I've been trying to combine a bit of data to take a peek at what our depth chart is likely to look like come next season. I've used the Hokiesports roster (and Signing Day page), OurLads depth charts, the 247 Talent composite, the handy Tech Lunch Pail Portal Update hub, and even combed through Recruiting Threads back to last March to track down PWO/WO commitments.
There's a few inconsistencies amongst these references- for one, I count 93 scholarships; Tech Lunch Pail counts 91 (I'd take their word for that one). The charts are fairly easy to use and color coded- hopefully everything is fairly intuitive and doesn't require a key or anything. I tried to calculate returning production in the left column for each position group. Regardless, it looks like we'll have to end up dropping up to 6 scholarships before next season as it stands (and one additional for every new recruit or transfer going forward).
EDIT: I'm not sure how well these depth charts are showing up on desktop. You may need to right click and "Open Image in New Tab" in order to read the names and numbers.
QB/RB
We get almost all of our production back at QB with Grant Wells. I imagine the QB battle right now is a two horse race between Grant and newcomer Kyron Drones out of Baylor.
We have about 2/3 of our Running Back production coming back with the loss of Jalen Holston. I'm not sure if there's some kind of gamesmanship going on (I know Cole Beck is now listed as a WR), but it looks like we only have 5 true RBs on scholarship (not counting the two early signees).
TE/WR
Our returning production amongst all pass-catchers is right around 50-60% (if you consider receptions and yards to be the significant stats for that). Tight Ends look to be in good position, with Gallo, Wright and De Iullis returning. (I believe Drake De Iullis has a seventh year of eligibility remaining- he's taken a medical red (2017)-shirt, a true red shirt the first season it was pushed to four games (2018), and a free Covid year). I might be wrong on this- let me know if I am).
With Kaleb Smith off to South Bend and Jadan Blue only eligible for this one past season, WR is easily the most crippled position on the roster. Only about 40% of our production is returning. The coaching staff signed 5 HS players and 2 portal WR's (and perhaps are not done there). While I don't think that this position is necessarily going to be a strength next season, it's certainly being addressed for the future. Ali Jennings (ODU) only has one year of eligibility left; Da'Quon Felton (Norfolk State) has two.
OL
When I went through each game last season on Hokiesports, it showed that the same 5 OL started each and every game. With two of these starter's eligibility expired (Dzansi and Jordan) It's pretty safe to say we're returning 60% of our OL production. We did get regular snaps out of Bob Schick and the younger Hollifield, who appear to be the next men up at the starting spots, it will be crucial for the guys behind them to fall into reliable roles to build depth.
ST
Special Teams look to be in good shape. We found our punt returner late last season, and our weakness- long snapping, will hopefully be assisted by a recent transfer who probably won't even need a scholarship (Griffin Armstrong). Hopefully this will get our punting back to form- Peter Moore was a good punter as a freshman, and dropped off a bit this season.
DL
With the announcement of Mario Kendricks return, at least we're not losing all of our starters (Norrell Pollard is still undecided). If Pollard returns, we should be returning 100% of our production at DT. If he leaves, we still get about 3/4 production back (Fuga and Pene were pretty active, and Kyree Moyston and Malachi Madison were already seeing reps as true Freshman as well).
However we took a big hit on the DE position with expired eligiblity from Tyjuan Garbutt and Jaylen Griffin. with only about 40% productivity returning (considering tackles and TFL as vital stats there). Fortunately, we have four players that have taken significant reps vying for the starting roles, along with two promising transfers in Temple's Darian Varner and Nebraska's Pheldarius Payne.
DB/LB
The CB group has taken quite a hit, and we're only returning about half of our production with the loss of Chatman, Murray and DJ Harvey. Dorian Strong and Mansoor Delane should be more than capable of taking over directly, and Cam-1 and Nyke-2 have gotten some reps in already as well. We've also bolstered this position considerably with 7 DB signees.
At safety, Chamarri Conner is off to the draft and Nasir Peoples has elected to stay for his super-senior year. Between Jalen Stroman and Ny'Quee-1, we should have a pretty solid starting secondary going forward. Behind, that, though only Jalen Hoyle has taken reps. I count ~2/3 production returning at Safety.
The Linebackers have taken a hit with the loss of Dax and Artis, so we only return about 2/3 production there. It was a pretty deep group with a lot of guys getting reps. Thankfully Alan Tisdale has elected to return for his super-senior season. We may have a bit of a dropoff in production, but should have a pretty experienced two-deep to start the season at Linebacker.
Comments
Payne has to be a DE right. 260 lbs, he's played DE his entire career in a 3-4 where the guys are bigger, also it's a greater position of need etc
LOL I must have just missed this convo before I finished up. Yes, it sounds like Hokiesports lists him as a LB in error- he should be DE.
EDIT: Fixed
my perception is that Payne will play more tackle than end
I feel like you deserve more traffic - I read this like 3 hrs ago and really appreciated the visualization. Solid work.
Thanks for this. The visuals really help drive home where our talent is.
It also helped shine a light on where the recruits we pulled last year can really step up. There were many guys we felt good about that didn't see the field for whatever reason that we need to be productive this upcoming year (Givens, Bradshaw, Meadows, etc.)
Saw some smoke on twitter about Givens moving to OL. Which is awesome if true imo
Probably a better long term fit for him on OL, but man I'm a little concerned about DT. Didn't take any DTs this year.
Bitter said he thinks Varner kicks inside
IIRC French said he was a natural fit for OL rather than DT. I could be wrong.
My brother played against him in HS and when how found out he committed to play DE he said ,"why? He's average at best on defense. He was way better at OL"
This was a fantastic memory jogger as I had forgotten so many of these names. Tip of the hat for the visuals.
Damn we had a lot of injuries
This shows we are going to have 21 WR on roster (though maybe not all on scholarship) next year if nothing changes during the spring. I expect some attrition there, either through changing positions or the portal.
Or am I wrong, and that's a normal amount of WR to have on a team?
Does it matter what position you are listed at if you do not see the field? Are you really a receiver if you can't get open and catch the ball? Yeah, I expect a lot of much needed attrition there.
I'd settle for 4-6 who can get open and catch the ball.
Maybe you need to recruit 20 to find that many.
Last year we had one, and he left.
I'm not sure all of them are on scholarship, so a better question is probably how many are on scholarship and what is a normal amount of scholarship WRs?
Edit: I know he gave scholarship numbers at the top, but I'm too tired/lazy to count all the kids at every position to tell if it's more than the scholarship number he listed.
The white background indicates a non-scholarship player, and an all-maroon background indicates attrition (the player is gone next season).
On the far left column, the number in parentheses next to the position group is the number of scholarships that we're on the hook for. For WR's going into 2023, we're at 14. I imagine this number changes based on the type of offense a team runs, but this seems really high.
(Edit: I didn't add Cole Beck's scholarship when I moved him from RB to WR. I think we're actually at 15)
Per bitter, beck won't be in scholarship if he returns.
Everyone bookmark this tweet for the next time dcwilson singles him out as being an example of poor roster management
To be fair, the fact that Pry won't give Beck another scholarship year doesn't mean that DC is wrong about Fuente's roster management.
I think there were more recent discussions on roster mgmt for next year regarding beck so under pry can't for the life of me rennet what tangent of what thread it was on tho
Ok... now I gotta know why your phone would chose to autocorrect to "rennet". Do you make cheese?
I don't. And have no clue. I was one handing, rocking my youngest to sleep -
I Camembert autocorrect
Did you try telling the little one stories? Rumple-stilson, perhaps?
That's a Gouda one.
Thank you. While I am only occasionally a fontina of Dad jokes, that one came to me like a bolt from the bleu.
Ah-ha! Thanks! This is a really handy post. Hope I can find it again later for reference.
One reason I was asking was because if we really do need to drop between 3 and 8 scholarships to get back under 85, I like to see if I can guess who they might be.
Great job, and appreciate all the work that went into it!
Awesome - thanks for the explanation!!!
Can you share this spready?
I'll give it a shot sometime in the next couple days.
Edit: sorry it took so long. Hopefully this works:
Hokies 2023 way-too early depth chart
Follow up Q - did you share something similar last season? I though you did, but I wasn't sure.
I don't think so.
Appears to be some further confirmation about some of the '23 ATHs being given a shot initially at WR
Opponents beware.
Underrated movie IMHO. Leg.
The Pennix Mightier is an all-time Hokie nickname
TBF, it's already a UW-Husky nickname:
Wednesday Dots: The Penix Mightier
Although, the Hokie Pennix has two 'n's and thus is mightier, even if Penix probably should've been a Heisman finalist.
Easy solution: our Pennix can be the Mightier Pennix.
Want to feel old? That skit aired four or five years before most of the incoming class was born.
I saw Jesse Hanson in a cast yesterday. So, there's that. One would assume a break is better before spring practice.
Do you want to tell him about Varner or should I?
See one position change on the official roster for new signees. Jonathan Pennix is listed at CB after he initially came in as a WR.
This makes it less crowded in the WR room but makes it 8 total DB's in the new class. 7 if you count that Antonio Cotman has been moved to the STAR position (previously SAM LB).
Hopefully the DB's can get spaced out evenly, so we can develop talent rather than just have guys with high potential transfer early. Ideally 3 would play immediately and 4 redshirt (or vice versa) with the entire two deep getting big minutes
Wow, what a reversal in depth at that position. Hopefully a couple more bulk up and move to LB or a hybrid position.
LB has a bunch of guys coming in too. The traditional spots have Tavorian Copeland and Aycen Stephens coming in behind Lawson, Keller and McDonald. STAR has Cotman and Caleb Woodson coming in behind Jenkins. And Gabe Williams plus whoever else coming in next year.
I guess one more of the incoming DB's could slide over to LB but most importantly I think the staff needs to figure out who can play as quickly as possible and if they all can (or have potential to) find a way to keep them around and spread out playing time among them to keep everyone happy
Copeland, Stephens, Lawson, Tisdale, Keller, McDonald, and Stone Snyder all have good size plus I believe we still have Dean Ferguson, Matt Johnson, and Will Johnson. Hopefully we can get some good play out of all those guys. Jenkins and Woodson are also pretty decent size for their spot. Cotman may be on the smaller side but sounds like he has a lot of talent. I really like where this spot is heading! CB and Safety also have me excited, DE is looking good. DT remains my main concern. We need some big DT's, the ones we have should be good or at least serviceable but we need bigger bodies and depth there if we are to get back to 10 wins.
Yes true except for Dean Ferguson and Matt Johnson, both transferred this offseason.
Agree 100% on DT. Not sold at all on Malachi Madison and Lamar Law, and definitely not on Givens either who should be on OL but may not be P5 (or FBS) caliber there either. I think French was pretty low on Madison and Law as well, I know his opinion on Givens
Another roster take: James Jennette is listed at 205. (That's the same weight as Jaylen Jones who is 3 inches shorter and playing safety.) If accurate it's pretty fair to speculate he will not be in the rotation this season.
Powell-Ryland comes in at a solid 242, he will be key in how productive the DE position can be this fall imo
Sounds like a linebacker and maybe put the other MacDonald twin at DE if need be.
Hopefully, Jeanette is a typo. He was supposedly 220 at William and Mary. On3 listed him as 225 in his recruiting profile.
I don't think it is. TSL just dropped a podcast where they talked about it, Chris Coleman was very low on the juco he went to
Not worried about Jennette one bit. Those Durham Jordan alums are built with that dog in them.
Powell-Ryland is a prototypical edge rusher not a run stopper. Get someone who can hold the edge on the other side and we'll be good to go
7/5 update:
QB, RB & DB
LB & DL
OL
TE & WR
Nothing really changed on Special Teams
Nice didn't know Frady had two years.
Couple edits, Jaylen Jones is at Safety now and Ny'Quee Hawkins is not on the roster
Pretty sure I goofed on Frady- he got to G-W just after the "free" 2020 season (spring for FCS). With 3 years as a starter, he's probably only got one year left.
Thank you for the feedback- I try to keep up with the moves and speculative position changes. You've been a big help with these.
according to Andy Bitter, Frady does have 2 years remaining
https://virginiatech.sportswar.com/article/2023/06/04/virginia-tech-snag...
I guess this needs to be updated since we aren't likely to have Jesse Hanson at all this year. I wonder who will take his LG spot? Moore just move up or someone else move over?
60 NCAA games played and only 34 starts worries the hell out of me, now that Hanson is doubtful.
Maybe move Schick into position, to add 10 games' experience.
That would leave a total of 5 scholarship OL games' experience on the depth chart.
Probably Meadows or Frady at that last guard spot then the other one is our 6th man. Schick 7th man. There's a clear drop off after that, losing Hanson definitely hurts, one injury means 6 guys playing the whole game that would not be ideal
Would love to see Pop Watson start to move up the chart. Dude was flashing at the spring game.
I heard it reported that Will Ross is no longer with the team.
I tried to embed Bitter's tweet(the original source of this information), but x dot com is making it super difficult to find tweets if you do not have an account.
but Cole Beck is BACK!
he Bek?