school, has had sustained success, and James Franklin has that ability. I like Chesney, but I think the lower risk is to go with the bigger name who is more proven on a national stage. Franklin can sell our program to better talent and continue to recruit in the mid-Atlantic region.

. How'd that work out?

I do not care if he only stays for 4 years. Get this thing turned around and other candidates will want this job if he leaves.

But there are some distinct differences between Campbell and Buzz.

First, decisions are being made by executive leadership of the university who are looking for the long term future of the university. This includes the president and his staff and the BOV who oversee the entire university. Realization: in about 3-5 years, athletics is going to separate and the have and the have nots. The schools who are not chosen are irrelevant,. VT intends to be with the haves and ensure we are taken. Don't know some of the fan base has such a good vision for hte univeristy, While VT is a major international 3-4 BILLION dollar enterprise with almost 40,000 students and and endowment of over 3 billion, they see that it is wrong to soar, "ITS JUST SMALL REGIONAL TECH'... period. The BOV has made a decision to fund at the level for athletics, they have made the decision to make VT a full integrated department of the university (no overhead charges), and are demainding the staffing personnel and performance to match the intent. They realize they have to win NOW, no 5-7 year transition, win. They realize to be the best, they have to hire the best, they simply cannot risk and gamble with staff and personnel who dont know how to manage like a SEC/Big 10 school. VT has the resource partners, but they willl be introducing NEW partners, not the same old and true givers of athletics, but a new team with new capital (who give exclusivly To the university and university has partition them away from athletics. no more). Also with that, The Athletic department no longer is a mom and pop operation, where each cousin or relative or friend of someone is hire for positions they ABSOLUTELY HAVE NO QUALIFICATIONS. So VT needs to hire not big for appearance but big for performance. There are no way a head coach at Oregon can be compared with coach at JMU. Apples and Oranges. VT expects the coach to run a Oregon/P2 level program NOW> make it so. No we will see. UVA is on the way now, VT must match. Or in 5 to 10 years, we might see every weekend in Cvilee Great game UVA vs UT, or Ohio State. While a smaller attended game in blacksburg, a small contingent jumping to enter sandman with the fighting hokies playing Charlotte ..... Talk about irrelevant.

You make some valid points, however, your numbers with respect to the size of the enterprise and the size of its endowment need to be rechecked. You also misrepresent some of the discussions taking place about how they get there. UVA is making some strides but, there is still a lot of work and some questions to still be answered before you can say with any real certainty that they are on their way, particularly if your time frame is closer to 5 than 10 in the range you used.

...via the portal without a huge name/known guy on the head whistle. The greatest young Xs and Os guy won't do squat without studs, and likely won't be able to attract the required studs. You words..."rebuild" and "the process" aren't actual things in 2025 Big Boy football. Ask Deebo how the process is going these days...

He had the talent. With last year's talent, a seasoned and dialed on qb, and a coach that knew what to do...... We would have been at a level Hokie Nation expected, at the top of the ACC.

"type" of coach. The bad news is there's no way to guarantee that. So no we don't "need" a young guy or an old guy or an experienced guy or an up and coming guy. We need someone who wins games. And we won't know if we have that someone until they get here and the season starts. That's why I'm not super hung up on one candidate or profile. I think anyone is going to be an upgrade over Pry. And I think just about anyone could succeed or fail. Good hires on a paper sometimes don't pan out (Fuente). Hires that look terrible or desperate sometimes win championships (Dabo). So whoever we pick, I'm going to support and give him a chance and go from there.

never know how much of an impact John Ballein's sabotage effort had on his tenure.

1st yr 2nd yr 3.85 mil + bonuses 3rd yr 4.85 mil + bonuses 4th yr 5.85 mil + bonuses ** Edited by Windows NT at 10/28/2025, 12:19:45 PM

If a coach can go somewhere else and get $4 million guaranteed then why is he signing a $2 million + incentives contract? He's not. I don't agree with the big salaries, buyouts and guaranteed money but as long as that's what the market dictates then you have to play that game. The idea that we're going to score some great coach with an unconventional deal with low risk and buyout to the university is just a not realistic.

it. If you personally were offered two jobs. One you would make a guaranteed amount of money and the other you would make less but have a chance to "renegotiate" based on performance after a year, which one are you taking? The only way what you're proposing works is if the person being hired wants to be a head coach but there is little to no interest from any other similar schools.

to prove himself at the P4 level?.. and makes more than 3 times his current salary. shane beamer started at 2.75 mil per year and was renegotiated after a successful season (2nd yr?) ** Edited by Windows NT at 10/28/2025, 1:08:10 PM

1) Who says we're the only ones who might be looking at him? 2) If we ARE the only ones looking at him and offering less than the Pry deal, why wouldn't he want to win another year or two at JMU to grow his market?

1. no one says we are the only, but VT needs to be proactive. we snooze, we lose. 2. Rule #1 in the business world: take the bigger money and the bigger promotion at a better company if it's the only company Why would he want to stay and not win another year or two? Big risk and zero reward.

The head football coaching business is totally different from most of the "business" world.

There are a thousand things about CFB that defy reason. I don't know who VT is going to hire. I'm very sure that whoever it is, will not sign be signing a low baseline, incentive-laden contract. We won't be setting the market (that will probably be LSU, maybe PSU) but we're not going to be very far behind.

he may be a fine upcoming young coach but is this drumbeat for him that ,somehow against all odds, he will be second coming of Cignetti? If the Cignetti/IU thing hadn't happened would this board be so high on him?

Here at ECU we hired another super-successful former JMU coach (Mike Houston) and that was a disaster...

hired him in 2019 when JMU was still DI-FCS. Most people would see going from a DI-FCS school to a DI-FBS school as a step up.

Look at the second half defensive stats for JMU. This dude can coach. It's coincidental that Cignetti went from JMU to Indiana. Chesney deserves a good look. The guy is obviously a leader, and his teams play hard for four quarters.

just so long as folks aint banking on him bringing on a dozen talented portals with him and VT to be ranked #2 in the country in his second year :-)

He may or may not be The One, but he deserves serious consideration. There are so many "name" national level coaches I'd take Chesney over in a heartbeat. I truly hope we take an experienced G4 coach with some energy.

type of rebuild. This day and age is instant rebuilds and he can do it.

O'Brien weathered the absolute worst of the storm and Franklin then actually took it back a notch. His 3 seasons at Vandy were mostly powered by recruits from the last class of his predecessor. He got out of town before the bottom fell out again at Vandy. In 10 seasons under divisions at PSU, he finished better than 3rd just three times. He finished below third as often as he finished above third. In the 2 seasons under no divisions, he finished 2nd last yr but certainly would have finished below 3rd this year. He only won the conference ONCE. He built his record up by annually beating overmatched Rutgers, Maryland, Indiana, Purdue and non-B1G patsies, but he failed miserably when he faced a program with similar resources and talent. It is well known he is not a particularly good game coach - which is in part why his record was so sub-par vs peer programs. If VT is satisfied with being the bridesmaid and not the bride, then Franklin is the hire. If it has higher aspirations than that, then Franklin is absolutely not the guy.

immediately and win immediately. Yes he lost a lot of the "big" games but he also has won some "big" games as well. He may not win us a Natty but I bet he wins us 9 to 11 games every year.

to O'Brien as well. Franklin is not my favorite coach but he would be a home run for VT.

And as has been his M.O through out his career, Franklin beat the weaker teams on the schedule and lost to those with remotely similar resources. He would be a disaster if Virginia Tech wants...needs...to punch above its weight class.

That is pretty fast being that there was no transfer portal.

He has had one great year in his career when he wasn't riding someone else's players. ** Edited by marcbvtgm at 10/28/2025, 10:36:37 PM

He is not Nick Saban but he gets us back to playing for ACC championships.

Assuming his nominal results at PSU would translate to VT is a typical message board fallacy.

Posted before VT has 3 models that will work: 1. Cignetti model 2. Kiffin model 3. Smart/Elko model Find the guys that fit those molds and you will find success. Go for name recognition and it will be a struggle.

We'll throw $15 million at someone's retread, then pay him $75 million in 3.25 years. Meanwhile, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Alabama, and Georgia will pay theirs $25 million per year. This is not going to end pretty.

In terms of coaching hires. By the way, how much of those P2 examples are the coaches versus the programs? Would they succeed as significantly if you put them at BC for example?