The Tunnel

You guys need to resist the temptation to go along with this stuff, much less embrace it. I hate to keep making weighty posts, but it seems like a lot of topics are hitting my buttons lately.

If we give in to this culture because we can't win if we don't, how do we celebrate when we actually do win? Do we give high fives all around because we made the smartest payoffs?

The beauty of college football has always been that the players are actually connected to the school, not free agents brought in for the highest bid, like the pros. They are students, taking classes, walking around campus, and sharing the very same pride we have as alumni or others that have followed VT and also feel strongly connected to the school and program.

Granted, the mercenary aspects seem to winning the day, but don't advocate hastening the demise of the game, which is what this cheating is going to do, if unchecked. We should be railing against it - or more importantly - railing against the NCAA, idly fiddling while the game goes up in smoke.

Coach, I am so in agreement with you on this issue. I do not want VT to ever compromise its integrity and pay for players. Never! To your point, if the recruits and/or family have their hands out while winking at their recruiters, then I don't want them. It's like stealing or even cheating in a relationship...once you do it and get away with it, it will accelerate and become addictive and eventually someone gets caught, hurt, or both.

In Clemson's case, they will get caught; its only a matter of time. USC-W bought the team that beat us at FedEx and eventually won the NC, but when all the details came out about what they had done, they had to give it all back. What an embarrassment for their school. Not sure the contributing alums cared, but that NC game will always have an asterisk next to it. It's a sad world we live in when people actually want to cheat to win in order to feel good about their programs, themselves,and even walk around bragging about their success.

I work for a Clemson grad (He's young; I'll teach him a lot). He openly admits they buy players and he isn't even a part of all that. He even says he believes they will eventually get caught. The clock is ticking. But you know, the most accurate thing he said, spoken with obvious envy, was that Clemson would love to have someone like Frank Beamer running their program.

I think we all agree that CFB is awesome and we can all be proud of the way our program is being run... If it takes cheating to get a top 5 class we don't want to go there, but if we can get a top 10 class by changing some of our tactics and being better salesmen - that's a different story.

But this whole topic is depressing, is college football really that corrupt? I'm counting on Crazy being right that it's only a few kids a year. But even still...

One would think someone has forwarded the damning photo's of Clemson recruits flashing wads of cash to the NCAA, they will get caught.

Our recruiting is getting better and I think it will continue to get better, I do think there is a ceiling to how high we can go. A move ot the SEC would be the only way we move into the top 10 recruiting classes or possibly another apprearance in the NC game.

Its only a few kids a year for us because we generally only recruit a handful of the top 100 or so. Not that only top 100 kids have their hands out, but its usually the top kids. Some schools deal with it far more than we do, those schools are usually the ones suspected of doing it. They know how to play the game, and they do it well.

I know for a fact that its gotten worse over the last 10 years or so. The Cam Newton story certainly didn't help things as it put it out there in no uncertain terms that you could get cash and get away with it.