Georgia Tech erred when it left the SEC
It has been 50 years since Georgia Tech made the ill-fated decision to leave the SEC, and I don’t think football on the Flats has been the same since.
Georgia Tech was one of the 13 founding members of the SEC back in 1932, joining Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Mississippi, Sewanee, Tennessee, Tulane and Vanderbilt to establish the conference. Sewanee left the conference in 1940 as it de-emphasized athletics, Georgia Tech departed in 1964 and Tulane followed suit in 1966.
Georgia Tech’s decision to leave the SEC centered around the SEC’s Rule 140, which limited the total number of scholarships in football and basketball to 140. The teams were able to sign up to 45 football players annually but could not exceed the 140 limit. Yellow Jackets athletics director and football head coach Bobby Dodd felt that rule forced coaches to oversign and then run players off who weren’t good enough.
Dodd would keep players on scholarships until they graduated. He said it wasn’t a player’s fault if he wasn’t good enough to make the team, but rather the coaches for misjudging the talent.
Dodd would only sign 30-32 players a year while other schools were signing the maximum 45 and then running off inferior players so they could meet the roster limit. He thought it was unfair and would not withdraw scholarships from players.
Dodd proposed changes to the rule at a 1964 meeting of SEC athletics directors and presidents and had the assurance of Alabama head coach Bear Bryant that he would support the measure.
However, when the vote came, Bryant was not in attendance and the Alabama president, Frank Rose, voted against it. The vote was 6-6, meaning Rule 140 would remain. Following the vote, Georgia Tech president Edwin Harrision went to the podium and announced his school was withdrawing from the SEC.
The NCAA scholarship limit for football is now 85 in the FBS, which has led to much more parity in the college ranks. Can you imagine what the impact would be now if schools had the ability to sign 45 players each year? The rich would surely have gotten richer.
Georgia Tech was a force in the SEC during its tenure, compiling a 206-110-12 mark between 1933 and 1963. Compare those numbers with the 18 years they were an independent from 1964 to 1982 when they went 104-100-5. The Yellow Jackets joined the ACC in 1983 and, while things have been better since joining that conference, they still do not measure up to their history with the SEC.
The highlight of their ACC affiliation came in 1990 when they shared a national championship with Colorado. Georgia Tech was the choice of UPI while the Associated Press chose the Buffaloes.
Back when Georgia Tech was an SEC member, it regularly played before full houses at Grant Field and tickets were hard to come by. Today, other than when they play Georgia, it is rare for the Yellow Jackets to be sold out for games. Bobby Dodd Stadium/Grant Field seating capacity has been reduced several times and is currently at 55,000, still some 3,000 less than the 58,121 it held from 1967-87. In 2013, Georgia Tech averaged 49,077 fans per game.
While I feel their departure from the SEC was a bad move and has impacted attendance and interest, their decision also came about the same time professional sports were coming on the scene in Atlanta. The Falcons and Braves both arrived in 1966, and the Hawks came two years later.
Even with the advent of professional sports in the Capital City, had Georgia Tech stayed in the SEC, I could see Bobby Dodd Stadium seating more than 70,000 and tickets going for a premium.
As we all know, Georgia Tech plays SEC member Georgia annually and in the coming years have games scheduled with Vanderbilt and Mississippi, as well as Tennessee in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic to open the 2017 season.
Contact Bobby Pope at bpope428@gmail.com
This story was originally published September 29, 2014 at 8:28 PM with the headline "Georgia Tech erred when it left the SEC ."