Discuss and share any recruiting topics for November 2023 that don't warrant their own threads. Commits and decommits warrant their own threads.
This recruiting thread is used to share information regarding VT-specific targets, PWO offers, scholarship offers, visits, camps, and general news, in addition to larger trends. In the interests of limiting load times, favor post links to tweets rather than embedding. And if you want to embed, please check the thread to see if a tweet was already embedded prior to adding it yourself.
[0] Please do some digging to share original content (e.g. embed the original tweet, not a link to another post/website with said tweet), add context / relevant information and respect the Community Guidelines.
[1] New commitments, decommitments, portal entries, etc... deserve their own thread. Please read the brief best-practice tips at the top of the recruiting forum
[2] Scared money don't make money.
[3] Pry Marve 2024
[4] We must ride on the wings of the Pry-beast
[5] Scholarships to all the VA Top 10
[6] There is NNOOOOO number six.
Comments
JUCO DL originally from 757
https://247sports.com/player/kemari-copeland-46103499/
How many times do we have to tell them, "This is Home".
Hopefully, having the Hokie Bird at the top of that pyramid of mascots means that we are his first choice.
He certainly has a very wide variety of geographic locations there.
Would be a very, very good pickup
Not directly recruiting related, but is there anybody from Phoebus or Freedom (Woodbridge) that we are looking at?
I ask this as Phoebus beat Jamestown by the F-15 kill ratio, 104-0, and Freedom beat Charles J. Colgan 112-16.
Also, Phoebus has outscored their opponents by an average of 44-1 all season and have allowed the opposing offenses to score a grand total of once.
Sounds like we should be looking at every single one of them
Most of them are low three stars, they both just have a lot of them. The best is going to UMD and is a DE #12 player in VA. 6'3" 200lbs. They have some smaller WRs that are going to Indiana and Wake and another player going to UMd. Pheobes "bigger" edge is 220lbs and going to ODU.
We are recruiting the RB out of freedom for next years class. 5'8" 165lbs 3*.
F-15 kill ratio. Well played. My son is a B-1 pilot.
heh...B-one
B-1 also known as "The Bone"
The only bomber nerfed with an international treaty
Most bad-guy to bologna-mist payload of any bomber we have.
Tru dat
This is what happens when you let a 1-9 team into the playoffs.
I also read that they threw it with 26 seconds left and up 98-0 just to get over a hundred. FWIW the Phoebus coach later said he regretted doing that.
I hesitate to get excited about VHSL kids based on their production, primarily because so much of VHSL is so bad right now. Poor coaching, poor community support etc. means incredible inequity in terms of football programs in a lot of areas.
It occurred to me during the BC game, the Hokies do not have a Virginia High School League starter on either side of the ball besides Antwaun Powell-Ryland (Indian River High School in Virginia Beach) and Josh Fuga (Freedom High School) DaQuan Felton (Churchland) and part time starters Keli Lawson (Sherando) and Jayden McDonald (Salem.) That is scary when the wagon is hitched to the "Win the Commonwealth" recruiting approach.
We would be okay if we won the common wealth, getting Cole, Jones, Lewis and Westphal would be great building blocks for this team. Using On3 for rankings...
We can't gap fill and there are 4 LBs in the top 10 of VA and we haven't signed any of them.
Last recruiting class PSU had 6 of 12 top VA recruits, VT had 0. In 2022, UNC had 5 of 7 top VA recruits, VT had 1 top 10.
In 2018, VT signed VA top 10 recruitd James Mitchell and Armari Chatman. Since then we've signed 2, Justin Payoute and Gunner Givens.
We don't have VHSL players starter because we haven't done well recruiting VHSL players.
King George has been doing pretty well this year, too, led by future Hokie Chanz Wiggins. They're 11-0, and winning by an average of 44.4 - 11.9, which is pretty damn good for a Battlefield District school. Wiggins has 32 rec for 557 yards (17.4 yd/rec, 69.6 yd/gm) with 11 TDs.
Oh, and there's also this dude who has 31 rec for 539 yards (17.4 yd/rec, 67.4 yd/gm) with 9 TDs, but we won't talk about him. ;^)
Ok, so looking at the remaining potential players from On3 who appear to have Tech in a favorable position, either as Freshmen or JUCO transfers include:
DL Kemari Copeland (Iowa Western) from Kellam HS in VB, rated 4*
RB Travon Dunbar, 3* from South Carolina (Visited during the WF game this year and the BC game last year)
WR LJ Booker, 3* from Varina HS
OT DJ Toliver, 3* Lord Botetourt
DE Lugard Edokpayi, 3* from Maryland
ATH Daniel Coles, 3* from Brooke Point HS (Visited last year's BC game)
No idea what our scholarship numbers look like, but we only have 16 in the class so far, 19 players listed at Sr or r-Sr, some with eligibility remaining, plus however many players might transfer out.
Pretty sure it's a law that Danny coal/coals/coles has to go to VT. Just the way it is.
And he will be open.
And he will catch it.
Pretty sure he is related to DJ Coles, I believe that is the same high school and home town as DJ. Not sure though.
I'd take an uninjured DJ coles any day of the week
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't Toliver a 4* early on but been downgraded over the last year?
He was originally rated .8856 on 247, but he's dropped .03 points since then (April 2022)
.88 to .85 is significant. 247's in-house rating has gone from 90 to 85 in the last 12 months but i dont know any context as to why
Four-star ATH Darrell Johnson discusses top group
https://247sports.com/player/darrell-johnson-46141298/
Those quotes do not give me any confidence.
I was thinking the same thing. Good to be included in the conversation with our peers in college football again but I'm not holding my breath on this one
Pretty much FSU, Bama and all the rest. He gone, I suspect. 😞
Yeah, not necessarily thinking he's going to choose us but it's nice to be in the conversation and the short list for some higher caliber kids than we got accustomed to during the Fuente era
Anyone know if Logan Thomas's kid plays? Thomas just told DK Metcalf "my 15 year old son is built just like you and loves how you play".
LT3 was QB when I was at Tech. This makes me feel hella old...
He's 32. So he must have had his oldest son around senior year of high school. But yea I feel you. 2011 was my sophomore year.
His wife had three boys from a previous relationship and he adopted them. They have two other boys together so we all can feel a little less old now.
Oh cool! Thank you for educating me, that was a poor assumption on my part.
I know his wife from some sports circles back in high school. She was married to a Superbowl winning backup RB prior to meeting Logan, mom was a helluva volleyball player, those boys have a pretty solid athletic pedigree. Hopefully Logan has been raising 'em right in the Hokie ways.
Edit: Come to think of it, she had a baby with her at a mutual friend's wedding summer 2009, so timelines check out.
I maintain that if you want to genetically engineer the next generation of football players, have today's players marry volleyball players.
Found the video, awesome move by DK signing and giving him his jersey.
So... looking at the 2024 recruits from the Commonwealth of Virginia and I see that the top 3 players are all LBs (two going to UGA and one committed to UCSe) with a 4th at the number 11 spot (committed to ND).
Now, I know we have some work to do with "winning the state" and all of that, but if the VT LB room is the worst position group in all of college football (exaggerating a bit of course) then how do we miss on all 4 guys??
I can't get in their heads, but recent success, national reputation and NIL must be a part of their choices of UGA, ND and USCe. If I were one of the recruits thinking about VT, I'd see the potential for starting early and lots of playing time. Being a key man on an ascending program would be attractive. Forgive my pure bred homerism.
Because every one of this schools is in a better position in important categories: NFL lb's, NIL, relevance to playoffs, national name recognition. Tech has playing time to offer but not every recruit cares about that.
ND and UGA - yes. But not South Carolina.
Missed the little "e" thought that was Southern California.
Yes... using 'USC' when referring to SCar is one of my pet peeves.
Yay!!! Our brand new nutrition room, players lounge, Triump NIL, and multi million dollar player dorms are "behind" South Carolina now too! Yay! We are undefeated in one thing at least
Heard we've been trying to flip the USCe commit for what it's worth. We were pretty involved prior to his commitment to them
We have one LB committed in this class, have a relatively young existing roster of LBs - I imagine staff might look to go the transfer route for an older LB to fill a gap next season. Man would the kid from ODU be nice if he looks to transfer....
You aren't exaggerating.
Marcellus Barnes Jr. just de-committed from VT.
I think we all saw this coming the last week or so.
Welp, Bye.
Was fun, best of luck.
Back home in the '26 portal.
Making UGA our feeder school? Bold. I like it.
Just offered FCS DT in the portal
Take that Duke! We want the Ivies!! But for real, this is the way VT needs to go and hopefully the 2023/2024 portal gain/loss will be as successful as 2022/2023.
Long suspected, finally confirmed?
it's probably not the entire story, or at least there is plausible deniability on the part of whichever service it is. Did Williams shut his recruitment down entirely and stop hitting up the camp circuits? It says "ranking" and not "rating" -- is that because someone else committed to a blue blood and got a rating bump and passed him?
from what i can see, his rating didn't change on 247 or On3, so who cares lol
Also I don't think this is a VT thing and just a he's not available so why talk about him, no one pays money to read about recruits not doing anything for months.
Would be curious at seeing if there are any Duke commits in areas of need that would be takes for us, especially within the unofficial 6 hour radius?
I know we are just getting started with coaches and transfer szn
Oline out of tenn and out of Loudoun County. Both are rated higher than our line recruits
I originally posted this in the Coaching Carousel thread, but it probably belongs here.
Roster info: https://goduke.com/sports/football/roster
Depth chart info: https://goduke.com/sports/football/roster
Virginia
Others from Footprint (not NC)*
* Mainly areas nearby north (PA, MD) and Florida (flyover NC), didn't include GA/SC because they would have to drive through NC to VA
Potential OL/DT**
** Added all remaining OL/N/DT that weren't GR or rSR, regardless of where they were from
I immediately struck the Graduate students, they won't transfer and probably have no more eligibility. I tried to add who was ahead on the depth chart for those actually on the depth chart, decided not to try to place those obviously redshirting. I also added what I thought were Nose Tackles (N), but upon looking at their weights, I realized that they were Nickel Backs, so I removed them from the table.
Enjoy. I gotta get back to work now.
Edit: hokie07ME is right, I should've done tables in the first place. Fix't.
Dammit Bobby. It's unconscionable that someone with your user name would not put this in table format
EDIT:
Hudl Profile
247Sports Profile
Arguably a better basketball player than football. Dad spent 12 years in the NBA.
Has an impressive list of offers though. Florida, Auburn, Miami plus 3 Big10 schools.
Raja Bell's kid?! Those sixers teams of 2000-2002 were so fun. AI, Mutumbo, Eric Snow, Matt Geiger, Dalembert, Bell, Keith Van Horn. Feeling old.
Also loved him on the prime Suns team when he was tasked with guarding Kobe.
Yes he is.
https://247sports.com/player/terrance-edwards-46109987/
2025 88 rated CB from Richmond
I wouldn't mind Pry dropping a Deuce into this recruiting class.
We also have
#33 WR
#18 Edge
#50 CB (Barnes was #23)
#18 Safety
Also
#96 QB
#61 RB
#70 OT
#77 IOL
#91 Edge