Recent Comments
Updating with a Q&A question to Whit -
Reminder, Babcock said #Hokies' budget will be at $144 million next year. (Was $122 million last year.)— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
🏌️♂️⛳🍀🍺
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11 months 1 week
# | Nike releases 2025 collegiate line of running shoes - get em before they are gone! 
The whole thread and all of the messaging right now just makes you more frustrated the longer you read.
These people in that room who are leading VT have actively pile-driven Virginia Tech athletics into the dirt, and Whit is actively calling them out on it. What the fuck has our money been going to?
We
couldn'twouldn't pay to fire Fuente because of the cuts elsewhere within the school.
FTFY.
I choose to believe (based on the canceled/adjusted presser and a few other anecdotes/rumors I've read) that the money was there but optics were the primary concern. At the time, that was a somewhat defensible idea. In hindsight... oof what a fuck up.
Basketball has to be WAY cheaper than football, there are less players just to start, but I'd bet that a million dollars can go further in hoops. In addition, we are in a conference that people want to play in and teams that gets coverage if you beat.
Babcock said he doesn't plan on doing this job for many more years, but everyone at Virginia Tech needs to change its mindset from a challenger brand to a champion brand.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Whit isn't long for this job. Which, whatever. But that's a good message right there. We are too damn small time, we accept the excuses too often rather than striving for greatness.
Thanks for sharing. A couple that have stood out to me:
On Tech's budget, Babcock said, "Our resources don't match our expectations."— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
^I love that there's no beating around the bush.
Babcock said if the #Hokies' student fees matched UVa's last year — $736 instead of $437 — Virginia Tech's budget would've increased by $35 million.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
^That's a big number
Babcock: "Cassell Coliseum is a problem from a funding and resource standpoint." No suites, no club level, meaning #Hokies can only generate $3M per year in that realm. Used UNC ($15M), NC State ($8M), UVa ($6M) as examples.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
^I never realized that Cassell was such a lost opportunity. I knew that there was room for improvements... but I didn't realize that were ZERO suites/clubs. Going to GT's Basketball Arena... that place is dope.
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The ole "unintended consequences" some of jersey sales and autograph "money" ruining all of VT athletics. Happened quickly too. Sad
Babcock said he understands cuts; athletics was the only department at Virginia Tech during COVID that took pay cuts.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
I remember the scandal at the time. We couldn't pay to fire Fuente because of the cuts elsewhere within the school. So, to now hear Whit presenting to the BoV that athletics was the ONLY department to deal with salary cuts at the time is fucking infuriating.
What the fuck is going on with our leadership. We fucking torpedoed ourselves!
YOU MUST SPEND MONEY TO MAKE MONEY. We have been saying this for years, and sounds like the BoV has balked at it for a while.
Babcock is comparing emphasizing athletics vs. deemphasizing athletics. Said it would cost more to deemphasize than emphasize, and again, "It costs money to win, it costs money to lose." Used some examples of good academic institutions like Michigan, Florida, too.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Babcock: "Investing in football will also double athletics fundraising."— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Kind of scary that our funding is behind Wake Forest who has a 16% the amount of students.
Enough pissing and moaning from the masses, we need to play the same game as our peers.
THIS is infuriating to see. We play the same game as UVa and its a whole different ballgame for us. $35m per year would go A LONG way to helping things out
Babcock said if the #Hokies' student fees matched UVa's last year — $736 instead of $437 — Virginia Tech's budget would've increased by $35 million.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
The man presenting this is much of the reason to blame for our position. However, following along dcunna and Bitter, it seems whit is presenting this in a needed urgent manner.
Quantifying how important football performance is, Babcock said Clemson's seen an increase of 154% in applications to the school over this recent run of success. Tigers have won eight of last 10.— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Babcock: "It's a new kind of arms race."— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
So far, everything that is being said in this is not news, its things we've all suspected were true for a long time.
It just hits different when our own poverty is confirmed by our own leaders. And if its not poverty, we are too cheap. Either way, if we don't move now we're heading toward being the first P5 program to financially collapse in the new world.
I don't have (m)any answers, but I know that a basketball roster is still less expensive than a football roster. I think that - despite all the hype on this basketball roster - it's still 7th best incoming class (which I believe, but may be mistaken, includes transfers and recruits) in the ACC.
I also know that most schools are doing something like a 75/15/5/5 split of house money (75% to football, 15% to MBB, 5% to WBB, and 5% to other revenue sports).
If you want speculation - I wouldn't be surprised if the house money is being distributed in ^this way now, but collective money was given to basketball as a way to give them a 'soft landing' after the debacle that was last year.
Some more speculation - Whit doesn't like to throw good money after bad. Maybe Pry has been given a 'prove yourself year' before being given additional funding at the detriment of other sports, idk 🤷♂️
This is what I have been saying for 15+ years.
CAN WE PANIC NOW?!
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11 months 1 week
# | Whit Babcock presentation on future of VT athletics to BOV The idea of VT potentially not having athletics had never occurred to me...that thought makes me sick to my stomach
Invert the Fuente?
CAN WE PANIC NOW?!
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11 months 1 week
# | Nike releases 2025 collegiate line of running shoes - get em before they are gone! I just bought 2 pairs, thanks for the heads-up!
Bitter and David Cunningham are in the meeting today and tweeting out updates as they fly. Would recommend following if you aren't VTGuitarman and somewhere in this pic:
#Hokies AD Whit Babcock is presenting to the Board of Visitors this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/ZBRWE8GSyh— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Also,
Babcock: "If we don't radically leap forward now, we're likely sealing our own fate for years to come."— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Babcock said Virginia Tech would obviously still exist without athletics, but campus and town would look drastically different without athletics.Used an example of women's basketball making the Final Four in 2023. Described it as a three-week infomercial that you can't...— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) August 18, 2025
Babcock warns that the next "inflection point" in athletics (as in big change) could come as soon as 2027. Notes that the Big Ten's TV deal is up for renegotiation in 2029-30, which could drive realignment, other changes. #Hokies— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) August 18, 2025
If that isn't a whole bucket of WAKE THE FUCK UP cold water being dumped on the BoV, I don't know what is.
Invent the Fuente!
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Then why is the football roster so average?
Those words ring pretty fucking hollow when we've been there for about a decade now, Sandy
Gotta love people in positions like this. Applaud each other and give 'atta-boys' for failing at their job because they asked for help 10 years after that help needed to have come in the first place.