See ya in Lane 😎Fans are encouraged to come to our second practice of spring ball next Saturday.Be there: https://t.co/VWoYE4Fhy7 pic.twitter.com/F530y9AvJC— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) March 8, 2022
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Things you love to see.
charliesheenwinning.gif
Fan engagement is really happening!
Does not compute. What exactly is an "open practice"??? /s
I will actually be in Virginia for the 1st time three years, first time back in Richmond since 2012. How long is the drive from Mechanicsville to Lane?
I got you fam. 3:20
That's the "official time" what's the real time. Have to be back in town for a memorial service that evening.
With minimum stops and no traffic 3.5 hours and if theres traffic or a pitstop for food gas plan on 4 hours. I live in ashland area and to make it to there I always leave myself a 4 hour window as 81 is a bit of a pain.
Thanks, looks like that's a no go then. Unless someone knows a pilot leaving Richmond to Blacksburg that morning and back that afternoon.
Actually had a friend whose dad built a kit plane solely to fly from midlothian to Blacksburg during the 7 years he had kids at tech. Unfortunately they've since moved out of the area but I always thought that's be pretty sweet if I had the money.
Next level badassedness right there ladies and gentlemen!
You rang...?
I'm based out of Charlottesville now, but it's 30min to pop over to Hanover or Chesterfield and pick you up and then 1-1.5hr to fly to BCB. I'm not 100% sure if we're going and it'll depend on weather, but if we are I'm more than willing to come get ya.
Email me at rossbril at gmail
Holy crap man this website and fan base are absolutely amazing. I'll email you late this morning after I drop kids off at school at look at schedule for memorial weekend. What a kind and generous offer.
This might be the coolest friggin thing I've ever seen on the internet.
This comment should go plaid and be in TKP hall of fame. Some fan bases offer you a ride to the game, Hokies offer you to pick you up on their plane.
Fireman now all like
Get this man a plaid post for this amazing Hokie spirit offer of kindness.
did it happen? I'm curious now
I used to make it from Mechanicsville to VT in 3 hours when I was a student with no stops.
That's still 6 hours round trip no stops, for an hour of practice no pads.
Sounds worth it to me.
Yeah, just giving my experience with the drive.
Honestly, that's probably what I'd bank on. You could shave it to 3 hours depending on what you consider speeding but I'm always pessimistic about getting to the far side of Richmond.
Official time: 3:20
Real Time with the excitement of the open practice: 2:30
What brings you to Mechanicsville?
Memorial service for my best friend from K to 12th grades dad passed away. Like a second family, his dad got me a job at MCV where I met my wife too.
My condolences Fireman. That's rough to lose a close childhood friend. You and the family are in my thoughts.
Oh no but now all our opponents will be able to see all our secret plays!
Foreal. Next you're gonna tell me our offensive coordinator won't be dictating where the ball goes on read plays. How will out players know what to do??
It's a party, it's a party
All I can say is "WOW!"
No Brainer. Coach Pry has common sense. Step 1. Actually embrace the best fans in college football. Brilliant.
It's called.....Joy....joy directed towards VT Football...Thank you CBP
Now why was that so fucking hard?
Fuente didn't want to show his hand on the third and long QB delayed draw up the middle on a 4 wide all fly pattern.
In all seriousness, if you're designating who your QB throws to on all the "read" plays, then you really don't want to be having open practices.
A good start
Second practice, hopefully we see more than calisthenics and footwork drills.
At least it's what we'll get for 2nd practice. LOLuva has gotten that as their Spring picnic for the past 6 years.
This shit still cracks me up whenever I see it
The basketball in football helmets and the Pac-Man maze drill is funnier to me. This is just stupid.
I almost went with the snarky post about trying to get a football into a basketball hoop and army crawling, but thought I should turn the corner as the team has. I misread the audience haha
I'm actually curious if the Al Groh era or the Bronco era was more embarrassing for them.
I find open practices to be...shallow and pedantic.
Great. Give away every advantage we have. We have a brand new system and we're going to give our Old Dominion game plan away at the second practice?
/s?
If you suck that bad at coaching then maybe you need to hide your practices, partially so folks won't realize that you are doing it the wrong way.
Back in the early 2000s living on Green St., I would hear practice going on in Lane and would just waltz my self over through the woods and sit in the stands with the 50 other interested people, inactive players, and randoms. No Twitter announcement necessary.
Yep, you could sit on the hill and watch practice any time you wanted to. I don't know if that hill is still there cause of the new indoor facility.
Sitting here at open practice and Grant Wells definitely throwing some nice balls (for what it's worth)!
Tahj struggling a bit with throwing on the move.
Wells & Brown looking good.
Keep updates coming for anyone who is there!
Also Fireman, did you make it?
Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate Saturday. I was gonna pick up Fireman from Hanover but with 30-40kt headwinds and ground winds gusting all over VA up to 25-30kts, it just wasn't a good day to fly.
Despite not getting to go your offer was still amazing Grumman. Thanks again.
No problem man. Always up for helping another Hokie make it back to campus.
Pass skelly...
Wells goes first. Bit hot n cold. One super pretty throw. His balls have ZIP.
Brown up 2nd...
First pass nice completion. Second an INT. Wobbly ball. Doesn't seem to have as much zip. Definitely windy out here though.
Brown finishes with 2 nice completions. More zip.
Jaylen Jones has one super nice catch & move after.
Any Blumrick sightings? They said one of top 22 players, so wondering if they're lining him up somewhere else, and assuming so, where?
I was there for 3/4 of the practice and he was with the QBs the whole time.
How did the jet sweep look?! /s
Not sure... couldn't see... I was on the field side.
/s
Here is a great write up on the practice from Gobbler Country
Blumrick was throwing with the 1s for those wondering. Of course this is one practice in the spring that was open to the public. Not a whole lot to read from this of course.
I wasn't there, but from everything I've read so far it appears Wells was the most impressive QB of the bunch.
Thank for you sharing the GC article. This is so incredibly refreshing to read:
What is pleasing to the knowledgeable football fan is the fact that the coaching staff isn't stumbling around trying to find their people or work their drills. This nearly brand-new staff, few of whom have worked all together before, looked competent, professional, and all pulling oars in the same direction. It was nice to see the Head Coach not needing to get heavily involved in things and in control of a well-managed and coached practice.
NGL, that was my reaction as well
Having been to a number of football practices at a couple different universities I must say this is refreshing. The absolute best, most organized, most upbeat, most competitive practices I've ever seen in person have been with Mike Houston and his staff - absolutely amazing.
Sounds like Coach Pry and company are doing an excellent job as well.
The other little nugget that popped up in that little interview with Coach Pry is that the team struggles with fundamentals and effort. I think this is a carryover from the previous staff and the culture that was allowed to exist. So glad GRIT will actually be a thing in Blacksburg again!
As long as it's an attitudinal thing on the field and not on shirts and posters, I'd agree.
Thanks for sharing the link. Couple things jumped out at me. The video was interrupted when coach was describing in detail the eventual process for boundary vs field positions. Was that interruption strategic or just a video issue? Also he mentioned he is evaluating staff in addition to players. I know it's early but I'm happy to hear him emphasize that point. Hopefully if we get to a point where staff upgrades are needed he'll recognize it and act on it.
So, this guy is the only one, from any write up I've seen from practice, who seemed to think Blumrick was "throwing with the ones."
All other writers said basically 4 QBs took even reps.....for what that's worth. He's a talented athlete and I think he will get a role somewhere on this team next fall, but I seriously doubt Blumrick enters summer camp any higher than 3rd on the depth chart, if he's still a Qb by then at all.
I think that assumption was made cause he was the first to start the drills. As Pry said, show out in conditioning and you earn a shot at being with the 1s. Doesn't mean he will stay there once QB talent evaluation is done just that from the conditioning he has earned a chance
Don't want to be negative, and I appreciate reading the limited info posted thus far by VT dude, but I'm a little surprised at the lack of posts or details on TKP. Not much info on position groups, players, or plays. It doesn't appear that many TKPers were able to made it to the open practice.
I think with it only being the 2nd practice, the team just hasn't gotten to that point. It was mostly positional drills. They weren't even in pads. You won't get that level until the spring game.
We had the men's and women's basketball teams make historic runs to close out the season. March basketball ain't bad at all.
It was an open practice. Not a spring game, or an open scrimmage. There's barely anything worth reviewing in regards to actual football news.
It was more of a culture change announcement than anything else. It was nice. 69*F nice.
The big takeaways from the weekend:
Pry being honest about attrition coming to the ranks. Not enough P5 players on the current roster.
Devon Hunter quietly closing his college career.
Culture change.
That is a lot of F's.
"Not enough P5 players on the current roster."
Sounds like something Bronco said and he got skewered for it. Of course, he did pretty well with what he had, if I'm being honest.
Did he really get skewered for it cause he was right. UVA was the worst program in the ACC before him. I mean they're still thr worst, he just made them respectable.
I remember us all laughing at his circumstances because we agreed.
I think he got skewered by his own people. Some didn't like the candor.
There were many many complaints by member of this site when Fuente closed practices. I think that most people weren't complaining because they could no longer goto the practices but what it really meant for a head coach to do that. So while it might seem that half the site visited practices it really was only a few that could do that.
This weekend cost Pry nothing and counts as a fan engagement event even though he didn't have to do anything for the fans other than ler them watch. You're not going to see much because it's and early practice and coaches are still installing things. So closing practices like this really didn't do anything for anyone. So the complaint is why close the practice when you can throw the fans a bone and not actually have to do anything.
I never cared either way because I dont care about watching a practice, so I could be way off with my guess work.
I don't think the issue is so much with fans not being able to attend as much as media. Fans love to read articles and when they actually involve real events instead of coach talk. I probably won't drive to Blacksburg for an open practice but I use to love to read French's write-up's of what he saw at one.
things you just love to see
#RTDB
I kinda interpreted that as how the LT's stance would tip off the defense as to what the play was going to be.
With Wisconsin's historic running success behind his offensive lines, I kind of hoping we are going to be running the ball at least 52.56% of the time.
I keep reminding myself that just because he's here, doesn't mean this is one of his lines (yet). I have to remember that the 2022 season is liable to be pretty painful.
I will probably fail and get overly enthusiastic anyway.
After the spring game we will know how hype we should get......
I've been hyped. It's still midnight in these pants.
Should I see a doctor? Maybe.
Going to close this one down, because I don't want a catch-all thread. Please create new threads for any new spring news.