Got this off Boneyard Banter after being keyed into on Twitter. I didn't think it was possible, but somehow the shenanigans that went off are even worse than it originally appeared, if this is valid. If so, I don't see a chance in hell we continue this series going forward. If we really were going out of our way to help them out before this all went down, all the rumored angst behind the scenes makes a lot more sense, especially given the financial hit we took.
Regarding the VA Tech game (long)
Fast forward to the hurricane. We communicate with their athletic administration that we want to cancel over the natural safety concerns. They respond by saying ok but let's wait another day to see what happens. Officially it's their call to make and to announce (it is their contracted home game) in a press release which they coordinate with us. But again protocol is they they take the lead just as we would for our home games.
Meanwhile unknown to them we've already decided we are not going to play and we make arrangements to send our equipment truck to Florida which they find out about on social media. Not only is that bad form, it may approache breach of contract on ECU's part. Of course their AD looks like a bad guy for complaining publicly as the narrative is ECU is acting in the best "safety interests of our student athletes". What is not as well reported is that their AD was working on hotel arrangements and practice facilities for our football team so that they could get out of Greenville have a place to go, play the game if possible and have a place to stay in preparation for traveling to our next game. In addition they were working with their contracted travel firm to secure a flight on their contracted charter carrier to fly our team out of Roanoke to Tampa. Most people don't know that their administration was trying to help facilitate all of this. Then they see on Twitter our equipment truck is on it's way to Florida before even ECU (violating proper protocol) releases to the press that we are canceling the game. (Tech officials clearly didn't have an appreciation for how broke our athletic department was which is why we were busing our kids on a 10+ hour road trip from Greenville to Tampa.)
Fast forward to our joint press release with NC State that we have scheduled a "make up game" at the end of the season. I'm read that Tech wanted a conditional game assuming they were in a position to qualify for their 26th straight bowl appearance. We of course wanted a sure thing so we did our deal with State as it was guaranteed to be played and they were paying more money. Again I'm told that Tech athletic officials read about this on social media and not directly from ECU.
Follow the link at your own peril. Boneyard Banter is a Sportswar site, so be prepared for full on TSL formatting if you go.
Update: There may be some validity to this whole thing. New ECU Athletic Director Jon Gilbert recently made public statements on his radio call-in show saying how vital it is to ECU that he works to repair the damaged relationship between both schools.
"We have talked and it's an important series," Gilbert said of communicating with the Hokies. "It's a series East Carolina has had back to 1956. The teams go back and forth. We travel well there. They travel well here. It's a good regional game. I think it is important. We want to be good partners and we want to make it work."
The contract for the series reportedly calls for a fee of $250,000 if a school cancels the game on the other. It remains to be seen how exactly the Hokies will pursue collecting such a payment moving forward, or if the scheduled 2018 game in Blacksburg will be postponed and rescheduled to a later date.
"I certainly think we've got to continue the dialogue and make sure they understand we see it as a valuable series and a valuable partner," Gilbert said, "and we want that to continue to play a part in our schedule."
Warning: If you do follow this link, don't read the comments. They will make your blood boil.
Update 2: All future games in Greenville have been canceled.
Comments
Oh my. Whit's displeasure is much more understandable now. I'd be pissed if my department was trying to work through all that only to be blindsided with a middle finger over Twitter.
Oh, hello Marshall. How's it hangin? How bout some Netflix and home-and-homes?
And... Reading some of the comments on that thread, to make matters worse, when Whit brought up wanting a refund on the $500k we paid them for the game, we wouldn't have been able to collect had we tried because they were broke and had already cashed that check.
No wonder you wanna pour a giant gallon of kerosene on the whole series & then piss & shit out the ashes.
Leg for the piss & shit part.
To be truthful, that kinda seems to be the theme of the commentary in this thread (in conjunction with Ecu).
What the hell are they paying Mike Houston with then? Giving him a portion of their plunder and stadium popcorn? Presumably Montgomery had a buyout...
This comment appears to have aged well over the past few days.
Ah, they traded a lucrative home and home series that had many years still to run for a one shot. No wonder their Athletic department is weak on cash.
It's a bad idea to make a power move when you have zero power or leverage.
Scared money don't abscond with other people's money while in breach of contract.
This deserves more legs than it has. Just sayin.
Wowza.
Supports my theory that Whit is a gentleman and a scholar.
As if we needed any more reason to love him. This shows again how important a proper AD is at the helm. We're trending up and doing it the right way while ECU still hasn't found the bottom. Even after they hit bottom they still have years of rebuilding ahead of them.
Thanks Whit!
After all of this they still lost to USF, if anyone was wondering.
I know I wasn't.
And got their shit pushed in by NC State. All is well that ends well.
So does this mean they aren't rescheduling the game during our bye week?
Any time I read about our ECU football series
Are they broke enough to cancel their entire football program? That'd be okay with me.
I'm not going to give my opinion because it isn't nice and my mom told me if I didn't have anything nice to say then I shouldn't say anything at all. What I will say is that I hope we are done with this series and work to replace them on the schedule with other opponents. And fuck ECU, kindly.
I know it's only been 20 minutes, but how does this not already have 10 legs?
I'll take, "things I don't want to see written in my lab notebook" for 500, Alex.
96 legs? I can only pray that it gets to 99 and stops. Living so close to the edge makes me feel alive.
Done. 99 it is.
Who is the heartless individual who cast the final plaid vote when I SPECIFICALLY asked to be teased. Be a man and make yourself known.
Oops. Saw the count at 99 and got a little carried away before I read your next comment. ( I reset to get you back to 99.)
Can't wait to tell my husband he married a man, though. 😂😂😂
Well it took balls. I don't deserve plaid anyways. Not some lowly lurker like me.
I reset my upvote. You're back to 99, but still plaid. Oh well.
New offseason activity: get a post to go plaid, then try to get negative votes on said plaid post.
If you REALLY need it, I can take mine away to put it at an even 98.
I'm proud to say I was the 100th caller that made this go plaid. It's so beautiful.
ECU can eat shit. Time to dump them.
Is it just that board format that makes everyone act like assholes to each other?
No, it's Greenville.
Honestly, maybe? Their format where you basically have to come up with a crappy clickbait title just to say anything at all comes across as inherently passive aggressive to me.
And the irony is that most folks try to make a title that doesn't require clicking.
Shady shady shady Fuck Em Don't Ever Play Them Again
Serious question - would it even be possible to not play them next year at this point? I have to imagine everyone's schedules are locked down and we already have a FCS game scheduled. If we play @ECU next year then I almost feel like we just play the home game against them in 2020 and then cancel the remainder of the series since 2021 was an off year anyways.
I think the only way to make this work would be to get another school involved (hello Marshall?) to do a "trade" of one of their teams for ECU to play and then we schedule that team. Marshall plays at Boise next year... maybe ECU would be willing to play on the smurf turf and Marshall travels to VT again? Interestingly they also play Cincy @ Marshall next year and I am sure Whit still has some connections there.
That's what I was thinking... No way we change up the schedule that much for the next few years.
After that, though, we already have a replacement scheduled for 2023 and 2024, and it shouldn't be too hard to find another replacement for 2025 and beyond.
Do what they did to us. Just last minute cancel the game @ECU next year, and have Marshall on the phone ready to go with another December game, if needed.
We should schedule based on our team's needs, not out of spite.
I'd make it clear to them that we're not impressed, but I wouldn't waste a lot of time trying to schedule a comparable team.
We have other things for Whit to spend his time and energy on. Like making VT athletics better.
FTFY.
Uh ... we have plans for December.
Whit should tweet we're cancelling the series. Let that be the way they find out.
But Whit has way more class than they do. I'm sure that there is a much classier and more impactful way than tweeting ...
Snapchat it
yeah so they have no proof and if you screen shot it we will know and say someone else had our phone!
Send them the D.
I was thinking to the Pit of Misery (aka Charlottesville) or the Wine Cellar.
Or tell them to go to Hell in a way that would make them enjoy the trip.
vine
I say we move the 2019 game to Blacksburg.
This aged well. I was half right.
I am starting to feel the same way about ECU as I feel about Pat Narduzzi. Screw those guys.
Narduzzi can go sex his own body.
Well he is a guy so he probably does this several times a day...
drink or is that now this works? for a min i thought jlander edited his original comment then i realized this was further down in the thread.
I feel that the Narduzzi self-servicing concept deserves it's own "disgusted Clint Eastwood" gif.
Probably deserves its own sideshow act in a traveling circus in Argentina.
RIP Sinbad
😢
Steve Harvey is that you?
I'll be honest, while I knew he wasn't Uncle Phil, I did do a double take & had to check up his Wikipedia profile to make sure he was still alive.
It was right after his genie movie in the 80s
I SWEAR IT'S REAL!! I SWEAR IT IS!!
Who knew being cash poor and without an AD could lead to bad decision making.
Curse of coach Ruff.
Once a butt pirate always a butt pirate
So how does that 50burger NCSU shoved down your throat taste?
So maybe I missed something, but how is the fact VT staff was doing all this work a surprise? It has been my assumption from day 1 of this mess that Whit and his team would look to help ECU, it's just what you do. And I would have expected the same from Weaver too. There have been numerous examples of schools helping ot other schools in times of need. Hell look at Tulane after Katrina. I don't think they played at home the entirety of the season, or practiced on the same field two weeks in a row.
I would love to say that VT is above and beyond because they were trying to help, but this is just what you do. This is normal to me. Which made me more frustrated when ECU went to Florida.
The one thing I also pull from this is that it was happening, and when ECU tried to make us the "bad guy," we weren't saying "but we've been working on all this for you". That's class.
I truly appreciate Whit's class thus far, but now it's time get the lawyers involved and get after that pirate booty.
I want video of Whit pulling up to the lawyers office...
I've been notably quiet and against the ECU rage for a bit on these boards stating we should wait till more information comes out about wtf happened cause it didn't make logical sense. This doesn't make logical sense and fuck ECU. Scum bag move, take Tech's money, take NCSU money, claim it all under the guise of safety.
Where do I collect my pitchfork?
I hear Nolley has a stash ready and waiting.
Free Nolley
ECU AD- roger dorn
WHIT- lou brown
ECU VS VT CONTRACT
Post of the year!
Awesome and perfect gif
If I were VT AD, the first thing I would do is sign a power 5 level apparel deal... the second thing I would do is get ECU, ODU and Liberty off the schedule. Whatever it takes. Schedule Colorado, Rutgers, and Kansas instead. The worst game is the game where if you win, you gain nothing and if you lose, you are a national embarrassment. Literally no-win situation. If VT lost to Colorado's red hot 5'09 walk on back up QB in grand fashion, nobody would know about it that didn't follow one of the teams. It's not on sports center, its not the first reddit post, etc. Its an ACC team losing a road game to a Pac 12 team. No brainer to me. Get these no-win games off the schedule.
I agree that I don't like playing these crappy programs (really my biggest issue is playing in their house). But the teams you mention also have aspirations of bowl eligibility and when they know they might not win many conference games, there's no way they'll fill up their OOC schedule with teams like Tech. They'll risk going 3-9 or 4-8 every year.
The OOC cupcake game helps with early season development as well. Tune ups.
The AD job is probably harder than it looks. I agree about the apparel deal. Should have played that one a little harder, but last time I checked the team had uniforms, and they look pretty good, so the box is checked and I can sleep at night.
I also don't like ECU on the schedule every year, but like it or not, those teams (or similar ones) do have a role on our yearly schedule, and I don't see traveling halfway across the country in order to fill the schedule with an easy team just because they're in a P5 conference. Adding travel time for a game we don't care about it just makes it harder to win the game the following week that we do care about.
Whit does an outstanding job, and he executes well. So I'm going to choose to trust him on these types of things.
VT has a serious revenue problem. One that would be helped with a better apparel deal than Marshall and ODU. We are getting raped by Nike, it's not cool or remotely funny. The whole "recruits like Nike" thing doesn't work for me either. We are bringing in around the 35th class in the country. Nike is not helping. Get a real apparel deal please.
Using terms like "serious revenue problem", and "raped by Nike" is a bit hyperbolic.
What does scheduling ECU have to do with the apparel deal or recruiting? They seem only tangentially-related.
Not really. We are the bottom 3rd of P5 in revenue, and UVA's nike deal is twice what ours is- for example. Both are true and not hyperbole.
What you're pointing out is that we're in the ACC, not the SEC or the Big 10. That's an issue in relative terms, but it doesn't signify "serious revenue problem" specific to our program.
And while it chafes my ass that UVa got a better Nike deal, and I think we could have done better, that's not an existential threat for our football program. I do agree that Whit should be leaning into Nike to fix that.
Neither of those, or the recruiting ranking, have anything to do with scheduling ECU.
I have absolutely no stake in this other than to say I picked up a UA VT shirt last month at the campus bookstore, and it rocks.
I try not to buy UA stuff because their founder and current board member Kevin Plank is a big Maryland donor. Puts me in the Nike camp, even if we didn't get the deal with them we should have.
In 2017, UVA had $5.5M more in revenue than Tech ($92.9M vs $87.4M). It is true that UVA made almost twice as much as Tech in their Nike deal (about $1.5M more). There are far larger factors than apparel revenue though. UVA had $10M more in donations than Tech ($26M vs $15.8M) and $5M more in student fees ($13.9M vs $8.9M). I'm not saying he shouldn't pursue a better apparel deal (and I'm also not suggesting we should raise student fees), but there is a reason he has rightfully placed a lot of his focus on the Hokie Club and growing our donorbase.
Source for revenue figures
Apparel deals also aren't straight cash going to the athletic department. Most of the money in those figures is going to actual apparel. It is also important to consider how many D1 sports a school has because that amount of apparel.
That's just comparing Nike deals though. A UA deal could bump us from 1.5M per year to 5-6M per year.
I'd like to switch over to UA myself
No P5 team is playing 12 P5 opponents in a year. Every P5 plays at least 1 game against a G5 team every year, most play 2 and some play 3. If your gripe is that we play the same ones over and over, I get that and agree. I would like see some variety, but its more likely going to be schools like Charlotte, Ohio or a directional Michigan. Its not going to be P5 bottom feeders.
If your gripe is that we go on the road to play these teams, while schools like Clemson and Bama don't, well that is a pure money thing. Paying a G5 school to just play at your place ain't cheap. Whit is thankfully moving us to more 2 for 1 deals which is probably about the best we can hope for with this in the short term.
While losing to a G5 ain't great. Your average non Hokie fan will have forgotten about it within a week or two. Do you really think that many people outside the VT and ODU fan bases are going to remember that mediocre VT team lost to ODU next year? We aren't the first P5 team to lose to a bad G5 school and we won't be the last. It really only matters if your in the hunt for the CFP, which we clearly weren't this year.
Do you really think that many people outside the VT and ODU fan bases are going to remember that mediocre VT team lost to ODU next year?
I'm not in the UVA fanbase, but I remember when their basketball team lost to UMBC.
VT fans know an embarrassing number of details about UVa sports that nobody else would care about.
That said, The number one seed in the NCAA tournament losing to a 16 seed is something most everyone is going to be aware of, as it significantly affected all the Final Four pools in the country.
Nah, I'm just pointing out that everybody shared the enjoyment of UVa's performance in the NCAA tournament last year.
Can't tell if that post is supposed to be /s or not. But comparing a first of its kind upset to something that happens multiple times a year isn't really a valid comparison. Will some UVA fans remember the ODU loss? Absolutely its what rivals do. Just like we will remember them losing to Richmond or W&M.
It's all /s.
I love it every time someone mentions the UMBC upset - it fit there so I posted it.
Not trying to rile anybody up.
Its hard to forget something that happens every year.
I'd prefer Ped St off the schedule also. Fuck their entire program.
I'd like to see VT beat them.
Let us schedule a game in Boulder. or Fort Collins.
oof. this is what happens when you do business with pirates
...on a budget.
To have a budget, wouldn't you need some kind of money?
This comment is so, so underlegged for its quality
Apparently, they do guidelines, not contracts.
Me reading the OP like
but seriously, fuck ECU, may we never play them again
ECU used the hurricane like a bunch people used the snowstorm last week as an excuse to not got to work after the roads had already been cleared.
Isn't that the only good thing about winter, Leonard? Bunch of bullshit snow is the best excuse.
Narc.
Lmao
If they're so broke as an Athletic Dept, why are they dropping $60M on another stadium renovation?
1.2 million dollar buyout on Montgomery + hiring a new coach too, http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/.
Paltry in comparison to the renovation costs you mention but still not insignificant for a athletic dept that we are hearing is broke..
Its fun that their fans on those boards are trying to paint the cancelation as a safety issue, that the ECU players/coaches/staff are all from the area originally and needed to do emergency preparation for the hurricane, completely disregarding the fact that they were already on a bus to Florida.
That one guy, username "duro?" I like him.
I blocked like 4 or 5 ECU fans on Twitter over discussions about who was at fault, and legal recourse.
Should I unblock and tweet @ them with this??
Nah. That's kinda petty. Just let it go
Totally petty
Yeah, I think he should do it
Truly mind-boggling to try and read some of that stuff. I get it, purple and gold tinted lenses just like mine are maroon and orange...but let's take those off for a minute and look at what Pir8mon posted:
THIS is exactly the point literally everyone was making! Hurricanes move fairly slowly in most cases and can change trajectories at any given time. The closer the Hurricane got to landfall the better expectations we had of what was going to happen. All VT was asking for was 24 hours to confirm plans. Bottom line is that safety was at the forefront of everyone's minds and finding out ECU bolted via social media leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. That hurricane could have just as easily (and more likely) turned south towards Florida...I mean come on, how many times have you ever heard of people evacuating a hurricane by going to Florida?!
There was literally no problem waiting from Tuesday to Wednesday to make plans--ECU already (clearly) had their stuff packed so it was as simple as getting on a bus and going NW or South. They can blame it on Whit wanting money and all that--but rumors are ECU cashed that check and then cashed another with NC State when the right thing to do would have been play the game in blacksburg in Dec and they didn't even do that.
At the end of the day it wasn't about money--that isn't what anyone is salty about. The fact that some of those Pirates are calling out VT's callousness towards safety is ridiculous. It was the fact that VT was bending over backwards at their own expense (20-30k just for the chartered flight) and eating in to their own profits to ensure ECU's safety. A nice addition would have been actually playing the game, but safety was the forefront.
And then in the midst of doing everything possible to ensure the safety and travel of the ECU program...we find out on social media that they have bounced when that is most assuredly not their call to make? And then they snub us in December when they can make amends? I mean they didn't just burn a bridge here...they absolutely nuked it.
I don't want to play ECU again, I don't like the majority of their fans as I have been to 2 ECU away games and been ridiculed each time with every step I have taken. I have rarely met a logical ECU fan like Duro. I absolutely love going to away games--seeing new venue's, meeting new fans, trying new food, etc. But ECU is one that I have long crossed off my list with no intentions of returning. Heck, I can remember going to a game when Vick played and getting cussed out (I was in elementary school at the time) with my dad imploring the raucous fans to notice the fact they were cussing out an 10 year old. And I get it cursing happens at games so parents need to realize it really is PG13...but I was genuinely terrified by this grown man getting in my face and cussing at me.
I am heartbroken for the amount of damage our state has faced with Matthew and now Florence...Player safety and health, family safety and health will always remain far and above any monetary gains. But to sit there and continue to belittle Whit when he was going out of his way to be generous really is the last straw for me with ECU.
Everyone keeps mentioning ECU having already cashed the check. So schools get paid for a contract in advance of the game? I guess that makes sense, if some of the costs are expected to cover travel/logistics, etc. Seems to me that at the very least only a partial amount should be paid in advance, and the remainder be paid once both parties have fulfilled their obligations agreed to in the contract.
Can anyone with more knowledge/experience of these contracts help me out here?
Like I said--rumors have it that they did. I have not heard confirmation. But I work in fulfillment and what you described is pretty normal in the real world...down payment, payment for construction, payment upon receipt, final payment after approval. Percentages vary but those are usually the four stages.
I would think there would be some amount of money not paid until the game is played...as in, they would agree to a base amount and then a percentage of the tv revenue or something, idk. All that being said--it is just rumors at this point but it seems to me (Between the lines) that this may have occurred.
I've heard the opposite (i.e. they didn't get paid from VT). From what I understand, the "sue us for it" was referring to the cancellation fee.
That doesn't absolve ECU's "leadership" of being complete jackasses, though. They've likely cost themselves a long-term P5 partner.
To The ECU AD:
In regards to a secondary reply in the thread from the OP on the ECU site-
I grew up in southern VA and rooted for them back when Bill Dooley was the coach. Lots of family connections there. I watched them go 8-3 in 1983 and sit home because Carolina in all of there arrogance refused to accept a Peach Bowl invitation if they had to play Tech. (Of course as fate would have it my Pirates faced the same fate the very same year.). UNC hated the fact that Bill Dooley had left them to go to a "pathetic low life back water school" like Tech.
Just wanted to clarify (though not enough to setup an account at ECU's site) that VT finished not 8-3 in 1983 but 9-2 --- AND after UNC LOST to UVA 17-14 the week before, the Hokies thrashed UVA by a score of 48-0 in 'the 83 Squeaker', (the year we tore down the goalposts in Scott Stadium!) . We were snubbed by the Peach Bowl (and all the other bowls as well) in favor of UNC where the Heels got throttled 28-3 by FSU (who themselves were 8-4 WITH the bowl win). Yet another reason to hate on UNC! (and tangentially FSU). This was Bruce Smith's junior year when he had 22 sacks in just 11 games!
Yeah, the more I hear about the "Carolina Way," the more I hate their guts. Sounds like a bunch of pretentious, entitled losers who don't truly practice the values they claim to espouse. Seems like they backed out of that bowl with us because they were afraid of being obliterated by that backwoods school. I think they subscribe to the Andy Bernard rule of competition.
There was a rumor back in September that they wanted to move the game to Orlando just so that they could rob us of home-field advantage.
Joke was on them. We sucked at home.
I had that locked and loaded, but couldn't pull the trigger. It hurt too much.
Have your leg!
Lucky for us, UVA is awful in the state of Virginia
Am I too late to join the fuck ECU train?
Hop on. There's plenty of room.
having heard stories of what goes on there, its never too late to jump on an ECU fuck train
0/10 can confirm, after visiting Greenville I had to bathe in bleach
'77, Greenville, Rosemary, 151 rum, peak experience. I'll say no more.
Since joining the Big East I would argue that the ECU series has been a low value series for us.
The only NC advantage is the Duke/UNC games are away and home in same years so with ECU on mirror of that you get a game IN NC every year.
The last few years the VT-ECU game here in the state has been on something like CBS Sports Network, which doesn't even exist on many tv plans. If we're going for exposure within the state, a game at ECU barely moves the needle.
No but it gives kids from Eastern NC, NE SC and 757 a easier and closer chance for their family to come see them play in a game.
I think we should give Dalton Keene's family an easier and closer chance to see him play in a game.
Is that because I live in the same state?
Yes, yes it is.
https://hokiesports.com/news/2018/12/21/virginia-tech-announces-upcoming...