...is reason for "hope" now that a new staff will be in place. I think by year 4 or 5 of the Fuente regime, most fans realized that things were not likely to ever greatly improve under his leadership. I haven't watched any football for several years - mainly because I got sick of the direction the sport has been heading for a long time - but I gathered from talking to people and reading this board that not many folks had "hope" for VT's program as long as Fuente was still at the helm. I actually think this type of situation is one of the most fun times to be a fan (if I still cared), because you can basically accept that there are zero expectations for at least the next 1-2 seasons, and any success that does occur is gravy. You can just sit back and look for incremental improvements and hope to see the new staff begin to meld, find its way, and begin to make its mark on the team and the on-field performance.

Hopefully one of the first signs of life will be that players start seemingly having more fun playing. One thing I noted about Fuente's teams was that it often seemed that the players were not enjoying themselves (beyond just a "losing stinks" kind of thing), and it seemed that Fuente really never related well to his rosters. Pry seems to be much more personable and more of a motivator, so hopefully you will see some early dividends from that alone.

If you're still a big college football fan, I'd say enjoy next season and travel to some away games. A change needed to be made, and it was, so now it just takes some patience. But, at least for a couple of seasons, you can live on "hope" alone before it will become time for some concrete results to be necessarily evident. That's when it starts to get nerve-wracking as a fan...when you know it's time for things to be getting better and the pressure is on for the team to produce results. That's kind of where VT had been the previous 2-3 years.