Recent Comments
Rumors of WVU are flying.
To my knowledge it's not 'still happening' - it's just evidence that we're not serious about competing at a top 25 level year in/year out.
Ditto. Appreciate the notes, as I don't prefer to watch a video.
Any Raiders fans here that can give me lowdown on their OL/OC/Coaching? I am picking 10 out of 10 players in my fantasy football team and it's looking like I need to make decision on taking Jeanty with my snake pick in 2nd round.
Can someone give me the lowdown on why this is still happening?
Salamanders
So we'll play them in 2053 and 2054 when I'm 88-89 years old?
(Based on the original Wisconsin dates being 2008-9 and now 2031-2) ? sadly NOT /s
You know that Whit is trying to find another P4 team with the same issue to reschedule. That is literally part of his job and a more important one since the revenue changes have been made.
Funny, I thought he was going to miss most of the season for the Celtics this year.
like the Stadium Woods mess
Can someone give me the lowdown on why this is still happening? I know it has to do with town of Blacksburg not wanting to give it up or something, but unless VT wants to be a serious program with actual expansion (facilities, parking, multi-use buildings, Land expansion/easier to get into Lane, etc.), then those trees need to go or there needs to be some kind of compromise.
Setting aside the financial implications from the new revenue sharing agreement, which I agree is a recent development that does affect the bottom line, the general tone of the presentation to the BOV is that more exposure is a good thing and makes up and then some from the expense of giving the AD more money. That sentiment is as true today as it was five or ten years ago. So if we are making that argument to get the BOV to buy in and fund the AD for success, then why wasn't this pitch made before now? Sorry, it still just smacks of being totally late and reactive to the whole dynamic of college football, which is typical VT. The majority of our fan base knew years ago that being asked to pay more and more for tickets and per seat donations to watch an increasingly crappier slate of games was not setting us up for success. It may have been a slick accounting move though.
Arizona will most likely play out like the Wisconsin and Penn State series did. Hope I am wrong though
I have always screamed from the roof tops to everyone that scheduling these type of programs were a "lose/lose" situation. I fucking hated them but Weaver and Babcock just wanted (supposed to be) easy W's and fill Lane while on shitty Raycom.
Beat them - Cool, you were expected to (not so much nowadays lol), but no one cares, it didn't draw any additional eyes on the TV/team, and didn't really affect you for the season outside of a meaningless W. Total waste of time and money (especially if you paid them to play in Lane), and waste of an opportunity to play bigger name program.
Lose to them - An absolute nightmare. National embarrassment. Highlights of game throughout weekend and constantly reminded of the loss for next week/remaining of season, coaches/players feel pressure to rebound, basically no chance of being ranked and (in post CFP era), little to no chance at CFP birth if you don't win ACC. I could go on as I am probably missing some but you get the gist.
I find it unfathomable that the same person now begging the BOV for more money and the need to schedule higher-caliber opening games is also the one who actively scheduled all these garbage teams in the first place, and suddenly has all these solutions. Where has this been for the last five years?
Sorry - calling bullshit here. I'm not going to sit here and defend Whit as the perfect AD (he's not), and I'm not even suggesting that we should not replace him (we should), but it's ignorant to act like this has been some issue for ages now that Whit has just brought up, when in reality these changes are being driven by changes agreed to 6 months ago, finalized 6 weeks ago.
The scheduling change is 100% driven by a change to the ACC revenue share that was announced on March 4, 2025 and approved on June 3, 2025.
Before this change, all TV revenue from all games played on an ACC team's home field were added up and split 17 ways. Filling up a schedule can be expensive, and that's where body bag games come in. Let's all remember that in 2024, 9 schools paid over $1m for body bag games. Even at lower levels; G5 teams (GSU, UAB) are paying FCS teams (SC State, Alabama State) >$300k per game.
So from a purely financial standpoint (I know... it's probably not reasonable to look at this from a 'purely financial' standpoint, but I digress), the ODU deal (which was costs $250k per game) was pretty savvy - it had virtually no impact on revenue, and saved us at least $500k/year (relative to the next best option).
The cost/benefit analysis has changed in the last 6 weeks. I bet a chunk of this presentation was completed shortly after March 2025, and actual numbers were swapped in as soon as they were available. This is pretty fast for universities, which typically move at a glacial pace.
the original post is talking about the next 4 years. Not this year. Next year we open with VMI, then the following two years we open with Liberty and then in 2029 we open with liberty again. Our 2030 opener is against Arizona (for now, subject to change, of course) but for the next 4 years our openers are poop.
2026 opens with VMI. 2027, 2028, and 2029 open with Liberty.
I sure hope they are trying to adjust it now, but they have a terrible labor-day-weekend opener for the next 4 years.
yeah, I agree with you completely. I think we'd be a pesky team in the SEC that most years would win probably just over half our games (7 or 8 wins) and some years, if we get a couple of great recruits, or coach up a few players beyond their scouting, we make some noise with 10 wins and maybe find ourselves in the SEC championship race in November. That would be disappointing to some fans, but it would be a HELL OF A LOT BETTER than what we've had for the last 1.5 decades and what we have to look forward to for, well at least another decade (and honestly, probably much longer than that)
Tatem? Tuten?
One little issue with the origination post. It is wrong. We are not opening with ODU or Liberty. We are opening with South Carolina.
Hey man, Monday's already suck. Didn't need this level of depression shot into my veins lol. But all jokes aside, I fear you are more closer to truth than not.
IF we did decline an SEC invitation (big IF), then I agree we wouldn't be close to this stage. Lane probably has gone through an expansion and we wouldn't be that far behind the arms race.
Honestly, not because Shane is there, but we'd probably be equivalent to USC if we were in SEC. Small town, great fan base. Good enough to win some big games, lose your head scratchers here and there, better/modern facilities (that don't take years to complete/start) with better TV money, recruiting better players, but always middle to above average in the standings. Averaging 8-4/9-3 year in and year out. Probably have better chance at a few CFP appearances with all the ranked team chances you have to move up in rankings too with SEC bias.
The ACC is better than the B12 currently, but agree that when those 4 head out, the ACC drops to Pac12 status.
The scheduling aspect is definitely a lesson learned from Pry. Babcock F'ed that up, but he was also continuing the status quo from the Weaver years. One of VT's issues was they were a lesser program forever and made a meteoric rise under Beamer. Weaver never acted like an AD from a top-tier program. Babcock came from a G5 school. Fuente came from a G5 school. Nobody knew how to run a P4 athletic department. And they suffered from imposter syndrome and handicapped themselves instead of learning from and/or hiring P4-level experienced admins. It wasn't until Pry did anyone suggest that VT is a major football program and should act like one.
Our obsession with scheduling the likes of ODU, Liberty, Richmond and VMI is actually now going to start costing us in TV revenue sharing. Probably a main driver for why the ODU series was canceled, and would not be surprised to see many more cancellations follow. Simply put, VMI or Liberty absolutely cannot be our opponent in what needs to be a showcase weekend going forward.
This is exactly why ODU was canceled. TSL discussed it on the most recent pod.
I do think this slide is a little optimistic on the state of the ACC. I don't consider the ACC and B12 to be equal - maybe currently, but not longer-term. The B12 is relatively stable now having already been raided, and they've been aggressive in adding members/value where they can and negotiating a tv deal. The ACC is still ripe for the picking. If we lose Clemson/FSU/Miami/UNC, there is no way in hell the ACC remains on par with the B12 moving forward.
Especially now that this presentation is out there effectively begging the school to actually fund athletics so that we can compete.
How do you think the presentation got to twitter? You think Babcock was trying to keep this secret?
If he's unable to get through to the BoV, we are in a death spiral we will not climb out of. No quality AD will take this job knowing they won't get the funding to compete.
I agree. And that's why this presentation is "leaked" before it is presented. To put the reality of the situation out there and to put pressure on the BoV.
I'm not going to say Babcock is a good AD. But, I do think that regardless of the AD, VT has had institutional issues that held the program back. And if Babcock and Pry are fired this year, it will not matter who they hire as the next AD and the next football HC if the BoV does not enable the program for success. If they don't, they might as well fall back to G5 status.
I would love that. I hate WVU more than UVA, and would love to see us pound them.