Virginia Tech is targeting Georgia Tech's Norval McKenzie for its running backs coach job, sources tell @CBSSports.Aided by McKenzie, Georgia Tech has ranked in the top in the ACC in rushing each of the last three years. pic.twitter.com/JVBQEzTOx0— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) December 15, 2025
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I mean, it helps when you have a once in a decade qb like Haynes King...in CJMFF we trust but I'm sad we lose brooks and this is where it's leading.
And I'm not saying GT backs have been bad. What I'm saying is I'm not convinced this would be an upgrade.
Yes, but if we get him then GT won't have him, that degrades their team and thus, win for us.
Sometimes it is a zero sum game.
Sure, but what if they hire Brooks? Another comment mentioned that McKenzie is a better recruiter, but could Brooks' relationship with The St James Academy turn that around?
Risky move...
Not just St James but most of the nationally relevant prep schools and the WCAC in DC thanks to Brooks background at Dematha.
Im not too concerned that anyone from our previous staff was so good at recruiting that we shouldn't have let them go.
really upset over this tbh
Bring the Buster Faulkner playbook with you.
If he has that playbook and understanding, then that would be a major upside of this hire.
The thing about Buster Faulkner is that he doesn't have just one playbook:
Not a fan of this decision. The rushing stats look good because of the offense. Jamal Haynes and Hosley were good but got a ton of space because teams had to attack King first. Franklin has never emphasized a running QB. Not known to be a great recruiter although he did well at Louisville coaching Javian Hawkins and Hassan Hall. Jury is way out for me but only time will tell.
McSorley was a runner iirc
Read that he is a top 25 recruiter in the acc compared to Brooks who is in the 40's
None of our staff is anywhere near the rankings this year because of 1) lame duck year and 2) Franklin individually recruited 75% of the class which is why Franklin is #3 in the ACC.
Look at Brooks recruit list. I find it very impressive. He's been a college position coach for 7 years but likely only had 4 full recruiting cycles (didn't get a full cycle his first year hired at UMD, transition from UMD to VT, this year). Those are high rated guys at schools that tend to fill classes with .85s
Some guy on reddit a couple of hours ago said his best friend's dad told him this was a done deal. Turns out maybe you can't discount 3rd hand information from randoms on the internet. Now I feel bad for that guy I cussed out who claimed his uncle worked for Nintendo
My favorite example of this
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/k1zcuz/i_just_want_every...
https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsLeaks/comments/ijg9u4/baby_yoda_is_goin...
When I was in 3rd grade a kid on my bus had a mom who was apparently connected to Hollywood somehow and proudly told everyone that Star Wars Episode II would be called attack of the clones and everyone on that bus made fun of him CONSTANTLY for like 2 months until the title was released because that was such a dumb name lol
When I was in third grade, Return of the Jedi was coming out. I don't remember anyone on the bus revealing any leaks about it. (Gosh I'm old.)
I was 12 when the original Star Wars came out(and stayed in (first run) theaters for 9 months which will never happen again-saw it 8 times myself), 15 for Empire, and graduating high school for Revenge! Have NEVER seen nor ever care to see any of the other prequels or sequels.
So get off my yard, whippersnapper! (actually I have a YARD not a LAWN -don't care if it's weeds, grass, clover , or even moss as long as it isn't bare dirt)
I was 27 when Star Wars came out. Whippersnapper indeed.
I saw the re-release of a new hope in theaters with my dad right after I turned 5
The first movie I ever saw was The Wizard of Oz. I was 6. And the human head weighs...
I remember the rumored title being "The Shadow Rises" and thinking that would be a great name for the second movie where the empire getting more powerful. Then we got the Attack of the Clones...
No way that would've been it. Too close to "The Shadow Rising," Book 4 of the Wheel of Time.
Great series. But it would have been a good name for the movie as well.
We are looking to hire the guy who had the best running attack in the conference for the last 3 years and people are still complaining about it.
Comical, really. Even when change is needed, people will handwring when it happens.
Well said!
2100 yards of that the last three seasons was Haynes King. The entire offense was run centric. It was about a 55/45 run pass offense this season. King had 178 of their 429 rushing attempts. Their best back averaged 52 yards per game this year. Last year it was 72.6 ypg. The year before that 81.5 ypg . Sorry if I am not blown away by those numbers in a run centric offense.
Rush offense is hard to judge, for instance yes their best back averaged 52 yards but their second guy averaged 40 so clearly thats a committee approach. Their yards per attempt were solid (4.3 & 7.3) but how do you judge that against run blocking? Would have to have some sort of advanced stats on rush success, yards over expectation.
Also how do you account for success in an entirely different offensive style. In 12 years at PSU, Franklin never utilized a running QB like King that draws the focus of the defense away. What are our expectations on success in an entirely different offensive set?
Let's be fair here though...
I think alot of people are just trying to make sense of what the plan is here. After two successive stints of coaching ineptitude Hokie fans are more than rightful to carry a healthy level of skepticism.
From a Macro level, change was absolutely needed but the RB Coach was pretty clearly the one area where most of us felt we weren't lacking and change wasn't necessarily needed.
You look at Franklin's hires so far on Offense and they are "Franklin guys" with limited resumes, then he targets a RB Coach who doesn't appear to have any connection to him? We keep Mines who has been solid as a Recruiter, but meh-tastic as a WR developer??
We wholesale fire the Defensive Staff (and absolutely deservedly) but we re-hire the guy who hired all of them and put him in charge of the Defense??
You can't criticize people on one hand for being skeptical of retaining Pry and then also criticize them for being upset that a RB Coach that by all outward appearances was successful wasn't retatined--playing on both sides of the argument essentially.
True, but I think it's noteworthy that he didn't keep ANY of the defensive staff that he hired. You can read that one of a couple ways. One is that they weren't necessarily HIS choices, maybe they were Marve's? Another take is that he realized defense was underperforming and knew he needed better people. And maybe some of his previous choices were based on having less money at his disposal.
All I know is that he had good defenses when he was DC. Tech did not, and he didn't retain any of the staff responsible for that. Seems like a step in the right direction to me. Granted, let's see how the rest of the defensive staff rounds out...
Agree. I think it's an upgrade. A lot of P4 coaching and recruits well in a different area (GA/FL/Carolinas). We already have a ton of DMV recruiting ties on staff and the master of them all in this footprint is our head coach now, so smart to expand and branch out a bit with the staff. Brooks was good but basically extremely tied in with one school in particular in MD. I think it's a very good/smart hire on paper.
It's not just one school, as Peter has said Brooks has connections at The St. James, which seems to be trying to emulate St. Francis. That's on top of the DeMatha football factory. According to 247, he was the primary on a number of other Maryland and DC schools including St. Francis (Jaishawn Barham one of the best LBs in the country) and St. Johns. I like the idea of having someone with a different geographical reach, but not at the expense of one of the best DMV recruiters in the country.
i see this as, at best, a lateral move from brooks.
What's giving everybody heartburn is the fact that Brooks was coaching the functional part of our offense, so we're wondering why.
That said, "In Franklin we trust". He must have his reasons.
Is it possible that Brooks is moving on from VT and not the other way around?
No. Seen several high school coaches react to the news as if it was not expected and had anticipated continuing to work with Brooks on our staff, including Jeff Overton Sr and the coach from St Francis Academy. Overton clearly has a more emotional stake with his son here but he was not alone in his reaction.
Overton Senior walked his feelings back a bit today so hopefully others follow suit if this hire is confirmed. Still wondering if Brett Key gets GT to match to keep him.
If Brooks was not-retained and we whiff on this guy.........
Normally, you line up where you're going to land before you jump.
I hope, anyway.
I wish my kids would figure this out.
Said Penn State about 8 times....
He said normally, Penn St is "special"
Well done...
This seems good overall. Maybe Brooks played a part in our rushing success the last two years but I'd put more of that on the RBs
I think this has more to do with recruiting. Brooks has MD connections but I don't think he had much success pulling guys from that area for us or UMD. Franklin likely has plenty of connections there already and needs to make inroads into NC and farther south. This makes a lot of sense to me.
We had no business landing Overton. UMD had no business landing Barham. Brooks flipped Ramon Brown from us to UMD, he never amounted to anything but at the time that was a big flip.
Asking my connected GT fam and friends if this is good news or bad news for us. Will report back.
Update - BIL (not #sauced but super well informed) says:
Has had two 1000 yard rushers as running backs coach since 2020. That was Re'Mahn Davis at Vanderbilt with 1042 in 2022 and then Jamal Haynes at GT in 2023. Both of those backs regressed every season after their 1000+ yard season. Both 1000 yard seasons were the first year McKenzie was at the school. 2019 was same story, first season as Louisville RB coach, Javian Hawkins went over 1000 yards and then regressed every year after. Hopefully that wont be the case here. Hopefully backs are consistent or more quality backs splitting the load.
Some backs exploit holes and some find their own hole if the planned one ain't there. We"ve had backs that can make good use of an existing hole, but will run right into someone and not do anything else if the hole ain't there. Any idea if any of the regression had anything to do with line performance? Maybe the holes dried up and that was their strong point, not making something out of nothing.
Maybe don't have a dirty mind for something I never considered lol
I will leave this more for French to reply to but would note that the time it took Drones to decide on RPO effected multiple aspects from line created gaps, defensive counters, and slowing backs bursts. I think that played a big role the last few years in our backs ability to adjust. Too many times Drones made the wrong read and sent a back into a stacked box with few options and slowed getting to any possible options.
That said, Hawkins averaged 6.3 ypc, Stewart 5.7 ypc and Overton 5.8 ypc this year. We have no real excuses except shooting ourselves in the foot on why our offense couldn't get up the field. Stewart and Hawkins averages are a first down every two carries. RUN THE DAMN BALL
Hosley had 600+ yards and over 7.0 Y/A. Maybe it's not as simple as Haynes regressing but Hosley being too good to not get on the field
I mean, we're playing 17 games next year, so I'm guessing we'll have multiple RBs rushing for over 1000 yards :-)
Let the man cook
Oh damn! This is gonna be used a lot!!
I like it.....
I think we've all got to let Franklin do what he wants and see how the season goes before passing any judgement.
He's easily the most qualified coach Virginia Tech has ever hired. That being said, I'm expecting a quick turnaround.
I guess bald is your thing
He is not bald, he just keeps his head shaved for the swim team....
Said every bald guy ever
Theres nothing wrong with being bald, only pretending youre not
I guess bald is your thing
I don't get it.
TKP jargon: when you say one is "qualified" what you mean is you find them sexually attractive.
You know, I knew that, and it just didn't click.
I understand that he was also the run game coordinator.
Don't know to read this as Overton's dad advertising his son to the new RB coach or if this is a pre-advertisement to the portal. Hopefully just trying to showcase his son to the new coach.
Depending on how the conversation with the new coach goes...both?
I guess the new coach's first job will be to keep Overton in the boat.
Hopefully it's the former and not the latter, but either way one player isn't going to make or break the season. And given the recruiting haul we just had after JF was in the HC role for 3 weeks I think we're going to build the type of depth that means we don't have to freak out each time a productive player leaves.
He ends it with
Which implies to me that he (and JO Jr) are open to returning.
Man, I saw this, and assumed @coach_norv was mike norvell and kinda threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Very happy I'm wrong.
I feel like that would be a violation of some kind?
Though maybe with Franklin we're a big enough dog for the NCAA to leave us alone and punish VMI or something.
I think players are allowed to advocate for themselves and initiate communication. I believe it's technically against the rules for a coach to target/initiate communication with a player before said player enters the portal. But there's ways around that.
Read an espn article about the portal basically being legal tampering. It opens Jan 2nd but there are going to be announcements of commitments right away etc. basically was saying if you don't have your guy already you're doing it wrong.
Hopefully JMFF already has his guys.