Goddamn, I'm only halfway through and they've just been so many bombs dropped here - off the top of my head:
- Sands is getting much more involved in athletics
- Criticism of Whit for not hiring a head of Hokie Club, who has experience fundraising at a big-time program
- Rumors that coach Mike Young has been requesting more NIL money for sometime now
- Rumors that basketball players were told they were getting money to find out they weren't, around the same time that new football signings were announced
- An admission that this would be a tough job for any athletic director; VT is at the bottom third of FBS in total revenue
- Talk about how triumph "acquiring" Commonwealth NIL really hurt basketball
So far, I think they've really struck a good balance between being critical of the administration, but also realistic about the headwinds that Virginia Tech athletics face. They're also being very clear around what is a rumor and what they know to be fact.
All in all this is an absolute must listen
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Seeing that the Hokie club raised a record 18.5 mil last year, an amount that won't even cover rev share, was pretty eye opening for me. I feel like we are simultaneously making headway and treading water in the college athletics arms race.
Agreed... I do wonder how much of that is the fault of the current administration versus just a reality of being at Virginia Tech.
Like, is he getting blood from stones, or is there untapped oil that he can't find because he doesn't know how to drill? I imagine the truth is somewhere in between, but who actually knows 🤷♂️
I feel like we have to have some monied alum that aren't engaged like what GT had a couple years ago, but maybe that's just wishful thinking.
I too, hope that is the case.
The parallels between Brent Pry and Geoff Collins are not lost on me either
I think that there is waning enthusiasm for donating to Athletic Programs (or their associated Collectives) to pump NIL money to guys who can leave 6 months later.
At places like OSU or Bama it's an easier sell because they can back the monetary demand with wins.
At non-P2 places like VT who are struggling simply to compete, it's a much harder sell.
Also, I think the ultimate fallacy of this entire charade of "NIL" is the idea that average programs are money-making machines that have a spare $20mil lying around to distribute. Do they have lots of revenue? Sure...profit is a different matter entirely.
Yea, but a lot of that revenue has historically been spent in frivolous ways (Locker rooms, over the top weight rooms, lazy rivers, etc) so Athletic Departments could continue to be 'non-profit' entities.
There will be an operational shift - less money will be spent on facilities and coaching salaries as that money gets shifted to players.
Highly doubt it. The arms race isn't ending. Texas Tech just built a $200+ million football facility which broke ground in 2022--firmly during the NIL era
https://www.texasfootball.com/article/2025/03/05/look-texas-tech-s-$242-million-football-facilities-open-today
Coaches are even more valuable now than ever. A new coach with unlimited transfer portal can literally turn around a Program in a year...whether that can be sustained is a different question.
Again, I would love for anyone to provide any substantiated evidence that more than a handful of programs have $20mil lying around year on year. Just 2 months ago Bjork put out that OSU's AD lost money last year. If they aren't making money who is???
The truth is, the people that will pay for NIL will be the fans and the Students--we just had the thread a couple of weeks ago about VT unloading a new $200 fee on enrollees. This will continue and escalate until the system implodes. Then we can all sit back and admire all the progress we made.
Media conglomerates were never and are never going to willfully profit share with 18 year-olds....particularly when they know that the vast majority of them don't actually make them a cent of profit.
I don't think coaches are more valuable now as you mention OSU. It has a rabid fan base, and I believe the highest merchandise revenue streams. They loat money chasing a title, they could spent a lot less to still not win the big 10 and make the playoffs. If they wanted profit we'll shot Donald Sterling ram the most profitable NBA team for years, youndont need to win to be profitable. an OSu could hire Brent Pry as the coach and everyone would be pissed and still sell out the games and watch on TV. They'd still sell lots of anOSU gear. The coaches don't matter, the players don't matter, the school is what people cheer. Look at Dabo, he is still the same coach that won 2 titles, no active coach has more, and his pay has platued, but Clemsons revenue has substantial increased in the past 3 years, growing by over 60%. They aren't winning like they were but they're making lots of money.
I'll flip the situation....let's say OSU fired Day and he came to VT. Doesn't that immediately raise VT's profile significantly? He can also now freely poach from his former Roster...that innately makes him (and every other coach) more valuable than they were 10 years ago.
Despite the fact that many of the top Coaches have massive contracts with equally massive buyouts, Schools keep cycling through them, sometimes paying multiple buyouts at a time. That is a sign of their value in the market.
Even in the Swinney example, his contract was signed in 2022 and he is #3 in total pay. This offseason, he poached Tom Allen from PSU for $2 mil which the led PSU to swipe Jim Knowles for $3 million. Salaries escalating for both significantly.
Football may be slightly more nuanced due to the size of the Roster but I don't think there is any doubt that in MBB and WBB a Coach can turn a Roster really in one Offseason. You aren't just paying for a Coach, you are paying for the players they can bring with them since tampering is essentially encouraged at this point. See: Brooks, Kenny.
The problem with this of course is that if Day came to VT, the agents for his players won't allow them to transfer to a cold, cow college - just like they wouldn't let them sign with Pry out of high school.
If he can afford it.
If you've been watching, schools are firing (head)coaches and paying buyouts at a much lower rate. We'll see if this is a blip or the start of a trend, but I think the latter.
But you still have to actually pay for those players...
If Day comes to blacksburg it might raise our profile, but does it raise our revenue? TV contract won't change, licensing contract won't change, donations probably don't change because they donations to get him here would be made prior to him coming. So while ESPN would be watching, and lots of other people, our games are sellout already, it doesnt change the money we are bringing in.
Less than a full calendar year after the 2021 ruling... hardly 'firmly during the NIL era'
It's not 'lying around' - but accessible.
The same people who paid for scholarships, facilities, coaching salaries, etc.
"The same people who paid for scholarships, facilities, coaching salaries, etc."- I'm sorry, are coaches pro bono and scholarships going away now? wow. Also the first 4 star LB from richmond that commits to James fucking Franklin, people on here will be crowing about how our football nutrition facility is 3 years old and PSU's is 2.5 years old and they don't allow the baseball team to use it. The fans - cut to the chase- the fans are now paying for NIL on top of all of those things you mentioned.
This is the Point.
Of course on a Macro level, the public is (largely) who is bearing the brunt of costs for all of these Universities and all of their affiliated Programs.
But NIL is an additional layer of financial burden on top of them----that has no tangible benefit to them.
If my donation goes to pay for lockeroom improvements, then at least there is something there that I can say provided benefit to a group of athletes over a period of years.
If my donation goes to pay the mediocre LT who bolts for an SEC school at the drop of a hat---where is my motivation to continue???
Which is why schools are finding themselves already in the position of having to mandate fees on non-athletes to cover the cost. There is no overwhelming interest from the knowledgeable public to contribute to this. And the average schools are running out of gullible people and donors who simply have money to burn to float this fake market. At some point, the Blue Bloods will exhaust the supply too, just more slowly.
NIL should be renamed to NFT 2.0---the lack of any actual logic or discernible value is startlingly similar.
"that has no tangible benefit to them."- agree 1000%, but you will never convince WE ARE fan of that or Vol fan or Roll Tide fan. Those teams are more important to them than their families in many cases. Thousands of PSU fans defend that whole situation to this day. Harvey Updyke went to prison for bama football. etc.
Did I say that? No. But they will take paycuts. Hell, you're already seeing it! Brian Kelly 'matching' all NIL gifts with a matching donation to the athletic dept, up to $1m. Mike Gundy and Mike Norvell both agreed to lower compensation leading up to revenue sharing (source).
We're seeing real time that coach comp is decreasing as players take more of that cut.
Again, you're putting words in my mouth.
yeah creative financing and donations are not the same as base salary cuts.
Gundy and Norvell were told they needed to donate back in order to not be fired.
Don't know what the point is here---Alston ruling 2021--TxTech had a year to decide if this would change or even scale-back their plans for this massive project. It didn't: they not only announced it but increased the budget from $200 mil to $242 million for "additional components."
It's not like once you announce Athletic Department Projects or even begin fundraising that you have to complete them: has anyone heard anything about the Cassell Renovation lately?? No??? Hmm.....
Yes - Texas Tech's NIL Collective (the Matador Club) wasn't created until July 2022.
It's revisionist history to believe that the second the Alston ruling dropped, everyone knew what the landscape would look like in 5 years. Maybe you did. But Administers did not. Collectives were a pretty novel idea when they first started.
Welp West Texas Oil Money, Mahomes are 2 things we can't compete with. Add them to the list of schools.
It "accessible" by cutting the Women's swimming team, foregoing maintenance on the Tennis Complex, or not paying to resurface the Track.
Its about choosing one form of athlete over another. Choosing the Football or Basketball player over the Non-Rev Athlete. Like that hasn't already happened---the Football or Basketball player is already on Full Scholarship while the Captain of the Swim Team is likely (at best) on a Partial.
Here's the best part---the Swim Team Captain and the former 4* LB (with 6 career tackles) now on his 3rd team in 3 years are just about equal in terms of real NIL value or likelihood of making professional money in their sport.
For some, that's perfectly reasonable, just the "cost of doing business," as they say. For most young athletes, its a shit deal.
Amen- it all fucking sucks. And there are no rules
I don't think we're suddenly going to have a Phil Knight or similar stupid money donor come out of the woodwork. But, given the amount of living alumni that VT has and our growth, particularly the enormous fundraising growth on the academic side under Sands, and I think VT athletics is way underachieving in that department. It's just been too much of a country club atmosphere and small circle of people running the AD. I'm glad Sands is seeing what other peer ADs look like and starting to turn up the heat on Whit. Everything needs a massive overhaul on that side IMO.
I don't think Whit is the right AD to lead us in this new revenue sharing/NIL era. His benchmark has generally been to compare us to UVA (hence his initial focus on Directors Cup and sinking money into non revs). We aren't going to survive in this era comparing ourselves to the Hoos.
In Whit's defense, his directive might have been win more Non-Revs sports.
I think it's a bit of this is how it's been so why change, we won with Beamer, just hire another top 10 all time coach.
But this staff hasn't helped themselves by doing things others do. That $128 increase to athletes fee could be $200+ just to buy tickets for football. All students join hokie club and get tickets that way. PSU does something similar. Grow the base. Start em young like the tobacco industry. Get them started thinking about donations early, that's the habit. Otherwise it's just a line item on a larger bill.
We have an issue that the richest parts of the state are no where close to Blacksburg, it's a trek. Lots of the wealth in WV is around Morgantown. GT is in Atlanta. Even Bama is less than an hour from Birmingham. It's way easier for the money to come and participate. There aren't a lot of good hotel options either. So some way you have to compesate for that space so your middle tier money donates. You need the $10k donors to increase, you need the 20k donors to increase. You have to figure how to get the families making $200k- $300k give money. But you give that much, pay for tickets, pay for parking, pay for hotels, it's a whole ordeal after a 3-4 hour drive each way.
It doesn't seem like we've done much except as for small donations via emails after wins. Which is a start. The shit that we "sell" sucks. Its bad quality and i don't want to buy it. Who liked the common wealth cup from this year?
This is a big deal: the primary incentive for donating is tickets and access. If you can't take advantage, the value prop may not be there.
I am 6 hrs away with 2 young kids, there is no value is season tickets to me. Have some other rewards structure, like every 5 years of consecutive giving your send me a signed jersey or something. Offer it like a 5 year year of service award, send 10 options of stuff or experiences. When the team travels, host a pregame reception for Hokie Club members with 5+ years of consecutive giving.
Provide ANY reason for the entirety of Hokies outside the state to stay with the Hokie Club. Its the age of NIL, you mean to tell me the HC can't have a signing/meet and greet with local legends of the DMV in DC somewhere during the summer? A mix of current and former players living in the DC area and local Hokie Club members of a level above entry? Solve the alumni player relations issue by letting them feel some glory days love with people asking for pictures and autographs again? Do the same in Charlotte or wherever the Hokie population hubs are?
Preach. I live in Atlanta with 3 kids under 4. Wife and I both work full time. Haven't gotten to Blacksburg since 2017.
I give a small amount. Enough to get some free socks and stuff. I get my priority points mailer and it goes straight in the trash because it doesn't matter.
Would spend more if there were better incentives for me.
Dude. You knew what having two kids in diapers was like, and elected to have another one?!?
Well, surprises happen... And two kids in diapers wasn't that bad. And the first was out of diapers before the third arrived.
For what it's worth, my biggest regret in life - and it will almost certainly be my biggest regret until the day I die - is not being able to have a second child. Wife and I met fairly late, and a second wasn't in the cards. It was hard enough to have the first.
May you and your wife enjoy them always.
How about having two teenagers and then you get your first baby, its an odd arrangement for sure
Two in diapers isn't bad. I had a co-worker whose wife had twins, a year later she had twins, and a year later she had triplets. 7 under 3... Yikes.
OK that beats my mom who had 1st kid in Feb '56, next Feb '57, miscarriage, 3rd in July '58, miscarriage, twins in Aug 61, 2 miscarriages, me in '65, miscarriage in '67, youngest sis in '72. She also did cloth diapers for all of us. Said that oldest was watching her fold diaper-cloths when he was about 18-22 months old, and said "why are there two different sizes"? mom aid 'because you and your brother are not the same size"; he pondered a moment and said " would it be easier for you if I stopped wearing diapers?"; she said yes it would and he stopped that day!
Mom was basically pregnant (nearly) continuously from 1955-1967.
My ex and I had first kid together one year from wedding day; she had a pregnancy test at her 6 week checkup; wasn't then but was 4 weeks later and 2nd kid born ten days shy of a year from sis(Irish twins). Wife had her tubes tied after his birth or we would've followed in my parents footsteps I'm sure.
Daughter had 1st kid March 2020, 2nd May 2021, 3rd May 2022, 4th August 2023. Clearly fertility appears hereditary!
Is that a curse or blessing?
It would almost be better if big donors moved business and invested in Roanoke. Improve schools, offer high paying jobs that are just not there in the quantity that is needed.
I dont know what comes out of research park but it's not like GTRI. It's over a half billion in revenue.
This is where Sands was brought in to increase our university standing and we still lag behind, not from the education of our undergrads, we produce a lot of great engineers (and other majors) but our research and footprint as a university doesnt match a lot of the higher up universities. Oklahoma has a fine art museum as well as a rare book collection. Alabama has its own museum (though I don't thinknits as well known as OUs), Texas Tech too, FAMU has a Carnegie museum. There are a lot of little things that VT hasn't done because it was an Ag and technical school. These things bring people to an area.
The thing I love about living in NoVa is the education system and the arts. Seeing Hamilton when it first came, but also The Christmas Carol in Ford theater, or the lion King, Anastasia, Little Shop of Horrors with the original Audrey II actor, the 50th revision of Jesus christ superstar, and numerous other plays, muscials and concerts. That's a lot harder in south west VA. Like we said in the other thread, when was the last time Cassell had a major event that wasn't VT sports (or graduation). There's a lot of great things about southerwest VA, but it also lacks a lot of things that would make it more enticing.
Innovation campus tho
Better for who lol? Yea, it would be great if all our wealthy and successful entrepreneurs moved to Roanoke, opened offices there, and then had even more incentive to donate in order to get the best gameday experience.
But that's not close to reality lol
Oh I didn't say it was reality.
I mean, ostensibly the rev share is coming from TV money deals and other places, right? You wouldn't expect that to all have to come directly from Hokie club.
The tv deal isn't sufficient to cover it. They literally just went up on student athletics fees significantly in order to pay for a big chunk of it. Awful.
This year part of rev share is coming from the University, so I would just like to see athletic's funding doing a little better. What really needs to happen is football and bball need to win games. That would solve a lot of problems.
Chris Coleman also said that the offensive line is ass.
Says that Matt Moore is doing great things, but the deck has very little in it and then on top of that there's injuries.
so prep for another .500 season? or worse?
I see 5-7 this year personally. I don't know how you lose several talented key pieces from last year, coupled with the horrific state of the OL and LB corps which we still haven't really addressed, and expect improvement.
I'm kinda hoping the change in coaches and the linemen transfers will help.
The linemen transfers are pretty young if I recall correctly.
it's gonna be hard to be worse than what we had
Lets just be straight up, getting Parker Clements off the field is going to help a lot with that
When you're replacing nothing with something, it's an automatic win.
But he was second on the team in sacks...
We are worse at RB, WR, DL, and DB than last year. RB and DL is most likely a huge drop off.
Siefkes can't do much worse than Marve. Bowen had his moments, Montgomery should be more consistent atleast. But that's a lot to overcome and we still have Pry as HC so I'm going 4-8 for me, if something comes together then I'll be surprised but as long as we are measured on football and not HC media engagement I'm not too keen on our team.
sooooo... what I'm hearing is enjoy the Hokie baseball and softball season because these are going to be the most enjoyable O&M sports we see until wrestling starts back up.
13-0 baby! Yeah.
The worst news of the whole pod cast
Worse than last year apparently which idk how that is even possible
Insert "Am I taking crazy pills now!" gif
Not getting too excited about the statement that Sands is getting more involved. The guy has been here since 2014 and has lived through and experienced everything we have with regard to athletics. So, NOW he is increasing his involvement? Ok?, Maybe?
I will only believe he is serious about athletics when I see it.
IMO it doesn't matter if he is serious or not, in a vacuum. He needs to be serious AND have the wherewithal to allocate resources correctly, fire/hire the important staff, set realistic (but lofty goals/expectations), spend every free moment championing athletics fundraising, etc.
For me personally, I do not see those attributes in either Whit or Tim (with respect to athletics). And I think that is a very large contributor to why we are in the up-shit-creek situation we find ourselves in.
Olivia Miles from ND has decided to forgoe the WNBA draft for the transfer portal. yikes.
She'll make more money in college than WNBA on a team where she can be the star, not second fiddle to Hidalgo. Not surprised.
This. Potential NIL will be in hundreds of thousands jumping to new school. Rookie WNBA is $75K.
Hidalgo is making 1 million a year from ND NIL. She will stay until she runs out of eligibility.
::channeling my inner DC::
So...never?
no no no...not "never" just after - her covid year, free grad transfer year, hardship waiver for a family member, juco/naia waiver, and any injunctions issued by judges ... after that.
Current Eligibility limits: until you can make more money doing something else.
So I hate to break it to ND boosters, but they aren't beating USCe or UCONN or any random Wes Moore team to win an actual Natty. So you are pouring money into a sport that loses money and won't win a national title. That continues to be a great investment.
The destabilization of NIL is ridiculous. I suggest that every NCAA athlete who signs with a school has two options. 1) Traditional scholarship. While on scholarship you give up your NIL rights, but you retain the ability to enter the transfer portal at any time for any reason. 2) NIL contract. NCAA should require any signee opting for NIL enters a minimum 2 year contract with the school. Buyout clauses and all. VT cannot compete in the new ACC landscape; this is now fact and only getting worse/harder. Might as well leave the ACC and go independent again.
Going independent would be a tough sled to get even the same funding the ACC provides. That's a big reason why Army even moved to a conference. They weren't receiving enough TV revenue to counter conference affiliation as an independent. We are not Notre Dame unfortunately.
No argument there. Was sort of a throw away comment. How can we expect for alumni to keep contributing NIL funds with no results and players leaving after one season.
"How can we expect for alumni to keep contributing NIL funds with no results and players leaving after one season."- Easy hubris (lord football and basketball) and The American Baller Industrial Complex... People will continue to blindly give money to VT basketball- because this is america and go hokies... it's the way it is. People can't afford eggs, but Ole Miss can raise donations for a new locker room in 5 minutes. The machine has no end.. until it does.
Can we put the NIL money in an escrow account and it builds every year the player is here. But if they leave, the money for that year is forfeited?
A CD that matures at the end of the year. I like it.
Oh, and opting out of a bowl game also forfeits the value.
Either some or all.
No. In the American Baller Industrial Complex. , every rule must benefit the player. There can be no reasonable rules that benefit the school giving them the opportunity or anything related to competitive balance. The machine must be fed- and one way.
Schools could level the playing field if they would just go ahead and consider the players employees and put them under contracts. But as long as they keep the facade of the "student athlete," I have little sympathy for the broken and stupid system we currently have that they walked us toward. Schools blowing donor money on lazy rivers and put put courses, helmets with A/C in them, etc.
No - in the American Baller Industrial Complex- the best players go to the schools with the lazy rivers, because- entitlement- so schools HAD to build them if you wanted Johnny 40 yard dash- he was only going to commit to a school with a huge locker room, etc. Its a machine. Feed it.
I think it would be interesting if the conferences or whatever mega conglomerate comes out in the next few years, cuts the players in directly on revenue sharing but put in a clause that the accrual rate is greater the longer you stay at a particular school.
None of this really matters until contracts though. Anything and everything will be sued into oblivion in the meantime.
This will continue until people stop watching college football and basketball on TV. Not a moment before then. If fans stop watching and attending games, the machine will be fixed. The UFL will be dead after this year because the stands are empty and nobody attends the games. The machine will be unregulated free for all as long as the playoff breaks TV ratings records and march madness is still march madness. Fans tuned out MLB because games were 6 hours. It wasn't until the fans stopped watching did MLB do anything to address it. The NFL playing regular season games in terrorist countries soon will backfire because of the fans- nothing else. As long as roll tide is more important than religion and family, the machine gets fed.
Well, I watched the fewest minutes of VT basketball that I have in 20 years. I watched approximately 5 minutes of NCAA tourney basketball; fewest in my lifetime. I imagine there are others like me.
This is where I am at. I've watched the least amount of sports the last year by a large margin. It's just hard to justify spending time for players I don't really "know" and a mediocre product. And the whole enshitification of football by ESPN pushing for a power two has really turned me off.
I didn't watch any.
If VT can't be involved, then neither can I.
I watched 10x more basketball during the tourney this year than I did during the regular season.
10 x 0 = 0
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Have you been talking woth Josh Rosen? He had a very similar idea that required graduation to get the money and this was before NIL was allowed.
LMFAO- the weakest ven diagram in the world is the very top baller - Derrick Queen, Any of Calipari's guys and "want to get a college degree legitimately" - lolololololol
Money vests in X number of years depending on how much the team wants a player. Big NIL but vests after 3rd season is complete, etc. If a player is developmental, maybe vests in 2 yrs.
What about money vests after 3 years and you get 20% for years played or 100% with a degree earned. The money isn't going to stop big names from going pro, but it would promote not switching schools late. If you get to a school early and hate it then great leave and you can get your money, but only grad transfers could transfer late with our losing money.
This would all seem to be wildly illegal without contracts and a CBA. It's anti-competitive (so you'd need some kind of anti-trust exemptions and a CBA), and the idea that you could withhold/claw back money for work that had already been done doesn't seem... great. Especially if a player's NIL deals aren't locked in stone (why you'd need contracts). That would leave open the possibility of a massive reduction in pay from the school with no player recourse, plus you'd lose some money you already earned if you left?
Are there no documents and conditions signed for the NIL money players currently receive?
There are, but collective money (from a legal standpoint, not a practical standpoint) is agreed to independent of the school, and not pay for play (yes... I know it's a sham, but no one has challenged the sham in court)
Yes- didn't you hear about the collective that put the fine print of "15% of all NFL earnings" in that one dudes NIL deal and he freaked out? Most of these deals- including Arch Mannings and Cooper Flaggs are not what the media makes them out to be. Generally people don't like throwing away money without some return/gaurentees
FACTS. I happen to know (via an NIL Booster who was involved with negotiations) that Duke's QB is pulling in well below $1m, despite CBS 'reporting' that he was making $4m or some shit.
Yep- it's still money and still america... watch that netflix special where Barkley and others got their Nike deals and were like "hey this aint close to Jordans, etc" - Never underestimate, greed and thirst for money. Those texas oil dudes paying foe their backup QB want something in return- trust that.
I would think you would need restructuring just to eliminate bad actors, but NIL is a contract, and I've worked places where I had to vest before I got anything for stocks, its quite common for stocks, revenue sharing, and pension.
Can someone how the Hokie Club doesn't have someone running it with fundraising experience? I mean that just seems like incredibly bad business with an obvious solution.
Came here to post the same. Did not realize that was the situation until listening to the pod.
I had never heard about the presser where Whit announced that we were keeping Fuente. On the same day his buy-out dropped, no less. The part about Whit calling up coaches at other ACC schools and asking if Corn offenses were difficult to prepare for..... Whit has compiled a collection of absolutely brutal public quotes.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. How could he not understand that quote about corny would be absolute nonsense and backfire
Weights weigh the same....
Meh, my belief until I hear otherwise is that firing Fuente was finalized, and then the BoV/Sands nixed it/changed their mind due to covid optics
At that point, I don't know what you can do. That's a lose/lose situation.
Bungling major decisions like this one - "optics"- another thing that has nothing to do with winning is why we are 6-6 every year for a decade. We used to mock UVA's "7 win" streak. lol. I'd like to win 7 now. And make the NCAAs in hoops. Too much to ask I know. Louisville hoops wanted to be good again. They didn't give a fuck about optics when they fired an alum coach and brought a new team in 1 offseason. 1 example
I too hold this belief. They had just announced that University staff were getting paycuts because of COVID issues. There's no way they wanted to face the backlash from announcing, "we cannot afford to pay our employees, but we can afford this multimillion dollar payout for a football coach and the multimillion dollar salary for a new football coach."
As everyone on here knows, it cost us much more than that keeping him around. Penny wise, pound foolish. The idea that the football coach at VT is just another school "employee" is also a joke, and 1979 thinking. Fuente made 3.5 million per year... not 185K as a tenured professor. It is NEVER the same.
I agree with you completely, but this likely wasn't a Whit decision; it was likely something he got overruled on.
The optics involved weren't Head Football Coach buyout vs Tenured Professor salary. It was Head Coach buyout + New Head Coach salary vs all staff salaries. That meant telling every janitor, secretary, lunch lady, professor, etc. that they had to take pay cuts because VT couldn't afford to pay them a dollar or two per hour (not forgo raises, but take less than what they were currently being paid) all while VT very publicly paid out a multi-million dollar payout to Fuente and would then have to announce a multi-million dollar salary for his replacement. All this done during a pandemic that no one knew how long it would last or how far reaching its economic effects would extend.
Would you be happy if your current employer told you and all of your co-workers that you needed to take a 10% paycut because they couldn't afford to pay you your current salary but they then let go of a top executive and gave him a multi-million dollar buyout? And, by the way, they publicly announced that they hired that executives replacement for even more millions. Now imagine that every move your company makes is covered by a slew of reporters. You think your employer wants that smoke?
Look, long-term I agree that the decision to keep Fuente for another year set VT back considerably. But part of the narrative involves second-guessing the decision with the information that we have now. At the time, no one knew how long the pandemic was going to last. Most schools lost money during that first year of COVID and VT had no way of knowing how long those losses would continue. They were trying to weather very uncertain times, so I can see the thinking behind trying to avoid any large expenditures or investments in such uncertain times. A blue-blood like Michigan or anOSU could probably pull it off, but VT didn't have the cash to do what had the potential to be a very costly move with more economic uncertainty looming.
I also understand wanting to avoid the potential of getting killed by the media and public based on the optics of the whole situation. An SEC school could pull that off since their fans care more about football than their own best interests, as you continually point out, but VT doesn't have that luxury.
I would have preferred that they got rid of Fuente at that time, but I won't call the decision "short-sighted" or "penny-wise/pound-foolish" based on all of the factors at play and the information that VT had at that time. It sucked, but the whole situation sucked and they were in a no-win situation with a ton more uncertainty around each possible decision than usually comes with the firing and replacing of a head coach.
With all of those factors in place, there is no way that this was a decision made at Whit's level. Likely, Whit called the press conference, but his superiors over-ruled him at the last minute and left him to fall on the sword. I suspect that one day the truth of the situation will eventually come out, bit I'm not holding my breath.
"Would you be happy if your current employer told you and all of your co-workers that you needed to take a 10% paycut because they couldn't afford to pay you your current salary but they then let go of a top executive and gave him a multi-million dollar buyout? "- I hear what you are syaing, but this is a false equivalence. The head coach at VT or UVA is the state's highest paid state employee- by a long, long margin. This is the reality. To compare this to any private or publicly traded company is not a valid argument, IMO. In terms of myself- Our executive team does not make millions more than me or millions period. Maybe the CEO after equity- maybe. So in your scenario, we would get an email aksing us to take a 10% cut and a new exec coming in- sure, OK... but you are talking about people that make from 85K-300K and the new guy making 550K- maybe. It's not the VT employee scanrio where Mike Young and Pry are BY FAR the schools highest paid guys because of the baller industrial complex.. real companies you don't see this disparity typically.
Those pay cuts affected student workers who lost their part time gigs and guys only making 30-40k at the low end of the cuts. They HURT a lot of people. 10% across the board was a big time hurt for the little people including secretaries, etc.
But the money that pays the workers is different than the money that pays the coach's buyout. Buyout money doesn't come from operating budget; it comes directly from donors when they're ready to fire a coach.
Your average college football fan/non-sports media member probably doesn't realize that, hence the optics challenge.
I saw an interview from 1987 with Bob Knight. He was asked why he wouldn't rank Wooden as a top coach, and Knight said that Sam Gilbert simply paid players to go to UCLA. Knight said that on camera in 1987. He then said something very relevant to NIL today. He looked at his watch and said "It's 10 oclock, by 2pm I could make some calls and get 100K booster money to pay 2 top players if I wanted to"... lol- that is all in the open and legal today.
I see it both ways.
I agree with everything DC said above.
But I also recognize that the media could have run with this and embarrassed VT.
I still think not firing Fuente 2020 was the wrong decision (at the time), but I recognize that it was a tough decision to make for a plethora of reasons.
You are only in a tough spot there because of expectations. At VT we were and are (barely) clinging to the expectation to be good in football. So I believe that Whit wanted to fire Fuente because he was catching heat- why? expectations. If we were Maryland or Illinois or Duke football, we aren't having this conversation because the fans don't care if Locksley sucks or Diaz sucks.
I think there's also an expectation (at least among the VT fanbase) that we win but are not a win at all costs/"cheat"/whatever program. We take the high road. We're the nice guy. Etc.
agreed. Sadly we usually get there anyway, we are just late. Although the Chris Clarke, Ty Outlaw, Landers Nolley bullshit we had to deal with, Bill Self, Penny Hardaway and Roy Williams ignore. The Brock Hoffman bullshit, etc. We do seem to be conservative by comparison there.
So well put.
He should have cancelled the presser if this is what happened. Everyone would have picked up on why.
yup -- that's exactly it
I don't disagree but I wonder if he was already in the building when he got a call overruling the decision to fire F. He might have been so shocked he wasn't clearly focusing and that is why it didn't get cancelled.
I can't help but think how quickly I'd be fired if I misprojected a core function of my job by 70% and the result was abysmal.
Exactly how I looked at it the first time I read what he said. Worst part of it, he didn't have to say it. If he hadn't told the reporters, no one would have known.
Opened his mouth, left no doubt.
The guy is a walking media fumble ever since the 2020 Fuente interview, which I could over look if there were rev sports results but the fact that we're treading water -> drowning as the division between haves and have nots quickly accelerates makes me question what he's done to deserve this long to wreck the ship in the first place.
At any other P4 school concerned with winning as opposed to EBITDA and cash flow, Whit would have been long fired. I would have fired him after he told Dresser to take his offer or leave it- gave him an hour to sign it, etc. I won't mention his bumbling of the major sports and re-upping the worst apparel deal in the P4
I love how Chris Coleman titled that infamous presser as "The Dehumanization of Brad Cornelsen." Lol, I remember hearing that presser real time in 2020 and thinking WTF is Whit saying, we need to do a better job of dehumanizing our OC?
If there's one thing our fans are good at, it's dehumanizing our offensive coordinators.
Whit could have prevented that by demanding Fu bring a real fucking staff in instead of the memphis guys... corny is coaching fucking high school now... Shane- whom Fuente said couldn't coach and whom fans said was causing a divide in the locker room- is a head fucking coach in the SEC. Facts.
Yeah. I mean WakeyLeaks was bad, but overall I can't help wondering if we the fans were sold a bill of goods when it comes to Shane.
Shane was always a good coach. He went to other schools and worked his way back to work with his dad. I still think he accepted the book somebody handed him and threw it away assuming it was a joke.
Or he was playing the long game of getting hired in the SEC, if you aint cheatin' you ain't tryin' /s
Interesting. If you google search that phrase, you get one link as a result. That used to be a game a decade or two ago, to try to put together a phrase (or just a combination of words) that returned exactly one google result. I haven't tried to do that in a long time.
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+dehumanization+of+brad+cornelson
This what I got from that search.
Edit: Decided to take that out.
It was worse than I initially thought.