I was thinking of writing an article about how almost every VT team either failed to meet expectations this year when an article from The Fighting Gobbler showed up on my doom scroll feed. To sum it up:
Virginia Tech missing the NCAA Baseball Tournament means that, along with California, they are one of two Power 4 programs that failed to produce a winning record in football or make the NCAA Men's Basketball or NCAA Baseball Tournaments. If that isn't embarrassing to the higher-ups in the athletic office, then I don't know what is.
I do think both basketball teams met it exceeded expectations, although the Men's team bar was lower than should be acceptable. Softball had a good season, but terrible showings in both tournaments. Wrestling continued to shine. taking home the ACC title and I don't follow the rest of the Olympic sports to know if we cleared the bar anywhere else. When it comes to the most notable sports: football, basketball, and the diamonds; mediocrity had been tolerated so long we shrug at disappointment.
Whit came to VT and immediately began a much needed drive to improve facilities. The improvements are notable with two major imperfections. First Tech caught up on facilities primarily in Olympic sports and wrapped the projects up right into the teeth of NIL. Second, neither of the primary revenue sports venues have been changed in any memorable manner. I fear we renovated to a 2010 standard in 2022 and now that NIL has unseated lazy rivers and light shows, we better get used to it for another 25 years
Between the poor performance on the field and perpetually being two steps behind off of it (directionless Hokie Club, damn LED lights, Cassell renovations, etc) I think it's time for a new head of the Athletic Department. Whit doesn't look capable of keeping with the times and keeping Tech competitive. The AD always seems to be waiting for other schools to forge the path and following a few steps behind. Before we know it, we will be getting lapped.
Comments
At this point I'm not sure why we're holding onto whit. He should have been fired forever ago but the fact that he was able to admit that he underfunded basketball by whatever ridiculous % is insane. I'm fully confident him and balein will unfortunately ruin Prys career on their tailspin out.
Of all the stumbles we've had recently, underfunding hoops to pour all our money into football just to be rewarded with a 6-7 team that finished 8th in the conference stings the most.
Yeah these past 18 months have put me firmly on the Fire Whit wagon. The only question now is if he's the guy before the guy
This is where I'm at as well. I don't think he is/was a terrible AD by any stretch, and I think he left VT better than he found it, but this relationship has run its course.
He hired a lor of coaches that help improve VT across the board, there is still so far we need to go that Whit just hasn't taken us. He was brought in because he's a money guy, but he hasn't overhauled VT is funding it's more just status quo. It's not just him that needs to go. We need a bit more cuts at the top to actually shake things up.
Moderately committing to everything means fully committing to nothing. Fire Babcock.
It occurs to me that all the things that Babcock has done that I liked (hiring Robie, Buzz, Brooks, renovations of English Field, etc.) were.....checks notes.... 7, 9, or 11 years ago.
Yeah. There's no guarantee the next AD will find any more success but sometimes everyone just needs a change of scenery and I think that time is now (or maybe a few years ago tbh).
Tbf it takes time to determine if a decisions was good or bad (maybe duffy is amazing but its too early to tell) but you have a solid point
I was impressed with her first year. I hope that she continues on that success. Granted it was a step back from previous years but at the same time it was basically a brand new roster put together over the summer. She also doesn't seem like she is slowing down in getting to where she wants to be with the roster.
LMAO- when Dresser left, Whit gave Robey a take it or leave it low ball offer with 24 hours to sign it. Lucky for Whit, he took it.
Virginia Tech/BOV is giving Babcock the Fuente treatment now... Going to realize in the future that the firing was 1-2 years too late.
Sands can go pound sand too.
Yeah, I'm in this camp on Sands now too. No doubt he has overseen some impressive advances on the academic side, including fundraising. But somehow that has resulted in very little synergy with VT athletics. I firmly believe athletics just isn't his wheelhouse/priority. And it's nice hearing that he's starting to see some of the disparity between VT and other peer universities, but I mean come on man, where have you been the past 10 years?
I'm not their on Sands just yet because he was brought in to improve VT academically and has done so. And it was needed, we have to many good programs to not be a top flight university.
With his improvements he needs to take that next step and look at the university as a whole. This was something Steger did well. The corp, Greek life, athletics, intermurals, arts, dorms/dining halls, etc. There is a ton to being a student at VT. There are lots of important life lessons one learns at college that aren't in a class room and the university should be there to support all of them. That is what Sands needs to morph his role into as he took on the main issue at hand and improved it. He should get the time to do that, but he first has to state that he is working towards that goal.
That's the problem. We hear rumors that Sands is unhappy with the AD, feels we are lagging behind peers, etc. But is he going to do anything about it? I would feel a lot better about Sands if he fired Whit and decided he was going to really emphasize finding an AD to match his success and ambition on the academic side. But I just don't think he wants to rock the boat too much/deal with the fallout and thinks he will just wait out Whit's retirement. Which will put us in an inescapable hole.
Let me also be clear - I don't think Whit deserves the retirement with grace treatment. He has completely run the ship aground and as others have said, this has run its course. If he's not going to move along, fire him. It's time.
I'm just saying he needs some time to make that transition. If we underperform this coming year then Sands needs to so his professional development and take control in a way we havent seem at VT.
"feels we are lagging behind peers"- who are our "peers"?? This board freaks out when I point out how successful Maryland and UVA are - "they aren't our peers, they had a head start"... When ever it is pointed out that we can't pay basketball NIL- welp, Miami, Clemson, etc aren't our "peers"- they have NIL money. Kentucky womens basketball is a step up from us too apparently. Who are our peers? JMU? App State? ECU?
I don't know about ECU but it feels like we are lagging behind JMU and App St.
There is a reason we aren't peers with UVA and Maryland that doesn't mean we shouldn't work to have Mich State, Wisconsin, NC State, Mizzou, Kentucky, Iowa St, and Clemson as our peers. We are just so far behind them in so many ways that we need a culture change just to think of some of these schools as our peers.
The only thing that Hokie Nation has an abundance of are excuses for why we can't be what we should be.
Yep. We are 2 hours from UVA. We have been in the same conference for 21 years now. We beat them like a drum in football, and win our share of head to head matches in other sports. We are by ALL definitions their peer. For some reason, they win national championships though.
Sands' job responsibilities are roughly 80% academics, 20% athletics and everything else.
He's made huge strides in terms of Virginia Tech's academic standing. There is zero reason to fire him.
I'm not saying fire Sands. But why can't he fire Whit? Get an AD to build up that side of things for you. I don't know why everyone at VT needs a few years to realize a change should have been made, and then it's too late.
I still believe Fuente was gone in 2020 if it wasn't for COVID. Whit isn't getting that treatment.
Meanwhile random Virginia mens golf team is in the mix for a championship. Last year a dogshit NC State team was 2 wins away from one in mens hoops. You have to try to be as bad at sports as VT is right now.
Bang Bang Bang. Same old drum...
Here's the last 3 seasons of the Directors Cup standing, with approx 306 teams counting every year.
21-22 Directors Cup Final Standings: 33
22-23 Directors Cup Final Standings: 56
23-24 Directors Cup Final Standings: 50
We have teams that are ranked in the top 25 in their sport. Teams that are competing for conference titles.
But you toss out "You have to try to be as bad at sports as VT is right now"
We aren't last in sports. We aren't last in the ACC. (See Ga Tech.) or close to last in the P5 (See Miss St *gasp* or Cincinnati).
Stop with this nonsense. Just stop.
Whatever you say. Football was the only major team in the post season this year. The same old drum would be pretending that our football team is good. Is that what you are arguing?
Something something,If you ain't first, you're last...
In less than a month VT will be 153 years old and still zero national championships.
Think about that for a minute; that's your lifetime plus my lifetime and DC's lifetime combined (roughly).
Drum or no drum, that's the reality
Case in point- a Virginia mens golf team that pulled a miracle and won the ACC- they are the 3/4th best program in the league at best... is playing for a national fucking title in mens golf. One good day of play away. They won a baseball natty a few years back. It's not a dead horse. Any logical person would think that insert random VT olympic team one year could have stumbled upon a natty, which fucking UVA mens golf might do today and one of the last teams in the field. Its fucking maddening
Whit should have fired Fuente waaaaaaay back in 2018. When he didn't, we probably should have cleaned house then. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, but I think firing Babcock in 2022 after he failed to do anything with Fuente after the signs were pretty clear that he was driving this program into the dirt probably would have been the right move. Alas, we're stuck with him. Pry is going to fail (perhaps due to no fault of his own) and I don't think Whit should be allowed to hire his replacement. When Pry fails, it's going to be Whit's failure more-so than Pry's and we should tear it all down from the top. I don't see this happening, of course. I think we, as fans, had just better get used to not being very good at any sports because we're falling further and further behind by the day and I don't see any reasonable path to us catching up any time soon.
We should move on from Whit right now. Let the new AD set some clear expectations with Pry and (and possibly allocate resources accordingly) get some time in the seat before making the next hire. Summer window seems like the right tone to make moves at the top.
What isn't clear about the statement to Pry that if he doesn't have a winning season he is gone? That is a pretty clear expectation for the coming season.
I don't care where the current bar is for men's and women's basketball and that our expectations should be low because the team was predicted to suck because Whit Babcock has a major role to play in why those programs are bad. He didn't want to fund either program to be competitive, tied both coaches hands behind their backs and then kicked dirt on them for good measure.
Right now, I have absolutely no idea what the overall direction of VT athletics is supposed to be. A school going all in on football? Well, if we were doing that we'd probably hire a head coach with any kind of experience and give him an open checkbook to build out the best pool of assistants he can hire, and allow ourselves to buy whatever players we need to be relevant again.
Are we trying to be well rounded? Because, looking around the rest of the department, outside of wrestling and maybe some track teams, its a wasteland right now.
We gave up on trying to modernize the basketball programs. After pouring money into the sport to build the practice facility and then hire Buzz, we have apparently permanently shelved the Cassell renovation and resigned ourselves to having a comically outdated facility for the league we are in. The programs with the 2 most recent 'major' conference championships we have are effectively mothballed within 5 years of winning their titles, forfeitting any hope of building off their success.
I just don't get it. I don't get the direction we have under Whit anymore. Very little of it makes sense and even worse, it doesn't seem to really be working. I don't know why he's still here.
1. Spend as little money as possible. 2. Look like you are competitive in the ACC (not nationally) to the level that a total fan revolt- BC or Cuse esque- is avoided. THAT is the mission of VT athletics. Don't be totally embarrassing at the ACC level. Don't spend money.
Don't know why you're getting downvotes because sadly this appears to be correct. We're lying if we say it isn't. We just don't seem to be committed to fielding a championship quality team save for one or two varsity sports.
Well he's wrong in the fact that we look competitive in the ACC. Other than Swimming, Track and field, wrestling, amd softball we weren't good. T&F we have been really good at the ACC level for a long time but not enough breadth and depth for bigger accolades. Swimming is new and wrestling was solid. Softball is just disappointing like always.
Women's soccer would like a word.
I forgot about that. They were ranked 12th this year. Lost to #1 Duke in the final 1-0.
They'll be fast this year, Girl from Milan is on the team whose last name is Rossi.
lost in the elite 8, not final, but you have to admit the ACC is the right conference for women's soccer. All ACC final 4, 6/8 in elite 8. It's brutal out there.
The ACC has won 31 womens Soccer natty's. 21 by UNC. We should hire that guy.
If we wanted a title, then yup, pay him college football coach money and buy him a team, were already close, we don't need a whole team.
Its pretty sad when ODUs basketball facilities outclass ours.
The problems here are various...
In regards to Whit....
1. He hasn't really done a good enough job to get promoted to a P4 job that would be at a higher or equivalent level i.e. no one is looking to hire him
2. He hasn't really done a bad enough job that he clearly needs to be fired ASAP unless you have a ready-made replacement
3. Whether or not he leaves or gets fired, who do you hire? I'm open to suggestions but dont see any real obvious candidates that would have a reasonable link or interest in VT. Do you try and hire an up-and-coming G5 AD who's at this point probably just trying to keep his head above water in the wild wild west of NIL? Do you try and poach a lower level administrator from a P2 program?
The overarching issue is from the top down VT needs a clear strategy in regards to Athletics. The decision to defund basketball was absurd. It is much easier to put together a basketball program than a football program from sheer numbers if nothing else. We've also pretty clearly had more recent success in either basketball program than Football. If you're limited in terms of resources/money, it would have made so much more sense to devote a higher percentage of resources to both basketball programs. We really don't know if that decision was Whit's alone or influenced from higher-ups at VT.
At this point, VT really has no reasonable chance to compete at a top level in college football. At best, we are looking at possibly breaking the top 25 intermittently. Until there are actual rules, there's really no way for us (and similar programs) to compete. I don't necessarily see any kind of framework coming together until the system collapses which I think will happen within the next 10 years--and who knows what the landscape (or what's left of it) will look like by then.
The other obvious issue is that we clearly need to move on from Beamer and Weaver-era Personnel on the Athletic Department. I think many of us know who we are talking about here.
The problem isn't simply money, you can look at Miami's men's basketball team as a case in point of how throwing stupid money around doesn't necessarily lead to meaningful results. I'm not sure VT fans or donors have the stomachs or the pocketbooks for that sort of roller coaster ride.
This always seems to be the counter argument - the acknowledgement that things aren't optimal but "who do you hire" if you fire someone? That question is not for us to answer, but the troubling thing is it has become apparent that the folks in charge have no idea either, which is how we are in this mess to begin with.
The guy at Liberty seems to know how to grow an athletic department and tap boosters for cash.
EDIT: Just remembered they have the guy from Baylor and NO THANKS, he fits in just right over there.
EDIT 2: Stanford's AD just resigned. Not sure why, but he won the Director's Cup 8 times in 13 years. Maybe have him consult on the hire or see if he is interested in a 5 year contract. Would be interesting to see what he could do at a football first school with a track record of success across all sports.
not to be that guy but.....
....are we really still considered a football school? We haven't been good at football in over a decade now
Of course we're a football school. We're bad at it, but we care about it.
This is the answer. We have been good at mens hoops roughly 5 of the last 30 years. Womens hoops had a chance to be great and we couldn't find 2 million dollars for the program.
There are dozens of experienced coaches out there that can do better than average 5-6 wins at VT over a 5 year span and lose every one score game. Dozens. You might have to pay one of them a decent salary though.
Substitute "them" for "us", lol....(but make sure the 'them' and 'us' don't have the same jersey # /s)