I will keep this updated as I am able, but it will not be as realtime as last year. Every signee should get their own thread, so use this one to talk about signing day in general.
Some helpful links:
- Hokie Sports NSD24 page - As each player signs this page will update with bios, highlights, and their press conference stream.
- Triumph BTS coverage - Live "wall-to-wall" coverage including coaching, recruiting staff, and player interviews. Starting at 7:10am. There's a code on hokiesports Triumph2324 for a month of free triumph content for those interested.
VT Signing Day Big Board:
| Name/Link | Position | High School | 247/on3 Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gabe Williams | LB | St. Vincent Pallotti | 91/92 |
| Gerard Johnson | EDGE | Frank W Cox | 88/92 |
| Aidan Lynch | OT | Mount Olive | 87/87 |
| Emmett Laws | DL | DeMatha | 86/87 |
| Tommy Ricard | OL | Hudson | 87/87 |
| Andrew Hanchuk | DL | Midpark | 86/85 |
| Joshua Clarke | CB | Flint Hill School | 87/88 |
| Davi Belfort | QB | Gulliver Prep | 85/85 |
| Chanz Wiggins | WR | King George | 87/87 |
| Tyler Mason | RB | Mount Airy | 88/88 |
| Noah Jenkins | S | Highland Springs | 86/86 |
| Keylen Adams | WR | Green Run | 89/92 |
| Quentin Reddish | S | Independence | 86/91 |
| Deric Dandy | EDGE | Mount Airy | 87/87 |
| Web Davidson | OT | Tattnall Square Academy | 85/85 |
| Kemari Copeland | DT | Floyd Kellum via Iowa Western | 85/89 |
| Aeneas "Fub" Peebles | DT | *Duke | |
| Montavious Cunningham | OT | *Georgia State | |
| Sam Brumfield | LB | *MTSU |
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
team cake or team pie, really the most important thing to know about new signees
Someone needs to get triumph and/or the social media folks on this. The people need to know.
pumpkin cheesecake (with a gingersnap crust), which I somehow didn't know about before late 2022, may have me switching teams to...well, whatever team it's on.
Cheesecake is a misnomer. It is a pie.
Perhaps: name, position, high school, and maybe link to TKP thread on signee
The percentage of how committed they were when they announced. Was it 800% or only 100%?
I seem to recall Joe being fine with a megathread and not individual threads last year but maybe I'm not remembering correctly
Hmm, you may be right, the tracker was wild that day.
I was misremembering it entirely -- it was when a billion players all hit the portal at once
https://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/1170709#comment-1170709
Thanks for taking the initiative here and lets stick to individual threads + a master running list for the higher level discussion
🫡
Who the number two school was in the crystal ball. Who did we beat on the recruiting trail?
Or On3 percentage
When do you want to extract that data? They update their percentages throughout the cycle
True - I think after a player signs or commits, everyone switches their pick to the school they committed to. I think they have to, or at least used to because of the formula that tracked each person's accuracy in their crystal ball picks. So you'd have to go look at the history.
Do you know if there is an easy way of doing this? It would make the most sense to look at the predictions around the time of their commitment. The hokiesports bio pages are listing other schools that the players chose over us, but IDK how inflated some of that is.
I don't think it would be easy, I think you'd have to go to the history showing all the picks and add up the ones for each school. And it would probably look different for each player. Some kids may have been leaning to one school, then switched, possibly even committed to another school. Very early, I think there are sometimes picks for multiple schools then as it gets closer to when the player is ready to commit, you see more going to just one or two schools. So depends on what you're trying to show.
Is slowly getting a player's interest over time interesting, or if it was a sudden change, where you'd see all the picks change in like a day? My guess is it might be interesting, but probably not worth the effort to go in and look at what happened for each player. Maybe if it was crowd sourced where each person took a player and looked at their history and described it and posted in their individual signing threads, but otherwise probably not easy at all.
We're not thinking there's gonna be any extra news this esd right? Chalk in the guys committed, no more no less(plz)?
According to Doug via the Two Deep Podcast (highlighted here), the expectation is no drama positive or negative.
Thanks haven't gotten through the whole thing yet just watch French breaking down the DTs
He was a little coy when talking about the positive. He did say there was no negative. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful
Yeah, you know, drama on signing day is overrated.
Expected outcomes on signing day is kinda nice.
so keenan jackson just committed like an hour ago. looks like reddish is trying to give him the hard sell. dont think it makes much sense, but would be a nice add.
Decommitted from UNC you mean. If we get him he probably ends up at DB right. No room for 3 receivers in this class when we've got:
Jennings
Felton
Lane
Gosnell
Greene
Holloway
Bradshaw
Heath
Fitzgerald
Baylor
Adams
Wiggins
That said I hope all these guys stay because a ton of playing time should open up when the top 4 go pro next year
He has a CB to NC State now.
Yeah State is my second team and all the fans think they got him. I'm glad, much better than going to UNCheat
Umm what
Haha I have a degree from there
Yea I have a degree from Georgia Tech, but I don't cheat on my spouse and I don't cheat on my Hokies.
PREACH
Agree, I have a degree from odu, but you don't see me cheering or donating to them.
I root for Tech when we play them. But I live in Raleigh, it's too convenient to go to Wolfpack games (when it doesn't conflict with a VT game)
Same, I have a Masters from George Mason, but I don't root for their football team!
Funny guy
Actually went to a couple club Football games at Mason while getting my MBA there. They usually are pretty competitive. Looks like this year they went 7-1.
Normally, people root for their undergrad team. It just means more.
Me: Oh sh!t I can't tell anyone I have a masters from Penn State
Other Me: Why did you even post this?
Me: Uhh my second team is the team I was raised to root for by my Irish Catholic father, Notre Dame
Other Me: You're not helping
"Crap, can't bring up penn state because of the whole pedophile thing. I know what is a better association to make:the Catholic Church!"
This has gone sideways in ways that I didn't expect but absolutely should have.
Distraction: Did you know Bobby Petrino didn't get into a motorcycle accident? He was allegedly beat up by the fiance of the woman he 'crashed' with.
Did he beat him with a motorcycle? Cuz I'd watch that.
I have a similar thing, raised on basketball by my dad who went to NC State and my grandparents who went to Duke (undergrad and med school, both of them), and my mom and most of her siblings were baptized in the Duke chapel and I think my grandparents were married there. But nobody likes Duke, so I don't tell people. Oh, wait...
I was raised on GT football/basketball in a GT family. I used to root for them 2nd after the Hokies, but I just don't care how they do against anybody else anymore. I just want to beat the ever-lovin' piss out of them.
Yeah, it used to be I'd root for VT football and Duke basketball, but ever since they had so many players be one and drones, I stopped caring about their basketball team as much. Now pretty much them only team I root for is VT football.
It was pretty cool having my grandparents show me around the Duke campus and say things like "that's the dorm I lived in 50 years ago!"
Dad went to grad school at UVA. Father-in Law to WV-tech, now part of WVU. Son went to UNC. I don't root against those teams when they are in the room. My second favorite team is whoever is playing LOLUVA, whoever is playing WVU, whoever is playing whichever team the talking heads are fawning over, or whoever is playing the coach who is likely to have a melt down.
My mom went to East Carolina, but she roots for VT, even against ECU. That is how you train your parents, my friends.
(drops mic, walks away)
My dad was an FSU fan before I went to Tech. Now his basement has a whole wall devoted to VT and the rest is Steelers memorabilia.
Washington Huskies are my second team. My wife's team.
yeah sorry, thats what i meant
Pry says during live stream that we're getting 15 players to sign today, so maybe lost one? Or someone is signing at a different time.
he said 15 high school players; Copeland is JUCO
You right, thanks.
Top 200 recruit four star LB.
https://www.on3.com/db/gabriel-williams-150209/
First of the day.
Hokies were rated at 16.8% to get commit.
Beat out Maryland (22.4%), Pittsburgh (19.6%), Penn St (10.6%), and Nebraska (10.6%)
Top ten VA player.
https://www.on3.com/db/gerard-johnson-152542/
Already getting off to a quick start today.
Hokies were rated at 99.2% to get the commit.
Nobody was close
2 composite 4 star recruits before I drink my first coffee
He is just under composite 4 star. ESPN has him a lot lower than others.
But we all know ESPN is an unreliable source on everything.
Fuck ESPN!
Except maybe having Keylen Adams as a 4 (top300) opposed to 247s 3 unranked?
A broken clock is right twice a day :)
Depends on the type of clock and how it's broken but, yeah
Both are listed as 4 star composites on 247
https://247sports.com/player/gerard-johnson-46132137/
I see on3 composite has him lower. But we're up fam we take the highest ranking around here.
247 and on3 are all that matter, everyone else sucks
Agree 100% - ESPN is a disaster from a resources perspective on their recruiting assessments and rankings.
They lowered his rating when he committed to an ACC school.
Good. Then he'll have a chip on his shoulder, too.
Welcome home.
The event stream is pretty awesome, was just watching on my metro commute.
Adding some beef.
Hokies were rated at 86.6% to get the commit.
Nobody was close.
DL out of NC.
Twerps shattered
Hokies were rated 16.9% to get the commit.
Penn St was 43%, Maryland was 19.7%, Georgia Tech was 14.1%
To Penn State, MD, GT:
The show Triumph is putting on is awesome. Even if it's $10/month, Triumph is making a difference with what we are doing on and off the field. If you can support them, I would definitely recommend.
They need to have Triumph booths setup at every athletic event encouraging new signups. I saw them quote tweet something last week that really struck me:
13 team captains in this class.
I'm about to have to do real work for a while, probably won't get to update anything until the livestream event is over. Please feel free to add individual threads as they happen, thanks ltrepeter2000 for doing Clarke's. ✌️
Yeah, this was not the best idea. Pushing all other conversation off the main page of Active Discussions.
I've been saying this for years. Ha.
It certainly dominates the side bar, but signing day also dominates 99% of the discussion fans are having about the team on signing day... The other threads will be bumped in the following days back up to the top as they always are. In the meantime, it allows the signees themselves to deservedly get their own posts, and makes discussion for any individual player easy to find and keep up with. The megathread serves as a point of more general discussion.
I mean, what's more pressing on signing day than the signees?
Yes and better to have player-centric discussion diffused through multiple threads than just the one thread get to 500+ comments before all the signees are in, especially knowing how much we love a tangent around here
I've always loved tangents. The simplicity of a slope captured at a single point, something that can vary drastically if taken a little bit to the negative or positive side, depending on the shape of the curve. Something that is intuitive by glance, but is also explicitly calculable, given a normal function. Tangents are a beautiful thing.
See
Where's the love for secants and cosecants All trig functions need love! I guess the others are less 'elegant'.
I guess that previous comment struck a chord with you, huh.
Maybe, but on here we have so many tangents off the tangents it's more like trying to solve partial differential equations..
We do seem to enjoy taking the divergence a good bit
The stream is amazing, making it a huge event for each recruit as they sign. It is awesome to see us doing things like this.
You know, if we do this often enough, maybe we'll get better at it.
There's a new sheriff in town, and they're better at
some stuffeverything.The absolute Chef's Kiss is that Pry has the Commonwealth Cup right there next to him at the table.
Right where it belongs.
I know we have some people who are clued in on VA HS football, either generally or with specific areas. I would love to hear thoughts on our in-state recruits from those who have followed them closely in high school.
Can only talk to Wiggins, but the guy is absolutely a baller. Hard to say which one was better between him and Mekhai White, as their production numbers were similar, but Wiggins does a beautiful job at reaching out and catching with his hands. He has good separation, but I'm not able to judge how that will translate against P5 DBs.
#KingGeorge #GoFoxes
That's 14 by my count. Original estimates were 15 so likely getting close to being donr.
For the high school recruits, only Web Davidson is left. Then Copeland (JUCO).
Davidson in so that should be all then for today. Not sure how the JUCO signature is handled.
I think I'm going to chip in some money to triumph today.
$24 for '24
I went with a monthly subscription to start. Need to see how I can do 1 time donations on top of that but I just haven't browsed the site yet.
Tax Deductible? /s
I about lost it when Pry dropped a Nittany Cryins talking to someone
He knows them well.
Cunningham only allowed 2 sacks in 700+ snaps. Folks, he is a tackle.
It makes me wonder if Clements may be looking to depart after the bowl.
Do we have a list of the early enrollees? Pretty sure Pry said Wiggins, Adams, Dandy, Reddish, Belfort (?) and Mason (?)
Also some wild stats about UNC and VA recruiting from 2022 to today
https://twitter.com/petebvt/status/1737495622461149529?t=IwAfmlHaNO06Mzm...
Keeping them away from UNCle Brown's Cheaters as well. Keep doing that for a few years and it will help keep a few more at the top away from the true big dogs.
So Fred Johnson signed with South Carolina, Zahir Rainer signed with Minnesota. Those ships have sailed.
Mason Wade has not signed with Duke. Should be between us Duke and Clemson, Clemson the leader. Edit - He signed with Clemson
Marcellus Barnes is getting Cb's to Syracuse, which come on man. Shouldn't even be a comp with us.
Any other HS targets/flips that we're still looking at?
Unfortunately, Syracuse has a lot of momentum after making that coaching hire. They've been pulling in some decent recruits. Probably buying into the immediate hype, should fizzle out after this year.
He's got that "fresh new coach from the SEC" smell.
Wears off in a couple of months.
The same recruiters at UGA that convinced Barnes to decommit from us are on now on staff at Cuse -- it's relationships.
But i agree that flipping from vt to cuse is very different for a kid from georgia than flipping from vt to uga
Bingo. I mentioned this earlier this week. Syracuse hired an absolute lights out recruiter as their head coach... He hired an absolute lights out recruiter as his DC, and filled the rest of the staff accordingly.
Plus Syracuse paid those players a lot of money to sign. Other than that...
Did Chris Cole sign with UGA?
Unfortunately, yes...
Oh well, we'll just have to nab him in the portal.
I have always liked to compare what we got to a top 25 team making the assumption that a top 25 team has a top 25 QB, a Top 25 RB, 3 top 75 WRs, etc. Using On3 we have:
1 WR
3 OL
1 DL
1 DE
1 LB
1 S
Which is 8/16 of the class.
Also On3 has us 4th in the acc by player rating behind FSU, Miami, and Clemson.
It's looking like a really nice class.
Have we stolen anyone's lunch money yet?
So far, on3 has us at 34th overall, 6th in the ACC, from 41st and 7th, respectively, last year
Can't say 6th in the vaunted ACC gets me excited, but...baby steps I guess...
At least it's the right direction.
Stabilize, fill in the gaps, and improve.
It's a very small class too thought, correct? I mean we only signed 15 kids and I'm sure some others were in the 20's.
Yes I just checked and we are 4th in avg croot ranking.
pretty, pretty good.
It's still a decent step below Miami at 3, but the trajectory is good. And with UNC's trajectory heading downward, VT is ahead of them for this class (and hopefully all future classes).
VT is in the mix for some elite HS talent next year, so it's not improbable to think the upward trajectory continues for 2025.
Yeah avg recruit rating is on the rise, but our class ranking suffered for being very small this year. Not a problem though, as we knew we would be taking a lot of transfers again this year. Being 34th per on3 with such a small class is a positive sign, imo. Teams with similar avg recruit rankings and normal sized (20+) classes were in the mid 20's.
I believe the plan is to get back to taking normal sized high school classes (20+), building primarily through high school recruiting, while continuing to fill roster holes via the portal. However, in the wake of a head coaching change the roster attrition can take a couple years to get back on a more normal flow in/flow out out of players each cycle.
We're 29th in average rating. Which is good but not great. We really need that 19-24 zone. But 29th is still pretty good, especially if the evaluations are correct.
Its a huge jump from 75th and 49th etc. Things are looking up
But is that by average player rating or by overall score? Because last time I looked (admittedly, like a month ago), we were 4th by average player rating. (And, I think our average player rating was significantly higher than it had been in the previous 10 years or so).
Overall. But it's On3, not 247 composite, which I think (based on Twitter tweets) has us at 4th in the ACC.
Related:
No offense to some fans but we are almost always going to trail Miami, FSU, and Clemson in the recruiting rankings. I am happy at fourth.
Probably right. I could see closing the gap to where Miami is currently, but at the same time look where they've been compared to actual production...class rankings aren't the end-all
I mean you are completely right, and that's mainly because the way recruiting services work, certain schools get a boost over others, and we aren't one of those schools, at least not yet.
How the hell does Miami always manage to recruit well? Serious question.
In the 20 years since they joined the ACC they've had a single 10 win season (2017) which is the only time they won the Coastal and they got blown out in the ACCCG by Clemson 38-3 (also their 2nd highest post-season ranking of 13th in this timeframe). Their overall record for the past 20 years is 148-102 (0.592) and in the ACC it's 89-72 (0.553). Their highest end of season ranking was 11th in '04 and the year they moved over. They are a 7.5 win average team in a middle of the pack P5 conference.
Yet somehow they manage to average a top-15 recruiting class over the past 20 years. How? Why? They have NOTHING to show for their time in the ACC, they're on their 6th HC since joining the conference, they are a mid-level team, and they don't even play in their own stadium...and yet they always end up on top in recruiting. It pisses me off every recruiting cycle to see them up there and know that the program is a turd (nowadays).
Um, have you been to Miami Beach as a 18 year old man?
Honestly makes perfect sense that they would recruit well and then underperform. Nothing against a good Blacksburg house party, but there are a few more distractions in Miami...
Sure, I get that, but if you're a 4 or 5 star hoping to go to the NFL one day, wouldn't you go to a school that is good?
See that's the thing, they're more interested in having a good time than developing and trying to get drafted high. That's why Miami always underperforms their recruiting rankings.
If your a 5* recruit it's pretty much NFL or injury, so might as well enjoy yourself.
With how talent rich Florida is, it helps that they're surrounded by ballers. You can convince a kid that they can play top tier football within a few minutes to a few hours from home (sound familiar?). Their brand still hasn't lost all its luster on the back of their championship 20 years ago and the others before. Plus bad boy image if you're into that thing. Also warm weather near a beach with a fair share of talent in other areas. There's a compelling argument to be made with a program that also offers a path to the NFL on a regular basis.
Hookers and blow.
The children's book?
They sure do start early.
/s
Nobody does less with more than Miami football.
Someone would like a word
From the athletic (emphasis mine)
That's wild
That's awesome!!! Looking forward to what they can do for the 25 class!