except the right coach? That VT should be a 10+ win team -- if we had the right coach? It seems to me the 10+ win season stretch VT had was more a function of some VERY fortunate circumstances than it was that VT did so much right.

Recruiting has NEVER been elite at VT. Why do you expect it could be or would be under a different coach? That's like saying Purdue would be an elite recruiting program, if they just hada. different coach.

I guess I see our program as having the facilities and recruiting territory that's more comparable to Maryland or Northwestern than to Clemson or even Penn State. There are some anomalies that pop up from time to time. Look at Iowa over the last year or so. Or the Hokies from 2004-2010. But basically, we're a second tier program with second tier facilities and second tier recruiting region.

Our success coincided with an AWFUL ACC. As soon as the programs that had the potential to be good (FSU and Clemson) improved, our fun ended immediately. We had ONE transcendent player in 1999 and 2000 and played in the freaking Big East. We happend to have a senior-laden team in 1999, played an easy schedule, stayed healthy, and made a run. But everything points to the fact that those were outliers not really an elite or near-elite program.

Money and resources matter. We will never be able to hire an established elite coach. We don't have the money for it. So I suppose we could keep trying every few years to fire and hire. Maybe we'd strike lightning in a bottle -- like Cincy. Or maybe we'd be Tennessee or Texas (except with less money) and just be on the coaching carousel for years.

This sense of entitlement that some VT fans have that we ought to be elite and would be if we merely had the right coach seems to be exceptionally myopic. It really does seem to fail to account for a wide range of factors that contributed to our run of success.

JMO.