Now, we were in the lead for a long time. But PSU blew him away recently. Interestingly though, looking at what HE had to say and he insisted everything was even the whole time.... until he visited PSU. The whole narrative changed after that visit. Suddenly depth charts didn't really matter. Suddenly being taken care of for 40 years did (and interestingly this was right after Dwight Vick's comments about how outreach at VT is terrible).

My guess is that while we may have had a slight lead in Ford's mind, there was something about VT he just couldn't get over.... maybe there was a feeling that we just weren't big enough for him... maybe he didn't want to leave his friends at PSU while he went somewhere else.... who knows. But one thing that is clear is that once he left Happy Valley, his destination was also clear.

Penn State also likely used a classic sales technique: Holding off on some of their very best pitches until the end.