Started this thread as the other started to slow down a bit for me because of the embedded tweets. Tried to only link them here for us to talk about now that its over.
The literal and figurative money quote from #Hokies AD Whit Babcock to the Board of Visitors: "If we don't radically leap forward now, we are likely sealing our own fate for years and generations to come."— David Teel (@ByDavidTeel) August 18, 2025
It was an eye opening day following what was going on with the Board of Visitors presentation by Whit. And I would be lying if I said that it at all left a good taste in my mouth. There were live updates by David Teel, Andy Bitter and TSL's David Cunningham throughout, and the picture painted was pretty straightforward:
On Tech's budget, Babcock said, "Our resources don't match our expectations."— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Many topics throughout were covered, and I'll let VTGuitarMan give a full rundown when he returns, but from what the listed 3 have put out, the facts of the matter are as follows:
VT finished the 2024-25 academic year with an athletics budget of $122m. This was good for 14th in the conference. And while we are planning to up that to $144m in the 2025-26 academic year, per our own internal calculations we still need to up that to about $200m to compete at the top of the conference.
A lot of time was spent on the athletic impact of VT to the region. Right now, VT athletics brings in about $93m in revenue to the surrounding region annually. If we were to continue wallowing in football and that causes 10k seats to go empty per game, per our own calculations it would result in a $15m per year economic loss to the region. Per Whit, based on their numbers, it would cost the university more money in the long term to NOT invest into a competitive athletic department than it would to invest.
And the worrisome part. We expect the next round of shakeups to occur as soon as 2027.
There are ways we can get out of this. If we were to set our Athletic Fees charged to each student to be the same rate as UVa, we would bring in an additional $35m per year. I would expect that to be done immediately. There are also discussions about cutting other university projects to divert that money over to athletics and they think they can get an additional $10m from that. There are also ongoing discussions about having a multi-use facility around Lane and Cassell that would bring in year-round revenue to the school and AD.
But make no mistake, the resounding message today appears to be solid. Doing nothing is not an option, and the only way we are going to make money in the long term is by spending a lot more money now. The long term fate of the university and region depends upon it.
Comments
Another tidbit on this that didn't really belong in the OP, but definitely interesting nonetheless:
Who at VT voted for/signed off on FSU making 40% more than we do now? Last year they won 3 fucking games. So let's kill our athletic department to keep them around. Who signed off on that?
Yep. You can give them and Clemson all the money and they will still leave. The ACC decided to die slower, maybe, possibly not even then. Fools.
Not sure how ESPN contract is setup but might we be better off if they were gone now that we have unequal revenue sharing? Take two of the top 5 receiving above equal revenue shares out, if the pie is the same then would we be more likely to get a bigger cut?
I think if any teams leave the ACC the pie shrinks. The whole point is that the teams that bring in the most revenue earn their cut (based on viewership, which can be misleading since it's not clear to me who has final decision making authority on which networks show which games, impacting viewership). Teams like FSU and Clemson that drive a lot of views (ostensibly because of their brands, but maybe also because they get preferential treatment with time-slots on networks that are favorable to their numbers) earn the conference a bigger cut than, say, teams like Pitt or Syracuse, because (fair or not) they don't get time-slots on networks that have a lot of viewership. I think VT has suffered in this regard in recent years because we keep getting stuck on networks that nobody has or watches (ACCN, CW). The whole system is kind of screwed up. But the ACC will surely lose money if their two "biggest brands" leave the league, thus shrinking the pie. I think VT gets screwed here because I think we would have way better viewership numbers if we were getting time-slots on ESPN. But, we only get that once or twice a year. Clemson and FSU are almost always on ESPN, so of course their viewership numbers are stellar. It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy situation.
Those in power MUST know this. What's the point of having our own network if they just are middle men selling our games to view on other networks?
The ACCN should offer packages like the recent Sling passes.
Buy a whole year, a season, sport specific, single team, series or single game for games not broadcast by ESPN.
Seems like money is being left on the table, and fans aren't getting access, especially for lower status teams.
Because having your own cable network is free money. Everyone with cable pays into the pot of ACCN, regardless of if they actually watch it.
And despite cord cutting, there's still 66mil Americans with cable.
There's also another facet to the settlement. Reduction of the exit fee and keeping broadcast rights may have been the deciding factor in voting for the settlement.
Only helps if you know you are leaving and know you have a better place to go.
Exactly! 😁
Or, we understand we might have to leave before 2036 and getting out broadcast rights back is key.
I agree with the region part of this statement, but not the university part of this statement. Change it to Athletics and I would agree.
Most students choosing VT in its bread and butter Colleges (Engineering, Architecture, etc.) are choosing based on what it can provide for their education and future career path. Athletics contributes very little to either of those things.
That said, I would prefer a strong Athletics brand rather than a weak one, but the university is not going to close up shop if we fail to win a football game in the next 10 years.
The University won't close, but it would be significantly different, with less money and resources to fund the things we want to do, and significantly fewer students applying. Virginia Tech as we know it, would die.
The University as most of us have known it for the last 20-30 years will not be the same. It will be more like VT prior to the growth of the football program - very strong engineering and sciences school, but the fan and alumni base would be altered for a generation or more. There's already way, way less VT stuff all over the state than there was even ten years ago. The concept of people growing up VT fans I think would be altered radically and the school enrollment IMO would shrink significantly over time.
It's even hard to find VT stuff in Roanoke nowadays. The UVA stuff has been encroaching more and more
I think it will cost the university as a whole. As someone who chose VT for engineering if we didn't have a strong football program I likely would have looked elsewhere. We are a very good engineering school but we aren't MIT
Bingo. Athletics is part of the equation if you want the big state school experience. That's generally the case for every public school with a large enrollment. If it is all about the education, people will likely look elsewhere.
Right there with you. I was looking for the combo of good engineering school with the big state school/football culture. I wouldn't trade my time at VT for anything, but without athletics, I don't know if I would have gotten in the door in the first place.
Successful athletics is advertising.
Awareness is key. You can have the best "XYZ" dept. in the world but if only a niche knows that, the niche is all you will get.
An excellent Engineering Dept and horrible English dept means a negative as far as an education as opposed to just Engineering training.
How does VT winning a football game make anyone aware of how good their Computer Engineering department is? Or College for that matter. The 30 second ad that gets played on every VT telecast shows a few snippets of student life with a less than exciting (in my opinion tagline). There are no stats or data presented that state VT is a top 10 . The talking heads are going to mention what a good Architecture program VT has if we were in the running for a playoff berth.
It's more of a macro-awareness of the school as a result of the exposure. The specifics of the university's merits don't need to be spelled out in detail during a broadcast. Increased applications is an overall aggregate result of a broader brand awareness.
Whit had a slide about how Clemson's recent football success correlates with a 157% increase in new student applications. This was also already literally the case for Virginia Tech in the wake of our 1999 national title run. I don't have specific numbers, but being hoisted into the national spotlight resulted in a gigantic influx of new students and paid dividends for us for YEARS.
And yet VT has had record applications in 2024 even though we have pretty much sucked in most sports that matter (WBB aside a few years ago). Correlation does not equal causation and I suspect that there are other reasons that application were up at Clemson just like at VT.
Edit - not sure what time period Whit cited, but VT applications went from 22,500 in 2015 to 58,000 in 2025 (according to Google AI). That's a 157% increase while our athletic programs basically treaded water or crashed and burned. That is also the same timeframe that Clemson rose and maintained their powerhouse in college football.
When we became a football power that also coincided with the significant influx of funding available for student loans which meant many more people were able to apply (and attend) VT. How does applications and enrollment at other universities compare during that time?
As much as we want to tie Athletic identity to Academic identity, they're not as connected as people want them to be.
There's more to the athletic dept than Football.
Also, it's never immediate impact, the kids applying now are familiar with VT through athletics from their childhood.
See little Egbert #1 for a specific example. We have pictures of her and her sister dressed as the Hokie bird giving him a hug when there were 5 and 7 yrs old.
From a marketing and exposure standpoint, there's not much more. Men's BB and to a *much* lesser extent Women's BB and Baseball. Men's BB went from a dumpster fire (JJ) to mediocre (1 S16 appearance, 5 NCAA appearances and a fluke ACC title). Women's BB had 3 years of national recognition, but how much did that actually move the needle? Baseball has been up and down during that time. And softball had some national runs but,again, how much does that move the needle.
I would suggest that only kids of alumni are familiar with VT athletics from their childhood. I'm not sure how many 10 year olds in the Midwest are paying attention to Ohio State unless their parents went there or they are just massive college football fans.
As a person who grew up in Ohio, the Ohio State football game gets put on anywhere there is a TV. As someone who organizes football watch parties in Cincinnati, bars will put on the Ohio State game in the main TV even when we show up with 15 people and there's very few people in the bar seemingly paying attention to the Ohio State. Doing what it takes to be the flagship brand in VA means millions in free advertising.
My family are not Alum.
I only know VT from football post 2000.
I think you also have to take into account the generational effect of us as die-hard Hokies that went to VT around the MV era...we now have college-age children who having been hearing about how great VT is and that they should expect to go there for college. So once it flourishes the first time, it becomes a bit of a self-sustaining economy thanks to the brand power of previous customers.
I see what youre saying and it makes sense. But what doesn't make sense are most18 year old teeneagers going to college. Having a strong althetlic brand absolutely increases admissions and applications. How many 18 years old do you know that thing rationally?
I only applied to VT. I knew they had good engineering but that was about it (Building Construction alum here).
I was going to school to tailgate and bash UVA. I know i wasn't alone.
I'll have a full update on this in a few days. I'm going to wait for the full BOV meeting to conclude and I will also meet with Provost Clarke in about two weeks, where we will discuss budgetary matters more. So look for some phased updates in a new post. For now, I am tired after a full day of BOV retreat...
"Hey guys, we need to spend an extra 78 million a year or we might lose 15 million a year" ... now thats some math that doesnt math.
I am all for finding real ways to win, but and extra 78M a year comes from where? That is more than 3k per student. This is another unsustainable collegiate arms race that is driving costs through the roof to keep up with the joneses. Our national education system is collapsing on itself while everyone spends into oblivion because someone else is. It cannot continue.
I f am not looking forward to spending an additional $1000/yr out of pocket for tuition/fees per daughter.
Ideally the vast majority of that isn't coming from current students. According to the VT alumni association board, there are about 292k alumi. Going with the assumption that the number given is living alumni means you only need to average about $270 per person to get to that $78M number. The Hokie Club needs to step up their game in a big way regardless, would've been an easy job in the 2000s when we were winning games, but that time as long since passed.
The education system as a whole is going to have a number of struggles in the coming years. Part of it is political issues that obviously won't be discussed here, but there's also a smaller generation of kids incoming, and by extension less potential students. We will likely see a lot of schools downsizing and many smaller schools closing down. While a large investment to "keep up with the joneses" may be tough to digest, it may also be an important factor in keeping Virginia Tech relevant in years to come.
It isnt political issues when the universities choose to spend themselves into the sun with luxury facilities and enormous amounts of non-educational staff. VT (and most universities today) spend insane amounts of money that do not make kids learn any better. All the universities in countries with free/affordable college are not spending hundreds of millions every year on things that dont teach students. Of my friends from college, all engineers making good money, 1 of them donates to the school because they see the insane waste. Even when you donate directly to an academic recipient you are just freeing up that money to be spent on nonsense.
All those other universities believe college is purely an educational endeavor. Other countries don't call it "the college experience" - that phrase (in my experience) is uniquely American.
Nearly everything about the structure of American higher education is unique to America. Even the concept of "college pride" isn't really found anywhere else.
(I'll spare myself a long-winded rant about how U.S. colleges are just money-sucking factories whose sole purpose is to increase enrollment and donations.)
I'd argue these points contradict each other, but I won't get into it here. I think we might agree more than you think on how things should be, but in America, as a D1 school, if we don't try to keep up we'll see VT become more obscure and less relevant in both the athletic and academic landscape. They shouldn't be that related to each other, but they are.
lmao, only $270 per person, good luck
When tuition is $45k per year a 0.6% increase doesn't move the needle all that much.
As we have covered on here, Tuition has no monetary value.
Lol this comment wins the thread here in my opinion
I also hate the idea of making students foot the bill. I am a Hokie Club member and will continue to be, but I don't plan to double my donation any time soon.
If i read it correctly, it was saying they would need $270 per alum.
This is correct, for alumni to foot the entire bill it would be $270 per person. Unfortunately, there are only around 26k people who are members of the Hokie club, which means less than 9% of alumni are members of the Hokie Club. It would take $3k per current member to reach the $78m goal.
For a point of comparison to a more successful booster program, IPTAY for Clemson accounts for 12.5% of their alumni. In addition, they were able to raise more per person such that they raised $79.2M for the 2024 fiscal year in comparison to only $20M for the Hokie Club. I assume that is why Whit is targeting $78M, that's what it's going to take to be competitive. While a bleak situation, that's just how far behind we are. It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of changes to get there.
I'm concerned it's enough to break the Egbert's back.
Fact of the matter is that we stand to lose more than the amount of money it would take to invest to bring us up to where we need to be. And the kicker is that if we fund properly our revenue streams will grow to make it even more financially responsible for us to do it
It sucks that we have to up our spending, but it is our only option if we don't want to see Virginia Tech as we know it die on the vine.
It's a loss of $15M in local impact plus the loss of ACC revenue of potentially $15-25M or more if our viewership decreases.
Also have to factor those numbers don't account for success. The revenue numbers change dramatically if you get back to consistent winning. See what they posted in terms of Clemson applications %. Merchandise, fan interaction opportunities and other means of revenue generation like better profile from companies and sponsorship deals.
Is it perfectly aligned to break even? Initially no, but if we are consistent winners, then more likely yes and to have any hope of making the split to the Haves then operating that way makes more sense.
Maybe I'm naive, and feel free to correct me if I'm missing something in the narrative, but man I wish we had these kinds of talks years ago. Leadership can hide behind Covid all they want, but the warts here were showing well before that. I'm happy to hear Whit beat the drum in such clear terms, but it feels very, very late and reactive to reality.
I agree.
I'd also be interested to see how the 2025 presentation compares in numbers and tone against last year's. If there was a last year's.
I thought the same thing. We've been talking about it one way or another on this site for as long as I've been here at the very least.
I think the difference in timing is subtle, but important. As our football program began to languish in mediocrity, the folks on this site began discussing how the budget was keeping us from competing with the big dogs, and how, even if we could be competitive in the ACC, we needed to have way more money to be competitive nationally.
With unequal revenue sharing coming to the ACC soon, it has become apparent to the administration that being anything less than upper echelon in the ACC will directly impact our bottom line, making it difficult to be even mediocre in the ACC. Note that Whit has asked for $200M to be competitive in the ACC.
He hasn't asked for (and was not asked by the board) how much money it would take to be competitive on a national scale.
I still don't think the administration is discussing it the way that we are discussing it. Whit is just letting them know that without $200M, it's going to be difficult to even maintain 6-6 with hope for 8-4 in the ACC. And the board is like "oh wow, ok funding athletics is an emerging focus now." You know, now that if we don't fund it, we might become a flat out embarrassment within our conference. I still don't know that they're targeting being nationally relevant
True. I'll be interested to see how that unequal revenue sharing is structured (read as: "how much schools get for winning the league"). It may have been shared before but I definitely missed it if so, and I'm technically in a Board meeting looking busy so can't quite look at this moment. I'd love to see where he wants to put the additional $$ he's asking for.
This isn't mathing to me... 38,000 students, $299/year increase per student. What am I missing? It would take 3 years to get that to $30m.
Whit would have invested it in Bitcoin
the only way I can get close to 35 million is if the fees are trimester fees - that is, they aren't annual, but actually hit each trimester. 299X38kX3 = 34,086,000
Yes this is correct, the athletic fee is every semester (at least fall and spring). Not sure if they include one for summer/winter/or maymesters
If this is a cash cow and secret to success, just raise the athletic fees to 20K per semester and be done with it. As this is such an "untapped" revenue stream.
Easy cowboy; I got one there now and most likely twins heading there in a few years. i can handle the athletic fee going to 700-800 but not the thousands...
An individual could volunteer to do it.
As long as I am already paying for the School of Architecture fees along with the rest, I'd buckle under the requirement.
According to David Cunningham's summary, Whit said $35M over the past five years, which makes more sense.
Also, remember - this was a pony show. A charade. Whatever you want to call it. There's no way that this is the first time Sands and the BoV are hearing about this. There's no way that Whit is INVITING the media to a meeting where he bashes his supervisors, stakeholders, and himself.
This was a coordinated effort. The audience was not the BoV. My guess is the audience was state legislators or donors or something like that.
THIS
You never bring something this big to an executive/CEO/BOV for the first time in public. They've been hearing this for a while
OK, I'm gonna say it. Everything related to the $$ side of things is spot on. We are waaay behind and need to do something quickly. However, Pry and Co. were set up for success perfectly last year. And by success I'm talking aouout 8 to 9 wins. And what happened? Our defense absolutely caved at the end of a few game... Pry was still lost on more than one occasion at the end of the half and at the end of the game - costing us a couple games.
We made some staff changes. Good. But one of those wasn't actually a decision he made (Bowen was hired away). We simply need to see the coaching staff perform better. Period. I know we didn't have an elite staff by any stretch of the imagination, but we had the pieces to perform much better than we did. I'm telling you, if we come out of the gate 0-2, that two game home stretch with ODU and Wofford will see 10K less fans easily.
As I mentioned in the other thread about the presentation - I am glad Whit is realizing this, but he is a minimum 5 years behind on this revelation
If you think Whit is just now realizing this, you're behind on the revelation too. This was a coordinated effort to put on a grand dog and pony show for people outside the university. Lawmakers, fans, etc.
Okay, I'll rephrase, it's a dog and pony show that should've happened 5 years ago
I have a very unpopular opinion on all of this I believe. Generally speaking, in life, when one "chases" something, it usually doesn't end well.
The amount of money we are behind and in a recurring fashion is so great (unsurmountable) that trying to "chase" relevancy in today's landscape is an absolute fool's errand.
At the end of the day in all efforts to remain football relevant, we will spend millions upon millions and will more than likely be for not. It will burn VT's ass and balls.
Chasing this football relevancy is insane to me. It's way too far out of reach. We will come up short.
When I went to VT, we "sucked at sports". Choosing VT had zero to do with sports. VT has grown its campus immensely over the past 20 years. Most of it after our best years as a football school. I don't think the status of our football program is going to change why most (not all) kids choose to go to VT.
What I think what we are going through is the unfortunate reality that we will never get back to where we want to be in a long, long time, if ever, and it sucks real bad. It's hurts. To feel good about our football program right now is too dam expensive for a pipe dream level of hope coming to fruition.
Truth hurts sometimes and when it does, no one likes to talk about it.
Let the downvotes commence.
Then what do you see as the best path forward for VT, as a university, broadly. And for VT as an athletic program, specifically?
We've lost sight of the most important thing: winning in football. That's the best path. When I was a student in the early 90's nobody wore VT colors to games generally. It was whatever you had in your drawer - especially coats- nobody had a heavy VT jacket in the stands. Ironically right after I left (1993) the team started winning games, going to the first bowl game in 9 years- before everyone made a bowl, etc. Then the team won conference titles, etc for the next 25 years to build what it is today- last year Lane was sold out coming off a 6 win season. In order to win, we need players- and what people don't want to talk about- is that we can't sign great ones out of high school anymore. If money only fixes that, then we need more money- 100%
I remember that. I wore white and grey, sometimes blue. ;^)
I'll be honest- if I weren't a Hokie , orange would not be a first, second, or much of a choice at all for clothes colors. Maroon would still be part of my wardrobe but not as big a part as it is now...
This is a great question. There is no good answer, no silver bullet. The situation sucks.
VT needs to determine what they can realistically invest in athletics and stick to that baseline if I were to make a broad generalization.
If at any time a HNW donor(s) hits it big and decides to throw a huge sum of cash to VT athletics then those years would see a spike from the baseline.
Basically, I would be conservative with spend until there is more sanity, structure, etc before "going all in". We all can guess at what it's going to look like in the next 5 years and end up being totally wrong.
I don't think your wrong. It's absolutely insane.
But this whole sport is absolutely insane. Everything about College Athletics (if not everything about college) is completely insane.
Those evil coaches demanding a salary bigger than players compensation- evil. The players must get their millions, and VT's program dies on the vine. It's only fair to the players that generate that revenue.
VT's monetary issues were there long before NIL. You can't blame this one on players getting a cut of the pie
I am 100% blaming VT's current situation on NIL- which is not regulated, and players simply go to the highest bidder. That is what is killing VT. Our payroll is nowhere near enough to attract actual good football players. So yeah, its 100% related.
I think both can be true - I believe that VT had monetary issues before NIL - I also believe that NIL has made it infinitely more difficult for VT to keep up financially. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive.
Meh, if you undo conference realignment and return to 2007 conferences, then all the conferences are demanding about the same TV money, and the imbalance would be significantly smaller, even 'overcome-able' for a lot of schools that are now struggling.
God that is such a loser's mentality. Accept defeat before even trying to win. And its an attitude that is shared by so, so, so many at VT. "We were bad when I was a student, so why should we strive for greatness now".
And we wonder why we ended up in the situation we are.
Whit was right when he said we need to change our mindset and culture. We cannot get back to where we want to be if we accept defeat from the start
It not a loser mentality. It's a very realistic mentally. Trying to keep up is way way way to high a cost and money we don't have enough of , just like many other college/universities.
It's a reality due to the absurdity of everything CFB has become.
Also, my opinion wasn't about my wants and yearning to be a good football program again, it was around my opinion that VT will continue to recruit enough students regardless of the VT football state of affairs.
Not really doing anything to disprove my signature with these remarks
If one doesn't have the money then they can't buy it.
It is easy to type "VT needs to step up and spend the money", but whatever money they can spend it will not be enough to keep up with today's sport.
They can invest more money into athletics and can improve the overall state of affairs (I'm down with that) but it will pail in comparison as to what is needed to be a big dog waiting for its invite to whatever P2.1 will look like in the near future.
I really don't have an answer to this mess. It's so fucked up at the moment. It's what's giving me pause.
I think the point of this whole thing is that they do have the money, they are just not choosing to spend it on athletics.
I don't see how we can sustain the amount of money on a recurring basis for football, and basketball while funding respectable rosters for the other sports. Not when our annual football revenue is in the tens upon tens of millions below the P2 schools on an annualized basis. It's a compounding expense that's far too great.
"funding respectable rosters for the other sports" - invest in coaching... one time expense. Hire Coastal Carolinas baseball coach, UNC women's soccer coach, Oklahoma States golf coach. done. competitive on day 1, one time/infrequent expense.
Well there you go. You can only see one step in front of your nose. As Whit spelled out yesterday, increased spending will end up resulting in increased revenues in multiple streams. You seem to think that no matter how much we spend, things will never improve, so why bother starting.
Again, its just an excuse that ignores what happens across the board elsewhere. You can't harvest without first investing in the seeds.
Nope. I didn't say that. We can spend money on athletics to improve them. I said, "I'm down with that". I never said things will never improve so why spend money at all. However, IMO, the order of magnitude in which to do so in order to compete on the national level isn't attainable.
Allow me to say it differently. VT is going to invest. They should and can. However, we should level set our expectations of outcomes as it will not be enough to rise to P2 status.
We should be looking for the "elbow" in the performance vs cost curve. Wherever that performance level that causes the inflection point where the cost starts to rise more dramatically, that's what we should probably be targeting.
This is a good outlook. To me, that means performing to the maximum potential of our current football budget. We are currently a top 25% ACC football budget school. If this staff had us maxing out in that 8-9 win range - if we were taking care of the games we should, flashing great promise and potential, but just couldn't get past the Clemsons and FSUs with more talent and resources - that's the point where I think this ask of donors and the BOV to step in with more money really would resonate. But when you're figuratively tripping over your own dick for years, it makes the sales pitch pretty rough.
But even then, as you get closer to the top, the revenue streams start to hit an exponential growth as well, with regional advertising flipping to national advertising and merchandise sales skyrocketing.
Of course there is always a balance to be had. The highest spenders don't always win it all. But the bigger spenders tend to be the bigger draws, which does end up with them having the bigger revenue streams. You have to find the balance, and it might not be at that elbow, it could be above it, and I'm sure there are some really smart people in Pamplin who might be able to help determine where that is.
Fair point, so long as it's an actual balance, and not a "let's spend some more because theoretically we should make more money" type of balance.
The best ones also back up their investments with results. Clemson invested a bunch in their program around 2009/2010, which led to a wave of good performance and growth. That then won them more investment/buy in from donors and the school, which then vaulted them from ACC Champs to National Champs. It's like a snowball effect.
To me, if this staff can't do anything this year, you kind of have to reset and start over with a blank slate. That would just be throwing more good money after bad when Pry and Co would have then proven they can't maximize our current budget. I think this year will signal whether we double down and invest heavily in this staff, or start over with a new cast and invest heavily in them.
Ill repeat what I said on here multiple times..... If Beamer in his last 5 years signed fucking Sammy Watkins, Nuke Hopkins, DeShaun Watson, Tee Higgins, etc we aren't having this conversation. If Fuente signed Trevor Lawrence, we aren't having this conversation. IF Pry flipped some 4 and 5 star ballers from Penn State, he wouldn't be 0-50 in 1 score games. Clemson went out and got fucking DUDES... a bunch of them and then proceeded to kick alabamas ass. Not rocket science.
Agree - when Dabo took over, they invested in some recruiters, dropped some bags, hired an innovative/cutting edge OC, and poached one of the best DCs in the nation from Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, we hired a HC who apparently thought it a good idea to hire a DC with no experience (with the HC sort of still running the defense and not focusing on being a HC), and three offensive guys as a brain trust to sort of work things out on offense, all of which ended in disaster. Had Pry started off with a Siefkes-type DC hire and Montgomery-type OC hire on offense, we might be having a different conversation.
Woulda coulda shoulda.
We didn't sign those guys because we weren't willing to play the same game in recruiting as them. We weren't willing to get dirty, thinking we were above it. And to a certain extent we are still there.
Part of the whole thing that we need to come to grips with is that if we want to win, we have to accept the fact that you need people willing to operate in the seedy shady side of recruiting. You need guys who are going to go out and buy a recruit who has already committed elsewhere. You need to be able to grease some palms and make a few cash payments to entice decisions. And now, we need to be willing to pay a QB a 6 figure NIL deal before he's stepped foot on campus. That's just the world we are in now.
We can bitch about it til the end of time, but it won't change the fact that the only way you will have success going forward is to play that game.
This the most MGoBlog post I've ever seen on TKP.
If you think the Beamer administration was above paying players and high school coaches then I have a bridge to sell you. Did you not go to school with Tyrod and David Wilson lol?
I think our greatest example was Ace Custis for basketball especially after you read the featured article on Sports Illustrated that talked about how they struggled to pay the road tolls to get him back and forth to practices growing up. Then you see him rolling around campus in brand new SUVs, living in the best off campus housing and always had a cash roll downtown when he was out.
Yep...NIL just brought the under the table stuff above the table. There's always been a bag, but some bags have just been bigger (and grown faster) than ours. We've put some toward our NIL bag in recent years, and we might be somewhat competitive in football NIL, but not championship caliber level funding at all.
My freshman year Eric Green was also a freshman and a DB got hurt and he started, next week he was driving around in a brand new Ford Explorer. It definitely happened, but leasing a car is not the same as paying a guy $100k+ a year, so NIL has increased the costs.
Watching those 2011 clemson games it is crazy to see how many nfl players they had on those teams
This is the way, along with Tables other point below, "as long as it shows...."comment.
He has so eloquently stated in these two comments what I have failed to do in the number of mine on this topic.
If I had a one word descriptor of "my pause" in all this mess, it would be "Speculation". There's way too much of it.
I don't think it's unpopular. The cost is too high. We're gonna ask kids going into 5-6 figure debt to help pay for NIL even more? Not to mention those players get a free education, tutoring, etc....
If we can't make our rich donors fork it over to make up the gap, I just don't love the idea of the common hokie having to bridge the gap (especially in this economy). I also just don't see it happening....I love hokie football, but I'll be honest, I'm not giving above and beyond to make it happen
I'll take my down votes too
After 25 years of season tickets we passed on ours and dropped down to maintenance levels of giving to the Hokie Club after more than a decade of being Golden Hokies. We had awesome seats but the ROI just wasn't there from a fun standpoint anymore. And part of that is the realization that my donation is a fart in a hurricane of what is actually needed to compete. It's just not sustainable in its current form, imho. Contraction and Super Leagues are coming and we don't have the stroke for that lift.
You can lose a lot of money chasing women, but you'll never lose a woman chasing money! - anonymous or a movie quote
Why was this presentation not made 10+ years ago with the same sense of urgency. To me, it feels like Whit and the Athletic Department are just starting to realize how far behind VT is.
You know the story- we were in the ACC, the stadium was sold out, Beamer was a legend, Bud Foster held it down on defense. We were fine. Then Clemson went out and signed 5 star players all over the place and whipped our asses and won natty's. The game changed. Then the ACC negotiated a high school level TV deal and bent over for ND with no return. We are fucked now that TV dollars drive the bus. Icing on the cake is VT agreeing to an uneven revenue deal for 2 teams that are leaving anyway. Dead in the water. Done
Yep. We fucked it. Odds are the die was cast somewhere around that 2007 season. That's the last time we were really on the cusp. Once WVU set Clemson on fire in the OB the game changed and left us behind. We aren't all alone in that but that's of little comfort.
I think the House settlement, unequal revenue sharing, and impending realignment have led to a greater sense of urgency.
They agreed to the Unequal revenue which they shouldn't have. It still would have passed but we would have been on the record that it was the wrong decision.
"If we don't radically leap forward now, we are likely sealing our own fate for years and generations to come."
Really hope this was Whit talking to himself through a time traveling mirror because the time to realize this was in 2015.
My most realistic expectations are coming true and man you hate to see it.
Yeah...a lot of people applauding Whit for this, saying he has been pushing for this behind the scenes for years and had to go public now. Sorry, I don't buy that. This is the same AD who just a few years ago made the infamous "Weights Weigh the Same" quote, who in years past said what Clemson was doing was overkill, that we could be equally as competitive through creative debt service, clever budgeting. I call BS. I think there's a ton of pressure on him now and he was told to make this push or clean out your desk.
This program could help itself immensely take a big step forward with momentum behind these initiatives if, as Andy Bitter said on the latest TSL pod, they could finally just win some freaking games. We keep asking for more while the VT football product is at a 30+ year low in the last several seasons. It's just hard to take this AD seriously asking for these resources when they have had a large hand in putting us in the spot we are in - obviously money has always been the biggest hurdle, but come on you went all in on Pry and an extremely inexperienced staff for his first three years. How was that allowed to happen if you're serious about winning and needing an influx of resources?
Whit has certainly sounded the alarm, but the football team better win this year, or else I think he and Pry will be sent packing if they can't get any on field traction going after this big ask.
Whitv didn't say weights weigh the same that was Ballein
EDIT: I stand corrected
And that has probably been the biggest problem with the Athletic department since Beamer retired.
Nope - that was straight from Whit
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38191883/inside-virgini...
He still isn't wrong. Weights do weigh the same. The money was used in other ways.
That's the crazy thing about the backlash over this quote. If it would've been $25,000 to purchase new weights for all the new weight machines, and the old weights fit the new machines, then why not spend that $25,000 elsewhere? And even if they didn't use that money elsewhere in the renovation, that's still $25,000 saved, which is not chump change. It still would've been spent in some other way to benefit the department.
The only reason this is a fucking thing is the culture of kids and recruiting today. A black weight with nicks on it doesn't look as cool as a maroon and orange weight, right? Thats so fucking important. Which team has the coolest looking weights- never mind that Whit was 100% fucking right that they weigh the same. We should have leaned INTO that - you know be tough again. Win in the trenches again with kids that don't give a fuck what the weights look like. Fuente should have made that a recruiting advantage. Come here kick the guys ass across from you and don't be a pussy worrying about the color of the weights- just fucking lift them so you don't get your ass beat.
At the same time, just paint the damn weights
Paint the weights the same way as the lunchpail. Problem solved
I would think the black weight with the nicks on it speaks more to the blue-collar image we've projected over the years, like with the lunchpail. Especially if they can point to specific nicks and say, "Lombardi winner Corey Moore created that dent in the weight when he tossed it into a column in anger."
And there's having to answer to the BOV as well. A lot times the wording or messaging isn't directed at the people that take offense to it. There was backlash over his proper quote, but it was a dog whistle to the BOV that he wasn't frivolously spending funds on little things.
It appears the BOV plans to do more than just listen to Whit. From David Teel:
and
Next BOV meeting is in mid-November.
If this works and overnight we start funding to the point where we need to be and we start actually acting like the bigger university that we have become, then it is a career defining moment for Whit and the current Admin.
I want to see it before I believe it, but if we get to the point where we actually start funding our programs to the level that we expect them to perform, we cannot overstate how impactful a meeting this was.
Nothing about this was overnight