So you think VT has what it takes to be an elite program …

except the right coach? This VT should be a team with 10+ wins – if we had the right coach? Seems to me the 10+ win stretch of the season VT has had was more down to VERY lucky circumstances than VT doing so good.

Recruiting has NEVER been an elite at VT. Why do you think it could be or would be under a different trainer? It’s like saying Purdue would be an elite recruiting program, if they had one. different coach.

I guess I see our program as having a more comparable recruiting facility and territory to Maryland or Northwestern than to Clemson or even Penn State. There are anomalies that crop up from time to time. Look at Iowa over the past year. Or the Hokies of 2004-2010. But basically we are a second level program with second level facilities and a second level recruiting region.

Our success coincided with an AWFUL ACC. As soon as the programs that had the potential to be good (FSU and Clemson) improved, our fun ended immediately. We had ONE Transcendent player in 1999 and 2000 and played in the creepy Big East. Turns out we had a senior squad in 1999, played an easy schedule, stayed healthy and had a race. But everything indicates that these were outliers, not really an elite or near-elite program.

Money and resources matter. We will never be able to hire an established elite coach. We don’t have the money for it. So I guess we could keep trying every few years to fire and hire. Maybe we’d hit lightning in a bottle – like Cincy. Or maybe we’d be in Tennessee or Texas (except with less money) and just stay on the coaching carousel for years.

This sense of entitlement that some VT fans have that we should be an elite and that we would be if we just had the right coach seems to be exceptionally short-sighted. It really seems to ignore a wide range of factors that have contributed to our success.

JMO.