According to Tech’s AD, adding majors or lowering the school’s academics standards in the hopes of aiding recruiting is nothing more than “recruiting hype.”
On the one hand, that seems like a convenient excuse for the genius to fall back on in the face of criticism over his recruiting. On the other, does anybody seriously think recruiting on the Flats would significantly improve if Tech’s academic standards were relaxed more?
Get The Picture 
Fish Fry is living on the 1970s concept that blue chip football players are all dummies. Tech’s administration may believe that too or it is convenient for them to believe it.
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Relaxed? No.
A greater variety of majors? Maybe.
A hard science, architecture or management degree probably isn’t attractive to a lot of potential students athletes. Not being a broad based university campus has to hurt at some level no matter what their admissions standards are. Which, truth be told, are pretty much the same as everyone else’s.
The chances that there is a starter at UGA that would have been denied admission at Tech based on academic standards is absurd. Tech’s problem isn’t that people are denied the opportunity to go, its that no one really wants the opportunity to go there and who can blame them?
Other than “my only other offer is Western Carolina”, why would you pick Tech if you had any real choices presented to you?
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I’ve met a lot of GT players in my life…some of these guys were great dudes…but those guys getting drafted from Chan’s teams in the 00s were not Rhodes Scholars or Engineers. They were athletes in every streotypical sense of the word.
The idea that Tech needs to ‘relax’ its standards to get football players is absurd. They have and will continue to do that…the problem is that currently, there is no need to do so because nobody wants to play for them.
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They have plenty of majors where they stuff athletes. This is the school of Joe Hamilton, Reggie Ball, John DUI-berry, and Stephon Marbury, plus guys that couldn’t hack it at UGA. Sure, majoring in electrical engineering is a real bitch, but lots of athletes around the country are getting real degrees, including guys at Tech. Tech has no monopoly on tough academic standards, and they have ways around them anyway.
Tech sucks. And I hope they continue to suck. But I hope they win just enough to keep (the) Johnson around for a long time.
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I could be wrong and without new info, but 30 years ago all the athletes were put into Management. That’s all they had then.
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I thought that’s what they did now. I have no idea, but is Mangement the only non-STEM degree they offer?
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They have many different areas today, many variations on business and design, plus many liberal arts degrees. Did I say “many” enough times? Hugely?
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https://www.gatech.edu/academics/bachelors-degree-programs
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That answers my question. If they offer several liberal arts degrees, then they really don’t have anything to complain about.
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If you could reboot college football from scratch (or insert us into the early 1960s), he probably has a point. A university in Atlanta with average standards and a broad choice of majors would probably be a top five program (hey, Georgia State!).
But in 2018, the Tech brand is just too unattractive to do much. About the only thing they could do to overcome it would be to hire a superstar coach where players would come in spite of their perception as a program/school. I suppose it’s possible that a super wealthy alum who hasn’t been supporting GT much to date comes in and says “my checkbook is open, go get Dabo”…but I won’t hold my breath.
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There are only a select number of skill position players who want to play in Johnson’s option offense. That’s the recruiting snag just as much as tough admission standards.
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“Athlete admissions standards” has never been an issue at Georgia Tech. Instead, it provides a convenient excuse for not making the investments needed to be competitive.
I don’t see the alumni buying in until there is a coaching change.
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Agreed. Tech had a OL in the 80’s who had a sub 500 on his SAT. And who can forget the UGA TE who failed out yet & ended up playing for Tech. They’re no different in making exceptions to the admission standards.
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Yep, exactly this. If Fromm or Fields suddenly decided to go to Tech, they would welcome them with open arms. It wouldn’t matter if their GPA was 4.0 or 2.0. All they’d care about is the 4.4 in the 40.
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As a life long Atlantan and graduate of a metropolitan public high school that sent several players to Tech I know what they did….got players into Industrial Management and tutored the hell out of them. The term “tutor” at Tech meant a massive test bank and essentially telling the player very specifically what was going to be on the exam. NEVER forget this Institution took Tyrone “i am not a rocket scientist” Sorrells , who literally flunked out of UGA’s remedial education program and to the best of my knowledge got him a degree but at the very east kept him playing TE through his senior year.
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Sylvan High School, representin’!
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Definitely. This is the school of Joe Hamilton, Stephon Marbury, and convicted killer Javaris Crittendon(sp?). They’ve never fussed much about getting these basketball recruits in school during their basketball heyday. I remember Johnson going after Nick Marshall as hard as he’s ever recruited. Told him he could go to UGA and play defense, or play qb at Tech and win a Heisman. In case anybody doesn’t remember, this same Nick Marshall:
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“I just felt like we needed to see how things play out before getting too hysterical.”
On this, I believe we all can agree.
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Stanford is struggling so with football due to the standards they have in place. So no it is not the academic standards. Could it be the old joke, what do you call a good looking girl at Tech?, A visitor?
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Doesn’t Tech annually lose to Duke?
As an aside, is there a guy with a better job than David Cutcliffe? $2.2M to win 8-9 games a year and keep the students occupied until basketball season? Basically zero pressure. What a job.
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Cutcliffe does a great job with what amounts to both hands tied behind his back. People in Durham love him and really don’t care if he wins 8-9 a year. The fact that he does it speaks volumes. I’m glad Tennessee kept their Jon Gruden obsession alive for multiple head coaching changes and didn’t make a serious attempt to hire him when he was still young enough to be a viable hire.
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Oh, I agree. Cutcliffe is a helluva coach. Ole Miss was stupid to fire him, and he’s set for life at Duke.
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Absolutely … good guy and a darn good football coach. He is involved in the Durham community especially at Duke Children’s Hospital (with his team). Ole Miss should have never run him off for the Nuttster (if I remember correctly). If Duke cared enough about football, he would have a statue outside Wallace Wade when he retires.
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They ran him off for Coach O, rumor was Coach Cutt wouldn’t cheat and they wanted someone that would (or at least allow the boosters to). Nuttster came after Coach O.
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That’s right … too lazy to research it myself.
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Stanford’s standards for athletes aren’t all they are cracked up to be. If you can throw, catch or hit a ball, they’ll find a spot for you.
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So, the same as Tech in other words.
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If I’m not mistaken, you still have to get accepted by the same standards as every student before they can offer an athletic scholarship. That’s why you see some kids waiting on that Stanford offer during recruiting season before they commit. They usually find out pretty late in the process. D. Robinson is a good example.
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I can tell you there are athletes at Stanford who would not get in if they didn’t have an athletic talent … I’ll just leave it at that.
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On Stingtalk they hate the Stanford comparison. They say getting in is the hardest part there, and then the students coast in mainly liberal arts majors. They actually see themselves as M.I.T. with a major athletic program.
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LOL! Except for the liberals arts and management programs, they are exactly right. 🙂
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I see the bumbles are playing Friday night. Georgia State took Thursday night football away from them.
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In the latest US News national university rankings, GT is tied with Florida at #35. Here are the power 5 schools in front of them:
Stanford – 7
Duke – 8
Northwestern – 10
Vanderbilt – 14
Notre Dame – 18
UCLA – 19
Cal – 22
USC – 22
Virginia – 25
Michigan – 27
Wake Forest – 27
North Carolina – 30
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities
This idea that Georgia Tech is the equivalent of MIT needs to die (MIT is 3rd by the way).
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Chan Gailey would have been more credible with this excuse. Or George O’Leary. But I don’t get the impression that there’s an army of talented football players clamoring to get an offer to go play triple option offensive football at Georgia Tech, if only they had the ACT score.
Justin Fields is a smart kid with great scores so he’s a bad example, but if a football player with Justin Fields’ talent level and a low-but-qualifying set of academic numbers was begging to play for Paul Johnson, I think we all know that Tech would find a way to get him on campus.
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Two words, two simple words………
one name…
SAMMY DRUMMER
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Right. It’s the akademiks, stupid. No, it’s not, really. They have limited majors, sure, but they do have history and political science and international affairs and the M-train. None of those are exactly STEM majors.
“But calculus!” Right. Did you know that there is transfer articulation across the University System of Georgia mandated by the Board of Regents? You players can go take the weed-outs at Georgia State. Or Clayton State. Or Atlanta Metro. And Tech has to take the credit. AND your athletic counselors know this and Tech does this.
Tech can give it a rest on the academic standards and programs argument.
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Tech’s problem is that everyone associated with Tech is a ginormous asshole.
For a group of supposedly brilliant people, their inability to diagnose the problems sure seems pretty stupid.
Alas, they have no self awareness.
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There are five reasons tech has trouble recruiting blue chip talent. tech sucks,sucks,sucks,sucks and fucking sucks.
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I sure wish y’all would stop telling the Nerds how to put out their dumpster fire.
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Tech can’t recruit talent because of the Genius’s system. What offensive player with a dream of playing in the NFL wants to play in the service academy offense? What defensive player wants to have his legs and knees targeted for 4 or 5 years as Fish Fry teaches his players cut blocking?
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Right on target Derek. In 38 years of coaching I know numerous kids in different sports admitted to Tech with basically a high school transcript. I have listened to Tech assistant coaches and even one former head basketball coach wax and wane on Tech’s tutorial program and ” pre-tests” .
I had one DT who barely got his hs diploma and played 4 years on the Flats… but no degree. Just listened last night to Tom Luginbill et al,
on XM comment to a caller who expoused the Golden Domer’s high admission standards and how it hurt.recruiting…they essentially said that ND was no different and all a kid needed was a viable transcipt. I certainly don’t know what happens at every school…just relating what I have experienced.
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Here is my recurring nightmare, they fire Fish Fry and hire the “Lane Train”. It would be crazy.
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That would be interesting, and given enough time, I actually think Lane could win there.
But neither side of that marriage would last very long having to put up with the other.
Lane is heading back out West imo, once the right school opens up (one of the Arizona schools or Colorado). Until then, he’ll just chill and continue to slay bored housewives in Boca.
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