It was only a few minutes after Virginia Tech’s 54-10 loss to Maryland that the question arrived on my phone via text.

“Do you think,” asked the text, “that this was the most unsatisfying season you’ve seen as a Hokie fan?”

It’s an interesting question. It didn’t ask if this was the worst season. Or biggest disappointment of a season. Just if it was the most unsatisfying.

Since I’ve seen more than 50 seasons of Hokie football, I had to think for a few moments. That season in 1973 when the team went 2-9 and lost to Alabama 77-6 was a pretty bad one, particularly in light of the team under Charlie Coffey having a winning season the year before. But in that situation, I was a new Hokie fan – so I didn’t have much to compare it to – and change was immediate. Coffey had a bad year, and the next year he wasn’t the coach.

Then there was the famous Frank Beamer season of 2-8-1 in 1992, where just about every close game went against them. A 50-49 loss to Rutgers was that team’s version of the 77-6 loss to Alabama 19 years prior, and the Hokies only beat two teams – James Madison and Temple.

But even then, I can’t say it was unsatisfying. In at least 5 of those games, Virginia Tech had a better than average chance to come out the winner, no matter whether you wore orange and maroon colored glasses or not. You could see the potential, and when Beamer made some changes on his staff, the next year began the streak of 27 consecutive bowl game appearances.

I think enough people have written about the greatness of John Madden as a coach and broadcaster in the last 24 hours, so I’ll leave that sort of story to others. Instead, I’ll talk about one aspect of Madden I’ve always admired and tried to take to heart throughout a lifetime of watching and listening.

Madden, when it came to the people he coached and the people who were around him, cared, and it was no act. He had a gift for understanding people, realizing everyone is unique in some aspect, and learned to push the different buttons we all have to get the very best of you.

It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many people can’t or won’t do that. Over the years, I’ve worked with people who think everyone must be treated the same and conform to a similar outlook, and they’ve all had one thing in common: they were incompetent managers.

Madden understood that what works with one person and his unique experiences did not always work with someone with a different background. It’s why he took a collection of very talented but labeled by some as uncoachable misfits, and was able to mold this band of free spirits into a Super Bowl Champion in Oakland.

Some can coach a team full of No. 1 draft choices to a title. Madden could win with players from the island of misfit toys.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and since every Christmas deserves a good story with a happy ending, allow me to tell my 2021 version of such a tale.

The adventure begins back in 1974, when in the first five minutes after I had moved into Pritchard Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, I met Doug. He was in the room next to mine, and after meeting each other, we became instant and lifelong friends.

We were both competitive sorts who enjoyed trash talking each other, but our skills were widely different, making competitions between us a bit interesting. When it came to sports, I was a 6-foot-4 white guy who couldn’t jump and had the quickness of a pregnant rhinoceros, but if left open, I could consistently hit an outside shot. This came in handy when Doug and I played either H-O-R-S-E or one-on-one, as I’d toy with him and let him get ahead, then drill three straight long jumpers to crush him.

Doug, conversely, was a table game wizard. On a foosball table, he could snap his wrists with no effort and score goals at will. I later in life bought a foosball table for my basement, trying to learn to be good enough to give him a run for his money. But every time he visited, he toyed with me in foosball the way I taunted him in basketball.

The rivalry went up a notch during my sophomore year at Virginia Tech, where I received at Christmas a gift that became the focal point of our competitions for years to come: It was an NHL Hockey game (the one where the players were connected to long thin rods that you’d push or pull to move your player, and twist the knobs connected to those rods to make the players shoot). After the holidays, I bought it back to the dorm, and Doug and I ended up playing this game all the time (this was before video games, cell phones, the internet, and a bunch of other stuff my daughter can’t believe we did without).

We knew nothing about hockey, but it provided everything we needed: a game you could play that allowed for constant trash talking, required no electricity or special equipment, was portable, and could be set up just about anywhere.

The game came with a miniature Stanley Cup, and whoever won that day’s game took it back to their room, as the trophy’s presence in your living area afforded you bragging and trash-talking rights until the next game. It went back and forth between us until for some reason, momentum shifted squarely to my side.

Now that we’ve all had an enjoyable week watching the beginnings of the Brent Pry dynasty take shape, perhaps it might not be a bad idea to take a quick look at the men’s basketball program.

You know, the one that’s lost three of its last four and seems to be one big question in search of an answer?

It’s certainly not a time to be worried or panic in any way, but this was a team that started off against weaker opposition and still looked pretty good in the process. I judge teams not by the level of competition they’re playing early in a season, but whether when granted an open shot, do they consistently hit it. The ball and the rim have no idea whether the other guys on the floor are in the top 10 or the top 300, so if you’re a good shooting team, you make open shots when you get them.

Early in the season, Virginia Tech made these shots, particularly when they were moving the ball around the perimeter and finding open players. That, to me, is the magic of Mike Young’s offense, as he’s not one of those coaches from the movie Hoosiers who demands four passes before you take a shot. He wants as many or as few passes as necessary for the ball to find an open shooter, and when that happens, he expects his players to take – and make - those shots.

The Hokies did early in the season. But when they played Memphis right before Thanksgiving, they met a physical team that really pushed them around, particularly point guard Storm Murphy. Murphy had been one of Virginia Tech’s better shooters and playmakers, but finished with only five points against Memphis. It got worse, as he didn’t score at all in the next two games against Xavier and Maryland before finally hitting a couple of shots and getting 7 points recorded in the scorebook.

While we’re all wondering who the next Virginia Tech offensive coordinator will be, allow me to draw your attention to that train wreck of a pro football team in Charlotte, NC known as the Carolina Panthers.

Today they announced they were parting ways with their offensive coordinator, Joe Brady. Why you would change OCs with only a little more than a month left in the season is beyond me, but they did. And as Brady looks for a place to land, further allow me to point out his background.

Brady is only 32 and has been considered one of the hot young offensive coaches in football land. Before taking the job with the Panthers, he was the passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach of the very wide-open and high-scoring 2019 LSU Tigers, the same LSU Tigers who went 15-0 and won the national championship. He was recognized as the top assistant coach during the 2019 college football season, and was the winner of the 24th annual Broyles Award.

Before that, he was an offensive assistant under head coach Sean Payton with the New Orleans Saints from 2017-2018.

He grew up in South Florida and was a 4-year letterman as a wide receiver at Everglades High School in Miramar, FL, about 22 miles north of Miami. He played collegiately at William and Mary from 2009 to 2012, and then stayed there for another two years, coaching the team’s linebackers.

Where was he between his stint at William and Mary and his time with the New Orleans Saints?

As it relates to defense, new Hokie Coach Brent Pry is not wasting any time.

On the day he was named head coach, Pry also announced the JC Price would be staying on to coach the defensive line. Today, two more additions to the staff were announced: Derek Jones, who most recently served as associate head coach and co-defensive coordinator at Texas Tech, and Shawn Quinn, who most recently was the head coach at Savannah State.

(Photo Courtesy Of Virginia Tech)

There’s a definite pattern to the hires. In Jones, Pry is hiring a 23-year coaching veteran who has focused on the secondary and defensive backs in his coaching stops at Duke, Memphis, Tulsa, Middle Tennessee State, Murray State and Ole Miss. Pry's association with Jones dates back to the 2007 season at Memphis when Jones coached the secondary and Tech's current head coach worked with the Tigers' defensive line.

In Quinn, a quick look at his background shows his title was usually defensive coordinator/linebackers at stops that include Savannah State, The Citadel, Tennessee Tech, Western Carolina, Charleston Southern, Northwestern State, LSU, Louisiana-Lafayette and Tennessee. Pry and Quinn previously collaborated at Georgia Southern in 2010 when Pry served as defensive coordinator and Quinn worked as the linebackers coach. The duo also worked together at Louisiana-Lafayette from 2002-06 in the same roles.

So Pry has now hired three assistant coaches – Price, Jones and Quinn – that all have experience running the show as either a defensive coordinator/associate head coach or a head coach, yet each specializes in one of the three components of any successful defense: defensive line (Price), linebackers (Quinn) and secondary (Jones).

As it relates to college football in the Commonwealth, I find myself sitting here on a peaceful Saturday morning thinking “I sure didn’t see this week coming.”

It was 5 weeks ago today on a similarly peaceful morning that I was sitting outside on the patio, watching my dog run around like a fool in the backyard and sipping on a hot cup of coffee (me, not the dog) wondering about how the balance of power in the state was shifting toward the University of Virginia. That morning, UVA was preparing to play BYU that night, they were 6-2, they had a fun offense to watch, a very good quarterback in Brennan Armstrong, and momentum was on the Wahoos’ side.

Virginia Tech, conversely, was preparing to play Georgia Tech and had lost 4 of its last 5 games. It was apparent to me at that point the Hokies were going to finally make a change at head coach, as a lifeless loss to Pitt, followed by a last-minute loss to a Syracuse team that was winless in the ACC at the time (they only won 2 all season) seemed to seal Justin Fuente’s fate.

Great, I thought. Virginia Tech is now the unstable team recruits are going to think twice about because not only are the Hokies losing, but no one knows who will be coaching the team in 2022. Virginia was the brighter option in comparison, with a stable coach, a high-powered offense and a nationally ranked quarterback, so if you were a top-flight offensive player in the state, where would YOU go? That kind of momentum swing in a state can take years to recover from.

Crushing an opening press conference to announce your hire doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win a lot of football games in the near future. But Brent Pry put on a performance this morning that certainly won a lot of people over.

He was smooth, even – dare I say – debonair. I’ve never read so many comments on social media about a coach’s “great hair.” He came across as sincere, likeable, approachable…and very much wanting to be in Blacksburg.

(Photo Courtesy Of Virginia Tech)

He invoked the great names of Hokie football past, from Frank Beamer to Bud Foster, and hit all the right notes, at times even being emotional and showing a vulnerable side. I’ve often said when you look at the great coaches, the one common trait they have is they care. It’s not something you can fake either, as either you do or you don’t.

Brent Pry convinced a lot of people he cares.

I’m a former sales guy who has been involved in a turnaround situation before, so I was looking for two traits: One was that recruiting, which is very much like sales, isn’t as much a matter of personality, but moreso a case of working your backside off. It’s not just the person you’re selling, it’s knowing about their friends, their family, the important dates in their lives, their favorite sports teams, etc, because that knowledge builds familiarity and leads to a strong relationship.

So when Pry said of recruiting that it’s details, details, details…even to the point of not only knowing a prospects coach and friends, but even knowing the guy in the barbershop who cuts his hair, I found myself thinking “he gets it.”

Yesterday morning, an old friend texted me and asks “what do you know about Brent Pry?”

Nothing, I said. Should I?

Well, you may want to check him out, was his response. So I did, and the more I learned about the man who is now Virginia Tech’s new head football coach, the more I liked him.

As I’m sure Whit Babcock had his check list of things he wanted in a head coach, I had my own. And it amazed me the deeper I dug, the more things Pry checked off the list. Sure, he wasn’t this shiny bauble who was the media darling of College Football. But everything else about him was outstanding.

Whit, old boy, I thought. You’ve done your homework. This could be good.

At the top of anyone’s list would be technical proficiency on at least one side of the ball, and Pry definitely has it on the defensive side. He’s spent the last 26 years as a college coach on the defensive side, with the last 10 as an Associate Head Coach/Defensive Coordinator at Penn State.

I’ve found the best defensive coaches are also the ones who really understand offense first, and Pry checks that box too. His Dad was an offensive coordinator at East Stroudsburg, part of a 40-year coaching career where he coached with his son and future Penn State coach James Franklin, who was a QB. Having your Dad being your coach has its pluses and minuses, but one plus is the daily interaction over meals.

In my house growing up, my Dad and I over the dinner table may have talked about who won the game. When your Dad is a coach, you talk about not only who won, but why. What worked and what didn’t. Things to look out for next time. Many of the better coaches in high school, college and the NFL came about their analytical skills because they grew up with a coach in the house.

Believe it or not, there was a time long ago when fans did not judge Virginia Tech football by the length of its bowl streak, the odds of it winning a championship, or where it was ranked in the top 25.

These were the days before cell phones, the internet…heck, even before disco and Star Wars movies. They were the golden days of the 70s, where you judged a season not on the entire year, but on certain special moments. Ones where you walked back to the dorm or your car and thought “that was nice.” Ones that were feel-good moments, even proud-to-be-a-Hokie moments. They made you feel positive about the program, and were the reasons you came back the next week to watch the team play again.

Saturday’s win over Virginia was such a badly needed moment. The team technically qualifies for a bowl, but it’s not anything that leads to anything else. It’s just one more opportunity to see a group of young men who have been through fire and rain this season, starting with a win over a supposedly top 10 team in North Carolina, then nose diving into the cruel reality of a season that was so bad, they couldn’t even wait until the end of the 12-game schedule to fire the head coach.

The experience has not only been tough for the players, but there are a lot of people I know who have gone from being fanatical about the program for decades to morphing into a certain “I’m not sure I really care” attitude. They’ve been spoiled by not only the winning, the bowls and the top 25 rankings of the past, they’ve particularly become accustomed to seeing Virginia Tech teams that no matter who the opponent was, were competitive enough to always have a chance.

That hasn’t been the case the last couple of years in certain games, and for the first time in a while, I think many of us were somewhat realistic to the distinct possibility the Hokies were going to get hammered in Charlottesville Saturday. The Cavaliers had a high-powered offense, the Hokie defense struggled against Miami, and at times the play calling has looked more like the Virginia Tech of 1921 instead of 2021, exhibiting tendencies more in tune with the single wing.

Well, we’re now officially in the “weird” part of the ongoing saga of the Virginia Tech football program.

I wrote this story a week ago, saying it was over between Virginia Tech and head coach Justin Fuente, and how we were just waiting and watching the final episodes of the soap opera. It turned out to be true, but I never thought the series’ finale would be at 7:45 AM on a Tuesday morning.

I mean, who does that? Monday 10 AM pressers are just too traditional? Did someone have to wait until their sports coat came back from the dry cleaners?

Social media is, of course, on fire this morning as some tastelessly dance on Fuente’s grave, and some are already making their predictions on who the new coach will be. This is where the weird part comes in, because I can pretty much guarantee you that every single one of those predictions are purely grounded in something they pulled out of their backside.

No one knows, although you would have to hope pulling the trigger on such a significant change 10 minutes before the second cup of coffee on a Tuesday would suggest there have been some backchannel conversations between athletic director Whit Babcock and a potential new coach.