My thoughts around a system coach were not solely meant for VT Basketball In order to succeed at a school like VT you have to have a system that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. That's football, basketball, soccer whatever. To a certain degree, you could argue that's exactly what made VT football good to begin with... Special teams - Beamer made great strides and evened the playing field utilizing special teams as a weapon rather than a transition. Now everyone does it. Defense - Bud Foster's scheme was something that allowed undersized Defensive Ends to become the most feared sack leaders in the country. Then they made a good evaluation in chasing Michael Vick rather than Ronald Curry and it all came together. That's it. That's the blueprint. But it is incredibly difficult and can take years/decades to catch that Michael Vick type of evaluation. If VT were recruiting against FSU and Miami for Michael Vick, then it might have been a different story. But it was Syracuse and East Carolina. Recruiting has changed and made prospects like Vick slipping through the cracks nationally more difficult, so the road is even tougher. But none of the recruiting wins will matter if you can't elevate everyone else around them. There has to be a system in place that allows you to be solid when your talent is average so when your talent becomes above average to solid you are ready to take a leap. I'm not into football schemes and coaching philosophy like I am basketball. But I recognize market efficiency when I see it, and Beamer capitalized on that in a multitude of ways that Fuente and Pry have not. None of this changes my larger point that the athletic program can gain both notoriety and revenue with simple modest shifts in resources rather than moving the chips to football without evidence it will be useful there ** Edited by GCHokie34 at 9/24/2024, 11:11:17 AM ** Edited by GCHokie34 at 9/24/2024, 11:12:47 AM