Just a Wreck

This is not what you think. I'm not just an ole Georgia boy starting off his sports blog by bashing Georgia Tech. It's just been over four years since I've had a place to talk about sports in print, and it's been six since I've had a place where I was able to post actual opinions (we'll call them Convictions) instead of simple coverage.

And so the truth (what I'm most concerned with here) is that the Ramblin' Wreck has fully derailed. I'm not trying to just dismiss Tech four days before the Big Game, but the Wreck no longer Rambles, it just patters about like a man born in 1930, not the fully restored 1930 Model-A dream it once was.

And Chan Gailey's got to take the fall.

Look, as a UGA fan, I'd love for Chan to stick around and let us keep chalking up the wins over the North Avenue Trade School. All Georgia fans are cheering for Chan to stick around. And Chan's a great guy, by all appearances. He's a good man with good morals and a good outlook at building the right kind of men through the program. That's very commendable. But right now as a coach he's looking more and more like the star of a new "Weekend at Bernie's", being held up and passed off as a coach with a pulse by John Tenuta, when in reality he deflated after being canned by Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys back in the last millenium.

Seriously. Take a look at the team's numbers: Since hiring Gailey as head coach in before the 2002 season, the Jackets have gone 7-6, 7-6, 7-5, 7-5, 9-5, and right now sit at 6-4 with a 3-4 mark in the weak ACC. Gailey's best shot - last year's ACC runner-up team - finished with just one ACC loss, but lost the Championship game in a weak showing against Wake Forest and responded by dropping the Gator Bowl to West Virginia. They look to be heading to their second trip to the Emerald Bowl, where they were shellacked by Utah in 2005. And the worst stat: Gailey is still winless against UGA, allowing last year's contest to slip away against a rebuilding Georgia squad.

To put this in perspective, let's compare Gailey to two of his contemporaries: his predecessor, George O'Leary, and in-state counterpart, Mark Richt.

Quickly, Richt's stats in his first five years at UGA: 8-4, 13-1, 11-3, 10-2, & 10-3 with two SEC championships and no losses to GT. Everyone's Counter Argument: Different school, different conference. The Truth: Richt has much higher expectations in a much tougher conference and is recruiting from the same kids to get the same job done. He's got a tougher job, but is getting it done with the same crop of high school students available to Chan Gailey.

But, if you can't get past the Big "G" as a great recruiting tool and you're still crying Unfair, then take a look at GT's own Lying O'Leary's numbers.

Starting with 1995, O'Leary's Jackets went 6-5, 5-6, 7-5, 10-2, 8-4, 9-3, and 7-5. He tied for a share of the ACC title in 1998 behind snubbed Heisman candidate Joe Hamilton (different discussion), and went 3-2 in bowl games over his last five years at the helm.

Over a five-year stretch from 1997-2001, O'Leary's boys were 41-19, 27-13. Gailey's five full years at GT immediately afterward: 37-27, 24-16.

The point is this: GT's program has at best remained stagnant and at worst has taken one or two steps backward during Gailey's tenure. This is an established program sitting in a hotbed for high school football recruits. This is a semi-recent National Champion playing in an increasingly weak ACC. There is no reason for GT to continue to sit as a second-tier program in a third-rate conference. Gailey's gotta go.

Think about it. The dominos are about to fall. In the next four months, we'll see job openings at Michigan, Texas A&M and Nebraska certainly. Most likely there will be vacancies at Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, UCLA, Boise State, Wake Forest and even potentially South Carolina, Tennessee and Clemson as the coaching carousel goes full round like we've never seen before. What does this mean? Some say it's a bad time for Tech to enter the market, but the fact is that there will be more coaches out there changing jobs than ever before. Why not toss the Gold and Blue hat out there to land someone who can take this team to the next level? Even if the unthinkable were to happen and Gailey should manage to beat Georgia and follow that up with a solid bowl victory, Tech still needs to Can Chan. More coaches will be available this offseason than ever before. Georgia Tech must Right the Wreck now.