I think we’re in for 3 disappointing seasons but the program to be on the rise afterwards. This assumes that the 24 recruiting cycle will go better for us and continue an upward swing afterwards.
This was my outlook when Tony E was hired, it hasn’t changed. I had very bad vibes about this season before Bronco quit and didn’t see things turning around anytime soon with him. Someone smarter than me said after the Orange Bowl season that he thought the Bronco era peaked and it would go downhill after that. He was prophetic.
Are you in my head? I don’t want to admit to the 3 year turnaround but I think that’s the likely timetable. I also agree, this season was going to be rough with or without Bronco. The Orange Bowl trip was fun, but it wasn’t real, but the Hoos were the the back up plan. Last year the Hoos gimmicked their way into gaudy stats and then crashed and burned with the worst trick play in history. The chances of duplicating that success was always going to be slim.
TE has to create culture and develop players while implementing a new offense and building a defense from scratch. Yes he inherited some talent Wicks and Armstrong. But there’s not any true high end talent outside of them, and I’d argue that Armstrong is not high end talent. He is very good. Yes, TE is starting from a better spot than Bronco did when he took over from London, but it’s not like he got a program on a silver platter. Probably closer to when Groh took over for Welsh or London for Groh.
The ineptitude of the ACC will help him and switching conference formats next year will provide a nice wrinkle as well.
My advice to you is that if you find yourself in agreement with me, you should reconsider your views.
But I really was distressed over where the program was headed late last season and I don’t expect miracles immediately from Tony E. Had they been able to retain the OL, maybe I’d feel better about this season, but still thought there would be a drop off for a couple seasons afterward.
I think y’all have some heavy orange and blue glasses on if you think we are going to suck this year but turn it around in year 3 or 4. What’s going to spark the turnaround on the trail if we don’t make a bowl this year? Coach Elliott getting some singing lessons and impressing recruits with his rendition of the good ole song? Sucks he’s in this position but I’m fairly confident Elliott will either make a bowl this year or be packing his things 4-5 years from now.
Slow and steady improvement recruiting the O-Line? And D-line? Following slow and steady improvement on the field? I don’t have a well-developed theory of the case here, but I don’t really see this year as so make or break. If we are brutal? Yeah, recruiting will be tougher. But, I think we can underachieve this year, and not necessarily run Tony out of town.
If this season goes poorly, and then TE brings in a great recruiting haul, I think we’ll all feel fine about the future. The problem is, we believe a poor season is likely to lead to a poor recruiting haul. And there’s obviously some reason to expect correlation there. But it’s not definitive.
I guess what I’m saying is what’s most going to influence my outlook on the program’s future is the next recruiting class. This coming season is therefore important, to the extent that it influences that.
If you aren’t planning and expecting some form of improvement over a 5 yrs period then why are you even watching or playing along? If that’s not the bare minimum expectation what is?
I’m expecting improvement because I expect us to be decent this year. 7-5 type of season. Brennan and the receiving corps are just too good not win that many against a schedule as bad as ours. Then TE can point to that and start to do better on the trail.
What I’m not understanding is where those of y’all expecting to miss a bowl this year are expecting the improvement to come from. Seems the entirety of that hope comes from our oline being inexperienced this year and so it will have to be more experienced in the future. Or that somehow our staff, that didn’t get a new coach recruiting bump, is going to somehow get a ‘missing a bowl game’ recruiting bump? What am I missing?
There’s little impact the 2022 seasons going to have on the 2023 recruiting class. Almost everyone of note will have committed by October.
What this season will help is 2023 transfer recruiting. Those guys will see where we have openings and can see clear plying time and have an understanding of our scheme and if that’s the best fit for their skills.
Seems like you voice this take just about every time you discuss uva football. The Vegas over under for the year is 7.5 so might be time to put your money where your keyboard is (or something like that).
There’s a weak version of your view that I agree with, which is: there’s a feedback loop between on field success and recruiting. Totally agree. But I don’t agree with the stronger version: that we need to be 7-5 or better or else recruiting is cooked.
I always have to caveat this with the fact that I don’t follow football like I used to, but I’m inclined to view the relationship between on field success and recruiting as meaningful, but not ironclad.
I mean, that’s an easy under. Our ceiling is maybe 8 wins? So to win the over, pretty much everything has to go right for us. If we hit or even mildly exceed expectations, that’s 6-7 wins.
I think 6.5 or even 6 would’ve been a way harder line to bet.
Yup, the last few years, Vegas has had no clue what to do with the Hoos. Last year had them at 4.5 easy over. And this year 7.5 is ridiculous. Jumped on it as soon as I saw it.
