From Athlon: https://athlonsports.com/college-football/acc-coaches-talk-anonymously-a...
"The program did real damage to itself keeping Justin Fuente for that extra year. Maybe even the last two."
"It's not a stretch to say the offense doesn't have a top-half-of-the-league-level skill player at any position. They haven't signed a single player in the last two years that a high-level ACC program wanted."
Alot of the stuff we've been saying here too.
Biggest shocker to me was the 'good vibes' I read on the Duke staff, seems some coaches believe the new staff can turn things around there eventually
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
It's only up from here. LET'S GO!
HOKIES!!!!
I like the way you think. This is the floor. Now let's start moving on up from here.
Lol - haven't signed a player in two years that a high level ACC team wanted. Well let's see, there's only about one team that has been "high level" in the ACC the last several years. Probably Pat Nardouchey here.
It's been way longer than that for even mid-level ACC teams. Payoute wasn't one of them. Neither was Robinson. King and Bowick in the 2019 class were.
Turner and Mitchell in 2018.
Savoy and Holston in 2017.
But a lot more had SEC offers like Kenji Christian and his 5 SEC offers, or Elijah Howard's 2 SEC offers, or Gosnell with 4 SEC offers, anOSU and PSU. Lofton had a number of good offers too.
Also Pat should know that he lost out some skill players to VT in 2021 (Jaylen Jones)
Elko put together a good staff. They can get to that 6-7 win a year where they beat 3 non conf and then 3-4 conference games and go to a bowl.
Do that and he can be at Duke for 20 years. Good gig
I totally get this perspective. But this would carry more water with me if the ACC didn't absolutely suck for the most part. Coaching and fundamentals can really make a difference in this league. Need no more proof than what Wake did last year or Pitt. Love hearing mediocre coaches say things like this about VT.
Exactly this. Four losses last year were within an average of 5.5 points. I don't care if it's S&C, coaching, play calling, talent development, talent retention, culture, etc. 5.5 points average away from being a 10 win team. That is with a lackluster staff who we are still finding out more and more about how they utterly dropped the ball at this institution. Given all of the aforementioned issues we had it stands to reason that we can get those 5.5 points back .
The facilities are as good as they have ever been, the donations are coming in...not only do we have a full coaching staff but we have never had more recruiting staff or back-room analysts than we do right now. All signs are pointing up and now we just need to see it on the field (obviously the most important point here).
now this sounds like Narduzzi
Maybe they're ALL Nardouchi quotes.
They don't make just anybody a Chris Bickell '97 Head Football Coach. He literally got owned by a donation.
What's he going to say? "They'll never be able to work the refs as hard as I can!" Ah, finally something true.
Honestly, it sounds like something that someone from UNC would say.
Fuck Pat Narduzzi
For what it's worth, Godfrey says he typically talks to assistants, not HCs. My guess is Dre Bly, or some UVA alum on the UVA staff.
Aka some no talent assclown
Hey, leave Michael Bolton out of this
I can hear Mack Brown saying this in my head. He's one of the few coaches who was around long enough to know what CFB's early years were like.
Well, these coaches are saying what we've all been saying for a couple of years now... Need to recruit better.
It's OK when WE say it.
So getting a QB that won SEC games isn't ACC caliber?
I dont think the extra year, or two for Fuente hurt as much, our class last year was solid and the year before was okay. With the xfer portal coaches can get quick fixes to smooth out the roster. A new staff in 2020 would have been rough for recruiting too.
This is just politics/sour grapes. I hate the ACC so much. This would carry more weight with me again if this were a football league. But hearing mostly trash programs and trash coaches talk down about VT just pisses me off. Can't wait to go win them all. (And bolt to SEC as fast as we can.)
I wouldn't expect a lot of admiration for Pry just yet.
Come back in a couple of years, when the new kid on the block has beaten them.
Yeah it did hurt, alot. Our recruiting shows it because most people knew Fu was dead man walking after 2020. The 2020 class was abysmal and the top 3 or 4 commits from it either never played a down or transferred out, the 2021 class doesn't have a single player >.9000, all the while they're getting coached by scrubs. So not only are we short on top end talent, the talent we do have basically has to be reconstructed and re-coached.
When I read that quote it made me wonder if they even realize the transfers we brought in. If this quote was going off last years roster I think they were probably correct.
It's not a homer-take to suggest that we will have better QB options this season with Wells and Brown. Burmeister was not a P5 QB imo.
Additionally, I'm taking these statements more in general meaning than specifics. The line about us "not signing a single player a high level ACC team wanted" is not "literally" true. It's broadly true though.
"Not signing a single player a high level ACC team wanted" is an exaggeration. "Fuente didn't recruit well his last two years" is something I think we all agree with.
I guess you have to exaggerate a little if you want your quote to be selected.
Exactly. After only looking at the top two rated 2021 signees on 247, you already see offers from Auburn on the first and UNC/UVA on the second. Hyperbole.
The interviews might've been done before we signed Wells/Brown.
Proof that ACC coaches read TKP
or maybe we have coaches hiding amongst us on TKP! hmmm....
I think the on-field results were plain enough for any football fan (or not) to see that.
Whoever said this
or this
is probably the same coach that told Whit that our previous offense was "very well thought of", "adaptable", and "hard to prepare for" back in 2020.
lol
Facts.
Reading the quotes about VT, there isn't a whole heck of a lot to argue about. Our talent is lacking, we knew this because our recruiting sucked under Fuente. We know we have a bit of a rebuild ahead of us, and we know we probably did ourselves more harm than good by keeping Fuente around that extra year. And there's always a risk that a coordinator turned head coach can't mentally shift away from being that coordinator in his first year.
I mean what's the controversy here? Our offense was a train wreck in 2021? Well.... yeah. We might not have an ACC-caliber QB on the roster? Certainly a possibility. Not great that we have to lean heavily on the portal to find a cast-off from elsewhere to fill a starter's role. It might take us a while to fix what Fuente broke? I mean, Pry is basically telling us himself that this isn't an overnight fix. We don't have a top half of the league level skill player at any position? Well, our recruiting has been bottom third of the league for 3 years, that's kind of expected.
I think a lot of people who are taking issue with the comments here need to take a serious look at what we have this year and possibly readjust expectations. Fuente left us legitimately broken, and the rest of the conference knows it, and they're trying to warn us about what's coming.
maybe I missed it....but is anyone actually taking issue with any of those quotes? I didn't think anyone in here felt slighted by anything there
I don't think anyone here is really disagreeing with the general direction of these quotes.
Doesn't mean we can't make fun of the assistant coaches saying them. Most of them live in glass houses.
we finished with the same, or better, record as all but five ACC teams. One of our worst seasons led to us being middle/upper mid of conference. Certainly not good enough for VT- the point is that a coach would say that with a straight face and not take a long, hard look in the mirror is hilarious. It also demonstrates the absurd, circular, logic used by coaches.
This is one of my favorite articles of the year, every year.
I realize everyone likes to think that these are quotes from Head Coaches of other teams, they are not. These are quotes from Assistant Coaches on down. So, not Pat Narduzzi or Mack Brown quotes here, but certainly could be from one of their assistants or staff members.
C'mon. Half the fun of these is one more opportunity to rag on Pat Narduzzi.
It's basically another episode of "Hatin' On".
OK, Fuck Narduzzi!
LOL... why guard the barn after the horses have all run, away?!?
💯
b.street
You know damned well there's one on the treadmill.
Yah; fair, tru dat.
Might as well find us a dead one a beat its damn azz while we at it.
b.street
Do we know if this was actually a VT staffer that made this quote its incredibly accurate.
I think the average fans were also saying these things.
I'm pretty sure the quotes in the VT section are from anonymous coaches/staff from other ACC schools, not from within the VT staff. Which is pretty incredible revisiting this now, for sure.
Oh how people forget....
It's funny that when things play out exactly how the industry experts said they would, people still loudly get caught up in their own feelings publicly calling out for the coaches to be fired.
There is a very loud portion of our fanbase who absolutely buried their heads in the sand this summer and are now refusing to believe reality when it's staring them in the face.
you got a link or something to where Sons of Saturday are already calling for coaching changes? i can't find it. is it on a podcast? i don't listen any podcasts, but i follow them on twitter and check out their website every now and then.
Retracted
SOS Contributor here. I see now 2x this morning that you've been talking about SOS contributors calling for heads. Unless you have any references / links to said comments that you've made, I think that narrative you're pushing should be shut down. Don't think anyone from SOS has called for anyone to be fired on social media.
via GIPHY
Bro, seriously? That's a big difference.
How convenient. Either cite sources or post your opinion as just that.
Twitter is a shit show right now. You've got some of the bigger podcasters tweeting about firing everyone its so comical
Right now?!
apparently
I couldn't disagree with this the first time I read it, but now that we have 4 games under our belt, it has been painfully prophetic.