Quote Originally Posted by Quaoarsking View Post
It's a very good public school, but its USNWR ranking (and yes those are very questionable) is #44, putting it just below Wisconsin, Texas, and Illinois, and just above Georgia and Ohio State. So there's no academic reason that should be holding it back from having a good football program, just a lack of a real fanbase.
Tech's lack of a fanbase is something they did to themselves. Both from a sports perspective and from a student body perspective. Leaving the SEC was all about Dodd's vanity - but being a bad independent team in the 1970's, and bad ACC team through most of the 1980s destroyed any chance at Gen X being fans. Especially with Vince and Erk down the road in Athens having songs written about the Junkyard Dawgs, winning SEC titles and a Natty. From an academic standpoint, Tech became an international school.
In 1979, 12,742 students were enrolled at GT. 7,130 from Georgia; 4,726 from other states, and 886 from outside the US. Last year they had 43,844 students (with only 17,447 of those undergrads). 14,226 students were from Ga; 17,942 from other states; and 11,676 from other countries. I get that they are an engineering/research oriented institute - and that's fine. But, you can't be shocked when you have created an alumni base over the past 40 years that has no interest in sports ball, going to see sports ball, or giving money for sports ball.