What would you have done differently?

[GonzoDawg]

I expect some great answers here. For myself I don't have the understanding of it all to say that I would have done anything different. I would have been holding out for a bigger bowl too and would have gotten shafted the same way.

Honestly I think we and by we I mean the TECH family only have ourselves to blame. I totally include myself in the blame as well. We can't fill our own stadium when we are ranked in the top 25. That's why a 6-6 ISU team gets picked to play in Memphis instead of us. The I-Bowl is what it is. They saw a chance to screw us and took it. They knew we had to wait to see if we were going to get a bigger bowl and should have allowed us the opportunity. They have denied their own community the opportunity for a match up of two local teams.

That being said I only feel bad for the players. They deserved another game and the system that is currently in place denied them that opportunity.

As far as the Admins being to blame it's not over this decission but in everything they have not done prior to this to promote TECH. Had they taken care of business for the last 20 years they way they should have this would never happen.

[TXDAWG81]

1. Give the I-Bowl a clear answer (yes or no) by their deadline.
2. Recognize that when the NCAA gave Ga Tech a waiver to be bowl eligible with a 6-7 record we better take the first offer that came along!!!!!

[T1]

I would have done the same thing Bruce did. We don't know all the details. It depends on what time the I Bowl's deadline was. If it was before 3:30 pm Sunday, we didn't have enough information to give them an answer. (because that is when NIU was first reported to have received the BCS game).

[glm47]

First off, as a head coach, I would have gone to my DC after the TX A&M game and demanded that he change his scheme. It was obvious that what we were doing was not going to work. So Dykes, as head coach, has to bear some of the responsibility for this fiasco.

Secondly, I would have remembered that a bowl game is about the kids and come Saturday morning I would have been contacting the Independence Bowl to accept an invitation. There were too many things that could go wrong with other options to hold out. if we were going to be in the I-Bowl, there was never a chance that it would have been against ULM.

[Allgood]

Assuming I don't know that NIU gets a BCS bowl and GT gets the waiver, but have been told by the HoD and Liberty bowls that we're in if all goes as expected:

Pre egg on face:

Publicly state that we've received an invite from the Independence bowl and asked the committee for more time to assess other options that way I cover my tail if things go sideways.

Egg en route (roughly 12pm CST):

When the coaches poll comes out, and it looks like NIU is ranked significantly ahead of Nebraska and will therefore likely replace Oklahoma as the at-large bid, call the Independence bowl committee and say we accept.

Egg on face:

Call Ohio State to see if they're interested in a post season exhibition.






This all assuming the Independence bowl committee really gave Tech an appropriate window to accept/reject its bowl bid.

[T1]

Good point Allgood. There should have been more communication from Tech while this was all happening. We were in the dark and the media was in the dark the whole time.

[Bill Brasky]

Good point Allgood. There should have been more communication from Tech while this was all happening. We were in the dark and the media was in the dark the whole time.

There is definitely a problem with communication at the athletic department. Maybe they should spend less time teasing us on twitter and be more up front and transparent with what is going on.

[LookingForResults]

These are stupid or uninformed responses to Gonzo so I won't take a swing. But Gonzo I will say this: attendace didn't have anything to do with the selection of Iowa State. They only won six games, but they had three quality wins against bowl-bound teams - Tulsa, TCU and Baylor. We didn't have any. That blame IS SOLEY ON DYKES.

It's obvious that quality wins are not required to go to bad bowls against bad opponents because we could have gone to Indy. ULL has no quality wins and is going to NO, but so what? We have progressed enough to know those bowls do nothing but reinforce the perception that our program is deserving of nothing better.

[Allgood]

These are stupid or uninformed responses to Gonzo so I won't take a swing. But Gonzo I will say this: attendace didn't have anything to do with the selection of Iowa State. They only won six games, but they had three quality wins against bowl-bound teams - Tulsa, TCU and Baylor. We didn't have any. That blame IS SOLEY ON DYKES.

It's obvious that quality wins are not required to go to bad bowls against bad opponents because we could have gone to Indy. ULL has no quality wins and is going to NO, but so what? We have progressed enough to know those bowls do nothing but reinforce the perception that our program is deserving of nothing better.

I agree with the coaching point.

So you have facts that say Bruce was given one small, discrete chance to accept the bid to the Independence bowl?

[Brian96]

These are stupid or uninformed responses to Gonzo so I won't take a swing. But Gonzo I will say this: attendace didn't have anything to do with the selection of Iowa State. They only won six games, but they had three quality wins against bowl-bound teams - Tulsa, TCU and Baylor. We didn't have any. That blame IS SOLEY ON DYKES.

It's obvious that quality wins are not required to go to bad bowls against bad opponents because we could have gone to Indy. ULL has no quality wins and is going to NO, but so what? We have progressed enough to know those bowls do nothing but reinforce the perception that our program is deserving of nothing better.

It wasn't exactly a "quality win" in the highest sense of the term, but we did beat one bowl-bound team: Rice.

As for the question of what I'd have done differently, I guess with the benefit of hindsight we could have verbally accepted the I-Bowl and then renegged if we were offered something else. Of course, that would almost certainly bite us in the butt later, especially with the I-Bowl.

[FishingBack]

It wasn't exactly a "quality win" in the highest sense of the term, but we did beat one bowl-bound team: Rice.

As for the question of what I'd have done differently, I guess with the benefit of hindsight we could have verbally accepted the I-Bowl and then renegged if we were offered something else. Of course, that would almost certainly bite us in the butt later, especially with the I-Bowl.

This. Verbal to ibowl then see if liberty comes through in the next couple hours. Would piss off the ibowl but we are in that boat already. BVDV and Sonny need to learn how to work deals on the down low.

[GonzoDawg]

These are stupid or uninformed responses to Gonzo so I won't take a swing. But Gonzo I will say this: attendace didn't have anything to do with the selection of Iowa State. They only won six games, but they had three quality wins against bowl-bound teams - Tulsa, TCU and Baylor. We didn't have any. That blame IS SOLEY ON DYKES.

It's obvious that quality wins are not required to go to bad bowls against bad opponents because we could have gone to Indy. ULL has no quality wins and is going to NO, but so what? We have progressed enough to know those bowls do nothing but reinforce the perception that our program is deserving of nothing better.

Thank you for your response. That's exactly the kind I was looking for. Thanks for your input.

[Captain Rowdy]

Well hindsight is always 20/20, but I can't really say I would have done it much differently. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they accepted an I-Bowl invite prematurely we'd have crucified them for not waiting.

[Tech77]

Well hindsight is always 20/20, but I can't really say I would have done it much differently. It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they accepted an I-Bowl invite prematurely we'd have crucified them for not waiting.

Yep, yep, yep.

[Soonerdawg]

To sum it up, we lost a chance to play NLU. I would have traded that for what was behind door number 2.