Virginia Tech Found Their Identity, But Is It Too Late?

To this day, I remain convinced that one thing more than any other led to the systematic decline of the Virginia Tech football program from title contender to .500 dweller. It's not as simple as narrowing it down to recruiting, coaching or the physical decline of a legendary-but-older head coach. No, the Hokies were destined to hit the skids because of the 10-win streak.

Yep, at their peak of national relevancy, Tech won 10 games every year between 2004 and 2011. During this stretch they fielded their most talented team (2005 and it's not close), their second best player ever (Tyrod Taylor, and again it's not close), and had some of their most infamous stumbles ('07 Kansas... 48-7 LSU... Boise then JMU... Blowing a 21-3 halftime lead against Georgia... Getting dragged by Tajh Boyd twice in three months...).

Yet even as they won game after game, year after year, Frank Beamer and company did the worst thing a program in that situation could possibly do: absolutely nothing. Each year would reveal foundational issues on the offensive line or in the play design or defensive recruitment, and each year Frank would point to the 10-win mark as a reason to not need to change a damn thing.

He refused to self-scout his own off field operation, letting the good time vibes cloud his judgment with an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. And for nearly a decade it didn't need fixing, and the Hokies stayed just about where they always were in the greater college football landscape: good-to-great, but never great. He never got his team over the top, until one day all the little problems hit them like a ton of bricks.