Greg Sankey announced that approximately $651 MILLION of total revenue was divided among the 14 universities of the SEC for the 2018-19 fiscal year (up from $627.1 million distributed in 2017-18. That's $44.6 million per school. Wow.— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 30, 2020
How does any other conference attempt to compete with this year in and year out? With BIG TEN estimated to be about to pay each school over 50 million.
For comparison ACC 29.5 million last year.
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By thinking outside of the NCAA box. We are no longer competing just against other conferences, we are competing against entertainment. Simply put, I can watch whatever I want at any time of the day. So it's very easy to turn a game off.
We compete with other football programs, but also all other entertainment at an extremely personal level.
Let's start pivoting into a highly personalized entertainment company, and not just an athletic department.
We could call it Entertainment 720. It would be a premiere, high-end, all-media entertainment conglomerate. The athletic department would be willing to go around the world twice for us.
How do you like that J-Shot?
#GOACC
ooh ooh i know let's do a root-cause analysis thread to determine why VT alumni don't donate as much
Umm donations?
The case study right now will always come back to what Clemson is able to do in the ACC
why is clemson able to do what clemson is able to do in the ACC?
Lucky to hire a great coach.
No amount of due diligence resulted in the firing of Bowden AND the hiring of Dabo in a temporary role; 100% luck.
Clemson is 100% lucky. Why?
The harder they work, the luckier they get.
You think Clemson went through an exhaustive coaching search in 2008 when Tommy Bowden resigned/was fired in the middle of October and retained the guy that had been the WR coach for the previous 5 season as the interim head coach?
No one had any idea that Dabo would become one of the greatest coaches of all time, they knew they did't want to keep Bowden. That was a lucky hire.
Honestly, I wonder how much of it is a cost of living issue. DC and NOVA are really expensive. No way I can afford to give money with a mortgage and a second mortgage (daycare).
Yea, this is definitely frustrating. Worth noting that the ACC payout should increase by $5-$10m/year after the ACC network revenue is realized, but I recognize that won't close the gap.
Anyways, here are things that I think we can do:
We need to make good hires, who can develop
The way these TV deals are going, fundraising might be a drop in the bucket in the big picture in the near future.
At the end of the day, the ACC sold itself out as a low-major, if not high mid-major conference when it held firm to and rubber stamped the Raycom tv deal a decade ago. We sold out to a small regional network that couldn't afford to pay us market value in a deal where it was just so happened to be negotiated on the provider's side by the son of the ACC commissioner. That contract turned into what would be our market value, and has cemented us at a value of about half that of our peers. We will not catch up to the Big Ten or SEC. The gap is only going to widen.
The only thing that the rest of the college world can do to prevent those two conferences from basically running away with a stranglehold on the most lucrative sport into the long-term future is to make sure everyone has an equal chance at the title at the end of the year. Put out an auto-bid for every conference champion and level the playing field.
Otherwise, leagues like the ACC, Pac 12, and Big 12 are just going to backslide to irrelevance in the big picture while the haves continue to load up.
I'm afraid that we're just never going to be able to catch up and compete, but I'm even more afraid that VT is going to put a lot of time and resources into a long term fundraising program, and when it is finally deemed "successful", the total yearly donation amount is going to wind up being peanuts compared to total revenue and that extra $XX million that has started coming in won't really matter.
I'd like to see how PAC schools do so well in Olympic sports with such limited conference revenue.
I don't have hard data, but they tend to compete well in Women's Softball (Washington, UCLA, & Arizona finished in the top 5 last year) and Women's Gymnastics (UCLA, Utah, Oregon State, California, Washington, & Stanford are currently in top 25).
This sample size is a very limited example and based upon my interests, but it does suggest the PAC 12 can do well in Olympic sports with limited revenue.
Unsurprising side note: the SEC is stacked in these two sports. They have many teams in the top 10 in both sports.
Stanford is by far the best all around sports program in the country year after year.
Stanford has a pretty large endowment, and a lot of wealthy alumni. Arguably the best all around university in the country.
The "best" universities in the country spend a lot of time and money encouraging people to apply who have no chance whatsoever of attending, in order to boost their exclusivity rankings.
What do you mean by this? Are you implying that Stanford University is not one of the best universities in the country?
No, I'm SAYING that they're one of the best funded universities in the country. Private, though supplemented with public funds.
What I take issue with is that they boost their "eliteness" by advertising to people to apply who have no chance of getting in. Other "elites" do this as well. Part of what they're selling is more than just education, it's exclusivity, which they actively maintain.
Exclusivity gets you places in the world. That is what makes these universities the best in the world.
True.
And it's why celebrities are willing to cut a few corners to get their kids in to "get their tickets punched".
Stanford offers the best combination of academics, athletics, and professional network in the country. I don't think this is controversial. As a student, you can get a premiere degree, see a 10 win football season, a national championship in a non-revenue sport, and get recruited by one of the fastest growing companies in the world OR have access to mentors and capital should you pursue your own venture. No other school is as strong in all three areas.
Sure. What's not to like?
So why advertise to folks who can't get in? And why subsidize Stanford with public funds?
Same comment applies to Harvard and Yale.
I wasn't saying they're not a great place. What I'm saying is that they go to extraordinary lengths to push their "eliteness", when they don't even have to. And public funds are subsidizing tuitions at these schools, when their endowments could provide free tuition for their students. It's worth asking "why" sometimes.
Plenty of entities advertise to consumers who can't afford or qualify for their product. I don't see the issue here; it's not like they're advertising alcohol to middle schoolers.
I don't know anything about any government subsidies that Stanford (or Yale/Harvard) receives, but unless they are different from other private colleges, I see no problem.
Seriously, I was just providing a one-off comment. That part of their eliteness is due to their finances. But since you are curious about the comment, I'm providing enough supporting information so you can understand the point I'm trying to make.
I'm suggesting that they are elite enough without targeting advertisements to students, based on their SAT scores, who they know have very little chance to get in. And it's a thinly-veiled attempt to keep their acceptance rates astronomically low.
The harm? Most of those people who are invited to apply are in demographics that their time and finances could be applied elsewhere, and many of those students aren't in the wealthiest of demographics.
And since we've gone this far down the rabbit hole, my feeling is that universities who manage to achieve an endowment large enough to provide free tuition to the entirety of their student population should probably not be subsidized with public funding, either through tuition assistance or tax free investment status.
I'm all for cutting programs if need be and reallocating that money into a core group of sports/teams that we want to have excel both in conference and nationally.
Which sports would you cut and stay within federal guidelines?
Men's tennis and golf. Which would save us not a lot of money are the only two you could realistically get rid of without affecting Title IX
edit 9 not 11
I'd hate to see us lose tennis. Other than football and basketball, tennis matches were the only team I'd watch routinely as a student.
Ultimately, I think you'd have to do an analysis of which sports cost the most. I don't think it would be tennis.
People have mentioned how Clemson cut sports to put more money towards football. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this approach, but I'm not sure it would help to make up that much money.
So I guess my point is that would cutting 5 small sports really make that much of difference for VT football? Can they be that much of a revenue drain? I haven't looked at numbers, but I think it's safe to assume we're not going to catch Clemson or the SEC by cutting sports. It would be a small piece of the puzzle to help catch up, but I think TV deals would make a larger impact. I also understand that this isn't something VT can control.
Edit: removed volleyball due to a correction from foreman917.
5 teams, averaging 15 scholarships per year at $30k/scholarship = $2.25M/year. That's a 22 person support staff for football.
2.25M is a lot of money for me, but it's chump change compared to the Blue Bloods. I keep coming back to the fact that cutting sports will help, but unless we do all the other things really well, it doesn't make sense to me with the data I have right now (I'm always open to more data).
That's just scholarships though; travel, equipment, staff salaries, facilities, it all adds up.
Now, I'm not arguing that if we cut 5 teams, we'll suddenly close the money gap, but I do think that is a sizable chunk of cash that could be used to upgrade and expand the football coaching and operations staff.
Only one men's sport and only 3 women's sports gets more than 14 scholarships. So cutting 5 sports won't get you that.
http://www.scholarshipstats.com/ncaalimits.html
Yea it can add up but you're going to get a decent amount of flack and the budgeting for all remaining sports is going to take a major hit. I'd say its worth it but for everyone one of me there's probably an alumni tennis player that has a kid on tennis scholly there and cares far more than I do.
Clemson's approach was to have as few other sports as possible and put literally everything into football. When the football program became successful and the donations came pouring in, other sports were able to ride the wave of football success. The rising tide lifts all boats approach so to speak. They just added Women's softball this year due to the windfall of football success. I personally think we are putting the cart way before the horse pouring money into non-revenue sports with minimal returns while football is really struggling.
Not trying to be a smart-ass but Clemson definitely has volleyball. I can assure you of this since I am a college volleyball official and have worked there the last three years.
You're right! I was doing way too much multi-tasking when I looked that up. Thanks for the correction
It is also important to note Clemson has won national championships in sports other than football. We have never done that nor been consistently regarded as a top program in non-football sports.
I haven't done a deep analysis or anything but I would look at how much money we think we need to be competitive in the desired sports and start cutting until we reach that goal. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of Title IX but I would be fine with cutting both a women's and men's sport equally (e.g. if we cut women's diving we cut men's diving as well).
I'm sure it would seem cold but honestly as a consumer, and Hokie alumni, I would be fine with cutting out some sports if it meant an extra couple of wins a season in football and consistent tournament teams in basketball (men's and women's).
It's not cold at all. It's pure business sense. You can't pour money into programs that are bringing little to no return while your cash cow is struggling and behind in facilities and support staff. We can't let VT football die a slow death and puff our chests about how much potential tennis and lacrosse have. It's just absurd and no business person worth their salt would cut off their nose to spite their face like this. Football drives the bus, and we need to put every available resource into making that the best it can be before we start spreading funds around.
A classic example of cutting successful sports for funding reasons is WVU cutting their rifle team. WVU's rifle team in the 90's was equivalent to Alabama's football team now, but with even more dominance. WVU and Alaska-Fairbanks were the Alabama and Clemson of NCAA rifle, but WVU had to cut their team for financial reasons. No one outside of the small NCAA (and even smaller high school level) rifle community gave 2 craps about it.
If we cut wrestling to fund football, is that something we're ok with? What is it worth to Hokie fans to be a top-10 football team again? How about if we reduce funding for men's basketball? What if we decide it's necessary to cut several sports entirely, and then reduce the funding for every non-football sport VT has to pour more money into the football program? Is that something we are ok with?
I like to see the Hokies be successful at football. It's more fun to watch when we're winning. I don't know how important it is to me to see us win a national championship in football, however. Other than something I can brag about, what does that really get me? Why is it important? Just some things to think about, I guess, before we start cutting scholarships for student athletes because they play the wrong sport or because they are the wrong gender to play the only sport that matters.
Very fair question. I said it in another post, but football is unique to other sports because it provides a sense of identity for the Virginia Tech community at large, and economic boost the New River Valley. Not saying that means it's 'more important' than other sports, but it definitely exists in a different space.
That's a fair point as well. Virginia Tech used to be a lot easier to get into than it is today. When I graduated high school (1995), I knew a lot of kids who had VT as their safety school, including a guy who got accepted to Tech with an 850 SAT score. Honestly, if it weren't for the Corps of Cadets I probably wouldn't have gone to Tech.
We shouldn't ignore the effect that football success has had on the perceived value of a VT degree. More applications allows the university to be more selective about who they admit. This in turn elevates the overall perception of VT as an academic institution. It may be hard to definitively prove causality in this case, but I think there's likely a strong link between VT's rise in football and the subsequent rise in application numbers.
Well, we wouldn't actually be cutting sports to fund football, we'd be siphoning away fewer funds generated by football to other sports.
Football and basketball are the revenue-generators. And it's because there are a lot more fans interested in these sports.
The logic is to support fewer sports in order to have more competitive teams in those sports.
I mean, honestly, my expectations at this point have already been adjusted. I don't think we or anyone outside of the current perennial powerhouses will ever win more than one national championship every 10-20 years, combined.
I completely agree with this.
Um, I'd adjust them further and say that teams that havent won a championship might make the playoff once every 10-20 years combined.
The non- blueblood might make the championship game once every 10-20 years.
I've said it in another thread and I will say it again here. We don't need that much money to win the weak ass coastal and beat UVA. Those were my expectations last season.
...but, yes. We need $$$.
You used to be able to want it more. Hit 'em in the mouth and earn the respect. The rules of modern football will kick you out for such a thing.
If you can't beat 'em join 'em. (I wish)
I have always felt we missed our chance in 2011 to jump ship. I don't know the details, but the fact that Missouri was able to get in over us is heartbreaking. At this point, if conferences were shuffled, our best chance of getting into the SEC would be marketing a rivalry with Tennessee.
God rest his soul but if Weaver and Co. Ignored any kind of pitch by even an SEC intern at some point I have ill thoughts of him.
There was most definitely an offer on the table, but it wasn't really VT athletics that turned it down. It was the higher-up admin and BOV driving the ship. The school went through such a political mess to get into the ACC, the league the school had longed to be in to rub elbows with UVa, UNC, Duke, etc. and we weren't going to give that up just because of football.
The university administration is probably more worried about academics than sports. I don't necessarily have a problem with this.
Yeah, Missouri and Tenn have a ton more money, but what has that gotten them? I would rather VT be competitive in the ACC and have a shot at titles than having made the jump to the SEC East where we would have slidden into absolute irrelevance behind UGA, UF, and Kentucky in football and even more so in basketball.
I for one am glad we didn't make the jump. We would have never sniffed an SEC title game.
I would agree about staying if we hadn't just dropped to national irrelevancy while in the ACC.
Today we are struggling to rebuild our football reputation and can't catch up financially. Would being in the SEC completely fix that? I don't know. I do know however that being in the SEC would give us opportunities we just don't have in the ACC.
Not arguing here... What would those opportunities be? We would have been in instead of Missouri. Those opportunities (whatever they are) have done squat for them .
I just think the additional high profile games and SEC revenue would have propelled us coming off the 2011 season. I said opportunities because we would still have to capitalize on them. I guess my perspective is with additional money and SEC clout we maybe would have had the ability to recruit better and not fallen as far as we have. Maybe I'm just biased because I live in SEC country
IDK... maybe I can agree in theory here. But there isn't a chance we would have recruited with UGA over the last 10 years, and now that Florida has a coach there isn't a chance we can compete with them on the recruiting trail. Then add to that the SEC schedule and we likely miss a bowl a handful of times... And I hate to think about 2018.
It isn't about beating Georgia and Florida head to head in recruiting, it's that we don't lose as many recruits to these scrub ass ACC programs like UNCheat and UVA because now we're associated with Georgia and Florida
You just proved my point. Its all relative. VT is who VT is right now and maybe we get a slight uptick in recruiting, but we aren't sniffing an SEC title - EVER while we compete on the field with schools that consistently recruit top 5-10 classes. Which means that VT has no path to the playoff.
1) We would at least have exciting games.
2) We would be a better program overall
3) I think we would have a better chance of wining the SEC East and sneaking in as the second SEC team than we do of beating Clemson.
1) not if we aren't competing
2) An entirely subjective assumption
3) I happen to disagree. Winning the SEC east would include multiple huge upsets while beating Clemson is a one-off thing.
I know there are multiple viewpoints on this, and I'm quite OK with that. I just happen to disagree with the sentiment that we would be better off.
Missouri won the East didn't they?
The first year in. Since then? Our decline as a football program would have netted much of the same (only worse IMO) in the SEC East.
Again, all of this is my opinion of what would have happened... So I'm certainly fine receiving other opinions on this.
Mizzous downfall was their big culture backlash off the field shit swastika. They have a lot of issues and it kind of derailed everything for them. Money has still helped their recruiting. Being in the SEC is why they got Kelly Bryant and we didn't
Again, how has that recruiting helped them? How did Kelly Bryant help them?
And people say that if we would have joined the SEC we would be a middling SEC east member. How do we know that? With the success that we have had and the 10's of millions of extra dollars that we would have already received. We would be able to compete with UGA and UF yearly.
We were so worried about becoming a middling SEC program that we allowed ourselves to fall into being a middling program in the ACC.
Damn. Yup. In hindsight it was a really bad decision for Virginia Tech.
Long term planning has never been one of our strengths. We are very risk averse and tend to default toward maintaining the status quo at key moments.
The narrative was the older generations, those who longed for ACC, wanted to play UNC (and the rest of the conference) in perpetuity.
Oh yeah we spent too much time pining for the day we would rub shoulders with UVa and UNC to give that up on our own
I mean, to be honest, I think VT has a lot more in common, both culturally and academically, with most ACC schools than many SEC schools. TBH I think we're a better fit for the B10 than the SEC.
We're not like the Big10 at all. Most of them are in large urban areas. Most, if not all, are AAU members. Most are in the Midwest.
I'd counter by saying that first, Pres Sands' goal is for us to be like Michigan or OSU or Purdue - he wants the student body to grow massively. Say what you will about that goal, but that's what VT is trending towards right now. Sands is also clearly making an effort to get VT an AAU membership (Endowment cracking $1B in 2017, the med school, etc).
From an 'intangibles' standpoint, I consider VT to be 'Appalachia' not 'deep south,' and I consider 'Appalachia' a lot closer to 'rust belt' (midwest) than 'deep south.' Our school is a lot closer to PSU or Purdue than any SEC school. Like B10 fans, our students don't dress up in a button down and ties for football games. Just about every SEC school does.
AAU is a club. You need academic clout to get in but you don't just get in if you qualify and currently I don't see why AAU would want us or any new member to join. And until Tech wants to really commit to being a university system with hospitals and medical research, I don't think we deserve it.
Because you pay to be in and everyone likes money?
And then you increase completion for federal research grants....
I agree that the best cultural fit is the ACC, but opportunity-wise the Big Ten or SEC are better.
I disagree. We certainly wouldn't have become a middling SEC program... We likely would have become a "rich" bottom feeder in the SEC.
There is nothing in the last 10 years of VT football to indicate that a move to the SEC would have changed the narrative at all.
This is so true. I don't think anyone had a real pulse on how good (or bad) of a decision it would have been at the time, but it's clear now that a move to the SEC almost certainly would have benefited VT athletics more than hurt.
IMHO, the problem isn't the money disparity between conferences, it's that money has perverted college sports. In the desire to win, money has become the end all be all. Kids coming to college for the money sports are essentially indentured servants in exchange for a shot that the majority of athletes won't get at going pro. Education is being thrown to the wayside to become a free farm league for pro sports. This is a disservice to the athletes and the students. Why is joe 5-star that got a 2.0 in high school gaining entry to schools that require 4.0's if you're not an athlete? That's not fair to the "regular" student who had to bust their ass academically to gain the right to pay 100k to go to said school. I fully believe there needs to be a league for kids who don't really want to go to school to go an get paid, learn financial literacy, and train to go pro, while those who do want to get an education can actually do so. Or even just allow all athletes that want to go pro to do so, no need to pretend to play school for "x" amount of years. While we're at it, there should be a money cap across the board. If college sports are actually about education first (cough, ncaa, cough) money should become a non-issue. Cap the amount of money coming in and out, and once you hit the cap, disperse the excess back into the university for academic purposes. Sure some schools will easily hit that cap whatever it could be, while others struggle to sniff it, but this would help to level the playing field tremendously.
TL:DR - If college sports are really about STUDENT - athletes, then make education the actually priority. If it's about being a subsidized farm league, call how it is and stop pretending otherwise and let them go pro. Until then, the adjustment of expectations should be and will remain that the big dogs will only get bigger while everyone else goes their course hoping to get closer to being above mediocre.
I love college sports, it's probably my favorite entertainment in the world. I hate feeling it become "meh" for me because realistically my favorite team has no shot at competing. It's not for a lack of effort, but that the college arms race has become impossible to compete with. At the end of the day, it should be about education. I love the entertainment value of college sports, but i'd far rather the level of sports go down if education is the actual priority and that athletes aren't just being used to gain money, for most, what is a long shot at a pro career.
Logged in just to upvote this. As long as money is flowing in these amounts, the handful of schools willing to sacrifice all other pursuits in order to win, and who have the fan support/money to do it, will be the only ones able to win it all in football (the one sport where money really does buy wins like no other).
Someone above mentioned cutting programs that aren't pulling in enough revenue is a simple business decision. The fact is though that an athletic department of a public institution isn't a for-profit business. It's a non-profit with a mission of providing athletic opportunities to students. I realize on some level that's naive, and no doubt my love of college sports stems from the money that turned it into such great entertainment, but at some point we need to be honest with ourselves and admit the whole thing is getting out of hand. Even if not for ethical reasons, than for the fact that as power is consolidated the vast majority of fans will likely check out.
I agree with the ethical concerns, but I don't think that cutting olympic sports is a 'simple business decision' - It's a decision about what brings more utility to the entire student body, the fanbase, and the Virginia Tech community at large. Football is more than just a cash cow for the athletic department; it's a huge part of the local economy and the identity of both the university and its surrounding areas. That's not to say that I support eliminating olympic sports; Just saying that it's a complex issue.
the disparity in power preceded the disparity in money.
the perennial bottom dwellers in the rich conferences are still at the bottom
I don't know many Virginia Tech fans that expect to win a national championship anymore. It's not realistic.
Rather, they expect to compete for the ACC Coastal. A blowout at the hands of Duke, choke against ODU, sleep walk against Boston College and general underperformance against the ACC-sans-Clemson should occur much more infrequently.
We don't need SEC money to accomplish this.
Clemson certainly doesn't seem to need SEC money from original post source
1) reduce the number of football scholarships to 70 with a max of 20/yr and increase the redshirt limit to 6 games. redshirts must be taken in the first 2 years of eligibility.
2) eliminate the sitting out requirement for transfers or make it a mandatory 1 year for all scholarship athletes regardless of sport.
This would help in several ways. First, scholarships aren't evenly distributed across men's and women's sports. My understanding - somewhat dated - is that women's sports are more likely to be full scholarships, while men's non-rev sports are more likely to be partial scholarships. So those suggesting cutting both men's and women's teams equally would actually make the scholarship imbalance worse and would probably end up violating Title IX. You would have to cut roughly twice as many men's sports to stay compliant.
This imbalance is caused by the large number of football scholarships. So if you cut those, you make it easier to pare down non-rev sports that don't have a chance of being competitive. You also reduce the cost of running a program, and possibly spread the higher ranked players out to more programs.
I think this is a really good idea, and probably has zero chance of being implemented any time soon.
Current NCAA D1 scholly limits per this site http://www.scholarshipstats.com/ncaalimits.html:
M Baseball = 11.7 versus W Softball = 12
M Basketball = 13 versus W Basketball = 15
M CC = 12.6 versus W CC = 18
M Football = 85
M Golf = 4.5 versus W Golf = 6
M Gymnastics = 6.3 versus W Gymnastics = 12
M Ice Hockey = 18 versus W Ice Hockey = 18
M Lax = 12.6 versus W Lax = 12
M Rifle(?) = 3.6 versus W Rifle = 3.6
M Skiing = 6.3 versus W Skiing = 7
M Soccer = 9.9 versus W Soccer = 14
M Swim/Dive = 9.9 versus W Swim/Dive = 14
M Tennis = 4.5 versus W Tennis = 8
M Track & Field = 12.6 versus W T&F = 18
M Volleyball = 4.5 versus W Volleyball = 12
M Water Polo = 4.5 versus W Water Polo = 8
M Wrestling = 9.9
W Beach Volleyball = 6
W Bowling = 5
W Equestrian = 15
W Fencing = 5
W Field Hockey = 12
W Rowing = 20
W Rugby = 12
W Triathlon = 6.5
There are more scholarships for the same sports to award to women. Team size and Coach decision dictates how much is awarded per player. Most non-revenue sport athletes are not receiving a full scholarship, regardless of sex.
The only significant leveling of the playing field in college football...ever...has been the scholarship limitation rule. Further tightening that down, and the have-nots have more than enough votes to do it, would broaden talent distribution and more than offset the effects of the budget disparities in football.
edit: lol, I swear I didn't see this before now
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/dan-wolken/2018/12/19/nc...
Swofford was only 15 years behind the B1G network. I'm shocked we are behind.
I know people don't like to hear it, but Virginia Tech will never get back to the national championship (or even playoffs) unless one of our alumni becomes ultra rich and starts regularly donating. The historical blue bloods have pulled so far away and the only team outside of that group that has caught up in the last 10-15 years has been Oregon with the Phil Knight Nike money. (Some people might say that Clemson caught up to this group too, but they already had a modern era national championship and pretty nice facilities before their current run)
The only other way VT could compete at that level is to invent a time machine and go back to the days of our peak on-field performance and spin that into an SEC invite.
Reality is we missed the boat, and the ship sailed without us. We are back to a conference that rivals the old Big East, with Clemson as the new Miami.
I do wonder sometimes what could have been had we not made the jump to the ACC. I'm going to take a wild guess that we would be WVU's travel partner in the Big 12, or, and i'm dreaming, in the SEC in lieu of Mizzou.
The 1993-2003 Big East was a much better football conference than the current ACC in my opinion. VT, Miami, and Syracuse lived in the top 25 for a decade with Pitt and WVU having a lot of top 25 finishes in there as well. Throw in the occasional Boston College ranked finish and you had a very good conference.
Agreed. Frankly, the ACC has always been a terrible football conference. Clemson won a random title in the early 80s, then GT in 1990. And from there on out it was basically FSU dominating everyone until expansion.
When the BCS started Cuse finished low in the rankings so in 99 they created what was dubbed the Big East rule where a conference Champion had to average 12th or higher over 4 years or they would lose their BCS bid. Well the ACC should have lost their bid around 2006. The ACC had to expand because FSU wasnt doing well and no one else could help.
We missed the boat because we weren't in a real conference until 1993. The boat set sail well before most people think. We got 1 chance because a once in a generational talent picked his backup school because of another players verbal commit.
Some people would say we had an offer to the SEC and some people would say we turned down that offer that was never made
Even T Boone Pickens pumped money in to Oklahoma State to essentially no avail.
with our access to the DC market, and Hampton Roads, I wouldnt be shocked if UVA or VT were choices for the B1G or SEC. I dont think Whit would be as nervous about the jump as Jim Weaver was. However, Im more worried we missed the boat.
It's not a decision made at the AD level. When the SEC and Slive wanted VT in 2010/2011, the higher up admin and BOV did not want to leave the ACC because of the political mess it took to get us in. They weren't going to abandon the academic association with UVA, UNC, Duke and being in the ACC for the sake of the football program and athletics in general. There was genuine interest from the SEC. Although it will never be said that a formal offer was extended because they won't unless you agree to join before, there was an invitation there. We were supposed to be the 14th team, not Missouri.
Yep, My understanding is Weaver was comfortable with the ACC, cause he didn't want to spend a lot of money, cut travel costs, and recruit Charlotte and Raleigh Durham for money. There was also some fear of where our Olympic sports would go, as the SEC still does not sponsor quite a few sports we compete in.
I didn't know that politics got in the way of the SEC move. I remember politics got us into the ACC.
I don't know if the Carolina money has really panned out as our alumni base is heavily NoVA. All the future revenue that is now being realized was missed. Poorly.
I think the move to the ACC was a better move at the time than going to the SEC. We're doing some resulting now by using hindsight to say we should have joined the SEC. At the time of the move FSU, Miami, and VT had played in 4 of the previous 5 national title games. UVA, Syracuse, NCST, Pitt, Maryland, and Clemson were all top 40 programs with 3 or 4 of those finishing the seasons in the top 25.
Predicting that FSU and Miami would collapse the way they did would have been pretty contrarian at the time. The SEC benefited perfectly from the rise in tv money and the two best football coaches in the modern era, Saban and Urban.
Doesn't the success of Urban at every stop, Saban at every stop, Dabo @ his only stop illustrate that the only way to win multiple titles is to have a great coach?
There are lots of teams pumping $$$s into their football programs to achieve nothing close to winning the national title. $$$ is not the limiting factor, finding the right coach is.
Those coaches followed the money but I agree we over emphasize money problems.
Yeah, but you have to pay them enough to stay. The amount needed for them to stay might be different for every coach, but if someone wins a natty and gets offers for twice the salary, that is certainly enticing.
But didn't Clemson show that high level of success allowed them to increase revenue in a substantial manner and allowed for them to keep Dabo.
If you can get the coach, be successful, the money follows. There are plenty of teams that have tried the inverse to no avail.
I wasn't suggesting that. To your point, if you can be successful and then afford to pay more that works (also, you shouldn't be paying a coach a national championship salary if he's not winning it, but if he is, you should be able to pay it). I'm just saying that if you get a coach who does win you a championship and has a lot of success, but the pay is a lot higher at other schools, and you don't offer your coach more money, you can't expect him to stay.
If you want to go hire a coach who has proven that he can win the natty, then you'd have to pay up front.
And my issue isn't just the head coach. How many position coaches have we lost over the last, what, 6 years to SEC teams?
If you're just now realizing/thinking you need to "readjust sports expectations" you're 10 years behind.
I'm a fan through and through, but my mental health is a lot better after I accepted the fact that we'll never win a major sports championship. That's an unpopular view to have here, but it's an honest one.
Basketball would be our best shot going forward, but even then, our best team can't advance past the Sweet 16.
I now watch games for what they are (entertainment) instead of the burden of knowing one bad game could cost us a shot at playing for a national title.
Our best years in basketball are ahead of us. I am confident in saying that because we genuinely have a dedicated push to make VT stronger in the sport, we actually have the funding needed to start competing, we have an excellent head coach and staff in place, and we're in the best conference in the country and have shown an ability to execute at their level. I think the upcoming renovation of Cassell is going to be a complete game changer for us, and could see us vault to that level. Plus, its much cheaper to compete and win in basketball than it is in football. Much higher return on investment.
Our best days in football are behind us, at least for the foreseeable future. And every year that passes our performance gets further away from the high bar we set back in the 1999-2005 range.
My only hope is basketball since it's a sport where 20 teams (statistically based on seed advancement in the tourney) have a chance at winning it all.
I think we will have solid teams going forward, but I think it will be hard to top what last year's squad was capable of if JRob stayed healthy and Nolley was allowed to play.
I legitimately think we've only scratched the surface on what's possible at VT in basketball. We're in an ideal region, we play in the perfect conference, we really do have a rabid fanbase, and Cassell is a true home court advantage in this league. Do a renovation that gives us top notch player amenities in the arena with overhauled concourses and such for the fans without significantly altering the bowl and I think we'll have one of the better opportunities here in the league. Especially if CMY is here for the long haul.
success in college basketball is mostly about the coach; and I really like the one we have
When you get the right coach in the right job the sky is the limit on what you can do in pretty much every sport except football. Mike Young is a great coach, and he proved it at Wofford, and the overwhelming response to him getting hired by VT throughout the coaching community was that they couldn't wait to see what he would do in the ACC. And this was before anyone realized that he was now coaching in the stadium he grew up attending games within.
I really do think this is one of those times where you have the perfect guy in the right job. Announce the plans for Cassell in the near future for this staff to use in recruiting and I think we have the potential to mimic the kind of program build that we saw out of Bennett at UVa. I would not be surprised if VT-UVa becomes a major basketball rivalry that gets legitimate national attention within 5 years time.
I think we should all just blame UNC. They ruin everything.
In this particular case, I lay the blame at Swofford's feet. Thank you Swofford and Raycom.
But aren't Swofford and his son(who runs raycom) products of UNC?
You can never go wrong with blaming John Swofford. For anything.
UNC may have just ruined Baylor's future Offense output, hope they don't get much rain there in Waco.
Quite striking actually.
I've come to the realization that VT is most likely never going to win a football national title in my lifetime. I'm 24 by the time VT makes the playoff it'll be at least 16 teams.
The last time I legitimately believed we had a chance was 2010. I watched the Boise State game on TV and was in person for the JMU game.
Since then, the program declined towards the end of Beamer's career (no animosity towards him in the slightest, obviously).
In the meantime, the SEC has doubled the ACC in revenue. Thanks to ESPN and John Swofford (definitely have animosity towards him).
He allowed the SEC to expand their revenue during the golden age of cable television and stayed on the sidelines for his brother. Baring a seismic shift that none of us can foresee, the ACC ( sans Clemson and maybe Florida State) will never catch up.
VT will win a national title in another sport, but sadly I don't think it will be football.
(Disclaimer: I am kind of pessimistic as a form of coping so I don't get overly mad 😂😂😂. Better to be pleasantly surprised then disappointed.)
If we are talking all sports, well VT was a mid-major in most sports until 2000. We are toddlers compared to the teams in the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and pac 12 (sans utah). The closest comparison to VT is UofL.
VT has come a long way in 20 years across all sports, but we've got a ways to go. Donations arent a big thing at a mid major school, which anyone over 40 was at VT when we were a mid major school for most of our sports. Our facilities aren't great in most sports. We dont swim on campus, and we dont golf on campus. We let really good coaches walk because of cost.
We have had a monumental task that we have done really well especially since Whit is the first AD finally up to the challenge. We have shown huge gains in soccer and wrestling. Our basketball program seems to have solidified even with a coaching change that was smoother than probably anyone but Whit expected. Even Mike Yoing seems surprised.
The fact that people dont know about hokie club is on of those growing pains. The only reason I knew what it was is because I grew up near another university where everyone donated to that version. It was a concept I grew up with.
We've got to be hopeful and continue the growing pains.