Tech fans, can we please dispense once and for all with the holier than thou whining about admission standards and the Hill holding back Paul Johnson? The genius says he’s been greenlighted to go after the same kids most everyone else chases.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Johnson shared updates and insights about his team, which begins spring practice in advance of his seventh season on March 24. Among them: an admissions leeway he has been granted by school president G.P. “Bud” Peterson, changes in the coaching of the offensive line and possible scheme adjustments for the offense.
The incoming signing class was among Johnson’s largest and was significant in another way. With the academic success that the program has had since his arrival after the 2007 season, Johnson went to Peterson last year for help. He had ammunition. The Jackets were honored by the NCAA last June for having an NCAA-measured Academic Progress Rate in the top 10 percent of FBS.
Of the 15 players who were part of Johnson’s first signing class in 2008 and who stayed for four or more years, 14 earned degrees. Of the 16 players in the 21-player 2009 class who stayed four or more years, 15 earned degrees and the 16th is completing degree work.
Up until last year, Johnson said, he was permitted to have 20 percent of the signees fall below the school’s admissions standards so long as they met NCAA qualifying standards, signees termed by the program as exceptions.
“(Peterson) said, with the success we’ve had, he would give me more leeway if I thought guys could make it through,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that Peterson removed the 20 percent cap and gave him autonomy to offer scholarships to prospective players as long as they were NCAA qualifiers, which are a lower standard than Tech’s.
Fine by me. On to the next excuse for losing to Georgia…
Get The Picture 
Has someone posted this to Stingtalk and the Hive yet? Just face it, Techies, you suck and you have a coach no one wants to play for.
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On the one hand, credit to Fish Fry is fairly due for getting the guys he recruits to graduate. On the other hand, Tech people who are holier than thou about their academic standards, yet complain constantly about the won-loss record of their football program, should be happy. They’re not compromising their academic mission for something as coarse as mere football games, are they?
I guess they’re like Czar Mike used to be when he wasn’t making decisions for the UGA athletic department, or the school in general, based on money.
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Agree, but Czar Mike’s decisions were mainly based on what was best for Mike. I certainly hope nothing, with the exception of the waste treatment facility, ever gets named in his “honor”.
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“It is not a privilege that Johnson said he intends to abuse, if for no other reason than practicality.”
Paul keeps using that word ‘privilege’. I do not think it means what Paul thinks it means.
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Tech fans lie to themselves as their once great program slips away. They should be holding the Administration’s feet to the fire and demanding better performance instead of making excuses. “We can’t recruit good athletes.” Well, my Grandmother always told us that”can’t never could.” I also hate when the talk about UGA’s “useless diplomas”. In my own family among the younger generation there is a druggist, a vet, a teacher who is raising a family and teaching dance to low income kids in her “spare” time and a young man that manages a 6500 acre farm and timber operation. All with degrees from UGA. Which one of them would you consider useless?
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DGDawg family! Salute!
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Considering the pride evoked when our players graduate and the best we wish them all, then I wish to congratulate Johnson and Tech for such an enviable record. To have only one fail for a degree in two of his first classes would also tell me that not many can carry the title “Engineer” beside their name. It’s an admission that their degree studies don’t require protracted study in the sciences and especially in mathematics that teckies are so fond of claiming are above the average IQ of other student athlete admissions at other institutions. It demonstrates that those higher standards have been diluted already at Tech and the Pres’s finally setting Paul’s recruiting academic chains free is fluff and bullshit for certain AJ-C contributors.
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Nah, the other excuse is that they can’t keep those guys in school, because there are no easy majors like “Sports Management” or “Family and Consumer Sciences”…. There’s always a convenient excuse to try and justify their mediocrity….
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Maybe I am a maroon, but I feel like I’m missing something… doesn’t this partially validate their claim that their coach has historically been hamstrung? I mean, I get it going forward that there’s no excuse, but where am I wrong here?
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You pull for Mississippi State?
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Yes, when they play Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, or Bama.
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Because you are assuming that there were players that could have gotten sans restrictions. I doubt that there was.
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Avoid the rush. Hate Tech early.
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The NATS “athlete” degree is “Management” in their “business” school where most of the classes are taken @ Moorehead & Clarke Atl. & transferred to Tech . It requires 35 hrs of classes “in-residence” @ Tech & most of those are Sr “independent study” jobs.
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Tuck Fech, this is “cute for Fuck Tech” ie Ugag
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One Erskine Russell came up with Tuck Fech. To compare this to the juvenile UGAg is no comparison
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It all sounds nice until you learn that 70% of GT’s football players ride the M train.
http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2011-09-05/athletes-sticking-together-classes
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