I think I could come up with a decent plan as AD. I couldn't execute it, but the plan should work if executed somehow. Focusing mostly on football:
1. Pay all the coaches way more money through incentives, and hire more staff for "quality control" and recruiting. Of course, the AA is in serious debt, so where would the money come from?
2. Raise a bunch of money (I'm sure Bobinski would never think of this one). How? Start a campaign with a focus on "becoming a legitimate national title contender" or something to that effect. Lay out the plan to donors about what we would do with the money (more quality control staff, etc) as motivation. Set up an online donation system where you choose how your money is spent, for example, you can choose to divert your funds to an additional offensive quality control staff member, defensive quality control staff member, or recruiting staff member. Show how close we are to raising enough to achieve each goal. Or maybe give donors the ability to donate directly to each staff member's salary. You think Roof is doing a good job? Give him a raise. Literally. Is any of this feasible? I don't know. But if you paid me Bobinski's salary I'd find out for you. Basically, there are a bunch of Tech grads with piles of money laying around. If you want to get them to spend that cash on the AA then make them feel involved.
3. Increase our national recruiting presence. Of course we already recruit nationwide (technically). But too large a fraction of our resources are focused on Georgia. Why are people always so surprised when some high-level recruit from Georgia who says their priority is academics chooses UGA? A large fraction of their teachers are UGA grads. Of course they think UGA is a good academic school. How many of their teachers are GT grads? Probably none. They don't understand the opportunities GT provides. But GT has a fantastic nationwide reputation. We should be scouring the west coast for high-level recruits that value academics. I'm not saying we should slack off on Georgia, but with our (theoretically) expanded recruiting staff we should be able to multiply our efforts outside the southeast. One indicator would be to see how many kids with Stanford offers also have GT offers. Stanford is already offering all the high-level recruits in Georgia who value academics; why don't all the high-level recruits in California who value academics have GT offers?
4. Expand GT's academic offerings. The AD does not have this power. And even if the AD did have that power, I would never support "watering down" GT's academics to win some football games. That separation is what makes us special in my opinion. However, I do think there are a few common-sense additions that would benefit both academics and athletics that the AD could lobby for. One obvious addition is a teaching certificate program. Lack of a teaching certificate already cost us Jaybo Shaw, and who knows how many recruits. I'm not talking about kindergarten, I'm talking about high school math and science teachers, which would align strongly with GT's mission. There is a shortage of high school physics teachers who have an actual physics degree (many physics classes are taught by people with a chemistry degree). This also relates to #3 above. We are fighting for the hearts and minds of high school kids, and they are almost exclusively taught by our enemies. We need to get in the ring and divert the best students to GT. That includes good students who are also good athletes. Another academic addition might be a certificate and minor in exercise science (we already have a School of Applied Physiology).
5. Uniforms. Unlike Ibeeballin, I'm not totally convinced we should dump Russell. They throw a pile of money at us to wear their uniforms, and we need piles of money. But we at least need a new deal. If they want us to wear uniforms manufactured by Russell then we need control over the design. They can even sell our design to high schools or whatever, but we need to be able to choose our own uniform designs. If we can't get that leeway then let's shop around. If Nike or UA even comes close to the $$$ Russell pays us then we need to switch.
I can't think of much else. Our facilities are already pretty damn nice, but we need to keep them that way. Mostly, we need great coaches with great support. That requires $$$. We also need to be able to attract good recruits, and part of that is being creative about using our academics as a competitive advantage. Has Bobinski looked into all the things on this list? Probably. But he hasn't executed them (yet). If I were AD I would probably fail to put this list into practice as well. But there is probably somebody out there who can get this stuff done. Maybe that person is Bobinski. I hope it is.
( just kidding I like Tech too much)
