The Tunnel

Agree with everything you say, Coach (usually do...). Anyway, hope this true so we can get back to finishing out the recruiting in BBall and get the players excited for next year!

Jesus we need out of this conference. This is what being an ACC baskeball school allows you to leverage? Awful football conference and a basketball conference that features 2 real teams and 10 high school teams. This hire reiforces that. Awful.

This would be great. I feel we could all get behind James Johnson and support him to the fullest. The guy was going to be a Head Coach sooner rather than later. And if he catches fire, it's best he does it at VT since he's local and ingrained in the Blacksburg community. He's probably our best shot at keeping a young coach that has great success.

Hope this is true.

I disagree. I feel like James Johnson was the best assistant coach we could hire, given our circumstances. Time will tell.

Also, just because VT is willing to pay a high profile coach large $$ does not mean they can get the guy to come to VT. You're kidding yourself if you think VT can just go show some cash to a "high price guy with a proven record" and be able to woo him to VT. In VT's case, it would probably take $3M to do that, and paying that price is a fiscal atrocity.

I think bringing in a high priced guy is a big gamble. Are we talking about a 2 million a year guy? How do you think that would go over in the football department?
How do you think it goes over when the guy struggles to get to .500 in the ACC? Or gets hit with recruiting violations?
Sure, those things could happen with any coach. ANY hire is a gamble. But when you put down a big dollar salary, your gamble necessarily is higher.
With JJ, that salary makes the risk lower all the way around. There are no ruffled feathers around town, the players LOVE him - want to PLAY for him, he has recruiting ties here already, and he is motivated to succeed. He may even keep Harrell on board, which is a major coup that has to included in the equation.

Being in the ACC did not hurt our chances with coaches IMO. The fact that we were not looking to spend top dollars, the lateness of Seth's firing, and our lack of history hurt us in our search. With that said, I think Johnson was the guy we wanted from the start. I think they were planning on hiring next season to take over for Seth, but once he left for Clemson, VT had to undergo a search just to prove that Johnson was the guy they wanted, instead of it looking like an undermining from a disgruntled employee (which is may have looked like if he was hired immediately).

It's a stop gap hire. I don't think Weaver wanted to make a long term decision with this hire since he will retire shortly. Seth clearly wasn't going to the be the long term solution and instead of making a decision for a new coach that the new AD might not like, the new AD can easily make a change without any financial burdens in place. If Johnson is successful, then the new AD can keep him.