NEW: 2025 College Football Coaches on the Hot Seat per @Andy_Staples🔥Do you agree? 🤔https://t.co/5wk8961o49 pic.twitter.com/8saMQFSFrT— On3 (@On3sports) January 28, 2025
I think its safe to say that this might be one of the most impactful football seasons we've seen coming up. If things don't improve, we're probably looking at full wholesale Athletic Department changes by the end of the year. Or, the changes work and we ride a good season to a launching point to the next positive era of VT athletics. At this point, I'm not sure there is a middle ground between those 2 outcomes.
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As other TKPers have speculated recently, I'm worried about a scenario where Pry gets fired but VT doesn't pull the trigger on any athletic department changes. But maybe I'm not giving the school leadership enough credit.
Winning cures everything though. I'm cautiously optimistic about Pry's staff changes and will be rooting hard for them to pan out this year.
Or, the most likely outcome imo is that the changes kind of work and we're still in something of a hamster wheel. you don't think think there's a middle ground, but 7 win regular season + a bowl win is probably just about that. who is to say what happens in '26 or '27 based on that
there is a big big gulf between "wholesale start over" and "next positive era of VT athletics"
My guess is bringing in a new DC gives Pry 2025 and 2026. The excuse will be we need to bring in the players to run our new system.
Probably looking at another 6-6 season. Just the new status quo.
Wins over ODU, Wofford, Vandy (I assume Seifkis will study Pavia in the off season). Then just beat Cal, UVA, and WF.
Losses are S.Carolina, N.C. State, GT, Louisville, FSU, and Miami.
You sound a lot more confident than I am about Vandy. And, God forbid, we are 5-6 going to charltteshole. Even a blind squirrel...
I guessed 8-4 last year; this year 4-8. So, we probably wind up 6-6 once again
I put Vandy in the same category as ODU. Pry lost that first year. He knew he couldn't lose again.
Yeah but Year Zero was an expected really difficult year with a shell of a roster. The loss to Vandy was because Vandy was actually pretty good and had one of it's best seasons this century. We're talking about a team that pushed around Bama.
I think we lose one of your "wins", but win at least two of your "losses" to finish 7-5 or better.
But I agree Pry probably gets another year if we finish 6-6.
Next year's NCST is not the team we played two years ago. They aren't good.
Maybe, but we have not been good since Fuente's first year. Were pretty good in his second. Sounds like this could actually be a good litmus test game then. The kind of game we need to be winning consistently.
Either way, the 'gut feeling' of our fans, message board is being validated.
If they're seeing it, then damn sure Whit, admin, coaches are feeling it.
I do think Pry gets it...hence his post-season changes.
I'm not sure how hot Whit's seat is, though.
Pry was on the hot seat, but he made necessary changes so the burner has been turned down to warm. I believe they'll give him two seasons (2025 and 2026) to see how the DC and OL changes pan out unless this year is an absolute catastrophe.
whoa whoa whoa. pump the breaks, buddy. I think there is absolutely a big middle ground there.
For starters, if we have a bad season I think it could go one of three ways. 1. Most unlikely, IMO, Whit and his entire staff, including Pry et. al. are canned and we hire a new AD who then hires a new HFC. 2. More likely, Pry is fired by Whit and replaced by Whit. 3. Most likely, Whit sells the fans on whatever positives there are to draw from the season and gives Pry another year because his new staff need time to get their guys and install their system. Rinse and repeat.
Say we have a good season - I don't think that necessarily means that we're going to launch into the next positive era of VT athletics. VT is still locked into a dead/dying conference with revenues that just can't help VT keep up with the big dogs. Even if we have a single good season (how do you define good, by the way? 8 wins? 10?) there are still a tremendous amount of challenges lying ahead. The players that helped us get to that magic number of wins will likely be poached away by programs with bigger NIL budgets. We might even lose some good coaches to programs that can afford to pay more and promise easier recruiting (I'm certain that most football coaches despise the recruiting aspect of their jobs more than anything else and would happily take a generally lateral move if it means their recruiting responsibilities are easier).
One good season doesn't guarantee anything positive for Tech. If anything, it just makes our coaches and players targets for the bigger fish (and trust me, there are absolutely bigger fish). Losing also doesn't guarantee that Pry will be gone. Certainly it doesn't mean Whit will be canned either.
First off, I see your use of "fish" and "canned" in the same paragraph and I tip my hat.
Secondly, I think a lot of fans are still scarred by 2020 and Whit keeping Fuente because of the pandemic and then doing a really bad spin job. I would switch your 2 and 3. If we have a bad season (don't make a bowl or go 6-6 with a loss to UVA) I believe the most likely outcome is Whit fires Pry and makes the next hire.
I agree with the wins but my question is........What has FSU added the puts them in the W column? They were a hot mess last year. We (almost/did) beat the U with Cam Ward. Is Carson Beck an upgrade? those games back to back are tough but........I feel that SC is a steep hill to climb, but all others are toss ups.
"What has FSU added the puts them in the W column?" a shit ton more HS and portal talent than us...
I get the sentiment but they had that last year too and couldn't beat....anybody at all.
truth- its what happens when you pay the wrong QB and lose the locker room after losing to GT and thinking you have to be undefeated to make the playoffs. Norvell had their sites on that and it crashed and burned 3 hours into their season.
But if you have competitive guys who don't like to lose, you gotta think a team with that much talent should have won more than 2 games. They had to have given up on the coaches. They play Alabama first next year, does a first game of the season loss turn them into a 2 win for the season team?
Id rather try to turn it around with 4 and 5 star players than not. We shall see. They are going to maul our OL.
The only team FSU "mauled" last year was Charleston Southern. They have the talent to maul us, I just don't know if that team will show up.
But agree, I'd rather turn something around with their talent.
I tend to agree with you, DC. The more likely outcome is that last year was an outlier not the norm. That doesn't negate the possibility that they suck again, but if you're asking which outcome is happening more times out of 100, I'd go with FSU under Norvell being competitive at the top of the league.
Felton caught that ball
Nobody excels at mediocrity like VT football.
I think there are a lot of fan bases that feel the same. We are not alone.
like..by..definition
or something
Half of everyone is below average - same applies to football teams.
I think my sentiment comes from all those years after the 1999 season where we were one stupid loss away from being a top 2 team. We had the 10 win season streak, but every year had a loss to a team we had no business losing to. Those Beamer teams always had a tendency to play down to lesser competition and barely win, or lose. To me, that's mediocrity.
The 10 win seasons made VT better than mediocre. But you aren't an elite team if you drop those games. This was the problem.
We have the potential to be average.
Which, as it turns out, is better than stinking on ice.
Not great, but sometimes you have to settle for incremental improvement with an upside.
I'm hoping we eventually get there.
Unless something catastrophic happens then I don't see Pry not getting the rest of the time on his contract.
100% dependent upon expectations. If our expectation is to win the ACC, he is absolutly on the hot seat.
But our expectation is to not spend money
Our expectation should be to compete for the ACC championship + beat UVA. That's always been the fans expectation since joining the conference and it's what Pry set out when he got hired. If he can't meet that by Year 4, then he should be removed.
The problem with thay is our expectation to compete for the ACC was stupid to have the last 3 years. We had to get away from the Fuente roster to start competing. Our goals should have progressed, year 2 was beat the bad teams, and we did, year 3 was beat the bad teams and beat some of the equal teams, we didn't, year 4 is beat the bad teams, the middle teams and be in the game of the good teams. Based on our schedule we should be within 1 score of USCe, Miami, and UofL and beat everyone else. That isn't contending for the ACC, but it's putting us in contention by showing that we can win and play with anyone.
The only problem with that goal that is assumes your players stay somewhat consistent and progress. At lot of our better players either just left or lost eligibility, are our replacements as good will be the determining factor on progress.
When you rebuild like we were in 22 & 23 you are building towards competing for the conference, which is why I never cared much about results those years. From the original plan, 24 was supposed to be a winning year but not a top flight ACC team, that changed when a lot of players who were expected to leave were retained from 23 to 24. The failure to compete for the ACC last year knowing that 25 could see a slight downturn is a huge negative mark for Pry.
oh I agree but day 1 it was stated that Pry came to compete for ACC championships, that's not the goal, the goal is to get out of the deregs of bottom P4 teams and win some games.
Napier and Freeze have hotter seats because they have shorter leashes
agree with others that the staff changes gave him 2 years. If it's not looking up after 2026 he's likely done.
Tony Elliott??
11-23 and without a winning season (or bowl game) in three years.
Kind of shows how low the expectations are at UVa where he isn't anywhere close to a hot seat right now
This upcoming schedule for them should help cool his seat in terms of the fanbase. Easy schedule and six wins is a super bowl for them.
But that would get them into a bowl game, which to be honest is as good as it gets for them.
As he should be. Especially with Dan Mullen back in the coaching ranks at a lower level.
Eight wins, we need eight wins, he needs eight wins...find them. Claw for them.
Just find eight wins. Pull an upset and lose a few close games to the right teams. Have the backups in for the entire second half of the Wofford game. Be competent on the field and in the booth.
No. I think it's a headline grabber for views.
Pry doesn't have anywhere close to the hottest seat in college football, but he deserves to be on a list of 10 or 12 coaches who need to show something in 2025.
Who are your nominations?
I mean his seat is hot, but I'm not sure it's the hottest.
I worry that if Siefkes is a bit slow in hitting his stride, it's going to be curtains for Pry no matter what