How Virginia Tech fell so far behind Clemson in a decade (2024)

BLACKSBURG, Va. — In a lot of people’s minds, the first result was a fluke.

With a new, shiny up-tempo offense under Chad Morris in 2011, Clemson had gone into Blacksburg and handed Virginia Tech with ease in an early October tilt, though it was the defense that stood out the most in a 23-3 Tigers win.

That was still against a fairly green Logan Thomas, who was making only his fourth career start at quarterback for the Hokies. And the way the rest of the regular season played out, the rematch between the two in the ACC championship game figured to lean heavily toward Tech. Thomas blossomed, running back David Wilson starred and Bud Foster’s defense was its usual dominant self as the Hokies ripped off seven consecutive wins to get up to No. 5 in the polls. The Tigers, meanwhile, scuffled to a 1-3 finish in the regular season.

While Clemson hadn’t won an ACC championship since Florida State joined the conference, Virginia Tech owned the league back then, claiming three of the previous four ACC titles and four in its seven years since leaving the Big East. That the Hokies went into the game as seven-point favorites didn’t surprise anybody.

What happened that night in Charlotte, a 38-10 rout by the Tigers after an explosive second half broke the game open, wasn’t necessarily a passing of the torch — that would ignore the highly successful Florida State interregnum from 2012-14 that included a national championship — but it did mark a tectonic shift in the power balance of the ACC.

Clemson was on its way to being the class of the league, a program that would win six league titles, make five appearances in the College Football Playoff and claim two national titles in the 2010s.

Virginia Tech, meanwhile, ceded its standing as the post-expansion ACC king, only once getting back to the ACC title game, twice winning nine or more games and going through a generational coaching change from Frank Beamer to Justin Fuente that hasn’t had the desired effect of getting the program back to its former glory.

How did these two divergent paths happen? How did a series that was so tilted in Virginia Tech’s favor for a stretch — the Hokies won five in a row against Clemson from 1998-2007, often handily — flip so significantly to where the Tigers have won five in a row and are 22-point favorites heading into Saturday’s matchup?

There’s not one single reason, but rather a confluence of factors that have led to the separation. Let’s examine them.

Infrastructure

Tim Bourret is a walking, talking encyclopedia when it comes to Clemson athletics. Ask how the Tigers’ soaring recent success happened and the former longtime Clemson sports information director is ready with a history lesson, one largely tied to football infrastructure.

“Obviously you start with the recruiting and the players and the talented players that we’ve gotten in here,” Bourret said. “Then you ask the question, maybe you go backward then: How did that happen?

“Well, an enhancement to infrastructure is something to consider. Clemson has a long history of significant changes to infrastructure that have led, with about a 3-4 year delay, to a positive outcome on the field.”

In 1934, Clemson started IPTAY (“I Pay Ten A Year”), its athletic fundraising organization. By 1940, the Tigers had broken into the polls and won the Southern Conference. In 1942, they built Death Valley. In 1948 and ’50, the Tigers had undefeated seasons. In 1973, they built a state-of-the-art football building. By 1978, they finished No. 6 nationally. In 1978, they built an upper deck to Memorial Stadium. In 1981, they won a national championship.

That building of infrastructure has been critical in Clemson’s recent rise too. The school started the process of building the West end zone facility in the stadium in 2005. Four years later, it won its first ACC Atlantic Division title. In 2009, the Tigers filled that facility out, moving over coaches offices and meeting rooms. They went 11-2 in both 2012 and ’13. In 2013, Clemson opened its indoor facility. Four years later, it won the national title. And in 2017, it finished the $55 million Reeves Football Complex — slides, mini-golf and all — on the heels of a national championship and amid what’s been as successful of a run as there’s been in college football lately.

That’s been a constant building and improvement to facilities with which Virginia Tech has had a tough time completely keeping pace. The Hokies have had their share of building projects, headlined by the $37 million South end zone expansion in 2002 and $52.5 million West side renovation in 2006 that transformed Lane Stadium, an $18 million locker room addition in 2009 and the $21.3 million Beamer-Lawson Indoor Practice Facility that opened in 2015.

Until recently, though, the Merryman Athletic Facility, the once state-of-the-art football building opened in 1998, and the adjacent Jamerson Athletic Center, had only undergone mostly cosmetic changes. That’s changing now with a significant renovation to the football weight room and meeting rooms, plus the soon-to-be-finished $20 million Student-Athlete Performance Center, which will handle athletes’ dining and nutrition needs, along with aiding donor hospitality and recruiting.

Even once competed, though, that’s still not a standalone football facility like Clemson has that’s all the rage in college football. Keeping up with the Joneses is hard in this day and age.

Fundraising

There’s been a drastic split in athletic department revenues between Clemson and Virginia Tech that didn’t exist even as recently as five years ago. In 2015, Clemson reported $83.5 million in athletic department revenue, according to USA Today’s annual database. Virginia Tech was close behind at $80.2 million.

In the last year figures were reported, 2019, that gap had grown considerably, with Clemson at $133.6 million and Virginia Tech at $96.7 million. That’s the difference between being 22nd nationally, comfortably among the Big Ten and SEC schools that receive larger conference payouts, and 42nd, where the Hokies reside in a neighborhood that includes West Virginia, Utah, Texas Tech and Iowa State.

Source: USA Today

Donations have been the biggest differentiator between the schools. From 2005-13, Virginia Tech reported a higher amount in annual donations to the athletic department than Clemson, according to USA Today, though that trend has reversed dramatically, with the Tigers kicking their fundraising operation into overdrive lately. From 2016-19, Clemson reported $154 million in donations to Virginia Tech’s $76.1 million.

Winning helps, obviously, as that giving spirit has coincided with a run of College Football Playoff appearances, but Clemson has been able to supercharge that thanks to a donation structure that’s been in place for decades. IPTAY, which Clemson calls the father of athletic fundraising, has been a driving force behind the Tigers’ improvements, with 17,115 donors as of 2019 and north of 25,000 members, figures that have been in the tens of thousands for a while.

It’s no wonder when Virginia Tech announced its “Drive for 25” campaign in 2016, seeking to boost Hokie Club membership from 11,000 to 25,000, its plan had many of the hallmarks of IPTAY, with athletic director Whit Babco*ck citing Clemson’s numbers as something to strive for.

The plan that Virginia Tech rolled out in 2016, tying many season ticket purchases to required giving levels, was something Clemson introduced in 2008 with its “seat equity plan” before raising the figures again in 2017, giving the Tigers a good head start.

Put simply, Clemson has a longer history of giving that’s more ingrained with the culture, a deeper pool of donors, a bigger stadium to pull donations from seat purchases (Memorial Stadium seats 81,500 to Lane Stadium’s 65,632) and fewer mouths to feed (Clemson will soon sponsor 16 sports after cutting men’s track and field and cross country, while Virginia Tech sponsors 22 programs). With a fundraising apparatus that was well set up to capitalize on the Tigers’ success, it’s easy to see how a gulf exists between them and the Hokies.

The man in charge

All that money doesn’t matter if you don’t have the right person running the show. It’s why Florida State is where it is, despite having the deepest reservoir of revenue in the ACC.

Clemson hit the jackpot when it handed the keys to Dabo Swinney, an unconventional choice for a head coach who served on an interim basis when Tommy Bowden resigned in 2008, before getting the position full-time despite never having been a coordinator. What a hire he’s been, though, going 138-32 in 13 seasons and winning two national titles.

“Even though he had not been a coordinator, he had a great sixth sense about all aspects of the program. Not just X’s and O’s, not just recruiting, but all aspects of it,” Bourret said. “I thought he’d be successful, but five straight trips to the College Football Playoff? This level of success, I couldn’t have predicted that for anybody.”

Swinney had seen success during his formative years, as a player first from 1990-92 and later as an assistant coach at Alabama up to 2000. So he knows a thing or two about building a football culture, one that’s been established at Clemson that can best be described as fun and familial. Swinney is the outgoing and gregarious face of that operation that’s been attractive for players and in lockstep with the administration’s goals.

“The basic personality of our head coach has got a lot to do with it,” Bourret said. “I guess a word you can talk about is culture. He changed the culture and has brought such a positive culture to the place.”

Virginia Tech, meanwhile, is suffering from an identity crisis. All the great things said about Swinney over the past decade applied to Beamer during his run. Though perhaps not as charismatic as Sweeney, Beamer was every bit as friendly, if not more, someone who could walk into the living room of any recruit and relate on a personal level. If there’s a constant critique of Fuente, it’s that he’s something of an introvert, far preferring the coaching aspect over the outreach parts of the job. That’s not an ideal characteristic in a football bubble like Blacksburg, where football is the first thing on everyone’s mind.

Things had inarguably slipped a little in Beamer’s final seasons, too, something not uncommon for coaching legends in the twilight of their time on the sideline. That, combined with what’s been a rocky transition to Fuente (despite what appeared to be a smooth start) and longtime defensive coordinator Bud Foster’s recent retirement, has the Hokies with an unfamiliar level of upheaval for a program that was once the steadiest in the country.

While Swinney’s been hitting on all cylinders for more than a decade now, Virginia Tech is longing for the stability and success the Hall of Famer Beamer brought to the program and unsure if Fuente is the right person for the job going forward.

Recruiting and player development

Clemson has always had a built-in geographic advantage in recruiting. Yes, it’s an isolated college town like Blacksburg, but it also happens to be smack dab in the Southeast, where most of the blue-chip talent resides.

As such, the Tigers always had a slightly higher recruiting ceiling than the Hokies, something evident in the rankings. Even before Clemson turned itself into a recruiting juggernaut recently, it had classes ranked 15th, 14th, 16th and ninth in the 247Sports Composite from 2005-09. All of those are higher than Virginia Tech’s best national rank in the internet recruiting era, 18th in 2008.

But Clemson has tapped into its full recruiting potential in recent years, with classes in the top 16 in each of the past nine years and, if you count the way the 2021 group is tracking, five top-10 finishes.

Virginia Tech, meanwhile, has languished at times over the past decade. Beamer’s last class, which ended up signing under Fuente, ranked 42nd nationally, and though the Hokies had three years with an average rank of 25.3 to start Fuente’s tenure, they dropped to 76th last year and are currently 41st for 2021.

Source: 247Sports Composite

The recruiting operation might go a long way in explaining that. Swinney, who was Clemson’s recruiting coordinator before taking over as head coach, has been attentive to that part of the program for his entire run, understanding the work and staff necessary to make it hum.

“Obviously being in tune and following the Alabama program as he has, having played there and everything, he took great notice of the expansion and staff that (Nick) Saban was doing,” Bourret said. “And that’s one thing that Dabo has patterned after the Alabama program was getting people involved in the recruiting office. And I think that investment in personnel has really been a positive.”

That’s been an uphill battle at Virginia Tech, where the Hokies, for the longest time under Beamer, operated with a barebones staff. They didn’t establish a modern recruiting department until Chuck Cantor and Thomas Guerry were hired in 2014 as the director of player personnel and director of high school relations, respectively. Even recently, funding additional support staff positions highly involved in recruiting has been a significant undertaking. Clemson, meanwhile, has had an army of analysts, player development positions and senior assistants for years.

Granted, recruiting rankings aren’t everything. And, despite whatever rankings were assigned to classes back in the day, Virginia Tech used to consistently outproduce Clemson with the talent leaving the program, a testament to identifying underrated prospects in the recruiting process and player development.

From 1994-2004, Virginia Tech had 40 players taken in the NFL Draft to Clemson’s 26. Those figures were tighter from 2005-11, with the Hokies having 32 draftees and the Tigers 28. Since 2012, though, Clemson has had 49 players drafted, including 12 first-rounders. Tech has had only 22 in that time, with four first-rounders.

Whether it’s coming in or going out, Clemson has simply attracted and produced more talent in recent years.

Staff identification and retention

One of Swinney’s biggest achievements has been managing his staff of assistants, knowing when changes were needed, identifying capable replacements and, if they’re truly special, retaining them.

Two of the biggest hires of his run have been Morris as offensive coordinator and Brent Venables as defensive coordinator. Morris transformed Clemson’s offense at the start of its run, with Tajh Boyd as an underrated engine. Then he was as big of a factor in the Tigers landing Deshaun Watson as anyone, even if he didn’t end up coaching the star quarterback much before leaving for a head coaching job at SMU. Swinney brought Morris on in 2011 after firing Billy Napier, who in 2009 had an offense that set the school record for points but saw a steep decline in 2010.

Now in his ninth year, Venables has turned Clemson into a defensive juggernaut, his success not unlike Foster’s as an aide to Beamer. Swinney made the move to Venables by firing Kevin Steele on the heels of the ACC championship season in 2011, one that ended with an embarrassing 70-33 Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia.

What might be more impressive than Swinney’s knack for making moves at the right time, though, is his retention of those coaches. The Tigers have had a relatively low coaching churn in the past decade, and when they have left, it’s often for an opportunity like Jeff Scott had in getting the head coaching job at South Florida.

Virginia Tech has had more of a rotating cast of assistants over the past decade, first when Beamer tried to change the course of his final years by overhauling the offensive staff, then with near-wholesale changes during the Fuente transition and again last year on the defensive side with Foster’s retirement. Just to contrast the two programs in one specific spot, Robbie Caldwell has been Clemson’s offensive line coach since 2011. In that time, the Hokies have had four O-line coaches.

Money helps that retention, and Swinney was smart enough to pour resources into staffing early in his career, long before he was a $9 million-a-year coach. When he was making just more than $2 million in 2012, he upped Morris’ pay to $1.3 million. Venables got a half-million dollar bump to $1.4 million in 2015.

Virginia Tech and Clemson were once offering comparable salaries for assistants, but the Tigers have lapped the Hokies in that department. In 2009, the Hokies paid their assistants $2.037 million, while Clemson paid its assistants $1.857 million. In 2012, Venables’ first year and right after the big bump for Morris, Clemson nearly doubled Tech’s assistant pay ($4.246 million to $2.411 million). In 2019? The Tigers paid assistants $7.410 million, second-most nationally to only Alabama. The Hokies were 37th at $3.670 million.

That’s a far cry from 2000, when Beamer nearly took the North Carolina job, instead staying with Virginia Tech and securing additional money for his assistants that gave the Hokies the third-highest paid staff in the country, behind only Texas and NC State.

Of course, money isn’t the only reason assistants stay. Foster, for instance, could have cashed in at a deeper-pocketed school many times in his career if he wanted to. He chose to stay at Tech primarily for one reason: He enjoyed working for Beamer so much.

Swinney has fostered that family feel among assistants during his time at Clemson, stealing a page from the Bobby Bowden playbook at Florida State with Wednesday night dinners.

“That’s when all the assistant coaches and their families, they’d have a family dinner and they’d eat with the team,” Bourret said. “So you had the team and all the families there. So it really did add to the family aspect of things. And I just think that has something to do with the retention rate that he’s had with his assistant coaches.”

If there’s a maxim in college football, it’s that nothing lasts forever. All the great dynasties tumble at some point, as short-term as that might be.

What’s less certain is that success during one certain period of time under one specific regime will last in future generations, especially with changing surroundings. Clemson has had success before this, winning a national title in 1981 and five ACC championships in the ’80s. And it’s positioned financially to sustain this current run with the proper leadership and stewardship.

Virginia Tech is more of a question mark. Beamer undoubtedly tapped into something special during his heyday from 1995-2011. The Hokies were once football nomads who overcame shortcomings in resources to get on a level playing field and force their way onto the national stage.

But the college football world has changed since then, especially financially. Clemson’s found a way to elevate its program that not too long ago was playing catch-up to the Hokies, doing so through coaching, fundraising, recruiting and a clear vision for the program’s direction.

It’s fair to ask after a decade of malaise: Is it possible for Virginia Tech to do the same?

(Top photo of Logan Thomas: David T. Foster III / Charlotte Observer / Tribune News Service via Getty Images)