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What are the odds that this is a culture hire and we make another hire for actual S&C?
Zero.
that Ferguson thought Galt's approach to S&C was dumb, was forced to implement it anyway (and stayed because he's a culture guy), and now is free to do stuff different.
This is what we all have to cross our fingers and hope for now!
The wait to announce may have been to give him time to show what he can do without a drop off in player training (he's been working with our players since Galt was fired), and to give him time to come up with a plan for Pry and Whit to evaluate. Just because it's an internal hire doesn't mean it's a bad one.
As you said, let's wait and see. This is probably the one hallway hire that I don't have a problem with. If the DC is internal, then we've got problems.
What are the odds that this is a culture hire and we make another hire for actual S&C? Or, as I mentioned above, that Ferguson thought Galt's approach to S&C was dumb, was forced to implement it anyway (and stayed because he's a culture guy), and now is free to do stuff different. He was here under Beamer's guy (Gentry?), so maybe he'll do things that way (and maybe Gentry will mentor him?).
I don't disagree at all. But like you say, we are going to find out if Jarrett is the right guy and if Pry was truly serious about fixing S&C and it being a reason we lost close games.
Let's put it this way, Pry saw Galt's results for three years and could have raised his concerns at any point. He extended all of his assistants after 2023. So we will see how much of it was truly concern over S&C and how much was to buy Pry more time.
Dude - look at the other comments about our guys being skinny. And it's harder to tackle guys who are bigger than you if you lack muscle. The firing was a good decision. The question is whether the Ferguson hire was a good hire.
I've already typed out and deleted two posts... one criticizing and another rationalizing this hire. I'll just say that this does not feel like a save-your-job type hire by Pry, especially over a month after Galt was let go.
I'm still trying to withhold judgement until they announce the DC, but given this S&C hire, I am starting to sharpen my pitchfork.
Congrats to a great Hokie Jarrett Ferguson on the promotion and I really hope he proves me wrong.
You ever have a boss that wants you to implement what they say even if you think it's dumb?
And so it begins - flight tracking season!
Gotta be Matt Guerrieri if it's someone from OSU. Has some prior DC experience, although those defenses were statistically far worse than even Marve's. Meh.
What are the odds Pry asked him for a comprehensive plan on what he'd recommend as a path forward.
I feel doubtful that Pry had had any discussions with any potential hires when the decision was made, hence the interim names announced at the same time.
So not that he was a Plan A or even B. Maybe he asked several guys for plans and Ferguson was legit the best?
Non-Paywall 247:
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/FRG9506/history/20250121/1700Z/K...
Flight from OSU Airport headed to Blacksburg, scheduled for 12:10 est departure. Also shows the same plane arriving in Atlanta around 8:40 this morning.
"It's just really difficult to understand the logic here." - Jarrett here is a 3% raise to be the full time SC coach. you have an hour to decide or we are moving on - Whit
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1 year 6 months
# | Dept of Ed: NIL payouts from school are "financial assistance" which are subject to Title IX. Read the current political environment. Republican party controls all levels of government, with a President that wants to be popular with people from the South and Midwest. Jim Jordan and Tommy Tuberville are close with Trump. Cruz is in love with Bevo. Trump gave a prerecorded halftime speech on TV during the championship game.
My guess is that a resolution will happen in 2026, just before midterm elections. And the resolution will be all over the news all fall football season through the November election.
Compared to Vandy of the last decade that's a vast improvement.
It's just really difficult to understand the logic here.
Let me state, first that I hope Ferguson is wildly successful.
But...he's been here off and on since 2006, has never been promoted to Head of S&C nor has anyone hired him away.
And he worked under Galt...how much different could his overall Philosophy be??
It seems pretty clear there was impetus to fire some coaches and very little forethought into who would be replacing them....
Billy Hite, and later Shane did a lot of the "timeouts, etc" stuff for Beamer on game day. Pry needs someone like that.
Vandy had a miracle season - 6 wins, 12th in the SEC, lost to GA State. Their great season though. lolololol
I mean that's the thing though - does anyone have any other bright ideas? Lol. It's not like we're landing huge recruits as it is.
We can use whatever terminology we want - let Pry stay as "head coach" but let him call defense, and let someone else handle game day HC duties. IDK.
My point is that we know Pry can call defense - he routinely had one of if not the best defenses in the B1G. We also know he is less than stellar as HC. But he understands our identity here. He is a phenomenal Hokie... just not a great game day HC. What would it look like to find a way to let him focus on calling defense, without having to split his brain to call timeouts and manage clock? He's not even good at that when it's his only duty.
I'm just entertaining the idea that like ... we might have all the necessary pieces to be a winning program, we just don't have the deck currently arranged in the most optimal way.
I'll say it... Why does nobody ask the question... is fucking Ballein even good at his job? The football team stinks. Recruiting is mid, etc. What the fuck does he even do? Is he ANOTHER thing associated with VT football that has nothing to do with winning? I could see holding onto a fossil in the same job for 35 years if he was actually good at his job.
This worked well for Clark Lea...though they did a lot of other things different this year than in the past.
I understand people's hesitation with the internal hire but me personally my donation to VT just went up
I mean of course the rot continues if you aren't completely removing the sources. Ballein isn't helping. Whit isn't helping. Sands isn't helping. The BOV isnt helping.
The rot goes incredibly deep and I'm not sure its something that will be fixed in our lifetime.
Quite frankly, if his job is on the line, Pry should absolutely be calling defensive plays and schemes going forward while relying completely on Bowen to run the offense, and bring in some guys who can specialize in time management to help with that
But I just don't see that happening.
Yep. That is inevitably where this is headed, but instead of being proactive and getting out in front of it, we will waste two more crucial years, and set ourselves back another half decade or more on another total rebuild.
We don't move quickly. We don't act proactively. We don't invent the future. We cling stubbornly to the past.
The lack of leadership and vision as you said, is staggering, and I hope it haunts Whit into retirement. The drop off in quality under his leadership ought to be studied in classrooms. I appreciate that he seems to know how to kiss ass well enough to improve our fundraising, and for that we should all be grateful, but otherwise his tenure has been a nonstop parade of monumental fuck ups that I could not have begun to fathom possible when Beamer retired in '15.
We could have stood in front of 100 doors that lead to 100 different hypothetical outcomes in 2015, and I'm basically convinced that the one we walked through was one of, if not the worst possible door, and we have yet to even start to course-correct.
I have to wonder how many offers got declined in six weeks to bring us to this. Otherwise there was no reason for delayed announcement.
I hope it works out but all the markers are there that this is another nail in the coffin....hopefully Whit's coffin first.