The word "fit" can be one of the most overused words in sports in terms of coaching searches yet after an era where Justin Fuente just didn't seem to fit in, Whit Babcock made clear that finding the right fit was a top priority.
That is undoubtedly what Brent Pry embodies, a right fit for Virginia Tech.
Now being the right fit doesn't guarantee anything, but it enables a deep understanding that opens a lot more doors from success because the Virginia Tech football program has a hard nose, aggressive defense, lunch pail identity and mentality engrained into the program. No one can change that and finding some who embraces that and even played a role in building that makes a whole lot of sense for getting this program back right.
Pry is a guy who understands the importance of recruiting the Commonwealth of Virginia and gold mine it can be. The fact is that Pry was one of the biggest reason why Penn State was able to be like vikings in raiding the Commonwealth for numerous big time players from Devyn Ford to Ricky Slade to Brandon Smith to Yetur Gross-Matos to Ellis Brooks and so many more.
Pry fits the cultural side of Virginia Tech understanding that fans want to be a part of this program and have ownership at least from his initial words and actions that included getting up before 6am to check out the Corps of Cadets. It shows in how he set up a meet-and-greet with former players who laid the foundation to make the clear that the door to Blacksburg was wide open, and that this was their program and still is their program.
Yes, statements in press releases can be designed for PR reasons but the use of "our program" by Frank Beamer and Bud Foster, and the excitement Pry to do that reads deeply true. Even Billy Hite making jokes to our colleague Aaron McFarling of the Roanoke Times (go to his Twitter feed for more) brings back many memories of a once long era.
What's clear is that Brent Pry fits what Virginia Tech is about and that gives him a much better opportunity to win here that those who don't naturally fit.
The hiring of Pry has also revealed a clear trend in how Whit Babcock has made second hires at the three programs where he has had to do that so far, that finding the right fit is the most important factor and the splashy-ness of the hire isn't as big of a worry.
Let's think about the three sports where Babcock has made two head coaching hires: football, men's basketball, and volleyball.
In hiring Justin Fuente, he landed one of the hottest coaching names in America at the time in 2016. With Buzz Williams, it was the time of home run splash that no one could have ever imagined ending up in Blacksburg. And in Jill Wilson, Tech landed a big time SEC assistant who seemed to be rising in the business.
The Williams hire worked out excellently being a jolt to the Virginia Tech MBB program that was needed while Fuente and Wilson both ended up not having long tenures.
While all three undoubtedly wanted to be at Virginia Tech, you could make easy arguments that all three were people climbing the ladder and while they saw Virginia Tech high up it, it was more in line with the national view.
We saw that with Buzz Williams moving back to his roots to take the Texas A&M job and if Justin Fuente would have been successful, he's probably being talked about as a top candidate for the open job at Oklahoma.
In the second wave of hires for these three programs, Whit Babcock has clearly made fit a much greater priority than just hiring the splashy name hiring highly successfully coaches that might not have the same amount of buzz but are well-respected and see Virginia Tech as we as alums see it, as a destination job.
Look at Mike Young who had built a strong reputation at Wofford that everyone respected and could have easily moved to another power job sooner in his career. Yet Young waited for the right moment to return home to the place where he fell in love with the sport of basketball as a kid constantly checking off that fit box again and again, and emerging as the closest thing to a Frank Beamer figure for a VT coach since Beamer's retirement.
Marci Byers may not be a Virginia native but she attended Virginia Union in high school and had been a prolific coach at Radford while her husband was an assistant basketball coach at VCU. Those may not be as deep of ties to VT, but there's no doubt that she's become engrained in the Commonwealth of Virginia over recent years and is a cultural fit at one of the Commonwealth's two ACC programs.
And then there's Brent Pry who played his high school football at Lexington High School coached by Bryan Stinespring, was a grad assistant in the legendary mid-1990s starting with that 1995 Sugar Bowl champion team that put Virginia Tech on the map as a national power for the next 15+ years and jokes about one of his best VT memories being on Bourbon Street with J.C. Price and Wes Worsham after that game.
This is a guy who called Virginia Tech a "Mecca" that he wanted to be at and insiders have said has been hesitant to entertain head coaching opportunities until Virginia Tech came up. Pry may not have been a head coach previously like Young and Byers, but he is right in that "fit being a priority" mold that Whit Babcock has established.
What's clear is that when Whit Babcock said he wanted the right fit on many fronts, he's meant it and has found that right fit for Virginia Tech in Brent Pry.
The question is can Pry now lead the Hokies back to the national power that he helped build in the mid-1990s? We're all about to find out.
