Recent Comments
We should rank all sports to how close they are to championship and fund accordingly after football/basketball
That may have been this game, but that's not what was going on against Vandy. Plus, the sliding short was happening once we actually started to score some points, if my memory serves.
Facts!!
I don't think you can say Whit botched the Fuente hire. At the time it looked like a good (great?) hire. He was the hot name at the time. Obviously, it didn't work out.
The Pry hire was questionable when you pair it with the lack of insistence of experienced coordinators.
I know, right?
We went from mediocre to poor.
Obviously head coach is very different job from coordinator. I think this 'learn on the job' mentality got us behind the 8 ball.
Then, the staff hires overall were not good. I was stoked with Rudolph, but something was off. I DO think he upgraded general staff and that helped, but the key staff.... not so good. OC, DC, S&C were meh.
I loved his passion to fix recruitment ties in the state. But then CFB changed so drastically that I honestly think it's not as important.
To this point, it's gonna be about the benjamins.
Coach, facilities, education blah blah are important and always will be. But you've GOT to compete for players with cash. Im not sure we can, but that is an AD level issue, IMO and Hokie Club needs to be fixed ASAP.
I figured it was an altruistic decision to intentionally degrade load times to let folks breathe, considering things!
Back to normal here too
The original sin of the Pry hire was Babcock not absolutely requiring (and funding) him to hire experienced coordinators. Once you've got a couple years as an HC under your belt, then you can start training up your buddies. Bowen had promise but needed an experienced HC to help him not blow two years finding his own way through all the mistakes. Marve needed so much help with the defense that first year it took away from Pry's ability to learn how to be an HC, and the defense never got better from there.
Wasn't one of his big priorities when he initially came on board to fix the garbage deal VT made with Nike right before he arrived?
On the other hand with the right amount of firing you could pitch a head coach that he can make his own adjustments to the athletic department as a whole which I think would be fairly attractive.
The structural changes had to happen anyway -- the new world clearly demands a new structure (HC plus a GM with way more financial integration than ADs have ever had to deal with before). Whit was very good at all the other parts of the traditional AD job, but he botched two football hires and no one in their right mind would let him make a third even if we were still in a pre-portal/NIL era.
There's a reason the GM hires have mostly come from the pro world. It's where we are now. Now the university gets to figure out how serious we are about competing in it, and that was always gonna be a BoV-level decision. Whit can be essentially an inside consultant but this just makes a little clearer what was likely happening anyway.
I really wanted Pry to succeed. He seemed like a genuinely good guy. But it clearly was not working and definitely needed to be removed. Wishing him good health and good luck. Now can we please, please, please get:
A decent head coach
A competent QB coach
A better AD
I'm still just thinking about the Pry decision and wondering how on earth he was this bad at VT. I know James Franklin is also known as a bad game manager HC, and Pry certainly had a pretty limited coaching network from basically just being tied to the hip with Franklin for so many years. But he was a DC for a while at a major program in Penn State. Just how could he be this bad of a coach? I don't know if he just underestimated how difficult a job going to HC would be, didn't hire the right people around him to cover deficiencies, or just got exposed without a strong staff and more talent around him like at PSU. It's really mind-boggling how dreadful it was from start to finish here for Pry.
This is the first I have ever heard of this...??
There was lots of smoke that Fu wanted Barry Odom and Whit wouldn't open up the checkbook thus Hamilton was hired with not nearly enough experience.
Fu made more than one public statement of confidence in Cornelson...
yea, GM wouldn't make sense. But I was thinking he probably would need a promotion from his role at Vandy to attract him and Beck. But maybe not. Maybe Sr. advisor with Beck getting his promotion is enough.
Pry managing a classier response to being fired from a cannon than Kenny Brooks did to leaving for double the money.
Wrong. See my above post, but Whit didn't allow change and railroaded us in the process
To be clear and fair, the person to blame for not cutting Corny is Whit Babcock and not Fuente. Fu proposed this at Kill's recommendation and Whit veto'ed it over financial considerations. Corny knew he was on thin ice and had interviewed in the offseason (mizzu direction I think).
Fu made lots of mistakes, BUT you could make a coherent argument that this was the key turning point in that era and it's on Whit. We had enough talent that with the right coaching we could have turned a corner. Things might have been different if those changes had gone down as recommended.
Fu was a terrible executive and PR man, but a much better football mind than anyone on the current staff. Love or hate him it's true. Whit screwed him over multiple times, but this was the biggest one imo
With what we all witnessed last night I'm surprised that the number was that high.
Sorry you have a delicate stomach.
Obviously I meant as a coach. He seems like someone I could enjoy a beer with, but that isn't relevant in a football forum.
The outcome of the ODU game justifies the headline, but I nerfed it for you.
Yes, thank you for posting this. You reminded me that Phlegar had done some amazing things raising money for the university outside of athletics. However, what I am talking about is more at the ground level where it seems like we are paying people $200k/year to bring in dozens of $5k, single time donations that they trumpet as major, solo wins for Advancement. What I would like to see is more of making the average Joe, blue collar Hokie Club member who is donating $500/year feel as every bit as appreciated as someone who is laying down $100k/year. But holy shit if we aren't currently flat out saying "Whatevs" to that level of giving.
AND, I'd like to see fundraising as an across the board, we don't care how it happens, we're just thankful for the kind generosity of Hokie Nation type of mentality at the university. It currently reeks of "this is my job so I am the only one who can take credit for it" mentality.
Sellers left after a targeting early in 2nd quarter with the game tied at 7. The Vandy linebacker hit Sellers straight under the chin well after ball was out. Didn't look like intent to injure but still changed the entire game.
Done. Man that was easy
Tim Beck with the big whistle. Kill as his senior advisor.
This...I actually wanted Whit fired more than Pry for this reason. Not just Hokie Club but all fundraising in general and financial management. Point in that would be who reviewed the awful seat back contract and remotely thought it was a good idea. Years of wasting money ahead of us there because of how they built that contract. As was reported we have second highest amount of members in Hokie Club in terms of ACC like orgs yet we fall below middle of the pack in overall giving. If they are that inept at the basic giving level than how much worse are they at communicating with the top donors. I can't tell you the last communication from Hokie Club that motivated me to really change my giving level.
He's had a couple of his teams quit on him and managed a show cause along the way. He can absolutely coach; but he's also an asshole. Definitely warrants close scrutiny.