Bryan Stinespring Admits Taking Recruiting Losses "Personally", Tries to Find the Bright Side in 2015 Class

Hokies' recruiting coordinator Bryan Stinespring knows that no matter who he helped sign for Tech's 2015 recruiting class, he'll inevitably be judged based on the players that went elsewhere.

Such is the way of National Signing Day.

"Recruiting is just like the game of football, you go 10-1, nobody talks about the 10 you won, we're gonna talk about the one we lost," Stinespring said at a press conference yesterday.

Yet even though he's been through more than his fair share of signing days, Stinespring still feels the sting that comes with missing out on the staff's top players on the board. It's a feeling he became intimately acquainted with this year.

"To be honest with you, I take it personally, I get upset when we don't get everybody we're supposed to get," Stinespring said. "I know you're not supposed to, but I do. We put a lot into this thing."

So even with an incoming class of 24 new Hokies, it's the names of the in-state players that spurned the Hokies will be the ones thrown around in any preliminary discussion of this class.

There are plenty to choose from: DT Darvin Taylor, DE Darrell Taylor, DE Clelin Ferrell, DE Ricky DeBerry, OT Matthew Burrell, WR Felton Davis III and, of course, DE Josh Sweat, are just a few.

But Stinespring says all the Hokies can do is try and roll with the punches that come with dealing with the roller-coaster ride that is modern recruiting.

"It's kind of like my wife, some days she likes me and some days she doesn't, so you've got to be prepared for those days when they don't like you and get ready to do the dishes when you don't normally do it," Stinespring said. "But you never stop recruiting, just because a guy is committed or you think you're in the lead, I used to hear it all the time that once they commit that's when the recruiting starts. You've got to be prepared to roll with the punches sometimes and keep fighting."

The staff has also had to deal with a change of heart from one of its own with the end of 2015 cycle rapidly approaching. The team had to find a replacement for receivers coach Aaron Moorehead just as they were putting the finishing touches on the new class.

Yet Stinespring says the team took the changes in stride by continuing to develop a system that doesn't involve a strictly one-to-one match between coach and recruiting area, mitigating Moorehead's loss.

"What we've tried to do here the last couple years is you don't see as much singular strictly recruiting areas," Stinespring said. "There's a lot of group recruiting going on between the guys in the area and the position coach...so you're not just sending someone that particular student athlete doesn't know or hasn't been around."

Stinespring adds that not having a single wide receiver committed when Moorehead left was a blessing in disguise, but now the team has to concentrate on incorporating new WRs coach Zohn Burden, formerly of Old Dominion University.

Burden has long standing ties in the vaunted "757" region of the state, but the staff has yet to slot him into his new role, largely because he's not even on campus yet.

"We'll evaluate signing day and where we're going to go with our areas," said Chuck Cantor, the team's director of player personnel. "Zohn hasn't even got here yet, so as soon as he gets here, we'll sit down and lay that out for the future here. Those are things that will happen in the next week or two."

Complicating matters further for the Hokies this year was Frank Beamer's recovery from throat surgery. Suddenly the staff didn't have the head Hokie available to boast about his tradition of winning, considering that he could barely even speak.

Yet Stinespring insists that Beamer did what he could to help solidify the class as his health improved.

"Obviously he wasn't able to communicate as much," Stinespring said. "But I want to tell you, that last official visit weekend, he stood up in front of that entire group, and outlined his plan and our plan and what we intend to do, and it was important for him and he did a fantastic job. He met with all the recruits and their parents individually and did a fantastic job there. Obviously he hasn't done as much as he has in the past. But he still guides us and directs us about how he wants to see things done."

Cantor agrees that he still hears plenty from Beamer around the office on the subject.

"We've been grinding in the office a lot this week and the previous week and coach has been in here while I've been in the office and has been attacking it," Cantor said. "There's different ways of attacking recruiting and coach has been able to contribute to that here, especially recently."

Cantor was one of the team's two new hires to bolster the recruiting staff last summer along with Thomas Guerry, Tech's director of high school relations, and Stinespring says the pair's efforts immediately paid dividends this season.

"I can't give them enough credit," Stinespring said. "They've been able to explore areas with their time when we've been at practice or not have the time to fully concentrate on it, they've been able to do that. Chuck obviously has a lot of ties in the recruiting world, and he has a lot of people he can lean on and get information and it's been very valuable to us. That's been enabling to us to get back into some areas."

The Hokies certainly did scour far and wide to assemble the class. The team added 10 players from seven different states (and the District of Columbia), with three apiece coming from North Carolina and Florida and two hailing from Indiana.

Stinespring says the team wanted to cast a wide net with one primary goal in mind: getting much, much bigger on the line of scrimmage.

"For us going into this recruiting class, we knew going in that how well we recruited in the tackle spot offensively, a couple bigger guys that can play out in space with some wingspan, that was going to be a major part of our recruiting class," Stinespring said. "And obviously in our defensive line. We were a little thin at spots last year and know you've got Dadi (Nicolas), who's a senior, and Ken Ekanem, who's getting a little older, so we had to bring in and solidify those positions and prepare for the future."

They added a whopping 12 players on the offensive and defensive lines, an absolute necessity given the dearth of depth at both defensive end and offensive tackle last season.

Stinespring is willing to acknowledge that the team's slowed down a bit when it comes to recruiting linemen in recent years, particularly of the offensive variety, and the whole staff has been working to rectify that issue.

"It's not a situation we ever presented to ourselves where we said 'let's try to get behind here a little bit,' but it does happen," Stinespring said. "And it took us a little longer to regroup ourselves than we would've liked but we weren't counting on losing three offensive linemen to injuries last year, two before the season started. Injuries probably prevented us from climbing as fast as we would've liked.

"But we've tried not to get back in a situation where we don't have enough depth and don't have enough competition, because competition is a good thing. And we've worked hard to do that and I think we're as close as we've been."

Cantor promises that the priority placed on size won't just be a feature of the staff's 2015 effort.

"The 16 class, to look ahead, (offensive line is) going to be another emphasis for us, and I think we'll be in good shape after that class," Cantor said. "I think we're looking at adding three to four more guys on the offensive line, that's going to be a big target and emphasis for us."

In the near term, one of the headliners of the OL group that stands to push for immediate playing time is Austin Clark, a tackle prospect out of Lexington, Va. that originally committed to South Carolina before flipping to Tech.

Stinespring says his familiarity with the Clark family dates back to his days coaching at Lexington High School in the late 1980s.

"One of the first guys I ever coached was a guy named Stephen Clark," Stinespring said. "He was on the football team at Lexington HS and he eventually won a state championship, in spite of me. Stephen was our QB and so it was an exciting time for me because we were able to do something like that. I still talk to these guys all the time.

"But then I look up at one junior day and there's this kid Austin Clark sitting there. And I realize 'oh my gosh, I've been in this a long time.' It's one of the first times I realized I've been in this for a long time, that this guy I once coached, his son is now a top prospect. So for him to commit somewhere else was heartbreaking to me. But we continued to battle, and not panic, continue to be there for the family. That was one I was hoping would turn back our way and we needed to, that was a critical get in terms of position and ability."

One of the team's other critical additions on the line was Yosuah Nijman, a defensive line prospect that spent the last year prepping at Fork Union Military Academy. At 6'7" and more than 270 pounds, he has size in spades, and now that he's getting some quality time with Mike Gentry, Stinespring thinks he's got the potential to push for playing time right away.

"Every time I see Yosh, I just go 'wow,'" Stinespring said. "I don't want to say his name wrong, so I just call him 'big fella,' so everytime I see him I say 'hey, big fella,' and I just go 'wow.' With a guy like that, with the spring, the fact that he's spent some time at a prep school, those guys that are here in January could have the physical ability (to play) right now."

But even with all the talk about the guys on the interior, it's impossible not to notice the highly touted quarterback that just signed his letter of intent as well. Dwayne Lawson of Tampa, Florida's Hillsborough HS could very well be the team's quarterback of the future, and is certainly one of the team's most talented recruits in the class.

"He's a dual threat kind of commodity, he's got great size and great strength for a quarterback," Stinespring said. "You like his size, his skill set, the strength of his arm, his ability to keep plays alive."

Yet beyond examining the talent of the players they're bringing in, Stinespring and Cantor also frequently stressed how happy they were to have found players that helped make their jobs easier by keeping the flip-flopping to a minimum and even recruiting each other at times.

"We didn't have guys jumping on and off, I know some teams might've had that today," Cantor said. "We had some leaders amongst the guys that signed with us and got here in the mid-year that really helped get our class altogether, I think that's a critical part to it. It was really a deciding factor for a bunch of those guys."

But now that the 2015 cycle starts to fade in the rearview mirror, and those familiar questions about in-state recruiting persist, Stinespring and the rest of the staff will try to approach their techniques on the trail just like they would a good film review.

"There's constant talk about what we need to do differently, just like it would be game to game during the season," Stinespring said. "'What did we do well, what did we not do well?' Same thing on recruiting, you've got to go back and constantly reassess what you're doing."