Happy Atlanta Day!
Burdell91: So what significantly changed in the couple of months between Fortner signing a contract extension and retiring? Did a Tech player tell her “show me the money”? It’s not like the rules or environment changed in that time. It just feels really weird, unless there’s something more going on that isn’t public.
Jack: A big thing Fortner noted in her press conference was the fact the sport completely changed in her six years at Tech. When she got here, it was normal. Then COVID, then transfer portal, then NIL, then expanded ACC…eventually it all adds up to a lot for one person to keep carrying. To quote her directly, she said “the atmosphere in college athletics today, it’s not for me.”
While she did sign the extension mid-season, having the time to decompress from the season and reflect what’s ahead is a great point to have internal conversations that could lead to a decision like this. Ultimately, she just felt like it was her time to not be the head ball coach at a college team. She knows she’s on the older side of things and doesn’t need to keep doing this role. She’ll still be around the sport in some way, but ultimately from what we know, it was just a “this feels right” kind of decision.
Jake: Anything I say here would be pure speculation, but I have to imagine it could be a variety of interrelated factors — the game is different, the rules are different, players and personnel changed. She came out of retirement once to take this job, and I am sure there comes a time when you have enough and are ready to have more time for leisure and retirement, especially having done that once already. Also noteworthy is the significant turnover (Fortner, Hinsdale, and Hall all retired or are retiring after the current season), given the “changing of the guards” seems to be coming in a wave.
BuzzForPresident: Who the hell set off the IED in our basketball programs?
Who’s on your short list for WBB Coach?
Why can’t we have good things? (Was really looking forward to next season for both BBall programs, now I’m not sure they can field coherent teams)
Over/Under on the baseball team giving us hope after all this other bad news and then letting us down in 2019 fashion?
How much therapy money should a Tech fan put aside each year to be appropriately covered?
Jake: I agree on having previously been quite optimistic for next year’s basketball teams. I would think that someone will be able to cobble together something on both sides, and recruitment should leave MBB in an okay spot at least, but it is certainly a lot of change to digest. I know it might seem a bit odd, but I think the coach that just beat us (Aaron Roussell at Richmond) has built a nice program, for starters. I am a big fan of hiring a successful mid-major coach, which rules out Blanche Alverson, who just left for her first head gig, but I also do like the idea of trying to scrape together some kind of continuity. As for baseball, I am just trying to take it one day at a time. Can’t win a regional or host one if you never make it there in the first place, and the ACC is a brutally tough league. The next month might be tough sledding.
Jack: One thing’s for sure, we ain’t alone in feeling like things aren’t going our way in college sports. A point of optimism for WBB: the coaches convention happens at the final four, so I imagine J Batt and Joleen Akin are going to be scouring that conference looking for a new coach like last time when we hired Fortner at the same conference in the same city. A great coach can change everything, just like Fortner did.
Let baseball do its thing. They know they’re good, and they know they have tough sledding ahead of them. Right now they’re set up pretty well for this point in the season. Pray the injury bug stays away.
Partywaggin: Did Fortner’s successor just leave for SD?
Jake: I had the exact same first though (though I think saying taking a first time head role in the ACC might be a tall ask).
Jack: I think Jake is right. Blanche Alverson is fantastic, but it would be a significant leap for her to start her head coaching career here. If things work out down the line, I’d of course love to see her back as she was integral in creating so many of these fantastic teams with Fortner, but in general, no, she was not the successor in the same way we expect Ramsey to be Danny Hall’s.
jabsterjacket: WTH Barves?
Jack: I was in the same headspace as you, but then I came across something on the interwebs that noted multiple World Series teams have lost seven straight or more in a season, just not necessarily to start the year. Usually, I’d say we just got the worst of luck, but now we already have injuries stacking up…so man idk, this might be a pay attention to Tech baseball season instead.
Partywaggin: Did “Hangman” from Top Gun Maverick go to Tech?
Jack: No clue but hopefully!
DressHerInWhiteAndGold: Summertime, and the living is easy…unless you’re a Barves fan. What’s on your Summer to do/see/go list?
Jack: Seeing a show at Chastain is always a highlight for me. Usually the Indigo Girls play a summer show there and it feels like church everytime.
Jake: Agreed with Jack about Chastain – but I am a midwesterner still at heart, so would also recommend a show in cooler weather there, too. As for other stuff around, get out on a bike! Atlanta is only getting better, and I would argue that some of Atlanta’s best places to bike or walk are in places other than the Eastside Beltline (Proctor Creek and Westside Park, the trails along the Cobb side of the river from Johnson Ferry through to US 41, the Westside Beltline Connector, etc.). We’re also within sight of the Silver Comet extension to the westside (and onward via the Beltline or downtown routes to Stone Mountain) being done, so plenty to be excited for there. Otherwise, grabbing a cold beverage at a local establishment (Halfway Crooks, Wild Heaven West End) is fully in season, and there are lots of neat things to see and do as weekend events come through town, too.
Yeller Bug: What’s happening at Spring practice? Who is shining and who is not? What should we expect for the Spring game?
Jack: What to expect? Very minimal answers revealed of things we don’t already know. That said, seeing standouts on the defensive line is going to be nice. That is the big question spot for this team. I wouldn’t call the Spring Game a good place to actually see how good they are considering no one is going to be tackling Haynes King or Aaron Philo (or whoever else plays QB that day). We also have a killer offensive line, so if someone stands out, they’ll really stand out.
Also will be very curious about our new wide receivers. The FIU tandem Dean Patterson and Eric Rivers will be good to see when it comes to raw speed and timing they have with King.
Maybe Aidan Birr goes for a 65 yard field goal? He hit from 62 last time!
Submitted via Twitter: Good or bad, what’s been surprising about this year’s transfer portal with Georgia Tech?
Jack: With football, it’s how many primary guys that make up the core of this team have stayed. If anything nowadays in college sports, that’s as good of an indicator as we have that a team is doing things the right way.
In basketball, man it’s just the amount of volatility there. Of course a team can survive with just seven guys (as we saw firsthand for lots of this season), and with a gazillion teams out there, it ends up making sense for many players to move to where they’ll actually play. The move of Naithan George to Syracuse seems as surprising as any move so far. He was excelling for us and we had a fantastic class coming up behind him, but for whatever reason the cold winds of upstate New York seemed better.
Submitted via email: Did a rivalry ever develop between Tech and Tulane during their SEC days? It would seem so given their shared higher academic standards. Games in New Orleans would have been fun too.
Did the relationship ever carry into both schools independent phases? Are future series planned in football?
Jake: Well, Wikipedia would call it a “significant series,” but I think it is most telling that these schools were certainly more than just random opponents when one takes a look at the frequency of meetings between them as well as the locations of the matchups relative to other SEC matchups. Prior to the modern conference format (i.e., during the period Tech was in the SEC), schools were not required to play each other with any regularity. Accordingly, as a large brand in the SEC with an exceptionally large stadium in a city easily accessible by train, Tech famously maintained an imbalance between home and road games. In fact, the decline of this trend as demonstrated in the plot below, as schedules became more balanced after World War II, was a contributing factor behind Tech’s decision to leave the SEC altogether — declining gate receipts due to playing more road games.
Analysis by Jake Grant
As seen here, Tulane was a regular on Tech’s schedule throughout the SEC era and even into independence in the 1970s and 1980s. Among original SEC teams, Tech has played Tulane more than any school save for Alabama, Auburn, and Athens. This includes 6 more games than Tennessee, 11 more than Florida, and 12 more than Vanderbilt, and I am certain a decent number of Tech fans would consider at least the Tennessee schools historical rivals. Among the rest, Tech rarely ventured to visit the Mississippi schools, LSU, and Kentucky, given the distance for the team and fans, and they were not considered rivals nor large enough brands to command fan interest and garner gate receipts at Grant Field. In fact, LSU and Ole Miss are notable in that they are the only two teams among these 12 in which Tech has played more on the road or in neutral site games combined, and most of these have come in modern bowl game matchups. The only team Tech is 50/50 with on this list is Tulane. Among the rest of the top 4, Tech has played the Athenians at home 59% of the time, Alabama 62% of the time, and Auburn a staggering 78% of the time, thanks in part to the tiny facilities at the time and rural location resulting in a stretch between 1906 and 1959 where Tech hosted Auburn 52 times, visited Auburn once (1940-41), and one year where the game was not played due to World War II. Tech fans could be said to enjoy trips to New Orleans, but the city was also easy to get to, and the stadium was large and able to draw financially lucrative crowds in the way that other SEC schools simply could not.
Tech continued several SEC series into the independent era, playing Athens, Auburn, and Tulane all years between going independent and joining the ACC in a phased scheduling process during the 1980s, Tennessee most years during that time, and a few sporadic series with Kentucky and Alabama (with the latter influenced by ill will in the fallout of the SEC era, a story for another time). During this period, Tulane deemphasized athletics, went independent in sports, and was a frequent homecoming opponent (generally alternating with Duke, another staple opponent). To this day, Tulane is the second most-played opponent on Homecoming behind the Blue Devils. However, upon joining the ACC, Tech ceased its sporadic SEC matchups, as well as the regular Tulane series after 1982. Tech continued annual games with Tennessee and Auburn for another 5 years before modern scheduling practices for conferences resulted in the decimation of inter-conference play on a wider scale than the annual in-state SEC and ACC rivalries.
Since 1982, Tech and Tulane have played twice, a home-and-home series that included Tech being the first visitor to the new Yulman Stadium. All in all, it is certainly a historic matchup, and one that I personally feels to be a little bit more recognized as an interesting and significant one in the history of both schools. Time to start looking for open dates on the teams’ calendars!