Forever grateful 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/6QGzldbF3B— Jarrod Hewitt (@HewittJarrod) December 27, 2020
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Forever grateful 🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/6QGzldbF3B— Jarrod Hewitt (@HewittJarrod) December 27, 2020
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Jesus, good for these guys but are we going to have a team to field next year? Yikes...
He's a redshirt senior. How much longer should he decide to stay?
This has to be a tough decision for a guy like Hewitt. He is not likely to succeed at the NFL level, but could land on a team. P5 football is likely the pinnacle of his playing time, but any chance to make it at the next level has to be enticing. Best of luck to him. The team will miss him.
I get your point but anyone that even makes a practice squad has overcome some pretty substantial odds to get there
Hard Knocks taught me this.
Would be cool if he was interested in getting into coaching. Seems like he's got the right mentality. He's played at a high level but won't be set for life from the NFL. Lot of incentive to become a college/nfl level coach
Maybe Burmeister will follow too. And Dax. And then Knox.
That's white
Never said anything about him personally. Was more of a general rhetorical question with that many people that won't be returning for one reason or another
I got you, but most of the time this sort of rhetoric comes from a place of "see, Fuente & Co. can't keep a team together and everyone runs away first chance they get."
If there were no extra 'rona eligibility, guys like Hewitt, Deablo, Herbert, Reed, and Ashby would be leaving anyway. So I guess the lamentations upon seniors leaving can be a bit amusing. This is more of my reaction to the whole site, though, not you in particular.
I figured he would. Thank you for your service and leadership in the weight room. 💪
Whew. This and the Ashby declare will be hard to overcome. Thankfully the coaches have been giving a lot of guys reps on d line. Still - Jham has his work cut out.
I agree, but that doesn't speak well to our current roster makeup and recent recruiting at these positions. Before the blanket free year of eligibility was established we expected to lose Deablo, Ashby, and Hewitt to the natural expiration of eligibility. We should have been preparing for these losses regardless. Hopefully, we can land a day one ready transfer or JUCO DT this off-season.
Ham specifically called out how he hoped Hewitt and Ashby would return.
Looking around the front 7 I'd be wishing they were returning, too
Can't embed but the portal is pretty bare on DTs at the moment. We'll need that to change. Otherwise, we will have a repeat of this year with our DTs getting pushed 2 yards upfield into the linebackers on a regular basis.
We better absolutely kill it in the transfer market or we are in for an really brutal 2021 season.
Both lines decimated, both of our tenured QBs transferring, our best offensive performer going pro, our best defensive player in the secondary gone (top 2 if you still count Farley)....
The near future looks really bleak if things don't turn around immediately.
Good luck to Hewitt, he absolutely deserves this opportunity and I think he'll be a good one.
The Hokies return plenty of starters on offense and defense and have a lot of guys who have seen plenty of reps that can step in to starting roles. There are plenty of bright spots on the team if you step back from the ho hum attitude for a few seconds.
OK, fine. Let's talk about 2021. Be specific. James Mitchell returns- we hope. If he gets a high NFL grade he is gone too. Tre Turner returns- a decent ACC WR. Burmeister was benched for Hooker last season. Behind him is an FCS recruit and a true freshman. At RB, Holston has showed some promise, but never gets as many as 10 carries a game. Blackshear was a non-factor. Could corn have an epiphany and use Blackshear like a real weapon? perhaps. On OL, 2 starters and the best back up are not returning. On defense, the 4 best players from 2020 are gone. Perhaps Connor bounces back, Chatman played OK at times, dismal at others but he returns. Barno showed some flashes, and perhaps Garbutt is back full time? The most consistent DL leaves, and the veterans have not impressed there yet. Our true freshman DE's didn't get burn in a free eligibility year, which is a huge red flag for me. With more depth at QB, DE, and OL we won 5 games. Just being real here. 2021 is going to be a down year, unless we pick up some SEC starters in the portal.
I agree; there are some promising potential up-and-comers, and I hope I am wrong but honestly I see us getting somewhere between 2 and 4 wins in 2021 against the schedule we will be facing.
My son went to LSU so I sort of follow them too. LSU had a down year for them with new (but experienced) coordinators and toward the end of the season they looked to be improving. What did the defending national champs do? They fired the OC, the DC, and some assistants, sending a clear message that average performance was not acceptable at LSU. Say what you will about them but they have won 3 national championships since VT last appeared in one.
Maybe Waller is fully healthy again? Otherwise, all of this is fair.
You return three starters on the offensive line, all of your productive receivers are back, you return two capable running backs, with the Mitchell news your top 2 tight ends, and a QB that has won ACC games and was one of the top performers in the country during the last week of the season. On defense you have some young talents on the line, a couple veteran linebackers, and some young DBs that got a ton of meaningful reps for free this last season.
This team has enough talent to win a lot of games and will hopefully get the benefit of a real spring and fall camp. The limiting factor in 2021 will be just like 2020, if the coaching staff can get enough buy in.
Just because someone has seen reps does not mean they were quality reps or even that the player was good. Plenty. dc is correct in his comment, the quality we had on both sides of the ball this year is drying up either via pro or the portal. And we just plain don't recruit well enough to take the losses we are having right now without absolutely killing it in the incoming portal without taking a big step back in 2021.
And that's worrisome because we were not a good team in 2020.
2020 was pretty obviously not a talent issue.
Given our recent recruiting efforts and the general lack of quality talent ready to replace those we've lost, saying that this year wasn't a talent issue actually helps argue that we are in for worse years in the near future than we just had.
Yup. Incredibly, we're about to see what this team looks like without much talent, unless Portal giveth a little more.
Best of luck and big thanks to big 5.
Best of luck to Jarrod. A classic Hokie story of a guy working diligently up the depth chart over the years. He made himself into a sold D lineman. All the best at the next level and wherever life takes him. A true and loyal Hokie!!
With the players on our roster, looks like we are in line to get the #1 overall pick.... oh wait.