October Flyover.
A lot happened last week in Virginia Tech athletics. Naturally I was out of town on vacation, so I wasn’t around to cover it. Still, I kept up with it, and I’ve got plenty of thoughts on each subject. Today’s article is going to meander between the Hezekiah Grismley commit and 757 recruiting, retaining Pat Mason, and hiring a new lacrosse coach.
John Sung Hired as Women’s Lacrosse Coach
Here’s Virginia Tech’s ACC lacrosse record, year by year, since the program joined the ACC…
2005: 0-4
2006: 0-5
2007: 0-5
2008: 0-5
2009: 1-4
2010: 0-5
2011: 1-4
2012: 1-4
2013: 0-5
2014: 0-7
2015: 0-7
2016: 0-7
This program doesn’t need to be rebuilt, because it was never built in the first place. We’re basically starting from scratch. Whit Babcock obviously realizes that, so he hired a guy who has experience building programs.
John Sung built a pair of start-up programs, first at Division III Adrian College, and the second at Winthrop. Neither school had a program prior to Sung's arrival, and he developed both into winners from the ground up. He went 54-26 in four seasons at Winthrop, including 37-7 the last two years with two NCAA Tournament appearances.
Hiring a proven winner is important, but you can’t just hire any proven winner. In this case, it was important that Tech’s next coach have experience in program building, because that’s essentially what he/she was being hired to do by Whit Babcock. Sung has that experience in abundance. He also has experience coaching internationally.
Before becoming a head coach, Sung was an assistant on the club lacrosse team at Michigan. His work there was important in building a program, as that team was eventually adopted by Michigan as a varsity sport.
I don’t know anything about lacrosse, having never played or watched the sport, but with where we are as a program right now, Sung seems like the perfect hire.
Babcock Retains Pat Mason
Whit Babcock doesn’t surprise me very often. He surprised me with the Buzz Williams hire, though he did not surprise me when he fired James Johnson. The Justin Fuente hire was not a shock. Firing Dennis Wolff with only one year left on his contract made complete sense. Likewise, reassigning lacrosse coach Megan Burker with one year left on her contract was the right move.
When the news broke early last week that Mason had been retained for one more year, I was surprised. But then I looked at Mason’s contract, thought things through, and it started to make a little bit more sense.
When making a decision on whether or not to retain Mason, I’m guessing that Whit Babcock thought about the following things…
1: How many years are on his contract, and for how much money? For Pat Mason, the total would have been around $290k over the course of the next two years. That’s not expensive at all (for example, former VT coach Pete Hughes makes around $350k per year at Oklahoma), but as of right now the Hokies don’t generate any revenue from baseball. That will change with the opening of English Field at Union Park.
2: Who can I hire right now? Would he be an upgrade? Could I potentially hire somebody even better in the future with the new ball park opening?
3: What was the injury situation? To be fair to Mason, he was without the back end of his bullpen for all or most of the entire season, including all of ACC play. He said that Luke Scherzer and Aaron McGarity were both going to be picked in the top seven rounds of the draft. I’m not a scout, nor do I know any scouts, so I can’t confirm that. However, the Hokies lost a lot of games in the late innings this year, and obviously two veterans like Scherzer and McGarity would have meant more wins. That was out of Mason’s control.
When Babcock put all of those things together, he decided to retain him. If Mason turns out not to be the guy long-term, you can bet that Whit Babcock will be paying a competitive salary for the next coach. I’m guessing $250k+, along with better salaries for the assistants. If/when he makes that investment, he probably doesn’t want more than one year of buyout money on the table for Mason and his staff. Consider the fact that the Hokies are already using money from the operating budget to pay for scholarships, and it’s easy to understand that line of thinking (if indeed that is Whit’s line of thinking…I don’t know it for a fact).
To be sure, I’m concerned about Tech’s pitching. Even with Scherzer and McGarity on the shelf, it should have been better than a team ERA of 6.49. I didn’t think it could get worse than the team ERA of 5.14 in 2015, but I was wrong. Apparently it can get a lot worse. Packy Naughton, who had a 4.91 ERA in 2015 as a freshman, regressed to a mark of 6.75 in 2016. That's almost two full runs. Kit Scheetz improved, but only marginally.
McGarity had a 2.38 ERA in 10 appearances before tearing his ACL in a pickup basketball game. His was the best ERA on the team. Behind him? Scheetz with a 4.82 ERA. No other pitcher on the staff had an ERA lower than 5.58. So while the injuries hurt, there’s really no way you can make excuses for that kind of pitching depth. Starting pitching was just as unreliable as the back end of the bullpen.
On the other hand, Tech lost a ton of great hitters after 2015, and it was thought that the Hokies would have trouble replacing them. They didn’t.
2015: .266 team BA, .357 OBP, 35 HR, 277 RBIs
2016: .273 team BA, .370 OBP, 34 HR, 302 RBIs
So while I’m greatly concerned about this staff’s ability to develop pitchers, I think they did a really good job of coaching up Tech’s hitters this year. I think if you’re going to criticize when you feel it’s necessarily, you’ve got to be equally willing to point out the good things as well. Hats off to those guys for actually improving at the plate despite losing so many key players.
Mason has two years left on his contract, so let’s call it like it is: he’s coaching for his job in 2017. When a coach has one year remaining on his/her contract, you either have to fire them or extend the contract. Dennis Wolff showed progress this past season, but he had just one year remaining on his contract. He hadn’t done enough to warrant an extension, so he was let go. Not only will Mason have to have a good year in 2017, he’ll have to do enough to warrant a contract extension. If he doesn’t do that, he’ll likely be let go, because you can’t keep a coach around with one year left on his contract.
I like Pat Mason. I spent an hour with him in his office talking VT baseball before the season started. No other VT coach, regardless of sport, has ever shown me that much personal attention. I hope it works out for him. If it doesn’t, I’m guessing that Babcock would have more to sell to a new coach after the 2017 season, with the new ballpark opening in 2018.
Grimsley Commits; Hokies Trying to Make 757 Inroads
Lafayette High School (Williamsburg, VA) wide receiver Hezekiah Grimsley committed to Virginia Tech on Friday. I happened to be in Williamsburg when the commit happened (no, not in the role of a bag man), so I’ll claim full credit. In all seriousness, it’s nice to see the Hokies grab a 757 prospect, and Tech is still trying to make further inroads in that area.
Having spent a week in the 757 (mostly on the Peninsula), I came away with the impression that there just isn’t much Virginia Tech exposure in the area these days. I saw more shirts, hats and bumper stickers for other teams than I did VT. In five days, I saw a grand total of one person wearing a Virginia Tech shirt. On Friday alone, I saw two people wearing Ohio State shirts. That's a limited sample size, of course, but it was pretty eye opening.
A lot of people who live in the 757 aren’t from Virginia, and many who are VA natives did not attend college. The bandwagon factor in that area is very strong, and to build up a big bandwagon following you have to be good and flashy. Obviously Tech has been neither the last four years.
Why are bandwagon fans important? Because most recruits are bandwagon fans. They grow up without a team, and in many cases they don’t spend a whole lot of time watching college football. They probably like UNC or Duke in basketball, but when it comes to football they are a tumbleweed in the wind. There are a ton of people like that in the 757, at least that’s my perception. For those of you who are from that area, please feel free to comment if you think I’m off base.
The Hokies recruited well out there when VT was a hot national team, and when other programs didn’t focus on the area as much. Now there are more challenges, some of which are out of Virginia Tech’s control completely. I had lunch with a highly-regarded high school coach when I was in the area, and he told me that he thinks kids are going out of state more and more simply because that’s just “the thing” to do these days. Thanks to social media, not to mention ESPN’s focus on the hot programs, VA recruits are exposed to out-of-state schools a lot more than they were in the past.
Virginia Tech hasn’t played a football game under Justin Fuente yet. While the message is new and fresh, and Fuente is currently in a better position than his predecessor was the last few years, there remains the challenge of showing prospects that Tech can be good and flashy again. How do you do that when you haven’t coached a game at VT yet? And how can you do that in your first 1-2 years when the depth in the program might not be where it needs to be? Obviously you’ve got to be energetic, and Fuente is, but it doesn’t hurt to think outside the box and find ways to reach kids in a different way.
Thomas Guerry of the VT recruiting department Tweeted this a few days ago…
.@PUSHA_T ⏩ Blacksburg
— Thomas Guerry (@thomasguerry) May 27, 2016
Let's make it happen.
There’s a whole exchange between Guerry, Bucky Hodges’ father and CZYHokie of VTScoop that you can dig down and read if you’re interested, but the gist of it is that VT is trying to get famous recording artists from the 757 to perform in front of recruits. Guerry mentioned Pusha T, a rapper from Virginia Beach. CZY threw in Pharrell Williams (Virginia Beach), Timbaland (Norfolk) and Missy Elliott (Portsmouth) as well.
I don’t know the chances of any of those folks performing at VT in front of recruits, but it’s nice to see that Tech is thinking outside the box. Pharrell would be the biggest draw. He’s world famous, more so as a producer, but he’s an excellent musician (I know that a lot of you are probably thinking that he’s just some rapper, but that doesn’t describe him at all). He might be too expensive, though.
Still, if they could manage to get Pharrell or some other 757 guy like Pusha T on a stage in front of 757 recruits wearing a VT hat or jersey, that can’t help but improve Tech’s brand in the Tidewater. I imagine the logistics and timing (not to mention the cost) might be difficult, and it could be tough to pull off such an event. Still, it’s nice to see that VT is trying to connect in a different way these days.
Perhaps the biggest thing the Hokies can do is land Devin Hunter. He spent a little bit of time with his favorite NFL player recently…
Enjoyed finally to get to meet Big bro @Kam_Chancellor pic.twitter.com/hsz5NiqQm6