Why is Georgia Tech so blah in football?

When you rename your football field to Kia after a car brand, you are destined to be a failure at that sport

Agreed….GaTech has a very Boring/meh brand

Probably didn’t do themselves any favors hiring Key, but I understand why they did it being an alum. He at least has them back on the map and somewhat competitive, albeit still boring.

A lot of people like Key for some reason. When he leaves for a higher profile job, the program hiring him will be making a big mistake IMO.

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Why is Georgia Tech so blah in football?

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ACC Board

They were "Atlanta's football team" after World War II. But then they decided they didn't like the politics of the SEC, so they left. And not long after that Atlanta got an NFL franchise. About 15 years after that was the Herschel Walker era, and Georgia took over Atlanta and the rest of the state.

I personally know less than 5 Georgia Tech fans. At this point Tech might be the fourth most popular team in Atlanta behind UGA, the Falcons and the Dallas Cowboys.

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Litmus test: if you were a star recruit, would you choose Georgia Tech?

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Not unless I were a potentially heck of an engineer.

Kinda like Tulane. High academics with small fanbase

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They lost Buster

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This guy better cash in this year. I can't recall an assistant going from virtually unheard of to the #1 name among coordinators/staff like this since Joe Brady.

He needs to strike while the iron is hot.

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Kia after a car brand,

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Not just any car brand, a Korean car brand.

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Maybe some of you UGA fans can shed some light on this.

They left the SEC when I was born, and I’m far removed from the inner working of football in Georgia, but prior to their current lackluster football performance, they did have success in the past, lots of tradition, and being in Atlanta of all places, I would think they would have very little trouble in talent to pull from. So, what gives? Is it academics, or something I’m not factoring in?

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They will almost universally claim its academics but its not. They have a business school. It is a well respected business school and it is highly selective but they have a business school.

They don't need a business school though. I have a good friend who retired from the GT AD and his entire career consisted of keeping GT student athletes academically eligible. He was a tech grad and played football at tech in the early 70s. He was heavily involved in what he did professionally through conferences and organizations of like minded professionals through out college athletics. He would tell rooms full of Tech boosters that the "Its Academics" idea was a ruse....for 40 years....I have heard him tell it over and over again. His point was it wasn't the academics, and they are tough make no mistake, it was the lack of institutional commitment to seeing to it that student athletes got the support needed to stay eligible while at Tech...and that lack of support stemmed from those very boosters egos - they liked the idea of being viewed as academically superior to UGA mainly but to almost everyone in the south....so there was no will to do what was necessary to support athletes like there was at other places, Notre Dame for example, because those boosters wanted to stoke their egos as intellectually superior and having student Athletes who weren't academically eligible BUT could, with some help, stay academically eligible, somehow lowered the standards of Tech grads. If you have ever met many Tech grads you will not find this hard to imagine. They all suffer from an inferiority complex that is bolstered by their unwarranted projection if intellectual superiority because they were capable of mastering calculus and higher math. No mean feat for certain but most people have NO desire to do so, its not a matter of ability but one of desire. This is panned out in neighborhoods across the south where the intellectually superior Tech grad is neiighbors with and driving the same types of cars as those inferior grads from UGA and Alabama and Auburn and Clemson etc etc etc.

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I don't know how it is now, but when I was in high school other coaches were saying you don't want to go to Georgia Tech because they require you take calc and pass it.

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It wasn't just high schools and other coaches it was GT itself. GT brags about this - because they have to have something to brag about, being a graduate of one of the best engineering schools on earth ain't enough, they have a DNA level need to pretend as if academics mean nothing anywhere else in the south outside of Vandy and Duke who they will begrudgingly admit are on their level. This is true of tech students in general - they are bright and the school is highly competitive....and they eventually conclude that not taking student athletes who are not eligible as normal students is beneath them and only do so in limited numbers....and their boosters are perfectly content which is exactly what all academians at all universities dream of....only having students fully capable of the rigor without any assistance PLUS plenty of money coming in for academic purposes. Nothing at all wrong with that, Tech is a premier institution of higher learning and as such is free to focus on academics - but it is a choice and its one they make without a lot of issues with alumni because they want nothing more in life than to pretend to be intellectually superior to anyone who isn't a Tech grad and that comes with a cost.