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1 year 6 months
# | Dept of Ed: NIL payouts from school are "financial assistance" which are subject to Title IX. This sounds remarkably logical and politically prescient. Do you know a guy named Carnac?
This is a weird reaction by this board.
Ferg is a legendary character in VT football lore...went from walk-on to starting fullback for the '99 team to 7th round draft pick by the Bills, all off his work ethic and desire to lift heavy things. Exhibit A of Gentry's program and what made Virginia Tech great during the height of the Beamer era. Culture personified. He's revered by the old heads and from what I can tell, the players like and respect him...sometimes we have to go back to move forward.
Ferg essentially worked as middle management between Galt and the players and had his hands tied about what he felt was the best for the program. This promotion is a move towards a Gentry-influenced S&C program with modern twists. That plus who Ferg is as a professional (20+ years in the space, several years as a S&C senior director, NFL career) and a person makes this a home run hire.
You guys may think this an underwhelming hire, the following don't:
Michael Vick
Shuman
Anthony Lambo
J. McLaughlin
Dwight Vick
Isaiah Ford
David Wilson
Aaron Rouse
Tapp
Adibi
Armani Chatman
Luther Maddy
Sergio Render
All of whom have publically praised Pry for making the right decision.
Your football knowledge far outweighs mine but just knowing how Covil's departure from Clemson and portal recruitment went down, I would be surprised if Covil plays Star. He left Clemson partially because they moved him to nickel after his injury and he felt like it was a poor utilization of his skill set (which is backed up by his PFF grade).
It's my personal belief that Ellis gets moved to Star or a "big nickel"
this quote is from a 2022 article re: Knowles' defense at OSU
"They do a really nice job of keeping it simple for their guys but complicated for the (opposing) offense"
This may be common coach speak but it's almost exactly what Pry said a few days ago.
Not saying this is the pick, but it fits.
That's the rule, not the exception.
I wish. My HC spot is high enough to get some priority, but not THAT kind of priority.
Very good analogy.
In that case, to this:
If we get to the point where the program has to seriously entertain any such reshuffling moves (bringing Foster into an active coaching role, Pry as DC, etc), then someone needs to intervene to fire Whit and bring in a new AD with the imperative to clean the program from top to bottom.
I would say that we are actually to that point. My suggestion about reshuffling the deck in such a way is really just a call from desperation to do anything, try anything. I think we have been here for several years now. I basically don't think that we will be successful until Whit is shown the door and Merryman is completely gutted.
It's all relative. And they did beat Alabama.
Was the search process was poorly conducted?
IMO, probably not.
Did Whit fail to give Pry sufficient resources to get the right guys?
IMO, probably not. More that Whit doesn't have the sufficient resources.
Did the right guys not want to board what they view as a sinking ship?
IMO, more of not wanting to board a pontoon boat while other programs would be boarding a luxury yacht.
I really wish we had some insight as to what the general coaches circle opinions are about careers at VT, how much they are tied to the program itself vs to Whit/to big-time donors/etc. Maybe we've reached the point where the only people we can convince are those wearing O&M glasses.
I feel like we have a deck of number cards (no face cards), and no matter how we shuffle them we'll still fail to have a winning hand.
This is a really good analogy. Although, to extend it a bit, you can totally win some hands without face cards, but you are unlikely to win the whole tournament.
What you saw on TV last night- that level of money, talent, and performance- VT is done competing at that level.
see, here's where you are wrong.
I did not watch anything on TV last night
Hopefully the OL will improve enough that we can get good production from the run game without needing a RB who can get 95% of his yards after contact and break 57 tackles a game.
All concerns I share.
we might have all the necessary pieces to be a winning program
At this point I'm resolved to my personal opinion that we might have some pieces for being a winning program, but we definitely have a lot more pieces impeding our ability to be a winning program. So to go along with your analogy, I feel like we have a deck of number cards (no face cards), and no matter how we shuffle them we'll still fail to have a winning hand.
If we get to the point where the program has to seriously entertain any such reshuffling moves (bringing Foster into an active coaching role, Pry as DC, etc), then someone needs to intervene to fire Whit and bring in a new AD with the imperative to clean the program from top to bottom. IMO it would be an obvious failure on both for not being able to attract top talent. I don't know what kind of stipulations can be put in place for the ability for the new AD to retain someone, but it better be severe. Yes, there will unfortunately be undeserved casualties, but we've proven as a program that cutting out bits and pieces does not work.
The above would never happen, and even if it did, what successful AD would want to walk into that?
Just another confirmation of why I don't bet on sports
^^^ This right here. I'm not concerned with the "timing" aspect of the announcement.
I am not underwhelmed by this hire at all. I'm actually excited about it. Hard nosed Hokie who knows smack mouth football is okay by me and now has a perfect opportunity to showcase what an S&C program should be. IMO and in my gut, this is what we will get from Jarrett vs someone who is a Minnie Me of Galt and more of the same.
That's a level of fan entitlement that I hope to experience some day.
Jim Knowles confirmed.
Also- I did all my picks before game 1 and didn't review or update as news came out or in case of playoffs a different team than I had thought won an early playoff game.
Congrats to another one of the top 2% of schools with a recruiting, monetary, and legacy advantage in beating the other schools in that general echelon.....
To be fair, you don't know for a fact that HomebrewHokie isn't a top level donor. Maybe he's got the clout we need!
I have to wonder how many offers got declined in six weeks to bring us to this.
I'm worried about the same regarding the DC hire. Was the search process was poorly conducted? Did Whit fail to give Pry sufficient resources to get the right guys? Did the right guys not want to board what they view as a sinking ship? Some combo of the three?
He was also really young. I was a much more effective leader at 35 than I was at 32.
If it's him, I'll keep an open mind. I think we can do worse than a Jim Knowles disciple (@ both Duke and OSU).
Yeah, there are a lot of good reasons to wait. The only people who feel that hires need to happen quickly are the message board fanatics.
I'd rather they take their time and make sure they're getting the right guys than hurry up and grab the first available dude. The idea that the time it's taking to announce is due to all our candidates turning us down is just a message board narrative that people are blindly accepting as fact for some reason.
People have stated ad nauseum that these hires are going to determine whether Pry and Babcock get to keep their jobs, then are flummoxed as to why they're taking their time with the hires. Seems pretty logical to me that they're doing some due diligence and not just hiring the first guy that answers the phone to make the 1% of Hokie fans who hang out on TKP or TSL happy.
So I finally made into the 1 percenters ? Awesome!