Georgia Tech spring game reportedly attracts 117 fans

GrayTide

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With the one exception, Ga Tech's athletic programs have gone way downhill since leaving the SEC. There is also too much competition in Atlanta for the fans' sport dollar.
 

selmaborntidefan

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I think it's sheer folly to argue that Ga Tech has "fallen" from the heights of a national championship to a mediocrity. They've been a mediocrity 90% of the time since they left the SEC. And I'm NOT personally hostile to Tech. My late grandfather was offered a scholarship in the tenth grade to play for Tech back when they were a national power that won Rose Bowls (he would have been on the team for the infamous Roy Riegels game but never finished high school......something called the Great Depression...). So I have a soft spot for Tech.

Look at the years around their national championship just for example. In 1985, Bill Curry went 9-2-1 and won a bowl game, lifting them out of a terrible period during which they were on a devastating probation. They slipped to 5-5-1 and this somehow made Curry eligible to be the best guy for the Alabama job. Now look at the years following:

1987: 2-9
1988: 3-8
1989: 7-4
1990: 11-0-1 (national championship)

Tech pulled what WVA used to do under Don Nehlen - get a team of mostly juniors and seniors in a year when your conference is down and all your tough games (Clemson) are at home or your other usual toughest foe (UGA) is imploding because of their own new head coach.....then go unbeaten and beat an overrated big name team in a blowout (Nebraska, to whom blowout losses to good teams outside the Big Eight were common back then).

Look at what happened right after the senior heavy team left:

1991: 8-5 (Bobby Ross jumps off the ship)
1992: 5-6
1993: 5-6
1994: 1-10
1995: 6-5
1996: 5-6

In the first decade after Curry left, Tech had one national title and SIX losing seasons. And except for 1990, even their "winning seasons" were just a bit above .500.

Tech has had two big splashes: a couple of very good years in the late 1990s when George O'Leary was coaching them (and forgetting to fix that resume) and DA Baxter/Paul Johnson's first two years, when he went 20-7 with Chan Gailey's leftovers.

Tech is right where they've been since they left the SEC - an academic school that occasionally puts together a couple of good years. Their entire history the last fifty years looks about like Gene Chizik coached them all that time.
 
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selmaborntidefan

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Fixed ��



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I'm sorry, but that's just not correct. Bill Curry was hired by Alabama in January 1987. Even if we want to say he gets credit for those who arrived at GT in the fall of 1987 (and would have been seniors in 1990), the major players on that team were Shawn Jones, Ken Swilling, Mike Mooney, William Bell, and Scott Sisson. Not one of those guys was recruited by Curry to GT.

Ross is imho the second worst coach to ever win a national title but it's incorrect to say he did it with Curry's players. It would be more accurate to say that Gene Stallings won his national title with Curry's players (Lassic, Teague, London, Oden, Wimbeley, Houston, Curry, Copeland - all Curry recruits)
 

Crimson1967

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I guess I should have put "fixed" in blue font.

While they probably should have stayed in the SEC, I think they are fine where they are at. They are a better fit from a number of standpoints in the ACC, plus they'd be another Kentucky or Mississippi State if they had stayed.

At least they still get a nice BCS check every year. If you want to look at a truly stupid move, how about Tulane leaving? You think a day goes by they don't stick pins in the voodoo doll of whatever genius decided that would be a good idea?
 

BigEasyTider

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Absolute irrelevance of Georgia Tech makes one thing perfectly clear: No school of any real size should ever hire a head coach who intends to install an antiquated scheme that almost no one with any real prospects of an NFL future will ever even consider playing in.

The triple option is, no doubt, a "fun" offense to watch. But that doesn't change the fact that employing it is basically career suicide for a legitimate BCS conference school.
 

CullmanTide

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The funny thing about GT leaving the SEC, Georgia has never really capitalized on it. I think LSU has to some degree though they dominated Tulane anyway.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Absolute irrelevance of Georgia Tech makes one thing perfectly clear: No school of any real size should ever hire a head coach who intends to install an antiquated scheme that almost no one with any real prospects of an NFL future will ever even consider playing in.

The triple option is, no doubt, a "fun" offense to watch. But that doesn't change the fact that employing it is basically career suicide for a legitimate BCS conference school.
dabaxter disagrees and feels this will come back around as a dominant offense again.
 

MegaVars

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Heh, Lewis Grizzard on GT football upon buying tickets for a GT home game. Question - "What time is kickoff?" Reply- "What time can y'all get here?" :biggrin2:
 

CrimsonChuck

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Georgia Tech has gone from sharing a national title under Bobby Ross to a place where Clemson, Florida State, and Georgia fans get the kind of seats they could only dream of in the their home stadiums when they travel to play the Jackets. It's sad to see.
The Curse of George O'Leary.
 

BigEasyTider

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Georgia Tech has gone from sharing a national title under Bobby Ross to a place where Clemson, Florida State, and Georgia fans get the kind of seats they could only dream of in the their home stadiums when they travel to play the Jackets. It's sad to see.
Eh, yes and no on that one.

You have to keep in mind that Georgia Tech’s 1990 national championship is an extreme historical aberration. They went 11-0-1 that year in a pre-FSU ACC – back when it was really an outright joke of a CFB conference -- and tied a 6-4-1 North Carolina team. They ended up splitting the national title, after playing in the Citrus Bowl, and split the title with a Colorado team that tied Tennessee and lost to 8-4 Illinois.

I know it’s easy to look at Georgia Tech’s 1990 national championship as a sign of the strength of their program, but the reality of it is that it’s really just indicative of a crazy, fluke year in college football, with Georgia Tech staking a claim to a share of the title because, well, someone has to win it every year.

It wasn’t like Tech had been a powerhouse before that, either. In the 35 years or so preceding 1990, they didn’t have a single 10-win season, didn’t win a single major bowl game, and I think finished in the top ten nationally maybe only once. They had a pretty lopsided losing record to UGA in that period, and I can remember four or five really ugly losing seasons just in the 1980s alone.

My point is that it’s a real misnomer to say that Tech has substantially fallen as a program. They basically have been post-1990 what they were pre-1990, which is a small school with a limited fanbase and limited financial resources that doesn’t have the program infrastructure necessary to compete with several much better programs in their same general territory (UGA, ‘Bama, Auburn, UT, Florida, FSU, etc.). As such, they are typically an afterthought program that hangs around the middle of the BCS conference pack, and only rarely breaking through with the occasional strong year.

Not saying that they have done themselves any favors by hiring Johnson and his antiquated offensive system, but it’s not like GT is some sleeping giant of a program. It’s basically a middling BCS conference program, and they’ve generated middling BCS conference results.
 

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