Virginia Tech Fined $25,000 By The ACC For Their Involvement In The Wake Forest Scandal

[caption id="attachment_4462" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Justin Fuente, Whit Babcock, and Frank Beamer after the Drive For 25 announcement [Credit: Virginia Tech Athletics][/caption]Earlier this week, news broke that the Virginia Tech Hokies were involved in the leaked Wake Forest game-plan scandal via a Whit Babcock press release. Today, the Hokies and Louisville received their punishment from the ACC for their involvement in the scandal. https://twitter.com/RTD_MikeBarber/status/810241482632339456 https://twitter.com/jwgravley/status/810291634248286209 Virginia Tech and Louisville were both fined $25,000 by the ACC for their involvement in the Wake Forest leaked game-plan scandal. Virginia Tech has said that there is no evidence that more than former assistant knew of the gameplan before their 2014 game while Wake Forest gameplans were found in Louisville areas when the Cardinals and Demon Deacons faced off with co-offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway being implicated and suspended. The $25,000 fine won't be an issue at all for the Hokies to pay and be more of just a nuisance to have to deal with as part of dealing with Virginia Tech being implicated in this scandal. While Virginia Tech does deserve some sort of punishment for being involved in this scandal, what Virginia Tech did was not nearly as bad as Louisville based on what we know and therefore, Virginia Tech should not be punished the exact same as Louisville. Part of the reasoning the ACC may have for the equivalent punishment is that Louisville has suspended Galloway, but the Hokies also didn't have the option of punishing a former coach. Of course, the coach named for Virginia Tech is a 2014 with the Hokies allowing that coach or the school he currently works to reveal that coach's involvement and therefore, there is no punishment that Virginia Tech could give him. If the ACC is also basing this in part on PR, doesn't Virginia Tech deserve a lesser punishment for handling this situation in a professional way and apologizing immediately before any suspicisons came out that Virginia Tech was involved while Louisville failed to apologize with Tom Jurich basically calling it a distraction before suspending Lonnie Galloway days later after public pressure forced his hand. If this is what the ACC wanted, then Louisville should have faced a much more significant punishment. The fact that the ACC has also already fined both schools within a week of Wake Forest revealing their findings is quite quick and suggests that the ACC may not have done their due diligence, but primarily relied on seeing who had been named instead of looking at the details. Once again, both programs did deserve to be punished, but there is definitely a difference in the severity of the crime. It's if one person stole a pack of pop tarts and another person stole a car, just because the person that stole the car gifted them their previous car to sell doesn't mean that they should get an equivalent punishment with the guy who stole the pop tarts. When you don't commit the same crime, you shouldn't be given the same punishment. So here's what we know, the Virginia Tech use of this gameplan was limited to no more than the one individual assistant who may have not used that material at all in any sort of personal coaching strategy, gameplan, or playcalling while Louisville was found to have Wake Forest plays in their coaching areas after their game this past season yet despite this major difference, both teams were fined the same. #goACC Stay up with The Tech Lunch Pail for the latest on the Hokies via Facebook and Twitter plus subscribe to our email updates.