Frank Beamer: Model of Consistency

By Matthew Osborne
SouthernPigskin.com

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What makes Frank Beamer’s streak of dominance so impressive is the manner in which it has been carried out.

Under the direction of legendary head coach Frank Beamer, the Virginia Tech Hokies have become a college football program synonymous with consistent greatness.

The active FBS head coach with the most career wins, Beamer has helped set the standard for success in the ACC. In Virginia Tech’s eight years in the conference, the Hokies have won the Coastal Division an amazing six times, and have represented the ACC as conference champion in BCS bowls on four separate occasions.

While those statistics are certainly impressive, they are trumped by the fact that the Hokies have won 10 or more games in every season since joining the conference in 2004. The eight consecutive seasons with double-digit wins is easily the longest streak amongst BCS automatic qualifying conference teams. 

What makes Frank Beamer’s streak of dominance so impressive is the manner in which it has been carried out.

Many coaches are recognized for their ability to win games. Few coaches, however, have created a unique brand of football which has identified the program they oversee.

“Beamerball” has come to define the Virginia Tech program and how they approach the game of football.

If you make the trek to Lane Stadium to take in a Virginia Tech home game, you will undoubtedly see a multitude of t-shirts which thoroughly detail the premise and philosophy associate with “Beamerball”. One such shirt does an outstanding job of detailing the simplistic game plan of “Beamerball”: “Offense: Score. Defense: Score. Special Teams: Score.”

His interesting approach to the way his teams prepared on defense and special teams enabled Beamer to build a dominant football program at a school where success on the gridiron has historically been tough to come by.

It is even more impressive to consider that Beamer has built his “empire” without ever being a considered a great recruiter. In fact, according to Scout.com, starting with the class of 2004,Virginia Tech has never finished higher than fourth in the ACC in team recruiting rankings. In three of those nine classes, the Hokies even finished in the bottom half of the conference in recruiting rankings.

While Beamer certainly acknowledges the success he has experienced at Virginia Tech, he is also quick to credit consistency in the structure of the program for much of his continued successes.

“I think consistency in how we do our program,” Beamer responded when asked about the key to his extended run of excellence. “I think keeping your good people around is important, because if you have good coaches and good people, you want to keep them. I think it affects you in how your recruit…I think it affects you in how you make decisions in a ball game. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had good people and I’ve been able to keep them around.”

Beamer also points out that coaching is never the sole key to a program’s success.

While the recruiting rankings might indicate that the Hokies are not a premiere program, the results on the gridiron undoubtedly tell another story.

“You’ve got to have good players. You got to have good, solid players.”

Whether it is the players, the assistant coaches, or the head man himself, the fact of the matter is that Beamer wins games on a consistent basis.

In a sport where the landscape can change as quickly as a teenage girl’s wardrobe, it is refreshing to see a man of Frank Beamer’s character put together such an extended streak of dominance.

And if history is any indication, we should not expect the streak to end any time soon.