Virginia Tech Hokies Football 2025 - Ten Things that are Needed - Part 1

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

It's time to start dealing with the start of Virginia Tech Hokies football season for 2025 so before Bryan and I go through the rosters, the risks, and the other preview items we really need to visit some important key fixes that need to be pulled off before the kickoff on August 31. Some of the issues will also stretch far beyond this transitional season.

The fact that it's ten items, some of which might be a bit lengthy, means that we'll be breaking this up into two parts. This article we'll cover the front office and program off-field execution issues. The second article, we'll concentrate on the settling of offensive and defensive issues that have really caused problems over the last decade and a half.

In general, the Virginia Tech Athletic Department isn't in particularly great shape, but who would really know? Other than publicly required reports because it's a public institution, not private, the department's operations are not well known, publicized, and open for review. There are no shareholders to whom annual reports are required, and there is no real business plan published to provide details beyond the bare minimum of required reporting.

Regardless of the current tax status (which is a 501c3 non-profit) the Tech (or any other Athletic Department for that matter) is supposed to be operated with profits neither earned nor paid out. The reality is that all athletic departments need to be run just like profit making businesses. At some point maybe some legislation will allow some form of shareholder interest, but for now, the business of college football and men's basketball is to cash dependent to operate as a charity.

So, ADs, like Whit Babcock have to switch from being 'beggars' (euphemistically called fund raisers) to operating as Chief Executive Officers of a corporation. That means a real "C-Suite" with a Chief Operating Officer, and a Chief Financial Officer. The first Athletic Department that reorganizes in such a manner begins to actually find some form of balance in the organization.

Besides the need for actual fiduciary officers, the reality of the product set and business needs to open the door to actual business plans and operations to increase profitability in the product, along with increasing the product line. Currently most organizations don't make much in the way of money with the resources at their disposal.

Some ADs actually use their venues to raise money outside of the narrow purview of two revenue producing sports. This Spring's Metallica concert should have been a real lesson in what sorts of venue operations could be possible. The Athletic Department reportedly made over a $1.4 million on the concert deal. There are more acts out there. UVA uses John Paul Jones Arena to host concerts. George Mason uses their "field house" for concerts. It's nearly unforgivable for Virginia Tech's main venues, Lane Stadium and Cassell Coliseum to not be hosting regular concerts and events.

The AD must learn to make money by producing more than two products. The program needs the funds to upgrade, not only facilities, but talent levels.

Even though the Athletic Department isn't a publicly traded corporation, it is imperative for the business model to change to something similar to a fiduciary responsibility to report all business activities and produce a set of public accounts managed by business accounting rules. The AD should have to report annually, and all donors be treated as investors/shareholders. The operation of too many athletic departments, including Virginia Tech's is not public enough. The beggar... er um... fund raiser model of financial operations is inadequate and often too opaque to allow for a perception of honest operations.

Public reporting of all expenses and revenues (accounts payable and receivable) should be available for public audit, and the CEO (Athletic Director) should be charged with providing a financial report at the end of each physical sports year (perhaps a period of June to June).

A business plan should be constructed and published along with annual baseline changes/updates. Decadienal re-baselining should be required, and a full audit conducted before the board meets to perform the work.

If there is no federal law or legally enabled NCAA regulation, on the books, it would still be very refreshing for institutions to voluntarily step forward with a standardized process that all programs adhere to, and then only compete against programs employing a transparent business model for their operations.

We have said this before, but sometimes it really doesn't sink in with a good deal of collegiate fandom, but the college/university gets only two things from its athletic programs: scholarship/grant money for individual athletes, and some level of media relations putting the school in the public's eye (aka advertising). With the advent of professionalization, the institutions might even lose the scholarship money as "student-" slowly evolves away from the athlete. It hasn't happened yet but given the trajectory of the current court cases and settlements, there is a distinct probability that the matriculation requirement will eventually go by the wayside. With that in mind, it's time for the Athletic Departments to share revenues with their hosting institutions.

The Tech Board of Visitors needs to spend some serious study time in regard to implementing a more businesslike approach to the problem.

The football team needs a General Manager. There are three positions that are internally focused that are currently filled with capable, experienced people, but the truth is that their focus is internal, not external. Tech needs a fully involved General Manager and staff to be the external operations brains for the head coach. More teams are adopting the professional Head Coach/General Manager split, and if Tech is going to get serious about reviving its moribund football program pulling those responsibilities away from the Head Coach is probably the wisest business decision that could be made. Very few coaches can handle both jobs, anymore. It's really time for Virginia Tech to step into that sort of corporate structure.

The Head Coach needs to focus solely on the job of running the team on the field. The Fuente era was ripe for such a division of responsibilities, and they never happened. This is professional football, now, and the good ole' boy mindset and methods doesn't cut it anymore.

The last thing on this list is an on-field decision that is probably more critical than most people really understand. The new OC, Philip Montgomery, has the reputation of coming from a very different offensive philosophy. He cut his learning teeth on the Air Raid spread fast passing attack style of offense, and not the quarterback killing run-heavy Spread-Option, Power-Spread, Read-Option... whatever the coach would like to title it... it's pretty much the same high school-based offense using the quarterback as a primary running back, and a single RB to offset and provide the option on the read. It's now as ubiquitous in college football as the old Wishbone and Veer were back in the stone age.

The reality is that winning teams are those with healthy first-rate quarterbacks who can execute their jobs without much sideline prompting and with enough skill to pull off important play series. It's just not rocket science or laser surgery. If you have a solid quarterback, you have a solid chance of winning most of your games. If your QB is beaten to a pulp by running him into the line most of the time, your success hinges on whether or not he gets hurt. You have increased the probability of that happening with a Read-Option offense.

It's hopefully time to crack those Air Raid playbooks and work with the quarterback, receiver, and running back rooms to learn to execute the new offense. Kyron Drones is barely big enough to pull off a Read-Option and certainly has shown a tendency to get hurt. The remainder of the current roster is too small for that sort of pounding.

Maybe it's time for Virginia Tech to dare to be different in a 'parity and awe' sort of sadly mediocre conference.

We segued into the next article with that last item of changing the offense - which is almost more of and off field choice than on field decision. The next five fixes are related to on-field and game day sorts of issues that need to be addressed.