- "No one is satisfied with the start to the season."
- Signs of good development are building on players' strengths and minimizing their weakness. VT needs this as a team too. We need consistentcy and to play complimentary ball. "When we do put this all together we will fall on the right side of the win/loss column."
- Watson was back with team Sunday. Still has requirements to earn trust back with staff/team
- Speaks on commiting to the run game both because Tuten has shown he's a capable player, but also using Marshall's run plays as an example: 41 plays averaging 2yds a carry and 3 additional runs that were the difference in the game.
- Pry has also brought up wanting to stretch the field side to side more a few times now. Has alluded to Drones' skill set assisting with this.
- Still searching a little bit at LB . "I'm never happy with misfits." Explosive plays will happen, but they need to hold them to 12, 15, 20 yds, the runner can't hit their head on the goal post.
- Wants players to play within the framework of the defense, but not ignore their instincts.
- Thinks that Drones is doing well. His game can be improved with coaching up his reads and helping his decision-making.
- Consistency was brought up a lot again, but another word used multiple times was communication. I feel like part of the defensive woes are some form of communication breakdown and that is why this has been repeated recently.
- Changed pregame routine for Marshall to 'get the pads smacking' and turn up the intensity. Thought it helped with the start to the game.
- Payne looked like he was playing like himself at Marshall. Has earned more playing time.
- In the portal era most teams have feelers out for a QB unless they have an excellent incumbent starter. The years of QBs starting more than 2 years are likely over, but a good plan of succession is vital to long-term success.
- Mastering the art of winning takes time. It's not just correcting a mistake, it's gaining understanding of what is being taught to the point it becomes part of your game as a player. You need 11 out there that are a master of their craft. He talks about his 2019 group and how everyone had been in the system for 3-4 years and were able to teach the underclassmen. "For the type of program we want to have, it's going to take little time"
- The players need the time to gradually gain their skills. We can't be teaching 300-level stuff before 100-level stuff or it's just not going to make since long-term.
Injury Updates
- Jones and B. Moore questionable
- Lane was about 85% at Marshall
- Stroman sounds day-to-day
The 'art of winning' gets brought up earlier in the Q&A, but the bulk of it can be heard at the end, around 19:10. I thought Pry gave a lot of nuanced answers to a variety of the questions today, so a full listen is probably worth it before taking my cliffnotes out of context.
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Comments
I still feel like we have a winner and if we stay patient we'll see improvement year to year.
100% agree.
I've said it on here before and will again; I think Pry is the man that is gonna take us back to national prominence.
I think the fire Pry bandwagon don't recognize exactly how bad things were at the end of Fuente.
The rosters were annihilated. Our recruiting in key areas was scorched earth. Fan disillusionment was at an all-time high.
As Marcolini pointed out, we only have 22 of 66 players who were recruited before Pry's era began, and of the seniors, only 8 are from pre-Pry. The veteran leadership we need for this team isn't there. Let's take a look at those players who, by seniority, should be that veteran leadership.
2019 Class:
TE Nick Gallo: On3 Industry 3* rated 85.93. 771st nationally
DT Norell Pollard: 3* rated 85.87. 789th nationally
DT Mario Kendricks: 3* rated 84.97, 908th nationally
DT Josh Fuga: 3* rated 84.40, 991st nationally
2020 Class:
DT Wilfried Pene: unranked
S Keonta Jenkins: 3* 82.98, 1246th nationally
OT Parker Clements: 3*, 82,83, 1288th nationally
CB Dorian Strong: 3* 82.23, 1421st nationally
OT Kaden Moore: 3* 81.78, 1557th nationally
2021 Class:
LB Jaden Keller 3* 88.09, 494th nationally
OL Jack Hollifield 3* 87.17, 596th nationally
LB Keli Lawson 3* 86.75, 653rd nationally
DE Cole Nelson 3* 85.30, 832nd nationally
WR Jaylen Jones 3* 84.77, 890th nationally
WR Da'Wain Lofton 3* 84.43, 952nd nationally
S Nyke Johnson 3* 83.30, 1058th nationally
RB Malachi Thomas 3* 83.50, 1110th nationally
RB Chance Black 3* 83.47, 1119th nationally
LB Jorden McDonald 3* 80.90, 1640th nationally
DE Jayden McDonald 3* 79.63, 1856th nationally
LB Will Johnson Unranked
OT Bob Schick Unranked
DE CJ McCray Unranked
Look at that.
Recruiting services don't get things wrong often, so it goes to show....the roster that Pry inherited was not of the talent level that we as Hokie fans are accustomed.
0 Quarterbacks
4 Unranked recruits
Median recruit ranked 991st nationally
Best recruit ranked 494th
Mean recruit ranked 1062nd.
These are supposed to be our starters right now and the guys who should have the talent and leadership abilities to take charge in the huddle.
There are 133 FBS programs. Average 25 recruits per team and that is 3300 possible recruits. Our highest rated recruit that is still on our team is 494th.
How many teams can expect to dominate week in and week out with that lack of veteran talent and leadership.
How much coaching up can Pry do? Kevin Hart would bang his head on the ceiling for this roster.
I don't think there's much of a 'fire pry' club. I think there's a 'fire TBo' crowd, and a 'Brent-Pry-ain't-it club' (aka 'I want to say that I knew this was a bad idea 2 years before everyone else, and I care more about being right than anything else'). But IMO most mildly reasonable fans know we can't fire pry right now.
I still think that Pry is the guy......seeing Tech's name on VA recruits lists is encouraging........not completely sold on TB though......play calling for Drones inside the 10 hasn't played to his or our strengths, imo. Running game has been disappointing to say the least. This is all so hard to take and understand except to blame lack of talent and experience which will obviously take time. I'm very afraid that fan support and attendance will wane before we get better. All that said, I was disappointed by the jumping offsides by the defense......always at key times, it seemed Saturday.
It did seem to me that we had more procedural penalties in the Marshall game than the other games this year. That needs to get hammered out fast. We can't beat the other team, the ref's and ourselves.
I am not on team "Fire Pry" but 100% on "Fire Bowen", especially if we see no improvement.
I am rooting for Pry to turn this around, and I think he could be the guy from what we've seen off the field (recruiting, fan/media relations, high school relationships, connecting with football alums, etc.) BUT we need to see more on the field growth... If the offense doesn't show any kind of improvement and/or adjustments through this year, I need to see Pry make some staff adjustments because currently it's been a shit show. I just don't want to see loyalties to his buddies like we saw with Fuente and Cornelsen.
And if we're all honest with ourselves, the only reason we're worried about that is because we've been burned by previous coaches. Pry hasn't been shy about speaking out when he's not happy with his O or D. Hopefully that translates to action if necessary.
You're probably not wrong... Actions speak louder than words, but time will tell.
You're missing the two safeties: Stroman and Peoples
Stroman was my bad.
Peoples was earlier than 2019.
WITH those two added into the mix, the median is still 991, and the mean is 1046
Additionally, Pry's 3 recruiting classes have a median recruit rank of 884 and a median of 902. Essentially 10 recruits are rated at or higher than the highest remaining Fuente recruit on the roster. 42 of 66 Pry recruits are at or higher rated than Fuente's median.
And it won't be for a while. The 2020 and 2021 classes were abominations. People on this board were right to panic about them and I admit I was on the wrong side at the time with trusting Fuente. Any veteran leadership on the 24 and 25 squads will need to come from the transfer portal
Thank you for going through this and putting numbers to what is a very obvious issue with the team right now. And the biggest issue is that this problem isn't going to be solved with a bandaid. The portal won't fix this. Its going to take time to build up the depth back to where we need it to be to even consider the scheme we're running.
And that's the frustrating part. So many want to see instant gratification, and yet we have a roster right now where its just not going to happen.
But a Marshall team that, at best, has a roster on par with our talent level (likely worse overall) just beat us with better coaching and even looked bigger, faster, and more physical than us. No, the talent level of this roster isn't at a 4* average, but that's putting the cart before the horse. We are getting out-coached and out-hustled by teams with at best equivalent talent.
Talent is definitely an issue when it comes to big-picture perspective on how we return VT to being an ACC championship contender. But the more glaring and immediate issue is also the coaching and player development of this staff. It's frankly just not good enough. We struggled to put ODU away and were simply the lesser team against Marshall. These are the type of games we should be winning comfortably with at least a slight edge in talent but big edge in coaching and fundamentals. We lack all of that.
247's 2023 Team Talent Composite has Marshall at 93rd overall and VT at 59th overall. I don't know if that includes transfers or not. I don't think that it does, but I'm basing that on the fact that it says we have 77 commits on our roster and Marshall has 45 commits on its roster. I know Marshall has more than 45 players on the team.
If I were better with numbers, I'd run an analysis that compares the composite ratings of our O-line and our D-line to the composite ratings of the O-Line and D-Line of our opponents. Can you think of a single opponent we've played in the Pry era where you'd confidently say "yeah, I'd rather have our O-Line than their O-line, no questions asked." Maybe Wofford? Maybe ODU? Maybe BC last year?
I'd ask the same question about D-Lines, but as we've seen in our own spring game - when the offensive line cannot block, the defensive line looks like a bunch of created players in a video game.
I can't take this seriously after watching Marshall push us around the field. I can't. What are the Dolphins Broncos comparisons on this same index? Probably closer than 70-20.
I think I agree with you - I'm surprised that Marshall's talent was rated that much lower than ours, given the way they looked in comparison to us athletically. I was asking about O-Lines and D-Lines as a possible explanation for why the spread could be that big on 247 while the eye test tells me Marshall is every bit as fast and strong as we are.
Their team is mostly upperclassmen
EDIT: Also, they had a bye week before playing us. So does FSU For what it's worth
To put this in context.
Marshall has 1 starting RS FS and 9 total on the two deep.
VT has 3 starting RS FR and 6 on the two deep
Oh yeah and we have 6 true freshman. That's 15 players at RS or true Freshman in the 2 deep.
I excluded special teams and used the link sources cause our 2 deep is changing every day.
Edit from the perspective of the comment I replied to Marshall has 27 JR or older in the 2 deep we have 21.
The commentators spent half the game talking about how marshall had 55 transfers from P5... so I doubt any recruiting composite that ignores transfers will be representative
Talent and coaching are not the only variables that factor in on the field. Given roughly equivalent talent, we lack experience both on the field and on the coaching staff. The only way to get experience is to play, and our players and coaches are getting a hell of an education. The true deciding factor (in my opinion) is whether they can learn and apply what they're learning. If they can't, then they're toast.
Nobody is calling to fire Pry. -Mostly- everyone - is calling for the cliche thing before that happens though.. Fire the OC- because we don't score 42 a game. Meanwhile Blacksburg HS would rush for 200 yards on us. Nobody calling for Marve though... We are - almost (a couple losses away) from the "this team is as talented as the 99 team and there are some absolute beasts on it- just bad coaching" phase. Buckle up.
I have seen a couple calling for Marve's head on a silver platter. He is our LB coach, the worst part of our defense.
I just need to take a deep breath and remember that Twitter is a toilet where brain cells go to die. Morons tweeting hate at our coaches publicly are not representative of the average VT fan.
I'd like to see what Bowen can do once we have a decent OL.
Not really sure how I feel about Marve, but I trust between him and especially Pry's history with LB's, that unit will get turned around once they get their players here (big IF they can do that...hopefully gabriel williams is the real deal).
To me, the coach on the hottest seat, is JC Price. He has been here the longest, and our DL is...not good. And look at the offers of the current freshman and next year's class...I have very low expectations. Even 4* gerard johnson...who is his best offer? WV? Wake Forest? Not good. He is the first coach I would replace.
I can drink Brent Pry's koolaid all day long. He can definitely win a presser, way better than Beamer ever could (at least in my day, post-2008). Really hope he gets things going here.
He's very engaging and comes across so well. I really hope he can back up what he's selling.
For defense maybe this is true. Offense it's definitely not. Good coordinators scheme points with mid players all the time. There's a threshold of offensive talent you need to score against P5 defenses sure, but we hit it at all positions except offensive line.
So this is where I differ from Pry and wonder if he's misguided. If we could get our OL to just slightly below average, a good coordinator could scheme his way to 30+ a game.
I get that you want continuity on the offensive staff, Crook in particular I think is a great coach and needs time developing the line. But if you keep Bowen and it turns out he sucks, you've wasted 3 years. Difficult decision won't pretend I have the answer
This isn't necessarily directed at you, but your post begs some good questions:
So, you believe that 5 of the 11 individuals on the field at any given time aren't above the P5 threshold, and you think the issue is the coordinator?
Given that our line is sooo bad, you don't think that with a slightly improved line, Bowen could get 30+ points per game? For context, Colorado - who has one of the worst OLs and best OCs in FBS - has only hit >30 points in half they're games (scoring 31 and 38 once you take out special teams and defensive touchdowns, and OT TDs).
I think this is a great call out - Crook has a great track record, and hasn't had much time with his unit. Mines has proven himself. Holt has a solid track record (and our TEs have looked good when healthy IMO). Brooks has put 3 RBs in the NFL since he became a full time coach (per some random internet poster - someone else can verify for me, but I think it's fair to say he's a good coach).
So we're going to fire the OC but no one else? Money aside - how many OC's are there who we think could definitively do better with this roster (and/or significantly upgrade recruiting)? Off the top of my head.... Harsin, Mullen, Grubb, Lindgren, Sean Lewis... Seth Littrell could be available soon. Drew Hollingshead at WKU maybe? Andy Kotelnicki, who has been Leipold's OC at every school since 2006. Willy Korn, who has never not coached under Chadwell. Christian Taylor, who has never coached at the FBS level, and has never coached QBs (RB coach by trade). Mike Shanohan, who has one season of experience in FBS and has also never coached QBs (WR coach by trade)?
Every other possible OC I can think of either (a) recently got an HC role or (b) doesn't have experience working with a bad OL.
I don't think that Bowen is beyond criticism, but I'm not at all convinced that (at this point) there's an obvious upgrade out there. Willing to have my mind changed.
I'd take Ben Arbuckle from Washington State. I'm not saying fire Bowen, I'm just saying if at the end of next season the O still isn't cutting it and WSU ends up relegated the the Mountain West, there's worse places for us to show up with a stack of cash than Pullman, WA.
Yeah, they probably have overall better talent, but I had a long talk with my friend who went to WSU about football last night, and he said that their QB in particular, and overall offense have greatly improved after one year of Arbuckle being the OC/QB coach.
Yea, Arbuckle looks to be the next Chad Morris. He was a Texas HS coach 2 or 3 years ago, then OC of WKU and gave them a top 25 offense. And now Wazzu has a top 25 offense. He probably only making about $500K this year too (made only $100K at WKU).
My guess is that someone pays him a lot of money this offseason.
He would also be a perfect fit for a team that doesn't want to change their position players, because just like Morris, he doesn't have a crew of Offensive position coaches. Pry would be smart to look his way.
Dude definitely knows what he's doing there.
Also, if you want to feel old, Arbickle was born in 1995!
Uncalled for
If Pry came in at the end of the 2020 season instead of 2021, how different would things be?
Sands really fucked up here by delaying for a year.
Seems like a big stretch to say that players who did transfer with coaching continuity wouldn't have with a HC change. I realize we're back on the "Fuente broke everything" side of the backlash cycle, but that just doesn't jive with what tends to happen in college football. If you're already unhappy, and the HC gets fired, you're probably going to transfer. The other two are maybe possible, but #1 feels a little too galaxy brain to me.
True, but if you follow VT football social media, there are several high profile players that played for him hated- hated- fuente. The culture was rotten. Could not have been worse.
Kumah leads that charge lol. He's a great follow.
The interesting part is publicly, Hooker said he liked and still likes Fuente.
Hooker said that while trying to win a Heisman and get drafted. He is a VT grad so he's got some smarts so I'm just going to say, I have no clue how he feels and would not shit on anyone in public while trying to get paid.
Not an apologist here, but I think the broad brush of everyone loves or hates Fuente is ridiculous.
Hooker and his dad respected Fuente and have said it genuinely on numerous occasions. I think the difference is, they ultimately did not agree with many key decisions or philosophy, therefore H2 ultimately moved on.
A lot of the Fuente like vs dislike is good talk and less relevant as that is the output of a broader context of control and trust issues. Much of the issue was agreement and philosophy - ex. Letting players have some decision-making abilities on the field and at the line of scrimmage. Ex. Telling QBs to throw it to this player on this play no matter what they see.
Fuente was a control freak on this and it limited his players' natural abilities to react to what they see (if you say Corn was the control freak, I would say Fuente let it go on so Corn was just a by product of his boss). This mentality did multiple things, but a key one was it out all the pressure on the coach to call perfect plays and it told the player we don't trust you (especially the QB). When the coach was wrong then the feedback loop was hey coach can we change and this lead to mistrust and frustration (as it should) because that feedback was dismissed.
I still contend Fuente was a great guy who was a dud personality, but his ultimate issue was a lack of emotional iQ that resulted in trust issues that turned into cultural obstacles that couldn't be overcome.
With that motto, you are basically forcing players who want to win to take a side. This is too simple of an approach and is JV football. That's why some players got frustrated and were more outspoken at times.
Oh I just was saying that we don't really know what Hooker thought because he's smart enough to get paid. He might have liked him or hated him, or though meh, I dont know. I had no issues with Fuente as a person, but I don't really know him, and honestly I like Pry a lot, but if he doesn't win he has to go too. It's no personal. Which is why you don't say bad things because this isn't personal, it's business, and I hoped all QBs that might be drafted understand its a business.
Injury Updates
We really need to get some experience back on the field at safety.
Will Wells start?
I had that thought as well. This game seems to set up better for Wells. But if we go back now, I feel like it undermines any progress you stand to make with Drones to better position him for next year. Wells is the "win now" QB, Drones is the "win later - and hopefully now/soon" QB.
The rest of the season is going to be an exercise in not losing by 21 points. That's the way Pry played both the Rutgers and Marshall games- don't get blown out. It's clear.
Pry saying "Grant was playing awful well before he got hurt" Makes me think so
FTFY, coach
Pry being a defensive guy probably thinks all the read options are supposed to be stopped behind the LOS
Bonus ACCN Content:
From ACCN Pry interview: about 100 recruits in Blacksburg last night.
I don't understand how a recruit could be at that game and be like 'nah I don't want to play here'
Is there ever a list?
Potato quality picture of said 100 recruits last night on the sideline.