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Its been a while but I remember the pylon logo. According to the official visual brand site we've got three - The university seal, the university logo, and the athletics logo. The 2nd link gets into a bit more history - the pylon logo was adopted in 1991, and I think the replacement was the new flying VT logo that nearly caused a revolt across the alumni base (I still dont care for it).
https://brand.vt.edu/licensing/university-trademarks.html#guidelines
https://www.vt.edu/about/traditions.html
This is exactly the connection I made in the early Fuente years.
It's one of the reasons I've been so sympathetic towards Whit over the years; I think the expectation that we can (rather, should) do more with less had seemingly infected leadership throughout the entire university, as well as donors throughout the entire university.
If just seems like VT has tried to sheepishly resist the arm race by meeting the minimum financial commitment for years (a complaining about it on the way). This is another reason why you can miss me with the complaints of administrative bloat or facilities spending - everyone's doing it; it's an arms race.
Either your strategy is product differentiation (be a top 100 academic school, be a top 25 football program, and pay to be there) or its price differentiation (be an affordable degree, cheap athletic dept, etc, that is just 'good enough')
Want to be great? Gotta invest. Gotta be competitive.
Yes. Most schools used to have two separate logos.
Wasn't the academic logo the pylons before the shift to rounded VT?
Maybe instead of "Invent the Future" the new president can institute "Change the Mindset" as the new slogan
You mean how do we get it back? That's probably the one thing that happened during Sands' tenure that frustrated me.
If I were a betting man, which I am, I'd put money down that Franklin knew all of this during the hiring process and those board members that were aggressively working to convince him to come to Blacksburg were informing him of the current situation and the plan to make adjustments so that everything would be in "alignment." If you remember, there was a forest fire of smoke around Whit retiring during the coaching search.
"up from your bootstraps, everyone should love it here"
wonderful, this wasn't just a football/athletics mindset
It's only called NIL because they can't call it a salary. They are mostly paid for their talents and to promote the school through those.
🎸OG LEG KING 🎸
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2 months 2 weeks
# | Whit Babcock Announces his retirement effective June 30, 2026 VT was in the bottom 25% among peer institutions in terms of faculty compensation when Sands took the job. I don't have our current numbers but we're at least in the top half now. He made it a priority. You can't run a university on the "up from your bootstraps, everyone should love it here" mentality. Sands came in at least a decade behind academically and athletically and closed the gap admirably.
little of column a and a little of column b
As a Steelers fan, I sadly agree. This is their third tackle taken in the first round in the last 4 drafts, so they're basically admitting they bungled it already and this one seems like another raw project like Broderick Jones was/is.
Welcome aboard.
The hype is growing.
I have the absolute opposite take -- the players got drafted because of who they are, what they've done at the collegiate level, and what they could do at the pro level and being picked in the first round is more instructive of that "value" than you not hearing about them before yesterday
I'm OK with it.
He has good institutional knowledge. Good for us to have, and not for anyone else to have.
Good for him, I'm genuinely happy for him. Yeah he got more money from LSU but as much as some fans don't want to admit it, we weren't a good spot for him anymore at the time. The program was a mess and I thought it was the main reason his play took a slight step back his last year with us compared to years prior. He had NFL talent the entire time, probably would have been a Day 2 pick had he went last year. But he got better coaching and prep at LSU, now he's a top 10 pick. Hopefully Franklin can turn things around where kids like him don't have to go elsewhere to hit their max potential. Instead, they'll come to us
I think that's very fair from an immediate need standpoint. There's no doubt last year was a great opportunity for any NFC team. However, I don't think the AFC will put out a team as bad as the Pats this past season.
I like the pick because Stafford is very much in steep decline territory. It could be next year, it could be four years from now, but it's coming. You get a guy you can invest in for cheap and see if he can take over when the day comes. If not, you don't really lose much with how favorable these rookie contracts are.
Here's where I think this was a bad pick:
The Rams were four points from the Super Bowl which they almost certainly would have won last year.
Pick somebody who can help you get over the hump and win a Superbowl next year.
Worry about finding Stafford's replacement in the future-- next year's Draft is supposed to have significantly more QB Talent anyways.
So after watching the 1st round, would estimate I knew about 10 of the players reasonably well.
Many of the picks past 15 were just random names....
Which makes one wonder how exactly these guys are making money on name, image, and likeness??
It's almost like the name on the front of the Jersey is pretty much as important as the one on the back and when you're bouncing from school to school every single year, your "brand" is actually less valuable.
On the academic side, we are light-years ahead of where we used to be in terms of scope, quality, and impact.
I had a professor/friend of a friend tell me in the Stegar era, our spend for professors and academics was quite similar to our athletic spend (my words, not hers): significantly lower than peer institutions, and you were expected to like it because you had the honor to live in Blacksburg.
I've heard Sands changed that.
It's truly almost impossible to be a university president in the current environment
Facts. This is a miserable job right now. The pay is great compared to most jobs, but people with the intelligence and political savviness necessary to be a university president can land similar (or better) pay with half the hassle.
I feel great about it. Whit has a ton of institutional knowledge that no one else has. Either he's being paid to be a big help, or he's being paid to quietly sit on the sidelines (not talk to media, not go to other schools, etc) or both.
Whatever the case, it's fine.
Simpson did a lot of high level NFL stuff last year. His biggest knock was the lack of starts. Sitting behind a top NFL QB is probably best case scenario.
2. Bloated the administration to increase costs to students with no impact on education
3. Resided over wasteful capital projects that have ridiculous amenities to drive up costs for students
Is there a single top 100 university that doesn't have a 'bloated administration' or hasn't heavily invested in amenities?
Everyone wants to blame universities. No one wants to blame the consumer. Parents hear that State U has 1-10 advisor to student ratio, but lesser State U has a 1-125 ratio, and the latter school is at an immediate disadvantage.
I don't have any data, but I get the impression that people just don't budget shop when it comes to 'the college experience' (TM), and the market is just responding.
Yeah, that's why I was confused by the "get it back" comment. They haven't been the same, so we can't go back to being the same.
I also don't like the rounded VT. It is too similar to the athletic logo. Either use the same logo (not a bad choice) or have one that is different enough (like the pylons, also not a bad choice). The rounded logo always felt like a very expensive half-measure.