Thinking about yesterday I realized how awesome of a day it was for Tech athletics as a whole. Is this one of the best all-around days we've ever had or are we so used to gut punches that my disposition is too sunny? What are some other great days we've had in the past?
- Men's basketball beats Oklahoma State 70-65 for a (current) Quad 1 win
- #7 Women's basketball beats UNC Asheville 86-48
- #9 Hokies Wrestling upsets #7 Missouri Wrestling
- We landed commitments from Pop Watson, Ayden Greene, and Jeremiah Coney for Hokies Football
Also, it might have been just me that was nervous that Dante Lovett was teetering, but looks like he has reaffirmed he's locked in so I was happy to see that yesterday as well.
Go Hokies!
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Love the wins. Those were excellent, the women's team looks super legit this year and we should probably see the men's team ranked by the end of the day today. Wrestling was great as well, always good to knock off a top 10 team, and it does take a bit of the sting out of the loss to Ohio St earlier.
The recruits.... Look, its always great to get 3 recruits on the same day, but lets pump the brakes a little on what this means for football. Yes, the QB was flipped from Nebraska, but the other 2, we beat out the likes of Cinci and App St in recruiting, and they're all 3* recruits. We will need a lot more to legitimately start turning things around.
The likes of Cincinnati who made the playoff last year and App State who would've beat the breaks off us this season.
I know they're not flashy 4 star guys we stole from Clemson or Penn State, but the reality is they chose to be Hokies and Cincinnati and App are both clearly better programs than Tech at this point in time.
You are not wrong, but the 2022 App State football team could be the most overrated in history. 6-6; 3-5 in the league, but hey, they almost beat UNC so lets have game day there and talk about them all year.
I mean 6-6 isn't great, but "almost beating UNC" wasn't really the highlight? I would think actually beating TAM was a bigger deal.
I mean I guess, but didn't everybody except LSU beat A&M?
This year was kinda weird, huh?
If I recall, A&M was somewhere in the single digit rankings when the upset happened, so it was a big deal at least at the time. You know how it is with DCwilson, I'm not even actually sure that he's representing what other people said about ASU accurately. But it's easy to see how there would have been some early season excitement for them that ultimately faded.
Our sights need to be set higher than beating App St for recruits. I like that we got these 3 kids, but we need to be getting higher profile players given this class should have the new coach bump. If it doesn't we're in big trouble long term.
I don't disagree and I know we didn't exactly sign the next Tyrod, RMFW, or Isaiah ford with those three but I hope I'm wrong and it's at least cool to see some forward momentum especially before Early Signing Day.
Gotta start somewhere. We shouldn't be competing them for recruits, but here we are. Win with these guys and it attracts more interested from higher rated recruits. Win with those guys then we fight over everyone east of the Mississippi. Keep winning? We attract recruits nationally.
It's not like we actually went head-to-head with Cincinnati though. Their coach that Ayden Greene had committed to had left so he decommitted. Their coaching change was great timing for us, but let's be realistic -- if Fickell stays, Greene goes to Cincinnati lol.
They are definitely 'raise the floor' recruits, not 'raise the ceiling' recruits. But that's okay - you gotta somewhere.
This is where I'm at. The current recruiting group seems like a bunch of solid players. What feels good to me is the energy they have. They all seem to love VT and are excited by each other's commitments. That helps build culture and I think that's why it felt like so much fun to see the commitments come in.
And that's fine and I completely agree.
I'm just saying its not yet time for the self-congratulatory threads about our recruiting ventures. We still have a long way to go before we're where we want to be. We can be happy, but the job is not done, and we still have a ways to go before its going to be impactful for the school. If we landed 3 4* kids and beat the likes of UNC or PSU for them I get adding them to this thread, but 3* recruits who we beat App St for or a QB flip from a school bringing in a brand new coach? Yeah, I just think that's very premature.
I agree, and I think I would go a step further and say that we are 'on track' for improving recruiting.
This^^^^
This, on the other hand, a 4* transfer at QB, is more like it
I remember there was (what felt like) a 1 week period where we:
No idea how close together these events actually were, but I remember them as one, and this weekend felt like the opposite of that.
Definitely not a one week period haha, Devyn Ford verbaled to PSU in May of 2018, Gray announced he'd coach at UF in Jan of 2019, and Blackshear announced he'd be transferring in June of 2019. All within one year though, and coupled with finding out Buzz was both leaving and taking recruits/players with him to A&M, so there were definitely some compounding feelings of hopelessness as the year progressed.
Thanks.
In hindsight, I definitely think of the Devyn Ford 'flip' to PSU as the beginning of the end. Since then, it felt like VT football was in a rut, and there was very little (in season or off season) that offered hope and excitement. Nabbing some .88's out of VA definitely feels like a step in the right direction.
Losing Josh Sweat last minute to FSU was kind of the end of the Beamer era for me. Then Ford committing to PSU just kind of affirmed to me that Fu likely wasn't going to be able to recruit well enough at VT.
My memory is that we thought Fu would be able to (at minimum) keep up with Beamer's standard of recruiting. You look at the 2017 class - Hunter was the 5 highest rated recruit we've ever landed (behind Kevin Jones, Marcus Vick, Kendall Fuller, and Tyrod). Behind Hunter, there were four highly-thought-of 4-stars (Proctor, Garbutt, Hooker, and Rivers), followed by an underrated Caleb Farley. There was much to be excited about.
Then we missed on Ford. And at that point, it just felt like the wind completely left our sails, and we were never able to capture it again.
As a diehard Eagles fan, I literally still have a little bit of internal rage/unhappiness whenever he gets a sack or TFL for us. Guy can play
Meanwhile, fellow former target K'Von Wallace is...less impressive
For me it began with the Tahj Capeheart thing. No reason for that to be flubbed the way it was.
There was a whole run of lost/missed recruits there throughout 2018, before the season even started. I remember not being able to make sense of it at the time, not knowing what we know now. All I did know was that I had to follow recruiting a bit less closely, haha. Shit stressed me out.
Nice group of croots hauled in last weekend, though. Gotta start somewhere.
The Capeheart thing was when the Fuente "my way or the highway" approach became crystal clear. That's all well and good for posturing but in reality things are usually not black or white.
I remember when that happened. That was a tough one to see.
I think it was a great day, but in terms of we win the ACC in basketball baseball and softball (apologizes if I missed someone) hosted super regional games in baseball and softball last year, any one of those things makes it a bigger day. We went to the sweet 16 recently in basketball and final four in men's soccer.
I was pumped yesterday. Great day to be a Hokie. But I think the significance of the above mentioned events makes those way bigger days, even if nothing else happened those days.
Off topic, but I learned yesterday that Charles Barkley calls Alabama, Alabama University and they hate it. Im fully stealing it and calling them Virginia University from now on.
Edit. Meant to reply to a comment.
I was sitting in Barklays watching my hokies beat a long, athletic team that should be in the NCAA tourney. After a terrible fist 15 mins of the second half, really. That is the mark of a good team. They didn't panic when Ok state started to press. Got good minutes from MJ Collins, and with Catoor hitting one FG and mutts in foul trouble, they beat a much longer/bigger big 12 team. Hell yes. Great win. Great day.
Let's throw in winning the second consecutive Natty in Rugby and call it a weekend!
bUt ViRgInIa TeCh Is A oNe TrIcK pOnY!
That's okay, as long as our one trick is winning.
Nope two tricks Bass Fishing AND Rugby
It was a good day mainly because of the wrestling upset and the Q1 win for the men's bball team, but everything else was pretty normal. I expect our women's team to beat any unranked team. I'm excited about all three football commits, but I think people have really been overhyping Pry every time he gets a commit. We got some solid 3* guys which is great, and it is fun to get them all on the one day, but Pry has yet to prove that he can recruit at a higher level than Fuente. Fuente also pulled in lots of solid 3* guys and a sprinkling of 4*s.
I get that we all want Pry to succeed, but let's not overhype his accomplishments.
wHiT dOeSN't KnOW wHaT hE's dOIng, tIME fOr nEW AD.
It's a great day to be a Hokie!!!
Must be a day that ends in "y".
Monday hasn't been bad either
Pretty good.
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Hell yeah it was! Hitting is contagious, right? I'm giving Monday's credit to our fantastic Sunday!