I love Virginia Tech. I spent the last 20 years of my life being defined by my live for Virginia Tech, the school and it's athletic programs. I can count on one hand the number of football games I've missed in those 20 years. I've watched us play football or basketball at every venue here in the state of North Carolina that we have ever played in, including the random ass basketball game at Campbell University years ago.
So when I say that I have been asking myself more and more lately this question, know that it's coming from a place where I truly more than anything want us to have success. But I can't keep this question out of my mind:
Can Virginia Tech ever compete at the highest level of football or basketball again?
For the longest time, I've always felt like there was a path. I felt like if we just got a few wins and built the right amount of momentum things would begin to snowball in the right direction. And every time I feel like we have taken a step forward, it's met with an immediate 2 steps backwards. But I always felt like there might be a chance.
But now? I just don't know anymore. We gutted our funding of anything that wasn't football to pay for our NIL ventures only to see multiple key starters abandon us for a bigger payday elsewhere. Our revenue streams are a small fraction of our peers and now we are seeing schools like SMU and UNC just say screw it and ramp up their spending to levels we cannot hope to ever match in an era where you need to pay money up front to get a player to even be interested in playing for you.
I no longer see any viable path to Virginia Tech being competitive again. We don't have billionaire CEOs or billionaire oil magnates to bankroll whatever we want to do. We don't have 150 years of billion dollar endowments to fall back on to keep ourselves afloat. Our margins are apparently razor thin and we already financially cannot keep up. The more I think about it the more hopeless I am becoming. It feels like I'm watching a rapid deterioration and death of something I love and there is nothing i can do about it.
For those of you who still have hope, help explain it to me, because I think a lot of us could use it right now.
Comments
I'm basically in the same boat. The fate of VT was sealed when we got locked into a dead league. The ACC is the anchor that will undo VT, ultimately.
I just don't see a path forward for VT to be successful. Not with the arms race that is going on right now. We're just simply outgunned.
Nope
Time to find yourself some new hobbies.
I already did! EPL - and it's f*king awesome! I joined a fantasy EPL league with my brother and it's been hella fun
Are you playing the official FPL game?
Yes? I think so? How would one know? Are there others?
Is it a green theme on the official premier league site? Budget based where everyone can own every player but you have to pick the best within your budget? If so join our Hokies minileague :) currently having my best season ever! (Famous last words)
https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/br5mcp
You can also do fantasy premier league in different format (more NFL style) on Sleeper for instance, or similar to FPL game but different scoring on Fantrax
Okay just tried joining. This is my first real season. I've played a couple times before but I wasn't active at all and didn't pay attention. I'd set a team at the beginning and not sign in again. This time I'm much more invested
Here is where I am...
I love VT. I love the fact that when I travel with my VT hat to a foreign country or anywhere in the US, I'll have another hokie approach me almost every time. There's a level of camaraderie that my UVA family members just don't see or get.
I'll cheer on a hokie win, and always wish our athletic (and academic) teams the best of luck in all their games and future endeavors.
I'm at peace with the status quo. I don't clear my schedule to watch games (but if its on, I'll switch to it). I don't make athletic donations anymore. I don't travel to bowl games. For me...its over. The magic of a Bryan Randall coming in for a suspended Marcus Vick and winning the ACC in year 1 is gone. The Tyrod acrobatics are gone. The upset at the shoe will never happen again. But I have the memories, and that will have to be enough.
Be most excellent to your fellow hokies, and give this new abomination of sports the attention it deserves....absolutely none...
The short answer is no, not really. Football in particular is going to be hopeless. One of my nieces is a sophomore at Alabama and over Thanksgiving I was telling her about the time that Virginia Tech rolled them in the Music City Bowl. That kind of thing isn't going to happen anymore.
There's simply too much of a money difference now, and the sport as constituted has no competitive framework that could provide some measure of real parity. We are all competing in go-karts but if you have access to a Top Fuel dragster you can run the race in that if you want.
At a certain point I think it all blows up and the top 12 brands in each of the P2 go and make their own NFL Junior and the rest of us go back to playing actual college sports again.
Basketball has more of a path to parity given the smaller teams and the greater impact of truly standout players, so there's more hope there.
But looking at the landscape today it is just borderline irresponsible to throw money at the space race when you're so far behind.
This is where I am. We are at the point where I think the best thing for VT as a school might be to pull the plug on athletic funding and reinvest everything academically, and if that means eventually tearing down Lane to make it work, so be it.
My hope is that the P2 really do break away, and there are enough good regional peer institutions left behind (GT, NCSU, etc) that we can spin up a 1970s-era college sports environment.
I actively DON'T want to be part of where the P2 is headed.
It is really discouraging. Watching Mehul try to prop us up with some pretty generous donations and support and you look around and he's pretty much in a league of his own as far as VT grads (at least that I'm remotely aware of)
Mehul isn't the only one "in his league", he's just the most vocal.
Fair but he's probably the most recent grad sitting on a massive pile of IBM money.
We need more Mehuls but we just don't have them. We don't have a law school with a long list of wealthy alums (too many goddamn law schools in VA anyway) and Carilion/VT med school just started. We don't have the business school pull at Pamplin like UVA does at Darden. Let me put it this way - if UVA woke up tomorrow and said we want to play football, they could do it in a heartbeat. Tech has the fan base and the passion, but just not the leadership or the cash. It's really sad frankly .
I hear this occasionally, but I'm not sure I buy it. I just don't think people donate to sports teams of their grad school (I say this as someone who graduated from a t20 MBA program - so I have some experience in the prestige whoring degree space, I just don't see people talking about their grad school sport teams; even my classmates who went to Ivys, Service Academies, etc). Bama, Auburn, UGA, etc don't have great MBA/Law/Med school programs, but they fundraise plenty.
Completely disagree. UVA would love to be Michigan. They can't be. It's not because Darden isn't as good as Ross; it's because the history, the generations of fans, etc isn't there.
70% of Bama's donors aren't even alums.
Hey now i resemble that remark
All I'm saying is OK State football this year made the Hokies look like the Globetrotters in comparison.
Quick comment - I love that VT has a med school and it's very important and doing wonderful work.
Unfortunately - I don't know of any doctors (actually practicing medicine) who are making the kind of money that would be needed to fund football.
CS/Engineering grads that go the FAANG route are probably pulling in more than most docs these days.
And we have plenty of those! The money is out there we just need an AD that can go get it and use it properly
Doctors pull $300 - 750k per year depending on specialty. It's not "I'll pay for a new stadium today" money, but thousands of doctors throwing $10k per year at their college sports team adds up pretty fast.
Your floor for Dr. salary is high. It starts with a bit over $100,000. The cost is 4 years of undergrad and 4 years minimum of post grad. Then internships for several years.
For perspective, my wife took 10 years. To keep this generic, she graduated several years before 2010. Still have 6 figure student loans.
The salary might be high, the cost to get there is much higher.
Yeah, I don't think general medicine is where you get the really big bucks. Specialists is where they get more money.
Anesthesiologists are the ones making the real bank. Could VT try to set up and develop a state of the art Anesthesiology focus at the med school to potentially reap the financial benefits down the line?
Hey I still remember the anesthesiologist for Dad's open heart surgery years ago. He said anybody can put you under, I guarantee he will wake up again. First and only time I ever heard a doctor use the word "guarantee" on something other than them guaranteeing there will be a bill. His bill to insurance for the surgery was 45k.
His insurance guarantees it, at little risk to him outside of gross negligence.
I agree, there's significant money there.
I had a neighbor who was a dentist growing up who decided her big selling point (and she advertised this on the radio) was putting people under for routine procedures.
Well, let's just say she now doesn't have a medical license anymore and she's damn lucky to not be in jail.
They probably didn't see the fine print that said "6 feet under..."
This was a big thing for quite a while.
People get in much pain for dental work and it is all surgery. It is very uncomfortable as it's in the mouth. Lots of people are grossed out by people working in their mouth and it all feel like choking.
Some do not get numb in the mouth with local anesthesia.
There were many people demanding generals but general anesthesia is a real risk. Lots of things could go wrong and every practitioner is held to the standard of the specialist.
Second this. Have a friend in an online support community. Is both an anesthesiologist AND director of Med flight program fo rmajor CA university hospital and makes VERY serious bank.
I'm not giving a floor for first-year doctors. I'm talking typical / average/ common salary.
in 2023 the average doctor pulled in $350k
but you're correct - my floor is too high, as I gave a range that depends on specialty. PCP/Family care average in the low 200's. But my top-end was also too low. Neuro's average $920k for example.
So let me revise that to "doctors pull in $200-900k depending on speciality"
https://web.archive.org/web/20230806173411/https://www.washingtonpost.co...
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/golden-age-of-medicine/
As a specialist surgeon, I can agree that medicine pays well but it's not going to be the person donating millions very often. I'd bet a business school would be better from donor standpoint because the business people will occasionally hit it big while medicine people are 10 years behind the eight ball when they start making money and rarely end up with the extreme wealth of the very successful business owner.
Did you see the study a few years back showing that plumbers make more than surgeons in a lifetime? I presume they were using net present value in the calculation (and if they weren't, then the gap would actually be even bigger in favor of the plumber).
Plumber can start earning at least okay money as an apprentice out of high school. Then things increase over time. Surgeon spends so much on college then medical school then has to do residency before earning big bucks. With the value of the money the plumber earned 5-10 years before worth more than current money and the ability to invest with compound interest for years while the surgeon is going into debt, the surgeon does not catch up even though they may earn way more at 45-65 than the plumber.
That would be an interesting study to see. I'm sure it depends on the specialty of physician, but I feel for the people going into pediatrics with a quarter million dollars of debt making 150k out of training. I am sure they'd struggle to catch up to the plumber financially.
I highly suggest that whitecoatinvestor website linked to above for any high earners trying to learn more about personal finance.
Well, let's take a starting craftsman averaging $40, 000/yr over 10 years it would take to go through undergrad and grad for a professional.
x 10 years that's a debt free $400,000 before the professional can even begin to get their first salary. And 10 years into an accelerating career. That is a heck of a head start.
Now assume they both retire at age 65. The professional works for 10 years less and cannot regain that time.
Both equally have the opportunity to own businesses, etc.
The big problem with your calculus is that at $40k per year every single dollar is being spent on living expenses. That craftsman isn't saving a dime. By the time the doctor starts making money they make so much more than what they require simply for living that (if they are smart) they could invest a big chunk and catch up quick. So even if they start 10 years later and have way more debt (let's say they pay the debt down with a $500/mo payment over 30 years) they earn enough money to live a $40k lifestyle, pay down the debt and still have plenty to dump into long term investments.
I threw out that number of $40k just as a placeholder. That's about the starting salary of an apprentice depending on where you live and decade you live in. Journeyman rolls past 6 digits.
My brother is an electrician with about 30 yr experience and has his chop. Basically, he worked while getting his professional cert. A doc pays and gets no pay to get their chop.
He makes much more per year than my wife.
These are the things noone told me while I was growing up.
The top end of those with great specialties, like my uncle (specialized cardiothoracic surgeon), certainly gain much more. Below this threshold, other variables take over.
The surgeon in NYC will always make more than the plumber in Giles county.
It very much may be the opposite should the surgeon live in Giles and the plumber in Manhattan.
That number is thrown off by the high end outliers and those that live in high earning areas.
Take out the DC suburbs, NYC, CA, etc.
Also, take out the number that comes from owning the business, the amount of that income that must go to the student loan payback which, if unmodified is over $25k/yr. and the sunk cost of loss of 10+ yrs of income. You'd be surprised at the amount of that "income" is really post-tax expense.
I am getting to the point that it's a very overrated number.
Good again? Yes. Find the right coach, leverage the great fans, try to resonate with in-state kids. Great? compete at the highest level? unless something changes - fuck no. Not a chance.
You want to know how some of us still have hope? Let's look at some win-loss records
2025 FB: 0-0
25-26 MBB: 0-0
25-26 WBB: 0-0
2026 FB: 0-0
26-27 MBB: 0-0
26-27 WBB: 0-0
I can go on.
Maybe some of the portal transfers are diamonds in the rough, maybe Pop is Tyrod 2.0, maybe the coordinators get some offseason mentoring or turns over, who knows? Maybe they all regress and we go winless, I don't know that either. VT has a history of winning with worse talent and playing down to their lesser opponents. And we'll never know which one this team will do until they do it. Hell we don't even know who's on the team right now. I won't buy the hype we're dark horse contenders the same way I don't buy we'll be an absolute basement team.
And perhaps if nothing else we can find comfort in the complimentary words of a wise Russian who took a few rubber disks to the head and the answer:
"it's only a game, why you hef to be mad?"
"We talkin about offseason, not a game, not a game, offseason"
No.
There is no path to sustained success without P2 money. If VT doesn't magically find an angel donor, the days of being seriously competitive are done.
While some of us were shouting out hey maybe paying players without regulation, lettting them transfer at the drop of a hat, and allowing eligibility to be seemingly endless aren't really good for the overall health of the sport (and particularly not for VT), we were shouted down by the "poor 18-20 year olds" and "exploited" crowd.
And now this is what we have...a completely anti-competitive sport. Its the MLB and VT is the Pirates.
It's not creating a compelling product for 85% of fans and it sucks.
I dunno that every top whatever program has angel donors.
I think Virginia Tech is really bad at fundraising, and needs a wholesale Hokie Club/Athletic Department overhaul.
I know a ton of VT alumni here in the DC area who make decent money, and I'm fairly certain none of them donate.
Go hire the second in command at Clemson or something.
Fundraising takes constant energy.
There's no room in it for sleeping. It's a job that's never done.
I'd argue that the sport is more competitive than ever before... We're seeing Indiana, SMU, Vandy, Tulane, etc catapult themselves into some of the best seasons in program history, all in the same year. This year alone, the top 20% of FBS is more and even than I (35yo) can ever remember it being.
The problem is that the middle class is disappearing. The 'upper class' of the sport is getting a little bit bigger, but the 'lower class' is getting much bigger. VT is a bubble team, and unfortunately, it's looking more and more like we will effectively be relegated.
For 1 year. Vandy and Indiana are P2. Tulane just lost their coach and QB in succesive years. Check in with me in 5 years on SMU...taking in zero TV revenue while playing in a redhead stepchild Conference isn't any pathway to sustained success.
Its "competitive" from a brief and totally superficial standpoint only. Yes, every once in a while circumstances will come together and a "not" team will crash the party--then they will be dismantled the next offseason...
I agree on Vandy and Indiana- they will be total ass soon enough again. SMU? nah, they can compete with money and talent in texas in a weak acc. They aren't going anywhere, IMO. Tulane can certainly compete in the G5 and in the American- a bad conference. I don't put them in this category. they are what they are
The middle is a trough for sure.
I'd say the very fact that some of those teams have done well is a testament that it's possible to play above your weight class. I mean, given what everyone says about NEEDING talent, and how you need it to win, I'd say there shouldn't be even a vague possibility that Vandy can beat Alabama. Were also within 3 of LSU. They played some tough teams tight. There are other teams that have beat the juggernauts, maybe not consistently, but, like I said, if what everyone says is true about talent gaps, there shouldn't be a way for those teams to beat the blue bloods.
I think, given our resources, we can bring a solid team together and compete. I remain hopeful - Bowen seems like he can scheme well, including when we have different players, and think we're a solid OLine away from being able to put up 40 points per game. If we can get a D that's fairly effective, we're hard to beat. We shall see, but like I said, I remain hopeful.
This was from an instagram AMA with Bud Elliott in 2023:
And so, so much about the landscape has changed since even then that I don't think this is valid anymore
Yes we can be good again. But it took a HoF top 10 all time coach to go to 1 national championship (which needed a late loss by a team to move into #2) while coaching a generational QB.
Hire a top 10 all time coach, get a QB like no one has ever seen, and have one a top 10 all time DC. That is an impossible task.
We would have won 9-10 games if we had a HC that understood how the clock work in football. Look at what Cuse did, look what Elko did at Duke. It can be done if we are accepting that VT can be a stepping stone job. We wanted assistance that will stay at VT, and you know ow what we pay less for our staff in 2024 than we did in 2022, that's messed up and why would any one want to coach here for what looks like some bullshit cost saving strategy. Pay the people, let them leave and pay the next guys. Who cares if they stick around, win!
I agree with you, but I think the monied people may not. And the monied people aren't even that monied. Or they're just really cheap.
On the bright side, everything can be fixed with one T. Boone Pickens.
And just like with societal issues, hoping that a billionaire comes along and wants to fix it just isn't a realistic strategy that you can go and implement without having a miracle occur.
Might as well start depending on me to hit the PowerBall as step one of the plan.
Note to self, buy a mega millions ticket for Friday.
This is the only reasonable take. The next frank beamer is not going to be coaching VT. Their probably isn't even a "next" coach frank beamer. Those days are gone.
VT will have to accept the fact that too compete they will have to pony the money up and pay big time coaches that will be gone after 2-3 years of success. I for one do not think the VT administration necessarily what's to play this game. But that is the game now. By all accounts they don't even have the coffers to play the game.
I think VT has a chance to be good. Good as defined by perhaps a 9-10 win season every 4 or 5 or 8 years and a chance appearance I'm the ACC championship. Any realistic chance of winning a national title are gone. Let's be honest and admit that chance was barely above zero before this changing landscape.
Yea, this is where I'm at and have been for about half a decade. Just look at Utah - no reason we can't be Utah:
Whittingham has done a great job there. Similar to K-State. Underrated program.
K-State is the more interesting program, because multiple coaches have proven they can win there. At Utah, Whittingham is the only coach who has won at the P5 level. It's very Beamer-esk - you wonder if he's just an amazing coach, or if there's something about Utah, the AD, etc.
well they had a guy named Urban Meyer once upon a time, he didn't do half-bad
That was a half decade before Utah was in the PAC - they were in the Mountain West at the time.
Under the current landscape (i.e., regime), its pretty unlikely. Now, if the NCAA gets its act together (or gets abandoned in favor a new creation) and re-brands as a League complete with League-run conferences, league-wide national broadcast deals, a HS draft, collective bargaining agreement, an inverse luxury tax (e.g. overspending on NIL? take a reduction in scholarships), free-agent signing periods (the new version of the portal), etc etc, then yes - there's a path. But that path can only be created if college football as we know is completely disintegrated and re-created.
I don't think it's just going to be us struggling in the future.
With 105 scholarship spots, more of the top talent can go to the deeper pockets.
What I see, going forward, is fewer and fewer bowl eligible teams.
That's gonna cut into the overall budget because no sponsor wants a bowl with 4-8 teams.
They should end the bowl games and have all-star games in the postseason.
No, not in the current landscape.
My wife will undoubtedly be happy to have Saturdays in the fall back in play as college football becomes increasingly uninteresting to me.
But hey, we go a cool entrance. I'm just glad I got to experience the most significant years of VT football.
Absolutely. Hell, ASU is in the goddamn playoffs.
Unless one of us is secretly a billionaire and prepared to write some big checks OR the ACC exploded in the couple years and we land in the P2 (fingers crossed), I think our best days as a football powerhouse are behind us.
I think getting back to a perennial top 15-25 is doable. We SHOULD have been there this year.
I think that's where we are or at least should be. The upper portion of the top 25 with an every couple a years get into the playoffs due to a championship win. Then of course with those great players who get us an ACCCG victory will come bigger NIL offers at other schools and we will fall back #20 or so.
Don't think we'll ever sniff the National Championship game again.
This 100%. Indiana and SMU are in the playoffs because they played the bottom half of their conference and took care of business in out of conference play. That's the Virginia Tech formula on how to make the playoff. Since 2010 making the national title game has been a pipe dream for Virginia Tech. Our goal is to win the ACC. That seems to be doable now more than ever with Clemson falling back to their program mean and no one else really filling that void quite yet. We just need to get back to a point where we're beating the teams we should beat. Who knows maybe things snowball from there but that's where our program is now. Once every 3-4 years fight for the ACC and a playoff bid
No. We will never again be what we were under Beamer. That time has come and gone. It makes you appreciate Beamer to a large extent, but also makes me angry that VT failed to capitalize and ride that momentum and officially convert itself into a college football power. We got right to the doorstep for many years but never made it through.
The powers that be at VT frankly suck in a ton of ways. They don't understand the importance of big time athletics. We have squandered that window and now find ourselves out shadowed by JMU and Liberty (they are better football programs that us, let that sink in.) I rarely even go to Blacksburg anymore - I'm almost 35 and don't care for college bars, long crowded football lines and crap football teams anymore. It's really sad but I have essentially checked out at this point. Love my time at VT, but it's further and further in the rear view.
One hopeful thing I take away from the excellent and depressing Who Killed College Football podcast is that "ever" is a long time, and change is always happening. Maybe the P2 break off into what is essentially an NFL farm system and we get left behind to be a good college football team. Maybe the weight of government and civil suits and viewing changes means the whole existing structure gets replaced with employee players with salaries (and caps) and contracts and unions, and the field actually gets more level. Maybe the threat of massive CTE settlements means it all goes to 7 on 7 flag football and the fact that we can't recruit OL doesn't matter as much. Who knows?
If college football stays what it is now, we don't have a chance in hell. But it's never stayed what it was before.
Until the portal and NIL is reigned in (even possible at this point?), no, we'll never be competitive. And frankly, I'm about ready to check out on college sports, the fun has been stripped from it, IMO
And just like that Pry gives me the slightest sliver of hope and reels me back in
I'm glad the staff shakeup happened, because frankly it was necessary and shows we are at least holding people accountable. But we have to see who the replacements are and how the staff reorganization plays out. Also I know this was a 6-6 team, but we have lost/are losing a ton of players to the portal. I know we have a chance to flip the roster and improve, but losing your whole starting OL basically is going to be a tall task to rebuild through the portal. Still not optimistic next year is any better (and could be worse). But have to see how the offseason and hires/transfers play out.
On the flipside, makes flipping the OL coach position once again potentially not as damaging as might otherwise have been.
I mean if Indiana can do it, then yes, we can.
I've seen it happen. I refuse to believe it can't happen again.
With this leadership, absolutely not.
"...that said... I twice wrote that GOT's blast on my '86 Shanks Hall clipboard...
...meaning... we four feel this team is at; or, nearing a very unusual tipping point...
...things need to go'on and fish or get off the pot.
We gotta make an upward movement. Soon. v.P.i. P.D.Q.
However, a letting go the rope moment vs. 'sota is not untenable... As in... how many more times can you get *this* dang close; then backslide down the very same hurtful hill, and THEN still want to try to hump another hill? That's not how humans work.
There are limits... we are nearing one...
"Winter is coming.""
-------------------------------------------------------
Sooooooo... ^this^ is what someone wrote for yah'll ~a month ago... and look what has happened; even after a pretty decent Rivalry, win!
I delayed publishing the hooVa Eye in the Sky for these very reason(s)... film-study (meta communications in particular) tipped me to it... tho', sourcing says there are some thingys behind the scenes that have been unhelpful. Some say 'chemistry'. My boss did. Tho' that is not my word... my word is thus...
...hygiene. (This is the better pet word in clinical/textbook terms).
And here is your kicker... even I did not nadir call this one. It has been worse than the four of us even thought; a-n-d we were the lowest of the low-- think about that one gents... think...
The caveat being... cheerleader1 his ownself... he is good at rah-rah-sis-boom-bah that... and he was (now turned past tense, observe) great at retention/retainment.
Meaning... he is down to nearly his last straw going forth... they tank like Shamu in the bowl game and get pumped good-n-hard and he may be undone with High Beams just dying to brightlight us up next in the '25 1-hole.
This is it 'men... fish or get off the pot.
Now or never...
💯,
b.street
Chatgpt translation:
I guess bourbon st is saying win or go home. I think it's too late for that. I don't think we'll see staff changes this year. Because if Pry was serious about making the changes he needs to he'd have done it already.
If we get blasted by Minnesota (and there's really no reason to believe we won't-Pry is 0-5 all time vs noncon P4) he has to fire coaches but will it be too late?
Personally, I think Pry is cooked. Players are leaving en masse. Probably because the coaching is not good and they know it. And players talk. Pry absolutely needed to deliver this year and fell way short. His credibility is pretty much gone and he's going to have a hard time bringing in talent moving forward.
A loss to Minnesota is the final nail in the coffin. A win is just too little too late. Pry needed to, at minimum, fire Marve after the uva game. That's the only way he could save face. It's too late now.
To add:
If he makes it through the bowl, he'll be undone by wanting to avoid getting throttled by Shane in '25.
It's going to be something when Xavier Chaplin is blowing VT defenders up for the Gamecocks at the start of the season.
From the outside looking in, I don't think you can explain it any other way. Maybe it's a money thing, not a culture or development thing, but I find that unlikely. TBH, I don't think the Minnesota game matters at all. Want to change the tides? Go kill it in recruiting. Grab impact players in the portal.
Finally, I would be surprised, but not shocked, if things went poorly over the next four weeks and Pry was fired after the bowl game. There's not a single SEC job open right now. That means a third of the league will be open next year. If VT were open now, we'd be the best job on the market. If VT were open next year, we'll be the 10th best job on the market.
Yeah, I'm pretty much in agreement here. Losing only confirms what we already know. Winning does very little, if anything, to convince us otherwise.
This will be a monumental task for a guy who pitched this last year and then went 6-6. The roster we had for 2024 is most likely the best roster Pry is going to have. The cat's out of the bag now. Players aren't going to be lining up to come play for him.
I'd be pretty shocked. Fuente got 6 years. I don't think Whit is projecting job openings and competition for new hires. He's looking at bottom line. When does Pry's contract run out? When is it going to be cheapest to get rid of him?
Prior to the portal opening, I heard a few trusted folks (all people in the agent community, so take it for what it's worth) saying something to the effect of 'Pry's seat isn't hot yet, and Virginia Tech is not open, but if things go downhill fast, his seat could heat up really quickly'
I thought it was quite surprising at the time.
Well, things are going downhill fast...
I agree with you here. Though I think VT institutionally is too slow and reactionary to move that quickly, it makes sense from a financial standpoint. You're likely not saving much more than a few million in buyout money firing him now than a year from now, his coordinators included. The harm that another poor year will do will cost VT far more than that. And as you mention above, the job market is really set up nicely now. Next year there are likely to be a ton of high-profile openings, and we will fall down the pecking order very quickly.
But realistically, Pry isn't getting fired before Whit. Until we see notice that there's a new AD search going on, I assume Pry's seat is pretty safe.
It is my understanding that just because they have entered the portal doesn't mean they are 100% leaving. They can withdraw, especially if they don't get those NIL offers they are hoping for. My understanding is Pry hasn't thrown them out.
I think there is much of this going on. There is no real downside to exploring possible financial incentives to go somewhere else.
Other than a bowl loss, what do you think could go poorly that would warrant firing him?
I mean, he made seemingly the right decisions on replacing the weakest areas in his coaching staff. Unless you think he might make some choices that aren't viewed as strong hires by Whit?
In fairness to bar, his post published before the breaking news on coaching staff shake up
Yes.
I know the other day I said in didn't think we could handle coaching turn over like Bama, and while I still think that, or staff should be almost completely new every ~3 years if we want you be good. Either we win and they're poached or we lose and they lose. And staff might stay for kids and other reasons but if no one is trying to poaching or staff the they should proably should be at VT. This exhausting for fans, coaches, and the athletic director, but if we want to win, we have change.
If no coaching changes happen this year then Pry should be fired for anything less than 8 wins. I like the guy, it way harder to say that then with Fuente, but Pry can't recruit or coach.
I wondered this as a student during Beamer's last year. Nearly a decade later, I'm wondering the same thing.
One thing that isn't going to help us be good or great are the keyboard warriors trashing outgoing guys. Criticism game to game I get and in the age of NIL can be expected but having our "top" social media accounts ripping guys on their way out does ZERO to sell this as a place to be. Potential incoming recruits see it, current players see it, high school kids see it, other coaches see it, and all it does is put the Hokies at another disadvantage in recruiting and retaining players.
does this not happen at other programs? I don't really follow any VT accounts on any social media platforms so I have no idea what kinda stuff is being said. I also don't know what it's like for other programs. Is this really a problem? I imagine that most players/coaches just understand that there are going to be a loud minority of fans that just need to be ignored.
It does happen elsewhere and I am sure there is some level of tune out but this offseason seems to have reached a higher pitch and quantity here at Tech. Much more noticeable and from the most followed "voice of the fans" accounts. Gloom and doom and sky is falling before this staff has had a chance to fill holes. If this staff has done one thing well its been identify performers in the portal.
Look at our offense this year.
Drones, Tuten, Schlee, Lane, Jennings, Felton and Stephen Gosnell all came to the Hokies from the portal. Gosnell was before Pry's time. That's about 80-85% of our offensive production.
Defense you had Peebles, APR, Brumfield, Gilliam and Kemari Copeland. Four of those guys were Top 15 in tackles and every game contributors.
We have had two, maybe three surprise entries into the portal but with the money being thrown around by other programs can you blame an 18-22 year old for testing the waters when there are potentially 7-figure paydays out there?
Lets be honest, how much of the downfall of modern society can be laid at the feet of social media. It really seems like nobody thinks before they say or type anymore. They also need to remember the media lasts forever and can haunt you years later.
Yep, can't really blame any of the guys for entering the portal to test the waters. If I knew I could double/triple my pay by switching my job I'd definitely throw in an application 😂
To the original post, we could make the decision that many mid-major programs have and that's to focus on basketball. That would go over like a wet fart in church with the fan base but the reality is it's much easier to fund a program that has 13 athletes than it is 105 athletes. Even making the decision to fund both basketball teams, that's still just 30 athletes. You could pour the focus on the top 5 or 6 to really accelerate being competitive.
Pitt did it a couple years ago to an extent under Capel after the 21-22 season where they went 11-21. Since then they went 24-12 and 22-11. They are 9-2 to start this season. They didn't even make a full on investment and they flipped the script.
Notre Dame and several other ACC teams have made heavy investments in women's basketball and it shows. Ten of the top 40 teams in women's basketball are ACC teams.
It's just much easier to do if you fund it correctly in all phases of the program.
We should build on recent momentum, go all-in on WBB, buy a goated roaster, and finally get that elusive natty.
There's opportunity there.
Even if we nail recruiting, raid the portal, upgrade coordinators etc., football is still a few years away from national prominence (and no guarantees with that either). So in the meantime, throw some cash to WBB or wrestling or softball or women's soccer and get a natty. Those programs are close enough now that i don't think it would take a significant investment to get them across the finish line
I've semi-joked on TKP before that we should throw a mil each at the Penn St wrestling squad. Just rent them for a year to get a title, only ten weight classes so it'd be cheaper than a football title.
Yep, considering Vermont and Marshall will face each other on Monday for the men's soccer championship....
Which is why I was very surprised when tech made the decision to gut BB for FB. Smaller amount can still have a significant impact on BB.
I'm also going to take a second and just get another thing off my chest.
Right now Virginia Tech is about as poorly run in terms of alumni and fan engagement as I have seen since I graduated. From an Alumni standpoint, it has been like pulling teeth to get Blacksburg to support or care about anything we're doing down here. One of our local alumni got a website up and running to help drive alumni engagement, to help organize events, to streamline giving, with data driven analytics to help strategize how you might be able to pinpoint on the things that work to make it better and while there are some schools in this area who are interested with working with him to get something up and running (UNC), he can't get a callback from Tech, and when they do reply the only thing he's told is they can't even consider it for another 3 years. Mind you, the site is already up and running, we're using it now, Tech just can't be bothered to look into an opportunity where someone is actively trying to provide them a solution to problems they currently have.
And on top of that, the Hokie Club, and especially Hokie Club chapter leadership right now is an absolute joke. At this point I've lost count of the number of time I've heard that a local HC has gone inactive, people reach out to Tech to get it up and running again only for Blacksburg to tell them that even though the Chapter isn't active anymore, the leadership is and as such, they cannot help get the chapters going again. These leaders are hoarding all the benefits from being the heads of their local chapters, there is zero oversight in making sure they are actually running chapter events, and as such the school has completely lost engagement of entire local communities.
Raleigh is a great example of one of those communities. Before the Ohio State game years ago I was privy to a conference where we found out the Raleigh area was the largest hotbed of VT alumni outside of the Commonwealth. At the time, we had multiple events every year organized by our local Hokie Club to bring people from the Athletic Department down to speak and fundraise and it kept the region active and involved. At this point, I'm trying to remember but I don't think we've had an event down here since Fuente was hired. Engagement is withering on the vine, and its not for lack of people trying, the Alumni chapter is trying, but it is hard when we aren't really getting any support from Blacksburg, either, and anything we do get is academic only. And its like this because the leaders of the chapter just aren't doing anything anymore, but we can't get anything else up and running because they haven't relinquished their claim on the region.
We talk about what is wrong with Virginia Tech, and it could not be more glaring right now that we cannot grow as a university and we cannot rebound to where a school of our size should be as long as every person in a leadership role in Merryman remains in place. The Good Ol Boy network in Blacksburg is strong, its self serving for the individuals, and its holding back everything. The rot runs so deep that it has infected everything. And in an age where we are rapidly being passed in NIL, we need engagement now more than ever, so its really frustrating and disheartening to repeatedly hear stories from multiple areas about how we keep dropping the ball on reaching out to those who want to be engaged.
I can't disagree. Been in ATL for over a decade now, and know nothing about the local HC chapter.
I also think there's a misalignment of giving/incentives. I have no incentive to increase my giving since I can't make it to games.
My buddy gives a grand per month to Tulane's NIL. For donating at this level, he gets an invite to a weekly conference call with John Summerall, and all the other donors at his level. I guess Summerall just spills all the tea on these calls. For example, when the upcoming quarterback put his name in the portal, Summerall explained how it went down how much he was making a two lane and how much he was gonna get at Duke. Summerall talks NIL, coach gossip, recruiting stuff, etc. it's basically like having a subscription to an insider I guess? But coming directly from the coach. Idk if I could swing $12k for that, but I'd gladly give 4 figures per year for that access.
This has been my gripe for awhile. All the Hokie Club benefits revolve around attendance of sporting events in Blacksburg. This doesn't provide much incentive to alumni outside the 6 hr radius to join or donate. Any benefits like conference call with coaches or the AD etc or priority for away tickets that are within 2 hrs of a member (ie Notre lame tickets would be offered to Chicago Hokies first then the rest of the HC by standing). Just come up with something other than just season tickets.
Away tickets is a great idea. I'd love that for when we play at GT and Clemson.
Humans got COVID and College Football got NIL. Ever since 2020 life has gone downhill!