I have said it before, but it’s worth saying again, if you build it, they will come.
That has been the case for Virginia Tech football coach Brent Pry who begins his third season in charge of the Hokies this upcoming fall with big expectations. Why are there big expectations? Well, for starters, he got a lot of retainment from his 2023 roster from key and impactful players and he has had a very good winter and spring in the transfer portal.
Add all of those together and you have a program and fanbase that can’t wait for the season to get here quick enough. Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock recently spoke about Pry and his staff and what they hope to give the fanbase sooner rather than later.
Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock speaks highly of Brent Pry and the retainment he has got
Babcock hired Pry away from Penn State three years ago and he has seen his coach go from 3-8 in his first season with a roster he didn’t recruit to 7-6 last fall after starting 1-3 and capping off the season with a Military Bowl win over Tulane. Factor in all the retainment that he got from key contributors, it’s easy to see why it’s settting up to be an exciting fall in Blacksburg.
Babcock spoke to Eric MacLain on the MacLain & Gramlich show about Pry and the excitement brewing for the fanbase.
“For the past four, maybe five years, we’ve been selling hope and patience. So it’s a nice change of pace to be back in the expectations game and trying to tamp that down some. Going back to the fanbase, they’re hungry, they’ve shown up. When we get this thing rolling, it ought to be off the charts. They’ve gone through some downtimes with us and again, just makes us want to reward them. With the returning roster, everything that Coach Pry has done, retention of our current team, we got a couple more days in the portal, and really with Coach Pry, you learn a lot more about coaches during a losing season than a winning season. You hope not to go through them, but winning can cover up some culture issues. Really for Coach Pry to come in his first year with a team he didn’t recruit and go 3-8, then retain the team and they played hard through the end. Last year we started slow, finished strong and I believe it speaks a lot to his culture and the excitement that we have. Virginia Tech needs to be great for our sake. The ACC needs us to be great and hopefully this is a big step in that direction.”
– Whit Babcock
He’s not wrong and you can point to many reasons why the culture is working so well, but let’s not overlook the fact that he’s striking it big in the transfer portal and getting players from Florida, Oklahoma, and Alabama to commit to playing at Virginia Tech. The train is rolling quickly and is expected to pick up speed this season.