The purpose of an athletic department isn't to maximize profit. It's to maximize revenue and then match the revenues with expenditures that enhance the quality of the athletic department. Bring in more money and then invest it in ways that help you build championship teams.

Maybe I'm not understanding your point about revenues and expenses. It seems to me that we're way behind Clemson at this point with regard to revenue -- which necessarily means we're behind in our investments in our programs that will help build them into champions. Financial investments don't guarantee championships -- but they sure help.

We need to win. Then, we need to use the winning to significantly increase donations and revenue. Then, we need to invest the capital back into the program in a way that helps us attract better players and attract and retain the best possible coaches.

This isn't rocket science. We blew it when we didn't blow the rest of the ACC out of the water with regard to fundraising when we were dominating the ACC in football. We further blew it when we didn't build upon our program success from 1999, 2004, 2009, 2010 to become a football power. That was our window of time. We were a media darling and a very cool and recognizable brand (BeamerBall). We were unique within the landscape of college football but held on to too many mediocre coaches and recruiters and it capped the program.

It will be a Herculean task for Fuente to build it back up, have a sexy brand, and make VT one of the "it" programs to attend.

We were close. When Kevin Jones recruited himself to VT and DeAngelo Hall committed in the same class -- well, that was an opportunity and we didn't find a way to capitalize on that momentum.