Please Respect My Decision ... Coaches My Dm Is Open. pic.twitter.com/PnCNGSxHnV— Rashaud Pernell ⁵³ (@Rashaudd__) May 26, 2022
He signed NLI this past December, so will need a release in my understanding. Big blow to the incoming freshman class
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That sucks
This is disappointing news for sure. I feel like he was one of our better DL prospects in recent years, and obviously the HSHS connection was an important aspect of this. The timing, and having signed an NLI already, makes me curious as to WHY this happened, but I don't feel the need to speculate too much about this over the internet.
Yeah, even a couple days ago he seemed all about Hokie Nation and welcoming in commits, so timing seems weird.
there's gonna be a ton of speculation but let's not jump to conclusions here and rather wait for credible reports to emerge
But that's boring.
I think Joe Biden has enlisted him as a super secret agent to combat the also secret alien invasion that has been covered up by both the war in Ukraine and Inflation
This is horrible perception-wise. One of the big recruits in the class, in state, and from HSHS like you mention. Going to wait for some more info but not great Bob.
How often does this happen though, it's gotta be something unexpected rather than "oh I don't want to go to school here anymore."
Assuming we never really find out the reason why (and with one of his high school classmates just committing, doubt it's a relationship with the staff issue), this was likely something outside of the control of the coaches this late in the school year.
Not saying this is what happened, but what happens if someone becomes academically ineligible after signing an NLI? Or doesn't meet Tech's minimum standards?
Oof I was really excited for him having been coached up by Loren Johnson and Derrick Hopkins in high school. That sucks
Just speaking impartially, but how does he announce his Decommitment after signing the NLI. Couldn't Tech theoretically hold him to his NLI and say you aren't released? That would mean he is playing football here or nowhere for at least 1 year.
I know for PR reasons that won't happen.
hence the "decommits" quotes in the thread title -- I really don't know what happens if he never enrolls (because it's technically not a transfer)
Fuck.
I'm very happy you're back.
After typing several posts, then backspacing over and over again, I went with my emotions.
From his tweets and retweets it seems whatever is going on started around three days ago.
Yeah that's crazy. 3 days ago: "WELCOME TO HOKIE NATION!!"
Today: "IMMA HEAD OUT"
And I don't mean crazy in a pejorative sense, just that it must be something major to go from pushing for recruits to asking other coaches to DM him in 3 days.
Maybe sometime hacked his Twitter account. Doubtful. It is very odd.
Some rumblings on some other (inferior to TKP) sites are that he knows he won't have the grades.
If that's the case can he not just Fork Union it or go to Marshall for a year then transfer
I'd hesitate to speculate on something like that...
Pretty sure it's against the site rules. Also generally trashy to spread unconfirmed rumors about an 18 year old student (although I understand the temptation).
I did not speculate or intend to break site rules and as I posted, the other sites stated that "he" thinks he doesn't have the grades. No shade thrown and I want him at VT. Additionally, I had to go to Ferrum for a semester before coming to VT to get my grades up so I empathize. Seriously, don't see how my information was derogatory. Hokie on fans.
I believe you when you say you didn't intend offense, but people do sometimes use academic performance against outgoing recruits (sour grapes basically). Believe that.
Also, repeating a rumor from a different sports blog isn't speculating?
Um no....speculation would mean @I" gave an opinion. No offense to you but so many people are ready to be offended so quickly. You called me out as a violator and I made zero opinions and I was a walk on for our Hokies in the 80's and I had to get my grades up. Good gracious friend....this comment was meant to share what others had heard. Just wow. I love Rashaud and respect all TKP members and high school kids.
Let's take it for what it is at this point: unconfirmed rumblings from another fan site.
All it takes is a commenter to say "sounds like he knows he won't get the grades" and then that gets reshared here and so on. It's just amplifying someone else's speculation unless there's a credible source behind it.
A few years ago, we had a few commenters here jump big time to some (wrong) conclusions when there were unconfirmed rumblings of an academic honor court case with some important football players. Comments were made that basically insinuated Josh Jackson was cheating his way through school and finally got caught and was gonna get kicked out of the university etc etc and turns out nothing of the sort happened.
So typically we think it's best practice not to comment or speculate (or amplify speculation) about academic matters - it's difficult to substantiate, it's the topic of a federal privacy law at the collegiate level (FERPA), it can have implications for the way the player is viewed as a person (a cheat, a slacker, etc) which can have off-the-field ramifications for the individual, so on.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Long-standing, though somewhat informal, rule here. Don't speculate on grades, don't spread rumors. If you know, you've violated federal law. If you don't know, you're potentially spreading damaging information without justification. This goes back even further than Josh Jackson, people used to bring up grades with recruits and we always had to stop those discussions. Ask yourself if you'd like anonymous internet posters discussing your academic history? Anyone ever gotten a bad grade they felt ashamed of or angry about for whatever reason? Let's not do that.
Oh hell no. This isn't something I made up just to lord over you. Thank god for gobble gobble chomps for laying it out, I thought I was taking crazy pills for a second.
You didn't think this through, or weren't aware? Eh, fine. But miss me with this "the real problem is you're offended" bullshit. I don't care if you're the pope, you can demonstrate actual respect for these kids by not speculating on them. And you are speculating - again gobble gobble chomps laid this out.
I don't know what I'm missing for you to get those upvotes, changing of the guard maybe? But I do know this at least used to be frowned upon, for good reason in my view. I'll die on that hill.
Allow me to whisper some words of wisdom: let it be
Sometimes the tone of the comments gets more of a response than the actual content. I think that's what happened here
This is one of the reasons why my lack of interest in CFB continues to trend downward. Near-constant shuffling of rosters after the big recruiting brewha. These rosters are less stable than in the NFL. No contracts, transfer whenever, etc. No matter if this was academic, coaching related or whatever, these kids come and go so fast you can't keep up.
This stuff always happens, it has always happened, there is actual news about it now when two decades ago very few people followed recruiting and never noticed when players never showed up on campus. You can pick just about any year and see 10-15 players that have eligibility left that don't go to the draft not come back the next year.
CFB recruiting, rosters, transfer portal, NIL, early jumps to NFL, etc. were the same as it was 20 years ago? I don't recall.
Roster churn was high. Recruiting was dirty.
The specific mechanisms were different, but the roster turnover was more similar than many acknowledge. But it wasn't as obsessively followed / heavily publicized as it is now.
It has never been this high and skewed towards the top
Not recently. Most of these recent changes have empowered the student athletes- to the detriment of parity.
Before roster limits were in place, the top programs were signing enormous classes year after year, the top programs could have hundreds of players on scholarship. (I think in one class, right after winning a championship, Pitt signed like 130 players).
Coaches at top programs were pretty honest about their strategy- sign everybody you can to keep them away from other programs. So the talent stratification was extreme, and kept improving:
Before 1973 there was no scholarship limit
1973 (105 scholarship limit)
1978 (95 scholarship limit)
1992 (85 scholarship limit)
The scholarship limits had a HUGE effect on establishing parity.
NIL and Open Transfers will both tend to work against parity. However, just "how much" might be greatly exaggerated.
For NIL, small programs like Jackson State and Campbell made FAR greater strides than any FBS school, so there's a higher ceiling now for smaller programs. (Most of the FBS programs who experienced a sudden improvement in their recruiting didn't really improve all that much. Texas A&M "technically" had the best class in 2022, but they were already recruiting top ten classes- the 9th, 6th and 4th best classes going back to 2019).
Players are transferring at far higher rates due to less consequence (no sitting out). And many star players will transfer into bigger programs, true. But there are absolutely borderline starters and solid depth players transferring down to get a better shot at starting outright at smaller programs. (I'm not certain the ratio is 1:1, but it's not ALL upward movement).
I used hokiesports for the rosters (which is why i started in 2003)
I used 247 for the recruiting classes
I did not count RS JRs that never played a meaningful down as i assume they got their degree and left. I did count Marcus for leaving early in the "Players not returning" but did not count him in the "left early (not draft)"
We average over 2 recruits a year that never make it on the first game roster. We average almost 2 of our top 6 recruits that don't pane out and leave.
Unfortunate. I thought he had good film.
Maybe he just decommited so he could renegotiate his NIL. I'm not sure Hardee's is gonna get it done for us. If we only had a WhataBurger.
Big loss for us, but best of luck to the young man.
NLI =/= NIL
Maybe Pry is laying down the Pry-bar and Rashaud wasn't meeting expectations set forth by CBP.
Probably got an NIL deal to USC
Perhaps an NIL deal from UVa to not play for VT. Kidding but this does bring to front something I hadn't considered before, kids being on the take to get an NIL deal....
Except he sign an NLI, which is binding. He can't opt out of that to get an NIL deal (or better deal) - the NLI is something that would require Tech to release him, and they aren't doing that if they want him.
Nothing to see here......move along please.
"...he needed to do some things before I was comfortable with him being here."
Nice to hear Pry not only had a conversation with the Highland Springs head coach, but is also trying to help Pernell find a new home.
let the speculation begin!
The speculation already got shot down above. It's not going to be too serious, otherwise Pry wouldn't be referring him to other programs and, as Bitter has tweeted, since Pry initiated, Pernell has to understand it's on him, otherwise the "decommitment" tweet would not have been as nice towards the coaching staff. I feel like that's probably enough to know/understand about the situation.
Per his twitter, Rashaud has landed at Liberty and graduated from Highland Springs with an "advanced diploma". Best wishes to him personally and may he never defeat us
Yeah that sucks, he's a high level player. Wished he ended up at like ECU or Coastal, somewhere out of our hair
Not scheduling a shit commuter school that has been playing football for 5 minutes would solve this problem.
HEY!! Don't crap on commuter schools. If it weren't for commenter schools we never would have gotten this:
This comment needs ALL the legs.
(And don't cheapen this with your usual comment. UMBC over UVA comments truly deserve all the legs.)
I can hear this gif.
Never Forget
Is it bad that every time I see a higher end player ending up at Liberty, my first thought is that they got paid a hefty chunk to go there? Like, way more than players get to go SEC levels of money.
I'm certain the perks offered go beyond money
Oh to be sitting in the corner of the room when that all went down.....
yes, this is the joke I was going for
Served it up nicely, too
via GIPHY
Not to be a dick, but how "high level" is Purnell if he wound up at liberty? High level to me he would have ended up at a decent P5 school at least, right?
Had offers from BC, Maryland, Penn State, Pitt and WVU. Not a 4 star recruit or anything but that's a solid list.
Also something like all of the Highland Springs players who have played in the FBS in the last decade have gone on to be productive multi year starters. And his line coach is Derrick Hopkins
That wasn't my question, WADR.. If those teams offered him, why wouldn't they take him as a transfer? Why did he end up at Liberty instead of Penn State? That's a huge disparity.
Probably the same reason he didn't end up with up which right now seems to be unknown?
There's an ESPN+ article that says VT ended spring practice with more players than scholarships. Pry said he had to have some hard conversations.
This situation sounds like it fits in that category. And it's likely that many P5 schools had similar issues with numbers. I imagine that the schools at the lower levels aren't quite as tight on roster space.
I can say that is not the reason. That would have been for players that had been on the team in previous seasons!
Yeah we have 2 scholarships open right now I believe. Pry had said he just didn't feel comfortable bringing him in right now. That is all we know.
I would say that most schools are having that problem, with the free year from COVID that players are allowed still in play.
Not to disparage him, but it was my understanding that he wasn't going to qualify academically for the P5 schools. That is why going to Liberty might be the best option that was available to him. I think their standards are a pulse and a checkbook for most of their students.
Leg for the Pulse and Checkbook line because that is too true.
Hell, a pulse is just a nice-to-have as long as the checks clear...
Then it just becomes a non-refundable donation I am sure.
Liberty calls it a viewing fee.
What is an advance diploma?
It comes before an on time diploma. Duh!
My understanding from quick read of the HS page is it a college track diploma. It requires 4 more credits, with at least one in an honors or AP class, then a "standard" diploma, and a few other specific course types.
It's what you get at UNCheat when you enroll out of high school. I hear they send it with your acceptance letter. Takes care of that complicated "signing up for classes" nonsense that other schools seem so hung up about.