Gunner and a few recruits react positively to Pry: Link Here
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Gunner and a few recruits react positively to Pry: Link Here
Let's use this thread as a repository of retweets and reactions.
Comments
Dwight Vick is a smart guy, he hopped on a Twitter Space (basically a conference call via Twitter as an FYI for the olds) and had quite a bit to say post-Fuente being let go. Most of it was not good...
Really glad to see him approve of the hire.
Any sort of recording for this? I like pain and want to see what went wrong because I liked Fuente for a while until the last two years. Really wanted him to succeed and truly thought he was a great hire when it was announced.
Nah, it's not a recordable medium I don't believe.
A lot of it revolved around Fuente not embracing VT FB alumni.
It is recordable. Don't know that I've ever seen Dwight record and repost the recording however
Him and Mike are a good listen in their new "Vick 757" podcast. Nice to see they care a lot about VT. They've had tons of former players as guests. The recent one post Fuente being fired was pretty good, especially Todd Washington's part.
was also super cool to hear Ray Lewis talk Hokie football for a little bit too
Is the Vick 757 podcast only on youtube, or is it also on apple podcast/have an rss feed?
just started recently on Spotify as well. I think they're working on Apple podcasts
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vick+757+show
I don't want to use YouTube though, I want to listen to it on the podcast player of my choice lol
So curiosity got the better of me and I did a little digging. Brent Pry is a former standout quarterback at Lexington HS. This may explain the all to familiar accent. This was while his Dad was the Offensive Coordinator at VMI. Dad, it appears is still an offensive coach at Bethune-Cookman. But the best nugget i found was that Dad, Jim Pry, was a backup quarterback on the 1971 "Young Herd" team at Marshall. This, of course, is the team featured in the Matt McConaughey film We Are Marshall.. There is some fun trivia you can use to impress your Hokie friends today.
Coach's son. Real gym rat. First guy in last guy out type of coach. I like it!
Oh man he's got "deceptive speed" written all over him!
Great, but what do his cartwheels look like?
From the hokiesports press release-
He definitely seems to fit VT culturally
Wonder if Whitt didn't ask Frank a thing or two about Pry last week?
Credit to MaroonX2 for sharing this in the other thread. Relevant here.
Justine Fuente does not approve of this post.
Too soon for a Hatin' On: Justin Fuente thread?
Like the whole site wasn't that for the past three months.
*three years.
Lol three months? More like at least a year.
Yes, we should wait until year 2
Which year 2?
The next one
Well by my count it's year -5 so we have some time
This right here !
Dwight Vick said the call went "Very Well"
continued
Damn, 170? That's awesome.
Wow - 170 players! That is awesome. If Pry can mobilize that army of ex-Hokies to be active ambassadors for the program, the landscape can really change.
Holy crap, that's awesome. Though a zoom call with 170 people sounds like a goddamn nightmare.
MICHAEL! MUTE YOUR DAMN LINE ALREADY
Looks like Malachi Madison is all in. The 24/7 Tweet links to a paywall, but the Tweet read "DL commit Malachi Madison locked in with Virginia Tech after coaching hire"
thankfully his twitter is free
This is one of those, I'm assuming his Tweet was in support of the new HC, but kids also Tweet things that I don't understand at all nowadays too.
Wonder what kind of offensive staff he's going to bring. I have no issues with the defense he will employ whether he retains Hamilton as a dc or not.
lol
Can someone translate this for us older folk?
Coach Pry was honest with Kumah and told Kumah that he wasn't good enough. Kumah worked harder as a result. He respects him due to the honesty.
*Chef's Kiss*
I'm an older folk, so don't know how close this is, but I think Mr. Kumah is offering backhanded praise for Coach Pry's forthrightness while simultaneously throwing shade that Coach Pry obviously didn't recognize the next coming of Dez Bryant. Or maybe not.
There really does need to be a decoder ring made for this kind of thing...
Kumah has positive things to say about ODU's S&C coach (which would be an obvious target for Pry)...but then again, it's Kumah, Virginia Tech's Uncle Rico. Not really taking any stock in what he says.
he likes the hire, but he chose to express that feeling in the most Eric Kumah way possible
If a mouse was hired as head coach of the Hokies, Kumah would likely have said the same thing. That man did not like Fuente.
I know some don't like Kumah, but he is a great twitter follow. His clowning of UVA and other schools is always great. Plus, his jewelry is awesome work.
Dude always has something to say, he's the epitome of an ex girlfriend that can't ever get over you
Family are diehard Nittany and hate to see him go. They love his defensive teams - that's a good start for me. Let's fill out the staff and LFG!
As an alum and donor. I say:
But, Shave Those Sideburns!
Wanted to say this about Luther Maddy. My son hit him up randomly on IG about some defensive techniques several years back. Luther went on to text him for over an hour. Dude is a 100% class act.
Senior PSU linebacker
Richmond kid from Benedictine.
Antonio Banks on Twitter: Congrats to coach Pry, he knows the culture at VT...
https://twitter.com/coachDBBanks/status/1465749568394567681
Aww man, I'm a huge Brandon Flowers fan. Nice.
Right on.
Maybe we can get that game vs Penn State scheduled. Maybe give us a few years to become a football team again, first.
Whit hired PRY
No lie
You know this
I think this is Tajh Bullock's dad
Great, 200% more committed than 800%.
Cool, cool.
What number between 800% and 1000% is the "definite lock" for this kind of thing, I wonder?
Aw, that sucks for the WVU fans posting pics of them holding the Black Diamond Trophy in his replies after his visit :(
I saw on another site (not behind a paywall, but honestly still unsure of the protocol for cutting & pasting), that Givens, Saint Germain, LaHue, and Gosnell all have positive things to say about our new coach.
I think someone linked it earlier. That was from like TSL right?
No, from Tech Lunch Pail
Here
My bad. Too many similarly named sites. That's why I basically stick to TKP and reddit
Had no idea that there was a tech lunch pail, about to check it out
Pernell, Law, and Madison... basically the core of this instate DL class (a position of big need) all say they are sticking with VT.
Not a shock they're staying knowing that their DL coach isn't going to change.
I know there was a lot of chatter about our class completely falling apart this cycle, but given this hire, does anyone actually feel that way anymore? I can't imagine any recruits now look at our program as being in a worse place than it was a few months ago. As a matter of fact, I would imagine recruits are now more excited to come here and I half expect us to pull a few commits away from PSU.
I think the biggest thing will be who we get as OC. It's good that some of the defensive guys are re-affirming their commitments, but we need good players on both sides. Brown would be a big one to lose if he pans out, same is quite possible with Orji and Ferrell. Need to keep at least one of those two most likely for future depth and potential starter.
If they were willing to commit to a head coach who had the scent of death on him to start the year, they probably wanted to come to VT for reasons beyond Fuente.
Any word out of the Ramon Brown or Orji camps?
probably won't hear much from offensive recruits until an offensive coordinator is hired
Touché
One would assume that Corn is gone so I mean you have to expect an improvement by default on offense, no?
What? Jet sweeps to the near side don't get recruits excited?
If Pry has a sense of humor he'd run jet sweeps for our first 2 plays from scrimmage next year
First play jet sweep, second play has to be the wide receiver screen on the far side bunch formation 6 yards behind the line of scrimmage
and the cherry on top .... 3rd down play is the QB sneak from several yards out
3rd and 14, qb sneak from the shotgun.
Sad thing about all these scenarios.... Corn called them all, multiple times, in actual games.
And yet, he still never called a backwards pass to a lineman five yards behind the line of scrimmage on 3rd and 7 with the game on the line.
That's because he thought only quarterbacks were allowed to advance the ball
In all fairness that play did not advance the ball.
I bet it'll be in his playbook now, wherever he ends up
LOL
Future live look at French if that was the case:
How about read option minus the read part and ask corn which way to run?
How about we just punt on 3rd down so we can get on with watching our Hokie D kick some ass.
If he really wants to troll us and set these message boards on fire, do an all-jet-sweep Spring Game and talk about how much he liked what the offense did that day.
And then tell us how he's never had a QB throwing the ball downfield at such a high level.
Literally loling at this.
I'm done with that expectation. I didn't think it was possible to do any worse than Stinespring. And then Loeffler proved me wrong. Then I was certain that it could only go up from him. And BOOM, Cornelsen. WTF! I refuse to assume that it can't get worse. It very well could. I hope it doesn't.
Lefty low key wasn't as bad as coordinator as people make him out to be. Got kind of a raw deal with a bare cupboard in 2013 (top receivers were Willie Byrn, Josh Stanford, and Demitri Knowles, yuck). Year 2 there was youth all over. Year 3 was supposed to be the year it all came into place but Brewer breaks his collarbone in literally the first game of the season.
Wasn't bad as a recruiter - got 4* QBs to come to VT along with Brewer. Maybe you can argue that one of his prized recruits should have been ready to go when Brewer went down.
His 2013 staff is actually pretty good:
I knew someone would call me out on this. He wasn't terrible but he certainly wasn't the upgrade we all wanted. Corny is much worse tho so I'm sticking to my guns here. Every time there is hope for offense in Blacksburg I am disappointed
The "2016 offensive explosion" in Fuente's first year doesn't happen without Lefty.
it's not like he was Lincoln Riley or anything...if I recall correctly, he had a pretty complicated scheme for college, it wasn't going to be a one-year turnaround for his players to reach their potential.
I won't deny this. I'll add that the "2016 offensive explosion" also probably doesn't happen without Evans. But that's a whole different topic. I don't think Loeffler is a bad coach, necessarily. I think he's a bad college coach. I think he's an Xs and Os tactical savant but he just can't teach the kids everything that's going on in his brain. I view him as a bit of an eccentric genius who just can't get his message across. To me, in college especially, teaching is a huge piece of being a good coach and Loeffler just couldn't teach his scheme to the players effectively.
The next OC needs to be more than just a guy who can scheme and playcall effectively. He needs to be able to teach. And the coaches on his staff need to be good teachers as well. It's important to have the skill and talent for imparting your knowledge on the guys who are executing the scheme on the field. I think we have lacked that in the previous two coaching staffs (offensively)
Yeah, I think a lot of this is far. I think if he had the highly intelligent, cerebral QB with adequate weapons (not necessarily elite guys, just guys who are good enough), he could scheme an unstoppable offense.
The problem is those QBs aren't exactly a dime-a-dozen, especially at the collegiate level. He would be a better OC in the NFL than college.
While we're at it, let's hope the next OC can cater an offensive towards the strength of our players and their skillset, rather than try to hammer them into a predetermined role.
Now you are just being greedy.
When BOB was rumored to be the guy yesterday I saw a poster float Brian Ferentz as a possible target for OC. You know the guy leading the 112th ranked offense at Iowa. So yeah if you want a follow-up to response, it can get much worse and there's a name to prove it
Nothing is ever so bad that it can't get worse.
We could poach this guy....
Yawn.
Almost every fan base criticizes the OC, because almost every fan thinks he is an OC.
I'm not going to say you're wrong here....but seriously!?! I get eye-rolling at Alabama fans for hating their OC when they've scored 42 ppg this year. But are you seriously defending Stinespring, Loeffler, and Cornelsen?
I'm not an OC. I don't think I'm an OC. I don't think I, personally, would do better than either of these three. But I'm also not getting paid to produce an offense expected to compete at a P5 level. These guys did get paid to do so and they came up with pretty disappointing efforts.
Here are the PPG outputs of VT offenses from 2013 through 2021 (Loeffler and Corn years)
2013 - 24.46
2014 - 22.85
2015 - 30.77
-------------------------------
2016 - 35.00
2017 - 28.15
2018 - 29.85
2019 - 30.85
2020 - 31.09
2021 - 24.83
None of these offenses come anywhere close to the 42 PPG that Bama fans are whining about this year. I think we, as VT fans, are very justified in being disappointed in our OCs over the last decade plus. And we're allowed to be upset about our OC without being OCs ourselves.
Using Alabama as a comparator in a discussion about VT is almost always a sign someone doesn't have a very good argument about VT.
I think you're missing the point. You said every fan base complains about the OC. You're not wrong (Alabama, case in point). But using that trope as a way to downplay VT fans complaining about Cornelsen doesn't make sense because Cornelsen is objectively bad. In fact, he's so bad that he got his boss fired. I'm not even really sure why you made your original, snarky, comment.
Marc's got his brand, just like the rest of us.
But it doesn't make sense to me either, because I seem to remember him caving sometime during the season and grudgingly admitting that yes, the offense left a lot to be desired. It was nearly a recognition that, like you said, BC is objectively bad.
No offense, but you're kinda making my point. Unless an offensive is going gang-busters in a particular year, almost every base subjectively claims that objectively the OC sucks. It's pretty much every fan's whipping boy.
I have no doubt there are Clemson fans who are griping loudly with "objective" certainty about Tony Elliott a terrible offensive coordinator, can't call play, doesn't use the right players, has a predictable system, blah. Or Steve Ensminger at LSU last year after having arguably the most potent college offense ever. The list is endless.
I'm not saying you can't be right about saying an OC sucks. But it's just so easy to say the OC (or in this case, every OC) sucked.
My personal opinion is Stiney wasn't good, but was also operating within a framework which inherently hindered an OC. Loeffler can be good, but wasn't in the right system or program. Corny was quite good at some things and at some times, but not so good at others and got worse over time - and was hindered at QB the whole time (for which he is partially responsible).
I guarantee you there will be a certain subset of fans who will say the next OC sucks too.
Why would I be offended for agreeing with your point that every fan base is going to have fans who criticize the OC?
You have made that point clear. I don't disagree with it. I just don't see it as a valid defense of Cornelsen. This thread is just a weird place to bring that up and it seems kind of irrelevant. So, yeah, you're right, but what's the point of bringing that up?
It sure feels like that's what you're saying
I'm generally in agreement here. I have a harder time identifying where Corny "was quite good" at anything. I guess scripted plays to start the games were decent. But it usually fell apart after that. And there's no telling how much help he got with those scripted plays. He couldn't recruit. Didn't develop any QBs in his 6 years. Allegedly couldn't review film (Per Kill) and refused to let his players play (per Michael Niziolek's article that dropped a couple weeks ago). The offense regressed over his tenure and, aside from some help from generational talents (Evans, Herbert), his system was largely ineffective.
This whole thread just seems weird though. I said something along the lines of "don't expect the offense to suddenly be better because there's no guarantee the next OC will be better than the current one" and you replied with a snarky comment which seemed, at best, tangentially related. Seemed like a weird spot to say a weird thing.
Not pretending to be an OC, but how many times in how many games did we fail to score with first and goals? I honestly think that I could draw plays out of a hat and score more.
Why don't you play me in Madden before you start taking shots pal 😠
PRY TIME!
Any chatter or knowledge around who might be in the running for OC and other offensive staff
Let me help you with that
I feel like we won't hear much chatter until after Pry's introductory press conference Thursday morning
Drink
Gladly, not sure how I missed it upthread
And you call yourself a moderator?
A moderator you call yourself? FTFY
A moderator, yourself call you?
You call a moderator, and yourself?
Yourself called a moderator?
Moderate yourself.
"A moderator" anagrams to "a mad rooter".
Moderators anagrams to "mad rooster".
On fox sports radio this morning "2 pros and a cup of Joe" they had a pretty good bit on Pry coming to Tech don't know if someone can link that
It's not up yet, but it should show up here at some point.
I wonder what Bruce Smith thinks of coach Pry hire? BS is one of the most vocal supporter of VT football . Cant wait to see him on the sideline cheering GO Hokies!!
Greg Roberts show yesterday- mentioned he spoke to legendary 757 coach Mike Smith at Hampton. Said he NEVER saw a VT staffer in 6 years of the Fuente regime.
Not recruiting Hampton is criminal.
As a former Crabber...this makes me sad. Need coach Pry to re-establish roots. Maybe signup @Vick757 and @TyrodTaylor to help as well and get us back on track.
That's a lie. He was at the joint camp with us and Hampton University. He stopped answering the phone when Burden was let go. Wouldn't even talk to Vice about an OL last year (I think it was last year). But don't go on a radio show and just lie about the last VT coach.
He should really be more concerned that there's only 2 Hampton Crabbers listed in the 247 VA Top 40 during the Fuente tenure. Dazz and Conliffe, and Dazz we recruited.
Don't let facts get in the way of a 757 coach thinking he is more important than he is.
Honestly, this attitude from VA high school coaches isn't unique to Hampton - from that piece The Athletic ran about in-state schools recruiting VA, there seemed to be a lot of entitlement from coaches. There's not infinite resources, and if your school hasn't produced a P5 player in a number of years it's hard to fault coaches for not staying in touch all the time.
Could we be doing better? Sure, and I hope Pry & his staff fix some of those issues that have plagued VT in recruiting over the last decade.
IIRC Mike Smith has never been a big fan of VT, going well back.
He also had some terse words about how we slow-played Dazz Newsome.
The truth is probably in the middle...I think there is more than enough smoke to say pretty confidently that Fuente wasn't making a great impression with a large number of VA coaches, but that Smith never cared for VT in the beginning which (along with the fact that Hampton has not had nearly as much D1 talent) would explain a limited VT presence there.
It would be interesting to know how much time other Regional D1 schools have been spending there as well. I would suspect it's less than it was 10 to 15 years ago.
I have a feeling that, as the weeks pass and we fully move on to the Pry regime we're going to hear a lot about how the Fuente regime was run, and I am starting to get the feeling that a lot of it is going to be eye opening on just how poorly we were acting.
Certainly seems like there is a lot of dirty laundry waiting to be aired until after the dust settles.
Airing that laundry is looking backwards. Time would be better spent building forward momentum.
Oh I'm glad that we are moving on, but there are going to be some individuals who are being left behind that won't shy away from airing that dirty laundry for anyone willing to listen.
In this situation I do think it could be appropriately called 'airing dirty laundry'.
But sometimes you could equivalently say that 'the best disinfectant is light'.
I call BS on this claim.
Any rumblings from PSU verbals that Pry was the recruiter for?
For some reason I doubt this will be as easy for Pry as it was for previous coaching hires like Fuente and Young. PSU to VT isn't an obvious promotion for a recruit like Memphis or Wofford to VT is. But who knows, maybe.
To add on to that, going from DC to HC and trying to bring commits vs going from HC to HC is much different. I assume his respect for Franklin means he likely won't try to poach many, if any of the PSU recruits. I'd gladly take Cam Miller or any of the Edge Rushers currently committed to PSU.
Really depends on Pry's mindset. When Kirby Smart took over at UGA he pissed off Saban by trying to flip guys and basically copying his recruiting framework (and stealing some support staff I think).
Make no mistake, I am here for Pry doing this to Franklin!
If he doesnt have the mindset of trying to poach PSU recruits, he's already been a bad hire. It's time to step on peoples throats
This guy gets it. Step on 'em and snap 'em
Twist his dick!
This comment won't go plaid but it really should 😂😂
Wow! VT's Beamer has gotten very step
cutthroat in his old, retirement age!!Bingo!
Defensive guys go to play for a DC in a scheme they sold them. That could have some big sway.
Just kinda looking through the list, I don't see any that stand out as ones that we'd flip, but if you go to 2023...
they have verbals from a 4 star OL from Ashburn and a 4 star TE from Fredericksburg. And we obviously had heavy interest in both.
This is the exact shit we gotta stop! Would be great to flip one.
This all rolls back to Bud Elliot's entire thought process on the first class. The 22 class is going to be historically bad. It's probably best to just take all the portal players we can get and really drive a 23 class home because coaches first year classes are pretty much always bad.
If true this is a new trend likely due to ESD.
Traditionally, good recruiting coaches tended to get a "shiny new coach" recruiting bump for their first class.
Yes sorry the caveat to his analysis on there is in the ESD era.
Difference between the transitional class and the "first class"
"Transitional" is a much better descriptor.
That is yet to be seen. We haven't lost anyone from the class yet and it wasn't a terrible class.
There is general consensus that 2022 is a top 25 class. Several have VT at #20.
It depends who sticks, who moves on, and who commits now that Pry is head whistle.
Some of that is due to # of commits. The average isn't stellar but a big class.
Because we have 24 commits. Average per recruit is far more useful IMO; at 85.97, we're recruiting on par with teams like Minnesota, Texas Tech, and Colorado (so, top 50ish).
I'd say grad portal guys from PSU are more likely than verbals. But I suppose a defensive verbal from VA who has a particular affinity for Pry (if that's not a unicorn) is possible.
Pry's (boy apple auto corrected that to something NSFW) first job will be to get a few kids to stay out of or come back out of the portal. Expect a few portal entries soon.
Now I want to know what it autocorrected to. Mine corrects it to "pity's".
Fireman's a former squid.
The possibilities are infinite.
Does it also involve "fools" to be pitied?
We need him to keep key guys out of the portal, but we also need more attrition to make the numbers work.
I won't be panicking over portal entrants, but there are definitely names I don't want to see hit the portal.
Robinson is a rumor I've heard.
Yeah, someone said that rumor on Reddit. I really really hope that one is wrong.
I imagine that is why he is meeting with the players this morning. Try to head that kind of thing off at the pass. Hopefully, he will describe the type of offense he wants to run as well.
I imagine some guys may enter the portal but can always come back out.
I've heard that as well, but I don't think we will get much certainty for any offensive players/croots until we announce the OC and some offensive staffers.
Mack was in to see Gunner yesterday. Got him to schedule an OV too.
"Come on down to Chapel Hill where you can wear the Jordan brand proudly and be a preseason top 10 team. We might only go 6-6 but by all means we look good doing it!" - Mack probably
Dang I really don't like Mack Brown.
He really needs to stay the heck out of VA.
Oh yeah! WE BAK!
Oh shit!! Sounds good to me!
If I didn't know better, I'd swear some lessons were learned over these past few years...
The sad thing is...from what I have seen/heard of the guy so far, I feel like Pry would have done this regardless of Fuente's relationship with football alumni.
Fuente had to be told to better engage with them and still failed miserably.
I don't know the guy, but I feel like this is something he would have just done on his own because that's simply the kind of man he is.
The ol' gut is telling me he's a different breed than Fuente in so many ways. All of them things that the program desperately needed.
I still wish they didn't needlessly change our University logo.
They should have just merged them.
The people doing the design heard that we wanted the VT but with a twist and took that literally
That $2 million spent on the logo change could have been better spent on helping improve athletic facilities.
I know the $2 million wasn't for athletics to spend, but still!
And also not have screwed with the official colors. The new
Chicago maroonbright red/purple is an eyesore. I cringe every time I have to use the new RBG codes on VT websites.It was SOOOO easy to remember the old colors:
Good to see Sean Glennon hasn't completely turned his back on the program
he has been doing a podcast for a while that I used to listen to when we were good
Any word from that Zoom call with former players?
I know Dwight Vick, Brendon Hill and Ike Charlton were happy with it.
That's a great initial list...
Once a day? So does that mean I have a problem if it's once an hour?
At least you have company
Read this tweet and laughed didn't realize it was Nigel Williams tho. That makes it much better for some reason.