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VT in 2025 = brokeass fo sho
VT in 2026 = ?!?!?!
Great article. Thanks Shelton.
Shelton, you have a gift, and we are lucky to have you on TKP. Great job once again!
I like limiting the blue bloods to a small number but what's the cutoff? Miami has five national championships going back to 1983
You cannot overlook the age gap between the teams last night. 23 year old maturity, habits, conditioning, discipline, muscle density, etc all factor in. Youth is a blessing and a curse, and Cignetti put a premium on maturity and proven production, and then layered in a healthy dose of discipline and belief.
Easy stat for that is to look at turnovers and penalties. UI was insanely good on both.
All of us mediocre pickers say: "Your Welcome". JK
I like the contagious part.
Lets! Go!
I am of the belief that there are 8 bluebloods: Alabama, USC, Nebraska, OSU, Michigan, ND, OU, Texas. Then there's the nuevo riche: FSU, Miami, PSU, UGA, LSU, Auburn, Tennessee. Then there's the Usurpers: Clemson, Oregon, TAMU, etc. Then there's the middle class, and finally brokeass.
The core problem is that every college football program in America is wrestling with the same fundamental question right now.
Curt Cignetti represents the 2.0 version of Beamer after promoting Bud to DC. It's extremely difficult to find that in the open market, especially with great coaches leaving college for the NFL at a higher rate than ever before.
It's appealing to believe there's a non-zero chance of winning a national championship. That kind of hope is a solid business model for any athletic department: optimism drives ticket sales, TV viewership, merchandise, and overall engagement.
But realistically, sustained national-title contention requires capturing lightning in a bottle.
Agree here. If a quarterback can't be hit when he doesn't have the ball, then he shouldn't be able to fake like he has it. Whether or not the defender thought he had it shouldn't be an issue. That's one of the few ways you can disrupt a play fake is to just hit whoever your assignment is. In HS we used to practice against Giles and the single wing by having the scout team play without a ball. Assignment football tackle the man in your gap.
But the crown of the helmet to the facemask was no bueno.
Looks like Franklin clearly emphasized Academic expectations to the team...
First day of classes . Front row and 10 minutes early ! @HokiesFB pic.twitter.com/Ljd3nybrk8— Mathieu Lamah 4⭐️ (@Mathieukanu9) January 20, 2026
First day of class, 15 minutes early front row. @coachjfranklin @HokiesFB pic.twitter.com/nyMH7WLLPw— Terry Wiggins 4 ⭐️ (@Terry_Wiggins10) January 20, 2026
10 minutes early!!@coachjfranklin pic.twitter.com/eRSDHV3ks9— Marlen Bright (@MarlenBright5) January 20, 2026
They're one of the most dominant teams in recent history, but not the best. Doesn't take away anything they accomplished.
I think Miami is broadly considered a blue blood
Any chance we hear about this today have the media team has finished welcoming our transfer players?
A final four that didn't feature a single blueblood school or SEC school
Uh, ole miss is in the SEC
What am I looking at here?
The hit on Mendoza was, late, dirty, targeting and the kind of thing a decent crew can't miss.
Agree with everything but late. Mendoza was carrying out a fake, so was still involved in the play. But it was easily targeting, and the officials should've seen that.
VT is building their team a little differently, and taking a longer view.
This year, I'd agree. JMFF has basically used the portal to shore up his '25 and '24 recruiting classes, creating the base he needs to be winning in '27 and beyond. I'm willing to bet that if you add the portal entrants to those two classes (and take out the portal outs), then VT's '25 and '24 classes will be close to top 25.
While Cignetti and others are paying out the nose for production in the portal, JMFF is taking the long view by buying controllable talent, intending to use his ability to recruit to retain the best talent of those three classes.
What Cignetti has done is crazy. Six major contributors/starters were from JMU, all of which were essentially unrecruited by any P4 school. And although IU is now getting major talent via portal (ranked #2 in 2026 by On3), it only did OK in 2024 and 2025. In 2024, ranked 10th by On3, but only 68 average player ranking of incoming talent (2nd lowest in top 25). In 2025, ranked 13th and again only 68 average player ranking of incoming talent. IU completely busted the blue-chip ratio.
VT is building their team a little differently, and taking a longer view. They're building in a manner that is more similar to Miami, building up the OL and DL with young talent and developing them. Big difference from Miami is that VT could have a multi-year QB starter. VT could be playoff caliber in 2027 and 2028.
Robert Irvine's 2008 resume scandal involved major embellishments, including faking a British knighthood, claiming to cook for U.S. presidents (he worked in the White House Mess, not as a personal chef), and falsely stating he was involved in baking Prince Charles and Princess Diana's wedding cake, leading to his firing from Food Network's Dinner: Impossible; he admitted to stretching the truth due to pressure to keep up with others, though he eventually returned to the network after apologizing
This Indiana team is a perfect example for defining the difference between a "great" team and the "best" team.
First 16-0, from where they were 2 years ago, such exceptional coaching and discipline from players on both sides of the ball, etc. It's one of the greatest achievements in sports. There's also a lot of teams from the past 20 years I'd take over them in a game where my life was on the line.
I did not know that.
When I see people suggest that Indiana is one of the "best" teams of all time though... I think there were 6 teams in 2019 alone that would run them out of the building.
Oh completely agree. I think they have an argument for most impressive team ever (going 16-0), but I think this team gets beat soundly by 2024 OSU, 2021(?) UGA, 2020 bama, 2019 LSU, 2013 FSU, 2001 Miami... and a bunch more.
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5 months 3 weeks
# | The 2026 Hokie Hype Train is now boarding. Make sure to secure your seat before we depart! I think Franklin gets an A++ for the recruiting class and a solid A for the transfer portal. Better than I expected for both. That said the team is too young and was too bad last year.
Imo we only got 3 maybe 4 impact transfers for winning this season. White, Brown, Wylie (who didn't start at LB for Penn State) and maybe Cam Chadwick who had a solid season any French likes a lot, but isn't very highly rated, similar to the DB's we took in the portal last year.
The rest of the guys are all potential. It should pay off eventually but most of these guys are r-Fr. I will be very surprised if a significant amount are ready to play
Great piece! The more I've learned about Cignetti and this IU program, the more I hear about how good they are at talent evaluation and getting "production" in the door. That is the intangible here that separated them from the pack.
Every P4 school should have, in theory, access to the resources needed to compete for a national title in any sport. Now it's seemingly up to the athletic departments to prioritize which sports get first dibs on these resources and ensure they hire staff who can utilize it to the fullest.
There are a large handful of schools who probably have similar articles being posted on their message boards today. "Why not us? If Indiana can do it, we certainly can." What will separate the successful from the failures is the ability of their coaching staffs to identify productive talent, prioritize and budget to maximize the amount of talent that can be brought it in at the right positions, develop that talent, and retain that talent.
Make no mistake, the Ohio States, Georgias, and Oregons of the CFB world still have advantages VT could only dream of. But what made the Beamer era successful was his ability to find a gap in that market (757 recruiting amongst other things) and capitalize on it. To Shelton's point, those gaps seemed mostly closed but in this new era they may be reopening. Can VT take advantage and step into one is a question only Whit, JF, & Co. can answer in the coming years.