Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock sat down with Bill Roth, the voice of Hokies football, to talk the recent Board of Visitors decision, the football hiring committee and more.
The Hokies released the interview, which is 40 minutes in length, on Friday morning. Click here to listen.
It’s the third interview the two have done in the last year to analyze Tech’s current place in the ever-evolving landscape of college athletics. Unlike the previous two, this one revolves less around the House vs. NCAA settlement and more about the current search for a football head coach, the injection of $229 million into the athletic department budget and future scheduling.
Chapters
0:00: Welcome
0:35: Board of Visitors approval of budget increase
10:00: Football head coach
12:00: Football search committee
14:50: Football general manager
22:40: Head coach qualifications
25:00: Whit Babcock’s future
30:35: ACC football scheduling shift
35:30: Current football team, Philip Montgomery
37:50: Conclusion
Transcript
Bill Roth: Today is Friday, October 3, 2025, and this has been a monumental week in the history of Virginia Tech athletics. This is Bill Roth, coming to you today from the office of Virginia Tech Director of Athletics, Whit Babcock, where we have set up our Virginia Tech Sports Network microphones, and I am so pleased and honored to be joined by Whit. Good morning, pal. Good to see you again.
Whit Babcock: Yeah, good to be with you. Looking forward to the [Wake Forest] game tomorrow.
Roth: It’s going to be a fun day. Coming up, Tech has announced its eight-person committee to find the next football coach here at Virginia Tech, and we’re going to get to that shortly because I know a lot of people are really focused on that. But I want to start today with the big news. Tech’s Board of Visitors on Tuesday approved a budget that allocates an additional $229 million to athletics over the next four years. I thought it might have been one of the biggest days in Tech athletics since, I don’t know, the Hokies got into the ACC way back in 2003. Why is this such a landmark decision for Tech athletics and for our student-athletes and why is this the time to make this investment at Tech?
Babcock: Yeah, it’s certainly a game-changer. Extremely grateful to the president [Tim Sands] and the Board. Obviously, it’s a critical and dynamic time in college athletics, you guys know this. The paradigm has changed so much and it’s still evolving. We’ve got the House vs. NCAA case, we have revenue share, NIL, the transfer portal, ACC viewership percentage distribution, the College Sports Commission, and that could go on and on. But to have an opportunity to get our budget at or near the top of the ACC certainly gives Virginia Tech a better opportunity for success in that top tier of our conference and nationally, so it’s definitely a game-changer.
The title of our proposal and investment was ‘Invest To Win,’ and I’m preaching to the choir, but athletics is important. It means more at Virginia Tech, it means a lot to our alumni, our fans, our donors. There’s immense branding and marketing value, economic impact of nearly $100 million a year. And for us, half the schools in the league, or nearly half, are private schools, and many of the public schools in the ACC also had some advantages with how they can fund and support athletics, whether it's lotteries, scholarships, whether it’s waivers, whether it’s gambling revenue, and now we have a plan to strategically invest. I really appreciate the alignment between the Board, president and our department, and it should, again, enable us to not only close the gap, but exceed it. It’s a big game-changer. Now let’s see what we can do with the money. We have a great plan for that, but really grateful and thankful to have it.
Roth: Walk me through what went into the plan and who were some of the key people across campus and within the athletic department that got this done.
Babcock: A lot of people were involved. It started back at the Board of Visitors retreat in August when I was asked to speak about the modern athletics landscape, do some peer analysis review in the ACC and was asked, ‘What does Virginia Tech athletics need to be elite and remain in this top tier?’ And then after that, I was really pleased. The rector of the Board, John Rocovich, appointed Board members Ryan McCarthy and J. Pearson to lead a task force to work with campus and athletic leadership to research these funding opportunities and funding sources to help. Again, incredibly grateful, they did a fabulous job, and the people that worked on it were certainly Amy Sebring and her budget office staff across campus, Brandon Hall, our athletics CFO, and again, Jay and Ryan.
So, in addition to just coming up with the plan, we also have a strategic cadence on how these additional monies will be invested this fiscal year and beyond, how it can make the most immediate impact and for what purpose. “And obviously, the vast majority of that additional investment will be focused on football, and then moving forward, they’ll continue to be Board of Visitors oversight on our spending, our investment plan, and we’ll have a way to measure ROI on those investments, you know? So, it was a process. A lot of people involved. Again, incredibly grateful for the committee’s work and ultimately the Board’s 13-1 vote to support.
Roth: Let me follow up on that. How will the investment be distributed over the next four years? Like for a fan, where will they notice this impact first?
Babcock: Again, the total plan, it covers four years of investments totaling $229 million. The initial impact will obviously be seen with our investment into football. The next head coach or the permanent head coach, enhancements to the assistant coach salary pool and support staffing, enhanced recruiting budget, a more fully developed and comprehensive front office structure will come along with that. Some facility enhancements and more.
Certainly, some of our other sports will receive some of the additional investments, and we’ll also spend some of that on improving fan amenities, and there will also be some investments where we can help ourselves with new revenue-generation opportunities and fundraising growth, but there is a cadence to it. There’s a plan, step-by-step, of how it will be invested, how it will make the most immediate impact, and again, on the back end will be direct measurables for proving return on investment for that investment that we were given.
So it isn’t just hand the AD a check for $47.1 million this year. Obviously, there needs to be a great plan, and again, we’ll have oversight on that, but also a ton of work has gone into the cadence of how it will be distributed and used, but the most immediate impact will certainly be seen on our football program and incoming staff.
Roth: I’m curious, the breakdown of where the money is coming from, particularly that $30 million component in philanthropy. Where is that coming from? Is the Hokie Club raising this money?
Babcock: Yeah, it can come from a number of areas, and certainly we want to enhance our fundraising to give some sustainability and momentum to the investment from the Board. I’ll start it this way: We certainly have a high degree of confidence that we will operate with the additional $47.1 million in budget resources committed to us this fiscal year, and in the out years too. There’s some bridge funding in the overall plan, but we ultimately want to have the goal of continuing this on by 2030, and we want our budget to be at the top of the ACC, we want our fundraising to be at the top of the ACC, and what’s going to be great about this approach [is] there’s strength in numbers of donors, certainly, and we have 25,000, but there’s also strength in numbers of fundraising staff.
Collectively, last year, the Hokie Club and university advancement raised over $225 million. So not only will we have the Hokie Club staff working on it, we will have the university advancement staff working on it. They have more people, more resources. They will move Virginia Tech athletics up to the top of their priority list or at it. When they’re visiting with donors that we don’t know, that we haven’t met yet. With over 300,000 living Hokie alumni and probably equally as many friends of the program, there’s always room for growth in fundraising.
But no, the $30 million will not solely be on the back of Hokie Club donors or just done by just increasing ticket prices, and we can approach this in a lot of ways, right? New athletics revenue could go towards that $30 million. New premium seating revenues could go towards that $30 million. Getting higher than projected revenues could go to it, budget surpluses and more, but again, extremely confident in the number, we’re going to operate with $229 million. We’re just trying to also inspire our donor base to help us along the way and continue that momentum, and it’s not the easiest ask, right? We haven’t performed up to expectations in football, but hopefully the university putting skin in the game inspires our university donors and Hokie Club donors to come along with us. Confident in it, but we certainly want to keep moving forward and add to the momentum, and if we’re at or near the top of the ACC, great. With this increased fundraising and revenue, why not be the top budget in the ACC?
Roth: You’re right. There are a lot of Hokies out there. You know, Whit, it’s funny. Last week at NC State, how many Tech fans were there? That Wofford game. The Hokies are 0-3, they’re playing an 0-3 FCS team and the place is packed. We know the passion is there and the analytics show you were the alumni are. This is one of the biggest alumni bases in the conference.
Babcock: It blows me away. Wins at home are always awesome, but when you win on the road and those Hokies over in the corner of the stadium and the chants and all that. And again, with not meeting expectations over the past few years in football, all we want to do is reward them back for their passion. They’ve been doing their part; it’s time for us to do our part, and again, this investment, modernizing our department, we’re going to work as quickly as we can to reward them. But man, they’re the best, and when they showed up for the Wofford game, [it] brought tears to my eyes, it was something else. So let’s keep trying to reward them. Again, they’ve been doing their part; now we need to do ours, and this investment will certainly help tremendously.
Roth: OK, I want to turn the page a little bit now, Whit, to football and leadership. Now that we know the money is there, fans are eager to know what’s the timeline for naming Virginia Tech’s next head football coach.
Babcock: The search committee work will begin next week in full force, and the naming of the head coach will occur when it occurs. That’s typically towards the end of the season. The search will be broad and comprehensive, and we really have a talented group on the search committee with a lot of complementary skill sets that will help make a great decision. We have a wonderful opportunity to present to our next head coach with the increased funding and the amazing fan base, our job draws national interest, we have tradition here, we have a fertile recruiting region, and all of this together should open up some options on head coach candidates and staffing that maybe we weren’t able to reach as easily in the past. So, ready to get going, but I’m not going to put an end date on the timeline for the next head coach. We’ll announce it when it occurs, but we know it needs to move quickly and succinctly, but typically all of that goes down towards the end of the season.
Roth: Here’s the follow-up. Agents are listening to this and agents hear the money. After all, you’re the one who showed that slide back at the BOV [meeting] and showed what Clemson is paying and [what] Florida State is paying a head coach, North Carolina. Is Virginia Tech positioned and ready to pay, I don’t know, $8-10 million a year for its next head coach?
Babcock: I wouldn’t start out with the agents by telling them everything we have, but it has been pretty public. And yes, for the right coach and a budget very similar to Florida State, we could certainly do that. We’re not going to shy away from that, but it’s really the total investment in football. You’ve got a head coach salary, you’ve got 10 full-time assistants’ salary pool, the support staff, how many people they’re bringing with them. So it’s a more comprehensive total, but absolutely it’s got the attention of more agents we’ve heard from and head coaches and that’s exciting for all of us.
Roth: Well, you announced it today. Fill us in on the committee, the people who will be charged with finding the next head coach.
Babcock: Yeah, it’s a heck of a group with a lot of complementary skill sets. We’ll have Bruce Arians, Eddie Royal and Bud Foster, certainly from a football knowledge and expertise. And then we’ll have executive leaders on the committee that are actively engaged with Virginia Tech. There’s Bridget Ryan Berman, there’s Lynne Doughtie, Brad Hobbs. And then we’ll also have two Board of Visitors members that are great executive thinkers in their own right in Ryan McCarthy and J. Pearson. Again, lots of football knowledge, lots of CEO-level, executive knowledge, and I’m confident they’ll do a fabulous job.
My role will be I will advise and support the committee, organize and attend the meetings, help coordinate communication with the committee’s preferred candidates and their agents. However, this search committee will have the charge of identifying the top two to four candidates to be presented to what the university calls the ‘hiring authorities.’ That would be presented to me, the president and the rector of the Board as we get closer to the finish line. But getting more eyeballs on this, this committee will have a huge say-so and a primary say-so in who our next head coach will be. I’m there to help and support them, maybe some lessons learned, and then it’ll get turned over to me, the president and the rector once this group narrows down the final few candidates.
Roth: Have you heard from representatives of current coaches or agents already?
Babcock: Of course. Yeah. Absolutely. There’s not going to be too many sitting head coaches that would want to get on a Zoom or a meeting with a search committee and risk that getting leaked out, although I will trust our search committee inherently. We’ll have non-disclosure agreements, but at this point in the game, almost all of your conversations are with agents. There are certainly some coaches that are not in coaching right now that the committee may want to visit with, but it starts with the agents and makes it much easier. I’ve had great interest in that and have been doing this a while, know those folks and again, our job is drawing some great national attention.
Roth: It’s an attractive job.
Babcock: I’ve always thought so and it always has been, but it’s even more so now that you see the commitment and alignment between the AD, the Board and the president. What we need to go do is find the absolute best football coach. If it wins the press conference, great. If maybe it’s not somebody that they think that way, it needs to be a proven, darn-good football coach, and that’s what our focus is going to be on.
Roth: Well, let’s talk about a football general manager, a role that will be part of the new front office model for Tech athletics. How do you see that position shaping the future of Hokie football and the department overall?
Babcock: Yeah, a key component in this funding plan, and again, the cadence and the priority plan that I’ve talked about previously, a key component will be funding a more modernized, a larger front office staff and structure. We have a draft organizational chart in mind, which also will need input from our next head coach before being finalized, and over the past couple of years, we’ve operated with successful pieces of what you might call a front office. Kelly Woolwine has served as our external GM and negotiator, etc. Michael Hazel on our staff has been an internal GM on player evaluations, we’ve used data analytics for transfer portal additions, revenue share value per position and we obviously have recruiting staff, player evaluation, all of that, and they’ve done a very good job, albeit shorthanded.
So, this next phase, and again, the additional resources will enable us to build it out further, more comprehensively, potentially adding in negotiators, scouting, outbound NIL sales, deeper analytics, analysts, additional recruiting staff and more. It will very likely look more like an NFL model or some of the more progressive college models. Again, we want to get ahead of the curve rather than chase behind it. But as far as hiring the GM before the head coach, that was an early path considered by the president and the Board, and then you saw Bruce Arians mention that on a podcast [the Pat McAfee Show] because we had talked to Bruce already about helping with the coaching search, and then we said, ‘Hey, we might slow down that coach search and look at a GM candidate.’
But after we researched it, we came back to this point: The top priority is getting the coach right, getting the coach in first, seeing what staff he will want to bring in with him or retain here that could fill roles in an expanded front office, and then we will work alongside the coach in hiring additional staff to fill in the gaps and build it out. And what we found after we researched it too, if we were going to go after a general manager first prior to the head coach, we would’ve had to certainly rush a GM hire, but what we also discovered was if we put a GM in place that our next head coach has no relationship with, etc., it could severely limit our head coach candidate pool, and we certainly don’t want that.
So the head coach will come first and will have input into the entire front office structure and hires, and then one last thing. When we were doing our research, we discovered speaking with some agents that rep NFL GMs and assistant GMs, that even in the NFL, when there’s a dual opening of coach and general manager, that the head coach is often selected first because those two positions, the GM and the head coach, have got to be in alignment, got to have a similar philosophy. So, that’s a long way to say we’ll get there on this modernized front office concept, but the head coach is key and will absolutely come first.
Roth: That’s very interesting, but what is the difference in your mind between an NFL GM, who negotiates money with agents and he’s focused full-time and the NFL coach just does the coaching. What’s the dynamic and the relationship on the college level as you see it? What are the skills and the responsibilities of a college GM?
Babcock: Yeah, and I’m not necessarily implying that this process will end up with an NFL GM, but in the NFL, the titles and the responsibilities are pretty well known. You’ve got a team owner, you’ve likely got a president of football operations and you’ve got a general manager. These roles and job titles and responsibilities are really well known in NFL circles, but in college, the general manager role, it’s not nearly as consistently defined. In some places, it’s a glorified recruiting coordinator. At other places, it’s somebody that’s always working on revenue share and NIL negotiations or player evaluations. Again, we will get there, but hiring the head coach will be first and foremost, and then in due time, this college title thing will eventually work itself out, but in this new era, the general manager title gets thrown around in a lot of ways.
Roth: It’s really interesting, and here’s where the dynamic changes. Because 10 years ago when you were looking for a coach, 20 years ago if you’re looking for a coach, you’re not thinking, ‘I need to have someone who understands rev sharing and financial analytics.’ And there are some coaches out there who may not want to do that at all and want to put it all on the GM, so that relationship, that dynamic is really important. Do you want a coach that’s interested in X’s and O’s and wants to think and talk ball all the time? Or is he more holistic and understands the modern responsibilities in this new college football landscape?
Babcock: Exactly. And again, getting the head coach in, the best head coach we can identify, they might want to bring a ‘general manager’ with them, meaning we need to see who the head coach wants to bring with them, maybe there’s some people on our current staff, and then we’ll fill the gaps to more flesh out a full front office. After doing a little research too, trying to find the best college models, one to point out that seems pretty progressive to me is at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin hired a general manager — and this shows, I believe, how secure Lane is in what he’s doing — but he and the general manager are 50-50 equals, and to have a coach that’s not intimidated, for lack of a better word, to have somebody challenge them, to work in conjunction with them.
Ultimately, if you have the right coach and the right general manager, you’re only going to have disagreements on a few players each year, so that’s why the coach has got to come first, have input into the front office, the general manager structure, and we want to be cutting edge, but not bleeding edge, and we definitely didn’t want to limit our head coach candidate pool and rush through a GM search. So it is absolutely going to be more modernized; we just flipped it back around. Let’s get this coach right first and then we’ll put it all together after that.
Roth: Throughout the country, everyone is trying to figure that out, and no league exemplifies that more than the ACC. If you look what’s happening at Cal and Stanford and UNC, all different models, but in a way similar, and now evidently with what Tech will do as well moving forward.
Babcock: Yeah, there may be a few more than that, but those are the only three that I’m aware of that operate with a true general manager with 51 percent of the vote, so to speak, and the coach gets 49. Not quite sure college football is exactly ready for that right now, it will head in that direction, and again, we’ll put that best partnership together that we can, but having somebody that can focus every day on roster, on data analytics, on value per position, on return on investment and how you grade transfer portal people coming in, it’s just gotten too big and too professional and looking a whole lot more like the NFL, so why wouldn’t we want to be progressive in that direction ourselves? And we will. We have a plan for it; we just, again, temporarily thought go with the general manager first and then we realized that would really limit our candidate pool because those two guys have really got to work in conjunction and have trust and similar philosophy.
Roth: OK, you’ve got your committee, and you have a plan in place. Let me ask you this. When you guys are searching for the next head coach, what qualities stand out to you and the committee as ‘non-negotiables’ with the next leader of Tech football?
Babcock: Typically, when you start a search for any head coach, and this will be one of the first exercises the search committee will determine, is what traits or qualities do they want to see in the next head coach, and then how will those traits be graded or weighted after interviewing coaches? Some examples could be — and again, ultimately, this will be up to the committee — a sitting head coach, a proven winner, someone with the energy and fire to be a program builder, what assistant coaches and staff would they bring with them, how would they attack recruiting the Mid-Atlantic region? That doesn’t mean the head coach has to be from this area, but how would they put a staff together that would do that? Do they still have the energy or fire to be a program builder, what’s their program track record? And we always want them to reflect the values of Virginia Tech and more.
But one suggestion I’m going to give to the committee is I would really like to see us use data analytics in a way to identify how we would differentiate and evaluate the candidates based on weighted criteria. That could be what’s your win-loss record when you’re favored in a game, what’s your win-loss record when you’re underdogs, what’s your win percentage when you’re behind at halftime? Showing adjustments in the second half and you could go on down the list. So the eye test is important, the traits are important, but I‘m hopeful the committee will choose to utilize a data analytics approach to it. One-score games percentage. There’s a lot of ways to evaluate coaches other than the eye test, and again, times have changed and data analytics, I hope, will play a part of it too. But those are my thoughts. I’ll make those suggestions to the committee, but ultimately, they’ll decide the traits and what they want to see and how they’ll be weighted and how to grade them.
Roth: I want to shift gears a little bit now to your connection, and, candidly, your future. You’ve been here more than 12 years. This is very much home for you. You grew up in Harrisonburg, your dad was a legendary coach. You’ve been leading Tech athletics for over a decade and now you’ve played a key role in getting this landmark budget together. What happened Tuesday was one of the great accomplishments in the history of Tech football and Tech athletics overall. How gratifying is it for you to see this come together?
Babcock: Of course that’s gratifying. And there’s some things we certainly need and will do better in the future, but yeah, I’ll finish 12 years in January, start Year 13. Virginia Tech is my school, Blacksburg is my home. It’s where my kids were raised, and since Day 1 when I got here, I said this was my dream job and I’ve never wavered from it, never entertained another job, been loyal. This is my school so this is home, even though I’m not a Hokie alum. I’m certainly honored to continue to serve in the AD role. We’ve had lots to be proud of, but obviously, I’m certainly aware the recent lack of success on the football field, that’s weighed heavily on me, on our fan base, on our department, and whatever role I can play and we can play to improve that significantly I am absolutely all for that. And I’m inspired and motivated by that, and again, we absolutely need to reward this fan and alumni base way more than we have been in football. And again, the budget growth should make that more easily attainable — or maybe a better way to say that is minimize the risk of mediocrity.
I also want to own this, though. Even with the limited resources we did have over the past few years, we should’ve performed better. I don’t play, coach the team, any of that, of course, but the buck stops with me. I hire the coach, I own that and we simply haven’t been good enough in football and haven’t met expectations. So incredibly motivated to change that narrative, as is the Board and the president. Again, reward this fan base for what they give to us, and it’s a critical time in our history and collectively we’ve got to step up and the new budget plan will most certainly help. Again, it will be invested wisely, strategically, with noticeable return on investment.
Roth: All right, tough question time now, you ready? Looking forward, what’s your role at Virginia Tech athletics, Whit?
Babcock: I work at the pleasure of the Board and the president and my role continues to be being the AD. I want to help this search committee in any way I can and same for the next head coach, get them up and running and succeeding. My role will also include helping lay the infrastructure and groundwork on this new budget investment and the step-by-step Invest To Win plan. The AD role is always to continue to help the university navigate the new and ever-changing landscape of college athletics. My role will be to modernize the department and modernizing myself some, so to speak. My role, again, as always, is to support all of our head coaches, give them the resources we can to be successful, support all of our teams and staff and student-athletes and give them all the best chance for success.
But even in this changing model, the role that the AD will play, two things that won’t change is our focus on the student-athlete experience — that’s got to remain at the forefront — and then, as hopefully everyone in our department can reiterate or regurgitate back, we have a single-minded proposition in our athletic department: Our job is to create memorable experiences that only Virginia Tech can offer, and that can be big wins, that can be Enter Sandman, when a student-athlete graduates that’s a memorable experience, when a player comes back from injury it’s a memorable experience. The cleanliness of our facilities, the Metallica concert wasn’t too bad either. But really just keep doing my day job and the way that I’m doing it and evolve and grow a lot on the way, but I’m honored to be the AD, going to keep plugging along and that’s my job, and I’m going to keep doing it to the best of my ability and no breaking news to report on my front.
Roth: This is an interesting time. This is, as we know, the third time we’re hiring a football coach, but this time it’s different. This time you have far greater resources and, candidly, the university is fishing from a different pool now. Is that accurate?
Babcock: Yeah, it’s accurate. But again, I don’t want to shy away from that unwritten rule of if you don’t get two head coaching hires right, it can put you on some shaky ground. And with Coach [Justin] Fuente, we had great success, it just didn’t last as long as we would like. And then with Coach [Brent] Pry, thought the world of him, so many wonderful qualities, easy to root for; it is just a results-oriented business. But happy to still be here, happy to play a role and want nothing better than to change this narrative and bring this next head coach in, but yeah, the funding will help a little bit, but I don’t want to make past funding an excuse. We certainly should’ve performed better and met expectations, and again, the buck stops with me on that. That weighs heavily, that takes a toll and I own it.
Roth: I’m going to quickly turn the page to scheduling. The ACC is moving to a nine-game conference schedule. What can you share about the timeline, specifically how it impacts Virginia Tech’s schedule, maybe as soon as the next year or two?
Babcock: My entire 12 years here, I bet that eight-, nine-game schedule thing or vote has come up probably each year, but it’s good to finally have it finalized. Beginning next season, the ACC will be one of two leagues that will play a minimum of 10 Power 4 conference games with this new 9+1 scheduling model. I really want to commend the commissioner [Jim Phillips] and the ACC. It really showed unity, which the ACC needs greatly. Everyone pulling together, making some sacrifices to put this thing together, but with an odd number of teams in the league, there will always be at least one conference team that plays eight conference games. They’ll have to have two very high-quality level Power 4 opponents, but that’s how that will work. And the ACC is working through what you can imagine will be a complicated tiebreaker system on that.
At Virginia Tech, we will need to move and shift some games, hopefully not cancel or buyout too many. With the SEC also moving to a 9+1 model, there will be more games we have scheduled with those schools in the SEC that may get shifted or canceled on us. And then our ACC opponents that we’re going to play each year will likely shift again too, other than we know we’ll likely play UVa every year, and it will be unique. Some years your schedule will have four ACC home games, the next year five. So our schedule’s in a state of flux, but we’re prepared to pivot, we’ll adjust. We’re going to have to certainly schedule with strength of schedule metrics in mind. Maybe not so much in the first year of a new head coach, but definitely strength of schedule will be a part of it. We’ll need appealing home games for season-ticket holders, we’ll have to schedule for viewership and then occasionally we’re going to schedule periodic neutral-site games in marquee time slots, simply for the revenue and the viewership, like we did with Wisconsin in Week 1 in Charlotte [in 2031]. Balancing all of those factors will be a big challenge, but everyone in the ACC’s in the same boat and the SEC, and we’ll pivot. We’ve got a plan for it. Now that 9+1 is approved, we can activate it, but it’s never dull in scheduling and seems to change every year.
Roth: I love the 10 P4 game rule, I think that’s great for our league. The unbalanced home-road year-to-year isn’t the first time Tech’s had to do this because back in the Big East that was the same model, but the difference was you had the UVa game at the end of the year as a non-conference game so it balanced out. With that in mind, what might the non-conference scheduling philosophy be, specifically in years where you only have the four home games for your league?
Babcock: We always absolutely want to have six home games a year, but the goal is to get to seven, and with only three non-conference opponents moving into the future, one of them’s got to be a Power 4, maybe one of them’s a Group of 5 at home, maybe one’s FCS, or if you want to get up to even 11 or 12 Power 4 games a year, there’s a few schools in the country doing that currently. You just try to weight it, number of home games against strength of schedule, viewership and doing some one-off creative stuff. We haven’t been invited to Ireland yet but maybe we’ll take that sometime, but getting those early games like we had with South Carolina and Wisconsin in 2031 are big too. It’s never dull and it changes all the time, but there’s some strategy and creativity to it and we’ve been working hard at it, and once anything changes, we’ll let our fan base know.
Roth: The biggest crowd to ever see a college football game in D.C. was the Virginia Tech-USC game at FedEx Field [in 2004]. The Washington Commanders are about to have a brand new stadium. It’s going to be fantastic. It might be one of the great stadiums in the world. What about games there? What about a partnership with that pro team?
Babcock: We’ve certainly talked about it. Trying to get nailed down exactly when the stadium’s going to be finished. There’s always an end date and sometimes the stadium’s not ready, but we’d absolutely look at that with our alumni base up there. Maybe with the four-game Maryland series, maybe we meet up there one time, I’m not sure, I haven’t talked to that AD yet, but we’re starting to reach out. But yeah, D.C. and Charlotte seem to be our two sweet spots, but there’s nothing better than having really high-quality home games at Lane Stadium. Those will be one-offs and done for the right reasons.
Roth: Before we wrap up, the Hokies are getting ready to play Wake Forest tomorrow here at Lane Stadium. I’d like to give you the opportunity to talk about our current team, Coach [Philip] Montgomery, kids that have bonded and bought in and stayed and what you’ve seen in the last couple of weeks from the group of young men and the coaches in that locker room.
Babcock: I absolutely want to speak on Coach Montgomery and our players. I want to start, though, by thanking Coach Pry for his efforts and all he put into Virginia Tech. He and his staff recruited all of these guys. But certainly incredibly proud of Coach Montgomery and our football staff. They’ve been dedicated, they’re working their tails off, they’ve been true professionals during a time of uncertainty for them, just tremendous. I especially want to recognize our players. Amazing effort, perseverance, getting through adversity, pulling together and competing hard for Hokie Nation. Sports teaches a lot of life lessons, and that’s some failures and some successes and more. I’m just so proud of how they’ve responded.
I heard this saying, ‘It’s how you respond when the game that you love sometimes doesn’t love you back.’ Some of our players have opted out, that’s their choice. I respect it, that’s not for me to judge that, they did it in what they felt was their best interest. But the ones who have remained and are here seem galvanized and motivated. It really speaks to the leadership in the locker room, I love the mentality that Coach Montgomery’s put in place of ‘us against the world’ and I love how they break that huddle — you’ve got me, I’ve got you. Just so proud of them — obviously, for the win at NC State, but more for the effort and fight. Hopefully we can have that same energy vs. Wake Forest tomorrow and for the rest of the season.
Lastly, I want to acknowledge our fans. They’ve also persevered and been through pain, disappointment, uncertainty, and they’ve been resilient and they’ve been equally impressive. So, let’s all step up tomorrow, keep this thing going and really proud of the effort and Hokies are going to support Hokies, and the effort’s been great and let’s keep it rolling.
Roth: I want to wrap up where we really started — this week has been one of the most impactful weeks in the history of Tech athletics. There’s a lot to do, there’s going to be a lot of big decisions that have to be made, but the groundwork that you and your staff got done, even going back to the initial Board of Visitors presentation you made in August, is going to change the entire direction of Tech athletics for a generation.
Babcock: Yeah, and I’m proud of the role that I played in it, certainly, but the majority of the credit goes to the president and the Board and the alignment. There’s another league out there that has a catchphrase, but I’ll borrow some of that. It means more at Virginia Tech. It means more at Virginia Tech, and to finally step up and do that was a big statement nationally. Athletics is important at Virginia Tech, along with the academic mission, but it was a great week. Now we’ve got to take it and make some hay with it, have great return on investment, but yeah, it’s been a good week. We won a football game on the road, that’s always nice, and then to have this certainly gives us some momentum, but let’s see what we can do with it and produce for Hokie Nation.