Okay, before you sharpen the knives, hear me out...I get the debt to the NY Yankees, the idea of not quitting and giving the younger guys experience, but the long term impacts of that beatdown are going to haunt the program...

1) Our coaches knew we'd take the L-- according to Andy Bitter, who said he saw Sunday's practice and knew we weren't competitive, he said the staff had to know this was an unwinnable game. If a beat writer knew, the coaches (and maybe players) knew too. I'm not saying this was a defeatist effort, but

2) The optics of the loss are terrible--the worse loss of the bowl season. It feels like the modern cfb game is so much about recruiting and here's the truth...people are going to see the embarrassing score line and not know (or care) that we were missing 13 guys, or how many starters. They are just going to see that a mediocre Maryland team hung 50+ of VT. I know how many players were missing, you know how many were out, but it really wasn't even a big storyline during the game. None of my non-VT alum friends had any idea, and when I tried to defend VT, they all just thought I was making excuses. Magnify that times all the casual football fans who saw the score.

3) Recruiting, Recruiting, Recruiting...again, it won't matter that we were missing people, Maryland is going to tell recruits up and down the East Coast that they gave us a beatdown. Our recruiting rivals (UNC, etc) will probably do the same.

4) Worse Bowl Loss in History- Mark Twain once said that it's better for people to think you're a fool than open up your mouth and prove them right. If we'd opted out, people could talk smack, but by playing in this game and taking the worst bowl L in VT history, it does more harm than good. None of the benefits (extra playing time, evaluation of younger players, etc) are worth the long term effects. It was the worst bowl loss in ACC history, worst bowl loss in VT history, and it's a loss that's gong to sting for a long time.

Again, playing with so many guys out may have been a moral victory for VT, but for non-VT insiders, they'll see the box score as an indicator of how far VT football has regressed.

All that aside, I'm optimistic about Pry, and all that, but I just think VT looks way worse than UVA, UCLA, etc. who opted out.