Hyperbole? Probably. Overreaction? Definitely. But hear me out for a minute or two...
Just 9 years ago we all watched Beamer's farewell tour. It was both parts beautiful and sad. Beautiful as we saw the man who built VT football into a program that carried national relevance year after year finish with relative success. Sad, because we all knew it had to end at some point. And with that ending I think we all knew things would be rocky for a bit.
As some have pointed out, as bad as it's been it certainly could have been much worse. Whit Babcock made a homerun hire, at least that's what everyone thought at the time. Justin Fuente and his G-5 staff took VT to the ACCCG in 2016, during his first year at VT. Then... without dissecting the nuances of what went down, we all know what happened (locker room issues, recruiting misses, player development failures, horribly unqualified staff, etc.), things went sideways. Fast.
Enter Brent Pry. An underwhelming hire for sure, but a Hokie, someone who is part of the "family". Probably the hire we could afford. And in reality, the hire we all came to love and appreciate very early on. Pry has done an excellent job with the fans, press, and donors. He has laid a positive foundation for and elevated recruiting. You can actually see the vision he has for that part of the program, and it's quite refreshing.
He brought with him a relatively unknown and very inexperienced staff. I had more questions about Bowen during those early days then I did about Marve. But that was mostly due to the fact that Pry has a defensive background. It became clear early on that Pry was struggling to manage the game and the defense at the same time, so he "learned" that he needed to hand the keys over to Marve.
So here's what I've learned as we begin year 3 under Coach Brent Pry...
1. Bowen, as good as he is in spots, really struggles during some of the most vital parts of any given game. It's a rare thing that this VT offense plays well for more than 2 quarters of any game (there are exceptions, of course). I appreciate his adjustments last season, but they only came after: (1) we made the correct decision at the QB position, and (2) Coach Pry said time and time again after those tough losses early "we are too predictable on offense, we need to change some things up." He didn't say exactly that each time, but it was something like that. So, things changed for the better. But there were still some glaring issues.
2. Marve... I said it early. I said it the entire season last year. I will keep saying it - Marve ain't the guy. Period. By all accounts, and based on the folks I know who have interacted with him, he's a fantastic human being. He is highly intelligent. However, his unit performs horribly. His entire unit lacks physicality, lacks awareness, isn't fundamentally sound, and plays a very passive style of defense. I have zero confidence that our defense will ever get stops. Long gone are the old days of VT football where we had a better chance of scoring when our defense was on the field than if our offense was (maybe a tad of an exaggeration, but not much of one). Simply put, Marve's group has shown little improvement year over year (I know about some of the analytical data out there about how "good" our defense was. However, we loaded up some of those stats against very bad teams). This defense looks a whole lot like the Jack DelRio defense that we saw in Washington year after year - one with some talent, but one that looked fundamentally broken.
Both of these glaring issues, along with the OL, which takes time to rebuild, lay directly at the feet of Brent Pry. He has a series of significant decisions to make regarding his staff. I don't know if we have the money to make any changes, but these guys are clearly not ready for big time football, and that means VT isn't ready either. Heck, VT isn't ready for little league football at this point in the game. This was the year we were supposed to take a step forward and beat the teams we were supposed to beat. Win 7-8 games and look to rebuild in a couple of years... Based on what we saw today, we haven't improved. We were the same team today that played Purdue, Marshall and Rutgers to start last season. Unprepared, uninspired, and completely outmanned in every phase of the game. The difference? We return the most starters of any P4 team in the country along with a QB who put up some really good numbers last year. So, what is the problem? I don't know exactly...
Here's the rub... This is the best roster we've seen in Blacksburg since 2016. It's a solid roster top to bottom. Are there holes? Yes (particularly on the OL and at the LB spots). But, again, this is a veteran roster that should be able to compete. After this season, the staff will be in major "development" and "shopping" mode. The roster will need to be rebuilt and retooled in a pretty significant way.
The fans have donated an incredible amount of money, by VT standards, to the athletic department and towards the all important NIL efforts. We (yes, we, collectively, along with the staff) have worked to keep this roster together so that we can get back to a place where competing at a high level is not out of the question.
And for what? What does that investment get us? Much of the same stuff we've seen the last two season (Mike London game management, players who do not know where to be and when to be there, uninspired play, etc.). It gets us a trip to Nashville so we can get absolutely manhandled by the bottom dwellers of the SEC on ESPN. This is what our investment gets us.
Now, as much as this sounds like whining and complaining (it is a little of that, because I've donated money), it's more about understanding where this program is right now, and it's at a very fragile place as I see it.
This type of performance, after an offseason of hype (that isn't the fault of the players or coaches), is not how you rally the fanbase and get folks excited about the trajectory of the program. This is not how you get the people holding this program up, through $$, to continue to invest. These players are making money right now. And a lot of it. And that makes things a little more touch and go IMO. People work really hard for the money they make, and right now it doesn't go as far as it used to. That means people are likely more calculated about how and where they spend that money.
As stated in the "VT Vent Thread", VT fans are amazing! But I get the sense they are wearied. I think we've been offered fools gold a few times to many in the last decade. VT fans are not being given the ROI that is expected or anticipated.
I think it's foolish to have fully bought into the hype of thinking we were a dark horse playoff team. But at the same time, I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to think we could be bad teams on our schedule. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a physical and disciplined brand of football. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect improvements, even at a micro level, year over year.
But alas, this is where the VT football program is - losing to ODU (who put up one helluva fight in Columbia today), losing to Rutgers, losing to Vanderbilt, losing to Marshall... And doing this type of stuff with regularity. Unfortunately things have not changed under Brent Pry. Today was a bad loss for Coach Pry. Not just because it was Vanderbilt, but because it's one more nail in the coffin that holds a once lively football program. I don't think it was the last nail, but I'm also not sure how many are left.
The door is closing on VT football. If Pry doesn't have a 1995 type of turnaround things could go downhill quickly. He will inevitably lose some support, as likeable as he is. The fans, who support the program, will sink back into the lethargy that plagued us during the last 2 years of the Fuente era. If that happens, it will become incredibly difficult for him to turn things around.
I am not calling for his head. I think it would be foolish to do so. However, looking at the roster, looking at recruiting, it's difficult to imagine having a roster like this within the next two years. I know, I know, "the transfer portal!" But here's the thing. If the fans, already wearied from year after year of letdowns, can no longer invest, then the portal becomes more and more irrelevant. And that, my TKP family, is the crossroads for VT football. I think we are at an incredibly vulnerable spot right now. I know, some of you will think, "sheesh, it's just one loss. calm down!" I get that. But it's one loss in a long series of horrible losses. Things really haven't changed all that much.
Unfortunately, Pry needs to win. Not every game. Not 10 games. But he needs to show that he, along with his inexperienced staff, can do better than what we saw in Nashville today or the fans, with an already lethargic taste in their mouths, will simply move onto other things...
Comments
Look...the college football landscape has changed...you are either a "have" or a "have not."
There is no such thing as a Developmental program anymore...the Portal and NIL killed that.
This season was supposed to be the "turning point" where VT proved it could be a Have.
Instead, we got thoroughly outcoached by Vandy...have 0 competent Coordinators and are working on a decidedly meh Recruting Class.
Save a massive change in direction, I think the writing is on the wall.
No wins = NIL $$ dry up which means no chance whatsoever to compete in the Pay for Play League formerly known as College Football.
Kansas and Kansas state both come to mind off the top of my head.
The challenge isn't the NIL or transfer portal; it's that there's no more diamonds in the rough, thanks to hudl, 247, etc
Meh, it's early. The hype train has halted. The 2024 class had the highest average rating of any class in VT history.
On offense, I think Bowen knows his stuff, but (a) he doesn't adjust fast enough and (b) he's still vexed by the subpar O line play. I'm not sure how to fix this without recruiting high schoolers and developing them.
On defense, the run fitting issue is giving us fits. I don't get why this is a problem. Idk if it's a Marve problem, a position coach problem, or what - either way it's a Pry problem.
Fortunately, due to house v NCAA, VT can pay athletes up to $20m/year directly. NIL won't matter as much.
Leopold will be gone to a P4 in short order as will K-State QB and both will be back where they were before.
And I would love you to explain to me where this money is going to come from. The ACC's tremendous TV contract with ESPN which may or may not extend beyond 2026 or dissolved by FSUs lawsuit? Maybe the Nike contract? Which is overfilling the coffers with money as they make us pay for our own alternate uniforms.
Call it what you want to call it, but the Ransom Money to Field a Collegiate Athletic team (euphamised as NIL) has to come from somewhere. And a large majority of it is going to have to come from private donors and boosters, particularly for a school like VT that doesn't have national brand recognition.
Those people aren't going to continue to throw money at a product that isn't successful. Read the temperature of the Boards here...multiple people already questioning where their money is going and why if we can't beat the dregs of the SEC.
Leipold has reportedly turned down offers from Wiscy and Nebraska. I'm not naive enough to think he'll stay at Kansas, but he's already done enough to prove that it's possible run a 'developmental' program.
Avery Johnson is a local guy who turned down offers from a bunch of P2 schools. Obviously he could transfer, but I don't think k it's a given.
those donors' investment has trended upward for most of the last decade despite terrible results. I'm sure it will plateau at some point. I'm unsure when that point is, but it's not right now.
And Luke Fickell turned down how many job offers before going to Wisc?? Had a nice little development program going at Cinci until P2 money came calling and the writing was on the wall.
Where is Cinci in the CFB landscape now??? Still a developmental program, or simply an afterthought??
Point being, relying on one Coach or one Star player isn't a Developmental "Program"--its a wish and a prayer just waiting to get dashed by the next guy with a bigger $$offer or the next guy or the next one after that. Its a zero sum game for the non Blue Bloods at this point...and if you find that entertaining, then more power to you....
IMO until Cincy moved to the B12. He knew he couldn't win a Texas centric conference from the Midwest.
They made a terrible hire. TBD if it tanks the program, but many a coach has been successful there.
Well that's kind of my point - once your staff turns over, your identity changes. Dabore's Alabama won't use the same recruiting or on field strategy as Saban's.
The point is, there are still good staffs who can come in and get blood from stones - we see it every season. Can it be maintained over an extended period of time across multiple staffs? Of course not, but that's not new, and it's definitely not due to NIL/portal. That's life in the 247/hudl era.
Maintaining over multiple seasons, including with Staff changes is what makes it a Program and not just a flash in the pan.
Of the past 10 years who have been the best developmental programs that consistently punch above their weight?
Cinci, Wake Forest, UCF...all would have to be among the top.
How have all of them fared since NIL and unlimited free transfers became the standard..??
Wake watches their roster get picked apart every Offseason...did Dave Clawson suddenly lose it? Or is it now nearly impossible for that model to work when a B1G or SEC school can flash a bag of cash and a free car in front of the lightly recruited DT that they spent 3 years developing into a major contributor..?
I'd argue these are three completely different situations:
So, these theee schools might be facing a similar problem - it's hard to acquire talent - but only one of them is an NIL/Portal issue (Wake - which is easily one of the five hardest jobs in the power 4, and always has been).
I mean, VT just kept our roster in tact for a whole offseason, so clearly it's doable 🤷♂️
We are not at a crossroads. We are decidedly a "have not" program that missed its window of opportunity and has slid into irrelevance. Our fanbase is one of the best and most loyal, but we are waking up to the harsh reality that the institutional powers at be at VT simply have no idea how to be competitive in football in the post-Beamer, modern college football landscape. Things have been bad for a while, but I think many are finally realizing the distinct possibility that VT football may never be "back." We have now invested more money than ever before in football, and this is what going "all in" gets us.
It's not simply about throwing money at the problem. It's how you spend that money. I think it's unacceptable to have this much on the job training going on with this staff. No one is trying to poach Pry or any of our coordinators. The best coach on our staff is Mines by a country mile.
We are paying a premium for inexperience and hoping folks grow into the role with some sort of blind faith in the process. That's not what P4 programs do. You hold coaches and players accountable, and if you're not performing, you're gone. VT claims it's spending big cash and investing, but none of our actions show that we are seriously holding people accountable. We're just paying more for the same results. It's incredible.
Case in point: Pry over the last year or so in an interview was talking about assembling his staff, and that the only position that they actually conducted interviews for, rather than him calling up people in his circles and offering, was WR when they hired Mines. And he has turned out to be a slam dunk hire. Maybe we should have that mentality with more of our hires moving forward.
And he also mentioned wanting the staff that was right for VT, staff that would stick around for a while rather than leave after a few years. VT just institutionally and culturally couldn't handle the Buzz Williams situation. We made a big time hire outside of the normal VT circles, and he changed the program dramatically. But we couldn't comprehend why he would leave - after all, we have to hire people who will be here for life.
You make the best hire for the job at that point in time, period. You can't be scared of losing talent when making a hire. If they're good and they get hired away eventually, they usually did good things and left things better than they found it. Don't make hires that will "stick around."
Agreed. Would have been way better off paying for 2-3 wrs and 1 corner to come back (2 if it was Canteen to play safety) and get some O line instead of 5 deep at WR that we don't use.
Looking back now I fear this isn't a post Beamer but a end of Beamer problem that started to show in 2010 and we all just overlooked it with good 10 win seasons and ignored the bad bad losses, bowl blow outs and overall stagnation of the athletic department.
Agree. The stagnation started while Beamer was still here. We slowly got complacent while the rest of the sport was evolving rapidly. We got so behind. A good bit of the blame for where we are now starts there.
Hate to break it to you, but we are NOT paying a premium for our coordinators. They were paid as the 50th best coordinators at time of hire. Within a year, they were both around 80th.
That said, it doesn't excuse their performance.
Mines is connected to Anthony Poindexter who pry worked with in the past. furthermore, Crook was also Interviewed.
But this is just the reality of college football. Majority of hires are from professional networks. Doesn't make it right, but that's just reality.
Oh I know he and Mines had mutual coaching connections, but that was still the only position they conducted a true interview process for according to him. The rest he literally just directly called up someone he knew personally and offered the job, or were holdovers from the previous staff and he knew directly like JC and PP. (Crook was also an interview as you mention since Rudolph left us in a pretty tough spot with spring ball looming.) I get that it happens, but I'm really starting to think Pry didn't surround himself with the best staff he could have and needed as a first time HC. Very risky hires with no past experience at the coordinator spots, where you absolutely need strong Xs and Os.
With my comment on paying premium for results, totally agree relative to the top 25 or even top 50 we may still be behind. But we are paying more than VT has historically ever invested into the football staff, even if we aren't keeping pace. And I look at it as, if we still had Fu staff level funding, would we still be able to retain Bowen and Marve? No one else was hiring them as P4 coordinators at the time or now. They were major reach hires and thus far are playing out as such.
You just nailed the gap between perception and reality. It's like housing market - if I drop $600k today on a house that $400k 3 years ago, I can't expect to $600k to buy the same amount of house it did 3 years ago.
All this to say, we paid for first time coordinators. Doesn't mean we could've made better hires for the same price, or that these two aren't to blame for their mistakes; just means that we were t paying for someone who was a proven coordinator.
IMO, a learn on the job hire was fine for DC given Pry's background. Not on offense.
Absolutely not. Corny was making $490k when fired. Bowen/Marve could've fetched more than that as position coaches.
While not normal OK state's strength coach makes over a mil. At the big schools ST coordinators make over 1 mil, Charles Wiles left VT and got almost double what we paid him, at NC State, Gray made more than double too. Marve made 500k as the LB coach at FSU, Corn was actually really good per dollar we paid. We just didn't pay enough to be good.
If would phrase it a bit less negatively, and suggest that we paid for potential, not experience.
It's not working out in defense (and maybe that's not a large issue, but more of a Quinn issue, idk). I'm willing to wait and see until end of year.
I meant with Corn, we paid bottom dollar and got mid tier at best. We didn't pay enough under Fuente to hire good coordinators
What I am worried about is that VT as a whole (football, athletics, university, etc.) will essentially rot as the passionate fans wear weary & thin. Sure, basketball and non-revenue sports may continue to flourish, but like it or not they are not the fuel that keeps the massive locomotive going. I don't want to get to that point where we have no more sellouts, half empty stadiums, all because we have "the right guys" coaching but we just keep getting "humbled" in the games. This is a cut-throat business...it is no longer a sport...and as long as we circle-jerk around the way things were done during the glory years, it is going to die on the vine. I have, for quite a while now, soured in Whit. Is he a good guy and good AD? Sure! But is he the kind of guy to even catch us up to where VT should be in the college football landscape? I don't think so. The whole program from top to bottom is now reeking of a burger joint who is charging $5 for the best burgers in the land without realizing the rest of the joints are charging $15 for inferior burgers. But our customers are happy, we're happy, so nothing needs to change, right? Do I have concrete answers for how to fix it all? Not at all. But I think we all sense the massive problem. Look at how hard the hype train got rolling in just year 3 of a new coach who took over a dumpster fire. We are desperate to believe, desperate to belong, and as a lot of people have said today, way more deserving of an on-the-field product (burger analogy no longer applies here) than we are being served.
I like Pry, I want him to succeed personally in a way I never really did for Fuente, and I think he has shown growth as a head coach. It's time for him to take the next step and do something Fuente never could— make a tough coaching personnel decision. He needs to demote or fire Marve. The status quo is completely unacceptable for a defensive-minded head coach and it's holding the team back.
I agree with your thesis that the program is at a crossroads. With conference realignment ever looming, the team needs to take another step forward this year. As brutal as today was, I think they still can.
I agree with this 800%.
It's time for Pry to have some tough conversations with his staff. Aren't all the contracts up this year?
I believe they renewed this offseason for 2 or 3 more years with pay raises.
edit: they were https://hokiesports.com/news/2024/02/7/hokies-football-assistants-receive-contract-extensions
Oh damnit. Figures.
Agree - tough decisions need to be made. He talks about accountability, it's time to see some from Pry.
Unfortunately, I think the issues are even deeper than just Marve. Of all the assistants, it's hard to make a strong argument for retaining any of them except for Mines. He's our best assistant and recruiter by a long, long shot. Bowen again looking terrible to start the season for the third time now is giving me more confidence that the big turnaround we saw last year after Marshall was Brent Davis working some magic and covering for some people. If it weren't for that I think some difficult conversations should have happened at the end of last season.
We've got too much invested in VT football to have this much learning on the job and lack of preparation. It's unacceptable.
Yupp this is where I'm at too. I don't think we should go on an OC and DC hunt at the same time and I think Bowen has more experience around him in the offensive room - just need to sort out some play calling. [Edit] I also think the level of OL talent is significantly hampering what the offense can do. Parker Clements sacked Drones yesterday and it wasn't his first time doing so. [/edit]
Marve on the other hand has shown little to no growth, we're not landing LBs that's you'd expect on the recruiting trail, the LBs we have are never in position, and a defense that on paper is loaded with talent and experience got torched by a bad offense...again.
Pry wants to play this hard nosed run football offense and rely on a tissue paper defense and that's never going to work. Let Davis and Bowen open up the offense at will and get a proven D coordinator in here to sure up the defense.
The issue with Marve is not really the overall defensive scheme or performance, its the play of the inside linebackers.. the position he coaches.. that is causing so many problems in the run game.
edit -- my point is that there is no demoting him, if the LB and D don't pick it up for the next 11-12 games he should be let go
💯💯💯
Demoting people is dumb. Either they're good enough to be part of the org, or they're not.
I'm concerned the road was never crossed and now it might be too late. I want to see how these next 3 games go before dropping any strong takes. But I think anything other than 3-straight wins would be less than ideal.
With you on this. But also it's tough to imagine beating Rutgers at this point right now after what i watched yesterday
"Monangai up the middle for a big gain" is already playing in my head on repeat.
He is a really really good back and they are a very very physical team
It pisses me off how much money Whit has made per football win. Based solely on yesterday, this is a 5-7 win football team.
ODU almost knocked off South Carolina last night. And Rutgers I fear is going to run right through this defense. We are legitimately looking at a possible 1-3 start again, then with road trips to Miami and Stanford which I have no confidence we can win after yesterday.
Where is the accountability in the AD? We pulled funding and NIL money from basketball and cratered both of those programs for this? Whit's seat should be absolutely scorching. He and Ballein, who has wheeled and dealed his way from the guy who booked the hotels for Beamer to now the second most powerful person in the AD, should be on incredibly thin ice if Pry can't get this turned around.
This. If and when it's time to let go of Pry, then Whit goes with him...most AD's don't get a chance to hire a THIRD football coach for a program that apparently claims to be going all in at football.
Ballein isn't directly involved with the football program any longer.
Yes, but that doesn't mean he's still not incredibly influential behind the scenes. I mean he basically set up the Pry hire. He's also over the Business Office which means AD finances and major influence on how money is spent.
It was a referral at best. Have you never referred a connection before?
I think that's being pretty disingenuous about that relationship. The hire wouldn't have happened if not for Ballein. I'm not saying it was a bad hire or fire Pry or anything. But Pry was Ballein's guy.
My understanding is that Ballein just gave Pry the intro to Whit.
It's not that far fetched; it was an idea that my uninformed ass threw against the wall on our little message board.
If the team that played yesterday is the team that shows up for the rest of the season, then two wins is being generous. A lot of people need to get heads out of asses for a big turnaround.
Hopefully this woke up the team AND the coaching staff. However in my 28 years of Hokie fandom, history suggests otherwise
Rutgers? How about Marshall and odu? One at a time, one at a time. Rutgers WILL be a loss if we don't figure out how to be physical at line of scrimmage.
Tech's problems stem from dreaming what they could do as a team, instead of learning how to play as a team. One game at a time. Talk is cheap, this team is soft
Rutgers because Joe said win the next three and they're the toughest team in the next three
We 100% have the money to make changes, we were like 5 mil in profit last year. We should go and pay a DC like they're a top 25 DC and get a top 25 DC. I'm not sure what been needs, half the time he doesn't look like he should be calling plays in little league and the other half he looks like he had incredible play design that would make Lane Kiffen call him a genius.
My biggest worry is that we had a top 10 all-time head coach and we won 0 national championships and like 7 conference championships. That's not a lot for some one as highly regarded as Beamer.
Pry is going to need to pull a Dabo, get rid of his Billy Napier and Kevin Steele and find his Chad Morris and Brent Venables. We've started to turn the roster and get some talent back, but we don't have enough coaching acumen to do anything with it yet. If that means going away from the defensive system Pry is familiar with, so be it. He was hired to be the HC, not the DC.
We also need to play the best players and not the most senior or biggest names. If Delane gets toasted like that again, go to some of your upside younger guys. Clements also shouldn't start another snap. Put in guys like Copeland and Perry on DL over Pene and Fuga - known quantities and have reached their ceiling.
Have to try something different here and fast.
I know you're not calling for Pry to be fired, and I'm not either. But the unfortunate reality is that with a senior-heavy roster we are unlikely to be better next year than we are this year. He really needs to win 8 or 9 games this year.
I think he's referring to Marve and Bowen, and any other position coach that isn't cutting it. If there's a problem with any coach then it's up to Pry to make the tough decisions. If he can't do that, then Whit needs to and he's already proven to be extremely stubborn in that department. So, I hope Sands and the BoV are paying attention and drawing up contingency plans...
After reflecting on the game, we back baby. We only lost by 7 to an SEC team! Clemson can't even claim that! /s
This is going to be a really, really bad year for Clemson. Not a "well we only won 9 regular season games this year" bad, an actual bad year.
We'll see... too soon to tell how much of the performance was Georgia being Georgia vs Clemson being doodoo. It's definitely a bit of both, the question is what's the ratio?
First time caller, long time listener.
I see a new head coach (year 3) learning his way. Pry is making mistakes (and admitting those mistakes) and learning what life is like at the top position. Inconsistency is often what you get when you hire a first-time exec. I trust that he is holding his staff accountable behind the scenes and I have no expectation that he holds them accountable in public. He will eventually lose his job if his staff are not successful, so he has to decide quickly if they are the right folks to execute his vision for success at Virginia Tech. From what I see on the field I don't think Marve and Bowen are it, but I have zero visibility into what Pry sees day-to-day.
What I wonder is who is Pry's mentor as he learns the job? Franklin? Beamer? My hope is that he's leaning hard on someone to provide counsel and perspective. Someone to give him a gut check. Becoming a consistent winner at any level of anything is not easy, but I am confident Pry wants to win and wants to bring Virginia Tech back on the map. Its just going to take a little time and maybe we aren't patient enough to wait.
I appreciate this take. It's easy to despair with the current nature of college football and realignment feeling like VT is doomed forever if we don't have immediate success. But maybe our results now are just somewhat normal for any head coach with only 2 years of experience at the position. Maybe we're all being a little hyperbolic about VT being screwed eternally. The college football landscape could be completely different even in 5 years and what happens now may be irrelevant anyway.
answer: This message board. /s
I appreciate the rational post and I completely agree. Pry is learning on the job. What concerns me is so are Marve and Bowen. Whit hired a first time head coach and he appointed to green coordinators. This is like buying a kid who just got their license a sports car.
I feel bad for Pry. He's doing all the things he can to win over the fans (aside from winning games) and the things he thinks are right for the program. To me it just all rolls up to Whit. He has proven he is over his head running a high-end football program.
I may be beating a dead horse but I have been concerned about the OC/DC hires from the jump and nothing I've seen thus far seems to be proving me wrong.
First year HC hiring a guy who has never been a DC (that everyone at FSU seemed to be glad to be rid of!) and the Jags TE coach who has essentially no OC experience (Furman for a year hardly counts!) was flat out stupid.
This staff BADLY needs a Jerry Kill.
The red flags with Marve have been there since Day 1. I was really hoping he'd show serious growth on the job under Pry's tutelage, but there's just no evidence of it 2+ years in.
Marve learning under Brent Pry, a long-time successful DC at a big-time program, made sense to me to a certain extent. I didn't love that no one in Tallahassee was sad to see him go, but I figured he could get trained under Pry and hopefully succeed. Pry probably needs to take the sticks at this point.
Bowen never made any sense. 1 year of co-OCing. A year of OCing at Furman. Nothing indicated that he was ready to be an OC under an HC who had never had the big whistle before.
The most vexing thing about the Bowen hire was that it was coupled with Joe Rudolph and Brad Glenn hires, both of which were more qualified than him.
I get that Bowen is a great recruiter, but Glen should've been OC, and Bowen OL coach/Run game coordinator, Stu to TEs. Rudolph clearly wasn't a scheme fit here
To add here: the decision to have three LB Coaches on the staff feels a lot like the decision to have three OCs on the staff. The latter got sorted out for us. The former could still be haunting us.
Not to mention that the LBs still stink despite the number of coaches who specialize in LB play.
too many cooks in the kitchen
I totally read this as too many "cocks" in the kitchen lmao
Yeah that whole original offensive coaching trio never made sense in hindsight. Agree with you Glenn should have been the OC. Rudolph was a star name, and I think Pry just went for a guy he liked and respected as an OL coach without much thought on how he integrated with the rest of the coaches and philosophies. And Rudolph was just looking for a stopgap year until he found a good gig elsewhere. I think Glenn as OC and Bowen as OL/run game coordinator maybe even co-OC to learn under the more senior Glenn was the better choice. Still think that was an odd situation and likely why Glenn bolted after one year.
I absolutely believe Pry is the right head whistle; some of the others? Not so much. They need to re-evaluate their systems and/or strategies
I think there are two ways to win at college football (not top level, but just have a solid program). The first is have coaches that outcoach everyone else. We've see this at Kansas with Leopold, at Iowa ST with Campbell. Or have the best recruits, we see this at OSU, Miami, LSU. But the big place we see this is PSU. Franklin gets baild out so much by the talent he has. If he plays a team with the same level of talent he almost always loses, but winning all but 2 games a year is great for most schools.
Pry put a premium on recruiters, but we just don't have the talent around us any more. A G5 QB out athleted our all-acc DE in APR this past weekend. Out line couldn't push anyone. We have Felton, Lane, Jennings, Gosnell x2 and a massive QB and we set up screens instead of letting out big athletic players go and make plays. Even if we had the athletes we don't use them.
Get your head out of your ass. If you had *any* OC experience in the cfb25 dynasty mode, you'd know how lethal those rpo bubbles are to Felton and Lane
If we're at a crossroads we should make a deal with a demon
I just rewatched the game, and... wow. That was a disaster of epic proportions. Really. There's not a whole lot to build on except about 18 minutes of play in the 3rd and part of the 4th quarter on offense (this would exclude the horrific OL play the entire game). A few things I expect to read from French in his review:
1. Everything related to the OL was a hot mess. There were a few individual spots where we saw some promise, but all in all a very poor performance. And despite our gripes about the play calling (warranted IMO), the OL is severely handicapping what Bowen can do at literally every level. WR dropped passes were an issue. WR blocking was a significant issue.
2. Defense. Defense. Defense. The DL struggled to get pressure on the QB. We had almost no contain on the outside (APR was the guilty culprit a number of times). Our LBs are so incredibly passive and "lost" it really makes you wonder WTF is going on in practice with that group. The secondary was our of position, fundamentally unsound (at an individual level) and overall not very physical. Mose Phillips keeps getting a lot of heat for missing some tackles, but I did see him getting to his spots and in the middle of a few plays. I didn't watch a lot of him specifically, but I do like his upside. At the end of the day, there's really not much positive to take from the defensive unit.
3. At the end of the day, this team is a finesse football team that seems to be relying on athleticism in order to get to spots where the players can make plays, particularly on defense. We are not a physical team at all. Our OL can't get a push. Our WRs got bullied all day. Our Defense, at every level, got manhandled. Something is still terribly broken about this football program. We still have a culture issue it appears. We will win some games this year, but this team appears to have taken a step back from last year based on a second look.
I'm not sure what the answers are, but Pry has some serious work to do or he will lose much of the goodwill he has from the fanbase. Lots and lots of $$ has been invested to get this team and roster to where it is today and we got absolutely manhandled by the perennial SEC bottom feeder.
I am glad you called it like you see it-this team is soft.
Until we have a good OL, I will never believe the hype about the defensive line coming out of camp. So many years of "x player was so disruptive the coaches had to take him out so the offense could get reps". JC is also the poor man's Charlie Wiles.
I like Pry a lot. I do. He's a down home, quietly passionate guy that knows how to handle the press, fans, and players from what I've seen. I think he will be a pretty damn good HC IF (and only if) he can prove that he doesn't have the Fuente loyalty issue. I get that he coached Marve and they're good friends, all that. But he's got to have a serious talk with Marve at the very least and lay down some
loftyreachable expectations for what this defense, a very experienced group, needs to look like by the end of the year.Someone said it above (or maybe in another thread, I don't remember exactly) that maybe Pry drives home the inside run game and Bowen adjusts only when he realizes it's not working. Idk the dynamic, I don't expect to. But Bowen has to either adjust faster or have the balls to say "look this shit ain't working, this is how we win" and go with the aggressive stuff right from the opening kick.
The OL isn't great (Clements should be a damn waterboy at this point imo), the LBs aren't wonderful either, but they are workable. Delane, I don't even know what happened to him Saturday, but he was not himself mentally from what it looked like. This staff has the horses in the stable to win 9, and maybe even 10 games this year. Hard conversations needed to be had yesterday. Rutgers is going to treat us like a 2 dollar whore if we play like we did on Saturday. And if Rutgers does that, imagine what Miami will do.
All is not lost, but this is a turning point year, one way or the other.
Look at Vandy's coach. 9-27 in his first 3 years at the helm. Cleans house on the offensive side of the ball and brings in Kill and Co from Las Cruces. That appears to have given their team a spark. Tiny sample size of course, but Kill has a proven track record. Maybe we end up Vandy's only win this year, but point being you can't be afraid of making the difficult choices as head whistle, lest you go down with the ship.
100%. And who knows, maybe Marve has it in him and it just hasn't come out yet. But Pry has to be able to know 1) if it's there and 2) how to get it out of him. If 1 and 2 are not true, Pry has to drop the hammer or get the axe himself. I wanted Fuente to succeed, because he seems like a good dude. But when I recognized he couldn't bring himself to drop the hammer on Cornelson, I flipped quick.
I agree that Pry should get some real valid quality coordinator experience on his staff this offseason. It is noteworthy that, and as you mentioned, Lea was essentially barely hanging on by a thread and the status quo was not an option. I think if Pry gets 8-4 in the regular season, then Pry will be on stable ground. It would take Pry to pressure himself to change the staff at that point.
I also think it's noteworthy that Pry's mentors have been loyal head coaches. Beamer, to a fault. And Franklin with his defensive staff, Pry especially. Franklin has fired 3 different OC coordinators at PSU, and maybe he found success in Kotelnicki. But, I don't think any DC was ever on the hot seat, so maybe none ever deserved to be fired.
P4 schools that are serious about football fire/replace coordinators all of the time. at VT- we NEVER do that. Maybe that's the issue?