how people will fall back on the same arguments, across multiple sports, to justify not making a leadership change in a failing program.

When one of the two major revenue sports at VT tanks (right now it is football, previously it was men's basketball) then here are the consistent message board rationalizations/talking points:

- We need to spend more on facilities.

- Fans need to pony up more donations.

- We need to recruit better.

- It's hard to recruit better because Blacksburg is too rural and remote.

- The current coach is a victim of youth/transfers/injuries/bad luck/players failing to execute.

- If we change things too much too fast, we will become just like (insert name of high profile p5 school who just went through an unsuccessful coaching change).

- VT fans should just accept we are not a 'big boy' athletics program. Previous success here was in a 'different era' and can't be repeated now.


We had a years long debate on the basketball board with these EXACT same rationalizations being thrown out to justify why VT could only make 1 NCAA tourney in the nearly 2 decades after Bill Foster did it in 96. And then... like magic! We made a coaching change, hired a legitimately good program leader, and surprise! All of a sudden, we could get good players to come to Blacksburg. All of a sudden, we could play in back to back big dances, and come within a missed basket of upsetting one of the bluest blood programs in the sport and making the Elite 8.

IMHO, what the football program needs is simple- it needs a leader who can better motivate the players, better develop them over the course of their playing careers, and put them in better positions to succeed by utilizing schemes and playcalling that are tailored to the skills the players actually have, not the skills the coaches wish they had.

There is a great quote from Bruce Arians on the SI website today- the writer was discussing Jameis Winston's improvement this year and how Arians and staff have constructed an offense around him. “That’s our job," Arians says, "we don’t have an offense, we have players". Amazing how a franchise and QB that was a dumpster fire a year ago have suddenly gotten better after... wait for it... a coaching change.