A special meeting of the Georgia Tech Athletic Association board has been called for Monday afternoon, a school spokesman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday morning.
He did not disclose details of the meeting, but it’s a strong indication that a decision about a change in the leadership of the football program has been made. That could mean either athletic director Todd Stansbury or coach Geoff Collins or both.
Tech is coming off of a 27-10 loss to Central Florida on Saturday. Tech outgained UCF by more than 100 yards, but scored only 10 points because of a multitude of mistakes, most of which were the same kinds of mistakes that have plagued Collins’ tenure, which began in 2019. Collins’ record is 10-28 at Tech.
Tech lost its season opener to Clemson 41-10 on Labor Day night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. After a 35-17 win over Western Carolina, a member of the FCS Southern Conference, a week later, Tech lost to Ole Miss 42-0. The latter two games took place at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Before Saturday’s game, in-depth conversations involving key decision-makers, including Tech President Angel Cabrera, were taking place regarding the program’s future, according to a person familiar with the situation. Besides Collins, that would include the future of Stansbury, whose leadership also has come into question in part because of his hire of Collins in December 2018 and his reaffirmation of support for him near the end of the 2021 season.
Hired in December 2018 as a successor to Paul Johnson, Collins pitched to Stansbury a plan to lead the Yellow Jackets into college football’s elite with a priority on branding and culture, the former to attract top recruits to Tech and the latter to keep them there. The vision, as well as Collins’ professed love for Tech, having been born and raised in metro Atlanta and worked for former coaches George O’Leary and Chan Gailey, won Stansbury over.
The two remained allied even as the Jackets struggled through three consecutive three-win seasons. Near the end of the 2021 season, with calls for Collins’ job growing louder, Stansbury made the questioned move of standing by Collins, not only confirming that he would return for the 2022 season but taking the extra step of calling him “my guy.”
Stansbury’s decision to ride with Collins and make further investments in the team at a time when the athletic department’s finances were (and continue to be) tight convinced major donors that should Collins not break through in his fourth year, Stansbury should not be granted the privilege of hiring Collins’ replacement, a message that undoubtedly has reached Cabrera’s ears.
In the first four games this season, Collins was not able to repay Stansbury’s loyalty. Tech’s slow start could be the final confirmation that Collins is not fit for the position.
His personable style and ability to connect has won him his players’ affection, but the team’s inability to consistently execute has also been also a defining trait of his tenure. The Jackets allowed four punts to be blocked in their three losses this season, a most improbable string of mistakes and one that is especially ruinous for Collins given that he oversaw the punt unit.
A Tech graduate and a former Yellow Jackets football player, Stansbury became Tech’s athletic director in September 2016. He first worked for Tech athletics in 1988 when he became an academic advisor for Tech football. In 1991 he was promoted to assistant AD for academics by then-AD Homer Rice.
Stansbury left Tech in 1995, and he worked as an associate AD at Houston from 1997-2000 before his time as the athletic director at East Tennessee State from 2000-03. He then spent nine years as the executive associate AD at Oregon State (2003-12) before becoming the AD at Central Florida from 2012-15. He was AD at Oregon State from 2015-16 before returning to Tech.
Stansbury has thought of the Tech job as nothing less than a dream job. As a Tech grad and someone mentored by Rice, the opportunity to continue Rice’s Total Person Project program at his alma mater and help raise Tech athletics was too great a chance to pass up, even though he had been at Oregon State for only one year.
