#1 the consistency of the messages. Pulling in the same direction was one in particular. If one part of this program isn't working the right way or working hard enough, it's going to get addressed quickly, which leads into my 2nd observation
#2 JF's comment about playing favorites. Those that work their tails off and don't cause disruption are going to have a good time
#3 CMY's intro. Yeah he's the basketball coach, but I couldn't think of a better Day 1 "welcome to SW VA/Blacksburg/Virginia Tech" mentor. He came across really genuine and I was glad to see his involvement.
#4 Frank is getting up there in age and has really slowed down. I hope JF can turn things around quick enough for Frank to see this program restored to glory.
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I was a freshman Frank's senior year, and saw him play a number of times. How old do you think I'm feeling? I want JF to turn things around quick enough so ME MYSELF AND I can see this program restored to glory!
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There is so much slop and garbage put out on the social and video services (see Amazon's Fallout Season 1 recap) and this was just really sharp. Hoping this level of production keeps up.
Just need a horse on a treadmill to make it perfect.
edit: i asked AI to make me a gif of a horse running on a treadmill (because I thought it would be useful around here) and it create a photorealistic image of a horse on a semi-cartoon treadmill and asked me to confirm i wanted it animated. It then animated the image by moving the still image from right to left, but otherwise unchanged. All these companies and agencies are moving to AI. We are so doomed.
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Having split more firewood than most folks would ever see in their lives, I can say that there were two satisfying times in the process of heating with wood. The heat was the biggest one, but splitting wood with a splitting maul was my very close number two. Good wood and a below freezing day were the best. Frozen wood splits so nicely, and decades of experience finding the right place to hit made for an enjoyable task. Long after I quit cutting all of my wood and bought it cut, I still insisted on whole wood so I could split it.
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Lot of heating with wood was a pain in the ass, but I still miss a crankin' Poppa Bear on a bitter mountain day. Those days are gone for us at home, but I spent a lot of time dealing with it and I don't miss that.
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The guy who bought my farmhouse in Giles did just that. We had an old gas furnace for backup and mainly used a wood stove in that old house (1855, and all that that implies), and he took that out, put in a couple of heat pumps and an outdoor wood furnace and likely spent the first winter that house was ever warm upstairs and down. He owns 55 acres across the creek so he has lots of wood available and his furnace would accept all kinds and sizes of wood, so he could burn stuff I'd leave in the woods.
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I just tried splitting some with my monster maul a few days ago when it was cold as shit. The wood was frozen and those rounds would not split. Went back today, well above freezing and while they are tough rounds, I eventually split 'em. What a great workout and way to burn off some steam when I'm as wound up as I get at the dock lady, only this time it was at the Shitty of Richmond.
A buddy of mine has been sending me videos of some girls out west who make Instagram and Tiktok videos of themselves splitting firewood. Shockingly, they are attractive and have lots of followers... There's something out there on the internet for everyone.
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Never had a monster maul, just a regular splitting maul, and the more frozen the wood, the easier it was to split, as long as it wasn't knots or Y pieces. Don't know why you had that experience compared with mine, but over 40 years of splitting wood gave me plenty to go on.
As for the women out west splitting wood and the internet, I must agree, something for everyone. One of my clients had a kid in college who was making money on the internet selling his well worn and unwashed underpants. Maybe the internet shouldn't have everything?
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Oh don't you worry. I will try again. Probably up in the hollers of West Virginia around New Years. Half of the 500 acre property I go to there was selectively logged three years ago. There's more tree tops than could be cut, split and burnt in a thousand lifetimes.
One of my clients had a kid in college who was making money on the internet selling his well worn and unwashed underpants. Maybe the internet shouldn't have everything?
Hahaha, I think that's the whole point of the internet, to have everything!
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My wife's brother lives in one of them thar deep dark hollers in West B'God. Built hissef a pole building, no electricity, no running water. He moved there because there were no building codes, and lives what to me would be a miserable existence. Avoid him at all costs, though. He's an absolute waste of carbon.
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Well, he is definitely of the crust. What murders me is that he has a woods, a wood stove, but heats with propane he buys in small tanks. He has figured out how to keep his phone charged up so he can play on it all day, but it takes a gasoline generator to do that.
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There's a waste of good O2 that lives about a half mile down the road from me that sounds a little like that.
Run down bungalow type house, front door stays wide open year round, grass gets mowed once a year, there's at least 15-20 junk vehicles/equipment in the yard at all times, a small pin made out of pallets probably about 20'x8' that has 3 to 4 hogs in it, a small fenced in area that's probably about 50'x10' that has a couple cows/turkeys/chickens/pheasants/2 peacocks running around, numerous loads of trash and debris and hard to tell what else.
Dude doesn't work, has made a life out of workers comp lawsuits and from what i gather has been pretty successful in getting awards snd disability. There's not a damn thing wrong with him outside of being a lazy worthless POS.
His neighbor had two huskies and this POS shot and killed one of them one night because he "was pretty sure it was a coyote.". Keep in mind the neighbor has a fenced in yard just for his dogs. There's soooo many douchey stories i can tell about this POS; it infuriates me to no end.
To top it all off, i don't even think this dude is 30 years old yet.
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You win, for sure. My BIL is definitely something else, that guy you describe is off the charts. While I must admit, I have no relationship with my neighbor where I live now, and he's a piece of work, but it's nothing like you were talking about. Guess I need to be grateful for what I got.
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After watching that video, this is what came to mind.
It's been exactly two months since Franklin was hired. Every single day, for two months, this guy has been waking up really early and going home really late. In between, he's grinding his ass off to make this program one that can compete at the highest levels of the sport. We've got a legitimate dude, with a huge ax to grind to show the world that he and those he surrounds himself with can do it better than anyone else, working his tail off to restore us to glory. We may raise eyebrows over some hires here and there - we don't know how it or they will eventually pan out. Nobody does.
But what we do know is that we've got a guy who is willing to do what it takes to get us "there".
That's a damn good feeling.
Edit: I'm an idiot. It's been 25 days. Point still stands!
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I recommend the listen. There's a lot of comments where I was like "OH y'all never actually said that out loud"
Specifically the comments about 'Whit was asking for this for a while, but we were waiting until the board turned over before bringing this to the board'
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How much will the BOV change again with the change of Virginia's Governor? I dont know what that turnover process looks like and it worries me after we finally built up this positive momentum that the BOV changes could short circuit that. Just asking for process feedback.
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Members are appointed by the governor as you pointed out. Each term is four years, however, the terms, and on a rotating basis, so you'll never replace more than a small handful of board members each year.
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There will be five new appointments made (out of 14 total members) this summer. You can track whose term expires when here: https://bov.vt.edu/Members
The BOV is generally very deferential to priorities set by previous boards. New members generally take up to 1-2 years to get up to speed on everything, so I wouldn't expect any major swings.
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I liked a lot of what he had to say and getting a peak behind the curtain of the BoV, but I didn't like "Utah just did something amazing" in response to an athletic dept to model VT after.
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Listened, wish the sound was better. He mentioned BIG AND SEC and UNC having money ready to jump to BIG. Wish there had been more clarity on Hokie Club, Hokie Triumph, Hokie Way (which is a major TSL sponsor) and how they all will work going forward.
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I give them credit for not shying away from the Pry hire as DC. They both addressed it and made their case, hopefully it works out on the field. Franklin can certainly sell, come Fall it will be time to produce.
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Can build it, but what's the chance of living in it for 30+ years...if you aren't Frank. And when you don't, what's the market to sell it in a college town?
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Franklin does, not sure on Pry. Their house is where Bud made the initial pitch to get him to come here.
"Just honored to be here," Franklin said. "I want to thank the search committee. Those guys were relentless. Me and Fumi (his wife) were in Georgia. We have a place at Lake Oconee. We were there kind of just trying to get our minds clear and our hearts clear.
"Virginia Tech wanted to come and visit with us. We didn't really know that that night they were ready for an answer."
I saw an article once that said something like 84 D1 coaches or former coaches have houses there. Both Beamers do, Friedgen, Dan Mullen, Kirby Smart, Mike Norvell, Urban Meyer, Pat Narduzzi, Hugh Freeze, Steve Spurrier, Brent Key,
Manny Diaz, P.J. Fleck, George O'Leary, Todd Grantham,Jim Grobe, Rich Rodriguez, Chan Gailey, and Paul Johnson.
Bruce Arians also owns a house there.
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I am going to hope and assume that we should have more Nike merch available for sale this year with Franklin in the fold and the expanded demand you would expect.
Hopefully we get some more variety this year. The last few have been horrid for merch
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Comments
The catch phrase here is good.
Watched this last night, it was awesome. We are really trying to turn the corner into the modern day and I love it
Got my new signature from that video last night
Snapping necks and cashing checks!!! That's who that signature reminds me of. Love it!!!
Virginia Tech really does have some special people who love the place.
Franklin plays favorites: "High Performance and Low Maintenance."
Glad Franklin has joined the team.
A couple notes that I made while I watched
#1 the consistency of the messages. Pulling in the same direction was one in particular. If one part of this program isn't working the right way or working hard enough, it's going to get addressed quickly, which leads into my 2nd observation
#2 JF's comment about playing favorites. Those that work their tails off and don't cause disruption are going to have a good time
#3 CMY's intro. Yeah he's the basketball coach, but I couldn't think of a better Day 1 "welcome to SW VA/Blacksburg/Virginia Tech" mentor. He came across really genuine and I was glad to see his involvement.
#4 Frank is getting up there in age and has really slowed down. I hope JF can turn things around quick enough for Frank to see this program restored to glory.
I was a freshman Frank's senior year, and saw him play a number of times. How old do you think I'm feeling? I want JF to turn things around quick enough so ME MYSELF AND I can see this program restored to glory!
The VT Athletics channel also published this same video. Wonder why that would be the case.
Production note: this is very well put together.
There is so much slop and garbage put out on the social and video services (see Amazon's Fallout Season 1 recap) and this was just really sharp. Hoping this level of production keeps up.
Just need a horse on a treadmill to make it perfect.
edit: i asked AI to make me a gif of a horse running on a treadmill (because I thought it would be useful around here) and it create a photorealistic image of a horse on a semi-cartoon treadmill and asked me to confirm i wanted it animated. It then animated the image by moving the still image from right to left, but otherwise unchanged. All these companies and agencies are moving to AI. We are so doomed.
Or just a horse, being ridden by Sam Rogers, trying to keep up with Kevin Jones, being chased by Corey Moore
Where is David Wilson catching a rabbit in this parade?
He's doing backflips
He's too busy filming it all from the top of Cassell.
I have not watched the recap yet. I haven't rewatched season 1 like I rewatched all of Stranger Things because I vividly remember season 1.
It was so bad Amazon pulled it. AI slop, details wrong, plot points misrepresented, etc.
Playing CREAM as he's 'welcomed home' is such a microcosm for college football in 2025 lol
Still cant believe he is at Tech. Cannot fathom wtf Pedo Stare was thinking, but great for us. So excited
Thank you coach. I'll be right back, I have a wall to run through....
"I've got a huge chip on my shoulder..."
Exactly what I as a fan want to hear!
Yeah, I caught that too.
That was excellent. You can find me shotgunning Budweisers and hand splitting cords of firewood all afternoon.
I chop wood at my in laws lake house over the holidays and have bored out a hole in a nearby stump that I use as my beer holder.
Haha! Splitting wood is the most satisfying chore ever. I could do it all day. I'd also be jacked.
Splitting ain't bad. The sawing and stacking sucks.
Having split more firewood than most folks would ever see in their lives, I can say that there were two satisfying times in the process of heating with wood. The heat was the biggest one, but splitting wood with a splitting maul was my very close number two. Good wood and a below freezing day were the best. Frozen wood splits so nicely, and decades of experience finding the right place to hit made for an enjoyable task. Long after I quit cutting all of my wood and bought it cut, I still insisted on whole wood so I could split it.
I still love splitting wood by hand, but when putting up a whole lot I have to admit I love my kinetic splitter. It recharges in about 3 seconds.
Lot of heating with wood was a pain in the ass, but I still miss a crankin' Poppa Bear on a bitter mountain day. Those days are gone for us at home, but I spent a lot of time dealing with it and I don't miss that.
We have an outdoor wood stove and it helps a bunch with the power bill during winter and keep the heat pump off.
The guy who bought my farmhouse in Giles did just that. We had an old gas furnace for backup and mainly used a wood stove in that old house (1855, and all that that implies), and he took that out, put in a couple of heat pumps and an outdoor wood furnace and likely spent the first winter that house was ever warm upstairs and down. He owns 55 acres across the creek so he has lots of wood available and his furnace would accept all kinds and sizes of wood, so he could burn stuff I'd leave in the woods.
I built on 18 acres of which 13 was planted as a Christmas tree farm in the 70'a and forgotten. I have all the mature pines I could ever want.
I just tried splitting some with my monster maul a few days ago when it was cold as shit. The wood was frozen and those rounds would not split. Went back today, well above freezing and while they are tough rounds, I eventually split 'em. What a great workout and way to burn off some steam when I'm as wound up as I get at the dock lady, only this time it was at the Shitty of Richmond.
A buddy of mine has been sending me videos of some girls out west who make Instagram and Tiktok videos of themselves splitting firewood. Shockingly, they are attractive and have lots of followers... There's something out there on the internet for everyone.
Never had a monster maul, just a regular splitting maul, and the more frozen the wood, the easier it was to split, as long as it wasn't knots or Y pieces. Don't know why you had that experience compared with mine, but over 40 years of splitting wood gave me plenty to go on.
As for the women out west splitting wood and the internet, I must agree, something for everyone. One of my clients had a kid in college who was making money on the internet selling his well worn and unwashed underpants. Maybe the internet shouldn't have everything?
Oh don't you worry. I will try again. Probably up in the hollers of West Virginia around New Years. Half of the 500 acre property I go to there was selectively logged three years ago. There's more tree tops than could be cut, split and burnt in a thousand lifetimes.
One of my clients had a kid in college who was making money on the internet selling his well worn and unwashed underpants. Maybe the internet shouldn't have everything?
Hahaha, I think that's the whole point of the internet, to have everything!
My wife's brother lives in one of them thar deep dark hollers in West B'God. Built hissef a pole building, no electricity, no running water. He moved there because there were no building codes, and lives what to me would be a miserable existence. Avoid him at all costs, though. He's an absolute waste of carbon.
So you're saying he's one of the bougie West Virginians?
Well, he is definitely of the crust. What murders me is that he has a woods, a wood stove, but heats with propane he buys in small tanks. He has figured out how to keep his phone charged up so he can play on it all day, but it takes a gasoline generator to do that.
There's a waste of good O2 that lives about a half mile down the road from me that sounds a little like that.
Run down bungalow type house, front door stays wide open year round, grass gets mowed once a year, there's at least 15-20 junk vehicles/equipment in the yard at all times, a small pin made out of pallets probably about 20'x8' that has 3 to 4 hogs in it, a small fenced in area that's probably about 50'x10' that has a couple cows/turkeys/chickens/pheasants/2 peacocks running around, numerous loads of trash and debris and hard to tell what else.
Dude doesn't work, has made a life out of workers comp lawsuits and from what i gather has been pretty successful in getting awards snd disability. There's not a damn thing wrong with him outside of being a lazy worthless POS.
His neighbor had two huskies and this POS shot and killed one of them one night because he "was pretty sure it was a coyote.". Keep in mind the neighbor has a fenced in yard just for his dogs. There's soooo many douchey stories i can tell about this POS; it infuriates me to no end.
To top it all off, i don't even think this dude is 30 years old yet.
You win, for sure. My BIL is definitely something else, that guy you describe is off the charts. While I must admit, I have no relationship with my neighbor where I live now, and he's a piece of work, but it's nothing like you were talking about. Guess I need to be grateful for what I got.
Now I'm annoyed as hell that we have to wait until August for real football to begin again. Great work by the media team
Along this line, its been nice that the new coaches profiles on X seem to be coordinated too.
After watching that video, this is what came to mind.
It's been exactly two months since Franklin was hired. Every single day, for two months, this guy has been waking up really early and going home really late. In between, he's grinding his ass off to make this program one that can compete at the highest levels of the sport. We've got a legitimate dude, with a huge ax to grind to show the world that he and those he surrounds himself with can do it better than anyone else, working his tail off to restore us to glory. We may raise eyebrows over some hires here and there - we don't know how it or they will eventually pan out. Nobody does.
But what we do know is that we've got a guy who is willing to do what it takes to get us "there".
That's a damn good feeling.
Edit: I'm an idiot. It's been 25 days. Point still stands!
does seem like 2 months; dude is covering a lot of ground!
I mean, he spent a lot of time at PSU recruiting VT's incoming class.
That should count for something.
And as important, possibly more, he knows what it takes to get there because he's been there before.
It is rarified ground the "Been There".
We were there 25 years ago.Let's return.I think this is the first step.
Not sure how many steps it takes but, I'm sure of this one.
Let the man cook 👨🍳
Pearson goes on tech sideline.
He says that when they hired Franklin, the interest and the donations started rolling in.
I recommend the listen. There's a lot of comments where I was like "OH y'all never actually said that out loud"
Specifically the comments about 'Whit was asking for this for a while, but we were waiting until the board turned over before bringing this to the board'
How much will the BOV change again with the change of Virginia's Governor? I dont know what that turnover process looks like and it worries me after we finally built up this positive momentum that the BOV changes could short circuit that. Just asking for process feedback.
Members are appointed by the governor as you pointed out. Each term is four years, however, the terms, and on a rotating basis, so you'll never replace more than a small handful of board members each year.
Thanks
There will be five new appointments made (out of 14 total members) this summer. You can track whose term expires when here: https://bov.vt.edu/Members
The BOV is generally very deferential to priorities set by previous boards. New members generally take up to 1-2 years to get up to speed on everything, so I wouldn't expect any major swings.
I liked a lot of what he had to say and getting a peak behind the curtain of the BoV, but I didn't like "Utah just did something amazing" in response to an athletic dept to model VT after.
I thought that was quite interesting as well.
I would definitely call what Utah did "creative", but I'm not sure I would use the word. "amazing"
Listened, wish the sound was better. He mentioned BIG AND SEC and UNC having money ready to jump to BIG. Wish there had been more clarity on Hokie Club, Hokie Triumph, Hokie Way (which is a major TSL sponsor) and how they all will work going forward.
https://youtube.com/shorts/P2EGcU2XHqU?si=1Rv06OjhHhzFYGmW
That's an old school "athletic performance" 'stache at the end there.
Allman Brothers background music during the Pry section *chefs kiss*
I give them credit for not shying away from the Pry hire as DC. They both addressed it and made their case, hopefully it works out on the field. Franklin can certainly sell, come Fall it will be time to produce.
Yes but where will Franklin live now that the VT HC house won't go on the market? /s
Beamer's house is still available.
I think that one is going to be a tear down or maybe a full gut and rebuild.
Any where he wants with this contract.
The reason Pry lived in Fuentes house is because there aren't a lot of large high end homes for sale each year there.
These guys surely have enough money to build houses if they want, and there surely must be land near Blacksburg.
Can build it, but what's the chance of living in it for 30+ years...if you aren't Frank. And when you don't, what's the market to sell it in a college town?
Cost of doing business.
Nobody says it has to be a 15,000 foot house.
Also, it's not the worst problem to have.
Paying a mortgage on a house you aren't living in and can't sell?
It's doubtful they'd have a mortgage at these rates.
Not like he would spend much time in it. Working 10-12 hour days during the year and living at Lake Oconee in the summers.
Does Franklin/Pry have a house at Oconee, too? Or are you referring to Frank?
Franklin does, not sure on Pry. Their house is where Bud made the initial pitch to get him to come here.
I saw an article once that said something like 84 D1 coaches or former coaches have houses there. Both Beamers do, Friedgen, Dan Mullen, Kirby Smart, Mike Norvell, Urban Meyer, Pat Narduzzi, Hugh Freeze, Steve Spurrier, Brent Key,
Manny Diaz, P.J. Fleck, George O'Leary, Todd Grantham,Jim Grobe, Rich Rodriguez, Chan Gailey, and Paul Johnson.
Bruce Arians also owns a house there.
My soon-to-be BIL sold a boat to Todd Grantham a few years ago. Grantham texts him every offseason for basic boat help/questions.
The guy has so much money, but doesn't know how to not work. This boat was clearly his attempt to find a hobby, and he's so lost.
and now I know where to go to punch Chinballs in the face ...
Sell it to the next coach.
Hell, if the NIL monster keeps growing, you can sell it to one of the players.
Based.
These are well produced...I sure wish they were a bit longer
Or more frequent. Give me one every week 😭
That Greene v IBM battle got me pretty damn hype.
Setting the standard? I think they misspelled tone. Set the fucking (s)TONE!
Asking TKPers:
Anyone know where I can buy this hoodie? I need one.
Closest I could find. Script on this has a slight curve
Homefield
SWVA has a similar Gobblers one
SWVA
I am going to hope and assume that we should have more Nike merch available for sale this year with Franklin in the fold and the expanded demand you would expect.
Hopefully we get some more variety this year. The last few have been horrid for merch