Discuss and share any recruiting topics for April 2024 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 linking 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
Saw on social media where we offered a QB from Irmo HS in SC. Have not seen anything on any Hokie related social media announcing this. His father was a college teammate of French and I
Carter Meadows
Class of 26
6'6 215 lbs Athlete/DE
Gonzaga
247Sports
HUDL Profile
AJ Brand
Class of 25
6'1, 200 lbs Quarterback
Columbia, SC
3* 86 ranking 247Sports
247Sports
HUDL Profile
Craig Tutt
Class of 26
6' 180 lbs Safety
Oakland HS, Tennessee
247Sports
HUDL Profile
Joey O'Brien
Class of 26
6'3 180 lbs Safety/WR
La Salle Colkege HS, Glenside PA
247Sports
HUDL Profile
Not sure I've seen the "Virginia-Tech University" variation before.
Nor should you. Ever.
Not looking good for VT in regards to 5-star brothers this time around.
any chance that money we saved on bball goes to use here?
Well look at it this way, if they are both a top choice that means VT has another second place finish to a big dog.
April Fools? Plz Faheem
how about a 1C?
Hokies make the Top 5 for
Jeffrey Overton.
3*/86 Rating on 247
RB out of Freedom High School
Class of 25
Gatorade Player of the Year in Virginia
Had 2249 yards rushing and 44 touchdowns his junior season.
One of these things is not like the other...
The guy in the middle for sure. The other ones are clearly cartoons!
Three of them are not like the other two that's for sure
So uh, is LSU about to poach Kyron? Seeing people mentioning a lot of rumors going around on twitter....
Idk if this is the correct thread for this type of news so I have no issues deleting if needed.
ESPN pays LSU 60% more to air their football games than they do ours. This is the new reality. We are minor league. I would not be shocked one bit if Drones bounces
I didn't want to add smoke to it. First posts on Twitter were from a JMU troll account but it seems it's gaining traction. No idea if it's real or not but looks like Pry may have to recruit him again just to quell it if it's not real. If it is real then probably not much we can do about it.
Doesn't help that Hokies are @ing Drones directly.
April 16th Portal opens back up...now with zero restrictions.
Thanks to Court Rulings, we are now in full-on Pay-for-Play mode.
Don't be surprised if our current roster doesn't make it intact to Nashville.
We have finally reached the apex of the NIL/Portal/Early Signing Day era--to allow the Blue Bloods to use everyone else as feeder programs. This was the ultimate goal from the beginning.
Yep - and at VT, money is pie. So time to cut that 5th year senior that has given 5 years to the program but may not play every down. Fuck you, we need a young linebacker and we have a budget. It's everything you love about college sports.
Welcome to college sports in the 2020's.
It's a no-holds-barred situation.
FTFY
Ehh...the NCAA is an organization that varies from inept to utterly useless but the Legal system has stamped out any efforts they have made to reign in the insanity.
Hey..maybe we should have some rules on transferring..nope...Injunction.
Hey..maybe we shouldn't let "independent" NIL collectives fly recruits around in private jets...nope...also an Injunction.
Again, I dont view this as ever having been an organic process...NIL and the Transfer Portal were conceived by the Power players in College athletics to take vise-grip control and, to that end, they have been a smashing success.
NCAA has known since 1984 OU Board of Regents that football was slowly professionalizing. They could have planned for this at any point in the last 40 years. Hell, they could've started planning after the Ed Obannon case. But no, they chose to wait until 2021.
The NCAA is 100% at fault for the situation.
It originated from a JMU account names Seymour Butts...
C'mon at least somewhat vet the source before bringing it over
Yeah that was the one I saw but then others are referring to message boards which no search turns anything up on. Sending tweets @ Drones definitely doesn't help things.
Has anyone sent this yet?
I understand how to vet a source.
I think it's more of a "schools with bad QB situations are making it known to good QBs at other schools they want them" at this point. Haven't seen anything give legs to "he's leaving were fucked".
My take is yeah, maybe you get paid. But do you win/perform better if your goal is the NFL? We have a pretty stacked skilled positions, and you'd have to come in and learn the system in a summer, then play the SEC schedule. If you want to test the market next year? Sure.
Also - has anyone else seen Brian Kelly manage quarterbacks the past few years? Other than last year, it's been a bit of a debacle
Maybe he should be reminded that Brian Kelly killed a kid.
Right?
Everybody should know that Brian Keith Kelly (born October 25, 1961), an American college football coach, is the head football coach at Louisiana State University (LSU), a position he has held since the 2022 season - and he killed a kid. That kid's name was Declan Sullivan.
Im surprised this hasn't happened yet. Blue bloods stocking their roster with good players from lesser leagues. Or maybe it is happening and I just haven't heard about it. Oddly, I hadn't really considered this happening. Fake account or no, Im sure that this will happen at some point. College Football. What a clusterfuck.
Really hoping LSU is putting out flyers to a bunch of QBs and not just Drones.
VT has to keep him on board for at least one more season. Have big donors redirect their FEF money to HokieWay to make this work.
Then once NIL can go in house maybe tie NIL money to Pry for bonuses and HokieClub points etc. Heck make one game a year for tickets an NIL fundraiser. Have a 7th or 8th home game against an FCS school.
Also hoping that since it leaked ahead of the Spring game that Drones wants to stay at VT and is just trying to get the money to make sense.
Heck charge $10 a head at the spring game with the money going into the NIL fund. That should net at least $200,000.
Why not 10K per head? we have football and basketball players to pay here.
then u dont get anyone to attend bc of supply and demand
Nah, people dip into their retirement to pay for players- especially in poor states/areas like Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky. Maybe do 8K, but people will pay for players salaries from their hard earned money- this is fact.
You should check the spreadsheet. DC lives in Arizona. They don't have grass there (can't afford to water it).
probably because they're all emptying their 401ks to prop up the football behemoths of...checks notes...Arizona and Arizona State.
Unlike 90% of Alabama and Kentucky, there is actual real money in Phoenix- so ASU's NIL war chest would actually- gasp- make sense. Peruse real estate in North Phoenix if you don't believe me. Arizona is a better argument. Tucson is basically a small town by comparison, and it's economy is hurting. Another fun fact, all of the UofA students work in PHX when they are not in school over summer/breaks. In terms of the water- my bud was making a joke- but its not actually affordability to water grass here... it's more conservation and the simple fact that grass won't grow- no matter how much you water it- in July/August/Sept. anyway- so its fruitless. Same thing as Vegas/Albuquerque/Lubbock. Water is actually more expensive in many parts of colorado than in PHX.
You're just lucky you don't have to soak (pun intended) hours into lawn maintenance anymore.
For me it was raking leaves- endless- hated it. No more!!
Also, fuck off with the "poor states/areas" nonsense. Blacksburg is not a rich area, and there are alums with money. Obviously Kentucky (the university) has money. The weird class bullshit you bring into this doesn't track with the world, and is the same shit that other folks throw at Blacksburg, and SWVA. Be better.
Yeah.
LMFAO. Look at what I was referencing. Those states I listed are among the "poorest" in the US. Sorry you don't like facts. Virginia is not at the bottom of any economy list. Sorry to hurt your feelings with the truth.
Sure. I'm triggered, and don't know what to do with feelings. Nice work.
It's not the truth man. You're making something up about poor people dipping into their retirements to pay an NIL collective, like that's the only way that could be happening in these states. As opposed to the alumni of those places who are doctors, lawyers, whatever, and want to donate some money. You know, like happens everywhere.
If your point is that we should ignore where the alumni live, what they do, and focus on the area surrounding the universities, hate to tell you, but the vast majority of the money in Virginia isn't near Tech. If you want an "economy list" to back it up, Montgomery county is comfortably in the bottom half (85th) of per capita incomes in the state. The surrounding counties are all slightly below that. It isn't a rich area.
And really all of this is a side show to main point the maybe you just don't need to be a jerk to whole areas of the country. I like to think that this community is usually better than that. Apologies for being a jerk about it, but your weird fixation on how it must be dumb poor people paying for other school's NIL has been ongoing, and it really rubs me the wrong way.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the national poverty rate was 12.4% in 2022, up from 11.2% in 2021. These states have the highest percentages of poverty in the country: Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, New Mexico, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, and New York.- You can continue to play obtuse on the point I am making - fine. I don't care.
The median per capita income in Montgomery county in 2010 was $22,040. In 2011 across Louisiana it was $22,800. In Kentucky it was $22,100. You're not wrong that those places are poor. That's obviously true. What you're wrong about is how different the Tech surroundings are from those places. When you rope in Fairfax and Arlington, two of the richest counties in the country, Virginia's numbers get way inflated.
Don't forget Loudon County too. There's mad money in Middleburg
In the top 25 in Median Household income in last census in the country
Loudoun is #1
Falls Church is #2
Fairfax #5
Arlington #7
Stafford #19
Fairfax City #23
Prince William #24
I don't recall a "virginia is better than these states" comparison 1-1. Don't remember stating that VT is more well heeled/superior/better than the people in Alabama. The point that has long been lost- it astonishes me how some of the poorest states in the country have the highest college sports donations numbers. I find that odd/doesn't make sense. Unless of course college sports are the #1 priority. Suppose they are.
This is a fair point to make. While DC may harp on it a bit more frequently than some would desire, it's a solid point. And while we can't confirm or rule out that their support comes solely from well-heeled alumni and fans, there is a bit of a cringe factor when you think about it. While I would love to have the financial support some of these schools have, I would not want to see it at the expense of people that really can't afford it, especially in this economy.
The "poorest states" in America have annual Gross State Products that are larger than many nations in the world. For example, in 2023, the GSP of Alabama was 215 billion dollars, ranking it above Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama..... combined.
Americans are poor only in comparison to other Americans and a few other nations.
Bread and circus is cheaper than public education and infrastructure.
I do wonder how schools like LSU - which are objectively not great universities that don't send their alumni to prestigious jobs - manage to have so many lawyers, doctors, etc.
Yea, it's hyperbolic to suggest that LSU donors are emptying their 401ks to support the football program. But there is definitely something in the culture that makes their graduates/fans give more.
I'm going to respond to this one and then drop it. Because I'm tired of this, but this actually has something to engage with.
LSU is a big school with both a med and law school. So it'll generate some lawyers and doctors. Also, they don't have to be going off to white shoe law firms to make good money. There's a good living to be made doing real estate contracts locally or whatever. And that can be a reliable donor base. Especially if they're motivated to give.
I'm neither disputing that there is a cultural thing happening that prioritizes athletics in these places (obviously true), or that on average these places are poor (even more obviously true). What I am saying is that there is an interesting or useful way to look at/discuss those things, and then there's being an asshole about poor people and places for some reason. And that line really isn't that hard to find.
Y'all are forgetting that Southern old money is still a thing and Louisiana is in oil country as well.
Quite a genteel way to reference wealth created from the enslavement and trafficking of human beings, maintained through jim crow. Interesting that it's being presented as a major factor in SEC college athletics.
Also Lousiana uses a hybrid law system that is based on civil law whole the other 49 states use common law. At LSU there are two law tracks, stay in the state and leave the state.
Because of this lawyers in lousiana pretty much go to lousiana law schools and stay instate. There isn't an influx of lawyers from other states. So there is a limit supply which could potentially drive demand and salaries. I haven't looked into the salaries so I don't have definitive data.
I dont really have a point but I wanted to show off what I know.
omg are you saying nil donations all comes down to supply and demand......
I'll kinda support DC on this one. Just look at LSU - they're too poor to keep up their academic buildings, but is more than capable of being one of the leaders in the college football arms race.
I understand that athletics and academics are two separate pools of money, but it says something about the culture when donors would rather see state of the art locker rooms with iPads and nap pods than a library without a collapsing roof.
OSU doesn't have this problem. Michigan doesn't. Clemson doesn't. Oregon doesn't. LSU and Mississippi do.
A high % of elementary school kids in Alabama eat only one meal a day. But Roll Fucking Tide... lets give money to the football team.
just like a broken clock, it being right on occasion doesn't change the fact that it sounds like a dick most of the time.
Sorry, I may have mixed up my metaphors there.
it's totally -not- a dick move to snipe every single one of my posts and add nothing to the conversation. THAT is totally not a dick move
imo neither of you is wrong. DC is entitled to his opinion but it's often very abrasively presented. pointing it out multiple times a day is its own form of being abrasive. at this point, there's diminishing returns on the value of both comments and we're closing in on Noise territory since it's just rehashed howling into the void with little additional insight or commentary
You said it better than me. Thank you. Everyone on earth knows he hates my posts/style. He doesn't need to remind us of that daily. We get it.
funny enough, this is largely the extent of hokie07me's commentary regarding you....
Come now. I let a lot of his crap slide. I want to respond to each and every post, but usually practice a modicum of self restraint. Also, I do my best to be unique and at least a little entertaining with my responses rather than spamming the board with the same rehashed talking points every time. Can I claim just 75% noise?
lol. I love this. Funny
no less than 75% noise, the form varies but the function is consistent 💁♂️
i locked this subthread, not because anyone is in trouble or anything but because of the rabbit hole. both of you be nicer
Still haven't sold the old house, but I could find $10 a head in the couch when I moved it.
Dude. This is exhausting.
Seen the Drones/LSU poaching rumor around on a few other boards and twitter, but sounds like we are at least on top of it and he's not imminently leaving or anything as of now. I'm sure the higher ups in the program and donors knew they had to keep a ton of dry powder for this spring portal window. No surprise that a lot of our guys will get offers to jump ship. Have to retain Drones and our key playmakers - cannot afford a huge setback.
If Drones does get poached, I can confidently say that I am done watching college sports and won't watch another down until this shit show completely implodes. What a disaster.
This shit already fucking sucks. It's worse than the NFL- no rules, open free agency at all times. 6 years to play 6. Fucking sucks
The NFL at this point is better than college football in every conceivable way. The only reason I even remotely care about college athletics is because I went to VT. But other than that, at least the professional leagues have it set up that any team can legitimately have a path to contention and a title that is fully in their control. College is a beauty pageant that only benefits the rich while everyone else gets grifted for donations to pad the wallets of players, coaches and admins while the students they represent are saddled with generational debt. It's a disgusting system that I genuinely struggle to justify supporting anymore.
Goddamn it, as much as I hate to upvote Alum07 (he's got plenty of 'em), this is spot on. Have your leg from me, you fuckin' Leg King!
I mean, the pageantry was what made college football great. The rivalries, the traditions, the pure fun of it. Now it is all about who will become champion. 10 wins with a bowl game used to be a great season and now that ends in disappointment for all but one. Now they've ruined the pageantry. Clemson- USCe is ine the road to become Utah-Utah st. Apple Cup, WVU-VT, backyard Brawl, Civil War are going the way of the dodo.
In your lifetime, the players won't be required to be students. Think about that.
Didn't UNC already prove that?
My dad said to do that in the 90s. I didn't understand at the time because i was like 14.
I've had 30 years to think about it and I'm fine with it.
P.S. Do we not cheer on other VT employees? are we not proud of our research into helmets or our help with the flint water issue? We get to be proud of what VT accomplishes no matter who is getting paid because we are part of a community that we support and want to do well. We support Pry and Young and they're not a students. I want athletes to come and be part of the community to be cheered on and bring us joy, to make us all be proud to be a hokie.
Yea, I agree with this. Judge Kavanaugh and I probably agree on very few things in life, but I think he nailed it when he explained that not paying your employees doesn't make you more attractive to consumers.
FTFY
getting close the edge on the CG's, but just had to bc I too, like beer
That Matt Damon christmas episode was one of the best SNL episodes of the last decade. So funny.
I missed where the SCOTUS declared that college football players are employees of Virginia Tech? That would be pretty big news I would think?
not quite.
linky
From the concurrent opinion:
The bolded text is the line I always think about. The word 'employee' was never used, but the point is well taken - this idea that a product is more desirable because the contributors' pay is capped makes no sense.
If I'm a lawyer, I go full reducto ad absurdum and apply the same logic to high school sports. Is child labor suddenly legal again? The sport was never supposed to be a product, the players never supposed to be employees. But if it's the same sport, then the rules must apply similarly at all levels. If playing sports in college is a job, how is little league not the same as sending kids into the mines?
It's a reasonable point - I would argue that:
It would take a while for me to put together a complete argument, but that would be the crux of it.
Do I follow, donate, root on, employees in the VT dining services? No I don't- and neither do most. I'll give them a fist bump at the airport of course, but there is not a message board dedicated to VT employees that work in facilities. I honestly don't know how you can make the comparison. I don't root for UVA football players- primarily because they are not virginia tech students. Same with JMU, Penn State, etc. Why would I root for them? My fandom 100% stops when there is a team of pro football players whose only connection to virginia tech is their salary and suiting up on Saturday. Done. We already have the NFL. And as we see from the 4 people that are attending UFL games, minor league pro football sucks anyway.
The reason I dislike the NFL is it's just corporatey. Every team feels the same, just in different colors. To me, it's like comparing a Ruth Chris to the hole in the wall breakfast burrito stand down the street. Is the quality and reliability better at Ruth Chris? Of course. Do I like it more? No, I love Poco Loco, and I go at least once a week because I love it so damn much.
OK but tell me more about Poco Loco though... where is this?
I'm here for every single solid hole in the wall burrito stand / restaurant I can find.
Poco Loco is one of my happy places. It's in Kirkwood, right on the edge of Atlanta and Decatur. As I understand it, the chef used to be a chef at Fox Bros (legendary bbq spot in Atlanta, second best in the city IMO), and used to make breakfast burritos for family meals when he worked there. The breakfast burritos were so good, that he decided to open his own spot.
His menu changes every week - There's always a kids burrito, a meat burrito, and a vegiterian burrito, but the latter two are completely different every week - I assume that he gets different ingredients from his suppliers based on seasonality, cost, quality, etc. In addition to breakfast burritos, they also have 'provisions' - so you can buy a pint of whatever meat he's cooking, whatever beans he cooked, his pickled onions, salsa, etc.
One of my favorite provisions is his collard greens. They are savory, salty, AND tangy. I've never had anything like them.
In the last 6ish months, they've also started serving some sweeter things - he makes a cinnamon role that feeds 2, and has a cream cheese icing. They also sell homemade cookie dough that you can take home and bake. The cookies are incredible - they are really salty (for a dessert at least) and the savoriness really enhances the sweetness of the cookie. It's just *chefs kiss*. They also do ice cream sandwiches that are incredible.
They've also recently started serving dinner. Rotating menu, just like breakfast. Only been once or twice for dinner. It's great, but there's something about breakfast food that just hits differently.
I try to go at least once per week because I love their food so much, and the chef/owner is just an all time great vibes dude. Now that I've been a regular for at least a year, we always chat, and he often gives me freebies.
Sounds like a place I'd love. I'm a big fan of supporting local businesses with interesting stories like that. I've become a champion of Fight Club (awesome sandwiches and cocktails on draft) and Hill East Burger (smoked smashburgers) over the past year, my friends are all probably sick and tired of hearing me wax poetic about each.
Were you the TKPer who came down to atlanta for a braves/Nats game and went to Heirloom on my recommendation?
They'll live, keep on evangelizing!
IYO, what's the best? Asking for a friend.
I mean the main reason why I am saying that the NFL is better than college is because college has become very corporate. From the cookie cutter playoffs where we've completely jumped the shark and lost every bit of the charm that used to be there to scrapping divisions and doing everything we can to manipulate getting the teams in the biggest games that bring in the most money rather than the ones who have earned it on the field. College football is as corporate as it gets. The rich get richer, the poor get left behind.
You say that in the NFL every team feels the same, but I'm well past that point in college football. No team has an identity on the field anymore. Entire teams are getting overhauled on an annual basis because boosters are cherry picking the best players from other programs every winter and the NCAA has thrown its hands in the air allowing waiverless transfers to be a thing. Sure, there's a lot of off the field traditions in the stands, but that holds true in the NFL as well. And the only thing that really set college apart was the aura and pageantry of old traditions, and when you see the oldest one of all, the Rose Bowl, blown up so that the rich can continue to consolidate even more wealth while tossing schools like Oregon State, Wazzu, Stanford and Cal to the wayside like scraps, it sends a very clear message that money is the only tradition that these schools care about anymore. And what is more corporate than that.
Right there with you. As unhappy as I am with the direction college football is taking, I'm still taking college football over NFL every time.
Yeah, this almost seems like a controlled leak (or as much as one as possible) to rally the donors. Will Stewart isn't one to drive many rumors these days at TSL, but he dropped this on a radio interview last week. So suspect it's known, and the team is on top of it
Even if he stays I'm really fucking tired of being told we don't give enough when the main cause for our inability to compete is that we just aren't in the right conference. I'm tired of this. I'm fucking tired. These kids already get a free education, which is upwards of a $300k head start on their peer students, it's insulting to the rest of the student body to bilk more out of alumni just to pad the wallets of those same athletes.
What???
You don't want to pay your student loans while helping give someone else a free ride and spending money?
And not even just spending money - you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars and even seven figure NIL offers thrown around for some of these kids. What is the incentive for the average alum/fan to give to that bullshit? It's just absurd. And since college has no rules or collective bargaining or anything like a real pro league has, all of the insane coaching salaries and now NIL money isn't really based on true value to the organization. It's just whatever the craziest fan base with the most money to throw around is willing to pay - and that sets the market for everyone. Literally paying players a ton just to keep someone else from poaching.
Bingo... want to be a virginia tech "fan"... here is your bill- Pay for tickets, pay for parking, pay for beers at the stadium, pay for players, pay for donations that get you said tickets and parking. Pay, pay, pay. and even then it's not near enough to be competitive with- fucking Kentucky.
Dude, they give you a sticker to put on your back window or yeti water bottle
Wait, you got a water bottle?
Holy smokes.
He is the guy they are targeting for giving big bucks to the NIL.
Hey, big spendah...
No, just the sticker.
Tuition at VT is $75k/year these days?
Cost of attendance at VT for an out of state student right now is at least $60k per year
$58k per VT's website, this is the most expensive option.
Well once you factor in all the rails at TOTS, Carol Lee Donuts, weed money, etc. etc. then the cost for sure goes over 300K
s/?
Nearly $60k all in for out of staters.
That's wild. 15 years ago (when I started school), it was cheaper to be an out of state student at VT than in state at UMD.
40k is room and Board. Tuition and fees is 18k
That's absolutely nuts. Room & board at VT is almost as much as my mortgage and I live smack dab in the middle of Atlanta in a desirable, mostly gentrified neighborhood.
LOL I feel like if I don't clarify, then someone always slides in talking about how Atlanta is so hood so of course it's cheap, and then I get in an argument about how their knowledge of the city is 20 years old... anyways I clearly have some insecurities to work through
At first I thought it was a Jay Z reference.... NYC vs ATL will get after ya though
Just messing with you. I totally get it. You can't drop things like "my mobile home community only allows doublewides" without coming off as bougie or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
Ditto. "Gunfire, fireworks, or filming at Pullman Yards?" is almost always the second now.
LOL I live less than a half mile from Pullman Yards. My neighborhood facebook group is wild.
Kirkwood, myself. Wife passes along the best from Facebook.
The 420 festival is going to be nuts.
Are you the VT fan in my neighborhood with two older dogs who lives in the yellow house with floor beds on the side?
this fills out a lot of the spreadsheet
you been peeking in bedrooms, bar?
Not yet, but maybe I should start. There's a guy in my neighborhood who I've seen wearing a horse on a treadmill shirt while walking his dogs. Wondering if it's vfr. Gotta get to the bottom of this.
ok so im genuinely curious -- did you MEAN "floor beds" or was it supposed to be "flower beds"
Oh whoops - flower beds. I didn't get the peeping tom comment, but that typo makes waaaayyyyy more sense
Also guilty as charged.
Flower beds and vegetable gardens, yes. The dogs are around 6, so they might be offended.
It was why I picked Tech 30 years ago.
Multiply that by 4 years, plus one for the redshirt.
$300k for out of staters
I know what DC will say lol, but wouldn't he have to sit out a year if he transferred again?
No, there are no sit out requirements anymore. Literally. You can transfer anytime for any reason and have immediate eligibility now after the latest court decision.
Nope
Is it germane to point out here that Brian Kelly killed a kid?
THE GOD D*MN GERMANS GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!!!
Give me a Diablo sandwich, a Dr. Pepper, and make it quick, I'm in a god-damn hurry
You want sompen? Hush puppies daddy!
Daddy, the top came off
Nailed it.
Always.
Rumor/scuttlebutt I've heard:
Drones will enter the portal if we don't match $1.3 million.
And now I guess it makes more sense why both our basketball teams imploded on short notice. That dry powder has to come from somewhere.
If true, that's it for me as it relates to NIL. I can throw a few hundred $$ here and there so the students, already getting a free education, can get paid. And not just paid, but so they can instantly become financially independent, while the rest of us pay off student loan debt (finished with that here), etc., etc...
I know disengaging isn't the right attitude, but why pay a kid a few hundred big ones for him to take it and leave and get a bigger bag. We are asked to pony up for more $$. But to what end? When is enough enough? At what point have we given enough to field a competitive team? Remember, whatever of our $$ that Drones has already gotten from us, he gets to keep, and run, and get a bigger bag... I get it... it's the system we have. The kids are making a business decision. I'd probably do the same. However, this isn't a business I want to invest in anymore.
Just my thoughts, not necessarily my conclusion....
Yep..sorry to say but donating to NIL is not in my future.
Have no problem donating to Athletic faculties as they are tangible and will be beneficial to a multitude of individuals.
Dumping money into an NIL fund to try to coerce athletes to play and stay at VT when they can take said money and then transfer 4 months later is insane..sorry..call me a bad fan...whatever.
And the price tag just keeps ballooning and the impetus for these athletes to have any loyalty whatsoever is totally absent.
We've officially killed college sports..they're done.
Its minor league football except we're now compensating these kids 10-25x as well as the real minor league football players are in the UFL. Yet, 95% of these college players aren't even good enough to make a UFL practice squad. Again...insane and illogical.
I want VT to be wildly successful but its becoming increasingly obvious that this "system" has the deck stacked against them. Taking a hunk out of my own bank account to try and chase after that just isn't a reasonable priority in my life anymore.
I don't know that this is true. It doesn't take someone too smart in contract drafting to draft up a contract that requires payment be made at certain points, such as right after transfer portal closes. Thus, if you transfer, you don't get paid.
Better hurry up and dot those i's...
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39903354/ncaa-adopt-new-t...
But at least a portion of them haven't figured it out.
For instance, it is widely believed that Kadyn Proctor walked off with ~$100k of Iowa NIL after being there less than 8 weeks.
But nobody knows anything about what is contained in these NIL contracts as there is absolutely zero disclosure.
Well theoretically Iowa can still use his name and likeness. They paid for it. He might be obligated to come back and do a commercial.
Need an NIL cap badly. Should be around $10 mil per roster imo, maybe even lower like $5-8M to give some of the lower tier schools a chance
Personally, I would much rather see a cap on coaching and operational budgets right now.
I suggested this a couple of months ago. Every major sport in the U.S. has a cap of some kind. For college sports, it should be a hard cap, not a soft one like MLB where the rich teams can continue spending over the cap and get 'taxed' for it. For example (and using old terminology), the top 40-50 D1 schools would have a large cap, the next group of D2 schools would have a middle cap, and the D3 schools wouldn't even give NIL money.
Another thought is to do away with athletic scholarships altogether, and fold all that $ into the NIL pool. Why pay a kid $1MM and also pay for his tuition, R&B, etc.? Have him pay it out of his NIL $.
All those major sports are pro leagues, with various agreements and deals with the government to enable those kinds of restrictions and caps.
The simple fact is that we're trying to hold on to the sheen of amateurism for what is very clearly also a pro-league. As long as we're trying to do so, we'll be stuck with this Wild West. We need to emotionally commit to that final step of making college football (and basketball?) a pro sport.
Here, here!
and this is why Saban retired....
I has ruined CFB and he didn't want to have to re-recruit a kid just b/c UGA or whomever is offering him a bigger NIL deal.
He didn't have issues with it before NIL was a thing...
Yeah no sympathy for Saban. He's to blame for most of the ridiculousness that has become the college football arms race. This is just the next evolution of it and it finally became too much for him. The ballooning staff sizes, recruiting staff, salaries, and facilities are mostly all attributed to him. He just liked it when paying the players was under the table and he could stockpile all the talent. Now the system we have now is a complete dystopia, but Saban wanting to go back to him having total control isn't the answer either.
His issue is that the coaches don't have the power anymore.
I mean we kinda have to pay it but then you've probably got 4 other skill position guys that make the same demand. This college football isn't fun.
Wonder what we're giving him now?
Are NIL deals contracts? If players leave for better deals, does VT have the means of recouping any of the compensation given?
I just don't buy this. The highest paying schools are paying low 8-figures for an entire roster. You're telling me that a qb with high upside that still needs a lot of coaching is going to demand 10% of the team's pay? That number is wild.
Not to mention all his receivers returning?
Where do you get these numbers from?? Other than pure speculation, nobody publically knows what various school's NIL budgets are...
3 years ago...Saban "casually dropped" that Bryce Young had NIL contracts of more than $1M.
And last year, I'm pretty sure that it was Matt Rhule who said the market for a Starting QB was ~$2.5M.
$1.3 M for Drones seems entirely plausible.
So, I'll start by acknowledging that, yes, the market is far from transparent, so I know hard numbers, just what I've heard reported or speculated by professional journalists (not internet insiders).
SZD and Extra Points have both reported at different times that the highest paying collectives are paying under $15m per year.
Maybe I'll dig up the episode between meetings today, but if I recall correctly, SZD saying you need $7m for a roster to compete in P5, $10m is pretty good, and $13ish mil is a championship roster.
You also had Ryan Day lobbying publicly to get $13m last year.
Bryce Young was getting money from outside of collective (doing commercials for Dr Pepper), so his situation was unique (as was Caleb Williams's).
Most of the informed people I've heard comment on the $2.5m number that Rhule threw out said it was either $2.5m over 4 years for a new recruit.
Or...?
This is the exact quote from Rhule...there could certainly be some hyperbole involved but it appears clear what he meant.
Also, the Ryan Day quote deserves some additional context as well. He did refer to OSU needing an NIL budget of $13 million just to keep the Roster together. That was in June 2022. Since that time, they have lost to Michigan once again and watched them win a Championship. The talk has been that OSU has absolutely thrown everything they have at 2024-25---and they signed the #1 DB, #1 QB, and #1 RB in the Transfer Portal---certainly the budget went up some.
Point being, $1.3 million for Drones really isn't a huge stretch given the value of QBs (NFL QBs routinely utilize ~20% of the total salary cap).
Have you met the NFL where the QB eats about 20% of the entire teams cap?
Source?
lol no. this rumor is out of control
THANK YOU! This is the only reassurance I need on the matter.
Thank you. I don't know why certain things make the entire online fanbase freak out even when there is no basis in fact. I saw the post by the JMU troll and thought nothing of it. But then I kept seeing people quote tweet it or respond to it like it was credible. Amazing troll job I guess
We're such an insecure fanbase right now - for valid reason IMO. We spent 10 years climbing to (or at least close to) the top of the sport, stayed there for 15ish, and then (a) the biggest hire we've ever made went south, (b) we had to come to the realization that we weren't as invested as our peers, and (c) the college football landscape has changed rapidly in the last 2-3 years.
We are a bubble program, and we are inching closer and closer to super-league-selection-sunday.
Yea, of course we got some anxiety issue.
Sadly unless it as part of a super league, I don't think it would be as part of either the SEC or B1G. I just don't see the move coming over other schools. The SEC isn't going to add anybody till the next TV deal unless they also kick somebody out. Their current contract would dilute payments to schools if they add anybody, and NONE of those schools want a reduction in their payout.
There is some truth to the rumor but the freaking out is entirely unnecessary and it's become extremely hyperbolic
Good to hear from you, LA. You are sorely missed.
Just saying maybe tech shouldn't have let him work out with a player who's touchdown celebration is showing off his golden Rolex and who's dad famously said "I'm bringing my luggage with me and it's Gucci " probably a little bit of an ego booster there.
Not sure if you're joking or not, but VT has very little control of who their elite QB works out with in the offseason.
Also, if word gets around that the coaches at VT won't let a QB workout with a nationally known player and his trainers, it would just create a bigger mess.
Let your players do what they want, keep the culture healthy and hope they stay, hit the portal hard for the ones that leave.
Still tampering if that guys communicating offers from LSU boosters
Looks like he got his money and is rewarding himself with a couch.
Also worth noting he is not looking for a couch in Baton Rouge (at least not yet...)
this is the hard hitting journalism I come to TKP for
Somebody near Blacksburg buy that man a damn sectional!
Is sectional couch the new Hardee's coupon?!
This is my favorite comment in weeks. But maybe I've been having to spend too much time scrolling past dcwilson filling his diaper, so it's a low bar.
If he was getting that SEC NIL he wouldn't be doing for used furniture /s but only a little. If Walmart hadn't put all the Mom and Pops out of business we would get corny commercials with Kyron telling us to "come on down Jim's Furniture Farm in Fancy Gap where the deals get hot when the weather gets cold!" And Big Jim would give Kyron a living room and bedroom set as compensation. NIL as God intended.
Why don't we just @ all of the local furniture stores and see who wants to get down?
So much recruiting news.............
I would consider rumors of a star player getting an offer from a competing program to be 'recruiting news' (maybe not the 'news' part, but definitely discussion-worthy)
I think that is big enough to get its own thread.
I'm sorry! I don't post a ton so still haven't quite learned the etiquette / protocol.
I also didn't want to cause a chicken little situation...
All good. If it wasn't worth talking about it wouldn't have had like 40 follow on comments.
Tbh I would trade Drones for Nussmeier
We have the cool Drones attack gif though. What would be the equivalent for Nussmeier? /s
Nah. Drones is the best QB since our last TE we converted to QB.
Dunno who downvoted my opinion, but it's just an opinion. I've heard Nussmeier is a stud. I like Drones but I'm not completely sold on him.
It wasn't me so I can't be certain but the DV might not be so much for the opinion (which is fine, btw) but more because there is kind of a lack of context. It's kind of an out of the blue comment. And I, for one, have no idea who Nussmeier is.
From the CGs:
Or a good reaction gif.
I did it. For two reasons:
1) It's an inflammatory statement and negative towards the program, reminds me of the 247 boards.
2) Nussmeier is ass and this comment proves you don't know ball.
Nothing personal I just think it's a shit take. It's like if someone said "I'd rather have London Perrentes than Justin Robinson".
What's the over under on how many more comments are made on the "APRIL 2024 FOOTBALL RECRUITING THREAD" before we get a comment that is actually related to recruiting a player to come to Tech?
Assuming we have one before May arrives, that is.
Welcome to the offseason, my friend, fortified with NIL AngstTM, guarunteed to raise your bloodpressure and reduce happiness within three short treatments!
Mason Holtzzclaw
Class of 27
QB 6'4 200 lbs
Christ School, in Arden NC from Piedmont SC
Freshman Highlights
247Sports