Is Virginia Tech Football At A Crossroads?

Hyperbole? Probably. Overreaction? Definitely. But hear me out for a minute or two...

Just 9 years ago we all watched Beamer's farewell tour. It was both parts beautiful and sad. Beautiful as we saw the man who built VT football into a program that carried national relevance year after year finish with relative success. Sad, because we all knew it had to end at some point. And with that ending I think we all knew things would be rocky for a bit.

As some have pointed out, as bad as it's been it certainly could have been much worse. Whit Babcock made a homerun hire, at least that's what everyone thought at the time. Justin Fuente and his G-5 staff took VT to the ACCCG in 2016, during his first year at VT. Then... without dissecting the nuances of what went down, we all know what happened (locker room issues, recruiting misses, player development failures, horribly unqualified staff, etc.), things went sideways. Fast.

Enter Brent Pry. An underwhelming hire for sure, but a Hokie, someone who is part of the "family". Probably the hire we could afford. And in reality, the hire we all came to love and appreciate very early on. Pry has done an excellent job with the fans, press, and donors. He has laid a positive foundation for and elevated recruiting. You can actually see the vision he has for that part of the program, and it's quite refreshing.

He brought with him a relatively unknown and very inexperienced staff. I had more questions about Bowen during those early days then I did about Marve. But that was mostly due to the fact that Pry has a defensive background. It became clear early on that Pry was struggling to manage the game and the defense at the same time, so he "learned" that he needed to hand the keys over to Marve.

So here's what I've learned as we begin year 3 under Coach Brent Pry...

1. Bowen, as good as he is in spots, really struggles during some of the most vital parts of any given game. It's a rare thing that this VT offense plays well for more than 2 quarters of any game (there are exceptions, of course). I appreciate his adjustments last season, but they only came after: (1) we made the correct decision at the QB position, and (2) Coach Pry said time and time again after those tough losses early "we are too predictable on offense, we need to change some things up." He didn't say exactly that each time, but it was something like that. So, things changed for the better. But there were still some glaring issues.

2. Marve... I said it early. I said it the entire season last year. I will keep saying it - Marve ain't the guy. Period. By all accounts, and based on the folks I know who have interacted with him, he's a fantastic human being. He is highly intelligent. However, his unit performs horribly. His entire unit lacks physicality, lacks awareness, isn't fundamentally sound, and plays a very passive style of defense. I have zero confidence that our defense will ever get stops. Long gone are the old days of VT football where we had a better chance of scoring when our defense was on the field than if our offense was (maybe a tad of an exaggeration, but not much of one). Simply put, Marve's group has shown little improvement year over year (I know about some of the analytical data out there about how "good" our defense was. However, we loaded up some of those stats against very bad teams). This defense looks a whole lot like the Jack DelRio defense that we saw in Washington year after year - one with some talent, but one that looked fundamentally broken.

Both of these glaring issues, along with the OL, which takes time to rebuild, lay directly at the feet of Brent Pry. He has a series of significant decisions to make regarding his staff. I don't know if we have the money to make any changes, but these guys are clearly not ready for big time football, and that means VT isn't ready either. Heck, VT isn't ready for little league football at this point in the game. This was the year we were supposed to take a step forward and beat the teams we were supposed to beat. Win 7-8 games and look to rebuild in a couple of years... Based on what we saw today, we haven't improved. We were the same team today that played Purdue, Marshall and Rutgers to start last season. Unprepared, uninspired, and completely outmanned in every phase of the game. The difference? We return the most starters of any P4 team in the country along with a QB who put up some really good numbers last year. So, what is the problem? I don't know exactly...

Here's the rub... This is the best roster we've seen in Blacksburg since 2016. It's a solid roster top to bottom. Are there holes? Yes (particularly on the OL and at the LB spots). But, again, this is a veteran roster that should be able to compete. After this season, the staff will be in major "development" and "shopping" mode. The roster will need to be rebuilt and retooled in a pretty significant way.

The fans have donated an incredible amount of money, by VT standards, to the athletic department and towards the all important NIL efforts. We (yes, we, collectively, along with the staff) have worked to keep this roster together so that we can get back to a place where competing at a high level is not out of the question.

And for what? What does that investment get us? Much of the same stuff we've seen the last two season (Mike London game management, players who do not know where to be and when to be there, uninspired play, etc.). It gets us a trip to Nashville so we can get absolutely manhandled by the bottom dwellers of the SEC on ESPN. This is what our investment gets us.

Now, as much as this sounds like whining and complaining (it is a little of that, because I've donated money), it's more about understanding where this program is right now, and it's at a very fragile place as I see it.

This type of performance, after an offseason of hype (that isn't the fault of the players or coaches), is not how you rally the fanbase and get folks excited about the trajectory of the program. This is not how you get the people holding this program up, through $$, to continue to invest. These players are making money right now. And a lot of it. And that makes things a little more touch and go IMO. People work really hard for the money they make, and right now it doesn't go as far as it used to. That means people are likely more calculated about how and where they spend that money.

As stated in the "VT Vent Thread", VT fans are amazing! But I get the sense they are wearied. I think we've been offered fools gold a few times to many in the last decade. VT fans are not being given the ROI that is expected or anticipated.

I think it's foolish to have fully bought into the hype of thinking we were a dark horse playoff team. But at the same time, I think it's perfectly reasonable for us to think we could be bad teams on our schedule. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a physical and disciplined brand of football. I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect improvements, even at a micro level, year over year.

But alas, this is where the VT football program is - losing to ODU (who put up one helluva fight in Columbia today), losing to Rutgers, losing to Vanderbilt, losing to Marshall... And doing this type of stuff with regularity. Unfortunately things have not changed under Brent Pry. Today was a bad loss for Coach Pry. Not just because it was Vanderbilt, but because it's one more nail in the coffin that holds a once lively football program. I don't think it was the last nail, but I'm also not sure how many are left.

The door is closing on VT football. If Pry doesn't have a 1995 type of turnaround things could go downhill quickly. He will inevitably lose some support, as likeable as he is. The fans, who support the program, will sink back into the lethargy that plagued us during the last 2 years of the Fuente era. If that happens, it will become incredibly difficult for him to turn things around.

I am not calling for his head. I think it would be foolish to do so. However, looking at the roster, looking at recruiting, it's difficult to imagine having a roster like this within the next two years. I know, I know, "the transfer portal!" But here's the thing. If the fans, already wearied from year after year of letdowns, can no longer invest, then the portal becomes more and more irrelevant. And that, my TKP family, is the crossroads for VT football. I think we are at an incredibly vulnerable spot right now. I know, some of you will think, "sheesh, it's just one loss. calm down!" I get that. But it's one loss in a long series of horrible losses. Things really haven't changed all that much.

Unfortunately, Pry needs to win. Not every game. Not 10 games. But he needs to show that he, along with his inexperienced staff, can do better than what we saw in Nashville today or the fans, with an already lethargic taste in their mouths, will simply move onto other things...