I can speak to Georgia text issues with their football program pretty well because I know a lot of their alumni and a couple guys I went to high school with played football there:
1. Georgia Tech has a wealthy, but relatively small alumni base most of whom don't really care about football. Also have a small fan base. The only people you see wearing Georgia Tech gear are people with ties to the university (alumni, children of alumni).
2. Georgia Tech is in academic School first and foremost and they aren't willing to bend the rules and tarnish their academic reputation in order to win games. Similar to schools like Northwestern, Georgia Tech would like to win at a high but they're certainly not willing to go all in and sell their souls like Bama, OSU, ATM,etc.
3. Along the lines of academics, with Georgia Tech being a technical school they don't have the same wide variety of easy majors to hide underperforming student like other schools. The smartest kids from my high school went to Georgia Tech and failed. The academics really are no joke.
For example, every single Georgia Tech student, regardless of major, has to take calculus and computer science. Most big time college football players aren't trying to do all that.