When Hokies offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler goes out on the recruiting trail, he's looking for a certain attitude from quarterbacks.
"He said I'm a 'dude,' that's the word he uses," said Brandon Peters, a rising junior quarterback at Indianapolis' Avon High School. "He feels like I have a lot of intensity."
The Hokies are used to having fiery leaders under center, from the days of Tyrod Taylor to Logan Thomas, and Loeffler might have just found the latest passer to follow in their footsteps.
"He's a reserved person, but he's a really fierce competitor," said Mark Bless, Avon's head football coach.
Peters is just starting to get noticed on the national recruiting scene, but the 6'4" and 190 pound signal caller is already rated a 4-star pro-style quarterback by the 247Sports Composite ranking.
He visited Blacksburg on July 19 and the Hokies rewarded him with his first scholarship offer.
"Going down there, I really got a feel for the campus, and it's really cool," Peters said. "I got to talk with the coaches too, and I really liked it a lot."
But even though the Hokies just offered him, they've been keeping tabs on Peters for a while now.
"(Wide receivers coach) Aaron Moorehead came to one of our college days last spring, since he knows this area," Bless said. "And he really hit it off with Brandon. Then he told Loeffler about him and he visited up towards the end of the school year. I think he just fell in love with the program."
Since then, Loeffler has taken over the recruiting process as he tries to reel in yet another talented passer for the class of 2016.
"It's mainly been me calling him up and talking, and we talk all the time," Peters said."
Bless feels that Peters' combination of athleticism and arm strength is what got him interested in the QB.
"He really stood out on the field as just a sophomore," Bless said. "He's got athletic ability, he definitely runs well for his size, and he's got a live arm."
Peters' experience in a pro-style offense bearing some similarity to Tech's attack also surely influenced Loeffler.
"We run a pro-style offense, not a spread," Bless said. "We run some one back looks, but lots of two back sets as well. We have both three- and five-step drops in our offense, with some roll out play-action as well."
While the system doesn't call for Peters to do a huge amount of running, it still helps that he can move a little when he needs to.
"I like the pro-style a lot," Peters said. "If I need to get out of the pocket and run, I can, but I'm not the fastest guy around."
Peters may be suited to his current offense, but Bless certainly feels as if he could make a transition to any type of scheme.
"He's certainly capable of being in a spread," Bless said. "He's very intelligent. If he's told something one time, he retains it. But he's great at what he does for us."
But despite his early progress, Peters is still searching for a program that can help him reach his full potential.
"I'm just looking for a coach that can really help me improve," Peters said. "I'm not worried about the distance of the school."
That would seem to keep Tech in the running for his services, even if Blacksburg is nearly 500 miles away from home. While the Hokies are his only offer right now, he's looking at some other out of state schools as well.
"I really like Kentucky, I visited and it seems like a good campus," Peters said. "I like Tennessee a lot too, but I haven't heard much from them."
The offers might not be pouring in quite yet, but Bless thinks it's just a matter of time before other schools get interested.
"It's still so early in the process, and coaches have only seen his sophomore year video, and he's got that much more maturity now," Bless said. "He's gotten some attention, but once he gets one or two more offers, it'll start to snowball."
Peters might be an intense "dude," but he's taking the recruiting process nice and easy for now.
"I'll probably be waiting until next summer (to decide) because it's still so early for me," Peters said.
Comments
well as per the norm once vt offers lets see OSU BAMA and some other big wigs offer...
I'm starting to get a similar sense that the big wigs will need less and less of a recruiting budget because all they have to do is send offers to guys we send offers too. They all take advantage of VT essentially doing the dirty work investigating and spending time with recruits to determine who will make a good player (because look at our track record) and then they pull the trigger with their namesake alone.
I have been thinking the same thing myself. The college football world reveres Beamer and Foster, so if they and the rest of the staff like a kid, that's probably as good of an endorsement as you get, unless for some reason a kid doesn't fit into a particular scheme. On one hand, it's respect, but on the other, it's sort of like poaching. That's how the game is played, though...
Man, playing with cherrypickers is the WORST
Yeah, Beamer and staff have always had the rep for eyeballing 2 & 3 star guys and fielding winning clubs.
So if VT offered you, you must be good because VT could just get a hungry and overlooked 3 star guy instead and coach 'em up.
It has become a double edged sword. I fully feel like its the reason so many schools other than the in the instates and UNC UMD WVU are now coming into the 757. It was like a hidden little diamond mine that only certain people knew about and even less had access to.
This is directed at everyone, not you nubinile. Y'all have to realize that the Internet has changed the way recruiting happens and the way prospects are identified. Back in the day coaches would send out flyers to high schools to solicit feedback, pay for film services to give them footage of players outside of their region (like in Florida), and rely on high school coaches to tell them where the gems are. Virginia Tech, and many other schools, benefitted from that insulation.
Due to Hudl, YouTube, email, Twitter, prospect camps, media coverage, and lightning fast information exchange, coaching staffs know about mostly every player capable of playing D-1 ball, pretty early on in the process. There are some exceptions, for example kids like Kalvin Cline who transitioned from basketball to football later on in the career.
Identifying a recruit is just one part of the process for coaching staffs. The game for coaches isn't "I found it first", rather, "I sold my program the best".
This is all true, but don't you find it oddly coincidental that there have been a few guys lately that get a VT offer, then within 48 hrs they suddenly have 5 offers from "top" teams? Maybe I'm making too much out of it, but it seems that way to me, perception-wise.
It only take 1 offer for other schools to follow for sure. It's the snowball effect, every other team that was recruiting/following a player sees a great school/program like VT offer and says woahh we need to make sure he knows we value him as well.
Not at all. Most of the time there is a logical explanation for that. For example Cager, he received his offers in the order of the schools the visited and camped at. He camped to earn offers, so there's no shock that they came in a chronological order.
Why so negative? Invent the future.
Peters is just looking for a coach that can really help him improve. Scot can help him to that!
QBU.
TE2QBU
So is Vanilla Vick a dude as well? Lots of questions at qb for the next few years, it will be interesting to see where we go from here under center...
Brewer's gone after 2015, and this recruit is class of 2016. Figure in some years of Ford or Durkin and we're covered, I think.
I'm not saying we should go too far in dudes recruitment strategies...
That said -- there's not really anything illegal happening in the above scenario.
I'll leave the statutory details up to our bagman.
So thats what you call me. The QB, The Qber, or El Qberino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Leg for the Dude everytime!
Bagman?
Paging Petebuddywilson....
I already urinated on his rug, if that's what your asking.
You mean MICTURATED?
Can we sign a couple of those receivers?
Seems lefty has a lot of top QBs on his watch list.
Kinda in the job description; but I get what you are saying
Yeah, so what was in stinespring's description though?
well, Loeffler is a true QB coach..Stinespring is a TE coach...so yeah..
Take seems out of the sentance entirely, and then replace a lot with all and put a the after of. If he had any less than that, I would be concerned...
BEAMER: Hey Scotty, Have you seen this 6 star, 11 foot tall quarterback Alabama just recruited?
LEFTY: Nope.
I was watching "Unbreakable" Last night.
Lady scout on the plane told him she was going to look at a QB 6"3" 210 runs a 4.3- 40.
Of course I was thinking LT.
Because 6'3 is clearly too small for Bucky Hodges.
It really looks like we can bring in a 4star QB every year. This is so bizarre
Stiney: That's great Lefty! How is he at TE?
Heard that we are on the top of Brandon's list at the moment.
Here is the free link at 247
http://247sports.com/Article/Avon-Defeates-Lawrence-Central-38-31-30514485
Seems he threw for 2 TD and ran one in.
It's hard to imagine Loeffler not being successful as OC in the long run, considering his ability to recruit top quarterbacks. Great QBs make the OC look great. Let's hope Brewer starts the trend now and Peters continues it.
I went to this game Friday night. It was the first time is seen him in person and I was very impressed with Peters. His throwing motion is compact and he had a very quick release. He puts nice zip on the ball. He didn't have many opportunities to throw deep, but one of his touchdowns was a nicely placed flag route to the back right corner of the end zone.
The only negative I saw was on bootleg were he rolled out to the right. He had two guys open but didn't set his feet well and put the ball in the dirt between the two of them.
He's not a burner, but he had several nice runs on roll-outs when the secondary kept their coverage. He had a 15yd scramble that set up his 1yd TD run on a QB keep up the middle.
I think he could be a solid quarterback get for Loefller.
Thanks for the feedback!