(07-27-2020 02:14 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 12:26 PM)Michael in Raleigh Wrote:  

(07-27-2020 12:06 PM)Fighting Muskie Wrote:  Northeastern collegiate athletics is so heavily Balkanized. You’ve got your elite secular schools, your catholic schools, then your publics and land grants. College sports, particularly football, were never the great cultural unifiers there the way they are in the Midwest and South—they had MLB and later NFL for that in the Northeast.

Bill Dazzle brings up Vanderbilt and they are going through a lot of what other urban private schools in the south have felt once the NFL came to town and established itself. Look at Rice, Tulane, and SMU—that’s the trajectory the Commodores are on.

I bet Ga. Tech went through something similar after the Falcons came.

Based on where they are now, I would say that is true as well just not quite as hard.

Maybe some of our southern posters can help me out here on an approximation but I’d say a lot more Georgians support UGA than GT. There’s also a pretty solid contingent of Auburn fans on the West side of the state.

In many ways Georgia is like Ohio or Wisconsin with really just one flagship. Georgia Tech was historically small and specialized. It used to be one of the smaller I-A public schools, although it now has over 20k. In addition, they have had a fairly large out of state contingent and a lot of the grads go out of state to work. Thus, there aren't vast numbers of alumni in state. Wouldn't be surprised if there were more Alabama and Auburn alumni in the state.