Josh would have been great (good luck at FSU buddy, represent the 757 and the rest of the commonwealth well during your time as a student-athlete) but Bud Foster and Charlie Wiles are the best in the business. I will never lose faith in our defensive line, regardless of who playing for us.
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I agree! While it's nice(and occasionally painful) to think of "what if" when it comes to the potential havoc someone like Sweat would wreak under Foster and Wiles , we should appreciate how these two continuously get their guys to perform at a 5 star level week-in and week-out, regardless of how many stars they came in with...
Nathan Waters pretty much summed up why I'm not worried.
People need to chill the hell out. You could do everything right and legal and the kid still not want to go to your school. Sure, we may be low on those signature commitments but look at this. There isn't a single thing on that page. Why? No one cared about him.
We'll be alright.
Oh, and the guy is injured. No guarantee he gets back to his original form.
Thank you for the perspective. I have been bent out of shape all day but this really helped me calm down.
Kinda past the chill out stage
Korren Kirven was a 4* DE, then they signed Hand a 5* guy. Might also wanna look into those numbers and injury. according to ESPN he's only played one game and accordig to this preseason depth chart presser it kinda sums it up - Non-true freshman M.I.A. from the 2014 Depth Chart: Korren Kirven.
1st team - NOPE
2nd team - NOPE
3rd team - NOPE (Da'Shawn Hand)
Back to the comparison, he signed at Bama HOPING to be the 3rd team guy over VT
I disagree with the comparison note. I'm sure Hand felt he was going to prove himself and get higher than 3rd, however got a dose of reality and couldn't beat the other two ahead of him.
You can be the shit in high school, but the funnel gets tighter in college and some kids grab onto the game faster or hit growth at the right time.
I had a friend that was a track star, knocked it out of the park. He didn't get a scholarship though, cause everyone thought he peaked already.
I know everyone hates Saben, but I'm betting he made it pretty clear he wouldn't be starting. He could have said work up to starter, but I doubt he sold Bama over VT by giving the idea of starting this season. If nothing else its cause Hand saw the Depth chart on an official visit
And the actual comparison was in response to Waters tweet on Korren Kirven. One guy is 1st team and the other is 4th team...You can't compare those
uh.. that's the point? Kirven was highly touted, we were pissed he picked Bama. As it turns out he chose wrong. As demonstrated by the guy who went with VT prospering and having his strengths amplified by our coaches.
2 things:
1-Kirven would have never played one snap at end for VT. He and Ekanem are independent of one another.
2-He would have played a lot for us at d-tackle the past 2 years, unless he just can't play at the d-1 level. Hard to make that judgement based on his status at Bama.
He doesn't really physically fit Bama's DL. At all. He's too small to be a good tackle in their 3-4 sets, definitely not a DE. He'd have been playing in the two-deep at Tech the last couple years without question at DT in our smaller front. Kid just got too big for his britches and, surprise of surprises, we failed to close on him.
I don't think him getting to big for his britches has anything to do with in not being able to close. In other words to me it should say "he got too big for his britches and choose a school on their reputation and thought he would be able to break into playing time over going to a school not doing as hot but being able to contribute a lot earlier."
So according to being to big for his britches he choose a school because the school is really good over thinking he could contribute early instead of going to a school that is not as good and being more likely to contribute early.
So that doesn't sound like it had anything to do with us not being able to close as opposed to his own view of where he should and/or could play.
Does that make sense?
That doesn't equate to Ekanem going to Alabama & performing like he has for us, nor Kirven coming to VT and producing the small numbers he has at Alabama. Ekanem has to outplay the talent he was lined against at Alabama. You can't make the argument he would have been a bust for us. Just as you can't say that your player chosen to compare would have been as successful at Alabama. One can't just cut & paste between two such vastly different programs.
Off topic: I'd like to cut and paste their offensive line... *stares wistfully into distance*
Bud Foster routinely gets the most out of his players. 9 times out of 10 when we sign a very highly regarded player, that player becomes an impacting playmaker for us.
Just because someone like Hand or Kirven is buried in a depth chart of future pro athletes at an Alabama doesn't mean they'd not be standout players here.
But if Kirven was the player we thought he was, don't you think he'd be making more noise? I would rather view this as "some players don't pan out." Not "oh he would do better here because we don't have anyone better than him like Alabama does." If that makes sense.
When you routinely bring in 4* and 5* players year after year, there will inevitably be some very good talent that never sees the field. At Bama, these guys are a big fish in an ocean, at Virginia Tech, they would be big fish in a puddle.
Yes, and the point I'm trying to make is that every year you'll have those same players not pan out regardless of where they play. I think it all goes back to the argument that the star ratings are bogus because the people that dish them out grade these guys at camps and most are based on film and stuff. It's a skewed system.
I also think its a false pretense to automatically assume anyone who isn't starting for Bama would be a complete bust at Virginia Tech.
You have a greater risk as a high profile player of busting at a school like Bama or FSU, simply because there are so, so many high caliber players there, and only a certain amount can see the field. At Virginia Tech, most of those guys would likely be contributing starters, if not impact players.
Dadi didn't have many offers, but the reason there isn't a single thing on that page is because he wasn't recruited as Dadi Nicolas.
Wedley Estime's recruiting profile
Ah. Thanks for clarifying. Look at the offer list though, my point still stands.
Except that it is not skewed in the way it relates to this discussion. Yes, some 5-stars are busts. Far more 3-stars & 2-stars are 'busts' in not making it than 5-stars, though. The argument you are using is the 1990's/2000's argument - 'Here at Virginia Tech, we want the lightly regarded recruits we can coach up into being All Americas...' Except that it flies in the opposite direction of the numbers. Cherry picking one elite recruit that didn't make it & then cherry picking one unheralded recruit who did is picking at the 1% on both extremes.
We need depth. I know that you are trying to rationalize our failures in recruiting, but getting high-ranked recruits is statistically better for our DL to continue to be dominate in the future.
This really is what it's about. A big reason we have so many issues with injuries is because we lack quality depth. The Alabamas and FSUs of the world don't worry as much about it because there isn't as steep of a drop off and they don't have to play as many snaps for their top guys. The more snaps Dadi and Ken get next year, the better chance they have of being injured. It's because we don't have the right kind of depth.
I'm not saying we can't develop absolute studs, and I'm not saying that we are destined for 6-6 seasons because we didn't get Dalton and Sweat, but it certainly would have helped A LOT right off the bat.
2013 Front Seven:
DE: JR Collins (3 stars)
DT: Luther Maddy (2 stars)
DT: Derrick Hopkins (3 stars)
DE: James Gayle (3 stars)
LB: Josh Trimble (walk-on)/Kyle Fuller (3 stars)
LB: Jack Tyler (walk-on)
LB: Tariq Edwards (3 stars)
I'm not saying, I'm just saying
Yea all those guys had a great time at VT and we helped them to help us
But
2013 National Champions2013 BCS Bowl Game
2013 ACC Championship Game
Yes because it was the defense's fault we didn't accomplish any of those things last year. /sarcastica
I maintain that we were a year end top 20 team last year if Kyle Fuller stay healthy.
FTFY
No, that's not what he said nor meant.
I know he didn't, that was my poor way of saying that I doubt our offense could have propelled us into the top 20 last season no matter how our defense performed.
We finished the season with 8 wins. Losses to Duke, BC and MD were all one possession.
I think Fuller would have been the difference maker in BC and MD. His ability to help support the run would have helped tremendously in both games - enough so to wipe at least one score off the board IMO. Our defense played great against Duke, so I'm not sure he would have made a difference in that end result.
Duke finished 10-4 in 2013. Had we beaten BC and MD, we would have gone to the ACCCG and our record would presumably be 10-4 (same as Duke). Duke finished 2013 at 23, the lowest of any P5 10 win team. Not at all ridiculous to say we would have been a top 20 team with Kyle Fuller healthy.
It's as if we're not known for defense or something. Wait, we are! We are!
I get what you are saying, but if either Dadi or Ken got injured this season, Tech was up a creek without a paddle. DT depth is very solid, but the DEs are one injury away from a bad time. Depth is where recruiting misses play hell, and injuries make those failures obvious. Take Tech's o-line. Up until last year it was so poorly recruited that VT was forced to start a D3 d-tackle at RT. Now look at FSU. They aren't as injured as Tech, but have had a rough go of it. They've lost a few LBs, their starting DT against GT and were down a TB, yet they keep chugging along because they have other talented players to plug-in.
I mean heck, FSU is so well off depth-wise that they were forced to bench their Heisman winning starting QB in arguably the biggest game of the year for them against Clemson.... And they still came away with the win.
Depth matters. Being able to sustain injuries or suspensions and keep on plugging away matters. Losing these top end recruits we are in the running for hurts in every single one of those phases. When we're all loaded up and we have all our first team guys rolling, yeah, we can beat teams like Ohio State. Any injuries start happening, and we're in a spot where getting shut out by Wake over 4 quarters happens.
What so fascinating to me is that the people who are so quick to dismiss these repeated recruiting misses as not a big deal will be the first people to use injuries and a lack of depth as an excuse for poor performances 2-3 years from now.
I assume they mean the results of the defense in the field. Bud routinely puts out great defenses. So I suspect we'll still have a stellar defense in the field. Could it be better with some of the recruits we miss on? Sure, but I don't think those recruits take us from a top-40 defense to a top-10 defense or anything like that.
You are correct however in that where those misses are felt is in the depth of positions. So people may not realize it at first when the d is playing well but when depth becomes an issue it is absolutely felt.
wellllll i wouldnt say FSU won that game because of depth. 1 clemson poohed the bed mulitple times in the redzone. 2. i would say that our depth at QB at the time of that game was way better than FSU. we would have had A. a 5th year senior coming in in leal or B. motley who was our presumed starter prior to an injury in the spring coming in. the kid FSU played had a horrible game. if clemson would have been 100% to deshawn watson going into that game they would have beat FSU by 2 scores.
I want the players that Bud Foster wants. I want the players that VT expends the most resources on.
Its one thing to say, "Well, we don't need this guy because John Engelberger was a walk on!" That's true if you are a system team who seeks players who specifically fit your system, stars be damned. Georgia Tech isn't sweating losing dropback QB's from Atlanta. They don't need them. They don't expend resources on them.
If Bud wants to system recruit, he can focus solely on Dadi Nicholas type DE's and Corey Marshall DT's. And those players, as "tweeners," will likely be lower ranked and we may have more success. That's not happening. We aren't system recruiting.
When we allocate our resources and identify a player we want, then we should want that player to sign. And when they don't sign, that's a failure.
I think it can be argued that we do recruit and develop system players on D - particularly in the front 7. It is a chicken and egg argument but the fact that our most successful players are tweeners who have limited NFL potential is being used against us by the big boys.
Agreed, we do just fine with system guys on D. But a guy who fit our system was also the best player in the country. He fits everyone's system. We wanted him. We expended resources to get him. It hurts to lose him.
I'll never turn on Bud or the VT defense, but I still think missing out of top tier talent (when we are in the running for it) stings. Those guys can take a solid defense and make it elite. I know Bud will carve out a top 20 defense with the guys we have, but there were days when we were the TOP defense in the country. Not saying he needs to reach those heights or that it is even a reasonable expectation, but if our offense is going to continue to sputter, and we want to get back to double-digit win totals, we are going to need to do something huge; and getting those top guys is what it will take.
1. We are PAPER THIN on the DL/OL end. We NEED talent.
2.It's not about our defense being great under Bud, it's the fact that we have not been able to seal the deal on almost every high profile recruit in the past 7-8 years. Other than 1-2 anomalies, we ALWAYS lose out. Even when we were a 10-win Top 15 team, our recruiting is not where it should be.
Then, we get Buzz coming in to the Worst ACC team in the league and getting a Top 20 recruiting class immediately. With the current VT football staff things are only going to go downhill as our program continues sliding and recruits can't be brought in. Hell, we've been losing to UVA in state recrutining for a while now and they've been a terrible program forever.
You can not compare Basketball and football recruiting.
They are wholly different for numerous reasons.
1. I agree
2. We don't need to seal the deal on high profile recruits. We need to seal the deal with recruits who have the ability to play into our system. It was said somewhere above. We take 3* and turn them into 5*. I am not going to dig through recruiting numbers, but I am almost sure Dadi, Maddy, both Hopkins boys, etc. were not even 4*. With the current VT football staff, we are winning against UVA with their 5* recruits so who is really losing VA?
My point, we have never got the best, but we make due with what we get. In 2009 we had two 4* Logan and Wilson(DJ was from fork union 5*, doesn't count) and in 2010 we had a 10-2(I know JMU year). It's not the stars, it's how they are coached up to perform.
I really think we will win 9 games next season, with the non 5*talent we have.
Just my .02
What happened in 2012-13 when that 2009 class became juniors and seniors? 2010 had Tyrod and Ryan Williams and David Wilson and a much better o-line (full of upperclassmen, if I remember right)
Your right, in the 2011-12 year, we went 11-1 RS and lost to Clemson in the ACCCG and Won vs Michigan in the Sugar. 2012 David wilson left(here is my excuse).
Actually we didn't win against.......oh....
I think these are good points and credit to the defensive coaches for their experience and knowledge on how to develop players, but losing Sweat still hurts. Like Joe said, our depth across the D line is a real problem. But overall, I pretty much agree with you here and we will still be alright. And yeah, we haven't won squat in recent years in terms of national attention, but the D line is certainly not the unit to blame for those. I would take our D line over a multitude of others, and I would probably consider that our strongest unit overall. As many have said, the offense is the group that needs real work going forward, but this past year's recruiting class is performing very well thus far. But still, it never hurts to have too much talent in one area and there be a lack of playing time for some due to depth. But I don't think that will be the case moving forward with our defense.
I do trust Bud to develop a top 20 defense every year with the talent that we get. However, I think Sweat would have been the type of player who could change a program like VT. I think he is the type of player that would attract other top talents to come play in Blacksburg. It would have ended the whole "VT can't keep top talents in-state" argument. We may not miss his talent too much but I think we will miss what his commitment could have led to.
Agreed- Sweat alone wouldn't be a game changer but the 'w' in the recruiting battle would have meant more. I really wanted to see another five star on the roster. They may not work out every time but Bud and his staff know what to do with kids and utilize their talents.
Without a doubt our defensive staff is able to get the most out of players more often than not. You can't dispute that fact.
A lot of people are pointing to recruiting losses (in this thread and others) that have completely crashed and burned at other programs, as if that's some sort of justification for not caring that we lost them. Our coaches put a heck of a lot of effort into getting these guys, so they must have seen something they wanted. Maybe the reason they're failing at other schools is the system isn't quite suited for them...we have plenty of successes here with people that fit our system to a T, but would flounder in another. It doesn't mean these lost recruits wouldn't produce if they came here to play.
I'll say this, not every recruit pans out, but I bet the track record is more favorable for 4 and 5 star players than 3 and below. Some of the better players we've had in this program were the highly touted 4 stars and up. In the end, I'd love to see what Foster could do when he gets the pick of the litter for his "type" of player. I can imagine how incredible that secondary could/would be if we could get consistent pressure with only the front four.
First time poster here, just wanted to chime in.
I do agree that Bud plays a unique system and we get alot of guys that fit our system.. But Im under the opinion that the scheme itself lends to helping unheralded, perhaps undersized (generalization) players shine and look like stars. Simply Bud does more with less and he has a track record to prove it. I would not necessarily call it gimmicky per say, but Bud aggressive, speed oriented philosophy helps to create the Corey Moores, the Dadi Nicolas and Cody Grimms. That is not a knock on Bud's system, in fact for a program like ours, I liken it to the defensive version of Oregons O... a unique niche system which will accentuate the players skills we are likely able to recruit. I agree that we need to continue to recruit players that fit into our system, but our coaches recruited the Josh Sweats, the Stephone Anthonys and Travis Hughes for a reason... I have no doubt they would've meshed into our scheme and that their talents would've been accentuated. And lets be honest, they would've been huge physical upgrades to some of the names that have come through those positions. Did some of these high profile guys end up as busts? Sure, but for every Dadi Nicolas, there are also countless 2 or 3 star guys who never work out either... and poor depth is the result. I'd like to see what Bud could do with more elite talents who not only are physical upgrades but also "fit" into our system.
Good points. Welcome to TKP! Have a leg.
As a program, we find guys that fit our system and play it very well. It is amazing the job that the coaches have done.
However, Josh Sweat would have been an amazing commit. National perception, fan excitement, getting the interest of other recruits, etc. I was really hoping that the new coaches would be able to seal the deal with Sweat and get him in Blacksburg. It just turned out to be the same old story. Imagine someone with his abilities in our defense.
Missing on Josh Sweat was a huge failure because we had already missed on every other elite DE on our board from Virginia. You can't convince the top talent in VA to stay in state when year after year the top guys are leaving and DE and OT were our most critical positions this year to fill. The state's deepest position was DE and we miss on Sweat, Ferrell, Taylor etc when we were considered leans for all 3 at some point and then Dalton from NC. Yes Bud will probably patch together a DL in '15 and '16 that will mask these misses to some extent, but the point is we shouldn't need to be masking them they should be positions of strength with how stacked VA has been the last two years on the DL.