New Head Coach at Richlands

[tornado99 345]

I certain that this isn’t an option being discussed. Like sixcat, the mention spurred me to look back as well. 
I am still curious about the staff though. Maybe, it was disassociation with the past? Maybe, he was tough to work for or with? Regardless, a few of those assistants who did not come back joined Coach Mance when we was hired as successor.

[Hokiebird7 1,416]

1 hour ago, BandanaVTDavis4321 said:

2 Takes From the Above. The first is...Dennis Vaught would be about 66 years old today. Number two, Va Tech hired the wrong guy and should have taken Vaught instead of Stiney. StIney never took credit for a bad offense or bad game or his 102nd nationally ranked offenses for over 3 years in a row. He would simply blame "execution." 

Stiney was bad but frank has to take some of the blame for those awful offenses too

[Hokie Bound 107]

On 11/22/2023 at 8:06 PM, old_school_blue said:

His name is Vaught.

And he lives off Exit 7 in Bristol near on Clear Creek Golf Course. You can say what you want about the man but he can definiely coach.

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,717]

41 minutes ago, Hokiebird7 said:

Stiney was bad but frank has to take some of the blame for those awful offenses too

100 percent agree. 110 percent agree of its possible. 2006 through 2008, VT s offenses ranked outside of 100th in America and Beamer kept him. Fans outraged and remember the Hokie Hotline calls and the famous call from "Jason" in Northern Va.

"Coach Beamer, I know we are winning ACC titles and our overall record is solid, but dont you think that if we had an offense just ranked in the top 30, we might have a shot at a national title and what changes are you willing to make because it seems Bud Foster is carrying the load for Coach Stinespring."  If anyone recalls, Beamer went off on the caller.

Stiney should have been fired at the end of 2006, then 2007, then even 2008! What did Beamer do? He doubled down and kept him. In 2012ish, the fan outrage reached a point to where we kind of hired a new OC in unproven Scott Loeffler. Stiney wasn't fired. Stiney was assigned to set directly beside him in the coaches box! LMAO. It was laughable and of course, the fans bought it hook and sinker and started blaming Loeffler when the defacto OC was still setting directly beside him in the press box. 

The biggest flaw or mistake Beamer made at VT that in my opinion, and we have still never fully recovered from it and that is keeping Stinespring for a good 5 to 6 years after he should have been fired. With that written, Beamer did far more good and his stent as HC of VT was obviously a gigantic success and I'm grateful to have had him.

[BandanaVTDavis4321 1,717]

3 minutes ago, Hokie Bound said:

And he lives off Exit 7 in Bristol near on Clear Creek Golf Course. You can say what you want about the man but he can definiely coach.

Absolutely. I've said this for years. Yes, the cleats thing and really ugly personal choices when he was still not even 36 years old and that doesn't excuse it, but many either forgot or don't know the brain power of this cat on the field/xs and os. I've seen a many of em because I'm older, and I haven't seen any at the HS level better than Vaught. I've seen a many of em just as good, but not better. Said this for years, an absolute "Field Wizzard" for HS football. Again, me talking about his on field coaching ability and a justification for his behavior are entirely 2 different things. 

[Hokie Bound 107]

13 minutes ago, BandanaVTDavis4321 said:

Absolutely. I've said this for years. Yes, the cleats thing and really ugly personal choices when he was still not even 36 years old and that doesn't excuse it, but many either forgot or don't know the brain power of this cat on the field/xs and os. I've seen a many of em because I'm older, and I haven't seen any at the HS level better than Vaught. I've seen a many of em just as good, but not better. Said this for years, an absolute "Field Wizzard" for HS football. Again, me talking about his on field coaching ability and a justification for his behavior are entirely 2 different things. 

I totally agree with your perspective. I've heard several coaches say no one knows their Xs and Os better than Dennis Vaught.

[Ryan4VT 4,554]

On 11/23/2023 at 7:10 AM, Gridiron60 said:

Ronnie Davis with maybe a possibility of Snake leaving Graham to help him

Vegas has this scenario at -110. 

[tornado99 345]

5 hours ago, Hokie Bound said:

And he lives off Exit 7 in Bristol near on Clear Creek Golf Course. You can say what you want about the man but he can definiely coach.

Agreed.

[tornado99 345]

How would you guys that remember describe the results before the Vaught and Mance hires? My recollection, although limited, was consistently poor or mediocre with occasional solid seasons. If that is the case, why? If I recall, Richlands had a comparatively high enrollment. 
 

I remember some insights via posts from Richlands alum, but am curious of details. My memories begin 1986, but the playoff game in 1987 with Virginia High is my first vivid memory for context.

[hoard 18]

8 hours ago, sixcat said:

One would think. But his name goes back to the very beginning of this thread. Which is why I began reading about him online. I’ve always heard the name but never really knew anything about him. I hadn’t even put together, he was the head coach during cleat-gate. 

He was a really good coach. It's a shame he made such bad decisions. It would've been interesting to see what direction his career would have taken had he been able to stay out of his own way.

[hoard 18]

1 hour ago, tornado99 said:

How would you guys that remember describe the results before the Vaught and Mance hires? My recollection, although limited, was consistently poor or mediocre with occasional solid seasons. If that is the case, why? If I recall, Richlands had a comparatively high enrollment. 
 

I remember some insights via posts from Richlands alum, but am curious of details. My memories begin 1986, but the playoff game in 1987 with Virginia High is my first vivid memory for context.

Richlands under Bruce Evans, who coached through 1986, had solid talent but always seemed to underachieve. I remember he ran the wishbone and conservative 3 RB offenses were more commonplace at the time.

Haun's first RHS team in 87 with Adam Lallande and Mike Compton was loaded. He ran a more modern offense than Evans but still didn't win at the level he probably should have, especially that first year. 

 

[RichlandsAlum 678]

2 hours ago, tornado99 said:

How would you guys that remember describe the results before the Vaught and Mance hires? My recollection, although limited, was consistently poor or mediocre with occasional solid seasons. If that is the case, why? If I recall, Richlands had a comparatively high enrollment. 
 

I remember some insights via posts from Richlands alum, but am curious of details. My memories begin 1986, but the playoff game in 1987 with Virginia High is my first vivid memory for context.

I'll offer the following thoughts for the period from 1970 until Vaught arrived 20 years later:

-  Competition was extremely fierce.  Most years within the SWD there were at least 5-7 teams who were fully capable of capturing at least the second sport in the playoffs.

-  Opportunities for advancement were limited.  Until 1986 only two teams from each district made the playoffs.

-  The well developed midget league program had no obvious connection to the varsity football program.

-  Expectations for success were consistently high but not always consistently based on logic.

-  The Blues actually lost a lot of close games during that period.  And in some seasons that produced a "snowball" effect and/or momentum that was impossible to break.

-  There was a lot of other stuff going on in the community that distracted people from playing and/or watching football.  (Not all of that was bad.  Richlands experienced a kind of "boom" period from the late '60s until about 1980 that fed the relatively large enrollment.)

Vaught was actually the first coach with the apparent aptitude to move the program to reach its fullest potential.  I know that when he arrived he viewed Richlands as a "sleeping giant."

[RichlandsAlum 678]

30 minutes ago, hoard said:

Richlands under Bruce Evans, who coached through 1986, had solid talent but always seemed to underachieve. I remember he ran the wishbone and conservative 3 RB offenses were more commonplace at the time.

Haun's first RHS team in 87 with Adam Lallande and Mike Compton was loaded. He ran a more modern offense than Evans but still didn't win at the level he probably should have, especially that first year. 

 

I've always felt that the success of the 1987 team was largely a combination of Billy Haun's offense and the disciplined players that had been developed by Bruce Evans.  Unfortunately for Haun, that specific team was also blessed with talent on both the offensive and defensive lines that graduated with that particular class.  

The point about winning consistently is well made, and that was a really frustrating aspect of Richlands football prior to Vaught's arrival.  We simply didn't win the big games in which we were competitive enough to prevail.  And we also dropped a lot of games in inexplicable fashion back in those days (like 41-16 to Virginia High in the regular season in 1987 and losing to Grundy in 1984 one week after we'd beaten a really tough Tazewell team).  But it definitely wasn't boring.

 

[tornado99 345]

30 minutes ago, RichlandsAlum said:

I'll offer the following thoughts for the period from 1970 until Vaught arrived 20 years later:

-  Competition was extremely fierce.  Most years within the SWD there were at least 5-7 teams who were fully capable of capturing at least the second sport in the playoffs.

-  Opportunities for advancement were limited.  Until 1986 only two teams from each district made the playoffs.

-  The well developed midget league program had no obvious connection to the varsity football program.

-  Expectations for success were consistently high but not always consistently based on logic.

-  The Blues actually lost a lot of close games during that period.  And in some seasons that produced a "snowball" effect and/or momentum that was impossible to break.

-  There was a lot of other stuff going on in the community that distracted people from playing and/or watching football.  (Not all of that was bad.  Richlands experienced a kind of "boom" period from the late '60s until about 1980 that fed the relatively large enrollment.)

Vaught was actually the first coach with the apparent aptitude to move the program to reach its fullest potential.  I know that when he arrived he viewed Richlands as a "sleeping giant."

Thanks for the insight. I remember huge crowds and high expectations, but looking at four seasons football, the scores and records did not make sense. 
My somewhat simple minded approach was always big linemen, but little speed. A speedy tailback was the difference between success and futility. We always failed to beat Tazewell, no matter how good we were. Vaught seemed to change the results. If I recall correctly, his first year began a run of consecutive victories over Tazewell after losing several in a row.

[RichlandsAlum 678]

1 minute ago, tornado99 said:

Thanks for the insight. I remember huge crowds and high expectations, but looking at four seasons football, the scores and records did not make sense. 
My somewhat simple minded approach was always big linemen, but little speed. A speedy tailback was the difference between success and futility. We always failed to beat Tazewell, no matter how good we were. Vaught seemed to change the results. If I recall correctly, his first year began a run of consecutive victories over Tazewell after losing several in a row.

Honestly, I don't think we were lacking at the skill positions.  For as many games as we lost during 1980s, we had a pretty steady stream of talented running backs beginning with Sandy Rogers.  We just seemed to be unusually snake bitten relative to other teams around us.

The Tazewell series is a great reference point and we definitely seemed to be in our own heads when it came to playing them -- particularly during that six year losing streak from 1985 through 1990.  One of those games is a perfect example of my reference to the close games we lost and the level of competition overall during our years of struggle.  Tazewell won the state championship in 1986 whereas we went 4-6.  One might assume that they would have beaten the daylights out of us in our regular season matchup that year.  But the actual score of that game was only 9-6 in favor of the Bulldogs.

If you look closely at Rick's work on four seasons (and kudos again to him for that), there are countless examples of that sort of thing.  For instance....  The 1975 Richlands team started the season with 8 straight wins, but ultimately lost their last two (including a 2-0 loss at Marion) which knocked them out of the playoffs.  And on the flip side, Gate City won the SWD championship and was undefeated within league play in 1977.  But they only beat us 14-6.  (That year we finished 3-6-1.  The tie came against Patrick Henry -- who had lost 27 straight games heading into that matchup dating back to 1974.  We played the very worst and the very best teams in the district that year within a week of each other and we were almost equally competitive against both.  That was the epitome of Richlands football during that time period.)

[tornado99 345]

7 minutes ago, RichlandsAlum said:

Honestly, I don't think we were lacking at the skill positions.  For as many games as we lost during 1980s, we had a pretty steady stream of talented running backs beginning with Sandy Rogers.  We just seemed to be unusually snake bitten relative to other teams around us.

The Tazewell series is a great reference point and we definitely seemed to be in our own heads when it came to playing them -- particularly during that six year losing streak from 1985 through 1990.  One of those games is a perfect example of my reference to the close games we lost and the level of competition overall during our years of struggle.  Tazewell won the state championship in 1986 whereas we went 4-6.  One might assume that they would have beaten the daylights out of us in our regular season matchup that year.  But the actual score of that game was only 9-6 in favor of the Bulldogs.

If you look closely at Rick's work on four seasons (and kudos again to him for that), there are countless examples of that sort of thing.  For instance....  The 1975 Richlands team started the season with 8 straight wins, but ultimately lost their last two (including a 2-0 loss at Marion) which knocked them out of the playoffs.  And on the flip side, Gate City won the SWD championship and was undefeated within league play in 1977.  But they only beat us 14-6.  (That year we finished 3-6-1.  The tie came against Patrick Henry -- who had lost 27 straight games heading into that matchup dating back to 1974.  We played the very worst and the very best teams in the district that year within a week of each other and we were almost equally competitive against both.  That was the epitome of Richlands football during that time period.)

That explains it. What a roller coaster of emotions for a football-crazed town that you wouldn’t want to raise a family! (Just kidding, referring to Haun’s comments in the article posted in the thread. Obviously, I disagree with his comments if that was an accurate quote.)

[hoard 18]

9 hours ago, RichlandsAlum said:

Honestly, I don't think we were lacking at the skill positions.  For as many games as we lost during 1980s, we had a pretty steady stream of talented running backs beginning with Sandy Rogers.  We just seemed to be unusually snake bitten relative to other teams around us.

The Tazewell series is a great reference point and we definitely seemed to be in our own heads when it came to playing them -- particularly during that six year losing streak from 1985 through 1990.  One of those games is a perfect example of my reference to the close games we lost and the level of competition overall during our years of struggle.  Tazewell won the state championship in 1986 whereas we went 4-6.  One might assume that they would have beaten the daylights out of us in our regular season matchup that year.  But the actual score of that game was only 9-6 in favor of the Bulldogs.

If you look closely at Rick's work on four seasons (and kudos again to him for that), there are countless examples of that sort of thing.  For instance....  The 1975 Richlands team started the season with 8 straight wins, but ultimately lost their last two (including a 2-0 loss at Marion) which knocked them out of the playoffs.  And on the flip side, Gate City won the SWD championship and was undefeated within league play in 1977.  But they only beat us 14-6.  (That year we finished 3-6-1.  The tie came against Patrick Henry -- who had lost 27 straight games heading into that matchup dating back to 1974.  We played the very worst and the very best teams in the district that year within a week of each other and we were almost equally competitive against both.  That was the epitome of Richlands football during that time period.)

I think a big reason for the all inexplicable scores of that time period is largely due to the style of play. The SWD and SW Virginia in general for decades was known for its 2 TE, 3 RB offenses like the T, wishbone and Power I that didn't pass much, just trying to grind it out and knock the crap out of people and limit mistakes.

That lends itself to fewer possessions, lower scores and lower average margins of victory (as opposed to today where so many teams run a version of the spread, read option, etc that gets players in space). Other variables like bad field / weather conditions or a random turnover / busted play or just getting a key defensive stop end up having a bigger impact. It was fairly common back then to see a team win games with 150 yards (or even less) of total offense.

It's rather ironic in that back then I used to complain about having to watch all those types of offenses, wishing teams would open it up more.  Now I'd love to see more teams play that style, particularly an underdog against a really good spread team (like the year Gate City beat Gretna).

[tornado99 345]

41 minutes ago, hoard said:

I think a big reason for the all inexplicable scores of that time period is largely due to the style of play. The SWD and SW Virginia in general for decades was known for its 2 TE, 3 RB offenses like the T, wishbone and Power I that didn't pass much, just trying to grind it out and knock the crap out of people and limit mistakes.

That lends itself to fewer possessions, lower scores and lower average margins of victory (as opposed to today where so many teams run a version of the spread, read option, etc that gets players in space). Other variables like bad field / weather conditions or a random turnover / busted play or just getting a key defensive stop end up having a bigger impact. It was fairly common back then to see a team win games with 150 yards (or even less) of total offense.

It's rather ironic in that back then I used to complain about having to watch all those types of offenses, wishing teams would open it up more.  Now I'd love to see more teams play that style, particularly an underdog against a really good spread team (like the year Gate City beat Gretna).

Interesting assessment. I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense. How times have changed!

[jeffro 30]

On 11/23/2023 at 7:10 AM, Gridiron60 said:

Have you listened to the latest ATW Episode? They threw out some names for coaches & possibly assistants. If I recall their top two picks were Ronnie Davis with maybe a possibility of Snake leaving Graham to help him (I don’t see that) & Shane Wicks (if Honaker goes on to win state, are you leaving that team to be head coach of a 0-10 team, I don’t see that either)?I think they mentioned coaches from Eastside, Twin Springs, and a few more. 

So Family in Richlands are pretty certain  that Ronnie Davis is the man.

[land_rider 30]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:48 AM, jeffro said:

So Family in Richlands are pretty certain  that Ronnie Davis is the man

Dennis is the coach to hire give the kids the best ! 

[Ryan4VT 4,554]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:48 AM, jeffro said:

So Family in Richlands are pretty certain  that Ronnie Davis is the man.

Odds on favorite in Vegas for sure. Likely bringing Snake back, too. 

[Cousin_Hoyt 87]

Cousin Claude said that there’s someone over in Buchanan County that might be looking for a head job. With all their consolidation talk there will be 3 head coaches looking but only one head job available after consolidation. 

[Gridiron60 2,555]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:48 AM, jeffro said:

So Family in Richlands are pretty certain  that Ronnie Davis is the man.

Ronnie Davis might be the man but I still don't see Snake leaving Graham even if Davis is hired as head coach. @SwvaOGsaid Snake told him he wasn't interested in going back to Richlands. My guess is that talk is more wishful thinking than fact based. 

[bleedblue89 99]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:48 AM, jeffro said:

So Family in Richlands are pretty certain  that Ronnie Davis is the man.

Valid question.
Who’s lined up to step in as the basketball HC when Ronnie gets the football job? He’s been know to just walk off and leave a bunch of kids before the season is over, or in this case, even started. 

 

[tornado99 345]

45 minutes ago, Gridiron60 said:

Ronnie Davis might be the man but I still don't see Snake leaving Graham even if Davis is hired as head coach. 

That is my best guess. But I would happily accept that package deal if available.