I thought it was an interesting listen. Bud talks with them for about 25 minutes (starting 5 minutes in.)
Bud talks about the Lunch Pail coming back after being retired by the previous regime. He also talks about his personal relationship with Pry over the years.
Was interesting to hear that Bud was offered a DC position in the USFL by Larry Fedora.
He seems like he is very happy in retirement.
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Na if you watch closely that was Joe Rudolph answering that question
I miss bud
Yep always a Hokie legend
It's bullshit that coordinators can't get into the College Football HOF
Can he not sign a 1 game contract to get that HC experience in order to make him eligible?
Hook him up to coach against Wofford and then he can retire the only coach with a 100% win rate.
No I believe he has to have 10 years of head coaching experience, coaching at least 100 games and winning at least 60% to be considered.
Thank you for posting this. Very enjoyable. I could listen to Coach Foster talk for days.
Very interesting on Coach's perception of the Lunch Pail. I know what it is to me, but cool to hear him talk about the Virginia Tech Brand-not just on the field.
Thanks for posting this. Happy that Bud is happy with Brent and what he's doing with the program. This got me amped up.
"Pry has asked me my opinion more in 8 months than Justin did in 6 years"... Whit you effed that one up buddy. Hope you got it right this time.
Which when you consider Fuente and Foster actually worked together for several years is especially damning.
In Whit's defense, everybody thought he had knocked it out of the park after the first 2 years.
Also, he didn't need to ask Foster about the defense because Foster was running his defense.
Fuente's tenure was a completely dysfunctional shit-show. I don't think we really fully understand just how bad it was. It's amazing that we managed to win as much as we did with him at the helm. I hope he didn't completely ruin VT for the future. I hope Pry will be able to dig us out of this hole. It will take time.
In fairness to Whit, he didn't mess up the hire. He messed up with the early contract extension and, if you believe the rumors of what happened behind the scenes '20 (I think) he didn't push harder on the administration to terminate him when he wanted to.
Did he? Fuente was 19-7 at the time, had a 10-win season and a 9-win season. There were rumors about LSU/FSU/UF showing interest in him. Recruiting was decent at the time - top 25ish classes, and landed 12 4-stars in the last two classes (8 of which were from MD/DC/VA/NC).
If we lost Fuente (at that point) the fanbase would've been pissed that we lost a coach with a >.700 winning percentage because we were too cheap to give him an extension.
One could argue Whit should've done better due diligence when hiring Fuente in 2015. One could also argue that Whit should've terminated Fuente earlier. I don't think there's a strong argument that Whit should have NOT extended Fuente. JMO.
I think the nature of the buyout was the issue. There should have been a bigger buyout for him to leave voluntarily (Baylor) and the Tech buyout should have shrunk faster. Ideally, if things go well, I think most schools renegotiate contracts every three years or so.
I think the extension was a year too early. I think you really need at least 3 years of data to see which way a coach is trending. I also think it was too big of an extension. Maybe it was Fuente's agent looking to get the bag locked up (well done to him!) or maybe there was legitimate interest. Either way, I would have held out a year and if Fuente did decide to leave I'd be prepared to hire the next best coach. As a fan, would I be pissed? Sure. But I'd rather be pissed that a coach did well enough for us to get poached than be pissed that a coach is dragging our program into the mud. The problem is, that it's much harder to see the latter in real time.
I imagine Whit learned a couple lessons here. I would be surprised if Pry gets a contract extension before 2025. And that extension will likely have more protections for VT than we've seen previously (getting well compensated should Pry terminate the contract early). Pry could win the ACC 2 years in a row in '22 and '23 and I still wouldn't want to extend his contract until after the '24 season. If other programs come calling for him then I turn around and sell VT to the next up-and comer as a place to make a name for themselves. Eventually we'll find a great coach who wants to stay in Blacksburg and build a dynasty.
If Pry wins the ACC in '22 and'23 we don't have enough bank to keep him.
There are a number of ways to compensate coaches without extensions. No extension is going to protect us if LSU wants our coach. So add retention bonuses. Increase salaries, add more personal plane time. Everything you do is to get the coach to sign a higher buyout, cause the LSUs can and will pay. We did none of this and that a why it was a bad deal. The extension was way to one sided.
P.S. i do like retention bonuses because it's a shit or get off the pot moment.
To me, yes Fuente had two good years out of the gate, however I also think the fanbase would not have been as pissed as you think as Fuente had already made inroads with pissing off the fanbase.
IF Fuente goes to LSU/FSU/UF after two years, you offer an extension without the buyout, and you wish him the best if he moves on. I think that's the lesson learned by Whit.
Hindsight is 20/20, and I get that there wasn't anything special with Fuente in the grand scheme of things, any coach could come in and replicate the exact same results.
I think Whit has done a much better job this time around. And really, that's all I can ask for when a mistake hire is made.
I actually had time to listen to this on the way into work today. Loved it. Makes me more excited for the Pry era.