I think that due to the success of our program we as fans of Virginia Tech too often have unrealistic expectations for our team. I hear people moaning about our two down seasons (both of which we went to a bowl game, which is pretty good for down years - see Florida). Every year can't be a ten win season. There was a reason that at the end of that run we were the only team with 8 or 9 straight ten win seasons, it just doesn't happen for very many teams. Since the beginning of the BCS Era Virginia Tech ranks 4th in overall wins and 7th in winning percentage. The teams ahead of us are Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, and USC. What do every one of those teams ahead of us have that we don't? A lot more $$$$.
I will agree that the talent level of this team has been down for the past two seasons. But I think the new coaches did great with what they were given. We were 10 points from an 11-3 season (Duke, Maryland, and BC - and assuming we won those games we lost to FSU in the ACCCG). Now let's compare this team to the talent level of the previous down season (excluding last year). In 2003-2004 my sophomore year at VT we went 8-5, losing to WVU, Pitt, BC, UVA, and Cal. Our roster that year included these players that spent time or are still in the NFL: Xavier Adibi, James Anderson, David Clowney, Chris Ellis, Brandon Frye, Duane Brown, Vincent Fuller, Jake Grove, Deangelo Hall, Kevin Jones, Jeff King, Will Montgomery, Aaron Rouse, Daryl Tapp, and Ernest Wilford. There were a lot of other great players on that team Bryan Randall, Jimmy Williams, Cedrick Humes, Josh Hyman, Eric Green and several others. That team should have had more than 8 wins (and would have under the new coaching staff) and should never have needed overtime to beat Temple. The talent level of that team was lightyears ahead of the current one, but our coaches this year coached the team up and got them to play together. I think 8 wins this season was about the best anyone could have asked for at the beginning of the year.
Now some will say that we should never have had that much of a dropoff in talent and that's true. So what did Beamer do? He got new coaches so that we can recruit that talent back to VT. This is one of the better recruiting classes we've ever had. Give them time and to anyone that says the game has passed Frank Beamer by, I will tell you the same thing that I did to the Virginia Tech fan that kept trashing him in the Georgia Dome sitting right behind me. SHUTUP! I think the majority of our realistic fanbase knows that the new staff needs some time, so sit back and enjoy the ride. We have one of the best and classiest coaches in college football. If you want to be a fan of a team that has an asshole as a headcoach I suggest you pull for Ohio State or Western Kentucky.
Comments
2003 was a difficult schedule. We did pull off a huge win against No. 2 Miami at least that season.
That Miami game was my favorite Hokie football game. One of the best defensive performances that I've witnessed.
It was amazing to watch. We completed only 2 passes that game (I believe). We ran like hell and they couldn't stop us, controlled the possession and had crazy defense. Like legitimately crazy defense.
Right you are. 2 completions for 44 yards, one of which was a 46-yard TD. Yep, the other pass went for -2. What a game. Two defensive TDs and #ALLMAROONEVERYTHING.
And a blocked FG
Too much awesomeness for my brain to remember. Ah, freshman year...
I have a funny feeling that it wasn't the awesomeness on the field that's making your memory of the events fuzzy.
The past two season have really brought out the best and worst of Hokie fans. The best are those who have continued to buy season tickets, go to away games, and cheer on the team until their lungs give out and the clock hits 0:00 in the 4th quarter. Then there's the worst group. They are the most vocal about their beliefs. One thing I've really noticed is that many (not all) of the people who have become fans of the team within the last 5-10 years are wanting to burn everything to the ground after these last 2 seasons. Too many people are calling for Beamer to be fired and for what exactly? Many of the newer fans watched us rack up 10 win seasons, play in nearly every ACC Championship game, and play in BCS games more times than UVA had fans at their Spring Game. The reality is that things like that don't continue on forever. They have to come to an end. Like many things, college football is cyclical. Every team has their ups and downs. We will get back there. We will be at the top. But let's all step back and realize that it won't happen every single year. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but one day, our bowl streak will end.
Its a whole lot easier realizing every year isn't gonna be a national championship year when you're a skins fan like myself...... fact of the matter is being one of the new age fans who started paying attention to hokie football at the beginning of the Glennon era and it absolutely kills me to listen to some people who boo the team and demand anarchy and chaos thinking it will bring results. Patience my friends well be back. Learn from the redskins mistakes you can't build a champion overnight.
Also if these are really our down years I think that's as much of a sign as any that were a pretty damn good football team. Think how happy Florida fans would have been with 8 wins this year! You wanna talk a down year go find a Georgia or Florida fan. We'll be fine and we'll be back I'm glad to see that there are still sane VT fans out there
I'm sure some will disagree, but did this season (2013) remind anyone of 1997? Well just looking at the results I suppose. I was still not accepted into the Hokie Nation back then so some of the older Hokies might have to fill me in, but in that season we went 7-5, and lost our bowl game 42-3 (worst bowl loss until UCLA in 2013). Two (2) years later we went to play for a National Title. I really didn't put much research into this. Really just thought about it when Andy Bitter mentioned this was the worst bowl loss (points wise) since that year.
2015 the year?
Is there a Mike Vick Style once-in-a-generation player coming in? If so, then yes, it will be like '99, if not it might be closer to those other BCS years (ceiling) or a 6-6 campaign (basement).
Well that's pretty specific...
Example of expectations right there, a bad performance is 6-6. Some teams would die for that in a "bad" year.
There's in fact a certain school just a couple hours North of us that would call that an excellent year.
I assume you're talking about WVU, but I wouldn't say they were quite that terrible. And the only other major stadium I can think of in the region is Lane Stadium North, but why would another school play their home games on our (second) home turf?
I didn't say it was a bad year, I was saying that the basement of this team should be around a .500 year. They have the talent to be capable of a bowl; it wouldn't be a failure.
I do agree that we do not have as much money as other programs, but do we ever think that that lack of funds might come from never winning the big game? We lose a lot of our BCS bowls, and winning those kinda makes boosters donate just a bit more due to the success. I wouldn't necessarily say that we don't win just because we don't have money, I'd even say we don't have money because we don't win. Success=Cash. I believe winning 10 consistently but not winning in the bowl game kind of calloused us to those 10 wins - since it was so common, the boosters wanted just a bit more before they opened up their wallets even wider, and we failed to give it to them
I joined Hokie Nation in 2000. Every year that I was down there the campus was under contruction, the stadium added an entire new endzone seating to increase capacity and we are still putting up a new building each year. All this has directly been driven by football raising VT's national profile. I don't think we are hurting for cash as a university. Why would booster money directly relate to football success unless that money went into a recruit or players pocket? Beamer is one of the highest paid employees in the state of Virginia and Foster is one of the highest paid assistants in football.
OK State has T. Boone Pickens bankrolling them and it hasn't put them into the National Title game yet.
Maybe we aren't hurting for money as a university, but we definitely do not have the some of the facilities that other schools have. We're working towards it though with things like the indoor facility.
True. We did build that nice practice facilty right outside Lane (the fields I mean). But we are never going to compete with the SEC in terms of money, we are not Oregon and the Nike cash, we will never be a Texas, Michigan, tOSU, or USCw. We are just VT. Hell, we didn't build a football building near Lane because we wanted to save the old growth forest near the stadium. THAT is VT. And I actually love that. We have competed at a high level without having the NCAA infractions committee running an investigation (Miami, UNC). We are who we are and we got to this level by outworking and outcoaching other teams; heres to hoping we that will be enough to get back.
And what facilities do other schools have that we don't have besides their own indoor practice facility?
There are facilities and there are Oregon level Facilities. If you were 18 years old and saw the crazy plush digs that they got out there; it would be tough not to be overwhelmed. You have to agree that not all things are created equal even if we have a weight room and they have a weight room. Watch the Gameday clip of Mariotta going through the Oregon facilities with all the bells and whistles. $68 million dollar football only facilty is nuts.
I agree, but the statement was that we don't have facilities that other schools have. We aren't at a disadvantage with what we have as far as performance but attractiveness I will say we are slightly behind. We have a brand new locker room that is loaded to be a premier facility. No, we don't have waterfalls, but that's just a gimmick and that's not VT. There's a reason we carry a lunchpail. Our weight room has been updated but it's not brand new. In the end though, are brand new weights going to make you any stronger? Bells and whistles and flashy items only help recruiting, not performance.
That's the point, we can't recruit the elite talent consistently because like it or not, that's what an 18 year old kid wants to see haha
I'd rather have the player who wants to play for VT than the player who's impressed by shiny objects. Fish are attracted to shiny objects.
Well, we are National Champs at catching fish!
I agree, its like a girl only going out with you if you drive a Lambo, or Bentley, we don't need those thuggin, mean muggin, gold digging recruits to come and just be swagg swagg swagg but no performance.
Haha I'm not saying I want to attract those kind of players, but don't you think top recruits like nice things? I mean sure we can get the ones that "want to play for VT" but that means if they're a high level recruit they won't want to come here unless they had 3 brothers attend the school before them. The "identity" of not being flashy is nice and all, but eventually you have to think that improving facilities will improve recruiting. Recruiting will then allow for higher talent to be coached up to the max, fielding the best possible team you can.
And being blessed to run out onto a field with 66,233 screaming jumping fans while Metalica is bumping from the speakers on a Thursday Night game in ALL Maroon Everything isn't good enough.
Kids these days like shiny/expensive thinks but sometimes some people can't have expensive things because their head will get too big.
I just don't see improving facilities leading to lesser production from a team. There's nothing wrong with modernizing a bit.
that's the thing though...we have recently upgraded..we do have modern facilities. The only thing we're lacking are indoor facilities but I believe there are plans in place to build some. We just don't have all the bells and whistles of the brand new facilities of Oregon and Alabama...but we're not stuck in the stone ages
More cash pays for more traveling for recruiting outside VA, MD, PA, NC and FL.
More cash pays for more support staff to go to away games.
It pays for travel to recruit out of Michigan.
More cash pays for more seminars and consulting for the coaches.
It pays for travel to recruit out of California.
It pays for improved soccer facilities.
It pays for travel to Texas to recruit.
It pays for improved in game communications equipment.
It pays for better baseball facilities.
It pays for better rehab equipment.
It pays for travel to recruit out of GA, SC, Iowa.
If you want to be a regular contender for NCG you need to put yourself in the position to get lucky enough to have all the stuff fall your way just to get to the game. You have to do that often enough to win it.
To do that you need a huge boster program to generate the cash to do Everything required to keep yourself in the top 10 year after year until all the chips fall your way. Then after a few years outside the top 20, your base gets pissed, fire the coach and try again.
VT fan base is excellent, but the little military and technical school in the hills of SW Va just is not big enough to generate that kind of alumni size as the whole of the Texas school system or the Loiusiana school system or the PA state school system.
Picking up Notre Dame is a great step to get there but it's going to take more time and more alumni and boosters.
I generate as many fans as I can. We don't need a gold plated lunch pail, we need more lunch pails if you want to win a NCG, it takes everything you have to give. Are you ready to do that? The little old school in the hills can do it if anybody can.
And the alumni who have the resources to donate do, and do as big as they can.
And even some that are not alumni but recognize a good program when they see one.
I think if they would the games that are certainly winnable then there would be more ponying up from alumni and donors.
Like I posted before - if you lay out a strategy to do all those things, connect it to success, and selling it to the contributers, you can generate a lot more revenue. But you've layed out several things that Frank has no intention of doing regardless of budget.
As it relates to recruiting, as Weaver says, Frank gets the resources he asks for. His budget is what it is, because our VA-centric recruiting strategy doesn't need it to be bigger. Improve the strategy, then raise the revenue.
I don't think there's an issue with the recruiting strategy. Someone (I want to say either TSL or maybe Bitter) pointed out a little while ago that our 6-hour radius, while also making it easier for parents/friends to come to games and for players to get home, etc., also encompasses something like 40-60% of the US population. I'm just going off memory here, so if anyone gets the real number, please share. Still, it's a huge area, in terms of area and population, to recruit from.
6 Hours limits us to east of the mississippi river by a fair margin. It is 6 hours to western Tennessee.
Well, we've still got Ohio, Pennsylvania, VA, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee in there. That's a huge area and a lot of people to cover. I think we'll see some spot recruiting outside that area by Grimes and possibly Loeffler, but beyond that, I don't see much point going farther away (and spending more money) on recruits we're not all that likely to get. The distance coupled with very good programs closer to home will probably keep top-tier recruits away.
A school like Stanford can and has to recruit nationally because of the pull/demands of their admissions department. We don't have that, which means we can take more of the recruits closer to home and we're less likely to pull the recruits from farther away.
Only half of Georgia (Atlanta is practically right at 6 hours), and Florida's nowhere close. Only rural areas in northeast Bama, too, closest town with over ~10k population is Gadsden, a 6.5 hour drive from Blacksburg. Source: I've made the drive from Blacksburg to gulf coast Mississippi more times than I'd like to admit....
I think we've been relaxing our recruiting rules over the last couple years.
Well, Atlanta is where we recruit (see Facyson) and for some reason, we've got a couple pipelines in Florida even though they break the 6 hour rule. Point still stands: we cover a lot of area and a lot of people within that 6 hours _ Florida. We haven't so much relaxed the recruiting rules as shifted the focus. We're going North (still within 6 hours) a whole lot more than we're going South.
We do have the facilities, they just aren't as nice. They're kinda old, not as shiny, stuff like that. The athletic building next to Cassell is not necessarily the nicest coaches facility.
No, Merryman is not a flashy building, but have you actually been down into where the coaches are? Have you seen their offices and meeting rooms? They're nothing to be ashamed of. They've been made modern but flashy isn't VT's style.
This seems entirely plausible. What we do know is that losses do hurt this program and set us back (especially bowl losses).
Also look at the trend.. No Thursday Night games, No ALL Maroon Everything, No Bowl win... whats next???
When I saw this title I immediately thought of this...
The problem with the Duke/BC/MD losses wasn't that we lost, it's that we underperformed. Against duke we turned the ball over 4 times (once in the redzone), missed 2 kicks and lost by three points. If we get three points between one of the two missed kicks, or hit a field goal instead of turning the ball over in the endzone, the game goes to OT.
We out gained BC by nearly 150 yards, but made 2-4 bad plays that cost us the game.
Maryland we came storming out of the game got robbed of a touchdown (awful officiating), missed a 34 yard fg (not Kristein's fault, he was in a tough situation, but we shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place), then later in the game, our defense didn't step up the way a top 10 defense should.
Every game we lost was winnable. We had so many chances to win each of these games, but couldn't. We left points on the field that would have tied or won us each of these games. No (realistic) fan was expecting an 11 win season, but as the possibility seemed more and more possible, the expectations rose (rightfully so). That's why this was such a bittersweet season.
For everyone of those games we could have won, were there not at least 3 more games that we could have easily lost? That Marshall game was insane, but that game could have very easily gone the other way. When you play as many close games as we did with as many inexperienced players as we have at the skill positions, it's impossible to expect to win them all. In games decided by 10 points or less we went 6-3. That's pretty good.
I understand your argument that inconsistency comes with inexperience, but I respectfully disagree. When you have MULTIPLE chances to win a game, I expect our boys to take advantage of one of them. FGs should be gimmes, and needed to be for this team. We took advantage of 1/2 of our scoring opportunities against Duke. That's not TDs 1/2 of the time we're in the redzone... we went 2/5 on FG opportunities (I'm counting the pic in the endzone as an 'FG opportunity'), that's not good at all, no matter your experience.
I couldn't agree more with this response. It's not the 8-4 finish that is disappointing. It is the WAY we got to 8-4 that is extremely disappointing and leaves me feeling we "left a lot on the table". Poor performances resulting in losses to Duke, BC and Maryland.
I don't mean any disrespect to any Hokie fans, but the last few weeks of the season I kept reading comments (here and other VT sites) rationalizing the 8-4 season with the argument, "hey, 8-4 is about what we expected coming into this season". While that may be true, if we're all honest, not many of us expected 3 of those losses coming to Duke, BC and Maryland. If we're really objective about it, those 3 losses were simply an underperformance.
So, in retrospect, 11-1 truly was an achievable result for this team -- even in a "rebuilding" year. So, for me, that's why I feel so disappointed in this season. I did get my hopes up after the first 6 games. And we then proceeded to drop 3 games where I believe we were the better team. The only one you may argue is Duke. And...I was at the game (the only game I was able to attend) -- we beat ourselves. It wasn't that Duke beat us.
I'll get over it, of course. And, I truly am excited about the near future of VT football. I believe we finally have the offensive staff that can produce the results we've been missing for (ever). And, I am very excited about the uptick in recruiting success this year.
Go Hokies!!
Good point. But after beating Miami in Miami, I did not see Duke, BC, Maryland being murderers row. Especially BC and Maryland.
We had bye weeks those weeks. Which was fortunate in the case of the non-Maryland game as I was recovering from my 21st the night before....
This...both you and bar. This x1000000
I'm a sophomore at Vt, so I haven't enjoyed a 10 win season like many of you have, and all this talk about how great our previous years were is making me sad.
Tell your peers to show up to games in force, cheer like madmen, and stop leaving early.
Just think, I was an undergrad when VT lost to UVA. Talk about sad.
I have a feeling you'll be joining the club by the time you graduate. Hang in there!
You'll be there for our National Championship year. I have a good feeling about this incoming class of players, and a couple of the players we'll have from this past year's team.
Junior here and I must've cussed out about 30 of my friends for leaving early this year. The only time I've every left early was when I started puking my guts up after halftime against Duke (no, it wasn't because of the score, eating under-cooked chicken wasn't such a good idea after all).
Kids these days and crazy expectations. Not everyone should get a trophy.
Honestly, if 15-11 in two years with bowls in each are considered down years, I'll take em. Down years could be much worse. I'm sure there are plenty of examples...
Exhibit LOL
Loved the post... just wanted to thin there western Kentucky might not have him to much longer, apparently he interviewed for Louisville
And if you can't root for your own team or your own coach go home
Everyone, let's not feel too bad about having unrealistic expectations. My dad (a Stanford alum) just sat in on a conversation between my grandma and some other Stanford boosters. Apparently a decent chunk of the fan base wants Shaw fired for losing the Rose Bowl. The man is 34-7 with 2 conference titles in 3 years on the Farm.
I completely agree. I dont think it's bad to have unrealistic expectations, just be more realistic when they dont pan out.
This is a surprisingly accurate comment. I think we can learn a lot from the Auburn guy who made a $100 bet on his team winning it all. He was optimistic enough to hope for a title, but even when the team fell short (and he missed out on FIFTY FREAKING THOUSAND DOLLARS), he was cool with it. He said he enjoyed the ride and enjoyed supporting him team. That's the kind of fans we should all strive to be like.
*Edited to show the correct bet amount.
$100 bet for this one. Which he also didn't hedge by betting against Auburn or even taking the points (I'm not sure why not, they were getting 9.5 by gametime).
I would have taken a few thousand and put it on FSU, I'm a Hokie for life, but knocking out a few mortgage payments wouldn't hurt.
Right you are, it was $100. Still, you gotta admire the guy for not taking it too seriously and just supporting his team, even in a completely intangible way that really had zero effect on said team.
It was cool of him no doubt
He did finally put down a $2k bet on FSU at roughly even odds, so he still came away with extra cash.
Those other teams mentioned in front of VT all won BCS title games too. VT did play for one and finish 3rd in the BCS one year; no shame in either of those.
Anyone have a source to the nugget on the original post that VT is 6th in wins in the BCS era?
I posted that initially and now I realize that the website I went to was slightly off. So I did a little digging and found this gem. Which shows that we are actually 4th in overall wins and 7th in overall winning percentage during the BCS Era. Additionally, I tallied our record since 1999 to make sure our's is correct. It's a pretty cool website, you just put in the years you want to see and it will tally the records in order for you and you can sort by wins and winning percentage. Here you go:
http://football.stassen.com/cgi-bin/records/calc-wp.pl?start=1999&end=20...