As easy as it is to mock Georgia Tech, things are so forlorn on the Flats that I almost feel a little pity. Check this out:
When former Memphis defensive lineman Morris Joseph committed to Tech last week out of the transfer portal, he raised the team’s count of scholarship recipients (including incoming freshmen and transfers like him) to 75. That’s 10 shy of the 85-player limit, the largest number of open spots of any team in the ACC.
… For better or worse, Tech’s 10 open scholarships are anomalous in the ACC. Six of the conference’s 14 teams are at the 85-player limit or even over, counting on players to leave the team by transfer or other means. Another three are near the limit at either 83 or 84. The remaining four are between 78 and 82.
I said almost.
Collins is quite the innovator, bringing Richt-style roster management to the friendly confines of the ACC. It’s one thing for Mark Richt to manage a roster like that; I mean, at least Georgia was consistently bringing in top ten recruiting classes. It’s quite another to do that coming off back to back three-win seasons at a program that hasn’t recruited well in 15 years.
What that means for Tech can be interpreted in different ways. One could see it as an opportunity to add talent when competitors don’t have nearly the scholarship space to take on more players even if they wanted to do so. Another is that the Jackets are thin depth-wise and are trying to build their roster at a point when most of the better players have entered the portal and committed.
Good luck with that, Geoff. Georgia Tech has so much to offer right now.
It’s plausible that Tech could have some benefit with so many open spots, something akin to an NFL team with much more salary-cap space than its rivals. However, at the same time Collins will try to convince portal prospects to join a team whose prospects for success aren’t great. And even if competitors don’t have several open spots, the Jackets undoubtedly will have competition for the top available prospects as teams try to complete their own rosters.
“Plausible” is doing some heavy lifting there, amirite?