Not what we wanted, but not unforseen. Thanks to all the guys who suited up as Hokies this year and played behind the eight ball most of the year. Good luck in the portal.
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If this is the best team in the ACC this year, Franklin is going to do unspeakable things to this shit conference going forward. Like putting a rabid wolf in a henhouse
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Makes me sick. But this was predictable. I thought3 wins wasabout rightfor this team back in the summer. I hoped we could beat uva but they're having a magical year. They've beaten the easiest schedule in the conference with some of the luckiest luck I've ever seen. Their best season in 30 years coincides with our worst in 30 years. The entire rosters for both teams will be completely different next year and I belive the trajectories will be opposite as well.
I have faith that Franklin is going to maul the ACC. He'll build a 10 win roster over night. Provided he brings in competent coaching, I think we'll have the talent to win the ACC by 2027.
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With decent coaching and a good stable of starters, we could be in the ACC title game next year. This is a bad conference, if Franklin hits the portal hard, next year could be a lot of fun.
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I think most will recognize I have not been on the Franklin bandwagon, but I want to win (just not "at any cost" which is what may happen ... but I don't want to get into that here). I do want to caution everyone to not get ahead of ourselves. Franklin is indeed a flashy hire but remember unc's last two coaches were flashy hires who didn't produce consistently the greatest results on the field. Let's win on the field before we start crowing. GO HOKIES.
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I concur with your caution. Franklin may be bringing in a lot better coaches & talent, but let's not forget that the proud, blue collar tradition that used to be Virginia Tech has been smeared over by the stench of mediocrity and complacency from top to bottom in the football program. That, in my opinion, is going to be the hardest thing to bring back when there is literally no one (that I know of) to speak to next year's players having experienced that mentality, attitude, & sense of pride. The first few years under Franklin are going to be hired mercenaries with little experience together. I am hoping & praying Franklin will be able to piece it together to start a new winning tradition, but we have seen plenty of other examples of it failing l, or failing to be sustainable.
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Absolute embarrassment and all other mentions of "rock bottom" were wrong. So closes the ugliest chapter in VT football history. Bury it. On to the James Franklin era. Lots of these guys are gonna have hard conversations with the new head whistle and let's see how fast the new leader can bring us back.
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As a member of the Board, do you think a result like this is going to drive home a further point to the rest of the members to not allow us to get to this level of neglect again?
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I don't think anyone needed additional proof. I will say that the university is taking on huge financial risk in the investment that was made. If this doesn't work, we're in deep shit. If it pays off, well...we'll all breathe easier. Time will tell. Give it 4 years and ask me again.
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The problem is we just facilitated a potential disaster. UVA proved to their fanbase that if they fund football in this shit conference they can win. Will not be surprised to see them ready to spend $30-$35M in NIL next season especially if they make the CFP.
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With their lawyers scum alums they can do both....and still fund all the non-revs. They just never cared enough. This year may have flipped that switch.
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They're only good and relevant because we aren't. Now that we have Franklin, that changes. I don't give a shit how much they spend, we are spending, too, and our coaches can actually recruit and actually coach.
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Having one good season isn't about to change decades worth of giving half (or less) a shit about football. I think it's the pretentious mindset - they think football players are dumb, so want to distance themselves from that. Maybe they think all athletes are dumb and are willing to take a few substandard guys to put on a basketball court, but a full football team tarnishes the intellectual elitism they live by.
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We have rivalries with GT and Miami, but neither are ever going to consider us their arch rivals. We could claim BC for the same reason we could claim VMI. No thanks.
West Virginia are some inbred bastards we love to hate, and they hate us, but they're in the wrong damn conference.
The only archrival we have left are the stale cheese-Zima farts from up north.
We could be Penn State, Texas A&M or Texas Tech and never have a genuine arch rival. That would seem to limit our ceiling.
We could be Michigan, UCLA or Auburn and pick a big brother to arch rival against. Not the worst thing on the world, but yuck.
Or we could go the Alabama/OSU/USC route and pick a little brother to eternally torture.
We're actually eligible for option 3.
For that to happen, you'd have to agree to fund your program like an adult.
Check.
And you'd have to actually get those pretentious assholes to agree to fund their football program and take it seriously again, too.
And that would just take a damn miracle.
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Their fanbase couldn't fill their stadium in their biggest game since 'nam. They are not serious about football. They hit the jackpot with a combination of a veteran roster that will need replacing next year, the easiest schedule in FBS, and some incredible luck to beat FSU, Louisville, Washington State, and UNC. Louisville was the only decent team they beat all year.
I am not worried about UVA. They got their once-a-decade win against us last night. Good for them. They should enjoy it while it lasts.
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Giving the team a spark and possibly winning the game?
In all likelihood it wouldn't have been enough, but after halftime it was very clear that the only way Drones was going to win the game, was with 3 defensive or special teams TDs.
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It might have made a difference. Only way to know is to try. What did we have to lose?
You could see the quit in Kyron's face. We've seen that deer in the headlights look many times now. He's about as bad a leader as he is a passer. Might as well try something else and see if it energizes the team. Sometimes teams respond to a change. We saw Pop energize our team just last week.
Or we could continue trotting out the worst QB we've ever had even though he hasn't gotten a first down in 3 quarters. Drones was guaranteed to fail at that point, but because Pop might fail too, we should keep banging our heads against the wall with Kyron?
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It might have made a difference. Only way to know is to try.
Or watch hundreds of practices over 2-3 years.
What did we have to lose?
The scoring streak
Look, I'm not a drones truther by any stretch. But I think the coaches all want to win desperately. I think they play the players who they think give them the best chance of winning. And they have way more data points than I do.
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It sounds like you have more confidence in this staff than I do.
Remember, Justin Fuente thought Ryan Willis was better than Hendon Hooker, and he was watching them both in practice every day. Sometimes the coaches get it wrong.
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Remember, Justin Fuente thought Ryan Willis was better than Hendon Hooker
Until he didn't.
Sometimes the coaches get it wrong.
And most of the time, fans get it wrong. I can't think of a season since 2016 where there wasn't a "bench the starter" mentality here (and that's not unusual for college football fans). Hell, I remember folks calling for Tyrod to be benched during the Stanford game (I think?) because fan saw Logan Thomas throw that one absolute missile in that Miami game.
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Calling for the benching of your QB who's 3 for 11 with 21 passing yards and 6 consecutive 3 and outs is hardly the unreasonable college football fan trope you're making it out to be.
Not to mention Drones had already clearly quit on this game. Keeping him in with those stats and his body language is nuts.
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You want to pound on the numbers so hard, so let's flip that just a bit. Drones was 3 for 11 at that point and it included 4 drops by wide receivers. Not the hey they had to super extend their bodies drops ...nope the hit them in both hands center of mass drops. If our WR did their one job, then Drones is 7 for 11 for 86 yards and the Hokies have 4 more first downs and drives continue. Heath alone cost the offense 45 yards in drops. One of those puts the Hokies in FG range at a minimum. Drones was by far not perfect but putting all the bullshit on him with our putrid pass protection and butter finger receivers is comical. It was a top to bottom poor performance from every member of the offense and special teams. Defense was quasi decent.
Fortunately its over and time to clean house. Of the current QB room, I would expect only Brand might stay. Pop will go down a level, Rangel too. Half the WR room is likely gone as well.
Only ones I feel bad for on offense are our Running backs and Benji Gosnell. The RBs laid their bodies on the line this year every time out and Gosnell appeared to be placed in a black hole.
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Agree he didn't get any help with 3 bad drops and a missed PI call, but he had quit by that point and then the rest of the team started quitting around him. He's a captain but he threw in the towel against Vandy, ODU, Miami, and UVA this year. I know he's not surrounded by lots of talent or good coaching, but the combination of poor QB play and poor body language has been difficult to watch. Fortunately we'll never have to watch it again.
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It was 4 drops. You argue to put Pop in to be able to complete passes. That argument goes out the door when the receivers aren't catching the balls that are delivered to their hands. Remind me again who passed the ball that got us our touchdown? The guy who had given up?
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Yeah and in 2023 they started Wells after having seen all of training camp, put in Drones due to injury and the offense took off. So I think questioning the personnel decisions of this staff is on the table.
I'm not a Pop truther either, but that was a dogshit performance from Drones. Even if you think he better than Pop (which he probably is). Drones gave you 0% to win. Pop brings that up a little because that game was in reach until we went three and out for the entire middle half of the game. A singular scoring drive in the second or third quarter would've gone a long way.
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Pop would have turned the ball over multiple times with the way our OL handled any competent DL's pass rush. Give him 4-5 seconds and sure, he'll read the defense and drop an accurate pass to an open receiver. Ask him to deal with pressure from a pass rush, and he will take multiple bad sacks and likely fumble the ball
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Drones actually rolled out of the pocket when the pocket instantly collapsed and 2 defenders are chasing him across the field instead of freezing up and then throwing the ball into the ground as he is hit. One is a a down that you don't get the ball back, turnover on downs, and one is a down where you would get the ball back, just a turnover.
This year's OL didn't know what pass protection is and there was never any attempt to be able to give any QB time to look down field. Drones was the best option in the run game this year at QB, just not sure why we didn't utilize our strength as an offense more often in games.
Pop wasn't going to superman us to victory and we may have got him injured behind that OL. What does Pop do better than Drones consistently?
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Shit comes in all sorts of shapes, consistencies, and smells. If I'm going to watch our QB take a shit for 3 years, I might like to experience a different variety of shit here and there to at least utilize some different candles or something to try to cover it up better.
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As a Vikings fan who's been dealing with seeing so many fans thinking a rookie undrafted free agent is going to be the franchise saving qb since McCarthy has been generationally awful, I really do believe that if Pop truly gave the team a better chance to win, they would play. I get that it would be hard for him to be worse, but that doesn't always mean better.
I remember back when Kellen Mond was the backup and Vikings fans were calling for him to play, Mike Zimmer was asked why he hadn't turned to Mond during the Vikings struggles and zimmers response was basically "because I've seen him in practice"
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Without getting into the whole debate, I do find it fascinating that so many different coaching staffs and QB consultants mistakenly thought Drones was a quarterback instead of the wildcat running back he actually is.
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Maybe he's a driving range guy, hits it long and straight when there is no pressure then slices it to the next fairway the moment he steps onto a tee box and there are actual consequences.
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Im almost certain that's what it is. The guy has a good arm when he's got a nice clean pocket but even the thought of pressure and his footwork is atrocious. Gets happy feet and throws off balanced and make bad decisions. Disaster combination when you add in this OL and Monty only believing in slow developing vertical passes and WRs that could get separation
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Totally willing to buy that, but it's not like all these coaches were forbidden from watching game film. They saw what we saw, and yet they somehow came to a different conclusion. It baffles me.
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He's making a lot of money. A hell of a lot more than me. That's all I'll say.
Not specific to Drones, but the whole NIL deal is making a lot of these guys make "business decisions." Why try when you get paid either way? Want to get a deal and then redshirt, sit on your butt at home rather than play on Saturday? Yeah, that's happening. Because it's not "pay for play..."
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For the most part, yes. Someone starting college in 2020, that year didn't count, they redshirted in 2021, and then 2022-2025 were their four years.
uva also got a mulligan in 2022 due to the shooting. It looks like it was mainly for players who were in their final year of eligibility that year, but apparently the NCAA was still making some case-by-case decisions for some players as late as last year.
So I suppose it could be possible for a player to get the free COVID year in 2020, redshirt in 2021, another free year in 2022, with 23, 24, 25, and 26 as the four years that counted.
And that's not getting into whatever eligibility people got from Pavia's case last year.
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Still have the JUCO guys challenging those years shouldnt count against them. That will be a smaller pool but that could take another year or two to be done.
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Thats low-key happening now.
There are athletes that are not 'playing school.'
The concept of student-athlete is no longer universal.
If course, im sure the NCAA is all over it......
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Is it not market to have performance incentives built in to the NIL contracts....or is it just you get what you want regardless of performance. Either way, whomever struck the NIL contract with Drones, needs to reevaluate their performance scouting.
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I've been seeing stuff on Twitter about how excited they are to potentially play Duke again in the ACC championship game, but I've also seen reporters saying that could open up a path to the ACC being left out of the playoff. Idk if that's just if Duke were to win or because it's the 4 highest ranked conference champions and beating 7-5 Duke instead of SMU or Miami wouldn't be enough to rank them over any of the other conference champions.
Regardless, a donor cut a check and they spent the money well and struck gold, hat tip to them for that. FSU has proven that can work for one season, but is really hard to replicate over and over and their recruiting class is bad.
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Its top 5 ranked conference champions guaranteed a spot but its likely if Duke wins and JMU wins Sun Belt and Tulane or North Texas win the American, both those champions would be higher ranked than an 8-5 Duke.
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They are in line to lose 18/22 Starters and clearly hit the Portal Lotto this year, had a laughable easy schedule and still won at least 3 games on luck.
Chances are very high UVa will have many, many more losses next year. They would probably be lucky just to make a bowl next year.
Donors will lose interest, and Uva Football will fade back to.where they belong: obscurity
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I've also seen reporters saying that could open up a path to the ACC being left out of the playoff. Idk if that's just if Duke were to win or because it's the 4 highest ranked conference champions and beating 7-5 Duke instead of SMU or Miami wouldn't be enough to rank them over any of the other conference champions.
I think this is what I'm rooting for, especially given the new revenue distribution. VT doesn't get any financial kickback for post season games of other teams, right?
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I'm torn between rooting for Duke to win to prevent UVA from having a playoff appearance, and thinking that the stability of the ACC might be negatively impacted by the ACC champion being left out of the playoffs. The narrative that the ACC is falling behind the American conference could be enough motivation for FSU to start up again about leaving despite the cost of the media rights and not having any better conference options available.
I'm currently thinking UVA winning the ACC championship and losing first round of the playoffs might be the best remaining outcome, in the interests of keeping the ACC together long enough for VT to rebuild a more attractive program for the P2.
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The ACC needs to come up with better tiebreakers and better ways of figuring out who goes to the championship game, and they only way they are going to do that is if there's some massive charlie foxtrot, such as the conference getting shut out of the CFP because Duke claims the championship.
In typical college football fashion, the powers-that-be can't be bothered to think things through beforehand and has to watch the system fail spectacularly before making sensible changes.
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This would be less complicated and better position the ACC champion for playoff selection, but I would hesitate to give any authority to the CFP committee in the selection of the ACC champion because they haven't exactly proven to be unbiased arbiters acting in the best interest of the sport or the ACC. I prefer tie breakers based purely on record over trusting the CFP rankings, even if they are more complicated due to the infrequent head-to-head results in large division-less conferences. I would be happy with using some analytical ranking like SP+ as an earlier tie breaker.
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Not to mention, just from a purely logistical point of view, the rankings don't come out until Tuesday.
And it doesn't help if the conference is having a year where all or most of the contending teams are out of the top 25. Which we all know is a valid realistic possibility in any given year, but the conference would prefer to just stick its head in the sand and pretend it's never going to happen.
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The quicker the ACC implodes, the better it is for the mad scramble to the SEC or BIG. Remember, VT sits on some great TV Regions (DMV, Richmond, Charlotte) that both the SEC and B1G want big time.
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I am having a hard time understanding how in the hell Duke wins the tiebreakers in this situation. If SMU loses there are 5 ACC teams tied at 6-2 for 2nd. Duke is the lowest rank of all of them and is 0-1 with loss to GT in head to head.
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We had a game in California featuring a team from Texas determining who was going to play in the ACC championship, and then we ended up with uva vs. Duke?
College football needs to get itself fixed.
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Not mad at him for getting the bag, but I am disappointed in the fact that he looked his best his first year here and then got worse and worse as those checks cleared.
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That's what happens when you go three years without a real QB coach, and then when you finally get that QB coach, he takes over as Head Coach after a few months.
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A couple of our RBs show promise, and Love, but that's about it. That should be part of the recruiting pitch this whole offseason from Franklin - you have a chance to come in and immediately start.
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I don't know about you, but it is still going to be a nightmare watching two, longtime cupcake ACC programs in the conference championship game. It's going to be a complete bastardization of the word "champion" for the ACC this year.
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Sad seeing some of these players and coaches taking flak. Monty coached his head off with 1/3 of a roster. The players mostly showed effort. All of them chose to finish the season, easily could have quit like the other half of the roster.
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Monty was certainly in an unenviable position. Remember when Pry was first fired and people on here were worried we weren't even going to be able to field a team by the end of the year due to all the potential transfers out? They managed to field a "mostly" competitive team most of the time in most of the games and even managed to give us 2 victories.
That said, I thank him and this staff for his service but everybody is ready to turn the page and get on with the Franklin era, including monty. You could see it on his face last night.
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The good news is that offensively, it can only get better from here. And I'm really not exaggerating about that
This is with 11:33 to go in the game ... the searchable database for this dates back to 1987.So if you think this is one of the worst offensive performances you've ever seen from a VT offense ... it is. pic.twitter.com/d3JUo1lgWX— Will Stewart (@WillStewartTSL) November 30, 2025
Drones starts accounts for 2 of the 5 worst offensive performances in Virginia Tech football history, or at least the last 40 years. Just awful football all around
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And looking at the actual post, there is a column cutoff on the left side which might be yards, not sure. Although I think by the end of the game we made it off that list.
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Yeah, looking at the box score (https://hokiesports.com/boxscore/5466) we had 254 total yards of offense. Looking at the drive chart, we gained only 5 yards in OT. So:
Regulation:
0 points per possession
0 points per yard gained
Overtime:
1.5 points per possession
0.6 points per yard gained
VT really kicked the offense into high gear in OT! 🤣
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Welp, sorry to all last night for my meltdown. I'm not quitting the site and this is a great community here at TKP. That was probably one of the worst VT games I've ever witnessed and I'm sure it was for most of us. But I shouldn't take out frustration on the board. Apologies.
But yeah...that one stung last night. We knew this season was going to be rough after Pry was fired and how we started, but to look inept and get stomped by UVA was a very tough pill to swallow. The future is certainly bright though - but last night's game brutal. Going to be a long offseason for sure. I was very disappointed in the gameplan and thought we could have made a QB switch at some point. But it probably wouldn't have changed the result.
Anyway, moving on from this awful season and looking forward to the new era.
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I knew at halftime it was over and saw "Hot Tub Time Machine" on. So, I watched that the rest of the night and had some laughs. I'd be more of a SaladHokie if I didn't feel so comfortable knowing VT is gonna be at a completely different level in a year or so.
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Eh, I think we'll get a lot of good offseason stuff that will be encouraging. New coordinator and staff hires, recruiting (which is already looking way better). It feels like getting this season out of the way let's us start being positive again....
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Completion percentage, as well as a number of these other stats, are dependent on receivers actually catching balls. I know he wasn't the most accurate, but there were a number of times he put the ball essentially in the receivers' hands and they didn't bring it in. I am NOT saying he's good by any stretch, just slightly better than these numbers reflect. I wonder how many times "good" QBs put balls in the receivers's hands and are dropped?
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The way this season went that could easily be a 10-15% swing in completion percentage. Last night he finished 4/16 for 78 yards. There were 5 drops total. Four that hit receivers right in their hands and then the Peterkin deep ball that was a bit of both. Even if you only count the 4 that was 25% swing and about 64 yards. Add in the Peterkin drop and its a 31% swing and over 100 yards passing. That is a huge difference and all five would have been first downs so potentially add 15 more plays to the offense. Its a compounding problem.
This doesn't account for Drones running.
644 yards. 17th Nationally
9 TDs. 16th Nationally
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So if receivers do their part that's 9/16 for 183 yards. Still not great but we probably dont lose 27-7. Regardless its over and hopefully its a complete overhaul upcoming including getting rid of Pop and Rangel.
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The big difference is that the 2001 offense actually had guys that could catch (most of the time), and the 2025 offense did not.
EDIT: We also Jake Grove doing whatever the hell he wanted to to the opposing defense. The 2025 offensive line most definitely did not have Jake Grove.
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My sister had a class with him and she said he came in after that game and just wasn't himself. He was a good-natured guy, very friendly and joked around. She said he was just listless for a long time after that drop.
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Like I said, I think he's just a little better than these numbers reflect numbers show, but don't think he"s a good QB from a number of perspectives. He can be accurate on some passes, but even some in-pressured passes he doesn't put in a spot that's easily catchable, he gets flustered easily, no pocket awareness, seems to get a defeated mindset, which is not what you need if you're trying to claw back into games.
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Genuinely, one of the worst P5 teams to ever take the field. Just a top down embarrassment that the school allowed it to get to this point.
I'm glad it's over, I'm glad the season is over, I am glad our new coaching staff was in Blacksburg recruiting rather than giving one ounce of a shit about the remainder of this season. Burn this season, clean the rot out of Merryman, ask a significant portion of the players to transfer so they can be at their FCS schools they normally would be attending and move on. Dogshit season that we moved on from weeks ago before the games were even over.
The biggest takeaway from this year is that VT with the team that put up those numbers still drew more fans to every game than either of the teams playing for the conference championship game. And with Franklin, we will be back very soon. And the conference is going to make sure we do, the ratings next week are going to be atrocious.
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Just a top down embarrassment that the school allowed it to get to this point.
This right here. What is even worse, in my opinion, is that Brent Pry is the only one taking serious consequences for it. (Also Fuente, too, but he kind of burned my sympathy bridge when he publicly stated that the coaches are the ones who are smart, the fans are not smart). There are so many more people that should be taking a public, metaphorical flogging for what they have wasted in terms of the athletics success that Virginia Tech has seen over the last 30-ish years.
My only hope is that someone is taking the red-hot fire poker to those involved, behind closed doors, and keeping them on very tight leashes until they show long-term, sustained improvements in all areas they oversee. Otherwise, show them the door!
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Yeah, but if true, he'll be getting the peaceful, thank you for your years of service retirement treatment. I don't want to continue to stoke any rumors about what he may have done in his tenure. I have met him a couple of times, and every single one of them he was a genuinely great guy. But, that can all be smoke & mirrors for PR purposes. Unfortunately we probably will never know, at least not in any time frame other than when it won't matter as we will hopefully be in the CFP!!
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Holy shit...I think we all knew how bad the passing game was but the Defensive numbers are completely putrid.
I want to know who the next D.C. is as soon as possible because they need to be on the phone with every player in the Transfer Portal possible.
And IT CAN'T BE PRY.
Whatever Pry accomplished in the past, I don't care, he was a fucking trainwreck disaster here. A Defensive Coach and LB Specialist who put together an absolutely awful Defense---probably the worst at VT since the 70's.
NO PRY.
He clearly can't even do a decent LB eval ----as I'm watching Uva's BACKUP MLB #11 make plays all over the field last night--transfer portal player from Eastern Kentucky.
Then I think about the LB we brought in while Pry was here---Short (who couldn't tackle for shit), Brumfeld (who was too slow to have on the field on passing downs), Santiago (who firmly belongs @ FCS) and Spencer (who has made some plays but is too small to play LB at this level). Bad eval after bad eval.
NO MORE PRY. Thanks for helping us with Franklin. But don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
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This and Alum's post above sums it up nicely. I for one am taking these two comments in and moving on. I have zero interest in any rear view mirror commentary.
I'm focusing on any and all forward progress news surrounding our AD, football program, coaching staff, recruiting HS and portal, and anything specifically regarding JMFF.
Lastly, I am very happy to see Joe reinvigorated, seeing all the posters coming back, and the overall energy on this site. Im excited about all of us most likely going to witness the next big era of our programs history in the making.
GO HOKIES!!!!
In JMFF We Trust!!!!!!
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The past couple times I've tried posting pics using Imgur links I've gotten the little box with the question mark... wondering if anybody else has had the same issue?
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This happens to me. What I do is open the image/gif in a new tab and copy and paste the link from that one (which has the right extension at the end of the link) and that link works.
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Welp... There's not too much to be said that hasn't already been said, but I'll offer my thoughts...
1. I want to give a huge shoutout to Monty. He was put in an incredibly bad situation and managed to represent our university and football program incredibly well. I hope he got a bump in pay or gets some sort of bonus on the way out. He kept the team together; he was great with the media; and he had the team competing... sort of...
2. That being said, I think it's criminal what he did to/with this offense. Specifically what he did, or didn't to, do/with the QB position. Drones is awful. Flat out awful. And for those of you posting stats about the WR drops (those do exist - see below), he does not throw a catchable ball. Period. Everything about his game is bad and I think I'm most frustrated because he got his bag and simply regressed at a historic rate and level. I wish him well, but I'm very happy to see him move on.
3. I want to thank every player who stayed with it and represented Hokie Nation this season. I know it wasn't easy, but thank you. That being said, I would gladly wish every single player, with the exception of a small handful, well as they move along. I am so ready to clean house and get rid of every single part of the virus that has plagued this program for over 12 years now. I hope we bring in 50+ new players this offseason. We need a full reboot and the rot on this roster needs to be removed.
4. I also want to thank the entire coaching staff for sticking it out as well. The staff was in a bad situation all season as well, but they showed up and coached our players. That being said, I don't want to see a single person from this staff stay around, with 1 or 2 exceptions. The OL is one of the worst in the country in Pass Pro. The DL stopped playing (with the exception of one or two spots). The LBs are nonexistent. The secondary doesn't even look like it's part of a football team. The WR has talent, but grossly underperforms. The only group that shows promise is the RB room. This is an epic failure of this staff to develop talent.
5. James Franklin has his work cut out. This is a burn to the ground kind of rebuild. It seems like he's up for the task, but it is a big one. Fortunately we live in an era where a roster can be rebuilt quickly, but this is a massive rebuild. Also, fortunately, we play in the ACC... This is a conference JMU would have owned this season. We should be back sooner than later. The only thing I ask, and I know this isn't Franklin's thing, is that we find a way to not mismanage the QB room. Can we please get a remotely competent QB in Blacksburg?
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what he did, or didn't to, do/with the QB position.
This is the most frustrating issue. Based on Monty's offense, which require accurate quick passes outside hashes to WRs or RBs and well-thrown deep balls to WRs, Drones was destined to fail. Drones is much better at hitting crossing routes and stops, especially TEs. It's crazy how the TE essentially didn't have a role in this offense, especially when Drones could really use a TE dump to help his comp. % and to slow down the pass rush.
I was hoping Monty would adjust his offense to suit Drones strengths. Or, if he didn't change his offense, I was hoping he would realize Pop would be better suited for his offense.
And if NIL politics played a role in Drones maintaining the starting position, let's cut that shit out now. NIL only dictates payment. Payment amount should never dictate the two-deep.
Anyways, here's hoping that the next OC and QB can have success not seen in Blacksburg since TT.
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You're right. Although at the time the criticism seemed warranted. It's funny how time and circumstances will change your mind and offer you a little bit of revisionist history. Most of us, as much as we loathed Stiney, would have loved to have him the last few years.
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I think at this point, I would take anything Stiney would have to offer. lol.
We are so effing bad at offense. I never thought it could be worse than Stiney (which had a lot to do with Newsome if we are honest about it), but here we are!
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I also never thought it could get worse than Stiney, but I still don't want to go back to him, haha. I'd like to think whoever Franklin brings in will do better.
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Haha! I'm with you. I'm not saying I WANT to go back, only that time and circumstances have a way of making you appreciate some things that you once hated.
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Stinespring was very good a teaching technique and fundamentals, his players rarely made mistakes due to technique slip ups. Especially the upperclassmen as you would expect.
Stingy just was atrocious at calling plays. Ghe plays could execute them. But tbe defenses could read them too, and it didn't matter a lot because of how well executed they were. But he just didn't set up plays or seem to have a good game plan over all. He introduced plays 3 years too late and didn't really have any really feel for the flow of the game.
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I have been wondering more and more lately why from the outside looking in it seems like so many coaches simply refuse to tailor their schemes to their players' strengths. This is hardly a problem that's unique to VT; it almost seems endemic across the sport at all levels. Guys would rather fail with their system - and their people - than succeed doing something a little different. Is it sheer stubbornness? Using what always worked best in the past, and then dancing with who brung ya even after she's lost a step? Both? Neither? Some third thing? I'm curious for any possible explanation.
And if NIL politics played a role in Drones maintaining the starting position, let's cut that shit out now. NIL only dictates payment. Payment amount should never dictate the two-deep.
This was not something I had considered until seeing Justin post about it elsewhere in the thread. And now that I have considered it, I'm kind of worried some of that went on here. Not that I think JMMF will have much tolerance for players making business decisions, but I think we're gonna see that kind of thing more and more in the NIL era, especially at schools that don't have a great shot at the playoffs. They got their bag. What else is there to play for?
Dark times in CFB. Good thing we're in a better position than we used to be.
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it seems like so many coaches simply refuse to tailor their schemes to their players' strengths
I see this so much just in corporate world. Managers do a shit job managing and put bandaids in place rather than figuring out what employees strengths are and them positioning them to succeed.
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Also - imagine how absolutely awful the ratings are going to be for the ACC Championship game next weekend. A five-loss Duke vs UVA, yeesh. If Duke upsets UVA the ACC will likely be shut out of the playoffs completely. What a disaster.
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I just don't understand how there isn't a more straightforward way to determine the ACCCG matchup than this convoluted Win Percentage of your opponents crap.
How about this? In the event of a tie, the team(s) ranked highest in the CFP Poll are picked??
Simple, logical and doesn't make your Conference look like an Amateur-hour Asshat Association by putting a Team with 2 G5 losses in the Championship game.
The Game should be UVA vs. Miami this year---nothing else makes sense at this point.
No one here wants to root for Miami, but we also need to think of about this for what could happen in the future...
What if next year, we are 6-2 in the Conference but don't make the ACCCG because Wake Forest is also 6-2 but makes it instead of us because of this convoluted system? (not sure if we play WF next year but just an example).
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Like I said earlier, using the CFP rankings isn't ideal, if only for the sheer fact that they come out 3 days after the games are played. Instead, they could just factor in overall record into the tiebreakers.
Or, they could go back to having divisions and arrange the schedule so that all of the potentially tied teams have obvious on-the-field tiebreakers.
All those years that people were crying about shitty Coastal champions, wanting the "two best teams"....well...we got that, and it's two shitty Coastal teams.
It was pretty ridiculous last night during our game and the SMU/Cal game how the scenarios kept shifting, even though all of the involved teams were still playing.
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All those years that people were crying about shitty Coastal champions, wanting the "two best teams"....well...we got that, and it's two shitty Coastal teams
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This is also what you get when your conference just gets too large and you only play half of the teams in the league in a given year. Also I have a strong hunch that the ACC with the latest iteration of their scheduling system tried to get as many good matchups as possible for tv. Then you have programs that you know aren't a draw/don't anticipate to be any good like UVA which has the softest schedule in the league and lucks out not having to play any of the other top teams in the league. They didn't play Miami, GT, or Pitt. Unbelievable that it just seems like they are falling ass backwards into a conference championship this year.
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I am waiting for Miami now to demand the tiebreaker changes or be allowed to pick their ACC schedule to ensure they dont get left out again or something ridiculous.
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Not going to lie, I went to bed before the 4th quarter, read all the comments on here today, and only just now realized we kept the scoring streak alive. The worst VT team and the best UVA team this millennium somehow couldn't even stop that
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Comments
I'll ask the same question I did in the game thread:
How da hail did we win 3 games?
Not what we wanted, but not unforseen. Thanks to all the guys who suited up as Hokies this year and played behind the eight ball most of the year. Good luck in the portal.
I did not think we would be shutout.
Well.....
Ill drink!!!!
Dont cry because it happened, smile because it's over
The way I look at it...
If this is the best team in the ACC this year, Franklin is going to do unspeakable things to this shit conference going forward. Like putting a rabid wolf in a henhouse
Can't wait!
Let it be so
i wanna die
But at the same time
Makes me sick. But this was predictable. I thought 3 wins was about right for this team back in the summer. I hoped we could beat uva but they're having a magical year. They've beaten the easiest schedule in the conference with some of the luckiest luck I've ever seen. Their best season in 30 years coincides with our worst in 30 years. The entire rosters for both teams will be completely different next year and I belive the trajectories will be opposite as well.
I have faith that Franklin is going to maul the ACC. He'll build a 10 win roster over night. Provided he brings in competent coaching, I think we'll have the talent to win the ACC by 2027.
With decent coaching and a good stable of starters, we could be in the ACC title game next year. This is a bad conference, if Franklin hits the portal hard, next year could be a lot of fun.
I think most will recognize I have not been on the Franklin bandwagon, but I want to win (just not "at any cost" which is what may happen ... but I don't want to get into that here). I do want to caution everyone to not get ahead of ourselves. Franklin is indeed a flashy hire but remember unc's last two coaches were flashy hires who didn't produce consistently the greatest results on the field. Let's win on the field before we start crowing. GO HOKIES.
I concur with your caution. Franklin may be bringing in a lot better coaches & talent, but let's not forget that the proud, blue collar tradition that used to be Virginia Tech has been smeared over by the stench of mediocrity and complacency from top to bottom in the football program. That, in my opinion, is going to be the hardest thing to bring back when there is literally no one (that I know of) to speak to next year's players having experienced that mentality, attitude, & sense of pride. The first few years under Franklin are going to be hired mercenaries with little experience together. I am hoping & praying Franklin will be able to piece it together to start a new winning tradition, but we have seen plenty of other examples of it failing l, or failing to be sustainable.
It's not a "flashy" hire like Bill B or old Mack Brown. It's a coach with a hall of fame resume who's only 53 years old
It bodes well for us that Fumi isn't the one calling the shots behind the scenes unlike Bill B's piece.
Goodnight ladies and gentlemen. It's officially James Franklin's ship now.
Absolute embarrassment and all other mentions of "rock bottom" were wrong. So closes the ugliest chapter in VT football history. Bury it. On to the James Franklin era. Lots of these guys are gonna have hard conversations with the new head whistle and let's see how fast the new leader can bring us back.
The next week is going to be very interesting.
As a member of the Board, do you think a result like this is going to drive home a further point to the rest of the members to not allow us to get to this level of neglect again?
I don't think anyone needed additional proof. I will say that the university is taking on huge financial risk in the investment that was made. If this doesn't work, we're in deep shit. If it pays off, well...we'll all breathe easier. Time will tell. Give it 4 years and ask me again.
I think I'd show Stu Holt the door first. Take your pick on who's next
Yes, glad it is done.
We just got smoked by UVA. Ouch. I hope they're savoring it because that shit is not happening again in the foreseeable future.
The problem is we just facilitated a potential disaster. UVA proved to their fanbase that if they fund football in this shit conference they can win. Will not be surprised to see them ready to spend $30-$35M in NIL next season especially if they make the CFP.
And forego basketball?
Nah
With their lawyers scum alums they can do both....and still fund all the non-revs. They just never cared enough. This year may have flipped that switch.
With all due respect, I'm not worried about them
They're only good and relevant because we aren't. Now that we have Franklin, that changes. I don't give a shit how much they spend, we are spending, too, and our coaches can actually recruit and actually coach.
Having one good season isn't about to change decades worth of giving half (or less) a shit about football. I think it's the pretentious mindset - they think football players are dumb, so want to distance themselves from that. Maybe they think all athletes are dumb and are willing to take a few substandard guys to put on a basketball court, but a full football team tarnishes the intellectual elitism they live by.
We have rivalries with GT and Miami, but neither are ever going to consider us their arch rivals. We could claim BC for the same reason we could claim VMI. No thanks.
West Virginia are some inbred bastards we love to hate, and they hate us, but they're in the wrong damn conference.
The only archrival we have left are the stale cheese-Zima farts from up north.
We could be Penn State, Texas A&M or Texas Tech and never have a genuine arch rival. That would seem to limit our ceiling.
We could be Michigan, UCLA or Auburn and pick a big brother to arch rival against. Not the worst thing on the world, but yuck.
Or we could go the Alabama/OSU/USC route and pick a little brother to eternally torture.
We're actually eligible for option 3.
For that to happen, you'd have to agree to fund your program like an adult.
Check.
And you'd have to actually get those pretentious assholes to agree to fund their football program and take it seriously again, too.
And that would just take a damn miracle.
Their fanbase couldn't fill their stadium in their biggest game since 'nam. They are not serious about football. They hit the jackpot with a combination of a veteran roster that will need replacing next year, the easiest schedule in FBS, and some incredible luck to beat FSU, Louisville, Washington State, and UNC. Louisville was the only decent team they beat all year.
I am not worried about UVA. They got their once-a-decade win against us last night. Good for them. They should enjoy it while it lasts.
I feel like I just left a bad relationship. What a weight off the shoulders!
Looking forward to next year.
I'm not even mad, that's amazing!
Why did Drones NEVER get replaces. He's not a fighter. He quit in this game. There has to be some BS reason he never was pulled...
I think this was a gift to a 3 year starter. Not going to pull him and have him finish his career on the bench
that's the kind of gift you give on senior night, in the first drive in the first quarter. Not during a rivalry game with absolutely nothing to lose.
Cuz everyone behind him was more ass-ier.
If we didn't have better, they should all be gone now.
Pop showed he's a better passer than Drones on his first play last week.
When your QB is 3 for 11 with 21 passing yards, there is absolutely no excuse for not making a change. What did we have to lose at that point?
But what would we have to gain, either? Season's cooked, game's cooked...time to replace him was games ago, though.
Giving the team a spark and possibly winning the game?
In all likelihood it wouldn't have been enough, but after halftime it was very clear that the only way Drones was going to win the game, was with 3 defensive or special teams TDs.
Who was gonna catch it? Who was gonna block? We could have thrown in Pop sure it would have made no difference.
It might have made a difference. Only way to know is to try. What did we have to lose?
You could see the quit in Kyron's face. We've seen that deer in the headlights look many times now. He's about as bad a leader as he is a passer. Might as well try something else and see if it energizes the team. Sometimes teams respond to a change. We saw Pop energize our team just last week.
Or we could continue trotting out the worst QB we've ever had even though he hasn't gotten a first down in 3 quarters. Drones was guaranteed to fail at that point, but because Pop might fail too, we should keep banging our heads against the wall with Kyron?
Or watch hundreds of practices over 2-3 years.
The scoring streak
Look, I'm not a drones truther by any stretch. But I think the coaches all want to win desperately. I think they play the players who they think give them the best chance of winning. And they have way more data points than I do.
It sounds like you have more confidence in this staff than I do.
Remember, Justin Fuente thought Ryan Willis was better than Hendon Hooker, and he was watching them both in practice every day. Sometimes the coaches get it wrong.
Until he didn't.
And most of the time, fans get it wrong. I can't think of a season since 2016 where there wasn't a "bench the starter" mentality here (and that's not unusual for college football fans). Hell, I remember folks calling for Tyrod to be benched during the Stanford game (I think?) because fan saw Logan Thomas throw that one absolute missile in that Miami game.
Calling for the benching of your QB who's 3 for 11 with 21 passing yards and 6 consecutive 3 and outs is hardly the unreasonable college football fan trope you're making it out to be.
Not to mention Drones had already clearly quit on this game. Keeping him in with those stats and his body language is nuts.
You want to pound on the numbers so hard, so let's flip that just a bit. Drones was 3 for 11 at that point and it included 4 drops by wide receivers. Not the hey they had to super extend their bodies drops ...nope the hit them in both hands center of mass drops. If our WR did their one job, then Drones is 7 for 11 for 86 yards and the Hokies have 4 more first downs and drives continue. Heath alone cost the offense 45 yards in drops. One of those puts the Hokies in FG range at a minimum. Drones was by far not perfect but putting all the bullshit on him with our putrid pass protection and butter finger receivers is comical. It was a top to bottom poor performance from every member of the offense and special teams. Defense was quasi decent.
Fortunately its over and time to clean house. Of the current QB room, I would expect only Brand might stay. Pop will go down a level, Rangel too. Half the WR room is likely gone as well.
Only ones I feel bad for on offense are our Running backs and Benji Gosnell. The RBs laid their bodies on the line this year every time out and Gosnell appeared to be placed in a black hole.
Yea, I agree with this. It's tough for me to be that outraged with Drones relative to the rest of the offense.
Agree he didn't get any help with 3 bad drops and a missed PI call, but he had quit by that point and then the rest of the team started quitting around him. He's a captain but he threw in the towel against Vandy, ODU, Miami, and UVA this year. I know he's not surrounded by lots of talent or good coaching, but the combination of poor QB play and poor body language has been difficult to watch. Fortunately we'll never have to watch it again.
It was 4 drops. You argue to put Pop in to be able to complete passes. That argument goes out the door when the receivers aren't catching the balls that are delivered to their hands. Remind me again who passed the ball that got us our touchdown? The guy who had given up?
Yeah and in 2023 they started Wells after having seen all of training camp, put in Drones due to injury and the offense took off. So I think questioning the personnel decisions of this staff is on the table.
I'm not a Pop truther either, but that was a dogshit performance from Drones. Even if you think he better than Pop (which he probably is). Drones gave you 0% to win. Pop brings that up a little because that game was in reach until we went three and out for the entire middle half of the game. A singular scoring drive in the second or third quarter would've gone a long way.
Which only extends beyond 2014 thanks to a Mark Leal touchdown.
Still counts. It's the fourth longest in CFB history (with the other 3 active also).
Pop would have turned the ball over multiple times with the way our OL handled any competent DL's pass rush. Give him 4-5 seconds and sure, he'll read the defense and drop an accurate pass to an open receiver. Ask him to deal with pressure from a pass rush, and he will take multiple bad sacks and likely fumble the ball
Came here to say the same thing.
Then he turned the ball over instead of just taking a sack, essentially ending the game.
Yes, Pop fumbled after getting hit as he threw. Kyron jogged out of bounds 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage on 4th and 3 to turn it over on downs.
Which is worse?
Drones actually rolled out of the pocket when the pocket instantly collapsed and 2 defenders are chasing him across the field instead of freezing up and then throwing the ball into the ground as he is hit. One is a a down that you don't get the ball back, turnover on downs, and one is a down where you would get the ball back, just a turnover.
This year's OL didn't know what pass protection is and there was never any attempt to be able to give any QB time to look down field. Drones was the best option in the run game this year at QB, just not sure why we didn't utilize our strength as an offense more often in games.
Pop wasn't going to superman us to victory and we may have got him injured behind that OL. What does Pop do better than Drones consistently?
Shit comes in all sorts of shapes, consistencies, and smells. If I'm going to watch our QB take a shit for 3 years, I might like to experience a different variety of shit here and there to at least utilize some different candles or something to try to cover it up better.
throw the ball
As a Vikings fan who's been dealing with seeing so many fans thinking a rookie undrafted free agent is going to be the franchise saving qb since McCarthy has been generationally awful, I really do believe that if Pop truly gave the team a better chance to win, they would play. I get that it would be hard for him to be worse, but that doesn't always mean better.
I remember back when Kellen Mond was the backup and Vikings fans were calling for him to play, Mike Zimmer was asked why he hadn't turned to Mond during the Vikings struggles and zimmers response was basically "because I've seen him in practice"
Without getting into the whole debate, I do find it fascinating that so many different coaching staffs and QB consultants mistakenly thought Drones was a quarterback instead of the wildcat running back he actually is.
Maybe he's a driving range guy, hits it long and straight when there is no pressure then slices it to the next fairway the moment he steps onto a tee box and there are actual consequences.
Im almost certain that's what it is. The guy has a good arm when he's got a nice clean pocket but even the thought of pressure and his footwork is atrocious. Gets happy feet and throws off balanced and make bad decisions. Disaster combination when you add in this OL and Monty only believing in slow developing vertical passes and WRs that could get separation
The question is: Did he develop happy feet because the o-line was so porous? Was his accuracy off because he was "always" running for his life?
I've been saying this for the last couple of years.
Totally willing to buy that, but it's not like all these coaches were forbidden from watching game film. They saw what we saw, and yet they somehow came to a different conclusion. It baffles me.
Maybe that's because the issue isn't (completely) Drones, and it has a lot more to do with the coaches and players around him?
Hey, we finished with the same conference records as FSU and UNC.
From everything I've heard, that sets us up for a SEC or B1G invite
So fucking painful. All of it!
Now, we reset, rebuild and crush skulls.
The James Franklin era has thankfully, officially begun
Signing day is coming up and for the first time in a while I am stoked for it.
Let the JF rebuild begin!!!!
I want to see Drones NIL contract. Something strange is afoot
He's making a lot of money. A hell of a lot more than me. That's all I'll say.
Not specific to Drones, but the whole NIL deal is making a lot of these guys make "business decisions." Why try when you get paid either way? Want to get a deal and then redshirt, sit on your butt at home rather than play on Saturday? Yeah, that's happening. Because it's not "pay for play..."
Are you tenured?
Yes
Wonder if "business decision" is why it felt like we had over 20 people hurt every game this season.
Man I was picturing DC at home losing his mind as the announcers were talking up uva's large group of 6 and 7 year seniors.
Are 6+ year seniors finally out of college football, other than the rare medical redshirt here and there?
For the most part, yes. Someone starting college in 2020, that year didn't count, they redshirted in 2021, and then 2022-2025 were their four years.
uva also got a mulligan in 2022 due to the shooting. It looks like it was mainly for players who were in their final year of eligibility that year, but apparently the NCAA was still making some case-by-case decisions for some players as late as last year.
So I suppose it could be possible for a player to get the free COVID year in 2020, redshirt in 2021, another free year in 2022, with 23, 24, 25, and 26 as the four years that counted.
And that's not getting into whatever eligibility people got from Pavia's case last year.
Still have the JUCO guys challenging those years shouldnt count against them. That will be a smaller pool but that could take another year or two to be done.
Fact is, we're just one lawsuit away from infinite eligibility as long as you're enrolled.
Why do they even need to be enrolled? They could sue that they are employees and that Skool shouldnt be a requirement to continue employment.
One step at a time, but you're not wrong. After that comes guys coming back down from NFL practice squads to make more money.
Thats low-key happening now.
There are athletes that are not 'playing school.'
The concept of student-athlete is no longer universal.
If course, im sure the NCAA is all over it......
Is it not market to have performance incentives built in to the NIL contracts....or is it just you get what you want regardless of performance. Either way, whomever struck the NIL contract with Drones, needs to reevaluate their performance scouting.
I've been seeing stuff on Twitter about how excited they are to potentially play Duke again in the ACC championship game, but I've also seen reporters saying that could open up a path to the ACC being left out of the playoff. Idk if that's just if Duke were to win or because it's the 4 highest ranked conference champions and beating 7-5 Duke instead of SMU or Miami wouldn't be enough to rank them over any of the other conference champions.
Regardless, a donor cut a check and they spent the money well and struck gold, hat tip to them for that. FSU has proven that can work for one season, but is really hard to replicate over and over and their recruiting class is bad.
^^^This.
The portal is a crap shoot.
Its top 5 ranked conference champions guaranteed a spot but its likely if Duke wins and JMU wins Sun Belt and Tulane or North Texas win the American, both those champions would be higher ranked than an 8-5 Duke.
They are in line to lose 18/22 Starters and clearly hit the Portal Lotto this year, had a laughable easy schedule and still won at least 3 games on luck.
Chances are very high UVa will have many, many more losses next year. They would probably be lucky just to make a bowl next year.
Donors will lose interest, and Uva Football will fade back to.where they belong: obscurity
I think this is what I'm rooting for, especially given the new revenue distribution. VT doesn't get any financial kickback for post season games of other teams, right?
I'm torn between rooting for Duke to win to prevent UVA from having a playoff appearance, and thinking that the stability of the ACC might be negatively impacted by the ACC champion being left out of the playoffs. The narrative that the ACC is falling behind the American conference could be enough motivation for FSU to start up again about leaving despite the cost of the media rights and not having any better conference options available.
I'm currently thinking UVA winning the ACC championship and losing first round of the playoffs might be the best remaining outcome, in the interests of keeping the ACC together long enough for VT to rebuild a more attractive program for the P2.
The ACC needs to come up with better tiebreakers and better ways of figuring out who goes to the championship game, and they only way they are going to do that is if there's some massive charlie foxtrot, such as the conference getting shut out of the CFP because Duke claims the championship.
In typical college football fashion, the powers-that-be can't be bothered to think things through beforehand and has to watch the system fail spectacularly before making sensible changes.
Yep - just make the tie breakers:
Pretty easy.
This would be less complicated and better position the ACC champion for playoff selection, but I would hesitate to give any authority to the CFP committee in the selection of the ACC champion because they haven't exactly proven to be unbiased arbiters acting in the best interest of the sport or the ACC. I prefer tie breakers based purely on record over trusting the CFP rankings, even if they are more complicated due to the infrequent head-to-head results in large division-less conferences. I would be happy with using some analytical ranking like SP+ as an earlier tie breaker.
Agreed, I'd prefer opinions don't determine our Championship game participants.
Not to mention, just from a purely logistical point of view, the rankings don't come out until Tuesday.
And it doesn't help if the conference is having a year where all or most of the contending teams are out of the top 25. Which we all know is a valid realistic possibility in any given year, but the conference would prefer to just stick its head in the sand and pretend it's never going to happen.
The quicker the ACC implodes, the better it is for the mad scramble to the SEC or BIG. Remember, VT sits on some great TV Regions (DMV, Richmond, Charlotte) that both the SEC and B1G want big time.
We are not well-positioned right now. Enter Sandman doesn't pique the B1G's or SEC's interest and we don't have much else to offer right now.
The longer the ACC can stay together, the more the Franklinification of our program can take root and make us more attractive.
Reminded me of Hilgartification
Counterpoint - what did Rutgers or Maryland offer the Big Ten other than TV markets?
Just New York and DC markets, which is big.
Different era. Back then eyeballs were gained by regional expansion. I don't think that's how eyeballs are gained any more. At least not as much.
That game would've made me borderline suicidal if I didn't exist out of spite. Or have corgi in a Hokie jersey.
I am having a hard time understanding how in the hell Duke wins the tiebreakers in this situation. If SMU loses there are 5 ACC teams tied at 6-2 for 2nd. Duke is the lowest rank of all of them and is 0-1 with loss to GT in head to head.
I mean a uva vs Miami championship game would just be another tier on the shit cake of this season.
We are officially in the Twilight Zone.
We had a game in California featuring a team from Texas determining who was going to play in the ACC championship, and then we ended up with uva vs. Duke?
College football needs to get itself fixed.
It apparently has to do with opponent conference winning percentage
Remember when tech fans were worried Drones was gonna transfer to LSU 😅🤣
You're saying there was a timeline where we got to see Pop in action for a whole year AND see Brian Kelly fired before October??? Sign me up.
According to the laws of Virginia Tech QBs, if LSU had poached Kyrone, he would have turned into Joe Burrow, Part II, and saved Brian Kelley's job.
Thank goodness this season is over. Appreciate all the guys touching it out on a lost season.
Hope Kyron makes good use of the $2M plus VT paid him the past few years.
Not mad at him for getting the bag, but I am disappointed in the fact that he looked his best his first year here and then got worse and worse as those checks cleared.
That's what happens when you go three years without a real QB coach, and then when you finally get that QB coach, he takes over as Head Coach after a few months.
I know it's a typo, but "touching it out" somehow seems more like what the team actually did :)
Hard not to see this coming when we came in without our best WR and one of our best RBs.
Right now though, I don't want anyone from this team coming back next year.
A couple of our RBs show promise, and Love, but that's about it. That should be part of the recruiting pitch this whole offseason from Franklin - you have a chance to come in and immediately start.
Yeah, curious why you're not interested in keeping one or two of our RB's?
That was said out of anger very shortly after I learned we lost to UVA.
In truth, I'd be fine if Hawkins, Stewart, or Overton wanted to stick around.
Yeah, I think RB was by far our most solid position this year, at least on offense.
Is Stewart out of eligibility being a grad student? If so, can he Pavia-sue for more years?
The defense put together their most stops of the year while the offense went 3 and out 7 times in a row .. its a miracle they only scored 27
Well at least we expected it.
I'd rather lose to them in a situation like this than some surprise win where everyone expects us to win.
On to the Franklin era!!
I don't know about you, but it is still going to be a nightmare watching two, longtime cupcake ACC programs in the conference championship game. It's going to be a complete bastardization of the word "champion" for the ACC this year.
I guess that WOULD be a nightmare, if anyone intended to watch it. So probably more of a national embarassment than nightmare.
Sad seeing some of these players and coaches taking flak. Monty coached his head off with 1/3 of a roster. The players mostly showed effort. All of them chose to finish the season, easily could have quit like the other half of the roster.
Monty was certainly in an unenviable position. Remember when Pry was first fired and people on here were worried we weren't even going to be able to field a team by the end of the year due to all the potential transfers out? They managed to field a "mostly" competitive team most of the time in most of the games and even managed to give us 2 victories.
That said, I thank him and this staff for his service but everybody is ready to turn the page and get on with the Franklin era, including monty. You could see it on his face last night.
Yea this is where I'm at. The NC st and Cal games would both be losses under pry/with less effort.
The good news is that offensively, it can only get better from here. And I'm really not exaggerating about that
Drones starts accounts for 2 of the 5 worst offensive performances in Virginia Tech football history, or at least the last 40 years. Just awful football all around
What am I looking at here? Yards per play? total yards? points? First downs? Something else?
bottles thrown at TV
Total yards, the metric was cut off
Submit the fact that we won the game at Miami in 2006 to the College Football Hall of Fame under Reasons Why Bud Belongs
I don't see the 0-0 WF debacle on that list.
And looking at the actual post, there is a column cutoff on the left side which might be yards, not sure. Although I think by the end of the game we made it off that list.
That definitely ranks on my most painful, but depends on the criteria you use for "worst loss."
Yeah, looking at the box score (https://hokiesports.com/boxscore/5466) we had 254 total yards of offense. Looking at the drive chart, we gained only 5 yards in OT. So:
VT really kicked the offense into high gear in OT! 🤣
It's all good. UVa gets their one win against us per decade. Get ready for another 7+ years of kicking their ass moving forward.
Also, we would've won if y'all hadn't talked me into putting Drones' name in my signature prematurely. Let this be a lesson.
Welp, sorry to all last night for my meltdown. I'm not quitting the site and this is a great community here at TKP. That was probably one of the worst VT games I've ever witnessed and I'm sure it was for most of us. But I shouldn't take out frustration on the board. Apologies.
But yeah...that one stung last night. We knew this season was going to be rough after Pry was fired and how we started, but to look inept and get stomped by UVA was a very tough pill to swallow. The future is certainly bright though - but last night's game brutal. Going to be a long offseason for sure. I was very disappointed in the gameplan and thought we could have made a QB switch at some point. But it probably wouldn't have changed the result.
Anyway, moving on from this awful season and looking forward to the new era.
I knew at halftime it was over and saw "Hot Tub Time Machine" on. So, I watched that the rest of the night and had some laughs. I'd be more of a SaladHokie if I didn't feel so comfortable knowing VT is gonna be at a completely different level in a year or so.
That's a funny movie. Much better than the trailers made it look like it was going to be
I've met one of the writers, Sean Anders, funny dude.
All good bro. We've all been pushed to the limit recently.
I viewed last night as a terrible day of work before a 2 week vacation. Was brutal, but it's in the rear view now.
Gonna sit back in a beach chair, drink some cold ones, and wait for recruiting and coaching hire news.
Eh, I think we'll get a lot of good offseason stuff that will be encouraging. New coordinator and staff hires, recruiting (which is already looking way better). It feels like getting this season out of the way let's us start being positive again....
All of college football looking at us like...
Just reflecting this morning on Drones' total lack of self awareness - going to the media saying we plan on dominating them like we always do.
Like yeah, it's good to have that mindset, but if you're going to say it publicly, you better have the means to back it up.
Final stats on Drones:
And for the OL:
... and the defense (woof):
Completion percentage, as well as a number of these other stats, are dependent on receivers actually catching balls. I know he wasn't the most accurate, but there were a number of times he put the ball essentially in the receivers' hands and they didn't bring it in. I am NOT saying he's good by any stretch, just slightly better than these numbers reflect. I wonder how many times "good" QBs put balls in the receivers's hands and are dropped?
Agree, he had next to zero help from the receivers the entire year.
The way this season went that could easily be a 10-15% swing in completion percentage. Last night he finished 4/16 for 78 yards. There were 5 drops total. Four that hit receivers right in their hands and then the Peterkin deep ball that was a bit of both. Even if you only count the 4 that was 25% swing and about 64 yards. Add in the Peterkin drop and its a 31% swing and over 100 yards passing. That is a huge difference and all five would have been first downs so potentially add 15 more plays to the offense. Its a compounding problem.
This doesn't account for Drones running.
644 yards. 17th Nationally
9 TDs. 16th Nationally
4/16 for 78 yards. That's Grant Noel against Miami territory.
So if receivers do their part that's 9/16 for 183 yards. Still not great but we probably dont lose 27-7. Regardless its over and hopefully its a complete overhaul upcoming including getting rid of Pop and Rangel.
Noel's stats from 2001... he was worse than I remembered, but better still than Drones.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/players/grant-noel-1/gamelog/2001/
The big difference is that the 2001 offense actually had guys that could catch (most of the time), and the 2025 offense did not.
EDIT: We also Jake Grove doing whatever the hell he wanted to to the opposing defense. The 2025 offensive line most definitely did not have Jake Grove.
Noel wasn't asked to do much, but when he needed to make a throw he could. Well...until that Miami game. And that Syracuse game. And...
Agree that he had exponentially more talent to work with at the OL and skill positions.
That 2-pt conversion that hit Wilford right in the hands still haunts me...
Me too, man. From my vantage point in the East stands it looked like he had it. Then I saw the replay....
I think it still haunts him.
My sister had a class with him and she said he came in after that game and just wasn't himself. He was a good-natured guy, very friendly and joked around. She said he was just listless for a long time after that drop.
You're right but when you're ranked 100, you're ranked 100. Other teams have drops too and they still find a way to be top 99.
Like I said, I think he's just a little better than these numbers reflect numbers show, but don't think he"s a good QB from a number of perspectives. He can be accurate on some passes, but even some in-pressured passes he doesn't put in a spot that's easily catchable, he gets flustered easily, no pocket awareness, seems to get a defeated mindset, which is not what you need if you're trying to claw back into games.
We catch 0 contested balls and like 50% of wide open balls
Genuinely, one of the worst P5 teams to ever take the field. Just a top down embarrassment that the school allowed it to get to this point.
I'm glad it's over, I'm glad the season is over, I am glad our new coaching staff was in Blacksburg recruiting rather than giving one ounce of a shit about the remainder of this season. Burn this season, clean the rot out of Merryman, ask a significant portion of the players to transfer so they can be at their FCS schools they normally would be attending and move on. Dogshit season that we moved on from weeks ago before the games were even over.
The biggest takeaway from this year is that VT with the team that put up those numbers still drew more fans to every game than either of the teams playing for the conference championship game. And with Franklin, we will be back very soon. And the conference is going to make sure we do, the ratings next week are going to be atrocious.
This right here. What is even worse, in my opinion, is that Brent Pry is the only one taking serious consequences for it. (Also Fuente, too, but he kind of burned my sympathy bridge when he publicly stated that the coaches are the ones who are smart, the fans are not smart). There are so many more people that should be taking a public, metaphorical flogging for what they have wasted in terms of the athletics success that Virginia Tech has seen over the last 30-ish years.
My only hope is that someone is taking the red-hot fire poker to those involved, behind closed doors, and keeping them on very tight leashes until they show long-term, sustained improvements in all areas they oversee. Otherwise, show them the door!
Word is that Beillein's (sp?) office has been cleaned out, so maybe?
Yeah, but if true, he'll be getting the peaceful, thank you for your years of service retirement treatment. I don't want to continue to stoke any rumors about what he may have done in his tenure. I have met him a couple of times, and every single one of them he was a genuinely great guy. But, that can all be smoke & mirrors for PR purposes. Unfortunately we probably will never know, at least not in any time frame other than when it won't matter as we will hopefully be in the CFP!!
Holy shit...I think we all knew how bad the passing game was but the Defensive numbers are completely putrid.
I want to know who the next D.C. is as soon as possible because they need to be on the phone with every player in the Transfer Portal possible.
And IT CAN'T BE PRY.
Whatever Pry accomplished in the past, I don't care, he was a fucking trainwreck disaster here. A Defensive Coach and LB Specialist who put together an absolutely awful Defense---probably the worst at VT since the 70's.
NO PRY.
He clearly can't even do a decent LB eval ----as I'm watching Uva's BACKUP MLB #11 make plays all over the field last night--transfer portal player from Eastern Kentucky.
Then I think about the LB we brought in while Pry was here---Short (who couldn't tackle for shit), Brumfeld (who was too slow to have on the field on passing downs), Santiago (who firmly belongs @ FCS) and Spencer (who has made some plays but is too small to play LB at this level). Bad eval after bad eval.
NO MORE PRY. Thanks for helping us with Franklin. But don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Pry me a river... /s
This and Alum's post above sums it up nicely. I for one am taking these two comments in and moving on. I have zero interest in any rear view mirror commentary.
I'm focusing on any and all forward progress news surrounding our AD, football program, coaching staff, recruiting HS and portal, and anything specifically regarding JMFF.
Lastly, I am very happy to see Joe reinvigorated, seeing all the posters coming back, and the overall energy on this site. Im excited about all of us most likely going to witness the next big era of our programs history in the making.
GO HOKIES!!!!
In JMFF We Trust!!!!!!
Edit: Replaced yarn gif.
Don't like that you guys are going to make me programmatically block yarn.co embeds.
I'm curious, as I have used Yarn forever, but what's changed that is going to make you block them?
https://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/1329728#comment-1329728
The past couple times I've tried posting pics using Imgur links I've gotten the little box with the question mark... wondering if anybody else has had the same issue?
This happens to me. What I do is open the image/gif in a new tab and copy and paste the link from that one (which has the right extension at the end of the link) and that link works.
Sorry, Joe. I wasn't TKPing hard enough and missed that.
Sorry, slipped up on that one, will comply from here on out.
Haha, it's no big deal, and it's more than you. I need to codify it, but also
lazybusy software dev.From a frequent gif'r and lover of movie quotes, if you can/do fix it, I'll love you forever.
I explained in the other thread, there's no way for me to fix it. All you need to do is re-upload to either Giphy or Imgur.
Not with that attitude...
If you don't want my love, just say so....
/s
Welp... There's not too much to be said that hasn't already been said, but I'll offer my thoughts...
1. I want to give a huge shoutout to Monty. He was put in an incredibly bad situation and managed to represent our university and football program incredibly well. I hope he got a bump in pay or gets some sort of bonus on the way out. He kept the team together; he was great with the media; and he had the team competing... sort of...
2. That being said, I think it's criminal what he did to/with this offense. Specifically what he did, or didn't to, do/with the QB position. Drones is awful. Flat out awful. And for those of you posting stats about the WR drops (those do exist - see below), he does not throw a catchable ball. Period. Everything about his game is bad and I think I'm most frustrated because he got his bag and simply regressed at a historic rate and level. I wish him well, but I'm very happy to see him move on.
3. I want to thank every player who stayed with it and represented Hokie Nation this season. I know it wasn't easy, but thank you. That being said, I would gladly wish every single player, with the exception of a small handful, well as they move along. I am so ready to clean house and get rid of every single part of the virus that has plagued this program for over 12 years now. I hope we bring in 50+ new players this offseason. We need a full reboot and the rot on this roster needs to be removed.
4. I also want to thank the entire coaching staff for sticking it out as well. The staff was in a bad situation all season as well, but they showed up and coached our players. That being said, I don't want to see a single person from this staff stay around, with 1 or 2 exceptions. The OL is one of the worst in the country in Pass Pro. The DL stopped playing (with the exception of one or two spots). The LBs are nonexistent. The secondary doesn't even look like it's part of a football team. The WR has talent, but grossly underperforms. The only group that shows promise is the RB room. This is an epic failure of this staff to develop talent.
5. James Franklin has his work cut out. This is a burn to the ground kind of rebuild. It seems like he's up for the task, but it is a big one. Fortunately we live in an era where a roster can be rebuilt quickly, but this is a massive rebuild. Also, fortunately, we play in the ACC... This is a conference JMU would have owned this season. We should be back sooner than later. The only thing I ask, and I know this isn't Franklin's thing, is that we find a way to not mismanage the QB room. Can we please get a remotely competent QB in Blacksburg?
This is the most frustrating issue. Based on Monty's offense, which require accurate quick passes outside hashes to WRs or RBs and well-thrown deep balls to WRs, Drones was destined to fail. Drones is much better at hitting crossing routes and stops, especially TEs. It's crazy how the TE essentially didn't have a role in this offense, especially when Drones could really use a TE dump to help his comp. % and to slow down the pass rush.
I was hoping Monty would adjust his offense to suit Drones strengths. Or, if he didn't change his offense, I was hoping he would realize Pop would be better suited for his offense.
And if NIL politics played a role in Drones maintaining the starting position, let's cut that shit out now. NIL only dictates payment. Payment amount should never dictate the two-deep.
Anyways, here's hoping that the next OC and QB can have success not seen in Blacksburg since TT.
Which seems like a crazy thought from a certain perspective considering a large part of the fan base wanted Stinespring out as OC during the TT years.
Every fanbase always hates the OC and the starting QB.
The OC is always not doing enough and the backup QB is always a world beater just waiting to get in the game.
To be fair, this VT passing attack is good for one of the very worst in the nation by almost every metric. I think the criticism is warranted here.
I was talking about the Stinespring years
Gotcha... somehow I missed that.
You're right. Although at the time the criticism seemed warranted. It's funny how time and circumstances will change your mind and offer you a little bit of revisionist history. Most of us, as much as we loathed Stiney, would have loved to have him the last few years.
Do we miss Stiney? Or do we miss the talent he had to work with?
I think at this point, I would take anything Stiney would have to offer. lol.
We are so effing bad at offense. I never thought it could be worse than Stiney (which had a lot to do with Newsome if we are honest about it), but here we are!
I also never thought it could get worse than Stiney, but I still don't want to go back to him, haha. I'd like to think whoever Franklin brings in will do better.
Haha! I'm with you. I'm not saying I WANT to go back, only that time and circumstances have a way of making you appreciate some things that you once hated.
Stinespring was very good a teaching technique and fundamentals, his players rarely made mistakes due to technique slip ups. Especially the upperclassmen as you would expect.
Stingy just was atrocious at calling plays. Ghe plays could execute them. But tbe defenses could read them too, and it didn't matter a lot because of how well executed they were. But he just didn't set up plays or seem to have a good game plan over all. He introduced plays 3 years too late and didn't really have any really feel for the flow of the game.
Yup, he was a great position coach. Bad OC.
I have been wondering more and more lately why from the outside looking in it seems like so many coaches simply refuse to tailor their schemes to their players' strengths. This is hardly a problem that's unique to VT; it almost seems endemic across the sport at all levels. Guys would rather fail with their system - and their people - than succeed doing something a little different. Is it sheer stubbornness? Using what always worked best in the past, and then dancing with who brung ya even after she's lost a step? Both? Neither? Some third thing? I'm curious for any possible explanation.
This was not something I had considered until seeing Justin post about it elsewhere in the thread. And now that I have considered it, I'm kind of worried some of that went on here. Not that I think JMMF will have much tolerance for players making business decisions, but I think we're gonna see that kind of thing more and more in the NIL era, especially at schools that don't have a great shot at the playoffs. They got their bag. What else is there to play for?
Dark times in CFB. Good thing we're in a better position than we used to be.
I think we can safely say that
JMMFJMFF will have hand in these negotiations.The players:
Who's James Mutha Mucking Franklin anyway!
I see this so much just in corporate world. Managers do a shit job managing and put bandaids in place rather than figuring out what employees strengths are and them positioning them to succeed.
FTFY.
Also - imagine how absolutely awful the ratings are going to be for the ACC Championship game next weekend. A five-loss Duke vs UVA, yeesh. If Duke upsets UVA the ACC will likely be shut out of the playoffs completely. What a disaster.
I just don't understand how there isn't a more straightforward way to determine the ACCCG matchup than this convoluted Win Percentage of your opponents crap.
How about this? In the event of a tie, the team(s) ranked highest in the CFP Poll are picked??
Simple, logical and doesn't make your Conference look like an Amateur-hour Asshat Association by putting a Team with 2 G5 losses in the Championship game.
The Game should be UVA vs. Miami this year---nothing else makes sense at this point.
No one here wants to root for Miami, but we also need to think of about this for what could happen in the future...
What if next year, we are 6-2 in the Conference but don't make the ACCCG because Wake Forest is also 6-2 but makes it instead of us because of this convoluted system? (not sure if we play WF next year but just an example).
Like I said earlier, using the CFP rankings isn't ideal, if only for the sheer fact that they come out 3 days after the games are played. Instead, they could just factor in overall record into the tiebreakers.
Or, they could go back to having divisions and arrange the schedule so that all of the potentially tied teams have obvious on-the-field tiebreakers.
All those years that people were crying about shitty Coastal champions, wanting the "two best teams"....well...we got that, and it's two shitty Coastal teams.
It was pretty ridiculous last night during our game and the SMU/Cal game how the scenarios kept shifting, even though all of the involved teams were still playing.
This is also what you get when your conference just gets too large and you only play half of the teams in the league in a given year. Also I have a strong hunch that the ACC with the latest iteration of their scheduling system tried to get as many good matchups as possible for tv. Then you have programs that you know aren't a draw/don't anticipate to be any good like UVA which has the softest schedule in the league and lucks out not having to play any of the other top teams in the league. They didn't play Miami, GT, or Pitt. Unbelievable that it just seems like they are falling ass backwards into a conference championship this year.
This. Conference is way too big.
I am waiting for Miami now to demand the tiebreaker changes or be allowed to pick their ACC schedule to ensure they dont get left out again or something ridiculous.
One bright spot from yesterday?
WVU got lit up worse than we did. A lot worse.
They were playing the 2nd highest paid roster in football so would hope TTU could pummel RichRod's Wayward Home for Misfits
The ESPN ticker said it was their worst loss since 1891. Or maybe just home loss?
I dunno, I had to read it several times to make sure I wasn't reading 1981.
Home loss since 1891. Yep
Had to look it up
Washington and Jefferson College 72-0. It was the cousins' first game.
In retrospect it was very nice of us to support UVA football on Small Business Saturday
Very glad that I was out of the country and not able to watch any of this.
Not going to lie, I went to bed before the 4th quarter, read all the comments on here today, and only just now realized we kept the scoring streak alive. The worst VT team and the best UVA team this millennium somehow couldn't even stop that
I love that positive spin. leg for you
It gets a leg, I'm just sad at how far we've fallen that not getting shutout by UVA counts as a moral victory.