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Got out this morning and hit the rivers of the Mobjack Bay just to say I'd been fishing. Caught a ride with my neighbor Paul. After a bunch of trips with no fish, or one fish, things were slightly better this morning. Beautiful morning, gorgeous sunrise, nobody at all on the water but us. Bait everywhere, herons and egrets were plentiful as well. Water temp was 74, definitely better than the 90 of the last month or so. Our usual spots were overrun with small bluefish and I couldn't keep a fluke on long for those pesky toothy bastards, and I managed to hook a couple and lost 8 flukes on the morning to them. We caught several young of the year speckled trout, that hasn't been happening for him, and he fishes a lot. I did manage a 15" speck and a big lizard fish. Paul also caught a small lizard, but topped the day off with a 23" red on a Baby Bass Super Fluke on a jig head. He fishes at least 3 and usually 4 days every week and it's the first red he's caught since May. More action than he'd had on one day in months, and a good morning for me to go with him. Other than the red, it would be considered a pretty poor day's fishing any other year I've been here, but this year, it was pretty good, I guess.
Scary part is in a couple more years, Shane is going to have made more money than Frank did over his career.
I had no idea I knew so little about soccer before I read these comments. Go USA
Amen, brother.
It hurts. It hurts a lot. I've come to realize that I was spoiled as a VT fan. I remember watching Vick dazzling tv audiences when I was a kid. I remember watching the aTm hurricane game from my couch. I started at VT in 2006. Graduated in 2010. Witnessed the last of the great teams in Blacksburg. For as long as I knew that college football existed, VT was near the top of the sport pretty consistently. It just feels so foreign for that not to be the case. But I've resigned myself to the reality that all good things come to an end. And, in this case, a very painful, bitter end. It sucks a lot and it sucks even more knowing that VT is not going to be in that top echelon of the sport again for many many years, if ever. It's not quite the same, but on some level I can sort of understand the agony of my MIL's parents who grew up in Buffalo and were big Bills fans. They watched the Bills go to and lose four consecutive Superbowls. They're both dead now. They left this planet with their team in the dumps, having never witnessed them reach the summit. That sort of sports-fandom-pain is unparalleled. VT was so close to the pinnacle and now it seems so far out of reach that I'm not sure I'll ever see VT bring home a championship in my lifetime. VT's moment has passed and I don't ever expect it to return. At least the Bills are good now. Hopefully they too reach the summit. For my MIL's sake, I'm hoping desperately for them to win a SB before she dies. At least she'll get to experience something her parents didn't. That's my hope.
here I am hoping Duke beats NCSU so that ticket prices plummet and I can get cheapo tix to the VT NCSU game (we're going no matter what, but knowing that we're going to get clobbered, I'd really rather not pay out the wazoo for the privilege)
Watched this yesterday and it hurt so much.
A lot of y'all older and younger folks don't understand. For people our age, you grow up right alongside the maturation of VT football and you kind of don't think it's ever going to end. You think it's always going to be like this. The Hokies went to the title game when I was in 2nd grade. They were relevant when I was in 6th grade, 9th grade, 12th grade, on into college. As you grow older, you gain perspective, and you realize that that really isn't a lot of time. But when you're a kid becoming a teen becoming an adult, it feels like you've been through about 85 different seasons of life. And while some years were better than others, we were still relevant every year. Beams had us right there. Static, unchanging, consistent, a given. Whereas now, we are keeping the first two parts of that and wondering why it isn't translating into the third.
We might be good again in some far off future. But we're going to be bad for a long, long time. And it just hurts to watch something you loved so much die.
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And Shane is getting exactly what he wants: a chance to make his own legacy at an P2 school. The pay is just icing on the cake.
Oh I completely agree, this was just kind of a retrospective I put together from my own perspective - I was only 9 when the '99 season happened, and it was when I was first old enough to really care about Tech football, so I started there.
It set me up for a lifetime of disappointment lol
89-97 here. I've seen the best of times, and the worst of times. Now I think I'm seeing the latter again. Here's to a bounce-back to the former.
That would be the best possibility. I don't see us getting any (desireable) candidate that has P4 head coaching experience.
93-97 here. Until the streak was broken, we had been to a bowl every year since I moved to Blacksburg (and stayed with a job after school).
The fascination is because he was Frank's son. But you are right, he is never coming here. I think he is already the winningest coach at South Carolina (at least in ratio) and they are paying him commensurate to that production.
Tech outscored opponents during the 1995 regular season in the 4th quarter, 107 to 21 points. Tech was not outscored in the 4th quarter by any opponent, including Texas in the 1995 Sugar Bowl.
I remember watching the 1995 Sugar Bowl on TV, with 3 or 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, and Tech trailing 10-7. My wife walked by and asked me the score. She replied "Oh, Tech is losing". I replied confidently, "Just wait till the 4th quarter". And the rest is history, with Tech defeating Texas, 28-10.
No way Shane comes back.
Going the coordinator angle seems risky. We did that with Pry and it didn't really work out well. I'd rather have someone with HC experience. If that is G5, I want there to be some time as a coordinator on a P4 team.
We didn't turn Hooker into a Heisman candidate but we did recruit him out of school and develop him into a quality starting quarterback who could win games against teams with a spine.
The Athletic (pay link) weighed in on this today in their ACC mailbag:
Who are the top contenders to be Virginia Tech's head coach next season? Brent Pry is 16-23. His conference record is 10-13. They went 0-5 in one-possession games last season. His record is 1-12 in one-score games. — George H.
What should the strategy be for Virginia Tech in its head coach search? Give a coordinator a chance to sit in the big chair? Bring up an innovative coach and let him install a system? Pick up a retread from a big program? Find the best 13-year-old on NCAA Football 25? Anything would be an improvement. — Caleb K.
The good news for Hokies fans is that Brent Pry's buyout after this season is only $6 million, which the school could pay in quarterly installments of $750,000 through the end of 2027. The better question here is who AD Whit Babcock can convince to fix things.
The obvious dream scenario for the Hokies would be to pluck 2024 SEC Coach of the Year Shane Beamer from South Carolina. He's making $8.15 million this season with $100,000 annual raises through 2030, and he'd owe South Carolina $5 million if he leaves. Does Virginia Tech have a secret billionaire ready to provide Beamer — a Tech alum and the son of the most successful coach in program history — with what he's making in Columbia? Probably not.
The more affordable option would be to hire a hot up-and-coming P4 coordinator or rising head coach at the G5 level. When you look at the P4 programs that have made a big jump over the last year, Indiana's Curt Cignetti (G5 head coach), Arizona State's Kenny Dillingham (P4 coordinator) and Syracuse's Fran Brown (P4 assistant) come to mind as examples.
Who could be the next Cignetti? South Florida's Alex Golesh, 41, is off to a promising start in Year 3. But he figures to be on an SEC/Big Ten vacancy short list, especially if USF keeps upsetting top-25 teams.
If you're looking for a high-end Power 4 coordinator with some level of geographic ties to the area, Oregon offensive coordinator Will Stein, 35, makes sense. He's not a Hokie, but he played at Louisville and was born and raised there (six hours away). Stein is making $1.75 million at Oregon.
Cignetti disciple Bryant Haines comes to mind among P4 defensive coordinators. He's been Cignetti's defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for the last 11 years, including now at Indiana, where he's making $2 million. The 39-year-old knows Virginia's backyard well, having coached with Cignetti at James Madison, and he could easily recruit players from the Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky areas as well. — Navarro
Of course, Alex Golesh, he would be a dream hire. But Will Stein and Bryant Haines seem like decent choices.
I just don't understand the media's fascination with Shane at Tech. He's not leaving SC for Tech, where he would always be seen first as Frank's son.
no, but that's because I really don't care about the '25 season. I haven't seen a snap so far this season, but based on the results, French's write-ups, anecdotes from the threads, AND looking at the spread for this weekend, I don't think we're beating any FBS opponents this year. We're currently -6.5 against ODU... we were -3.5 against Vandy, and that obviously wasn't how the final ended. ODU kept things tight against an Indiana team that is showing last year wasn't a fluke, and I almost expect us to have a similar result this weekend to what we had last weekend. Wofford may be the only game remaining on our schedule that will have a meaningful 4th quarter, and I'm sure the football team will find a way to gift Wofford the win.
So to get back to you question - no i'm not worried about Wake. At best I think we're 1-4 going into the game and the season is already done. We might also be 0-5, Pry is fired, and Price is the one trying to salvage a burning ship that has maybe 20k fans in the stadium.
I didn't expect anything this year and was already off the 2025 ride before it started, but going winless this year wouldn't surprise me at this point. The bigger questions I have are what happens first - does Whit fire Pry? if so, how many losses is it going to take? Or, does Sands fire Whit, and then relieve Pry?
Thousands of dozens based on the temperature of every thread in the football forum.
I don't know how good of a head coach he'd be at this level, but I want Tim Beck and his creative offense. I'm willing to take a chance that he can succeed without Pavia. He has a ton of HC experience at the DII level so maybe he wants to move up to being a Head Coach at the FBS level.
I'm worried about every team we play these days
EDIT: Mainly cause I'm so worried about ours
The more I mull over this the more I'm coming around to the idea that Dan Mullen (see what I did there??) would be a great hire for us.
I'm here. I think Stiney would make a fine head coach (I'm not saying we need to hire him at VT). Additionally, of all the recruits I've spoken to over the years (the one's who chose VT and the one's who didn't), they all LOVED Stiney. The man knows how to evaluate and recruit talented players.
'83 - '88 for me so I got the Bruce Smith years including the glorious '83 Squeaker win at Lane North(48-0 and tore down their goalposts)(and we got snubbed by the Peach Bowl for UNC despite being 9-2 to their 8-3- but they got crushed 28-3 by FSU in the bowl)
the '86 Peach Bowl- VT's first ever bowl win(back when bowls were far fewer in # at 18 and more meaningful);
being an 'independent' in football(used to be very common at the time)
And Beamer's first year after the Bill Dooley sanctions took effect(side note- though much derided as "three yards and a cloud of dust" offense, I think I and many would see that as an improvement over recent offenses.