First time post, so bear with me if anything is messed up. This is an excellent interview with Adam Breneman where Coach Pry goes more in depth on everything he has been saying since he arrived. Might not learn anything new, but it adds a lot of context. Enjoy!
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
We listened to this last night. Pry said a lot and there was a lot that he didn't say as well There was some humor mixed in as well. It was a good interview.
This was a great listen. Thanks for sharing.
A lot of the talking points we've grown accustomed to, but also some new stuff:
And the fact that he mentioned that NO Tech coaches had visited Vick's hs in SIX years.
Yea, that's been mention before, but I guess there wasn't much talent coming through there. Still a huge problem.
It just shows a horrendous lack of vision from the previous staff. You build and maintain those relationships because when, not if, that talent does come to the surface, you'll have a much stronger chance of landing him.
That's probably one of the biggest things that Pry seems to get.
Could not agree more
I'm ready to run through the wall for Pry.
I don't want to look back too much, but PSU recruits from VA who'd never visited Tech......geez, I can assume that there were other P5 programs who recruited VA players who also never visited Tech.........WTF? Is there anyone on this board who would not have pulled the trigger sooner on the previous staff if this was known at the time?
I don't think this was always his plan, he just fell behind, started grasping at straws, and fell further behind.
At his open presser he talked about recruiting the state. Then he had a couple misses and the state had a couple down years. So he went elsewhere for talent to solve the immediate issue. But when he did that he hurt (or at least failed to maintain) relationships in the state, so at that point, he was scrambling to get anyone from anywhere.
I don't say this to defend or make excuses Fuente; I think he had the right strategy to begin with, but he failed to execute and got stuck in the weeds.
part of this was relying almost exclusively on his personal network to bring in position coaches. Not saying that any given coach did or didn't have the resume to be considered for us, just that making a few more hires specifically for their strong ties to (and track record with) recruiting the commonwealth or the region could have really helped us out in that area.
100% agree. It's no shocker that our recruiting dried up when foster and wiles (who maintained relationships with high school coaches for decades) left.
And not to kick a very dead horse, but an overall recruiting strategy and message from the top probably would've been helpful.
It wouldn't have been easy by any stretch, but guys from Texas and Oklahoma who showed up and reached out to VA schools and recruits in an intentional way probably would've had some success (even if it's less than folks from VA could achieve). But the consensus after action report is that that wasn't what was happening
Well, Fuente did love to say things like 'we just failed to execute.' Drove me up the wall when he said that coming out of halftime on a game I was either watching on line or listening to on the radio. Can't remember which game, but was the classic we are playing a weak team and he is, once again, blaming anything but himself, Corn or their own bad recruiting.
Well lord knows he won't take offense to that. Given that he blamed the kids' failure to execute every game we lost from 2018 onward.
In fairness I wouldn't want to set foot there either, Warwick is a fetid hellhole.
Menchville High represent.
There are a lot of fetid hellholes that produce talented athletes. D1 recruiting isn't a job that allows one to be dainty about such things; one should go to Charlottesville for that.
I'm aware of that. I was making a joke b/c my high school is a rival of theirs. Well, "rival". They're both in NN and equally irrelevant in football.
Oh, I got it. I was just stretching for an opportunity to dig at Charlottesville being for the dainty and not D1.
Denbigh represent!
(Our football has always been bad too...)
For context on the last point, Breneman (interviewer) was a high 4* tight end recruit at PSU, played well enough to start at TE for the back half of his true freshman season, and then got injured in camp and was out for 2014 and on and off for the 2015 season. He'd go help the scout team offense when he was getting healthy (and apparently light up Pry's starting D), which is why Pry said he was proud of him for being willing to play scout team despite knowing he was a starting-caliber player.
Friend's wife is a PSU alum and loves the guy, I know more about him than I'd like lol.
Please do not comment on the Manscaped ad. We've already heard enough as well.
But, and hear me out on this, what if I shouted a comment about the manscaped ad like he does instead?
The more work experience I have the more important I realize this is. I'm sure its not a direct translation to football staff but working for a small business of ~20 employees and interviewing new candidates we've put a ton of emphasis on personalities that work and its paid dividends so far.
I could totally give that lecture. NEVER select someone for a leadership position that isn't a good fit.
Thanks for sharing, itllbuff! nice to see Pry proactively engaging media -- regardless of what happens on the field, it'll be basically impossible to indict his personality as being unfit for the role, the fanbase, etc
You know what helps in recruiting? Actually trying, unlike the previous staff....
Fu also elected in 2019 not to get onboard with the new rule allowing junior official visits in the summer, which set them tremendously behind. Also lined up with other anecdotes I have heard that the staff basically locked the building up and wanted to sit by the pool the whole summer pretty much. Wrong line of work if that's your mentality.
I like how he follows up kicking Fuente in the teeth with, "you know, it's just different strategies." It's some backdoor shade provided with a side of southern gentleman politeness.
"Bless your heart..."
Dang like 10 seconds into the interview and Pry already drops a bomb:
Interviewer: "How T-Bow doing?"
Pry: "Man he's doing great. Moving him to QBs this year is...I wanted to do it when I took the job but he talked me out of it, so we got a chance to get it right" 😱
Glad to know that was always Pry's plan! Makes me feel better about losing Glenn knowing that Pry has such faith in Bowen.
I got to listen to this interview riding the motorcycle on the Blue Ridge Parkway on my commute home. Great way to end the workday.
Finally watched this, and I'd run through a wall for Pry if he was my coach. There seems to be a lot of the openness that he talks about that reflects through how he handles things. Obviously, he can't say some things for a multitude of reasons, but he comes off as actually genuine and with a plan in mind that he's going to try and use to move forward. Hopefully it feels the same behind closed doors and assuming he gets past some of the hiccups from last year, I think he's going to be a good coach long term.
I really think we should stick with Pry hell or high water.
He's that dude.
Careful
I tend to lean towards giving a coach time in general, particularly for a program of VT's stature. I am all in on Pry right now for sure.
At the very least, you have to stick with Pry until the roster has been completely rebuilt. If it ends up being a Muschamp type situation (former DC getting in his own way, but beloved by players, acquired significant talent), then the next guy will be inheriting a lot of good players to work with.
This my thought as well. In my mind, there is a legitimate question around VT: is VT is a program with staying power across eras, or did VT just capitalized on a moment in time?
If Pry can recruit effectively, it proves the former is true.
I have learned that you don't do that with anybody in sports. I mean, would Pry stick with VT hell or high water if a big dog came calling with an armored truck full of cash?
If he was younger and getting his HC career going than yeah probably, but by the time he got VT in a position where he would be considered for other jobs he might be old enough to want to ride this one out.
There are some out there that want to create the next "big dog."
My hope is that if Pry is that successful, the fact that he doesn't have a career history of jumping from school to school climbing the prestige ladder indicates that he has no desire to go elsewhere and his long term goal is to make VT the next big dog.
That's an interesting question. I mean, at some point, it's a matter of personal goals. The money is almost irrelevant once you get to a certain point. So it would come down to "could I accomplish my goals at his school?" Would being at the helm at Tech be more stressful than being at the helm of UGa? I wouldn't think so, but you'd have to balance the resources of UGa with the insane expectations. And at Tech, you'd have to balance the culture and nostalgia against the inherent disadvantages of trying to build a top tier team in a place like Blacksburg with the resources Tech has.
All great points.
Is this good? I can't tell, it feels like it's good, but I was told nobody could recruit to VT, so this has to be bad, right?
Hell yeah JC!
I am really happy for JC. There were way too many on this site and more elsewhere that wanted to replace him because they were convinced he couldn't recruit.
I'm too am happy cause you knew he could recruit, he got kids to go to Hunington WV, and that's a real shit hole.
What's so awesome is that you have one guy (Price) who lived the hokie experience as a player. He has nostalgia on his side building into the "This is HomeTM" attitude. Then you have someone (Mines) who has caught the same bug and is absolutely killing it on the trail despite having played for our arch rival. You love to see it.
Not to mention Mines was taught to hate VT most of his adult life.
My guess is before he became a Hokie, the happiest days he had as a Hoo were the away games they had in Blacksburg.
I mean he has to be our best in state recruiting against uva right? I went to UVA but I'm a Hokie now!
Fontel is a good dude. I went to the same high school as him, and he and Duane Brown are best friends (have been since middle school, basically). Pretty sure they were even in each other's weddings!
Point being, I don't think he drank the UVA kool aid.
I don't think it was kool-aid they were drinking in those "hydrate" tweets...
During his SOS interview, Fontel sounded a bit salty that UVA didn't give him an opportunity the way that Pry did. Said something along the lines of "they had their chance."
We all went to high school together.
Small world! Hermitage High, Class of '06 right here.
2005. We lived in neighboring neighborhoods, I was in Laurel Lakes and we're both close friends with Kevin....
how do you pronounce that?