I guess Geoff Collins is over calculus as a recruiting problem.
When Jatavis Sanders spoke with new Georgia Tech coach Geoff Collins last week, the Norcross High assistant coach and recruiting coordinator heard a ball of energy.
“You can feel it through the phone,” Sanders said.
It was one of a number of conversations that Collins has had with high-school coaches in the state since taking the job Dec. 7. Perhaps the more memorable thing that Collins impressed upon Sanders was this – he had come from Temple to compete with Georgia for the state’s top recruits.
“‘I’ve got to take it away from Georgia,’” Sanders said Collins told him. “That’s his plan to win the state back, as far as recruiting.”
As Mike Tyson famously said, everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Ultimately, somebody’s gonna be very disappointed.
Get The Picture 
Honeymoon has begun. I tend to think it is going to be much worse for Tech now that they are playing the same game as everyone else. Their antiquated offense gave them an advantage in that they could tread water with sub par recruits. Now they are playing with everyone else and they don’t have a gimmick to draw from. I just think they are going to be REALLY bad for the foreseeable future–I know i am stating the obvious.
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They’ll be bad next season, no doubt.
I wouldn’t underestimate Collins, though. A Tech coach who’s realistic about recruiting can make a go of it; the state is just too talent-rich.
But Tech won’t out-recruit Georgia.
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He’s a short timer if he has even a modicum of success. He won’t stay. Tech has access to recruits, but that’s it. Period. Facilities lag. Fan support lags. The campus sucks. Georgia will beat your ass 8 out of 10 times. He won’t stay.
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My thought exactly
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Ahhahahaha! Yeah, ok. Good luck with your ‘plan’!
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I just heard some stingtalk nerds soil themselves.
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Hey maybe next year they break into the top 50 in recruiting. Then the top 45 the year after that.
Chills you to the bone to think what the former temple coach could do with top 45 type talent and a new attitude.
UGA should try and drop that game.
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“Chills you to the bone to think what the former temple coach could do with top 45 type talent and a new attitude.”
Hey! Show him the respect he deserves! He followed up Ruhl’s back-to-back 10 win seasons with (check notes) um…7-6 & 8-4 with a Gasparilla Bowl scalp…Apologies, I guess you did.
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BTW, Senator, great quote at the bottom th as t you’ve added. As a Bulldog engineer, I’m proud to have students coming to UGA for engineering AND a good football team. We’re UGA! We can do that!
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I dont know why my phone has input palsy.
“…that you’ve added.”
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A sure sign your program may not be off to the start your HC and AD think it should be?
Having the AJC spin you up!
Now what is the track record of an old coach who is much traveled in the coaching ranks…a coach who came out of that power house Temple from the upper mid-Atlantic bastion of football.
Tech has a way to go to crawl back into the ACC upper tier.
UGA has dealt with the Tech game for a long time.
Perhaps the Techies should drop their game!
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Crossing the Rubicon and rolling the dice…well, hells bells, that is another deal.
Take more than a fresh coat of paint, a new transmission, and driver to get Tech moving.
Such a morbid college sitting in the middle of Atlanta.
What does that say.
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Welp, registered QurterBack Runner Offer Kirbs ONLY signed 9 in-state commits. Tight End Discoverer Tech should feel good about competing agin us! Right?
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GT loses five senior starters on offense, six on defense, and likely more with the scheme change.
He still has holes to fill on his 2019 roster, so for the near term he will have to energize his staff to ‘take it away’ from Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Kennesaw, and Valdosta.
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Collins has nothing to lose with his big talk. He knows he’s got at least 4 years of “getting his system and players in place” before he’ll really be held accountable. Barring the unforeseen, he knows they aren’t going to out recruit Georgia but he can’t say it publicly at this point. He’ll be able to promise and deliver early playing time for a couple years and that will get him some decent players that might have gone to SC or UNC.
Tech will be a 7 to 8 win a season team and will beat Georgia once, maybe twice, a decade on average going forward.
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So – basically the last 40 years?
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I think they’ve won 10 out of the last 40…IF I can count. 🙂 Reggie Ball could check my math. Or any GT player for that matter, since they all take Calculus.
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Georgia Tech Recruiting. LOL.
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May the Force be with you, Geoff Collins.
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They just don’t get it. It isn’t academics or calculus or anything else. Kids don’t want to go there because everyone, from the alumni, to the students, to the professors, to the administration associated with tech is an asshole who thinks that they are the only smart person in the world.
No one, and I mean no one, wants to be around that.
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I know about ten Tech fans and all but one are an asshole. Now, if they see this, they will all think they are the one that’s not an asshole.
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90% feels about right.
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There are some who argue that it is to Georgia’s advantage if Tech becomes somewhat decent at in-state recruiting. The theory is that Georgia will still get the top blue-chippers that it wants. But the state is so talent-rich that there are plenty of other good players that will go somewhere nearby. And if a few more go to Tech, then that’s a few guys who won’t be going to Auburn, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina. So the in-state talent is spread more thinly among our rivals.
It’s debatable whether that makes sense. But what’s not debatable is that if Georgia continues to recruit top-5 classes nationally, Georgia will always have a significant talent advantage over Tech.
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Might make sense, you have to play them anyway, better they be thinned out!
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It would be much better if another regional team would recruit at the Alabama/Georgia level, I agree, to eat into Bama’s recruiting (but hopefully not ours!) I’d prefer that team not be a mainstay of our schedule, thanks.
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Pretty sure A&M is attempting that…and doing pretty well at it.
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We signed five in state kids yesterday. Tech needs to start by taking back the three star recruits from Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, et al. Heck, Nebraska, Duke, and West Virginia had better in state hauls than Tech. It’s gonna be a lonnnggg process.
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He could fire up the kids by bringing in some grandfathers and great-grandfathers who recall tech’s golden Era of Relevance. Follow this with thrilling tech highlights from the Jim Crow days, if any film exists. They could end with a hip-shattering “Up With the Gold and White” and then be given oxygen and assisted off-stage.
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Please include my dad in that audience…
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Read what Coach Smart said about UGA degree programs and academics.
If Tech is such a great engineering school, why are they not on the “map”.
No one thinks of Atlanta as an engineering mecca.
It ain’t no Silicon Valley.
UGA will close the gap on Tech because their is a need in Georgia and the southeast, and ain’t meeting that need.
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UGA is looking at a long term problem as well. Many new alumni are going to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, K Street, SoCal or back to their hometowns to use their educations. Not everyone who graduates in Athens is coming to Atlanta to start their careers now.
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Kinda? It’s true our alumni are dispersing a bit more than in the past, but they’re still indoctrinated in the faith. To whit:
https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blog/2017/12/22/athens-georgia-nyc
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This is why Georgia and Georgia Southern eventually gained approval to start their own engineering programs.
With few slots at GT open to in-state students, for the longest time the only in-state public options for graduating Georgia high school students were Southern Tech and the HBCUs.
Auburn, Clemson, and UF thrived on Georgia engineering students not far the state line. It was an opportunity lost to a fast-growing state, due to GT’s protective influence on the University system.
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That, and the USG finally saw the benefit to helping UGA get to AAU status. Now, if they could just get over it in Augusta we can start cooking with gas.
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I disagree about GT rep academically. Many many kids in NOVA have them on their list with VT and UNC. Just my experience.
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Yep, as much as it pains me, Tech’s technical reputation is fine.
And I agree with the others that they weren’t able to meet the needs of the state, so other programs were added. The UGA program has done well over the years, and since expanding into a full College has taken off. I’m proud to see it (as a UGA engineer.)
BTW, back when I was in school and Herschel was running over the techmites, they’d always say “you’ll be working for me after college” and I’d remind them that I got an engineering degree AND a good football team.
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I’m in the minority on this site that believes Georgia Tech can still be returned to national prominence in football. I just don’t think Collins is going to do it by himself. He’ll fail and be fired in 5 years or less. The Tech Athletics Dept is operating in full failure mode and has been for quite some time. Things won’t turn around there until the Techsters hire a first rate AD and clean house. Will they? No way. They are too stupid to see the real problem so they periodically recycle loser coaches for a few years then force them out when they fail.
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Tech just doesn’t have the money as an AD to compete at a much higher level. It’s not about calculus. There is insufficient bling. They have to save their allowance and mow lawns just to fire a guy sometimes. They can get lucky now and then with a QB, a RB, maybe a Calvin Johnson once in a great while, or an unexpectedly inspired hire (O’Leary… sort of) who uses them as a stepping stone to an upper-mediocre program.
But generally, absent the lucky strike, the best they can aspire to is ‘pesky’.
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“Tech just doesn’t have the money….”
which is hilarious as any nerd will tell you they automatically make $1M per year straight out of school. Or maybe that’s rupees.
If they had alumni that supported their school, they could do more.
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I think Tech can win big if they relocate the campus, raise a shit load of money, build a new stadium, get rid of everyone associated with the school, change mascots, school colors, and football uniforms. That’s their formula.
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Nice. hahaha
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I think you’re right that Collins can’t get them there by himself and he’ll either be fired or gone in 4 years. If he has a modicum of success there, he’ll fine greener pastures.
I wouldn’t say they recycle coaches, though. Fish Fry was there 11 seasons and Chan for 6 prior to that, and then O’Leary for 6, I think? Maybe you’re predicting that going forward they’ll cycle through coaches quickly?
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The Tech coaching problem began when Dodd left in 1966. Since then they’ve had umpteen coaches, some only lasting 2 years(Bill Fulcher). The average has been about 5 years plus or minus a season or so.
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I think this is good. Perhaps the national media will pay attention to this “rivalry” now.
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I think he needs to understand that he doesnt need to focus on taking them away from UGA. Tennessee, Clemson, Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Vandy, Georgia Southern, Kennesaw State, Valdosta State, South Carolina…you’re not taking anything from Kirbs that he wants…its the other guys you’re going to need to compete with and they all will likely be having better seasons than Tech.
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Get guys who are bitter about not getting UGA offers and become Best Shot U. Hasn’t that always been the plan?
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Well, if I wanted my best shot it ain’t gonna come on the Flats with a depleted roster. I would sign with any of the other half dozen plus schools that play Georgia on the regular with an actual chance to compete.
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He’s just chumming the waters.
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Kirby says ‘I see you, chump’…
https://www.dawgnation.com/football/kirby-smart-georgia-tech-engineering-jab
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Not only the engineering/academics, but he also mention safety and talked about how safe the UGA campus is (without specifically mentioning the war zone that is the Georgia Tech campus). GATA, Kirby!
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They are still in Atlanta, are not a CFB blue blood, and still play in a partially filled stadium unless the other side brings 20K+ fans. Recruits see that, and it is going to be a tough sell forever. When Dodd pulled them from the SEC they lost what mojo they had, he killed their competitive program…and they named a stadium for him after that. Tech doesn’t get it, and isn’t going to be the new sexy toy.
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So much sports media spin. Anyone else remember 2009 when it was a feature not a bug that Johnson didn’t have to recruit against Georgia for his offense? Of course that was before he went 2-7 against us…
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I agree that GT needs to compete more with the out of state schools than with us. Kirby, Saban and Dabo are skimming the cream off the Georgia milk. Tech needs to work their way to forth place in the state to be competitive. There new biggest problem is going to be the lack of fear that their opponents are going have now that the cut blocking offense is gone. Hell we will pick up a lot of practice hours wasted on that high school offense.
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