LINK.
In depth talk about VT/the state of Virginia starts at 57:00, and lasts about 5 minutes. I tried to transcribe it, but it was too difficult given my mediocre keyboard/listening skills. Instead, I just summarized the conversation and listed a bunch of quotes I found notable. I recommend listening to the whole thing so you get the complete context of the conversation.
Starts out with Godfrey talking about VT/Fuente culture fit:
I've always thought Virginia Tech was cool, always known Virginia Tech to be innovative, lethal, fun, enter sandman, crazy, crazy, Appalachian rednecks, and you know, some of the best football talent in the world coming out of Newport News. You know, obviously the Vicks, but remember Deangelo Hall.
This is a different V-tech, it is just weird. I'll say this as many times as I need to say this, I called Fuente to Virginia Tech the best cultural fit for both sides that I've ever seen, and it is not working out.
Richard Johnson responds with:
I think you may have errored on calling it a culture fit; I think what it actually was was the lockstep of Whit Babcock, the AD, and the coach in Fuente. I don't know if that's a culture fit as much as it is a top level administrative fit. Willie Taggart at FSU is a cultural fit.
Other interesting discussion topics/quotes include:
- Godfrey talking about how Beamer was able to unified the poor, white, coal mining, and farming communities in SWVA with the black communities in the tidewater, then the DC projects with the NoVA suburbs, and eventually the whole state. He goes on to talk about what a remarkable accomplishment this was. "Tech was doing something culturally with white and black that you didn't see a lot."
- Godfrey thinks what Justin Fuente did at Memphis was truly incredible, and admits that he isn't sure how much credit to give Norvell, because he thinks that Fuente did all of the hard work there. This is all to say yet again that Godfrey is surprised that Fuente-to-VT hasn't worked as expected.
- Richard Johnson thinks that VT has lost the ability to bridge the cultural gap between the different races/cultures in the state, and that this is what made VT cool back in the day. He doesn't think that Fuente can't win at VT, but that he'll have to find his own way to win and be cool at VT.
- Godfrey shares an opinion of Bud Elliott, who believes that VT "may have never been able to last as a brand, and was a moment, not an institution... ...Any time there's not a ton of talent available within a 100 mile radius, your program is subject to some valleys (*Ahem* Tennessee)"
- Godfrey says that VT was the first program to make Thursday Nights and Punt Teams cool.
Comments
The race comments are interesting, and not something you think about with VT football.
However, the Ford recruitment saga highlighted the race gaps. Losing TG probably hurt a bit. JHam and keeping Burden on staff will help bridge the gap.
Everyone has black coaches. It's being able to recruit the high populated black communities that truly "bridge the gap", such as Hampton Roads.
I wanted Dino Barbers to be hired as the head coach when Beamer retired. I think he could have bridged that gap in the 757 to help with recruiting. He can also coach. I think a team needs both in order to succeed. If the head coach can only do one, then the head whistle needs to hire assistants and coordinators to off set his weaknesses.
Did you listen to the conversation or just read my summary points? Not judging, but just curious because I think I failed to capture the true context of the conversation.
I think when you listen to the conversation, you understand that it wasn't about just bridging the gap between races, but more about melting together these 5+ completely different cultures within the state (DC projects, NoVA burbs, 757, SWVA, Richmond); and that's something that requires more than just a bunch of young, black coaches.
I guess Coach Fuente needs a little more of this...
and less of that...
Haha, I mean, you're sort of right.
Brenden Hill has brought it up before but I dont think it's as big of as an issue as people make it out to be, but you do need to have a representative staff. Having said that, you had an old crusty white dude in Jim Cavanaugh getting the best talent out of Richmond and other areas when he was recruiting. I think at the end of the day it comes down to having a personality not necessarily what race you are. If that was the case, Nick Saban would have all white players at Alabama.
When I mean representative staff, I'm talking about not just regarding race, i also mean age as well. Like Zohn Burden and Justin Hamilton are younger so they can relate to kids easier because they are closer in age.
I was thinking of the AMA with Hill when I saw this as well. However, I don't think it is just a football team thing, the University overall has an issue with not enough POC (to use the terminology that I recall he used).
It may be better now, but I do remember when I was at Tech in the late 90's it was very very white.
Beamer "bridged the cultural divide" by winning football games, and he won football games by realizing that you could win games by scoring with special teams and defense. The team developed an identity because things were working.
When Fuente starts winning, he'll get the mojo he had at Memphis back.
But hats off to Beamer, as he was a true classic, and did figure out how to win football at VT. And Beamer AND Foster developed the VT football traditions. I guess this wasn't ever going to be as easy as Fuente made it look in his first year.
I dunno why, but I have an undeserved trust in Fuente. It probably shouldn't take this long, but I feel like in 2 years before he will really get on his feet momentum wise.
I mean, I still have faith (not confidence) in Fuente due to the work he did at Memphis. And I think/hope this enormous buy out will prevent our athletic dept from acting too hastily.
Until I see quarterback play that inspires confidence and a stop to the non disastrous offseasons, I'm not sure I have faith or confidence
That's not what faith is though....
The whole point of having faith is to believe in something when everything may not be hunky-dory.
You also need something to start that faith. I'm not gonna have that blindly.
I mean, Fuente did a nice turnaround at Memphis, had a nice first season at VT, and had a couple of nice recruiting classes at VT. So it's not exactly blind faith.
I know it's a little different in the ACC, but it's worth giving him a little bit of leeway this season and next, since he's likely going to have that anyway, and it also seems to me that there's a decent chance we'll be seeing some significant improvement.
Nobody at VT enjoyed last week's game. Nobody. So let's just hope we see some significant improvement tomorrow.
Fuente did have a nice first season at VT. However, he had the luxury of inheriting Beamer's recruits who had already been developed under another staff. Also, he had the benefit of knowing how to best utilize these players which aided him with roster management. Which some believe this to be an area of weakness with the current staff. Fuente did bring in Jerod Evans who did a great job at VT. I am not sure Fuente can be credited for developing Evans. He also didn't stay around long at VT. I think Fuente can be a decent coach if he has help in all of these areas. Not sure he has the coordinators or staff to be successful. And I am very concerned with who he chooses to replace Foster.
Fuente went 10-4 in his first season at VT, went to the ACC championship game, and won his bowl game.
Beamer's last four seasons were 7-6, 8-5, 7-6, 7-6.
So I think we do have to give Fuente a little credit for coaching that season. I think we also have to acknowledge the recruiting classes and player departures during the transition period, as well as the improved recruiting classes he's managed until this year, which is partially affected by the small class size, and we have to acknowledge the youth on the team.
VT still has a relatively young team. We'll find out a lot about them this year and next.
My following comment is in no way intended to be a contrast between Beamer and Fu as I don't think I know much about Fu. But, I've always thought Beamer connected well with people of different race / backgrounds because he treated everyone the same way.
You mean kids want to play for Saban because he wins and not because he's "cool" and "young"? /s
I think these guys are jumping the gun a little on Fuente "not working out" at VT. Things were great in 2016. I think if we can get back to winning this year all the noise will fade away.
Agree, but if we keep trending the way we have been they are not wrong. We have the rest of the season to see if we can correct the ship.
There are so many different viewpoints on what 'correcting the ship' means for this season. Personally, I believe 8 or 9 wins is the ceiling for this year's team. I always had BC in the toss up category, so I'm not especially surprised at the loss.
At this point 9 to 8 wins is fine by me, but he is going to have to win some games we aren't expected to win along the way. We have no positive buzz as a program and that is big problem right now and we are feeling it in recruiting.
This is what I think a big portion of the fan base is tired of. We upset anOSU in 2014, Have we had a win since then that wasn't expected? Arguably our next biggest win was vs WVU.
It's not even that we haven't had a win, it's more that we haven't even been remotely competitive and just get walked all over in these big games.
I think the acccg was competitive, we were driving for the would-be tying score late in the game. Against the eventual national champion
Yes but that was 4 years ago.
You have think present day.
As modern day marketing and businesses get more agile, they have to research the sentiment of their product (in this case the team perception).
Today's perception of the team is a sinking ship. Recruits leaving left and right as one of the biggest portal transfer schools. A brutal season where we barely got into a bowl, and a real shitty recruiting class.
So a sentiment about the team from 3 years ago, especially after a disaster of a season has long been gone at this point.
If I was doing the marketing there I would be trying to pump out some images that show us in a positive light and try to flip the narrative.
Sadly if it can't be flipped Fuente is dead in the water. No matter how good of a coach he is if he can't flip the perspective he's going to have a hard time recruiting the right level kids to be successful at tech.
Script can be flipped fairly quickly with wins.
Exactly my point.
9 wins would be a goddamn miracle to me. That's 9-2 the rest of the way....that seems incredibly unlikely.
On one hand, I agree. On the other hand, the talent pipeline isn't looking great right now. I'd feel differently if we were doing better in recruiting.
It was tough to listen to that and hear Godfrey mention that among coaching circles there is a growing respect for what Mendenhall is doing at UVA. It seems like the industry opinion is that Mendenhall has UVA trending in the right direction. The question will be how high their ceiling is under Mendenhall. Will he turn them into a P5 version of BYU with a minor talent upgrade, or will he be able to ascend to upper tier P5 recruiting and make them a super version of BYU? I tend to lean to the former, though we are all certainly biased. The latter option, from the most objective POV I can take, seems like the pipe dream every fanbase tells themselves with a new coach, but rarely turns out to be the case.
Either way, I think Mendenhall has UVA headed towards an increased level of consistency.
At UVa, there was nowhere to go but up.
Fuente has had a lot more turmoil, but he had the more difficult assignment replacing a legend, and trying to keep the wheels on the bus with a lot higher expectations.
Hopefully, VT will recover after stumbling out of the gate this season.
I think some of that is jaded by the O&M glasses.
UVA was one of the worst teams in P5, they've only just recently found an AD who is showing some commitment to football, they have terrible fan support, their facilities are decent, but nothing earth shattering, they were a clear #2 (3?) in the state, recruiting has been a slog...
Let's not act like UVA doesn't have it's fair share of challenges, and Fuente created some of that 'turmoil' too. I'm not sure how to objectively look at it and say CJF had a more difficult job given what he had walking in the door. Have to give credit where it is due - CBM has done a much better job so far than I think anyone would have expected.
The start to Fuente's tenure was extremely favorable for early success. He inherited a bunch of veteran and NFL players from Beamer on defense and at the skill positions, and all he had to do was snag a good JUCO QB (kudos to Fuente for this) and got a 10 win season out of it.
It takes one 30 second look at our 2016 depth chart to realize he walked into a great situation for a strong first two seasons. There were some depth issues developing behind that, but he had a few classes to try and bridge that gap. Hopefully 2018 was the gap year between the new talent and the old lack of depth.
That's why this season and 2020 should be very telling years about where we are headed IMO. Year 4 in his system, almost exclusively his guys in the program, now it's time to see what we have.
2018's turnover on D was insane. IMO we could have fielded another great defense it wasn't for the 'extra' turnover leading into the 2018 season, even with the secondary replacing 3 of 4 positions.
Instead, 8 positions turned over, including some losing 2 layers of depth compared to 2017's lineup. We were definately going to be thin and DE and DT and that's why Hill going full jerkmode and Settle going pro so early were major major problems, especially when you factor in the DL injuries during the season (Walker, Gaines, Mihota all missed multiple games). Then both the veteran CB's expected to take over get lost for the season and their young backups have to step in.
'normal' turnover = 4 starters (Stroman, Facyson, FS Edmunds, Moto).
2018 'extra' turnover:
early departures = 2 starters (LB Edmunds, Settle)
season-long/attrition = 4 starters (Alexander, Webb, Reynolds, Hill)
I'm with you on 2018. I don't think that recruiting created ALL of the 2018 problems when you consider all the extra-curricular attrition we had. We lost a lot of important guys who still had years to play for non-football or injury reasons.
This was my point. Nowhere to go but up. They were never the worst in the P5 talent wise, and Mendenhall inherited some pretty decent players. He's done pretty much what he said he'd do.
So, no O&M glasses there. But I'm also not wearing Blue and Orange just yet.
If you asked 100 unbiased people who had more rebuilding to do when hired, Fuente or Mendenhall --- 85% would say Mendenhall.
And if you asked the same 100 people who has their program's momentum moving in the right direction more at this point, a large Majority would say Mendenhall.
Fuente may have had "more expectations" but to imply that he had a harder job to do than Bronco is silly.
There was nowhere to go but up if you just did basic coaching things at UVa.
So yeah, getting to 7-5 is a step is hailed as "genius" at UVa, and getting to 6-6 was "failure" at VT for many fans, and grounds to question Fuente's every move.
I don't think either coaching job is necessarily harder, but Fuente has a lot more expectations of players and fans to manage. His challenges in following a legend were just different.
I'm maintaining, as I've always said, that the jury is still out on Fuente. I think his recruiting was better, but he's also having to play seasons with more youth than Mendenhall.
It pains me to see UVa looking so good. Perkins is for real, and yes, even though it was W&M, last night they looked a lot like a team I could see myself rooting for if they weren't the damn hated 'hoos. It also pains me to think that Mendenhall has done what I never wanted to see done up there, and that's get the fan base "sorta" interested and the players buying in to his newly established "culture".
The jobs were definitely tough, but given the starting point and talent level, I'd be hard pressed to argue that Bronco hasn't done a bang up job and while I agree that the jury's still out on Fuente, I do think an argument can be made that Bronco's done a better job with everything except beating VT. That said, I'd wager that if Perkins goes down, so do the 'hoos and their rosy predictions. Lotta ball before we meet, though.
LOLUVa fan at work was trying to convince me that Perkins is as good as MV7 was...
No, no, a thousand times no. Not close, really, but as close as they're likely to see. Right now, though, I might consider a straight up trade with them.
True. But this ain't 1999 either.
* duplicate *
Mendenhall has done a decent job, and he really lucked out on Perkins.
Perkins is OK, but he's exactly the QB UVa needed. Good decision-making, elusive, and can make something out of nothing. But nowhere near the MV7 level. Just the right fit at the right time for UVa.
Fair to say Perkins is their Tyrod?
Perkins isn't as good as Tyrod.
He's a decent decision maker, can make you miss, and can keep plays alive.
I don't see him as a brilliant passer.
They were running QB sweeps/draws with Perkins up 40 on W&M.
UVA might be their own worst enemy if they continue to work horse him like that.
That was an interesting listen and different than what you hear most places and does more than just scratch the surface.
I get the uniting the state, not sure it was ever much about race and white/black. Beamer's run and what he did will never be repeated anywhere. There won't ever be anything else in Football like that ever again. Everything from Bruce Smith, to Mike Vick, to special teams and lunch pail, and the legend of Bud, to Enter Sandman and Thursday nights and College Gameday, it really was extremely cool. And that made it easy to recruit the top talent in the state of VA.
This comment was the most interesting...
This is a great point, but Beamer was successful because his staff recruited the state of VA so well. We've lost the ability to recruit VA in the same way. We need to get that back. The negative recruiting against Beamer towards the end of his career really damaged our ability to recruit the top talent in VA. And other national programs simply became more accessible.
We all have loved the NC2VT movement. But I wish Fuente would put all his chips into recruiting VA. It does so much for the identity and branding of the program when you have an in-state pipeline like that. Kids grow up seeing older kids at their school/neighborhood going to VT and they want to do the same. We have to dominate the state; if we don't we will have the valleys. Right now, kids are growing up seeing the best players in their neighborhoods/schools going to Clemson, FSU, Bama, etc.
Bruce Smith was before Beamer's time but otherwise I think you have valid points. Personally I don't think we should bank on ever "locking down the state" though because of the way college football has evolved over the past two decades (scouting/Hudl/regional camps, every FBS game televised, ease of video chatting with home, etc.).
Just listening to this today: I don't dislike Bud Elliot, but he has a bit of a history of throwing jabs at VT, and seems to think we only dominated the ACC early on because the "traditional powers" were having a down time. While that's probably partly true, I find that rich coming from someone who's preferred school (Florida State) has been mostly irrelevant of late other than the Winston national championship, and considering Miami still has yet to actually win ACC.
So I tend to take his opinion on VT with a grain of salt.
I am also skeptical of Bud's opinions on VT historically. Godfrey and Richard Johnson are much less biased on the subject.
The powers may have been down when we dominated the ACC, but FSU and Miami had a ton of talent in those years and just weren't up to snuff. They have no one to blame but themselves for that. Not to mention, that's be largely the norm post early 2000's for both of those programs anyway. 2017 was a (overrated and lucky) blip on the radar for Miami, and 2012-2014 was a three year window surrounded on both sides by largely underachieving and unspectactular play for FSU sans a solid 2016, that still wasn't up to that 3 year standard. Clemson had talent, but had not been very relevant in the ACC since 1991, so it's not like we were in some super small window where they weren't successful, they hadn't been consistently good since the 80's until 2011 onward.
I actually think he's spot on. We dominated in a period where there were no real contenders in the ACC. We also failed to make the necessary, long-term moves/investments (focusing on building up the Hokie Club, turning down the SEC, etc.) to cement our place, and we've been paying for it since 2012.
Agree with most of this, but I don't think we were ever invited to join the SEC...
So yes; we never received an official invitation, but my understanding, from discussions I had with folks in the Athletic Department back then, was that we did not reciprocate their interest, and they moved on.
Now maybe I'm mis-remebering that conversation, or maybe that person was just wrong. There are more connected folks than me. So I'll welcome a correction.
Hindsight being 20/20, I think getting $30-$50 million a year for the last 5 years (from the SEC network alone) would offset the extra travel costs and would have given us a large edge in recruiting, as we'd be the only SEC team in the Region besides UTjr.
Mike Slive wanted VT for the mid Atlantic market pretty badly. Crazy to think how things could/would be different by now if that move had happened.
Yup... they wanted to expand to the west with A&M and to the east with VT. We weren't interested. So they went after Missouri.
Think about VT-A&M as an annual cross-over rivalry game instead of VT-BC....
I like the ACC overall, but man A&M & Tech are two of a kind in many many ways..
The issue is that while you may have these thoughts about Bud's opinion, it gets out there and starts to influence the perception of VT.
You hear all the time about someone referring to someone else or using a big name and then using it as a defense on their point.
That is my biggest concern, is if enough people out there continue to talk badly about VT, it only grows and gets worse. Then before you know it, we have major issues while actually not having any at all.
You crush the critics by winning games.
Does anyone think we'd be having this conversation if we'd won last Saturday?
Yeah, I was going to add that, but figured that would be implied, haha.
If we win out the rest of the season, or win and only lose one or two more, then everyone will quiet down.
It will also resolve all this bridging and other issues.
At this point, Saban and Dabo don't really have to talk or do much of anything other than continue to win and kids will want to continue to go there.
I was actually on Bud's now twice weekly Twitch stream as part of Banner Society before wk 1.
And setting aside his thoughts as an FSU guy on VT as an institutional rival. He was very hi on VT preseason, and even had VT -3.5 as one of his plays of the week.
So I think some of it was that our result was so different from what he was expecting, and obviously plenty of us in that camp.
Godfrey has carefully walked his way into the VT concern waters on PAPN over the course of two years, and it has always scared me. At very first I dismissed it, and slowly as we struggled in numerous ways it was a difficult opinion to fight. Like him or not he seem pretty well connected to coaches, boosters, etc. I'm not saying he has or is using those resources with respect to VT, but the thought that he knew more started to scare the hell out of me.
This was an okay effort to cover VT and the Fuente era, but it's late on the clock and tone-deaf. Saying that Fuente can't bridge gaps between black and white people and that he was a bad cultural fit? I can't even hear this racial argument, and until someone can "disconnect" the dots from the type of guy Fuente is at his core, vs. what VT is all about as a football program and institution, I'm calling this a bullshit "air-filling" reach. I like Fuente's character and he IS a good cultural fit.
Once and for all, y'all, from my perspective: Justin Fuente has an incredible offensive mind. His staff recruited and retained strong talent all over the offensive side of the ball. VT's offense can do things systematically that no offense I can remember ever has. VT has experienced a massive amount of attrition at key spots over the last 2 years offensively and defensively - some to the NFL, some by being kicked out, some by their own choosing for more PT, and some by their own choosing because they didn't like the way things were being handled at VT....right? First and foremost, our starting quarterback will take the field for Maryland this week. Some things you can do something about, and others you can't. With Jackson at the helm last week, I call VT by 20.
Fuente has to evolve as a leader. Having core principles and a culture of how things get done is a great start for Fuente, but the results have screamed tweak and he's clearly doing that. The results that spawned from some of his past ways have put a drag on the program's momentum, and having a really solid year from here on out can advance things rapidly.
For the rest of the year, I am looking for a Coach that is building his groups up at every turn, and a team that plays with discipline and sticks together. If we do that, everything else will take care of itself.
I agree with most of this, but our starting quarterback is taking the field in Lane Stadium tomorrow.
Thanks. Yes, that is true - I think you see the point I was trying to make and it wasn't meant as a disrespect to Ryan. He deserves support. He played horrendously last week and largely cost his team the game with poor decision-making. Hoping to see the guy improve.
I thought he played well aside from forcing passes into double coverage a few times (worked out a couple times, got picked a couple times) instead of going to a check down or to a single-covered option.
"team that plays with discipline"
This is all I want at this point. A team that isn't constantly making mental mistakes, and a QB that takes care of the ball, whether that's Willis or not. I feel like those two things are something we haven't had in ages, and would at least prove to me that Fuente really cares about the "expected outcomes" he harps about all the time.
We only had 4 penalties for 20 yards and they were all false starts. No game changing personal fouls or PIs, which we had at times last year. No doubt there's plenty of room for improvement and we all want to see faster progress, but it wasn't all bad or repeating the same mistakes as last season, which many appear to be buying into.
I'll agree though that the thing that matters the most by far is the outcome of the game, and that was the same result as too many games last year.
I do think the defense improved outside of some catastrophic blown coverage here and there.
But the offense still just looks nowhere near the level it was in 2016. I realize we have younger players, but man the QB play overall is just worrying for me
I agree QB play is concerning and I'd guess it's pretty concerning to Fuente as well given that we brought in Burmeister and Kadum. I wasn't overly impressed with Willis last year and last week was brutal so it'd be a relief to see progress. At this point I'm weary of Hooker's development, but we've seen that happen with comparably rated QBs (Lawson, Whitaker) so it wouldn't be a huge issue in and of itself. Also I accepted that QP would need more than the typical time to develop so, once again, I wouldn't be alarmed in isolation.
Ultimately the issue emerges when all of those isolated issues add up and we aren't able to field a QB to run the offense at an effectiveness closer to Jerod Evans level. I think almost every can agree we need more from the QB position. Fuente seems to recognize this as well and is bringing in guys to compete but until one of them takes the reigns and shows something more, I completely understand that it only gets harder not to be skeptical.
I was surprised when I saw the facts on total penalties, some did come at costly times which might have made it seem worse.
You are dead on about the "same old, same old" commentary...that's doesn't seem to be true as of yet. In 2018 this team got MUGGED all season defensively, that was not the case last week. And while Willis is usually good for a pick per game, last week was a game killer, which does not describe what he did for the team in 2018.
So, we got that goin' for us....and I actually mean it.
I mean, I really don't see much of a reason to think this is true. He probably has a good offensive mind, but not exceptional or elite.
Ha. Leg. Fair comment even though I disagree. If and when this team can keep more elite or elite-ish talent at QB, RB, and WR, his stuff will start to shine. It's been a little hodge-podge so far. I can remember times where VT moved down field at the QB's will (Vick/Tyrod), and a few games where the playcalling was really solid, but it was never, ever due to the system.
Here's hoping, right?!
Who or what is Godfrey/Richard Johnson and why should I care what he/she/it think?
Steven Godfrey is a longtime writer/journalist on college football who has developed some pretty solid connections and understanding of different coaches/programs through the writing and interviews he's done with a lot of these programs. He's much more of an insider in regards to coaching changes, inside the program, and general college football/coaching culture than he is a guy who is there to pick games or break down film.
Richard Johnson is a young college football journalist (he graduated school the same year as me) who also works for SBNation, and has a great deal of love and investment in the sport as a whole. Here is a link to his SBNation profile.
Richard Johnson is relatively new on the scene, but he now does the PAPN podcast with Steven Godfrey after Bill C left for ESPN. You certainly don't have to care about what they have to say, but I tend to trust Godfrey when it comes to understanding the aforementioned coaching/program related things as he has quite a bit of built up expertise in that side of the world of college football. That, of course, does not mean he is always right, but I enjoy hearing his perspective on those matters.
Honestly from the excerpt posted above, it reads to me like Godfrey is skilled at playing into the confirmation bias of of a portion of a fan base.
To me it's just barstool provocation/click bait; there's nothing there that indicates any inside info or real insight. It's just repeating various pieces of conventional wisdom and combining them into a point of view that affirms the view of the glass half empty crowd and rile up the glass half full crowd.
With all due respect, you're way off base here. Stephen Godfrey is really clued into CFB as a whole and generally speaks very highly of VT (though, as mentioned above, he has his reservations on Fuente).
They're absolutely nothing like Barstool.
Every Day Should be Saturday (the brainchild of Spencer Hall, who's a phenomenal writer and an excellent Twitter follow) has morphed into Banner Society . They're the best media outlet covering CFB if you ask me. Barstool is absolute trash.
Godfrey is an amazing contributor for one other big reason.
He has been more willing to write about the 'reality' of CFB and recruiting than almost every other person out there.
His 'Meet the bagman' article is incredibly illustrative in how you have to operate as a booster network to win, but also stay under the radar. And the type of activities that programs have fans, including I am beyond a shadow convinced include Tech, that go on every day. I have less than 0 respect for the NCAA as an institution designed to make everyone insane amounts of money except the players, but certainly others can feel different.
https://www.bannersociety.com/2014/4/10/20703758/bag-man-paying-college-...
Spinning out of that he also did a 4 part series on the Ole Miss situation. Made more juicy because he is an alum and was absolutely pissed when he was one of the guys the school lied to and tried to say it was all Houston Nutt's fault. And the realities of the rivalry between Ole Miss and MSU, and how its often the players who lose the most in those situations.
Part1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qm-P2foSE4
He is also doing a really cool interview series of G5 and FCS coaches as part of PAPN thats incredible just to hear these guys life stories.
It was barstool without a capital B. As in a guy sitting beside you in a bar pontificating conventional wisdom.
And there was zero there I haven't read/heard someone else write/say somewhere else. No insight whatsoever. But I guess affirming confirmation bias does just that.
It amazes me what passes for sports insight.
Hence why I suggested multiple times that people should listen; my summary doesnt really capture context.
Is it bad that I thought it was WR Richard Johnson from the early 2000s until I saw your post?
Anytime someone has a common name like that I do the same thing. I'll immediately associate them with/as the first person with that name I already know about.