They snuck this one in late last night. I thought Pry offered some good insight into Spring Ball and the roster, definitely worth a full listen IMO.
Injury updates:
- Jennings came in with minor injury and is now 100%
- Wright at 3/4 speed
- Lofton not quite 100%
- Findlayter had minor shoulder surgery and is out for Spring
- Payne is on schedule
Everything else:
- LB sounds like a mess, but a lot of people getting reps. Tisdale is back, Jenkins and McDonald getting reps
- There are a mix of people rotating in at Sam/Nickel in place of Walker. Canteen, Peoples, and Hoyle all mentioned.
- Keller has figured out Will and is getting reps at Mike. Pry mentioned he has been able to correct the DTs and still get set himself.
- Pry happy with RB room. Tuten adds a different set of skills to Thomas. Also, mentioned he's liked what he's seen from Black and Coney.
- Impressed with off-season work ethic from Kendricks and Stroman
- Still figuring out first team OL. "Looking for the fifth guy"
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Comments
They snuck this one in on ya too
Also
No Payne, no gain. 💪
There are ones for Stroman and Kendricks too.
I can embed later unless someone wants to be at me to it.The name Canteen goes well with the Lunch Pail.
So, he's the waterboy for the defense?
I wonder when Adam Sandler got promoted from Canteen Boy to Waterboy
I like that sweatshirt
I hesitate to comment on his attire again. He needs to let that beard flow though.
While there isn't a lot of meat on the bones in the footage, I watched the Stu Holt mic'ed up, and there was a goalline play where big Xavier Chaplin got some nice push on Cole Nelson to generate a touchdown in a full contact goal line drill. Yet, on the same play, the elder Moore was a yard behind the line of scrimmage, not engaged with anyone despite being a center. Grrrr.
Also, Jaylin Lane housed a punt return touchdown. For those of you who haven't seen my review of the receiver room, Lane is my pick to be the breakout big play threat. He has the jump.
We burned Holloway's redshirt for 3 plays at Liberty in a meaningless game, so hopefully he is an impact contributor right away
Holloway didn't want to redshirt. You can't force the kid to redshirt if he doesn't want to.
I mean, you can. Just means that he's going to transfer.
Why can't you? Where does it say a guy is guaranteed to see the field in a game?
Pry made a very public point last year of saying the best players play, period. Holloway was one of the (slightly) bright spots in our otherwise abysmal WR room and special teams last year. If Holloway sits behind some of the obviously worse players last year Pry's credibility is was going to take a hit. Pry is trying to rebuild the culture around here and being hypocritical like that isn't going to help that.
Doesn't add up. He got very few snaps overall. Poorly handled. If he was good- play him early and often in one of the worst P5 offenses, no? And he may not have wanted to redshirt but that essentially came down to "he wanted to play in the liberty game". Period. If he was upset about playing time, he would have entered the portal when he didn't play in 8 games last year- not one snap. So what he really wanted was to play vs. liberty. Thats what it boiled down to.
Yep speaking facts. Legitimate question that shouldn't be overlooked just because Pry is well liked
Players can improve over the course of season.
So what? Pry has also stated he is building a culture and program. How is pointlessly playing a guy who not remotely needed at WR vs Liberty going to further that goal. And frankly while he was probably the best alternative at PR, it was entirely likely he would get maybe one or two chances to do anything. He wasn't going to - and didn't - get the opportunities he got vs GT (which had arguably the worst punt coverage unit in the country last year which made several returners look like Deion Sanders, not just Holloway).
But you can force them to change majors.
Who was forced to change majors and when?
I believe that is a Quincy Patterson reference.
It's referencing any of them that tried to major in engineering or architecture, or anything that took more time than a "typical football player major". There's several, two of which I know of first hand. Having said that, they all played for Fuente, but I've heard second hand it happened during Beamer's time too.
Yep, if he's not a top 6 receiver they should use the shirt on him this year imo. It's not like it's sitting out a whole year anymore either, he can still play in 4 games if we end up needing him
The assumption was that he would play in UVA and Liberty (before UVA was canceled). I don't think either were 'meaningless' games - after the loss to ODU, and given our in-state recruiting strategy, it is/was critical to win games against in state opponents.
Had we known the UVA would be canceled, maybe the calculus is different. But Pry & Co didn't know that.
I think if you're going to go all in on Culture you need to sell the players on actually having a meritocracy. If Holloway didn't play himself into reps for Liberty and UVA, who did? Benching him just communicates "oh yeah we wanna win but not that much"
Couldn't agree more
The kid is not Eddie Royal, all due respect - so much of this is a moot point - but Pry is paid to make football decisions- like using a year of eligibility on a kid as we stumble down the stretch out of the post season and struggling to get a first down. Holloway will have a good career here I hope, but at the end of the day he's not going pro early - so it comes down to how Pry wants to manage the roster big picture. One of many mistakes he made last year, IMO. But hes never been a hc before
I look at it as Pry asking himself "do I think I will have the talent 3 years from now to replace his productivity if we burn this year". Hopefully, the answer to that question is yes. If you plan on getting even better players, the. It doesn't hurt to burn the year.
For a team that doesn't recruit 4 and 5 stars, we want to get older.
If you're burning a guy's redshirt for punt return when he's not ready to contribute at receiver (but could in the future) then you're likely subtracting that guy's most productive season. And if we're really trying to get older the rationale can't be "we'll replace him with some young kid later"
Yeah and he was all set to burn Cam Johnson's redshirt before the injury which would have been even more egregious.
Isn't he moving to center and learning to snap the ball properly now? Maybe he is just trying to get that down before adding the blocking to it. IMO this would be the time to be able to do that and not really hurt too much.
It's sad but I don't know who any of these people are. Except Wells and you know I'm not a fan.
I'm slightly concerned Bryce Duke will go down the pecking order. He was looking good at times. Maybe redshirt?
Think so? I think he's the solid 3rd option right now but needs to vastly improve his blocking.
Maybe Coney passes him just by virtue of being able to block, but still think Duke is in a solid spot as a sophomore.
The coaches and players are all saying the right kind of things; the kind of things that make me want to get excited about the coming year. I SO want this to be a rebound year for the Hokie football nation. Let's go!
Hokies!!!
149 days to go till season begins!
Is Daquan Felton injured? I haven't heard a peep anywhere about him. It's all been Jennings, Lane, Gosnell, Holloway and a few others mentioned, but nothing on Felton. What gives? I was as excited about him as anyone, Especially since he's a big target. We haven't had one of those in a while.
Someone, somewhere posted he came in a little injured and is working back up to 100%
Appreciate it.