“At the end of the day, we’ve got to win games.”

Georgia Tech’s athletic director’s not saying, he’s just saying, if you know what I mean.

Stansbury did not say there was a specific number of games that Tech has to win in order for Collins to continue into a fifth season, although his response made clear that the time has come for a better product on the field.

“Obviously, the main threshold is, we’ve got to get better,” Stansbury said. “Obviously, we’ve got to win more games. We’ve got to look like we’re making progress. But there’s not necessarily a magic number. But we definitely need to be making progress.”

In response, this may be the understatement of the decade:  “On paper, significant improvement won’t be easy.”

Stansbury, in looking at what Coach 404 hath wrought, must have some sort of X-ray vision, because he sees things nobody else sees (Coach 404 excepted, of course).

“Him being ‘my guy’ is he’s recruiting at an incredibly high level,” Stansbury said. “I know we’ve got to fill the pipeline to get there. He’s my guy because I’m seeing the building blocks of what needs to be done ultimately to get the wins that we need to get.”

Some fans might challenge Stansbury’s assessment of Collins’ recruiting. Since bringing in the No. 27 class (247Sports Composite) in 2020 – headlined by Gibbs – the next two classes have ranked 47th and 53rd.

“Some fans”.  It’s easy to understand why the excitement level on the Flats is on the rise.