With so much talk about the portal addressing weaknesses right off the promising ending to the season, let's not lose focus about identifying who the building blocks are? Who are the guys who we don't want leaving in the portal that this program can build around for the next few years. Who flashed that this year, beyond the portal guys who came in on offense?
Discuss. Who has shown flashes of upside that make them development priorities?
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Lovett
Johnson
Phillips (I know he struggled at times, but the ability is there and he has the tools to be an intimidator in the middle of the field)
XTB (you can't teach that motor, but they have to make sure he can be reliable with a high number of snaps)
Lawson is pretty obvious if experience helps him play more assertively, plus he needs to build up his base
Jayden McDonald is growing on me. Played well versus UVA, has a ways to go.
Woodson (did all you could ask of a freshman- I don't recall a stretch where he just looked completely lost)
Chaplin has some skill
Ghannam (although didn't look as sure of himself versus UVA as in prior cameos)
Cole Nelson looked much better towards the end of the season.
Burgos
Meadows
Benji Gosnell
Greene
I really liked the team getting hyped for Lovett's hit(s). Kinda tells me he's gonna be that guy.
Agree with these. If McDonald could turn into a solid MLB, somebody who is always in the right spot, that would be huge for us. Even if just as a backup to a stud transfer
I like what Jalen Stroman has brought to the table early in his career. It seems like he'll be a very solid contributor on the back end for us. Additionally, he's not afraid of contact.
A question I have is the RB room. Outside of Tuten, I don't see a whole lot there. Pry/Bowen will need to continue to do some work in that regard IMO.
I don't think Thomas is as much of a game breaker, but think he's a really solid back. The staff also really seems to like the freshman from Hermitage and Tralon Mitchell supposedly who both redshirted this season
Thomas is a good back but he's been here a while and not really a building block
Delane delane delane
This thread had 6 comments in an hour and nobody said delane?????????????????
I think we all view Delane as an already developed veteran
I think Delane is a known quantity at this point. He is really good. But, will he be around if/when they get where we want the program as a whole to go? I still think it is going to be a year or two if everything falls right to get where they are competing for championships besides the Military Bowl trophy.
I feel like Delane is kinda being unfairly penalized here for being so good so early.
He could play two more years, which is the same as Keli Lawson and Jayden McDonald and one more than Cole Nelson. He came in the same class as Xavier Chaplin and XTB, just didn't redshirt.
Imo Delane is clearly a foundational piece even if he's only here for one more year (instead of two) because that gives the younger players one more year of S&C and getting coached up before they have to step in.
Plus who is to say he doesn't improve still and take another step forward from Very Good to Elite?
The best case scenario is Mansoor Delane is NFL-worthy but stays another year to play with top 2025 recruit Faheem Delane. Need to get Fuller brothers on the phone with the Delane brothers for a repeat of the Kyle-Kendall duo of 2013.
Delane delane delane
Does he have two younger brothers? /s
Came here to say that. Delane. And, his brother. Other Delane😂
Everybody, come back so we have good starters and solid depth for injuries and other misfortunes!
Other names I had have already been said, I wanna add Pop Watson
I dont think it's out of the realm of possibility that Drones takes the next step in 2024 and will get a midround to potentially even 2nd round grade in the draft. He'll have been in college for 4 years after next year and might be done with being a student and be willing to take his chances in the NFL with 2 years of film. I know the transfer portal is the reality, but I feel like being able to recruit and develop a QB in house is still paramount to being/becoming a big time program. And while I know it was against 2nd/3rd stringers, Pop looked good in his snaps in the spring game.
I am not disagreeing with you that Drones may leave in 2024 and I think he has shown some great work in progressive fashion, but man, if he leaves after this season, I feel it will be Jerrod Evans Part Deaux. And, I would ever so hate to see that happen to him.
IMO, I think he needs to put together a whole season's body of improved work from this season and rubber stamp it with a meaningful bowl win. Something to that degree.
It would, and I think it happens more often than people here realize because we havent had a bunch of good players who potentially even could. But I bet it happens often at the Bama's and tOSU's of the world, and reading some the interviews from Evans showed that even before he got to VT, his plan was to only play for one year at VT and then dip. Here's a what if I'd like to ask Evans if I could...
Does he stay one more year if NIL is legal during his tenure?
Great question. IIRC, his draft evaluation wasn't stellar to the point I believe if NIL was available, he would play one more year as his NIL would have gone up based on his results as our ACC Championship level leader coming back next year to win it.
Hell, I'd ask him if he'd make the same choice again, even without NIL.
The real question is does he stay one more year if we had the current coaching staff vs the Cornball offense. I have always wondered if that played a part in his decision to leave early.
My understanding is that Evans knew he was planning on doing a one and done. As a result, he didn't put the efforts into classes to be allowed a year 2.
Double-edged sword though, if NIL were around, he probably wouldn't have come here in the first place
I realize it doesn't fit the prompt, but I've been worried Drones will leave with all the portal discussion recently. Gotta think there's some big dogs burning up his phone, anti-poaching rules be damned. Would be a huge gut punch after the way he's come along this season.
Also same, I bought my NIL shirt, and keep routinely donating. Hopefully it makes a difference
Is he graduating? He would have to sit out a year or get a waiver to play next year unless he graduates.
Plus, he has a really good relationship with TyBo.
I thought every player gets a 1 year freebie, wasnt that one of the new things with the transfer portal?
He transferred here from Baylor. He used his one freebie.
oh woops I thought we were talking about pop, my bad
I know this is the opposite of what this thread is about, but I think we need some more speed on defense. I remember under Bud Foster, if someone did break away for a run, they weren't outrunning our D to the end zone.
Having said that, I think our corners and safeties covered their men well for the most part, with occasional glaring misses.
Definitely want APR back, and would love to get another guy like him. We either need our DTs to bulk up or something or upgrade, because we didn't do well when opposing offenses had a really strong line.
On O - everyone other than the line. If some of our linemen are good with technique, just undersized, bulk em up. We do have a lot of youth on the O-Line, so hopefully getting some transfers in will give us the opportunity to work with them. But we made a lot of offers to O-linemen in the portal and don't remember what years any of them are for how much eligibility they have, and, honestly, I'm feeling too hungry and lazy to go look it up.
Do we think Davi Belfort has a similar skill set to Drones? Drones has 2 more years left, correct? Even if Tuten stays one more year, we gotta be looking for another similar back for us.
No. Davi is a smaller, pass-first QB with a highly accurate deep ball. He does run the option well, but he is more of a shifty runner.
He also has really good work ethic and trains like an MMA athlete.
Davi Belfort MaxPreps
It will be interesting to see if Bowen can game plan for different types of QBs or if he always looks for a Drones type guy (given the success he's had with him). Even if he is pass-first, if he's more mobile and more accurate than Wells, that helps a lot. Also a stronger O-Line.
Thanks for the link!
Getting a better line would help. Drones helps take a defender out of the play which opens up the run game. if our line can block consistently when running up the middle then some of Bowens first couple of games game plan might work better
Well, we made portal offers for a number of linemen. Hopefully we'll pick up a few and they'll turn out as well as the pick-ups we took last year!
I think Bowen will always want a dual threat QB, but he should be able to work with either a smaller and shiftier QB (the 'tyrod' archetype) OR a bigger, bruising QB (the 'cam newton' archetype).
Drones is definitely more similar to the latter, but again Bowen should be capable of adjusting the system for either QB.
Where was Chance Fitzgerald all year? Ayden Greene got some playing time and had 4 catches on the season but I don't think I saw Chance once
I'm thinking Gabe Williams, Emmet Laws, and Brodie Adams will be part of the equation pretty quickly. (Fingers crossed they all sign.)
Felton and Holloway. And Wright. And the Gosnells. Man, to think how bad we were at receiver last year!!!!
Kyron Drones, Bhayshul Tuten and Antwaun Powell-Ryland are the obvious key pieces for the near future.
A little surprised no one has mentioned John Love. A 90% FG kicker with good range is a huge weapon, and he's a freshman.
I remember people wondering why we would recruit only a 2 star, but they seem to be evaluated differently in 247 et al. Probably a mid-4 star when normalized for kickers.
247 had him ranked as 5th best kicker in the 2022 class
Yeah, I seem to recall a discussion on here awhile ago (like more than a year ago) that kickers and punters aren't graded well.
Any PK/K/P that actually has a star rating is elite
Strong pull. Special teams being foundational to a Virginia Tech program? Yes please
The young receivers are going to play a pivotal role in two years. The coaches need to work them in more in 2024.