Could Deion Sanders return to Atlanta for Georgia Tech job? | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss Georgia Tech’s firing of Geoff Collins after 4 years at the helm of the Yellow Jackets, and debate if Deion Sanders would be a good replacement due to his ties to Atlanta.

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DAN WETZEL: I believe he listened before. But he certainly got the free time now, Geoff Collins. That's the way to keep him-- that's the way to keep a listener. Sorry, Geoff. Fired Georgia Tech, went 10 and 28. He'd done well at Temple. I thought he was a good defensive coordinator. Temple looked solid. Why not? 3 and 9, 3 and 7, 3 and 9, 1 and 3. Just never got lift off at all. Just nothing really. Seventh in the coastal.

Georgia Tech is open. Who should take this job? And what kind of job is this? Obviously, the academic requirements to get in are tough. Transfers are almost impossible, which seemed like you better have at this level because you're not signing a bunch of five stars. However, right there in Atlanta. So and they've-- they've had their moment. So Pat, I'll start with you on this one. Georgia Tech.

PAT FORDE: Isn't it incredible to believe they won a share of a national championship in 1990? I mean, seems inconceivable. But they actually did. And then Colorado won the other half of that title. That was an odd year. As you mentioned, Dan, it's an intriguing but kind of conflicting job because you're sitting on an absolute goldmine of talent. But can you get the talent in school?

And I was just thinking as you were saying it about the transfer situation, think what are three schools, academic heavyweight schools, that have had some success but are really struggling right now in the transfer era? Stanford, Northwestern, Georgia Tech. I know they've had a lot of people transfer out. I wonder if it's partly a difficulty of having players transfer in and you're just losing experienced talent, and not being able to replace that.

ROSS DELLENGER: Not able to replace.

PAT FORDE: Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: Maybe throw Boston College in there.

PAT FORDE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

DAN WETZEL: That might be a reason for PC struggles. I don't know. But the transfer portal is half the game now.

PAT FORDE: Right, it's something to look into. As far as-- look, we've talked about on this podcast, I mean, the Deion Sanders element is really intriguing. Goodness knows he's got history and cachet in Atlanta. I think he would absolutely destroy recruiting there. But you've got to be able to get kids into school. And you're dealing with a place that athletics doesn't wag the tail. There's the tail that does not wag the dog at Georgia Tech. And that could be a problem for him.

He probably needs to be more at a place where they're just going to say carte blanche, Deion, do your thing. And that's not going to be Georgia Tech.

ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, Deion, it's going to be harder for Deion to go somewhere where he's going to be told no a lot. And I think Georgia Tech will be a place where he's told no quite a bit. And all the things you guys have talked about, the academic requirements of getting people in, the transfer situation, just the overall resources, I mean, they've-- just talking to some administrators, a few of them kind of sort of interested in the Georgia Tech job. They say the debt service at Georgia Tech for facilities, basically facilities debt, is pretty overwhelming.

It's a pretty big bear to get your hands around. Georgia Tech, like so many other places, kind of has to decide. Are we going to go all in here on football? Or are we going to invest significantly in football, kind of like Miami is doing? Although it's not working out well lately for them. But are they going to go all in? Or what? And that's kind of a decision they have to make.

And that includes not just spending with resources and things like that. But also in getting players in, and all that. And I just don't-- Deion fits in Atlanta. I don't know if Deion fits at Georgia Tech. But there's certainly a long list of coaches who would want that job. If you look back on the history, I think from-- for about 17, 16 years in a row, Georgia Tech made a Bowl game, '97 through 2014 it looks like. I mean, they made a Bowl game every single year, they won their division four times, they won the conference twice over that stretch, they won at least 10 games three times over that stretch.

You can win there. And it's been proven. And you can win in a variety of ways running really weird different offenses. So there shouldn't be a shortage of really strong candidates for the job. I just-- everybody is talking a lot about Deion. And I'm not sure that Deion would go to a place that has some restraints, restrictions, so to speak.

DAN WETZEL: He could do better. And how about this? If you want to be the AD? You may sit there and say Deion Sanders is the coach. This is the best guy I can get. But you know you're going to have to tell him no. You want to tell Deion Sanders no? If you're the AD, seriously, he's just too-- he's too big to be like, yeah we can't do that. So he can do better than this. I know he interviewed at TCU, which is a similar kind of situation.

But that's back in Dallas. I don't know. I just-- we'll see. He's trying to go undefeated at Jackson State this year. And he very well might. They've never gone undefeated in school history. He's got a great situation. I just think he can wait and do better.