Those Georgia Tech fans who are wondering about this hire? They should know that the Institute’s president wondered, too. Why would the school with a proud football program consider hiring an athletic director from a school that has no football program?

“It was a concern,” Peterson said Friday morning, minutes after introducing Mike Bobinski, lately of football-free Xavier, as Tech’s eighth AD and the first not to have a background in collegiate football as either player or coach. “We talked about it. It was one of the questions I asked.”

Said Steve Zelnak, who headed the search committee and who recommended Bobinski to Peterson: “We put a lot (of thought) into it. Obviously football is the revenue-driver at a school like Georgia Tech. In some cases, there were (AD candidates) who had not touched football. Mike has touched it. He gets it.”

Said Bobinski: “I spent nearly 15 years at a place (Notre Dame, his alma mater) where football is as big a deal as it is anyplace in the country. I’m very comfortable and very familiar with it. And I’ve been in this business a long time (including stints at Navy and Akron, which do play football), and winning in football isn’t a whole lot different from winning in anything else.”

Those Tech fans who are wondering about this hire won’t be mollified by mere words – what did you expect Bobinski to say: “Football? Isn’t that the game where they kick a touchdown?” – but it must be noted that the men making the choice had to be convinced of Bobinski’s bona fides. And they were.

According to Zelnak, seven of the 15 finalists – casting a wide net, Tech was – had Institute ties. Bobinski was chosen, Zelnak said, because he has “incredible skill. I was just in his meeting with the coaches, and he’s truly excited about being here.”

As we know, Tech is an unusual place. It’s a school that has a reason for being beyond autumn Saturdays, a school with a specific mission and curriculum. In that regard, Bobinski – who has spent the past 14 years at a Catholic school in a Midwestern city that is home to professional sports – could be a fine choice.

Xavier mightn’t have football, but in basketball the Musketeers achieved and sustained such success that nobody considers them a mid-major anymore. And X’s excellence – in Cincinnati, Xavier is known as “X” – isn’t a function of one great coach. Bobinski hired Thad Matta to replace Skip Prosser, who left for Wake Forest, and Chris Mack to replace Sean Miller, who left for Arizona. (He didn’t hire Miller to replace Matta, who left for Ohio State. Bobinski was then doing a two-year stint as vice president in charge of development.) And Xavier more than held its own against Cincinnati, its bigger and bitter crosstown rival.

Said Tech basketball coach Brian Gregory, whose Dayton Flyers played nearby X on an annual basis: “They raised the standard in our whole league (the Atlantic 10), and not just on the field – in academics, in marketing, in fund-raising. They became a national brand.”

For Georgia Tech, branding is a major concern. Even in football, its support is a mile deep but an inch wide – those who care about Tech care deeply, but there aren’t many who care. And Atlanta, as we know, is a tricky sports market.

Bobinski: “What I’ve been good at doing is taking an organization and moving it to a higher level.”

Asked about Paul Johnson’s stylized offense, Bobinski said: “I would never tell any coach how to run an offense or a defense. That’s not the athletic director’s place. But I believe the goal of an offense is to score points, and we score a lot of points. We need to be better defensively, but I’m excited about (new coordinator) Ted Roof.”

Then this: “What I would hope to engage Paul in is (a discussion of) putting a more positive feel on the program. How do we present the program?”

When the revenue-driver can’t fill its stadium, that’s revenue unbanked. For all his strengths, Dan Radakovich – Bobinski’s predecessor, gone to Clemson – wasn’t the slickest promoter. Said Peterson: “We were looking for someone who could effectively reconnect with our fan base and our alumni.”

Maybe the new man can. Maybe the new man will indeed nudge Tech to a higher level in all sports. But somebody really should have run his start date through a marketing filter.  Bobinski's first official day on the job is scheduled to be April Fool’s Day.