Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock apologized to Hokies fans for the outcome of the 2024 football season and promised to turn things around in a 30-minute conversation with Bill Roth, Tech football’s voice, released Friday afternoon.
“Certainly the overall results of the season, extremely frustrating and disappointing,” Babcock told the crowd. “We are all so invested. It always hurts to fall short. I want to empathize with and apologize to the fan community, as well as assure them that we are committed to resolving the issue.
“The effort and intent were there. “We need to improve our results.”
Babcock described the Hokies’ 6-6 record this year and the program’s previous five seasons — 27-33 overall with a 17-22 mark in the ACC — as “not what Virginia Tech football represents.”
“We are dang sure not a.500 program,” he admitted, accepting blame for the season’s failures. “There is too much history, effort, focus, and pouring into football. “And that is not who we are.”
Still, he backed football coach Brent Pry, who has a 16-20 record in three years in Blacksburg.
“I believe in him,” Babcock stated.
It is unclear how the Hokies intend to fix the program.
Babcock intends to meet with Pry next week for a post-season meeting, which he has annually with every coach at Virginia Tech, to discuss the program from top to bottom.
“Nothing is off limits for critique, review, evaluation, improvements,” he told me. “We’ll make the right decisions for Virginia Tech, even if they’re difficult.”
When asked Wednesday if he intends to retain this coaching staff intact, Pry left himself plenty of room to go in any manner.
“I’m hopeful,” he stated. “We have fantastic people in this building, and I believe today demonstrates how much these families and prospects value the folks in this building. This place is full of incredible people.
There are surely certain things we can do better. Again, everything begins with me.”
Despite the.500 record, Babcock claimed the Hokies were close this year and simply needed to go over the hump, expressing confidence that they can do it. He described a stairstep process, progressing from 3-8 in 2022 to being more competitive in 2023 to having a better team with more depth this season, despite the same record.
The next step? Winning close games convincingly.
“I truly believe we’re close,” Babcock remarked. “We know what Hokie nation expects and we know what they deserve.”
He said part of that progression is coming away with a signature win, which he thought Tech had at Miami, describing it as a potential turning point in the season in retrospect and a strong example of an effort that met Virginia Tech football standards.
“We know we’ve got to move the needle,” Babcock added. “I watch the same games as the rest of our fans. When we don’t do well, it shortens my life by years. I feel for them. I hope they stick with us.
In addition to talking about the football season, Babcock explained how an impending settlement in the House legal case against the NCAA may effect Virginia Tech.
If approved, the settlement will provide some antitrust protection for a decade, pay $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes who were denied money-making opportunities in the last six years (a roughly $1 million impact on the Hokies over ten years), and establish a revenue-sharing plan for up to $20.5 million per year from athletic department coffers.
“It doesn’t mean you have to do it, but to compete at the top tier, that’s the level to get to,” Babcock pointed out.
Babcock stated that the Hokies “pieced together” the entire sum in Year 1, which will be payable on July 1, 2025, with the majority of the funds going to three sports: football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball.
Olympic sports will receive more scholarships, and roster limitations will be increased.
The challenge, according to Babcock, is to identify a sustainable source of revenue to generate that $20.5 million per year.
“We just don’t have that laying around,” he said, adding that they will work with campus to identify other sources of money.
Babcock stated that Tech will use a revenue-cap management technology called LBI to help manage that money (it has previously worked in the professional leagues), with a front office concept in the works. Kelly Woolwine, the Triumph NIL CEO, currently fills a general manager position that is heavily focused on negotiations and relationships with players and their parents, but the Hokies intend to expand from there, with another group involved in data-driven player and transfer portal evaluations.
“Maybe like the ‘Moneyball’ book back in the day,” Babcock said. “Now that you have a revenue-share cap, which positions will be worth what? How do you calculate the return on investment?
Babcock stated that Tech will seek advice from alumni who work as general managers in professional sports, including Tampa Bay Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander and Chicago Bears senior director of player personnel Jeff King.
“When you have a cap and spend strategically, you have to be able to operate like a front office,” Babcock told me.
NIL will continue to exist alongside the new revenue-sharing model, but from July 4, 2025, any transactions exceeding $600 must be made public and go through a fair-market clearinghouse run by Deloitte.
“It’ll be a totally different paradigm than what we’re used to,” Babcock said, describing it as more like professional sports.
“But hopefully more structure than the Wild West NIL era we’ve been in lately.”
Babcock stated that Tech’s goal over the next 6-12 months is to “strategically position our department to compete at the top of the league,” citing the clear need to “right the ship in football and men’s basketball.”
“Quite frankly, we need to reinstill trust and confidence that may have wavered in some of our fan base,” remarked the manager. “We’ve got to reward them.”
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