Originally Posted by
Tech79
I also appreciate a number of things about Coach Holtz. The tone he sets for the program and the way he seems to develop playerss to be high-quality individuals. His ability to interact with the media, the contacts he has in the business, and his obvious (except for last year) ability to prepare teams for bowl games. On the other hand, I do fell like the program is satisfied with being moderately successful and consistent, and not pushing to be exceptional.
I do not understand the dismissive attitude of a lot of posters about the bowl victories. I agree with the idea that it's not hard to get to a bowl game any more, but, it's still very impressive to win a number of them in a row. Think about those six bowl wins.
2014 - A 17-point victory over BIG10 Illinois
2015 - A 19-point victory over the SunBelt Champions (who were 8-0 in their conference). The second half of that game wasn't even close.
2016 - The last-second victory over Navy. How great was it to finally get a win against a service academy that was running the option. I didn't think I would ever see it.
2017 - The absolute domination of SMU, basically in their own back yard.
2018 - A victory over Hawaii in their own stadium. How many years in the WAC would we have loved to see that happen?!
2019 - The shutout of Miami. They did have one of the weakest offenses I've ever seen for a P5, but this same team put 52 points on Louisville a couple of months earlier.
On another subject, as far as fan support, I think almost all G5 teams are in that same boat. You can look at almost any fan message board and you see the same complaints about lack of attendance. I think you just have to accept that if you're not in a P5 conference on national television every weekend, the casual fan is just going to care that much. However, I think Tech has nothing to be ashamed about as far as fan support for road games. Tommy McClelland mentioned that over this bowl streak, Tech has sold more tickets to bowl games that anyone else in C-USA, and it's not even close. And basically every road game I've been to has had a large contingent of Tech fans in attendance. I don't think most comparable G5 teams can say that.