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Tatem or Tuten getting first team reps in practice today.
It's never too late to become more efficient or improve your performance.
Do I wish they had done this in 2005? Oh, hell yeah. Do I wish they had done it in 2015? Oh, hell yeah.
Do I hope they find another gear in 2025? Oh, hell yeah.
This is nice and all, but far too little too late.
So, what should VT do then? Keep the status quo? Roll over and die? Play the 1995 Sugar Bowl on the Lane Stadium billboard on repeat?
Scheduling ODU and Liberty as an ever-present part of our schedule always impressed me as both unimaginative and lazy.
Part of me really wonders if some big time donors/Sands basically told Whit to get his shit together and make this presentation to the BOV. 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?
The conclusion of this presentation is that the only realistic way we are going to pull ourselves out is by being better on the field
The presentation had several ways to raise capital. And that getting better on the field was only part of the solution.
Then, "what's easiest to do" vs. "what's hardest" vs. "what has the most ROI". Top right is the easiest & most ROI - premium experiences, athletics-led partnerships, fundraising, "pro-style" revenue gen, and CRM. In the top left? Mixed-use real estate. But.... #Hokies pic.twitter.com/di6AnVtpkL— Doug Bowman (@DougBowman247) August 9, 2025
She continues by asking how to increase Athletics funding and the potential ramifications for that, especially as it relates to other top priorities for Virginia Tech. #Hokies pic.twitter.com/h0N1cC6SoK— Doug Bowman (@DougBowman247) August 9, 2025
Getting to know and be a part of stories like Sam's is dwindling in this era of CFB, and it saddens me deeply.
Just saw this pop up. 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.
3. Because of the lack of NFL competition and additional days, Week 1/Labor Day weekend is a prime opportunity to land an ABC/ESPN game and the additional 1.82M viewers on average. The problem? VT opens with VMI and Liberty for the next four years. That needs to change.— Doug Bowman (@DougBowman247) August 11, 2025
Also the expectation is that a main push here is that we are looking to build up the area around Lane like you see in Battery Park in Atlanta or even similar to what they are doing around Carter-Finley in Raleigh
8. The next era for Lane Stadium is one with enhanced WiFi, LEDs, a new sponsored name, and more concerts and events like the Metallica show. VT needs to use it to drive revenue more than 6 times per year (and to drive activity at a future mixed-use development area).— Doug Bowman (@DougBowman247) August 11, 2025
But I then worry about future stagnation. What if the BOV gives a clear signal from this presentation that they prefer the latter, and the fan base and donors start to check out because we know we are never going to be serious about competing with the top echelon of the sport again? If ticket sales and donations then suffer, we could completely go under and be more like a G5 in a hurry.
November 26 Hokies will face Colorado State in Battle 4 Atlantis. That will put them up against Brandon Rechsteiner.
Game two will be either Wichita St or St Mary's depending on results.
This is overstated. The question is does VT want to be a top 20/30 program, or a top 50/60 program. There are still only 130 FBS jobs, about half of which VT is indisputably better equipped/supported than.
I saw my wife, slightly drunk, yelling at the TV: "Don't go in there! Don't go in the church, you moron!"
She is watching our wedding video again.
Dang! You won't horsing around were you?
took me a second to see it
then I saw it
you are too much doom and gloom
TKP (well, college football, but since TKP is my only outlet for it) is the one area I allow myself to be overly negative. It gets it out of my system and then I can be more up-beat and positive in every other aspect of my life. TKP is my negative Nancy dumping ground because its sports and sports really don't matter in the grand scheme of things. I get some shit off my chest and then I can move on with life and smell the roses.
At this point, if Whit goes, who in their right mind would take the job? Especially now that this presentation is out there effectively begging the school to actually fund athletics so that we can compete.
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. No coach would have us on their short list, as they know the expectations would not meet the ability to compete. Things will get much worse before they get better, and there is no guarantee they will ever get better than they currently are if the BoV balks at this ask.
Thing is, yes, this should have happened 5 years ago, but its unlikely the BoV would have done anything at that point. At that time we still had this foolish idea that the ACC could compete long term despite every data point out there beating us over the head that it wouldn't. We had our heads buried in the sand, and instead were giving full pushes toward alumni giving thinking that donations would make up the difference, going so far as to say it would pay for things like the Cassell renovation that at this point will never happen. I mean shit, 5 years ago we were actively balking at the thought of firing a severely underperforming Fuente because of optics over COVID furloughs, something that other programs wouldn't give 2 shits about if it meant being better in the long term.
Virginia Tech is desperate to be a small time backwoods regional school that never grows beyond its small town quaint background and will subconsciously sabotage its own aspirations to keep ourselves there. We will actively kneecap ourselves over things other schools just dismiss away, like the Stadium Woods mess, knowing doing what is necessary to remain relevant isn't always going to align with what the vocal minority will cry about. You honestly think Clemson, FSU, or even UNC/NC State would have allowed that project to be derailed like we did? No way in hell
Took the words from my mouth. This is nice and all, but far too little too late. It's great that leadership is finally realizing that the VTAD needs a foundational overhaul and can't just rely on nostalgia and clinging to relics of the Beamer era to compete, but the gap is so wide now that we have little if any hope of ever catching up. And since we have allowed the luster and shine of the program to stagnate for over a decade now, we are nowhere near as attractive to the SEC as we once were (we were going to be the 14th team, not Missouri). We have made our bed as a program and now we are going to have to lie in it.
Right now, you are too much doom and gloom for a Monday morning. The system is going to need to be adjusted and will be. The B1G and SEC can't exist alone without other programs to play. It is in their best interest for everybody to get a piece of the pie sufficient for everybody.
no, we're not, nor have we ever been, BluebloodU -
we're not even nouveau riche
We aren't BluebloodU...and it aint happening either.
That should therefore include the athetics fee charged to students, which at UVA is twice what VT charges, last I knew.
agree that it's too late
I don't have any idea how much (if any) merit there is the rumor that VT held an invitation to the SEC back in ~2010 but if that's true and we declined that was where we sealed our fate. If we had been in the SEC for the last 15 years I don't think our outlook would be so dire at the moment. Though, with our current leadership, I'm not entirely sure it would be that much better. We'd probably still make all the same dumb decisions but we'd have more money for it so....there's that, I guess.
Alas, we're trapped in a sinking ship of a league in the ACC. All there is left for us to do is drown. I guess we can probably take solace in the fact that VT athletics won't die alone. We're going to be one of many programs that meets their demise as the wealth gap continues to widen between the top 20ish programs and everyone else. VT used to be part of a "middle class" of football programs that is rapidly disintegrating. In the next 10-20 years we'll see the "household" teams dominating the sport and everyone else just giving up. I won't be surprised if two decades from now it won't even be possible to get a VT game on television. The only thing that could fix that would be a revolution within the sport and I don't know if that's ever going to materialize. It's just a game, after all.
That's unlikely.
Look at all the options in this slide:
In every one of these scenarios, VT remains in the top half (arguably top third) of FBS.
The reality is - even though VT is in dire straits, almost every school that isn't in the SEC or B10 is as well.
I know you think very little of our administration. They may not have the 'killer instinct' required to compete for a natty in a revenue sport, but they're not dumb. They know the value of being in a conference with reputable sports and peer institutions. They will not tank our program to be a G5/6.