Thanks to our new sponsor Inteleca for helping bring back Q's Take my weekly look at things around GT and college sports from my vantage.
I'm reminded of a song by the Steve Miller Band whenever I hear about conference expansion right now.
"Go on, take the money and run"
The 1976 hit "Take the Money and Run" reminds me of college football these days but instead of Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue robbing people we have greedy conferences and the ACC deserves plenty of blame as one of the early raiders of CFB including killing the Big East outright as a conference.
Moves are now measured in 5-year increments and adding Stanford, Cal and even SMU will be helpful in a small window and while inconvenient for fans and the media, it is mostly going to be a pain in the ass for student-athletes. However most people don't realize there are already plenty of crazy trips going on in sports as is. Go check out the golf schedule some time or how long baseball is away from Atlanta during a season.
Gold opens the season in Illinois, play in Fort Worth next and go to Pebble Beach this fall and then go to Hawaii, PCB, Chula Vista, CA, San Francisco, Naples, FL and the NCAAT is in Carlsbad, CA.
Travel already sucks for many sports.
The ACC needs money and some more brands to trade on as they lost the war for the Pac-10 leftovers thanks to ESPN's lack of desire to fork over dough to make the ACC a mega conference IMO. Those conversations went on for over a year behind closed doors as I've said and others have confirmed nationally. The cashed-strapped House of Mouse has both the ACC and SEC in check at a time where the Big Ten and Big XII were able to probably overexpand.
What happens in 2028, 2029, 2030, those are problems for a few years from now, but right now they need to add more value to a conference that has really been devalued by poor additions like Boston College and then sagging brands like FSU, VaTech and Miami with the Canes providing almost nothing for the league since joining the conference as I've broken down many times.
GT hasn't held up their end of the bargain for the last five or six years either, but I think that will change.
That gets me to point #2
Win, lose or draw, Georgia Tech fans need to show up this season and support the program. This won't be fixed overnight. GT is not in a position to be Clemson at the moment so have some realistic expectations for the upcoming season. I think you will see a team that plays hard and doesn't give up and they should be able to sneak into a bowl game and maybe a little more than that with some luck. If things go poorly with injuries and breaks then they could fall back a little, but the future is bright with lots of young talent on the roster and a really strong signing class coming in. I'm not hedging, I'm not trying to lower expectations but the reality is this is a brand new team and it will take time to figure out the lineup, the playmakers and even the permanent QB situation unless Haynes King plays like he has practiced in which case, GT would be in a very good position this season.
I don't want people jumping off cliffs in GT falls in the Benz nor should you think they are going to run the table. The first four weeks of the season are about finding out who you are and who your team is and you should get better each game and that is what you want to see.
I'm looking forward to seeing what Brent Key's team looks like in week one, but I'm more curious about what they look like in week 8, 9, 10, 11 etc...
I'm reminded of a song by the Steve Miller Band whenever I hear about conference expansion right now.
"Go on, take the money and run"
The 1976 hit "Take the Money and Run" reminds me of college football these days but instead of Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue robbing people we have greedy conferences and the ACC deserves plenty of blame as one of the early raiders of CFB including killing the Big East outright as a conference.
Moves are now measured in 5-year increments and adding Stanford, Cal and even SMU will be helpful in a small window and while inconvenient for fans and the media, it is mostly going to be a pain in the ass for student-athletes. However most people don't realize there are already plenty of crazy trips going on in sports as is. Go check out the golf schedule some time or how long baseball is away from Atlanta during a season.
Gold opens the season in Illinois, play in Fort Worth next and go to Pebble Beach this fall and then go to Hawaii, PCB, Chula Vista, CA, San Francisco, Naples, FL and the NCAAT is in Carlsbad, CA.
Travel already sucks for many sports.
The ACC needs money and some more brands to trade on as they lost the war for the Pac-10 leftovers thanks to ESPN's lack of desire to fork over dough to make the ACC a mega conference IMO. Those conversations went on for over a year behind closed doors as I've said and others have confirmed nationally. The cashed-strapped House of Mouse has both the ACC and SEC in check at a time where the Big Ten and Big XII were able to probably overexpand.
What happens in 2028, 2029, 2030, those are problems for a few years from now, but right now they need to add more value to a conference that has really been devalued by poor additions like Boston College and then sagging brands like FSU, VaTech and Miami with the Canes providing almost nothing for the league since joining the conference as I've broken down many times.
GT hasn't held up their end of the bargain for the last five or six years either, but I think that will change.
That gets me to point #2
Win, lose or draw, Georgia Tech fans need to show up this season and support the program. This won't be fixed overnight. GT is not in a position to be Clemson at the moment so have some realistic expectations for the upcoming season. I think you will see a team that plays hard and doesn't give up and they should be able to sneak into a bowl game and maybe a little more than that with some luck. If things go poorly with injuries and breaks then they could fall back a little, but the future is bright with lots of young talent on the roster and a really strong signing class coming in. I'm not hedging, I'm not trying to lower expectations but the reality is this is a brand new team and it will take time to figure out the lineup, the playmakers and even the permanent QB situation unless Haynes King plays like he has practiced in which case, GT would be in a very good position this season.
I don't want people jumping off cliffs in GT falls in the Benz nor should you think they are going to run the table. The first four weeks of the season are about finding out who you are and who your team is and you should get better each game and that is what you want to see.
I'm looking forward to seeing what Brent Key's team looks like in week one, but I'm more curious about what they look like in week 8, 9, 10, 11 etc...
