MBHokie90

With Yahoo bringing back college fantasy football, I decided to spin up a league for poops and giggles. It's a free league, 14-teams in total, with a P4 pool of players. If you're interested, please join using the link below. We will draft on Saturday August 22nd at 6:30 pm ET.

God I love that movie. Spaceballs will always be my favorite Mel Brooks film but Blazing Saddles is a very close 2nd.

Great family entertainment. It's been impressive to see their growth though I do wonder if they'll be able to maintain it long-term. Usually my brother and I go but we've hit a snag and aren't going to be able to attend.

If anyone is in the Charlotte area this weekend and wants to go to the Banana Ball game at the Charlotte Knights stadium on Saturday, I have four tickets available. I was planning to have family come down and go to the game but they are unable to make the trip. If interested, comment below with your email and I'll drop you a line.

He's a big guy but he's not skilled. You never want to be a 7-footer who sucks at rebounding.

1 - Hammond 2 - Open 3 - Johnson 4 - Hansberry 5 - Open 6 - Open 7 - Open Honestly, I think Tech should shorten their bench next year and compile their resources into their top seven then maybe take a flier or two to fill out the rest of the roster. You're 8th guy doesn't play much anyway. If Sincere Jones returns then he can be one of the top seven and he'll be cheaper than anyone on the open market most likely. This probably isn't a tournament team but it could be similar in quality to the Delaney/Allen years under Greenberg. It really depends on the two combo guards we bring in. That's been a weakness at times under Mike Young.

Plus Utah is in the Big 12 now. Why would he come to the ACC?

Based on your podcast comment this week.

Neo may or may not go in the 1st round but trusting mock drafts at this point beyond the top 10 or so picks is pointless. Pre-draft evaluations haven’t happened yet. I’m willing to bet Neo likely goes somewhere in the last 12 picks or so of the 1st round. He’s too technically skilled to fall further than that.

You can take your socialism nonsense and JUST GET THE HELL OUT! I kid, obviously, but its funny how people will claim to support the free market but when the free market destroys something they love they blame everything except the free market. This is a free market problem and unfortunately, the courts have found that college athletes should have access to the free market just like all 300 million other Americans do. While you might hate quitters, even I am not working for free. And, I guess in your life you didn't work for free much either. So, don't blame this team for not working for free either.

There's no financial incentive for the players to continue playing. In the NBA, players make their salary during the regular season (that's negotiated through contracts as we're all aware) but the NBA has a playoff pool that compensates players for post-season games. There's no additional compensation pool for college athletes for the post-season. You get what's promised to you in your Rev Share agreement and whatever NIL contracts you sign. If you want players to play in a post-season format (whether that's the NCAA tournament or even the NIT) it should be built into the contract that they're either a.) required to play to continue receiving their payouts or b.) have an added bonus of the money they would be paid if they play in either tournament. I think so much of the dialogue on this is pointed at the wrong place. In a labor market, if you're offer is $0 for additional labor responsibilities, you should not expect labor to take you seriously or engage in anything you want to do. After all, as a country, we fought a war over this very thing. So, to me, this is a solvable issue that once again could be solved if college athletics had effective collective bargaining that allowed players to be compensated for post-season performances on top of what they receive for the regular season like every other professional model. No athlete in this day and age is going to play for free for the love of program. That era is dead and gone. The Hokies should be playing in the NIT but asking the players to do it for free, that doesn't fly with me. If they could increase their compensation by playing in the tournament, they probably would.

Just re-watched Blazzin Saddles the other night. 10/10. No notes. I read Mel Brooks' autobiography last year and loved learning about how Gene Wilder ended up playing the Waco Kid in that movie. Basically, Mel cast another actor to play the role but that actor was an actual drunk. On the first day of shooting, he got so drunk they had to take him to the hospital. Panicked, Mel called Gene Wilder and asked him if he could come play the Waco Kid and Gene was on set the next day. However, there was a stipulation. For him to do the role, Mel had to direct Gene's movie "Young Frankenstein" which Mel agreed to do. That one decision led to two comedic classics.

The staff was aware he might not make it through admissions. They obviously saw his transcripts and this isn't Franklin's first rodeo. This could lead to some conversations but I don't think there's any animosity or anything like that on this one. Though, I will admit, for 2026, at least, Okunlolo is probably a better player for us immediately if he's fully recovered from his shoulder surgery.

I think the VT average for a coach is around a 57.5% winning percentage. Anything under that is underperforming. Anything above that is overperforming. This is proven by our last three longer-termed coaches: Seth Greenberg: 170-123 (58%) Buzz Williams: 100-69 (59.2%) Mike Young: 117-89 (56.7%) At some point, you have to look at this and understand this is probably who Virginia Tech is with the resources we devote to Men's Basketball. More resources would raise the floor and ceiling of the program. But, more resources likely aren't coming unless we can find sustained success in football under Franklin (joining a P2 conference would also help). Right now, Young is slightly underperforming the VT Average. There's still time for that to change this season. He's not in a fireable range yet and we've certainly seen VT teams struggle in January under him only to find their footing in February and March. But, it's beginning to slightly trend in the wrong direction.

That would capture some of the major international stocks? I'm thinking about cutting my losses on a few of my underperforming stocks and just dumping that money into something more international. A fund available on Fidelity would be preferable.

Having elite pro talent is a cheat code. Having a top 5 draft pick at QB is a cheat code. Having a top 10 pick in the NBA draft is a cheat code. Virginia Tech has a cheat code this year.

In year one of a new coach, take the win over the 50/50 game that might piss off your fanbase if you lose.

Good passers in basketball for 3-pt shooters is like when a good WR has a strong-armed, accurate QB. It really unlocks that skill set.

Im going to hold it for awhile. I don’t see many headwinds for their business as AI seems set on growing despite humanities wishes. Plus, these business partnerships can lead to more contracts down the road.

Not sure you want to replace a retirement age manager with a retirement age manager.

But, the Rangers are likely to hire him if I had to guess. He's already with that organization and I doubt they let the Braves swoop in and hire him. Bob Melvin (Giants) is available but not sure a 63-year old is what's needed right now. I'd like to see the Braves go younger. Though, I could see Walt Weiss getting an interview and David Ross is also available.

There's 18 schools on that list and the ACC has 17 full-time members. Best guess is that it's ND.

Was pleasantly surprised when I checked this morning.

Difficult getting into the stadium for kickoff. Hopefully, the storms come early and there's just some left over drizzle pre-game. Sounds like the rain may taper off after kickoff though. Here's the official forecast from NWS: Showers and thunderstorms likely before 8pm, then a chance of showers between 8pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 56. Light northwest wind. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. ** Edited by MBHokie90 at 9/5/2025, 11:55:31 AM

There is no more overrated player in the game of college football than Nyck Harbor. Now, don't get me wrong, he has potential. But, he's not someone who is magically going to become the next Calvin Johnson. He does have tremendous size and speed. He's not a refined route runner nor does he do the little things necessary to be a good receiver at the P2 level. He looks great getting off the bus but there are other offensive players that concern me more.

Every team has 13 roster spots. There are 360-ish teams in Division 1A. Therefore, there are 4,600+ available spots for college athletes who want to play college basketball. Each one of those spots will pay different amounts. This is not dissimilar to the market forces that determine what your salary is going to be on your job. I'm just going to assume that you're a worthless employee who provides no value to your company and therefore your salary should be $0 per year. But, that's not how it works because all employees provide some value to the company just like how all players who earn a roster spot provide some value to their team. Thus, they should be fairly compensated for the value they provide. The question here is what is fair compensation for someone who is going to be the 10th, 11th, 12th, or 13th person on roster. This is similar to hiring "entry-level" talent at a company. Someone will think $40,000 is enough money while others may pay $100,000 depending on the role and the skill set. This is the same debate here. At the end of the day, a player may value themselves more, which is fine. If you think you're worth $250,000 a year then good for you. That only becomes an issue if no one is willing to offer you that. And, that's probably what's happening but that's because there's not structure to rev share or agreed upon contracts or things like that yet. For VT, we might have to decide how much money to offer our starting 5 versus how much depth do we actually want/need? If players don't want to take $100,000 offer anymore then maybe spend 80% of our budget on our top 8 guys then go bargain hunting for the rest. It's just so funny to see these debates because there's so many people on here that would describe themselves as "pro-capitalists" who absolutely hate that kind of system when it doesn't work in your favor or you disagree with the market forces behind something.

He had a few good QBs early in his tenure at Tulsa that really worked well with his style of offense then he went through some musical chairs with a few QBs who probably weren't FBS caliber quarterbacks. It's hard to coordinate an offense when your QB simply can't execute it very well. He had two really good collegiate QBs at Baylor so while I do think his scheme is not as revolutionary as it was in the late aughts, he's still a talented offensive coach and arguably the best OC we've hired in a generation or two.

It's going to come from helping his teammates shoot 3-4% better because he's on the floor and draws more focus from the opposing defense. It's going to come from better passes that set up more offensive scoring opportunities. And, it'll come from having a go-to-player in crunch time situations, which is something our team lacked last season. If you watch him expecting him to look like Lebron James against a bunch of 5th graders, you're going in with way, way too high of expectations. He's going to be an immensely positive force on this team in ways that only subtly show up in the stat sheet.

You’d have to tax the source but then the cattle industry would just assassinate you. They’d hide your body in the pink slime they turn into the McRib.

Virginia Tech professor of physics Lara Anderson was on Neil deGrasse Tyson's podcast Star Talk last week to talk about String Theory, higher dimensions, and finding a unifying theory of everything. Link below for anyone interested in listening.

In the age of hacking and doxing, many schools don't list that information anymore.

It's the off-season and I've reached peak boredom so I created a 12-team dynasty fantasy football league with both offensive and IDP scoring that I'm trying to get off the ground. If you're interested, let me know and I can provide the league by-laws and the LeagueSafe link for league dues ($30 per year). The league will be hosted on Sleeper.

Worth a shot to see what happens.

A transition for a decline. In some cases, they can coincide with one another but the ratings and interest overall in college sports isn't showing that. Ratings are up across the board. This March Madness tournament was the most watched March Madness tournament of all-time. Same with the college football playoffs. My point is that like most transitions fans will be lost but fans will also be won. That person who has never paid attention to college sports may be more of a fan now that the sport isn't viewed as so exploitative. The Nascar example also works both ways. The less it's viewed as a sport for rednecks the more the sport can grow (even if those in NC/SC feel somewhat left behind). But, I will admit, college athletics desperately needs a strong central power structure that can enforce rules, keep colleges in line, and keep the more financially enhanced institutions from succumbing to the greed of it all and buying their way to titles. Until that happens, we are in for a rocky transition period.

We went through the golden age of college football back in the 2000's. It's really the height of the sport when you look back at that time. Before so much technology was introduced, before staff sizes ballooned up to that of a small 150 person company, before every single game was available via ESPN3 or some streaming service. People would tune in to watch Wake Forest vs. NC State because it was good TV and maybe they had a vested interest in that game even if they didn't live in the Carolinas. Now, TV ratings for those games will likely be lower in the aggregate percentage than back in the 2000's. But, that doesn't mean viewership as a whole will decrease. Actually, it's likely to increase overall. The reason for this is in the power of brands. Big brands, especially. More people watched the playoffs this year than any playoffs that came before it. Sure, some of that could be due to the newness of the 12-team playoff. But, a lot of it was because those games were much more exciting than the post-seasons we had before us. BCS games were fun but largely meaningless outside of trophies and bragging rights. Now, it's win or go home. And, that creates a lot of excitement. Not to mention the fact you get to see college football pageantry with the 1st round games. People tune in to watch schools they love. They also tune in to watch schools they hate. While the Wake Forest's of the world might see some viewership decline over the next 5 years, I guarantee you ratings for Ohio State, Alabama, USC, Michigan, Penn State, Florida, etc games will continue to increase. People living in California will become Ohio State fans. People living in Texas may become Penn State fans. The game will become more national and less regional. While that feels like a death sentence to those who like the regionality of the sport, it'll be a breath of fresh air to others who saw regionality as too constraining. College basketball will operate the same way. And while we may have seen the sport peak over the last 10 years, the sport will continue to grow in popularity through the creation of bigger brands. This is no different than social media's growth over the last 15 years through the creation of only a several companies. You could argue having more choices back in the 1990's and early 2000's was better but there are more people using social media now than in 2010 even if social media usefulness peaked long ago. Tl;dr: Big brands will continue to drive viewership growth in college football and college football though that viewership may come at the behest of smaller brands who may see less viewership and less coverage.

I figured as much and yeah I only use synthetic oil. I also do regular oil changes so I'll just keep that up until I'm finally able to switch over to electric.

I've always heard 3,000 miles as the gold standard but most mechanics seem to say 5,000 is fine now, especially for newer cars. Even if you go over that on occasion its fine. But, as someone who has worked from home for the last 5 years, I don't drive nearly as much as I did when I was commuting from Alexandria to Falls Church every day. So, does time between oil changes play a factor in determining when to get an oil change or is it simply how much you use the car?

Mostly to avoid the 3 am chirping smoke detector because there's some law of the universe that it'll never start chirping at 2 pm in the afternoon. It's always 3 am at night.

While European players have played in college before, with NIL/Rev Share it opens college teams up to recruiting overseas a lot more as they can now compete financially with what most professional leagues offer. In most cases, they'll be able to outspend those leagues. This is a nice example of our staff being proactive on a new frontier. So, kudos to Mike Young. I hope he gets this kid as he could be the difference between an NIT invitation and a Sweet 16 birth for this team. ** Edited by MBHokie90 at 5/13/2025, 12:54:41 PM

I think I too would prefer the international guy. NBA caliber talent is a cheat code in college basketball. We were at our best when we had a first round talent in NAW here. UVA won a championship because they had a lottery pick on their team. Having elite talent like that is a massive advantage. Plus, this lineup screams Sweet 16 potential: 1 - Pasha 2 - Bedford 3 - Avdalas 4 - Lawal 5 - Hansberry 6 - Johnson (2/3) 7 - Hammond (1) 8 - Schutt (2/3) 9 - Dorn (4/5) That's a good enough group to challenge atop a weak ACC and potentially make some noise in the NCAA tournament. If we add Hawthorne instead, I think that helps for 2026-2027 but hurts us this year likely bumping us back to being a bubble team.

First ever playoffs GWG for the Gr8.

For their basketball program.

I mean let's assume most schools divvy things up the same way Virginia Tech is going to do: Rev Share $15 million NIL: $9 million That would equal $24 million. That's not implausible especially at a school like Ohio State. Hell that could be somewhat similar to what VT will have this year though our NIL would be lower. Now, no one has $24 million in NIL and we must remember that all NIL deals will need to go through a clearinghouse. So, that could drastically reduce total NIL compensation across the board. That will be an interesting storyline to follow as the NIL deals become public record after July 1.