Split Zone Duo's ACC Preview Here. VT talk starts at ~51:00.
On SZD, they take a Rose/Bud/Thorn approach to season previews (Rose = good, Bud = you're interested to find out, Thorn = bad).
I decided just to post the transcript here - it's lightly edited for clarity. They had some really interesting discussion about the quality of our transfers and Kyron Drones.
Alex:
We were a lot more optimistic about [Virginia Tech] last year than turned out to be warranted. But they were a good computer team. They were 25th in SP+, which you're not going to hang a banner for. And Bill [Connelly, the inventor of SP+] would not tell you to hang a banner for that. But it does make me feel a little maybe trepidatious to declare them as doomed as I would think they are, just like looking at what I have noticed with my own eyes.
Still they go six and six. Three pretty disappointing years except for the back half of 2023 under Brent Pry. I'm a little bit at a loss, I'll admit. I'm a little bit confused...
Richard:
I've sort of mentioned this on Virginia Tech and I don't know, man. I think Virginia Tech's pretty close to slipping into some infamy here. If they don't get this season if they don't get on the right track this season, and we're going to find out pretty quick by the way; they got South Carolina and Vandy in September. We are going to find out about Virginia Tech real early.
Alex:
Yeah, I think we will.
My rose here is that I think they're going to probably continue to have a good running back even though Bhayshal Tuten is gone. This staff has done a nice job of identifying lower level running backs who I think are good. Like Bhayshal Tuten and came from North Carolina A&T. Really good player from the last couple of years. He goes, but Terrian Stewart from Bowling Green was best running back in the MAC last year. Running game was not their problem. And I don't think it will be again this year. It was a reasonably solid run blocking offensive line. They had continuity. They have a bit more turnover on the line this year.
They brought in West Virginia's old offensive line coach from the Neil Brown staff, and he brought a couple of guys with him, including the guy who's probably going to play center. Kyron Drones is still a number in the run game. So I bet they can carry the rock a bit.
My Bud is their receiver group. Interesting transfers here. Several interesting transfers.
- They got Donovan Green from Wake Forest. Known good player.
- You got a guy from Jackson State, Isaiah Spencer, who averaged about 20 yards per catch last year. And had three [catches] for 123 [yards] in the celebration ball, which Jackson State won. You know how I love an FCS receiver.
- And they got Cameron Selden, who was once upon a time one of the most touted high school players in Virginia history, state of Virginia history. Went to Tennessee as a running back, was buried on the depth chart there behind Dylan Sampson and others. And is now back in the state of Virginia as a receiver. Positional convert.
A lot of possibilities for a downfield playmaker or two to emerge.
So my thorn... ...Actually, it's kind of multiple thorns here. For a team that's been in this state of things, [the] longer term thorn [is that] the recruiting is actually pretty concerning. They've gotten two of the top 17 high school players in Virginia the 2025 cycle, according to 24/7 Sports, that's going the wrong direction after they got three of the top nine the previous year. At the moment, they have two of the top 16 in 2026.
We know how recruiting works now, and so that's not all on the head coach, but does that seem good to you? Does that seem like the foundation of Virginia Tech getting back to where we would like to see it? Not really.
Richard:
No, that's not great. You mentioned Donovan Green. Donovan Green is one of my favorite transfers at the wide receiver position. Obviously, he was hurt two years ago, and you know the Wake Forest offense for multiple reasons just never really got out of neutral last year...
...On the defensive side of the ball... ...One of my both favorite and not so awesome transfer situations: Ben Bell, in from Texas State, Ben Bell was the edge rusher for Texas State who sat out. Absolutely ripped it up in 2023. And then sat out - [he] was a four-and-done transfer - by that, I mean [in 2024 he played] four games and redshirted, which I just don't like that players do. Yes, I understand the system. I just don't like it in general. But he's in on this Brent Pry defense, and if he fulfills his potential moving up to this higher level, Virginia Tech may seriously have something on defense.
Alex:
I would agree. The other concern, though, that I have that I forgot to mention is also like not a lot of evidence that Kyron Jones is actually that good. I was very excited a year ago.
They kept him Like he's still their guy. So I guess anything there's.
Richard:
And buddy did some folks try to make that not the case.
Alex:
So the market's telling you that there are people who believe in him. And I hope that he takes a leap. I want Virginia Tech to be better. I think it's I think that's one of those schools that the sport is just more interesting when they're good. And so I'd like to see them get better. We'll see if it happens.
Comments
Thanks for posting the transcript.
That's optimistic. Just about par with how I feel .
Anyone else have some concerns about Fontel Mines and the WR development. Seems like WR has been our best recruited position group, and yet, in the entirety of what to look forward to with that room, not a single one of the recruits is mentioned, all transfers. Is this staff just unable to develop players? What are we still leaning into WR transfer when the recruiting has been stellar (at least according to HS evals)?
Hmm :thinksies:
Brain dump of miscellaneous thoughts:
Transfers - especially for media members - are easier to scout than players on the team. A lot of those transfers have more film out there/have taken more snaps (albeit at a lower level) than last year's second/third string guys. So there's a bit of availability bias.
Also, these guys aren't beat writers. Richard is well sourced (both agents and coaches) and schematically knowledgable, and Alex is a great researcher, but they cover the entirety of college football, unlike Andy Bitter who spends 40hrs/week on just the Hokies. Alex/Richard aren't going to know the status of all 200+ former 4-star WRs across 130+ FBS teams.
So, TLDR, I'm not worried about Mines, AND I think your questions are reasonable. I think
I hear you on the depth part, if you can get a guy that is better than the rest of the room, no matter how deep the room, you get him. I assume the coaches have a number of roster spots to allocate for each position and hopefully are using the portal to make up for recruiting misses. It just seems that most of our offensive contributors have been portal entries rather than recruits and it's a bit troubling.
I don't think it's troubling, I think it's by design.
I'll go a step further, I think this might actually be the new blueprint to be successful at Virginia Tech (or any mid-tier P4 program) in the modern era of CFB.
I agree with this, or at least in theory. VT 2025 will be a good litmus test.
All football teams have a budget. Mid-tier ACC teams can do one of the following: go in on HS recruiting or go in on portal recruiting. It seems that VT is allocating more of their budget to portal recruiting than HS recruiting. GT, on the other hand, is putting a lot of their budget into HS recruits. It will be interesting to compare the two Techs over the next couple of years.
In baseball, analytical models are becoming major resources for roster development. So much player data is put into ML models to make decisions on drafting, international signings, and trading. I haven't followed NFL roster development, but I'm guessing ML models are also becoming major resources. I do wonder how much is being used at the college level, but I would think analytics probably would be super useful in determining how to allocate budgets for roster development. The major difference for CFB, however, is that the landscape has changed so much over the past 5 years that data to build models that reflect current roster development is rather limited. And I think player success in college football is both more volatile and heavily influenced by situation, especially collegiate coaching, fit within scheme, outside private coaching, S&C development, and teammates. Even with those caveats, if collegiate teams are not looking into developing an analytics department, they will fall behind those that do. In fact, I would argue that because of those issues, having a well-developed ML model to filter through the noise could greatly improve collegiate roster development.
Has anyone heard of college teams developing analytics departments? I haven't been paying close enough attention to realize whether this is happening yet.
As far as on the field analytics, it's outsourced to consultants. PFF also has a lot of detailed player information. As far as back-office analytics, I'm not sure it's there yet. Even the programs on the leading edge of NIL and whatnot are still mostly reactive.
That's what I figured. I do wonder if Connelly or a baseball analyst were hired at a midtier P4 team, provided with a decent budget and a small team of analysts, and worked with the team's scouting department, whether they could moneyball a midtier P4 team to playoff contender.
Connelly does a bit of consulting on the side. But the biggest name I've heard is CAI - if you have a go/no-go sheet, it probably comes from them. Pretty sure VT uses them too.
Quick search pops SSA which seems to be focused more on scouting/strategy rather than playcalling. scoutSMART appears to be focused on recruiting.
Interesting to see how an ML model would predict "likelihood of bailing to a P2 school after his sophomore year if he develops"
It definitely could be as a feature to determine value of a HS recruit. I doubt it would ultimately be a very negative factor because you are getting immediate value out of the player.
And the models themselves could be useful for determining whether to pony up for a player that is getting P2 offers. A team could have models to project the value of each player on their own team, which could be used to determine whether that team pays the player enough money to have the player stay or decides to let him walk.
There are so much data out there and ML models could learn to project player value and then use those values to identify discrepancies with market value. And with those discrepancies, a team can moneyball their rosters. With the caveat, of course, that so many other factors such as coaching, scheme, player development, etc. would have a great determination on W/L record.
At the expense of sounding like a tired old Hokie, I think it has a lot to do with the development of Drones and the OC.
While we have seen incredible flashes from both, inconsistency has been a significant issue IMO, and I think that likely has a significant impact on the WR group.
I think this season will tell us a whole lot about the staff. I don't expect more than 6-7 wins (which would be a failure in year 3 for coach Pry, especially with how he fumbled this team last season), but I do expect us to not look like we have no idea what we are doing for large stretches throughout the game. Just look like a competent, physical football team - something we haven't seen in almost a decade.
Thanks for sharing. So basically:
All in all I think predicting season to season in today's college football is an exercise in futility save the top 5 teams or so.
Fire up the hype train. My glasses are transitioning into maroon lens.
"The sport is much more interesting when they're good..." 😌 ah so true
800%1000% more interesting, in factOn SZD it's really only Alex who shares that sentiment (formerly Godfrey but he's an SZD Emeritus). Richard pretty routinely seems baffled by Alex and Godfrey making comments like this about Tech. Probably a byproduct of Richard's age and growing up in Gainesville vs. Alex (who's a similar age to Richard but grew up in Pittsburgh and went to Maryland so he would have had more exposure to Tech football) and Godfrey (spent a formative period of his youth in NOVA in the mid-late 90s and always says he has a soft spot for Tech because of that).
I think the sentiment in general is that there needs to be a healthy middle class in CFB. You want your VTs, Kansas States, Utahs, Iowa States, NC States, Arizonas, etc being interesting.
But yea, Richard has said unapologetically that while he doesn't like seeing the P12 go away for instance, he isn't going to pretend to be sad about more helmet games.
What i think, and have for a long time, is best foe the sport is have the p4 teams (top 64 create a single "conference" with 8 "divisions". This way therr can be the regional match ups and everyone is one more equal footing. The the conference can create some home and homes to get some better match ups.
7 division games 3 conference games gets everyone 10 power teams games, then 2 lower games. playoffs (which is dont care for) could be 8 division winners + g5 + next three highest rated.
The big games can be scheduled at a lot higher level which would help TV scheduling.
Having a giant conference doesn't really help having big games. In 2024 there were 26 games between conference foes both ranked in the top 25 (i.e. games create by merging conferences). In 2023 there were 34, so we go denied 8 top 25 conference match ups because of conference expansion.
Yea that's the sensible thing, but college football is allergic to centralized authority, so this is what we got
I went on Rivals to look at the class of 26 and 27 and VT does not show up much at all in the interest column of the top athletes. Both basketball and football have very bleak futures if this keeps up. I hope the AD is paying attention and taking this as a 5 alarm fire. If we can't keep pipelines open in the state of VA, there is not much hope for sustained success.
What about our pipeline of transfers back to VA? If we get 1-3 APR-level transfers each year, is that better than getting 1-3 of the VAHS top 5-10?
My current view - that I'm still very much workshopping/debating - is:
Best way to do this is via the portal. Gotta figure you want 1/3 of your talent coming from high school, 1/3 of your talent being portal guys with over half their eligibility remaining, and 1/3 of your talent being plugging holes for the current season.
Assuming my thought process is correct (big assumption) - you'd expect HS recruiting to fall off.
All he can do is prioritize where the dollars go and go get more of them. Better apparel deals, more advertising dollars, continue to grow the Hokie Club, seek innovative ideas for the Hokie Club, improve gameday experiences to improve per game revenue (paint the damn endzones, get LED lights to add lighting effects, etc).
EDIT: As far as where they go, recruiting staff, on-campus or off-campus events for HS players and coaches, travel budgets, etc. It looks like Tech should be skewed toward acquiring talent more than retaining it as we can't keep up in the portal.
Results in all avenues is not possible, but I hope they are looking for improvements with GREAT urgency, because I don't ever see much progress or Tech in front of change and innovation. All things VT still seem like an aw-shucks small time mindset. Academics seems to have alignment and goals, Athletics seems to be always trying to figure out how to keep up, not how to get in front.
I agree... and I think growing HC is key. Everything else is on the margins IMO. Need to be ready to land that big whale if/when the opportunity comes.
The more I think about it, the apparel deal should go to the highest bidder, brand be damned. With NIL a player could cut a personal deal with any brand. Practice and game attire in the schools brand and can wear the other brand everywhere else. From a marketing perspective, Tech can really only use the game and practice pics anyway. The school shouldn't care way kids wear around campus (as long as it's not offensive).
Adidas has stopped expanding their roster of colleges. Under Armor schools have had a variety of issues.
I'm not saying we shouldn't shop around and understand the market, but don't be surprised if the market isn't as great as it was last decade.
This is probably the least interested I've been in any VT teams in my entire 20 year fanhood.
We stink.
I've been heavily supporting VT since the mid-90's and I can second this statement. Call it my mid-40's swag, call it apathy, call it whatever you want... I'm simply apathetic to VT football anymore. Zero expectations. If we win zero games it literally would not impact my wellbeing whatsoever.
Funny you still think our AD is forward thinking or proactive about anything. We haven't invented the future of athletics for well over a decade now.