4* DE Darrell Taylor did NOT take his scheduled official visit to the University of Florida this weekend. UF and OSU are seen as the biggest competition for the Hopewell, VA stud, but all signs point to him coming to the good guys. He's set to make his announcement Friday, September 26th during halftime of his game.
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Anyone know if he is coming down to the Burg this weekend?
I don't believe that he is, but I haven't seen anything either way.
This is either a really good sign, or a really bad one. Gotta love trying to read the recruiting tea leaves
Don't bet on it being a bad sign.
Has he made an official visit here? We could sure use his talent. Come on down, Darrell!
I don't think he's actually taken any officials anywhere, but he was in town for the W&M game.
A 4* DE?
Comon, we'd love a new DE. Our guys can use the extra help.
Absolutely, we can use you, my good man.
I like this.
We have a chance for some big time D Line recruits this year
As the mounting injuries and losing the battle in the trenches against ECU is proving, you can NEVER have enough linemen. D or O. Foster's D relies on have a two-deep that can rotate in and out without any drop off in play. The opportunity is there for these guys to come in and compete for time right away.
Immediate playing time for the best D-coordinator in the country? Why go anywhere else?
this. this. this. for most recruits after they have narrowed their lists down, it's all about the potential for playing time. it's a big selling point and i'm not sure there are many big 5 programs that are playing (or in the 2 deep) more underclassmen than we are right now.
To me, it seems like a kid would see how many underclassmen we have getting substantial snaps right now, and think the opposite. All those freshmen and sophomores that are playing now will likely be getting the bulk of the snaps for 2 or 3 more years. If I was looking for immediate playing time, I'd be looking for a team that's loaded with juniors and seniors on the 2-deep.
My birthday is the 25th. I'll just assume his commitment is a belated present for me.
Worst. Birthday present. Ever.
At least I got Fullwood right before. So I guess it worked out okay.
Been reading on TSL that he's gonna pick Tennessee:/
Yep, first broke on 247. Seems like weird and to be quite honest somewhat suspicious turn of events. If Tennessee all of sudden became the school based on one in home visit a week or two ago, it makes you wonder what their selling point really was. Oh well, guess we'll find out tonight.
Definitely strange. You would think he would visit Tennessee at least. It's not like signing day is just around the corner or anything. Let's hope we can get Dalton and or Gains now, and of course Sweat!
Well, Butch Jones didn't exactly run a clean program at UNC, so it wouldn't be shocking to me if there were some form of UT bagmen playing a role here too.
EDIT - My bad! Wrong Butch... How are there that many Butchs in college football?
You're confusing him with Butch Davis, who was the former UM and UNC coach. Butch Jones came from Cincinnati, and before that Central Michigan.
Some Canes want him back even if he gets their program in trouble (again).
holy crap i totally thought davis was the tennessee coach too.
Wrong Butch. This is Cincinnati's old coach, not UNC's.
BOOMMM!!!!!!!!!
Gosh I hope he is right so bad.
If he's wrong, so is everyone at 247
100% crystal ball prediction to VT
If it really is Tennessee they will flip their predictions at the last second, like always.
They don't get as many points if they wait.
If someone knows something, it would likely be on there by now.
Sometimes I have found that TSL melts down for the sake of melting down, ESPECIALLY when it comes to recruiting rumors.
I actually think another VT site (not TKP of course) melts down worse than TSL when it comes to recruiting.
I know for sure that ATH Darrell Taylor will soon make his announcement to the school of his choice .
Somebody take this Hokie to Vegas!
What's going on here? What was the BOOM for, and who is this mysterious "he"?
Those crystal balls mean nothing. Most of those picks were made months ago. When Stroman picked VT last summer, he had ten crystal balls for UVA and none for VT. The few VT guys with inside info on the 247 site, think something happened when UT did an in home a week ago and he will pick UT now. These guys seem to be right most of the time, but who really knows. They could be getting fed bad info. Regardless, the VT coaches are scheduled to visit Taylor today, per 247. So we got that going for us, which is nice....
Do we have a time for his announcement?
He's announcing at the halftime of his high school game tonight. My guess would be around 8:30.
Thanks, Joe
I predict he will choose a team on the eastern side of these United States. I could be wrong though...
I predict his decision will put him in the biggest college football game of all time.
That's a bold prediction there buddy
Not gonna lie, I hope he's a Hokie
There's no reason to lie about such things.
If Taylor does go UT as Shy Tuttle is predicted to, heckuva recruiting day for UT.
I want both though. And then I want Josh Sweat to come in and be like "you guys are on the 2-deep, that's cool and all but I'm gonna be a Freshman All-American this year so step aside"
We have been out of it with Tuttle for a while, unfortunately.
I'd rather see Tuttle go to UT than waste his talent at UVA like so many others have recently.
Be nice.
Beginning to look like Tennessee is landing both Taylor and Tuttle today
but... but... you just said:
That was before the Tennessee predictions flooded in.
Looking like UTenn knows something about his recruitment that we don't.
no worries man. just joking. I don't count my recruits until their signed, sealed and delivered.
lol its ok.
When it comes to recruiting, I take everything at face value and don't believe a thing until someone is willing to risk their credibility on it. When everyone was saying he was going to UT, and yet all the recruiting experts were still all in on VT, its hard to believe the whispers of anonymous internet sources. But now that people are sticking their necks out about it, that changes everything.
Insiders never risk their credibility because they are never held accountable for wrong predictions like this.
That just means that we'll land Sweat and Dalton. Oh heck, how about we land all three!
Tuttle just committed to Tennesee.
At least this thread isn't from February.
Tennessee landed Shy Tuttle, d-line coach Steve Stripling seems confident they'll get more good news later tonight.
Unfortunate, but not going to worry until February :)
Man that will stink this would be the 4th time we were like the favorite for a play and then at the last minute an SEC school swooped in and no one really saw it coming till the last minute.
1. This and Farrell are like exact same situation
2. And Austin Clark and Fullwood (before he got it right) were similar situation too, we werent favorites the whole time but we were overwhelming favorites for the week leading up then that day all the news went south.
The only thing is at least is DE, we do have alot of DE's we are after, so as long as we get 2 more of sweat, gaines, dalton and taylor i think we will be ok, but it sure would be nice to 3.
For all we know, he took one look at our list of DE commits, realized who we still have pending (and are supposedly favorites to land) and realized that his best chance for PT could be elsewhere.
Who knows, if he goes to Tenn, the best of luck to him, except in Bristol.
I'd say this is a distinct possibility - Fullwood, Hill and Lewis are already committed. Then you have Sweat supposedly showing strong interest and guys like Gaines and Dalton as possibilities too. That's a lot of guys at the DE positions and playing time might be scarce among that bunch.
Fullwood and Lewis are being recruited to play DT for us, not DE.
Trevon Hill is the only 100% DE on our commit list right now. That's not to say that Taylor didn't see the writing on the wall with Sweat and Dalton, but our coaches want 4 DE in this class and in Wile's system guys rotate all the time.
Eh, some of them will get moved inside...which very well might be what Tenn chirped in his ear about.
Yep. I mean, if it was known he was likely going to move to DT and he wanted to remain a DE, I don't blame him should he commit elsewhere. If its becoming well known in the recruiting circuits (and you know these guys talk to each other) that Sweat and/or Dalton and/or Settle are on their way to Blacksburg, it creates a big logjam at the DE spot, and someone good is going to have to move. Its the kind of problem you WANT to have.
As I said, best of luck to the kid regardless of where he ends up. He's a good player, and he'll do well at whatever school he decides.
Of all the guys that could potentially end up at Virginia Tech, Taylor is probably the least likely to move inside and play tackle. He is a pure edge guy.
Actually it is a bit different. People knew that we were losing traction with Ferrell a few weeks before his announcement and that he was seriously considering going OOS. We thought that Taylor was a near lock ever since we offered him until the NIGHT before his announcement. Ferrell's situation seemed perfectly normal to me, Taylor's makes you wonder a little bit how Tennessee, who wasn't able to gain much traction during his whole recruitment and even couldn't gain that much when he visited, can all of sudden change his mind completely with one in home visit a week or two before his announcement. That just seems a little sketchy and weird to me. Oh well, if he does pick Tennessee as expected I wish him the best of luck and look forward to facing him in Bristol.
In the words of the great poet laureate Randy Moss, "Straight cash homie."
I wonder what shenanigans a team can call if they slip him something with a bagman and he still commits elsewhere. If they report it, they are reporting a HUGE violation.
From readying stories from the 80s, a lot of times they put the down payment on a car for them, then make the payments the 4-5 years they are in school, if the kid goes elsewhere, the bagman doesn't make the payments (normally the new school would take over the payments) that's how a lot of them used to operate.... but the bagmen can't cry foul, or risk blowing the whole operation
When Tabyus Taylor didn't qualify, that concerned me with Darrell Taylor. Not saying we did anything unethical trying to Tabyus qualified, but a lot of times, families can feel like they didn't get the full story or something. That connection that we were hoping would be the draw then went away.
Something changed with D. Taylor's recruiting in the last couple weeks. Up until then we were the clear favorite. I don't think T. Taylor needing to prep had anything to do with it. Heck T. Taylor prepping just means they get to spend their entire college careers together instead of being a year off. (If D. Taylor selects VT)
It's also not over, regardless of which school he selects tonight. I am reading our staff will continue to recruit him hard and no doubt UT and several other schools will be doing the same.
well if both kids wanted to play together there's this thing called GRADES that could have helped. Not our fault we didn't budge our academic requirements for a player. We are VT and we take pride in our Student Athletes.
not directed at you just a statement
And there it is, Jalen Dalton's first crystal ball pick to VT. Probably not much too it but I'm starting to think we have a chance (didn't think we had much of chance at all until this past week.)
Has to be any second now...
yo bro
Yeah brah?
Taylor just committed to Tennessee.
Oh well, on to the next......
Isnt he going to have trouble with getting into college
Damn I hate UT. Too bad the state of Tennessee sucks for recruiting and they have to poach our kids. Rocky flop.
^^^^^ DITTO , On dislike of VULES . BULL S**T!
this recruitment battle with Tennessee may not be over yet.
Well that sucks
I don't know why but this cracked me up.
Not sure I can Leg that, OUCH!!
He still plans on visiting. Not over yet.
Seems like we manage to lose a lot of guys in the last 2 or 3 days of time to decide, this one is disappointing because he was a heavy tech lean for most of hiis dats being recruited.
Does anybody know if the NCAA investigated Tennessee after Arian foster said that he took extra benefits?
Sounds like coaches dropped the ball on this on according to the paid sites.
They didn't tweet him enough?
What's done is done. You can only spin so many plates.
I agree completely, and we are not out of it yet! I'm just saying that according to the pay sites the coaches dropped the ball on this one. And I'm not sure how to take this, I don't know whether this means they saw something at the last minute that made them back off, or they are heavily on others, I don't know.
"I agree completely, and we are not out of it yet! I'm just saying that according to the pay sites the coaches dropped the ball on this one. And I'm not sure how to take this, I don't know whether this means they saw something at the last minute that made them back off, or they are heavily on others, I don't know."
Paysites: "It could be A or B"
Customer: "I'm not sure how to take this"
Paysites: "Mission accomplished"
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate you bringing us the 411, but man, that vague Magic Eightball/Asbury Park gypsy talk on some sites is for entertainment purposes only.
And it gets old.
Very well could be, but I thought interesting none the less.
Upvotes to you for bringing recuiting news. I appreciate any news I can get. Thanks.
Maybe instead of dropping the ball, they backed off because they saw something promising coming with Gaines, Sweat, and Dalton.
And even with that said, it does sound like Taylor is still keeping his options open.
We've heard that Sweat could be a major domino for our entire recruiting class. Get him and others will just follow (the LeBron Effect, as they're calling it now). Who knows, maybe Taylor will be a part of that movement if it does happen/