The Highwater Mark

The DC hire was a real head-scratcher. We had Bob Diaco in 2019, then followed that up in 2020 with David Blackwell. Just baffling. Sure, it was a COVID year, but we actually got worse the next season. A Southern Miss team with no quarterback beat us. Embarrassing! Maybe, Holtz ran out of big moves. No more Driskel or Manny Diaz-type cards up his sleeve.


The playing field is totally different now with NIL and the transfer portal. It’s hard for non-power programs to sustain success. You land a hot QB, he’s off to a bigger school the next year. Even guys who love your program at first get poached the moment someone flashes big money at their faces. These big programs can easily plug and play at will. Cumbie sucks we all know that, I don't think Holtz would have faired any better.

I have a feeling Ivey/Henderson will get us back on track to being competitive in football again. We just need to suffer through this upcoming season.

That's a great point. It's definitely not apples to apples since the game has changed so much in the last 5 years. I do wonder how Skip would have done in the transfer portal. He was a players coach and they really liked him, so maybe he would have done well? I don't know, I also kind of get the feeling that Skip is like a Dabo guy and cares about loyalty to the point of despising the portal.

Anyways, I'm just ready for Cumbie to be fired after this season, and then we can make a better hire hopefully. (Feels really weird hoping for another bad season so we can get rid of Cumbie, but that's where I'm at).

At the end it worked out for Skip, no more on the road recruiting kids. He got to experience winning in the USFL/UFL. Also, he has time to spend with family and his dad. Not bad.

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Originally Posted by qng001

The DC hire was a real head-scratcher. We had Bob Diaco in 2019, then followed that up in 2020 with David Blackwell. Just baffling. Sure, it was a COVID year, but we actually got worse the next season. A Southern Miss team with no quarterback beat us. Embarrassing! Maybe, Holtz ran out of big moves. No more Driskel or Manny Diaz-type cards up his sleeve.


The playing field is totally different now with NIL and the transfer portal. It’s hard for non-power programs to sustain success. You land a hot QB, he’s off to a bigger school the next year. Even guys who love your program at first get poached the moment someone flashes big money at their faces. These big programs can easily plug and play at will. Cumbie sucks we all know that, I don't think Holtz would have faired any better.

I have a feeling Ivey/Henderson will get us back on track to being competitive in football again. We just need to suffer through this upcoming season.

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Tech-specific dooming aside, I'm not sure there is a path for any non-money school to be "competitive." Even if NIL gets "reformed" the money will still flow and will never stop until there is no more money to spend. The incentives are just too high.

Dropping a division or something like that where our investment was much lower but we could still field a fun product at a much much lower level might work.

Half or more of our graduates are lsu fans. We had bigger crowds in 1AA than we’ve had since Holtz’ last 3 years.

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Originally Posted by PawDawg

Half or more of our graduates are lsu fans. We had bigger crowds in 1AA than we’ve had since Holtz’ last 3 years.

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Because lsu wins. I'm not excusing that behavior, I find it reprehensible, but Tech is a laughingstock and lsu wins. People like winners. It's not any more complicated than that.

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Originally Posted by Blue Dawg

Because lsu wins. I'm not excusing that behavior, I find it reprehensible, but Tech is a laughingstock and lsu wins. People like winners. It's not any more complicated than that.

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Pretty easy to win when you have money.

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Originally Posted by qng001

Pretty easy to win when you have money.

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I agree. But that sounds like (and is) a cope. "If only we had more money." If Tech had lsu's money we'd make Tech mistakes at lsu scale. Our rot is way deeper. Clean the rot out.

Just look at the CWS for the last few years. Coastal Carolina has half the endowment we do (overall). And yet they're 1/2 in the Finals in the last 10 years. That's not bad.

Money makes the job a lot easier. But it's not the whole picture.

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Originally Posted by Blue Dawg

Because lsu wins. I'm not excusing that behavior, I find it reprehensible, but Tech is a laughingstock and lsu wins. People like winners. It's not any more complicated than that.

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We were "winning" when Holtz was here. At the same time attendance was declining and is directly related to Guice/McClelland/Holtz implementation of new tailgating rules and Hotlz playing not to lose. It was a horrible situation up until our current president/AD/HC took over...and as you said, we are now a laughingstock.

Even if we had a 100 million dollar athletic budget, we would still find a way to piss it away.

More memories...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUCVBGpudvY

Tech today couldn’t play a football game like this and win if the fate of the Earth and humanity depended on it. Our players probably aren’t even half the athletes and of course our coaches don’t have a clue. Tech absolutely has to have a new coach going into the new conference. If for no other reason than marketing and TV talk.