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I'm 100% confident that you're right.
I guarantee that you will end up doing this in the future anyway
I'm going to expose my own old take. In one of the James Franklin-centric coaching search threads, I posted:
Making CFB coaching carousel predictions is generally a fool's game. However, I feel 100% confident in predicting that Brent Pry would not be a part of Franklin's staff here if we land him.
After some self-reflection, I think it may be time for me to stop making concrete predictions or guarantees of any kind.
Le Sabre is fun today. And they're saying that we have mortgaged our entire Olympics sports programs to hire Franklin and that we cannot produce enough revenue to sustain football if he doesn't win big right away. Now, they think Franklin's hire is just like UNC's hiring Belly boy and will end in total disaster forever for the Hokies and that VT shouldn't be ALLOWED to do such a thing. How quickly their tears turn to rage against the Hokies. We'll live forever in their heads, win or lose.
If Pry doesn't do any of the organizing (since he'd be the DC, not HC), does it matter? As DC, there's less decision making around how your time is spent, much more 'show up at this time' and much less 'figure out how to cram these 7 things into your day'
While I have many of the concerns you have... imagine this was Will Muschamp right after he was fired at SCar. Would you be worried? Or if it was Joe Moorhead on the offensive side of the ball.
This isn't weird because Pry is a failed head coach; it's weird because he was our failed head coach (a freshly failed head coach at that)
Perusing the Sabre before and after the game is quite amusing.
All week, they've been touting themselves as the new kings of the ACC, with teams like Tech forever destined to the bottom tier. When posters mentioned the 2026 class rankings on Weds, others responded that it wasn't concerning as UVa is now the master at portal acquisition. They were slobbering all over CTE. They were destined for the P2, while VT would become a B12 doormat.
After the game, it was a complete reversal. They'll never sniff another CFP, Elliott sucks, their recruiting is in the tank, they can't repeat their portal magic, etc, etc
Harsh reality crushing their ill-fated dreams. I love it!
If Pry is back as DC and Quinn, Cheetah, Priloeau, or Holt are back, I'm officially going from excited to openly pessimistic about the future.
All those guys need to be gone.
Sorry, truth hurts. Tired of making excuses for VT Football.
Does New Players + Same Disorganized Coach = Different Results???
Reports were Pry wasn't even getting Practices started on-time. While DC vs. Head Coach duties are certainly different, I find it hard to imagine that Pry is a drastically different person as a Coordinator...
Maybe he was a great DC who just didn't have HC skills or maybe he just got by on superior talent..??
Christ not Grimm... Goiveia-Winslow is who I had in mind
Don't love it, but I'll go along with this take. In Franklin we trust....
Corn actually made a lot of defenses look good!
Yep, this.
Some people just can't handle all the varying responsibilities of being a head coach. Pry showed the last couple years that was the case with him.
But that doesn't mean he is a bad coach. He's just more suited to focus on one thing rather than everything.
Does Pry get to keep his notepad?
We also know that Franklin is a CEO-type coach with an offensive background, so I find it unlikely that he's going to be intervening heavily in the defensive room.
And college football is a "what have you done for me lately?" world.
Yes, Pry was successful at Penn State, but everyone who has followed him has also been. None of his assistants from PSU came to Virginia Tech with him....I find that telling.
What Pry has done lately is put together one of the worst defenses in the country, the worst linebacker group in P4, and hire a group of defensive coaches who were almost universally underwhelming.
It's not a good move, and just because we want it to succeed, we shouldn't try and put lipstick on a pig.
That's what we've always done in the past here, I thought we were moving on to a new era. Hiring your recently fired head coach back is the absolute antithesis of that.
I don't think Franklin gives Pry free reign on the assistants. He has too much at stake.
At PSU, it was my understanding that Franklin kept the assistant hires and coordinator hires separate.
Franklin recruits players better than coaches??
/S...
Feel free to shoot me an email, knotthereelworld (at) gmail . I may have someone. I'd do it for you for the right price but I don't really drive out there like I used to.
Didn't hold coaches accountable for continued poor positional play, never found a Portal LB who was a solid contributor, and D was utterly awful this year.
While I'd also prefer we go a different route, this just says what we already know - Pry was awful at being a head coach and didn't perform these tasks well.
We also know that he was able to do these things as a DC, so this in itself isn't a reason not to consider him.
his players quit on him this year.
Well that's fine because I don't really want many if any of those players coming back anyway
Don't you worry...they have like 15 formerly Twitter accounts and step on each other frequently for all the world to see. They would be better off on MySpace so no one could see it.
Manny Diaz won his first ACC Championship before Miami won it's first
Manny Diaz won his first ACC Championship before the Hoos won their first.
Well, if Pry does become the DC we won't have to worry about him knowing when to call timeouts.
Miss State is doing something similar, but three years later.
https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/47221770/sources-missis...
Or ever...
To be fair, probably won't be too many players who played under him as an HC after all the portaling is said and done