Regarding staffing, some of that is Young's fault, and some of it isn't. He wasn't at the top of my list when we hired him because I was worried about the staff he would put together since he had spent his entire career at a lower level, even as an assistant. And we've had a mixed bag, some of which was in his control, and some not so much. Hernandez is on Young. No way around that. It was a bad hire. He wasn't a fit at all. I haven't heard anybody say a good thing about him. Even the NCSU staff (Hernandez was with Wade at LSU) keeps their mouths shut about him. He never should have been hired here. Either it was an act of desperation, or Young doesn't fully grasp the P4 scene in the modern era. Maybe some of both. Mike Jones didn't work. But I'm not criticizing it, because I would have done the same thing, or something similar. So while that one is on Young, it's one that is harder to criticize because it seemed like a great idea at the time (like Fuente). When Giltner left, I probably wouldn't have hired Moats. That was a reach with no ties to the region, and coming in late without knowing the system. He probably should have just promoted Ace on an interim basis. It wouldn't have made us worse from a recruiting standpoint, and the advantage is that Ace already knew the system. Then Giltner could have been replaced this spring from a wider pool of candidates than was available in October. So that one is on Young. On the other hand, he had his Chief of Staff thrust on him. And he couldn't exactly say no, because it was the COS's husband who was pushing hard for his hire. By rejecting that, Young would have risked getting the job in the first place, so he wasn't exactly in a position to go against the grain. That's on Whit for allowing one of his assistants to wield so much influence in the athletic department. The JD Byers hire made sense, but Young did interview other guys for the position. Ultimately there was plenty of pressure to hire Byers because his wife is the volleyball coach. His wife is the volleyball coach because Mike's COS hired her originally at Radford, so naturally that family influence led Whit to hire her at Tech. Nobody forced Mike to hire Byers, but I'm sure he got plenty of "gosh, wouldn't it be great if you could hire the volleyball coach's husband? So we can keep it one big, happy family, because golly gee shucks, Beamer retained most of his coaching staff for so many years and we won a lot of football games. It sure would be nice if you could do that so we can move backwards 20 years." Last week a source in the industry told me that Byers isn't as effective at Tech as he was at his other stops. Perhaps because he feels more comfortable and safer, because nobody loses their job at Tech if the right people are behind you (unless you completely suck at your job, which of course he doesn't.) But that level of comfort can lead to a lack of drive. So yeah, some of it is on Young. But plenty of it is on the same cast of characters that decided it was a good idea to hire Brent Pry because he was a GA for three years in the 90s and because he was a good SWVA fit. Whit simply gave up too much control to one person and has been unwilling to make his own decisions. If indeed his decisions would have been different. I think Odom was his top choice, but that's just a guess on my part. I don't know it for a fact. So here we are. Young being here is a result of the local clique wielding too much influence, I think. Ironically, I think it's Young's X's and O's acumen that has kept that small-thinking, parochial, insular, short-sighted and unimaginative mindset from completely running the basketball program into the ground in the post-Buzz era. That's why I've been extremely hesitant to change coaches, and it's why I believe those who want Young gone immediately don't see the big picture and don't understand the ramifications if that had happened this year. We simply can't allow that clique to be anywhere near another major athletic department decision. It can't happen. There aren't many hills worth dying on, but that's one of them. June 30 should be a university holiday. Hallelujah. Holy [crap]. Where's the Tylenol?