let's face it, CPJ doesn't have the hottest recruiting track record, but what if he did 25% better than he'es doing now? You think that's worth 2 more wins a year? I do. I think with a few tweaks, CPJ can definitely get bump in recruiting. We're thisclose to being a consistently VERY good team.

Now, if the poster said we should be a top 10 team every year, yeah...maybe that's a little out of the realm of realism for GT. Maybe every 4-5 years. Winning around 9 games a year should not be an issue for GT, because if you haven't noticed, we're already pretty close to that right now.

No worries. I think that there are two conversations blurred together: recruiting and results.

The context of the thread is RECRUITING (notice that it's in all caps in the title). The points you raised to watch out for were points raised in conversations about recruiting. So, I responded with the perspective of someone who's been in the locker-rooms and observed the cultures which suggested that some of those points you seemed to be mocking (saying watch out for them in a tongue in cheek way), were accurate. IMO, that's not just one POV, it is rather new facts which need to be considered, unless you are calling him a liar.

However, to the question of whether or not we can start winning 9+ games/year on a regular basis, I actually agree that this is a reasonable goal. However, I think that we're going to have to get there through coaching rather than expecting our recruiting classes to get to top 25/year. I think that this is very doable because of CPJ. Obviously this last year hurt us, but we've regularly had a top 25 offense in scoring efficiency, and have been top 20, maybe top 10 on average over his time here. If we can develop that kind of efficiency on D, see BC last year, then we can get the results you desire without necessarily recruiting that much better. Of course, I suspect better recruiting will follow more consistent better results.

 

[Skeptic]

Really there is no excuse for being this poor in recruiting.
Metro Atlanta is ranked 3rd in high school football talent producing D1 prospects.
The state of Georgia only trails California, Texas, & the border state Florida.
GT is offering 4 & 5 * talent.

These types of classes would get coaches fired. I'm not knocking the kids either.
There is just no excuse for this level of poor recruiting. It's not calculus, The Hill, STEM, or otherwise.

I don't know if its arrogance or ineptness. Either way this is poor.
Here's to a ridiculous level of player development, cause that's what gonna be needed.

This is an evergreen recruiting argument, but okay. If I thought you were even halfway right I would say fire the lot of them today. And hire ... well, somebody. Good luck with that. But I am game to listen if you are game to tell me how as a coach you would convince a kid and his parents to attend a college not in his best interest. And what kind of coach, if they all harumpph, harumpph, are in the business of developing young men? Why in the world would a guy wanting to do something else with his life -- assuming he is the one in a few thousand who actually knows at 18 what that is, when what most of them want out of college is themselves -- to go and be an engineer? Yeah, I read the arguments about a Tech education is world class and such, and good. And yes, you can take other courses. And the argument, assuming they still use it, that Tech graduates have an "average" starting salary of $60,000. Any kid who is so deprived he can't see through that should get into a statistics class right now and skip Tech, since clearly that "averages" to some making $90,000, and some making $30,000. (Do we think Tevin Washington was pulling down $60,00 as an assistant cell phone store manager?) It is somewhat the argument critics have against liberal arts: they want kids to get, not an education, but a trade, even an unhappy one, though liberal arts over the long haul make better money. I do agree that it is not calculus, the Hill, STEM. It is the curriculum, and while GT is supposed to have a liberal arts program and its graduates "average' $50,000, until that is expanded it has very limited appeal. I get the frustration, and I am not certain how well GT recruits, but I'm not out there on the trail trying to drive those little doggies to market. Maybe we need to see how this class does on the field. Or at least let the trail dust settle.

 

[flea77]

I respect everyone's opinion. But that's just one POV.

GT is only around 2 wins away every year (except last year...ahem) from being what the poster said: a regular top 25 program. That's about 9 wins a year, and CPJ has consistently won around 7 games a year (except last year...ahem). Let's face it, CPJ doesn't have the hottest recruiting track record, but what if he did 25% better than he'es doing now? You think that's worth 2 more wins a year? I do. I think with a few tweaks, CPJ can definitely get bump in recruiting. We're thisclose to being a consistently VERY good team.

Now, if the poster said we should be a top 10 team every year, yeah...maybe that's a little out of the realm of realism for GT. Maybe every 4-5 years. Winning around 9 games a year should not be an issue for GT, because if you haven't noticed, we're already pretty close to that right now.

I also believe we can win with Student/Athletes. My real life experience is that you have to be real and understand that GT has a smaller pool to recruit from. True not many of our SA's are in stem majors, but they do have to take the stem core classes. We signed 1, 4 star player this year and other very talented players, that are also serious about academics. When my son decided to attend GT, I thought it was a great choice, I told him he would compete for Championships and get a world class education that no one would question. He committed before the 2013 season. It was not like he waited until after GT played in the Orange Bowl.I guess in in the minority, but I believe this is a good class. I believe the coaches found some under the radar talented guys that fit our needs. Most fans of college football teams don't care about the college part, it is understandable because its entertainment. GT is a Institute first, that happens to compete in D1 sports and most years is very competitive. Now if something happened and we had some easier paths to graduation like Duke does , then we would be able to recruit a larger pool of players. We all not that is not happening, so we have to continue to find the players that want the advantages that GT offers.

 

[Techster]

The context of the thread is RECRUITING (notice that it's in all caps in the title). The points you raised to watch out for were points raised in conversations about recruiting. So, I responded with the perspective of someone who's been in the locker-rooms and observed the cultures which suggested that some of those points you seemed to be mocking (saying watch out for them in a tongue in cheek way), were accurate. IMO, that's not just one POV, it is rather new facts which need to be considered, unless you are calling him a liar.

Dude, I know you like to cause friction and you have a wide history with this entire board of making things bigger than it needs to be, but don't ever put words in my mouth (or any other poster's) to try and cause drama. What I said was the furthest thing from what you're trying to insinuate. Lay off the drama queen act.

 

[collegeballfan]

I definitely see and understand everything you have just said. I would counter that by saying there are GREAT academic universities who are able to compete at a high lvl. The only legitimate excuse is the lack of majors at the Institute, and I have only see 2, maybe 3 recruits that choose to go to another school because of a lack of majors. I'm just satisfied with being another wake forest or boston college.

I think Tech could be a consistent top 25 type of program.

I would counter that it is not necessarily the lack of majors, and that is a biggee, but the pure academic grind one must endure to finish at Tech.
And the fact that Tech is a high academic "government" school and not private school where a "football" curriculum could be in he catalog.
If you are convinced you are NFL bound why put up with two semesters of cal when you go to a factory and study NFL day camp.

Hey, I really hope I am very wrong and you are right. I love winning.

 

[Techster]

I also believe we can win with Student/Athletes. My real life experience is that you have to be real and understand that GT has a smaller pool to recruit from. True not many of our SA's are in stem majors, but they do have to take the stem core classes. We signed 1, 4 star player this year and other very talented players, that are also serious about academics. When my son decided to attend GT, I thought it was a great choice, I told him he would compete for Championships and get a world class education that no one would question. He committed before the 2013 season. It was not like he waited until after GT played in the Orange Bowl.I guess in in the minority, but I believe this is a good class. I believe the coaches found some under the radar talented guys that fit our needs. Most fans of college football teams don't care about the college part, it is understandable because its entertainment. GT is a Institute first, that happens to compete in D1 sports and most years is very competitive. Now if something happened and we had some easier paths to graduation like Duke does , then we would be able to recruit a larger pool of players. We all not that is not happening, so we have to continue to find the players that want the advantages that GT offers.

I don't disagree with what you're saying. Those are points I've raised many times on this board.

-We can win with STUDENT athletes. There are enough true student athletes who can compete at a high level for GT to consistently be a top 25 team...with special top 10 years. As I stated previously, we're thisclose to that happening.
-I don't have a problem with the caliber of SAs CPJ is bringing in. They are good players and they are good "program guys". I think it would help if we could close on the 2-3 higher regarded players every year. We don't need a class full of them, just an extra 2-3 every year...and GT gets a cumulative effect after 3-4 years. You close on guys like Donovaughn Campbell, Romeo Finley, and Demetris Robinson...combine them with the guys we develop in our system on both sides of the ball, and we are consistently one of the best teams in the ACC. We compete pretty evenly already with the top teams without those players.
-No matter where SAs go, they have to take core classes that consist of Science and Math classes. What separates GT from other schools is the degree of math is higher, and depending on the professor, so is are the science classes. No one argues it's tougher at GT in that regard, but like you siad, there are more than enough SAs who are serious about academics. It's one of the first things our commits bring up on why they came to GT. GT's acadmics is certainly a reason you have commented on as a reason your son chose us over a long list of schools. Believe it or not, there are plenty of guys who are not scared of doing work in the classroom...it's why GT was able to attract some PWOs who turned down scholarship offers to come here.

I think for the most part, all of us agree we are on to something. It's just a matter of the degree of how to get there that we have our opinions on.

 

[AE 87]

Dude, I know you like to cause friction and you have a wide history with this entire board of making things bigger than it needs to be, but don't ever put words in my mouth (or any other poster's) to try and cause drama. What I said was the furthest thing from what you're trying to insinuate. Lay off the drama queen act.

Sorry, for confusion. When I used the abbreviation "IMO," I intended it to mean "In MY opinion" so that what follows would not be seen as putting words in your mouth. Take it for what it's worth, but you may want to try and be a little less sensitive. You seem TO ME to take every difference of opinion as a personal attack and then whine about it, and that gets tiresome.

 

[Techster]

Sorry, for confusion. When I used the abbreviation "IMO," I intended it to mean "In MY opinion" so that what follows would not be seen as putting words in your mouth. Take it for what it's worth, but you may want to try and be a little less sensitive. You seem TO ME to take every difference of opinion as a personal attack and then whine about it, and that gets tiresome.

It's simple. If you have a difference of opinion with ME, keep it to me. Don't put words in someone else's mouth and insinuate that they are calling another poster a "liar"...however you may want to try and dodge it as you're known to by saying "oh, you must have misunderstood". No, no one is misunderstanding you. We're all adults here. If someone has issue with what someone is posting, a poster can handle on their own without someone like you trying to stir drama.

If what I post is tiresome to you, you have every right to put me on ignore. Trust me, it won't hurt my feelings if you do.

 

[AE 87]

It's simple. If you have a difference of opinion with ME, keep it to me. Don't put words in someone else's mouth and insinuate that they are calling another poster a "liar"...however you may want to try and dodge it as you're known to by saying "oh, you must have misunderstood". No, no one is misunderstanding you. We're all adults here. If someone has issue with what someone is posting, a poster can handle on their own without someone like you trying to stir drama.

If what I post is tiresome to you, you have every right to put me on ignore. Trust me, it won't hurt my feelings if you do.

I don't ignore you because I actually think that your point of view is typically worthy of engagement. However, I agree that it seems fruitless when saying something is my opinion is interpreted as putting words in your mouth, while you telling me that I was doing something differently than what I say I am doing is apparently not? OK.

 

[Milwaukee]

Really there is no excuse for being this poor in recruiting.
Metro Atlanta is ranked 3rd in high school football talent producing D1 prospects.
The state of Georgia only trails California, Texas, & the border state Florida.
GT is offering 4 & 5 * talent.

These types of classes would get coaches fired. I'm not knocking the kids either.
There is just no excuse for this level of poor recruiting. It's not calculus, The Hill, STEM, or otherwise.

I don't know if its arrogance or ineptness. Either way this is poor.
Here's to a ridiculous level of player development, cause that's what gonna be needed.

I know you're taking a lot of heat for this post, but it's spot on. I agree with everything but I'm more optimistic that we WILL and CAN coach them up; PJ and staff have proved that imo, besides a GD punter (but that's neither here nor there).

The fact is, not "opinion", cheese and others, is that these recruiting hauls are WELL below where they should be. We can and should recruit better. You can gold glass it all day long and tell yourselves we're getting the right character guys that we want, but we're not landing the stud prospects that are academically acceptable at Tech.

These are facts. We're signing 2 and 3 star kids every year, for the most part. It puts strain on our staff to coach em up and puts us behind the 8 ball in the arms race.

I welcome aboard all the guys that signed with us, I can't wait to see how they pan out. But we need to improve the recruiting and the recruiting staff. End of rant.