Time for another Hokies mailbag.

If you missed my story on cornerback Brandon Flowers coming back to Virginia Tech complete his degree 10 years after he left for the NFL, go give that a read.

And here's the podcast Aaron McFarling and I did earlier this week, talking about QB and coach rankings, answering listener questions and, in peak offseason form, doing a fast food draft at the end.

Now for this week's questions ...

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Charles Steger is regarded as being very instrumental for Virginia Tech joining the ACC. What was his role? Where would VT Football be now if it had never joined the ACC?

-- Pat H., Media, Pa.

In 2003, when this was all taking place, I was a humble sports reporter/copy editor at the Danville Register & Bee in only my second year as a professional sports writer, so my first-hand knowledge of what went down wasn't all too great. Thankfully, archives exist, and David Teel of the Daily Press wrote this excellent breakdown in 2008 of what went down to get Virginia Tech into the ACC. It sounds like the major pushes were political and financial, with governor Mark Warner and businessman and philanthropist William Goodwin Jr. leading the charge.

But Steger, who died this week after a career in which he guided Virginia Tech through tragedy and growth, certainly had his role, teaming up with then-athletic director Jim Weaver to make a pitch to the ACC on Virginia Tech's behalf. Without a president who was willing and invested enough into athletics, I don't know if the Hokies gain as much traction as they did at that critical time. So he does deserve some credit. Also, and I had forgotten about this, but he chaired the Bowl Championship Series Presidential Oversight Committee, a steady presence as college football's leaders hammered out the final details of what's now the College Football Playoff. Those are two pretty big contributions to the world of sports for someone whose primary objective was leading a university. School presidents have to wear many hats and tend to a variety of things. Steger seemed to do that very well, especially when it came to athletics, something higher-ups at universities sometimes disdain.

I'll answer the second part of that question in conjunction with this one ...

Since we're knee deep in the off-season doldrums, I have a theoretical question for you: Would VT actually be in better shape had Syracuse (and not they) been admitted into the ACC during the first major round conference realignment? It seems unthinkable, but consider that the then-jilted Syracuse has gotten into the ACC anyway. At that time, thirst for even mediocre names like Maryland, Rutgers, and Missouri thrust those schools into the enviable position of being courted by the country's top two conferences and landed them incredible financial windfalls (making more per year than Tech does). There was even rumor and innuendo of the SEC trying to go north and making a play for the Hokies, despite Jim Weaver's then public commitment to the ACC. I am sure the Big 10 would have liked to expand south to a large, land grant university with a rabid fan base and good football tradition. So...is it possible all the celebrations of the VT fans and alums, while inexorably and justifiably jubilant at the time, ended up costing them something in the final analysis?

-- James M. Borden

It's an interesting what-if. To go back to Pat's question, Virginia Tech certainly would have joined some conference other than the Big East at some point along the way. When you're geographically plausible and in a state with a big enough TV audience for expansion-hungry leagues like the Big Ten, SEC and ACC, someone would have gobbled Tech up along the way, certainly with the kind of success the Hokies would prove to have in the mid-2000s. It's hard to believe, but after the ACC's 2004 and '05 additions, there wasn't a major realignment move made until 2011, when Nebraska jumped to the Big Ten and the Pac-10 added Colorado and Utah to become the Pac-12. (The Big Ten, never one to be factual with numbers, stuck with its old name, despite having 12 members.) That sparked the big run of expansion, with the SEC taking on Texas A&M and Missouri in 2012 and West Virginia and TCU going to the Big 12, followed by Syracuse and Pitt coming into the ACC in 2013. In 2014, the Big Ten added Maryland and Rutgers and the ACC supplemented the Terrapins loss by adding Louisville. 

Looking at that timeline, I don't know if the Big Ten every would have been a viable option. The ACC already had a second round of expansion before the Big Ten added Rutgers and Maryland, and Tech would have had to have been a target. And if you look at the Big Ten's final additions, they weren't made with athletic achievements in mind as much as markets. And as much as commissioner Jim Delany will get chided for bringing in an all-sports punching bag like Rutgers and a Maryland athletic department that hasn't added much football-wise, he did get parts of the New York market and D.C. I don't think rural Virginia would have been on his list of targets.

The SEC might have been a possibility, just because Virginia Tech fits the culture of the league from an athletic standpoint as a school that is very heavily invested in football above all else. Looking at the Missouri addition specifically, I think the Hokies would have been a preferred choice over the Tigers. Geographically it would have made more sense. (Mizzou plays in the SEC East, for goodness sake.) And in a league looking for football schools first, a place like Virginia Tech which to that point had been incredibly competitive on the field, would have been a logical addition.

But would that have been best for Virginia Tech? I think a lot of folks look at things purely from a revenue standpoint without taking other things into account. Geographically, there is not a better fit for the Hokies than the ACC. And while an SEC bid would have meant more money from a media rights standpoint, you're also in a different league in terms of competitiveness. Everybody gets that kind of money in the SEC. Even Vanderbilt. Add $10 million or so to Virginia Tech's yearly athletic revenue (which I think is roughly what the gap is right now between the SEC and ACC), and the Hokies go from 41st nationally around $83 million in the 2016 fiscal year to 37th at $93 million. You know who still made more within the SEC? Texas A&M, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Ole Miss, Missouri (though it probably wouldn't be in the SEC in this hypothetical) and Mississippi State. In fact, the Hokies would be about on par with the Bulldogs for last in the league of the public schools. Now, there might be other revenue streams that would change that. Donors might be more willing to give up some dough against an SEC schedule. Ticket sales might be brisker. But the point is, it'd be extremely tough sledding to stay competitive financially in a league where everyone has that kind of money.

And competitively, Tech would have had to contend in an Eastern Division that includes Florida, Tennessee and Georgia. The Vols have underperformed for a decade, but it won't last forever, not with the kind of money that program has at its disposal. So I think while it's fun to think about the possibilities in the past of Virginia Tech joining a league like the Big Ten or SEC, I don't know if it necessarily would have been the best thing for the athletic department, even with the financial windfall it would have brought.

Breakouts are tough to pick, because what constitutes a breakout? Is it from a player who barely contributed and jumps into a bigger role or from someone who might have a small but not negligible contribution but takes a big leap? Belmar, I think, can contribute, but I wouldn't even pick him as my biggest breakout potential on the d-line. I think Houshun Gaines can be a guy that went from injury fill-in for Vinny Mihota to an impact player on the edge, certainly if he plays like he did in the Virginia and Oklahoma State games. Defensively, if he can stay healthy, I like Divine Deablo's chances of breaking out. He seemed like he was on the verge of doing so last year before breaking a body part (his foot). Offensively, I think there are more candidates, just because there's so much opportunity for new guys to step in. I'm particularly intrigued by receiver Damon Hazelton, who everyone on Tech vows is going to be a big part of this offense. He's still kind of off the radar because he was injured in the spring, so I'm guessing that's why a lot of national outlets haven't mentioned him. But Tech's coaches and players have all said he's going to be a big contributor.

This question was from last week, but I thought I'd get around to it now. Here's a full rundown of where Tech sits in all the post-spring Top 25s, which are about as useful and official as a #1 Dad T-shirt. Personally, I feel like 15 is a little high. Is a team that finished last year ranked No. 24 and 25 in the two polls really close to 10 spots better after losing a very productive senior class of players plus underclassmen at all three levels of their defense, two of which went in the first round of the draft? I believe I'll have an AP ballot again next year, and though it's very early to start putting teams in an order for late August, I don't know if I'd have the Hokies as a top 20 team right now. Perhaps in that last five spots somewhere just sneaking into the rankings, but this defense lost an awful lot of talent and experience and I'm not sure at this stage if the offense is quite ready to pick up the slack. Everybody has these kinds of questions this time of year, so I don't want to put that just on the Hokies, but as a preliminary thought of where Tech might end up in the preseason polls, I think 15 is a little bit too generous.

This is an easy one to look up, since Virginia Tech basketball doesn't have a storied history of success, certainly not enough to be ranked in a preseason poll all too often. Here is that history, which shows that the Hokies were 21st in the preseason in 2010-11, 22nd in 1995-96 and 15th in 1984-85. Compare that to the football team at the time, and this what you get: the football Hokies were ranked 10th to start the 2010 season, 24th to start the 1995 season and were not ranked in 1984. So it's happened twice, in 1995 and 1984. I'd say there's a decent chance it happens this year too, with what Buzz Williams has coming back.

1. Auburn at Alabama, 2010: Nothing comes close to this. Hated rivals. The height of the Cam Newton saga/controversy. National championship season on the line. It was amazing. And it led to some dude poisoning Auburn's trees.

2. Alabama at Auburn, 2009: Not much was expected in Gene Chizik's first year against an Alabama team that would win the national title. But the Tigers hung close after jumping to an early lead. Bama won it on a late touchdown.

3. Auburn vs. South Carolina in Atlanta, 2010: I honestly don't know what was wrong with the Georgia Dome and why it needed to be replaced. I covered a couple of SEC title games there. I probably could have put the No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 2 Florida game in 2008 up there, though for some reason that doesn't stick out in my mind as much. I remember vividly the 2010 game more, since that was my beat. That place was loud, and it was a much closer game than it seemed, right up until the point where Newton completed a quasi-Hail Mary for a touchdown right before halftime.

4. Virginia Tech at Ohio State, 2014: Not the result the home crowd wanted, but man, what a show. That stadium is amazing and the result that night memorable.

5. Ohio State at Virginia Tech, 2015 (first half): I don't know if I've seen Lane Stadium more electric in a game that I've covered since joining the beat in 2011. That was a juiced-up crowd, and the fact that the Hokies actually led at halftime had that place hopping. Michael Brewer's injury and Braxton Miller's amazingness changed that in a hurry.

I'm probably short-changing my trips to LSU, though I don't recall ever covering a close game there, which probably adds to it. Also, Auburn had some pretty good night games in Newton's first year that were excellent in terms of atmosphere (South Carolina and Clemson). Notre Dame was great. I don't know if that was the best Fighting Irish crowd I've seen. That was a pretty disheartened group by that point. The BCS title game in 2011 between Auburn and Oregon didn't make the list. You could sense a lot of the crowd was very corporate. All the on-campus sites and league title games had a much better atmosphere than that.

I don't know if I agree with the premise of the question. I think Tech's had strong linebacker corps many times over the years, just not necessarily with highly-ranked guys. Last year was pretty dang good, even if there's a segment of the fan base that's never going to give Andrew Motuapuaka his due for being a productive player. But Tremaine Edmunds was an All-American and Mook Reynolds was a pretty good whip linebacker. Before that, Jack Tyler was a first-team All-ACC pick in 2012. Bruce Taylor was an honorable mention, though his career was different after his injury.

So Tech has had some pretty good linebackers over the years. I think it's interesting, though, that in the immediate aftermath of Hall and Adibi graduating after being mainstays on that defense that Tech didn't have overwhelming success at linebacker on the recruiting trail. Yes, some of those guys turned into pretty good players -- and a great player in Edmunds' sense -- but they weren't all slam dunks in the recruiting process. Taylor was a four-star recruit, though still no quite in the top 250. Tyler was a walk-on. Motuapuaka was a three-star guy seen as a throw-in coming from Bucky Hodges' high school. Not even Edmunds was that highly ranked, a three-star guy on 247 Sports' composite rankings. That's why adding Dylan Rivers (No. 259 nationally in 2017) and Dax Hollifield (No. 151 in 2018) were such big deals. Tech hadn't had linebacker recruits ranked that high in a while. And now they're in on Brandon Smith (No. 29 in 2019), even if his favorites are all the blue bloods. It's a pretty interesting turn in linebacker recruiting, one no doubt aided by the arrival of Fuente, who as a younger coach could help Tech combat all the recruiting rivals who used Frank Beamer's age against the Hokies on the trail.

Why the gap in the late 2000s? I'm not quite sure. There was some attrition in there that was unavoidable, injuries too, and guys that simply didn't pan out. I'm not sure if Hall and Adibi's lack of NFL success played a role in top linebacker recruits not coming to Virginia Tech, but it could have played a part. Whatever the reason, it does seem like the Hokies are at least now targeting and hitting on some bigger recruits at the position, something that'll no doubt be helped by Tremaine going in the first round of the draft this spring.

I'm sitting down with athletic director Whit Babcock next week and that'll be one of my questions. Teel spoke to him in a Q&A that ran earlier this month and had done his homework to note that Florida International, Middle Tennessee State or Cincinnati might have schedules that fit the Hokies' need in 2020 and '21, the two years Michigan vacated by canceling the series. It might have to be a 2-for-1 deal, where Tech gets some return trip down the line, just to make it worth it. That is, needless to say, a major bummer for fans who were looking forward to the Michigan series. None of those schools come close to the prestige the Wolverines have, nor are they teams that raise the anger level of Hokies fans for a reversed touchdown call in a pretty major bowl game. (Cue the Danny Coale outcries now.)

But, as I said in the immediate aftermath of the news that Michigan was buying out the series, you weren't going to get a game as good as that. A) The Hokies didn't want it in 2021, when they're already playing West Virginia and Notre Dame. They were overscheduled at that point. And B) it's tough to get things done in that short period of time, given how schools schedule all the way out to 2030 now. I give Babcock grief every time they schedule a game in 2031, when my 2-year-old will have her learner's permit, but this is the reason why. You get boxed in otherwise. 

Contact Andy Bitter at andy.bitter@roanoke.com or 381-1676. Follow him on Twitter: @AndyBitterVT.