We’re on the precipice of football season and I figured I would ease into it by writing something that is as much about baseball as it is about football. I know some of you are done with Davey Martinez content now that he’s fired, but I’m not ready to let go of it quite yet. I also think he’s a very illustrative example of the path Virginia Tech football head coach Brent Pry has followed through the end of last season and provides a hopeful contrast going forward.
Davey and Pry both started out their tenures trying to win the publicity battle and differentiate themselves from the previous managers. In Davey’s very first spring training he brought out camels to illustrate how the Nats were going to “get over the hump” in the playoffs. Fairly pointed commentary on the reason why his predecessor, Dusty Baker, was fired. For Pry, as a former Hokies grad assistant at the beginning of the Frank Beamer hey-day and one of the few defensive coordinators still running the Bud Foster defense, it was all about getting back to the Hokies’ successful, local, roots. This was also in direct contrast to his predecessor, Justin Fuente, who faced criticism for letting local relationships languish in pursuit of Texas talent that often didn’t materialize.
Both coaches faceplanted out of the gate, with Pry going 3-8 including a loss at Old Dominion, and Davey missing the playoffs entirely with a lineup that included Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon, and Trea Turner. The next year both coaches led their teams to a great finish after a rough start, with Davey winning the World Series after a 19-31 start, and Pry finishing the year 6-3 and winning the Military Bowl (OK not quite the same prestige) after a 1-3 start. And while both seemed to find their footing as head coaches, the next season(s) brought embarrassment as their teams massively underperformed expectations due to depth and management issues ultimately concluding with an exodus of talent.
That is where we left Brent Pry and the Hokies after last season with so many talented players heading off to the NFL and a lot of questions about whether anyone can bring the Hokies to the top half of the ACC, let alone close to the Beamer heyday. Davey of course presents a cautionary tale for what can happen next as the Nats found themselves stuck in a four year rebuild with no end in sight leading to his dismissal. Luckily for Hokies fans and why I’m still optimistic about what Pry can do, this is also where the similarities end.
In 2022 Davey had the Nationals fire all of their World Series winning coaches and hired a crack squad of his best friends in their place. At no point did Davey show any introspection about what was going wrong or make any sort of changes to his approach. He kept sticking to the same, tired mantra of “go 1-0 today” even if it made no sense in the context of a rebuilding club that explicitly cared more about the future and a long-term trend than a single game. He continued to lead the league in relief pitcher overuse, injuring multiple promising relievers in the process. And he showed a nasty habit of embarrassing his young players on the field when they showed a modicum of joy and in the press when they made small errors in execution. Ultimately, when faced with the insurmountable evidence that his approach was wrong Davey took the opportunity to make the outlandish claim that coaches are never responsible when something goes wrong which, once the Lerners’ Entmoot concluded two weeks later, led to his firing.
To the contrary, Pry has been extremely candid about what went wrong last season, often placing the blame squarely on himself, and has taken multiple actions to fix it. Even more refreshingly, not once has Pry blamed the players for the poor performance. The closest he got to that was in saying that one of the Hokies’ issues was stamina and conditioning late in games leading to a lot of lost leads late in the game. But even then, he did not blame the players for the situation, instead he blamed the coaches’ training methods, fired the head strength and conditioning coach and instituted a new strength program in the offseason to try to better prepare his players for the grind of a full game.
That wasn’t the only coach he fired this offseason either. Unlike Davey, Pry started his tenure by hiring offensive (Tyler Bowen) and defensive (Chris Marve) coordinators who were friends who had no experience in the jobs they were going to perform. While the Hokies had some success on offense and defense, they frequently came up short in the ability to adjust on the fly and put every player in the best position to succeed. On the defensive side it was clear that Pry hired Marve with the expectation that he would be able to provide a lot of advice and support to the new DC. Instead, Pry often found himself stepping on Marve’s toes while also being distracted and missing key actions he was supposed to be taking as the head coach. For example, there have been multiple occasions where the Hokies would let 10 seconds run off the clock late in games because Pry was too distracted to take his timeout immediately.
Unlike Davey, Pry realized the problem and despite wanting to support a friend and mentee, made the decision to fire Marve and bring in a new defensive coordinator with FCS coordinator and NFL position coach experience to handle the defense, Sam Siefkes. Pry’s also admitted that he made mistakes and learned he needs to be more focused and attentive to his head coaching duties and trust his coaches to do their jobs. When Bowen decided to leave for a job at Ohio State, Pry did well to find an experienced offensive coordinator who can fit well with their QB room, even if he does not run the power running game Pry wanted when he started on the job in Philip Montgomery.
That ability to make mistakes and take the necessary and hard steps to try to rectify them makes Pry a significantly better leader than Martinez. I’m hopeful that means he is still the right man to lead the Hokies to greater success, while knowing that unlike in MLB, the talent gap can make it impossible to succeed in college football. Here’s hoping Pry can get the results his leadership deserves.
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