Now that Virginia Tech has fired head coach Brent Pry, they could be poised to make the same mistake the Nebraska football program made with Scott Frost. And the Hokies have been poised to make this mistake with Michael Vick for a while now.
Every struggling school wants to believe that the secret sauce in turning the program around is bringing in a famous, talented alum. It worked for Michigan with Jim Harbaugh. It worked for Northwestern with Pat Fitzgerald. Stanford is even trying it by bringing in Andrew Luck as its football GM.
However, Nebraska football learned the hard way that hiring a former star quarterback to lead the program's resurgence doesn't always work. And Scott Frost at least had coaching experience before he came to Lincoln. Michael Vick has exactly three games' worth of coaching experience.
Why Virginia Tech risks repeating Nebraska football's Scott Frost failure
That experience has been massively bad, by the way. Vick's current team, Norfolk State, is 1-2 on the season. They're boasting a 27-7 loss to Towson and a 60-10 loss to Rutgers. His only career win is against Division II Virginia State. And it took overtime to get the win.
And yet, according to Pete Nakos, the reason some Virginia Tech boosters wanted Vick to get the Norfolk State job was to "get experience" before taking the Hokies' job eventually. The plan was for Pry to at least tread water. Things went south faster than these boosters saw coming.
And now, as Nakos reports, there's an understanding that Vick is a serious candidate for the Virginia Tech position. And the Hokies are about to make a massive mistake because the former quarterback is a beloved name around the program.
One has to wonder what the priorities of boosters are at this point. At least when Nebraska football made its massive mistake in Scott Frost, he had a resume they could lean on.