Lang’s World: For Georgia Tech, it has to be Prime Time
Lang WhitakerOne of my earliest college football memories was when Herschel Walker left the University of Georgia after his junior season in order to sign with the New Jersey Generals of the USFL. I wasn’t old enough to understand any of what was happening, other than to know that in Atlanta, where I was growing up, people were apoplectic. Herschel was the best running back in the world, or at least it seemed that way, and now he was leaving us behind to go play football in New Jersey, wherever that was. How could he leave? (Of course, in retrospect, the early union of Herschel and Donald Trump seems prescient.)
Even though I lived in Atlanta at the time, University of Georgia football was the main thing. Athens was over an hour away from Atlanta, and Georgia Tech was literally just a few miles from my house, but Georgia Tech football just didn’t have the same resonance as UGA football. Perhaps it was because UGA had just won a national title in 1980, and Bobby Cremins was on the cusp of turning Tech into a basketball powerhouse. Even when Bobby Ross led Georgia Tech to a tie for a national championship in 1990, it seemed like their run was overshadowed by the worst-to-first Braves. More recently, Paul Johnson spent a decade at Tech, was named ACC Coach of the year three times, finished his career 22 games over .500, and was still shown the door.
It isn’t just that Tech football hasn’t been good in a while, it’s that they haven’t really mattered. At all. In Atlanta, outside of Atlanta, Georgia Tech football has been an afterthought, at best. Geoff Collins was supposed to modernize things at Georgia Tech, and help bring in better recruits. He did not win more than three games in a season. Earlier this week, Collins was fired, along with the athletic director who hired him.
So, how can Georgia Tech make Yellow Jackets football great again? Or more importantly, who can make Georgia Tech football great again?
The first question to answer is, what does Georgia Tech want to be? Maybe football (or even athletics in general) just isn’t a priority at Tech, which after all is a great engineering school. Fine. But then why are you firing a coach who didn’t produce? Did you give him everything he needed to be successful? Why even have a football program if you aren’t going to give the coach a shot at winning? Maybe they should just try and hire a coach who uses a gimmicky scheme and gives you a puncher’s chance week after week. Oh, like Paul Johnson?
Conversely, you can actually try and compete at the highest level. A friend of mine who is a Tech alum and booster said he felt Bill O’Brien was the most likely fit. O’Brien, currently the offensive coordinator at Alabama, was an assistant at Tech a decade or so ago, and since then has experience in the NFL and at big-time colleges. Or maybe Tech tries someone promising but untested on a bigger stage, like Coastal Carolina’s Jamey Chadwick or Appalachian State’s Shawn Clark, or even a trending assistant coach, like Georgia’s Todd Monken. Dan Mullen wasn’t much of a recruiter at Florida, but then, the recruiting bar is pretty low at Tech. Tom Herman was one of the hottest candidates in the country a few years ago, but he seems fine spending time doing TV.
To me the choice is clear and obvious: If Georgia Tech wants their football team to be prime time, they only need to look a few states away to Prime Time himself, Deion Sanders. The former Atlanta Falcons corner and Atlanta Braves outfielder is currently in his third season as head coach at Jackson State, where he has compiled a 19-5 record, and established himself as a premier recruiter, flipping the number one prospect in the country last year from Florida State to Jackson State. Deion has assembled a top-notch coaching staff at Jackson State, and most importantly, he has won.
Deion is a legend in Atlanta, and Georgia Tech football needs all the help it can get. The truth is, Georgia Tech needs Deion Sanders way more than Deion needs Georgia Tech. Deion could just stay at Jackson State and wait for another big-time job to come open. Deion’s alma mater, Florida State, would be a natural connection, but Mike Norvell seems to have established himself in Tallahassee. Auburn seems like it could be a fit for Deion, but I think Auburn wants an SEC guy, like Kevin Steele or even Hugh Freeze. Or maybe Deion stays put for the time being, since he can have as big a footprint in Jackson as he can in Atlanta or anywhere else thanks to the flattening technology world.
But certainly Atlanta must hold some allure for Deion, as well as the chance to go to an FBS school in a Power 5 conference (who would regularly play Florida State). While Tech may not have facilities that put it on a level with other top programs, they certainly have the resources to build those facilities, should those resources be marshaled correctly. One of Geoff Collins’ selling points when he took the Tech gig was that he wanted to brand things better, and Tech in turn used #ForThe404 and set up social media-friendly walkways for the players to make entrances. Turns out none of that stuff matters if you can’t win games. Deion can win games.
If Georgia Tech wants to matter in the college football world, and reap the financial benefits that can come from that association, they are going to have to do things differently than they’ve done them in the past. Bringing in another retread assistant coach might help you go from 3-9 to 7-5 or even 8-4. But will it really make that much of a difference?
For Georgia Tech to run with the big dogs, they need real change. Prime Time is the answer.
Published on Sep 28, 2022
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