"Weights weigh the same."

"Weights weigh the same."

That is the take home quote from Andrea Adelson's torching of Virginia Tech's athletic department. It was 20 months in the making, plenty of time to stock up on the gas and get the flamethrower running just right for an efficient burning of Merryman and its inhabitants.

Several friends texted me the story shortly after it was published and I ignored it. I was busy three-putting and I judged the book by its cover iMessage preview. My hasty and superficial pre-read analysis was that it was a follow-up to ESPN / ACC network's recent visit to Blacksburg, a friendly story teed up by Whit Babcock and the athletic department to saddle the Justin Fuente era with the debt of Brent Pry's rebuild. And in fairness, those were its warm-up sets. It sat down on the bench and knocked out clean reps of 135:

• Fuente deprioritized Virginia on the recruiting trail.
• Portal players felt treated unfairly.
• His flirtation with Baylor pissed off fans and the administration.
• He royally fucked up the Hendon Hooker situation.

All of that is true, but there was no new information and Virginia Tech fans and media have already litigated and appropriately skewered Fuente for these missteps. However, the peak behind the curtain of how much power and influence John Ballein has, was a revelation.