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All that is correct but, the actions were taken to put themselves into that position to decide if they wanted to push forward or shut it down.

'Modestly' might be a bit of an undersell... the average recruit rating has increased every year, and iirc the '25 class has the highest average recruit rating of any class in VT history.

With all due respect, our current recruiting class is all vaporware until we are past Signing Day. We've been burned way too many times to at all feel good about recruiting until names are put on the dotted line, and even then the Portal sucks a lot of joy out of it

This sums up VT football perfectly. We won 10 games- but we played an extra game, lost 4 games- 2 to bad teams and "almost" tied Clemson. Yep. Let's extend that guy who did this with Frank Beamers players- cause you know we almost had a great season. If Bret Beliema would have taken a knee the entire second half, Fu would have been 0-fer in bowl games here.

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It's almost like we need a fuck ton more money to compete at the national stage. Teams like ASU can pop off a good season here and there but to compete year in year out, it's pretty clear you need huge money.

Has there been a single non blue blood or blue blood adjacent to have sustained success for more than a few seasons?

There's absolutely zero reason to fire a coach. Without more money, our upside is having the ball break the right way in a season once in a while and getting 10 wins and a playoff birth. That could have happened this year, but it didn't.

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And it has become increasingly common for schools seeking to fill assistant coaching positions.

This makes it sound like it used to be uncommon, so I'm probably just behind. But still, "increasingly common" is not the same as "common." Edit: sounds like it's on its way to being a common thing. Plus, I'd bet it's more common for existing, in-demand assistants than new ones that haven't proven themselves.

Most of any assistant contracts probably do not have buyouts.

Categorically false. USA today estimated that in 2023 alone, $32 million in buyouts was owed to assistant coaches and strength coaches by mid-January (source). They do note that Assistants are more likely to have offsets, so if they get hired somewhere else, that number will decrease.

You appear to be reading hard into stuff. It lists the buyout amounts per year and its only $100k for the coordinators. And if you read the article I linked, it specifies that's if they choose to go and it's money they owe the school, not the other way around. Paste the specific wording you're seeing that makes you think it's two years of their salary, because I'm not seeing anything to that effect. The numbers look the same as in the article I shared, only that the other article is more specific to the coach choosing to go to another school and the buyout being what they'd owe the school.

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What people really should be fixating on is what the hell is he writing in his notebook? It should be things like "Game 1: had two players with the same jersey number on field at same time." Then, in games 2-12, that should no longer be an issue.

But was that the case? No. We kept making the same dumb mistakes game after game. So my question remians: what the hell was he writing? Ideas for what hobbies to take up when he is fired in year 4?

Extremely well said, Beard.

I would go further, however, on the point about mandatory time management boot camp. I think Pry should be required by the AD to do whatever is possible to train the staff in better gameday preparations (everything, including time management). For too long the Hokies have been a mixed bag over a season: sometimes we come out hot, looking good, hyped, executing well. Other times we looked like we woke up 2 hours before kick off, ate a big pankcake breakfast, skipped showers, skipped stretching, etc. In several games it appeared as if the coaches & players are on different wavelengths about what personnel should be on the field, what play is going to be executed next, what the strategy is for managing time outs, field position, points before a half, etc.

Next season, the staff should be so well-trained & cohesive about their gameday operations & plans that it is not even something they need to think about...it becomes second nature. Pry had a deservedly long leash for the first 2, 2.5 years due to fixing the dumpster fire and bringing in a lot of newbs, but at this point it has to be fixed and a non-issue moving forward, or Pry's ass should have to pay the price.