We are now a few weeks out from Pry being fired, plus the announcement of new funding going into the athletic department, and about a week out from that funding being approved by the BoV. But the initial relief of Pry being fired + a plan being put in motion to finally invest like we should have been all along has begun to give way to a sense of doubt for me.
The messaging around all of this has been nothing short of an absolute mess.
A VERY large chunk of this new funding is supposedly going to come from philanthropy, but there has been radio silence from all fundraising entities... Hokie Club, Triumph, etc. Whit Babcock is reportedly not involved in the coaching search, yet is listed among a final approval trio of him, Sands, and Rocovich. Eddie Royal is on the ACC Network saying they want "someone like Frank". Bruce Arians goes on Pat McAfee to say we're hiring a GM first, then a coach. Then Whit contradicts that in his own interview with Bill Roth, doubling back on that and mentioning the Ole Miss model of HC & GM 50/50.
Hello? Is anyone in charge here? Do we have a plan or are we just throwing shit (and a lot of money) at the wall?
Whit may not be "involved", but this total lack of direction, messaging, and leadership has his handiwork written allllll over it. The further we get from Pry's firing, the more a simple question keeps coming to me like a thorn in my mind.... why exactly is Whit Babcock still here? What is his function, if he has no seat at the table for football decisions? Why is Whit the spokesperson for this initiative - doing interviews with Bill Roth detailing the plan, etc. - if we are in this situation thanks in no small part to his utter failure to begin with?
Even Tech Sideline is pointing out today on their podcast, that this whole process so far has been a mess with no clear or coherent plan. Andy Bitter is calling out the piss poor messaging and how it's being rolled out, and allowing Whit to be anywhere in the vicinity of the process - much less being its spokesperson - is horrible decision making given how Whit is currently viewed by the fandom. They also pointed out that an 8 person committee seems.... like 3 or 4 people too many, and I have to agree.
If Whit stays... then what? We're gonna hire a new football coach, but he's not going to answer to the GM (if we go with the Ole Miss model according to Whit), so then who's he gonna answer to? Whit.... who didn't hire him? And what coach would want to come work under Whit?
And if Whit leaves/retires/whatever... what coach is gonna want to come here not knowing who their boss is gonna be?
How the fuck are they expecting to raise funds with this amount of uncertainty and lack of transparency around this entire process and the future state of Tech football? This whole thing is beginning to look less like a cohesive plan to reset VT athletics and set us up to compete, and more like a shuffling of deck chairs to give the appearance of doing something. The decision-making - and lack thereof - reeks. It reeks of the odor of the same people who got us into this predicament. It reeks of half-measures, status quo, and unwillingness to rock the boat.
I have a sinking feeling about it.
Comments
A vocal part of the fandom doesn't like Whit. There is also a vocal part of the fandom that likes Whit. He has hit it out of the park with basically every hire except Pry. The Fuente hire was considered a home run at the time. It didn't work out, but how much of that was Fuente versus Ballein and lack of support from Merriman. The support has been rolled out since and reportedly the money is flowing. The new GM position is basically going to be an associated AD dedicated to football support.
In other words, I really wish people would stop bitching about Whit. There are a lot worse AD's out there.
The thing is that just hiring coaches is not the extent of the AD's job. The AD's job includes hiring coaches, but more importantly is to create and maintain the athletic department that sets the sports up for success. It has become clear that this is not where he thrives.
Way more to an AD job than purely hiring coaches. And even if that was the only metric, he has completely killed the number one cash king at VT - football. You can give him somewhat of a pass on the Fuente hire, it was universally praised at the time. But the dysfunction that was reported by ESPN in the department at the time with Ballein sandbagging Fu occurred under Whit's watch. He wouldn't give him the funding to hire Barry Odom or replace Cornelsen in 2019, that awkward 2020 press conference...then follows it up and allows Ballein to recommend and set up the Pry hire which he should have known was going to be complete failure. And then paid him $4+ mil and gave him a large buyout when NO ONE ELSE IN THE COUNTRY WAS INTERESTED IN PRY FOR A HC JOB. SC paid Shane Beamer like $2.5 mil when he first got hired.
Then he totally destroyed VT basketball last year by not even giving the program a remotely competent amount of NIL, saying they vastly misjudged the market there. Whose job is that? Has completely sucked at staffing the AD for years now, didn't have a financial position until recently, the Hokie Club hasn't even had people
with fundraising experience.
Whit is FAR FROM a good AD and it's far past time for him to make his exit.
By definition, I don't think schools are responsible for "giving" NIL - they are separate entities. So don't think you can use this against Whit.
They can allocate the pool of NIL funding via collectives to each sports program as they see fit. Every school has been doing this. We went "all in" on football to pay Drones a king's ransom and retain a few players who demanded a lot to go 6-7, and way underfunded basketball.
This is the first I've heard of this. Is this true? Pry was Ballein's hire?
Generally what happened in 2021 was Whit immediately went after Napier and it was apparently pretty close to a done deal. Then UF opened and that was all over. I think we may have done a Hail Mary interview or convo with Matt Campbell and Dave Clawson. But we ran out of options pretty quickly.
Ballein comes to Whit and pitches the idea of Pry and sets up the interview. This was done over Zoom too BTW. We approached Pry with the idea. The dude was not putting his name out there in any HC searches and no one was looking to hire him. This was set up by Ballein and sold to Whit. That's generally the course of events from what has been revealed and reported.
Also among the candidates that had interest in the job then that we flat turned down was Mike Elko. Yes Mike Elko.
We turned down Mike Elmo? Amazing! I hope there were "circumstances" that we couldn't overcome/meet that led to us turning him down. Or when we did, Whit was bullish on landing Napier and by the time that fell through Elko was gobbled up.
Nope. It was more about Ballein's rec.
If I can be completely candid, it was about who Ballein and Bud Foster liked to drink beer with. I'm so done with the VT old guard (I've heard so many stories and many I'm not posting here), and Bud being on the committee makes me pissed. Anybody who wants Shane makes me angry too. Enough.
Anybody who wants to know what it would've been like with Bud coaching us, I think Brent is a close analogue. Bottoms up buddy!
Whit promised to raise significant funds and hasn't.
Moreover the Hokie Club is stuck in the Stone Age. That's a bad look.
Drive for 25 was announced in 2016 with less than 9000 hokie club members. It hit 25,000 members a couple of years ago with each year being record gifts. From where it began to where it is now their have been significant gains. That said is 24 million enough, no. But it is a far cry from the levels it was when he came to Tech.
There have been significant gains for sure, but I will note the Drive for 25 numbers were really fudged. IIRC they included all students who purchased season tickets which added thousands of "donors". As a percentage of the budget, the amount of money we get from donations hasn't changed a ton.
What Shelton said, and also it's tied to seat licensing for season tickets. He promised massive fundraising when he was hired and has largely failed. He's certainly made some good coaching hires, but the lack of fundraising tied with the decline of football on his watch leads me to believe we need new leadership there.
Whit was known as the money guy, he oversaw find raising at a number of stops and had a back ground of raising funds. However from the money side of his job hes been terrible. What is happening to our profits each year? why are we not investing? He's made great hires but I think that if they all looked could get a better job. Pay across the board at the university is subpar.
Also who was the idiot that controlled the tweeter account we let that go on far too long. Issues aren't handled at VT they fester and the leadership allows this.
Pete
MoronMorisPete Morris, the guy was a joke of a professional.
If he posted about GRIT one more time...
Punchable face a 9.5 on the Fuente Scale
Hard to have good fundraising with a fundraising organization that is led by somebody with no fundraising experience.
It all boils down to complete lack of leadership at VT. Pry's poor leadership of the team, Whit's poor leadership over the AD, and Sands' poor leadership and oversight of athletics. Too many people who are close to retirement and hoping things would be juuuust good enough to squeak by a few more years. I think there was a significant likelihood that this year's football team was going to be bad before the season started, and most people probably knew it. I don't think anyone expected Pry to completely shit the bed as bad or as fast as he did to start the year though. It's really put VT in a horrific position. You can't let Whit hire a third coach, but you can't fire him immediately either because a) there's no one with any experience on navigating a coaching search or managing athletics enough to take over as interim, which shows how poorly he's staffed and run the AD; and b) you don't have time to hire an AD and a coach together in this tight of a window generally. So we're in this awkward "we sort of nominally have an AD but he's not the decision-maker" status, and we put together too large a committee IMO to find a GM at first, which has been contradicted now by our pseudo-AD who apparently speaks for the search but is not a part of it? Wtf is even actually going on at this point? Who is in charge?
Again, piss poor leadership on all fronts at VT. Bitter and Coleman nailed it on the podcast today, the messaging is completely awful and confusing. I'm starting to feel more and more like this is going to be a giant cluster and we are going to miss on anyone worth a damn as HC because of how dysfunctional we appear to be at the moment. Who the hell is the coach even going to report to right now?
This is EXACTLY how I feel and what I was also trying to express in this post. I am just baffled by the lack of direction around this process. It's great that we're getting the funding we should be getting, don't get me wrong. But without competent operators at the wheel, all that money is beginning to feel like shit being thrown at the wall. It's such a bad look.
I echoed this sentiment a bunch in the search committee thread. I completely agree. I felt pretty vindicated listening to the tsl pod.
Maybe none of this matters Maybe I'm reading into the comms too much. Maybe these people are mostly powerless and just being made to feel important after their donations.
Or maybe it's a shit show and we're fucked.
Don't worry. Their plan is to hire another Top 10 all time hall of fame of coach and to let them successfully handle everything in spite of the lack of comprehensive institutional support.
Yes, it would have been better to have hired a new AD a year ago, but they didn't do that.
And we can't let Whit hire a third football coach. Retaining Pry through the rest of the year wasn't at all an option.
So the process is going to look a little messy, and the fans are going to be uncomfortable. Doesn't mean VT can't find a good coach, and it doesn't mean the VT job isn't a good one. On the bright side, it looks like there's going to be more money available.
No surprises here, and while I get that folks wanted to see Whit fired, he's objectively FAR from the worst Athletic Director we've ever had at VT. But, like I said, he doesn't get a third chance at hiring a football coach.
The only involvement Whit is having with the third coach is signing the contract put in front of him from the committee.
And being an outward-facing spokesperson for the process apparently, by doing interviews detailing the process and what we're apparently looking for.
If you were bad enough at your job that a committee had to be formed to fulfill one of your most basic and important functions due to your prior ineptitude, should your company let you be the face of that committee's decisions/plan going forward?
And if we're not hiring a GM first or we are going with the 50/50 Ole Miss model, then who will our HC answer to if not a GM? The AD?
And who will that be? Whit? If that's the case then why should we not view that as anything other than Whit having slithered through the cracks to obscure himself from the optics of "failed AD allowed to hire a third coach" by off-boarding the hire to a committee, while still getting to keep his job, the status quo, and in essence.. be in charge of that third coach? And what competent Power 4 HC would want to work under Whit?
And if that AD is not Whit, again I ask... what competent Power 4 HC would take this job without knowing who their boss is going to be? If Whit is not part of the future of Tech football, then why is he here? I get that we need someone to man the AD position for an interim period, but if that's the only reason he's still here, his soon-to-be retirement should have been announced the day we fired Pry.
We should be sending out the message to everyone - especially prospective candidates - that the leadership who put us into this position will no longer be part of this program moving forward. I cannot begin to express what a bad look it is that we are letting Whit Babcock within a 10 mile radius of Merryman right now, without some sort of clear message that he will soon be gone.
The wound still reeks because we are refusing to cut out all of the infected tissue.
I'm sure that message is being sent. Coaches and agents aren't unaware of what's going on here, and the infected tissue is being cut out as soon as it's possible to do so.
We, the fans, are not necessarily privy to all the inner workings of what's going on, nor do we need to be.
I still think folks are missing the bigger deal with this all. Yeah, money for the program is good, but it's the NIL money that is ultimately leading to wins. Look at UVA. They received a 10 mil donation this offseason specifically for it and they were able to bring in OL, a great RB, a great QB, and some WR's. We can have all the good coaches we want, but if we don't have the talent, it doesn't matter.
NIL is certainly important but a 1 time injection of NIL funds doesn't equate to long term success. I think having the coaching base to raise the floor is probably more important for long term success. NIL injections for portal to kick start the process would certainly be beneficial but if we can develop a good base of kids I think we'll be in a better spot
Not sure what your point is? Are you suggesting that since we can 'hire' players, it's less important to land the ideal coach?
Speaking from experience in higher education...that committee has too many damn people on it!
That is certainly a hallmark of higher education. At least as far as I have seen it.
Let's have 20 people in a room with 20 different ideas, and then give one person/department the responsibility for making all those ideas come to fruition-usually, the MarComm department.
Without knowing what's happened behind the scenes in the AD, I am disappointed that Whit was not doing the research on how to fit a GM into the program as a GM position was quickly becoming the norm. Committee members putting carts in front of horses in the first week doesn't bother me, but if the messaging doesn't become consistent after the first few meetings. RED FLAGS everywhere.
Also the number of people on the committee doesn't concern me. Some of those people are only there to represent the interests of the university and 3-4 of them are there to do actual evaluation of the coaches. Members will defer to the respective experts, while coaching their two cents. I would have liked to see an odd number like 7 though, to avoid any voting ties.
I think my problem with the committee is that we once again pulled in "the best Hokies" rather than the best people to actually evaluate candidates. I understand having to have certain parts of VT represented as token members but are the evaluators really the best in college football or just the best people connected to VT?
Do I like Eddie Royal as a frank TV analyst? Absolutely
Do I question he wants the best for VT? Absolutely not
Do I think he is the best qualified to evaluate a coaches vision or plan for running a multi-million dollar operation? That's where I get concerned.
Do we have someone that made a model of a few of the top programs in football to see what are critical factors in a successful operation?
I doubt it.
Heard a mention the other night that they didn't include Frank because they are looking at Shane. Can we PLEASE stop foisting this upon Shane?!!! I don't care if he wants to come back, we shouldn't even be considering it. We had our run with Frank (Which was awesome, I'm not poo pooing his tenure.) But let's let Shane have his own career outside the NRV. And if we need to ask Frank a few things, he has contacts in the football world that very few others do.
I tend to agree. It just feels too incestuous/nepotistic to me.
It's not the same, but truly felt that Marcus should have gone elsewhere (even before he enrolled at VT) to NOT have to follow Michael to Blacksburg. The Fullers were different, but with this Shane has earned and deserves his own path choices. It'll work out better for all of us.
I think Frank was left off the committee because of the appearance any decision would have.
If Shane is not selected, people will say they did it to avoid the appearance of impropriety.
If Shane was selected, people will say it was nepotism.
By being off the committee they can consult with him and avoid the image.
Hopefully Eddie has some inside info from interviewing coaches and players etc and can touring around programs. Arians and Bud should be able to assess scheme and competency, the other members are there to look at leadership or team building or something I assume. I get the desire for outside perspective, but I would argue that we have it with Arians and Royal who make their hay outside of VT football.
The issue is have is only one of them isnt a Hokie and he's on the BoV. Get me some one from the outside to get their view. We need some one that doesn't love VT, they are just there to do the best job money can buy.
That's why there are others on the committee, and that's why these things are done as a committee, not by a single person.
I don't know, but I'm willing to bet Bruce Arians can weigh in on that.
Except I don't feel like the others on the committee hit any of these points either. Arians can say this is what a successful NFL office looks like, Bud can say things about the focus of a defensive scheme. None of them have been intimately involved with the portal, with NIL, and other emerging areas that a coach or his GM counterpart will need a definitive approach.
This is NOT true at all. There's one P4 school that has a GM hired before/in charge of hiring a coach: Stanford. Every other program with a GM - Ole Miss, OU, etc - had the coach hire the "GM"
I'm kinda annoyed that Bruce even suggested that we'd be hiring a GM first.
I didn't say that the GM hiring a coach was the norm, but that athletic departments adding a GM role is the norm. I am disappointed that Whit hasn't already determined the coach/GM power structure over the last few months.
GM is just the new, fancier title for Director of Player Personnel.
In my opinion, the search committee should be hiring a "President of Football Operations" or hire a GM that is the head of the football operations. That person then needs to be the one in charge of hiring the coach. The position would fall under AD, but is only hired and fired by the BoV and has direct reporting to the University President.
I have heard that CFB coaches want to select their own GM, so they can get player personnel that matches their scheme. IMO, that's backwards and a relic of how CFB was 5 years ago. This major shift towards paying players and signing players with an NIL deal every year needs to be performed in a capacity that can outlast a coach. It makes no sense to have the GM position to be tied to the HC.
That said, I do think there is an alternative in which their is a GM-like role that is essentially player personnel scout/manager that is selected by the coach and integrates the coach's philosophy into player personnel. In fact, I think that is important to ensure good coaching hires and that player personnel lines up schematically with the HC and coordinator philosophies.
In sum, there needs to be three hires: (1) a head of football that is long-term position, (2) HC hire, and (3) a GM-like position that is reflective of the HC. The committee should only be hiring the Head of football operations. And give any name you want to the positions, all that matters is the hierarchy.
It may be a backwards relic of how CFB was 5 years ago, but if the best coaches available prefer that dynamic, are we going to hire a lesser coach in order to adopt a modern org chart that the best coaches do not like?
There's a balance here. Right now, we need the best coach possible. And while I don't disagree with your three hires, the problem we have right now is that it would take too long to hire that first hire, which would interfere with the hiring timeline for the best of the second hire. Since we didn't get a new AD in the spring, we're forced to deal with hiring the coach first right now.
BINGO! You want to hire Dan Mullen, Matt Campbell, Shane Beamer, or another established coach? And you're going to tell them someone else is going to make personnel decisions for them? They will all tell you to get fucked.
So, are you willing to hire someone unproven in order to hire this GM? Let us not forget that this GM is also unproven because no one has done this job in the college game yet. But forget that. Let's say you poach Jim Nagy from OU, and ask him to hire a coach. How unproven are you willing to settle for? Are you willing to hire Tyson Helton? Will Stein? Bob Chesney? JC Price?
You are correct, there is a timing issue to have a chance in the 2026 season. With funding, the need reestablish fan support, and to optimize media revenue, it does make sense to get a good coach in place. And perhaps, the best option right now is to hire a coach and "his GM" as a pair.
A counter thought:
The GM position has 5 critical roles (probably more, but simplifying for this point): (1) business/budget, (2) player personnel selection , (3) scouting, (4) recruiting, and (5) maintaining a network to ensure recruiting success.
(1) and (5) are best handled by a University GM/team to outlast the HC.
(2) is best determined by a HC-selected GM/team intimate with the HC philosophy and vision.
(3) and (4) should be an integration of the University GM/team and the HC-selected GM/team.
It is not ideal to always have a new individual in charge of budgeting and relationships every time a new coach is hired. As such, I think VT (and generally any P4 school) should be finding a University-specific front office specifically for football. (Sure, every school has something within their Athletic department, but I think football needs to be it's own entity with its own front office completely separate of the AD front office).
Another thought: Now is a really good time to bifurcate the football department entity from the Athletic Department. Whit Babcock has some good qualities as AD, but also some major deficiencies. It so happens that his good qualities are more related to non-football sports and deficiencies are more related to football. With the BoV greenlighting a football-centric budget and Whit taking a reduced role in the football hiring process, it would be a good time to establish a football-centric entity with its own head of operations. And maybe Whit would be OK with staying on as AD with a major role change that essentially transfers all his football responsibilities to the "Head of Football Operations" (or whatever name you want to give that role).
Last thought: Arians suggested hiring a GM first, which I think is because he has an NFL-franchise model in mind. And Stanford is the only P4 school with a GM that is unassociated with the HC (I think). With the transient nature of HC positions, in a couple of years, Universities are going to wish they had taken a more pro-like or Stanford-like model that establishes a less-transient GM.
So, let's look at Ole Miss. They have a GM (Scott Glasscock) who owns "strategic planning, staff performance, program budgeting, staff leadership, player acquisition, roster and cap management, recruiting, player development and player retention." and Associate AD (Dr. Thaddeus Rivers) who owns "the day-to-day administrative operations of the football program including program budget, game day operations, team travel, and compliance."
Glasscock reports to Lane Kiffin (and makes about 10% of the Salary that Kiffin makes). Thaddeus and Kiffin both report to the AD (Keith Carter).
Unless the schools all decide to take this new approach, it's not going to happen. No proven coach is going to agree to this model. And because of supply/demand, the schools are going to cower to the coaches, unless... schools start paying coaches and players similarly. I don't think that happens unless/until players are given the same employment agreement(s) that coaches get.
In the Ole Miss model, the associate AD is the role what I mean by the University GM. In my ideal scenario, VT's committee would hire that position in Nov. to then have that individual hire the HC and his GM by Dec.
In the alternative, my hope is that the VT hiring committee hires a coach by December but would indicate to any HC candidate interviewing that VT plans to hire a Associate AD for football, essentially letting any coach know that they will have a stability in a boss and a specific boss that only has football responsibilities. This would reduce concerns about the uncertainty surrounding Whit and the Ath. Dept.
Based on the lack of discussion around this position, I don't think VT has any plans to hire an individual to this position. So, good luck to the hiring committee in luring an elite coach with the smell of sh!t all around the VT Ath. Dept.
I won't pretend to know all of the responsibilities that would need to be divvied up between the positions, but the concept of three roles does have some merit.
1) Coach-agnostic head of football in charge of long-term programmatic aspects and continuity during coaching transitions. Maybe high school relations belong here, as well as building relationships with agencies handling the transfer market, and possibly even peers at G5 schools for 1st dibs on upward/downward player mobility
2) Head football coach
3) GM chosen by and tied to the HC in charge of short-term football operations and specific player personnel related to coach and scheme
Not sure of reporting structure - maybe there are 2 AD'S reporting to the President, one for football and one for Olympics with #1 above being the Football AD.
I don't want to re-state all the things that have been said already but the overall sense I get from this is a process that is largely haphazard.
In my mind, there would be one of two reasonable ways to handle this:
1) Fire Whit ASAP, Hire new AD who hires football coach and GM/PersonnelGuy/Pay4PlayNegotiator (whatever you want to call it). Let the new AD fill the Athl. Department with their people.
2) Hire Football-only Director and cut Whit completely from Football operations. Football Director then hires Coaching, GM, Support Staff as needed. Budgets are separated totally.
What we seem to be doing is some weird middle-ground approach that by all appearances has no clear direction.
My overarching concern is this: we are chasing bad ideas with good money. We are going to throw a bunch more money at Football, then have a committee hire a new HC and someone hire a GM; then hand the reigns back to Whit. We then have someone in charge that clearly not alot of the fanbase trusts anymore, but just with more money to spend and the hope that the committee found the "right guy" as Football H.C. Beyond that, there's no guarantee that 8 people are going to have anymore insight or success---plenty of "great hires" have turned to shit. There are ultimately elements of timing, engagement, and pure luck in hiring a Head Coach that no one (or committee) can necessarily predict. And the early messaging is already producing some concerns that not everyone is on the same page. It doesn't look aligned or well thought-out strategically.
This gives me alot of similar feelings to the process that brought Belichick to UNC---and that inspires very little confidence going forward.
Edited: for better grammar and clarity
Agree with everything you say here.
This is a very common thing in college sports. Plenty of P2 schools have an 'Associated Athletic Director of Football' - this individual owns everything football related: Hiring a coach, game day logistics, football specific supplies, fan experience, etc
Still reports to the AD though if I am not mistaken. If it's totally separate you would have 2 ADs. One for football and one for all other sports and they both report to Sands.
Correct - that is how universities who have an Associate AD of Football structure it today
That is very unique. I haven't heard anyone suggest or use a model like this before. I'm not sure how practical this would be... is there a separate Hokie scholarship fund for football? Separate Hokie Club? I'm not sure if this provides any value?
I haven't seen it either but thats how it should be treated. One is a money making endeavor. the others are collegiate sports that benefit the student athlete but otherwise lose money. They should not be managed the same way or together.
Hokie Club I'm sure can just simply be split by a percentage. We have historical data there and also can be adjusted along the way.
I know the target is on Whit and if and when he goes I totally understand, but if I am in charge the first thing I do is remove Ballein from VT athletics. That may or may not involve his family. You can't have change if you don't change what lies beneath. I have not liked Ballein since Tyrod's pro-day fiasco and I have consistently heard not so great things about him from my limited but entrenched #sauces
Yeah I can't believe how Ballein has slipped under the radar in all of this funding/restructuring news. He needs to have been removed yesterday.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. There is very clear (in my opinion) institutional rot that is present in VT athletics, and every day that goes by without that rot being removed is an indication to me that there's a smoke & mirrors operation at play to obscure that rot's continued existence. Look over there! $200+ million in new funding! We're starting fresh!
But are we?
It just feels like the consequences of years of mismanagement hit a critical mass the weekend of the ODU loss, and the university knew that the fanbase was about to go nuclear, so they threw a bone by firing Pry - which was the correct thing to do - but it was only a half-measure if we're not serious about gutting Merryman down to the studs and truly starting over.
And I just am not convinced that they are serious about that. It feels like they want the fanbase to be excited for $200m in funding, but forget about who's in charge of those funds and what has gotten us here. If we allow Whit Babcock and John Ballein to slither around until the dust settles, and then go right back to their posts, we are not a serious football program, I don't care how much money we're investing.
100% correct, both of yas.
The page is not fully turned until the entire house is cleaned.
Yeah I can't believe how Ballein has slipped under the radar
I think that's why Frank isn't on the committee.
I'm not worried about the number of people or the make-up of the committee. Each is there for a purpose and it may not be because they are going to interview the candidates. Some of them have organizational expertise. Some bring $. Some provide political cover. Some have a name that lends credibility. Some have important contacts. And this isn't the AD/CEO search committee. I think Arians is the biggest football influence and we'll eventually find out if that was a good thing or not.
https://youtu.be/z5pPFOhL0ok?si=TViV-_vpq4oS1amO
VT is caught somewhere between a truth and a lie.
Dude I agree with your takes constantly AND you're an Andy Wood fan??
Did we just become best friends
We are officially buddies now.
Only thing I will say about the process is VT got thrown the NCAA curveball. The one portal from Jan 2 to Jan 16 was formally adopted today so whatever coach is coming needs to be in place to start working the portal if there is any hope of a roster makeover otherwise we are back in the Year -1 for the coach trend rather than Year Zero. Not sure if that had any influence but it meant needing the coach AND possibly the GM by them if GM has to work the portal/contracts side of the business.
I would be very surprised if there is not some level of legal challenge to the single Transfer Window. It seems difficult to reconcile how the NCAA can mandate this given the prior legal findings in cases where they have tried to place nearly any restriction on player movement.
I'm certainly not pushing for a bigger Transfer window (I think some level of regulation would be a welcome change at this point), but it would seem the same Anti-trust argument would apply here.
But your point stands, this could really handcuff VT (and other schools hiring coaches) as there is little ability to pad or enhance your Roster after that. Pretty much, what you have after Spring Practice is what you're running with if this stands.
Saw mention in a couple articles that the House Settlement gave the NCAA leeway in this regard. It wasnt really explained what in the House Settlement explains this.
The problem isn't necessarily a single transfer window, but moreso the timing of it. Teams hiring new coaches, and even teams in the playoffs, are at a distinct disadvantage.
Realistically, portal signing should take place after HS signing day in February because coaches would have a grasp on their rosters and staffing should be complete, but then no one can get enrolled for spring practice. That's why we had the second transfer window and early HS signing day to start with.
Given the restrictions driven by the school calendars, they really need to keep two windows. (Insert "we ain't here to play school" gif)
So, to go full circle, the problem is having just one window!
High school signing day should be in December if they are going to keep only the one January window
Why not just one signing period for both HS and portal transfers in June. ALL new players report to fall camp along with holdovers.
I think the new portal window greatly benefits us. Much easier to land a full coaching staff by NYD than it is to land a coach before Christmas.
I would hope we will know who is the new coach in December.
I'm not particularly worried about the process or what we hear that is conflicting. I know we all want to read the tea leaves and see the doom in every detail but almost everything could just be a simple explanation. Arians says GM first, then Whit say coach first. OMG its a shitshow already! or, they simply decided to take a different route to the solution. That happens all the time when you go through systemic change.
The only thing that is important IMO is the decision to make the change. That involves adding much needed funding, removing a lame duck AD from the decision and create a learned committee together to make the recommendation. Unless the committee breaks down in flames of disagreement and backstabbing the process is a success, no matter how many times they change the process along the way.
Of course, it doesn't mean the result is gonna be good, but the intent will have been correct.
You nailed it. This isn't a process where there will be public updates throughout. If anything, it will be incredibly secretive and any updates are intentional leaks from agents/etc.