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IF the rumors are true and Whit's athletic department was actively undermining Fuente under his nose that's a pretty huge indictment on him.
To be clear - that's not the 'rumor' that anyone reliable has shared. You think Whit didn't want Fuente to be wildly successful? You think John Ballein was rooting for Fuente's demise? No. Everyone in the building was doing the best they could with the knowledge and resources they had.
...VT is positioning itself for AAU membership.
We've been doing that for what, 15, 20 years now? How long are we going to be knocking on that door before we realize that they're not going to let us in?
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I think we can all agree that, while Fuente faced plenty of adversity from within, he did himself very few favors in his last 4 years here. He ran off players, he let established recruiting relationships die, he didn't embrace the fanbase...
This is a real bleak outlook. We have a town based around a university that receives a MASSIVE financial injection because of athletics... and we're circling the drain with waning fan interest that could be a death spiral for the town, all because of the inability to field a competitive product which is being caused by financial handcuffs at the state level (?)
USCe are the home team, so they can wear the garnet if they like. Either way, it will be a basic uni since they are in talks with Nike to switch to them when the UA contract runs out.
Oh lawwwddd I was questioning everything I knew about society, college sports, Virginia Tech... god damn lmaooo
yeah, regardless of whether the rumors were true or not, Fuente was hired to bring offense to Blacksburg and he (Cornelsen) mostly failed in that regard - the offense looked good with elite talent but once they lost their QB and top WRs it was a complete trainwreck. Ultimately, you're right, the buck stops with Whit. IF the rumors are true and Whit's athletic department was actively undermining Fuente under his nose that's a pretty huge indictment on him. At the end of the day, Whit's hire failed (either due to his own shortcomings, or Whit's failing to adequately support his hire). Pry's story hasn't been any better - if anything, it's been worse. Whether or not that's Pry's fault or the fault of Whit is immaterial. Whit hasn't been able to hire/retain/adequately support a winning football coach in Blacksburg - I can't know for sure what the root causes are but that's the reality. We've sucked at football for the better part of a decade and I don't see anything changing for the better any time soon.
Whit needs to figure out how to get a winning football team on the field. And quickly. He's running out of time and neither of his hires has shown much promise as of yet. I hope that Pry turns things around and that these new coaches he hired in the off-season will help right the ship. But forgive me for not having much faith. I need to see it on the field. Show me.
Seems to me like there's a few laws in Virginia that are completely handcuffing VT and UVa's ability to compete at a high level. When you realize the two large public universities are the 2 absolutely shitting the bed in the biggest revenue driving sport only to find out the state is tying one hand behind both of their backs while schools like Liberty, JMU, and ODU are able to operate unrestricted, that's a big fucking problem.
Also, regarding academic vs athletic giving, I wouldn't necessarily think that's a big mic drop moment in regards to what everyone's priorities are. I used to work within University Giving and as a part of local Alumni chapters. Simply put, so, so many in our community don't realize that giving to the school doesn't fund athletics, and giving to the Hokie Club doesn't fund the school. The vast majority thinks the money goes into a pool that gets distributed as the school sees fit for its overall university prioritization over the years, and we have not done nearly enough to educate people that this exists.
Fuente flopped hopelessly.
If the rumors are indeed true, then a lot of the blame for Fuente needs to be laid upon the dinosaurs in athletics that refused to change & innovate, thus causing major roadblocks for Fuente to succeed. But, in the end, that blame rises to the top, i.e. Whit, for letting that happen.
Wouldn't surprise me to see them debut a new orange helmet later this week like they did when they hit us with the script helmet last year.
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Sorry, massively consequential typo on my part. Hundreds of millions, not billions.
have a feeling they'll be in all white with probably a black or garnet helmet
He pointedly said to the BOV (in open session) that "I love football and our athletics programs, but clearly our alumni are donating to the academic causes in record numbers instead of athletics. That tells you where their priorities are."
This is fascinating to me, on so many levels.
My reaction to this came in waves, each wave with a new head explosion:
- "We have received $100b in donations from alumni?!?!" 🤯 🤯 🤯
- "Why are we even having this conversation? Why is Whit presenting? Send 0.5% to sports and call it day." **dusts off hands**
- "There are... people giving $100b to VT, who don't care about football?" 🤨 🤨 🤨
- "Well, that's obviously a mistake... I'm sure that's just because these people got targeted by academics first and left the scraps for athletics. Or they're corporate interests" 🤔 🤔 🤔
- "Or... Maybe I'm the loser stuck in my bubble..." 😳 🥸 😔
If there was a prop bet on Frank's uniform, I would be hammering the non-logo maroon sweater.
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Makes sense since SC school colors include garnet whivh is not far from our maroon...
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If the BOV wants to see what happens to the town economically, when interest and attendance in the driving force of the economy wanes, go look at Bristol, TN. Two weekends a year used to keep that city running and doing great things. Now, not so much.
There's plenty of blame to go around everywhere. I think what we're realizing is that it wasn't entirely Fuente, and the more we discover the more that blame goes from "all", to "most", to "maybe a small majority", to "some" of the blame.