I GOTTA BE ME!
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9 months 1 week
# | The Argument for Matt Campbell to be the next VT Football Coach 
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Still reports to the AD though if I am not mistaken. If it's totally separate you would have 2 ADs. One for football and one for all other sports and they both report to Sands.
Drive for 25 was announced in 2016 with less than 9000 hokie club members. It hit 25,000 members a couple of years ago with each year being record gifts. From where it began to where it is now their have been significant gains. That said is 24 million enough, no. But it is a far cry from the levels it was when he came to Tech.
I know the target is on Whit and if and when he goes I totally understand, but if I am in charge the first thing I do is remove Ballein from VT athletics. That may or may not involve his family. You can't have change if you don't change what lies beneath. I have not liked Ballein since Tyrod's pro-day fiasco and I have consistently heard not so great things about him from my limited but entrenched #sauces
Agree with everything you say here.
Hire Football-only Director and cut Whit completely from Football operations. Football Director then hires Coaching, GM, Support Staff as needed. Budgets are separated totally.
This is a very common thing in college sports. Plenty of P2 schools have an 'Associated Athletic Director of Football' - this individual owns everything football related: Hiring a coach, game day logistics, football specific supplies, fan experience, etc
they are excited to just have winning seasons and a bowl game. I just think we need to aim higher.
The thesis is that if Campbell can perform well at an underfunded B12 school, he should be able to preform at a properly funded ACC school
BEARDS > PEOPLE
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9 months 1 week
# | The Argument for Matt Campbell to be the next VT Football Coach UVA wishes they had KSU's football history
Whit promised to raise significant funds and hasn't.
Moreover the Hokie Club is stuck in the Stone Age. That's a bad look.
I absolutely do not want anyone from the Frames Janklin coaching tree, and not just because of Pry. Inattention to detail is a key fixture of that regime.
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HOKIE HOOPS WIZ
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9 months 1 week
# | Some say the sun shines brightest the day Pawl Finebaum gets removed from ESPN 1Million Legs
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9 months 1 week
# | Some say the sun shines brightest the day Pawl Finebaum gets removed from ESPN I would rather any serving member of congress becomes ineligible for re-election unless they pass an actual balanced budget.
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Except I don't feel like the others on the committee hit any of these points either. Arians can say this is what a successful NFL office looks like, Bud can say things about the focus of a defensive scheme. None of them have been intimately involved with the portal, with NIL, and other emerging areas that a coach or his GM counterpart will need a definitive approach.
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No, I get it, they are excited to just have winning seasons and a bowl game. I just think we need to aim higher.
Maybe an SEC coach that just consistently has winning seasons could do well outside the P2, but ISU is playing in the Big 12.
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The issue is have is only one of them isnt a Hokie and he's on the BoV. Get me some one from the outside to get their view. We need some one that doesn't love VT, they are just there to do the best job money can buy.
Ah, so he's not great - just good at beating VT, lol
You are correct, there is a timing issue to have a chance in the 2026 season. With funding, the need reestablish fan support, and to optimize media revenue, it does make sense to get a good coach in place. And perhaps, the best option right now is to hire a coach and "his GM" as a pair.
A counter thought:
The GM position has 5 critical roles (probably more, but simplifying for this point): (1) business/budget, (2) player personnel selection , (3) scouting, (4) recruiting, and (5) maintaining a network to ensure recruiting success.
(1) and (5) are best handled by a University GM/team to outlast the HC.
(2) is best determined by a HC-selected GM/team intimate with the HC philosophy and vision.
(3) and (4) should be an integration of the University GM/team and the HC-selected GM/team.
It is not ideal to always have a new individual in charge of budgeting and relationships every time a new coach is hired. As such, I think VT (and generally any P4 school) should be finding a University-specific front office specifically for football. (Sure, every school has something within their Athletic department, but I think football needs to be it's own entity with its own front office completely separate of the AD front office).
Another thought: Now is a really good time to bifurcate the football department entity from the Athletic Department. Whit Babcock has some good qualities as AD, but also some major deficiencies. It so happens that his good qualities are more related to non-football sports and deficiencies are more related to football. With the BoV greenlighting a football-centric budget and Whit taking a reduced role in the football hiring process, it would be a good time to establish a football-centric entity with its own head of operations. And maybe Whit would be OK with staying on as AD with a major role change that essentially transfers all his football responsibilities to the "Head of Football Operations" (or whatever name you want to give that role).
Last thought: Arians suggested hiring a GM first, which I think is because he has an NFL-franchise model in mind. And Stanford is the only P4 school with a GM that is unassociated with the HC (I think). With the transient nature of HC positions, in a couple of years, Universities are going to wish they had taken a more pro-like or Stanford-like model that establishes a less-transient GM.
I don't want to re-state all the things that have been said already but the overall sense I get from this is a process that is largely haphazard.
In my mind, there would be one of two reasonable ways to handle this:
1) Fire Whit ASAP, Hire new AD who hires football coach and GM/PersonnelGuy/Pay4PlayNegotiator (whatever you want to call it). Let the new AD fill the Athl. Department with their people.
2) Hire Football-only Director and cut Whit completely from Football operations. Football Director then hires Coaching, GM, Support Staff as needed. Budgets are separated totally.
What we seem to be doing is some weird middle-ground approach that by all appearances has no clear direction.
- Eight people is way too many for the Football Coach Search--there is little chance a consensus is going to form unless a "perfect" candidate presents themselves (and VT Football isn't an ideal landing spot at this point). At the very least make it an odd number so you can take majority votes...
- Beyond that, there is a lack of clarity on whether GM or HC is hired first. And how will the GM be picked--by committee? Whit? the HC? or some combination of them?
- The lack of any clarity here on Whit's future is problematic
My overarching concern is this: we are chasing bad ideas with good money. We are going to throw a bunch more money at Football, then have a committee hire a new HC and someone hire a GM; then hand the reigns back to Whit. We then have someone in charge that clearly not alot of the fanbase trusts anymore, but just with more money to spend and the hope that the committee found the "right guy" as Football H.C. Beyond that, there's no guarantee that 8 people are going to have anymore insight or success---plenty of "great hires" have turned to shit. There are ultimately elements of timing, engagement, and pure luck in hiring a Head Coach that no one (or committee) can necessarily predict. And the early messaging is already producing some concerns that not everyone is on the same page. It doesn't look aligned or well thought-out strategically.
This gives me alot of similar feelings to the process that brought Belichick to UNC---and that inspires very little confidence going forward.
Edited: for better grammar and clarity
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9 months 1 week
# | Some say the sun shines brightest the day Pawl Finebaum gets removed from ESPN There is plenty of precident about mandatory retirement ages. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) set the retirement age at 60 for single pilot roles, and 65 for multi-pilot roles. The FAA mandates that ATC retire at 56. In the military, for most enlisted personnel and officers in grades below Flag Officer, age 62 is a common mandatory retirement age. Flag offices can stay until 64.
I would welcome a mandatory retirement age for politicians, as well.
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So UVA?
GM is just the new, fancier title for Director of Player Personnel.
I guess that is why I don't remember, none of them worked. I am not talking screens to the side here either, I mean the RB to the middle screen when the DL and LBs are coming downhill.
Nope. It was more about Ballein's rec.
If I can be completely candid, it was about who Ballein and Bud Foster liked to drink beer with. I'm so done with the VT old guard (I've heard so many stories and many I'm not posting here), and Bud being on the committee makes me pissed. Anybody who wants Shane makes me angry too. Enough.
Anybody who wants to know what it would've been like with Bud coaching us, I think Brent is a close analogue. Bottoms up buddy!
When I was a freshman at VT back in 1983, UVA had not had back to back winning seasons in 30 years!