ESPN's most-watched college football games, excluding bowls and conference championships: pic.twitter.com/ljryJPIkc4— Sports Media Watch (@paulsen_smw) September 19, 2023
I thought this was interesting. Even though the Hokies are in the basement now, it wasn't that long ago they were a relevant college football program.
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It's so frustrating:
We literally went from having nine 10-win seasons in a ten year period to having one 10-win season in the following ten year period. It's just wild how much we had and how quickly it seemingly slipped away.
I'm sure there's some life advice in there somewhere.
We had a hall of fame coach. A hall of fame DC. Great coaches like Cav and Wiles elsewhere on the staff. They knew how to win - they knew how to win with lesser talent. I think that aspect is under -discussed in terms of our fall from Grace. Jim Cavanaugh compared to Lichtenberg? get the fuck out of here. Beamer also coached with an even -keel- kept the team calm and business like. Beamer was a great coach- great coaches win with their players- if it's great defense and sucky offense- so be it. He won. and we don't do that anymore.
Do you think VT can be a top 10-15 team without a hall of fame coach?
Yes we can, but the caveat I would add is that the coach needs to know what he is doing of course- perhaps a future hall of famer that can use VT to get there. There are elite coaches that teams have hired that were not HOF at the time- Dabo, Ryan Day, Chris Peterson. What VT MUST avoid is the duds that people "think" are great coaches - Rick Nuehesil, Randy Edsall, Larry Fedora, etc. That's going to be the issue. We need to find a guy that really knows what he is doing vs. a hot shot OC or some "name" coach like rich rod, etc.
But you can't reliably hire a future hall of fame coach each cycle - it's just not realistic. Could a Narduzzi win here? A Mark Stoops? A Josh Heupel? A Dave Clawson? These are guys who I think are decent coaches (aka, are able to scout, recruit, develop, and deploy players), but not (and will never be) hall of fame worthy.
I think all of those coaches could win 8 games most seasons here, but I'm not sure if the fanbase would go for that for more than 5ish years. On top of that, I think the VT fanbase wants someone who loves Appalachia, and is not shy about saying it.
Sometimes it feels like VT is like a family owned business that wants to make more and more money, but also is deadset on remaining a mah and paw shop. That goal might just not be obtainable, in which case we'd have to make a tough decision about our identity as a university.
You are correct. I will say in my opinion, every coach you named is a better coach than Justin Fuente. I think that is proven. Mark Stoops beat Fuente in a bowl game with a QB that wasn't a QB and completed 2 passes. So yeah, better coach. Clawson is a much better coach than FU - not close. Now, the jury is out on Pry. It seems that he takes recruiting seriously, and embraces the CEO face of the program deal. Kids play hard. But he better get this offense figured out or he will be fired sooner than later.
It sounds like from the Rutgers film analysis that the offensive scheme has gotten better, but some decision-making (fixable through coaching) and talent issues (fixable through recruiting) are holding us back. I'll admit, I was not very optimistic for the long-term future after the game, but am feeling better after reading that.
Unfortunately, Narduzzi has already won here.
too often.
Why did you have to soil your argument with Narduzzi?
Not Hall of Fame worthy
Oh, now I see...
You left off a name that I believe is very relevant to this conversation: Jamey Chadwell. He just began his first season at liberty u after taking over a team that lost many upper classmen, including those who were successful at skill positions. The one exception to this is at QB, where all of those have returned, but Chris Coleman called them all "poor" in a recent article. Yet Liberty is sitting at 3-0 right now, with convincing wins, including one over a resurgent New Mexico State U team that is coached by none other than Jerry Kill. The starting QB has thrown for a long (>40 yards in the air) completion two weeks in a row, one for a TD. Right now Chadwell is looking like an upgrade over Freeze, for multiple reasons. Wish we could have gotten him.
You might not know this, but I was president of the Jamey Chadwell TKP fan club in 2021.
From my perspective, the general opinion on TKP was that fans didn't want Chadwell because they viewed him as (a) a 'system guy' (thus, his potential was capped), (b) had no P5 experience and no recruiting experience, and (c) too much like Fuente.
Now, I firmly disagree(d) with (a) and I think (c) is irrelevant. However, I think there is some merit to point (b), but that concern can be easily alleviated by making good hires. Unfortunately, rumors are that Chadwell interviews poorly, and wanted to bring 'his guys' with him to whatever job he went to next.
It's sucks seeing him at Liberty - I think his offense is the most fun in the country to watch, but, for personal reasons, I refuse to support Liberty in any endeavor.
My hope is that he continues to hit a glass ceiling preventing him from getting P5 jobs, and comes to be our OC one day (similar to Sean Lewis at Colorado).
I firmly thought that priority #1 was recruiting on the heels of the Fuente disaster. Fu developed exactly zero QB recruits from HS- zero- as Whit's precious "offensive" head coach. You could not evaluate and recruit the RB position worse than we did- again HS recruiting not transfers. That tends to happen when a videographer is your RB coach. So yeah, I wanted a P5 proven recruiter as numero uno qualification. Chadwell didn't fit that bill, but Pry worked for arguably one of the best P5 recruiters in Franklin- so I was OK with it. Also Brent Pry running a defense was a huge huge upgrade over learning on the job JHAM. If we want to play big boy football though, I would love a great OC. Perhaps that would be chadwell. Liberty is a tough place to win - if he wins there, he should get a P5 job
I don't disagree, and I'm not suggesting that failing to hire Chadwell was some major gaff. The Brent Pry hire makes complete sense. If the rumors that Chadwell wants to bring his existing staff to a P5 job are true, then he has no business being in the P5.
I agree with this take. Hopefully Pry will be our guy b/c he really seems to embody VT and people love him. I mean Clemson wanted to fire Dabo after the first few years. Can Pry re-create something similar at least. Lets at least get competitive again.
The fan base of any team is very fickle. If you win, you are a genius. (Heck if you don't win big against a team that the fan base THINKS is beneath them, the time has come to hang up your clipboard and retire.) If you lose, you are unworthy of drawing another breath. Have you seen what many of the fan base are saying about Saben down in Alabama, now?
My question is "is Mark Dantonio a HoF coach?"
He meets the requirements, he did a pretty impressive job at MSU.
Because if he is, then VT has to have a HoF coach, because if you want consistent 10 win season and ranked top 15 for a decade, he did that pretty well without being a surefire HoF guy.
If any coach wins like Beamer did from '99 to '11 they have a great shot at the hall, so if we want to win like that, we need at least and arguable hof coach.
Probably.
Any coach who wins 10 games in 9 of 10 seasons at VT is, by definition, a hall of fame coach.
But what level of coach do we need to have a 5 year period like Kansas St:
Does ^this require a HoF coach?
I'd kill to have Dantonio at VT right now. He fits my point yesterday- he simply knows what he is doing, unlike Justin Fuente or Larry Fedora. Dantonio would win here, because he knows what it takes to win and motivate kids. Also our run defense wouldn't look like ass if he was here.
My point is more, if Dantonio'a record is sobering we want the we need a HoF coach.
Don't you go calling out great coaches and not name Bill Hite!
I was just thinking that about Billy Hite as a key position coach. He's why we continually reloaded the RBs. He knew the position having played it and was just a great guy. Kids wanted to show for him.
Hite was great, and you don't see many Hite's today- old school teacher, competitive on the trail but not flashy, and loved his players. Hite's main philosophy was brilliant- you MUST have 2 very good RBs. Rotate them and make the defense defend a fresh, good RB- not easy. Great coach.
kind of sucks we lost both of those games though
The ACC is represented 6 times on that list. The SEC, only twice. Definitely shows me ACC > SEC.
I'm also super surprised by this
It just means more. -
SEACCDoesn't help that CBS routinely had the biggest SEC games throughout a hefty chunk of that timeline.
That is a really big call out, and makes way more sense.
it'd have been nice if we'd won one of those games
But, hey... we beat Prime. Gotta take those Ws where we can.
Twice.