Another issue for Dodd was Alabama's and other SEC schools' recruiting of players. Schools would recruit more players than they could have on their roster. During the summer practice sessions, the teams would remove extra players. This would happen after the signing day which meant those players could not find somewhere else to play. Dodd asked the SEC leaders to punish the "tryout camps" of other SEC members, but the SEC did not. Finally, Dodd took Georgia Tech out of the SEC in 1963. Tech would play without a league like Notre Dame and Penn State (at the time) during the final four years of Dodd's coaching career. In 1967, Dodd passed the head coach position to his favorite assistant, Bud Carson. Dodd continued to work as athletic director which he had first been hired as in 1950. He would not retire from athletic directing until 1976. In 1983, he said he would like to run a United States Football League team if Atlanta was given one. The league, however, shut down before Atlanta received a team.