Virginia Tech confirmed the hire of Old Dominion's Zohn Burden as its wide receivers coach.
"We are excited to welcome Coach Burden and his family into the Hokie Nation," Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer said in a statement. "He brings an enthusiasm for recruiting, and his knowledge and experience of the wide receiver position as both a player and coach will be a good fit. As a recruiter, his relentless approach and diligence will pay dividends for us as we work to attract the highest caliber of student-athlete here to Virginia Tech."
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Chop that wood, Zohn!
It was really tough to see AMo go but I really don't know if we could have made a better hire.
So the only real negative on the resume is lack of NFL experience?
No real Power 5 experience either, even as a player. Still an exciting hire though.
Another potential negative is that he played at a smaller school.
But, this is a very good hire. In my mind, it makes sense for Beamer to hire young guys like this and share his years of accumulated coaching wisdom.
As for recruiting, it is relationships and selling. He was a very good recruiter at ODU and that should continue. The only difference is that he is now able to sell a much higher-profile program to recruits.
Only time will tell but I like the hiring of a younger up and comer vice going with an older guy. Keep the youth movement alive!
I may be in the minority but playing at the NFL or even college level is not a deal breaker for me. There have been some great coaches that never played in the NFL or even college.
Solid hire. Young, coached in a prolific offense, good recruiter with potential to be a great recruiter, Z named kids. No risk, no retread.
Very solid decision making.
This guy has future OC written all over him.
I would love to hear more about this opinion
I don't necessarily think it'll be for us, but his career trajectory suggests he'll get a shot somewhere. Started coaching DBs, so defensive background. Switched to receivers, then helped coordinate the passing game at ODU, which is very pass-happy. Defensive background helps him flesh out a scheme, already has experience in coordinating half of an offense (more like three quarters of the offense at ODU). It's a very strong resume he's building.
I like him for the name alone.
It is a name that would be tough to forget.
Oh he'Zohn it all right
Regarding your signature, Marcus Vick had a pretty big role on that 03 squad that lost to UVA. I don't know why I felt the need to correct you about that. Carry on.
I would assume he's referring to starting QBs. In that '03 game, Marcus took all of about 3 snaps at QB, all of which were designed rushes. Bryan Randall was the starting QB for the UVA games in '03 and '04. Marcus was the starter vs. UVA in '05.
You assume right. Glad to spur on a small discussion though. Also, my sig is really a long winded excuse to remind any UVA eyes that Grant Noel beat them in a football game.
You can add MB12 to your list as well. Hopefully he will stay there! Nah he will def stay there.
Ehhhh....
Marcus was mainly a WR decoy for the majority of that game. He had little to no effect on the game whatsoever. He rushed 3 times for 28 yards on the game, once out of the QB spot.
this is seriously funny
Well played my good man.
This made me scare my cats laughing. Then I remembered he's dead and now I has a sadz
Also interestingly enough Michael Vick only played one game for Virginia Tech in the 21st century, as the Gator Bowl against Clemson was played on the first day of the 21st century.
correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the entire 2000 season played in the 21st century? Forgive me if I'm wrong, Fall Out Boy did not educate me well enough about CENTURIES
Despite the title of the shitty Michael Cera and Jack Black film, there was no Year 0 on the Julian calendar. It went from 1 BC to 1 AD, thus the 1st century started on 1 AD and ended at the end of 100 AD to account for a full 100 years. As such, the 20th century spanned from January 1, 1901 to December 31, 2000.
Whatever. MV7's play was at a 21st century level, so he stays in the sig
I don't care either way, it just made me think about what technically constituted the 21st century and how long it's now been since Michael Vick suited up for VT. The years seem to go by a lot faster when you're an adult.
You are quite right about that.
Ah yes. The Julian calendar, which reckons years from the birth of Jesus, but doesn't make Christmas the start of the new year. Never understood that one. I'm sure there's a reason, just never bothered to look it up.
Very interesting point.
I have the just the guy I'm going to say this to, after our 3rd beer.
That'll start a long conversation.
Thanks.
The best conversations are measured in pints.
The Julian Calendar was developed in 46 BC and has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus (which was probably about 3-7 BC anyway ). The BC/AD dating system wasn't developed until 525, and wasn't in common use for several more centuries.
Right you are and very sloppy of me. But the Gregorian calendar took the Julian calendar and just tweaked the calculation of leap years, without altering the "calendar" part of the calendar. I still don't understand why when we switched from Julian to Gregorian we didn't make Christmas the start of the new year.
come on dude, Santa needs those 6 days of time off before starting the next year of toy making. Don't be a dick
As nearly as I can tell from memory and vigorous research ( by which I mostly mean the history/culture parts of my high school Latin classes and spending about 15 minutes clicking links on Wikipedia), a couple of the reasons are that there isn't widespread agreement that December 25th is the actual day of Jesus' birth and the date was possibly picked more for its proximity to existing the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice (Dec. 21 or 22) and the Roman festivals of Saturnalia (Dec.17-23) and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Dec. 25). Also for many years different nations using the Julian and Gregorian calendars had different dates for the start of the New Year. Two of the dates sometimes used instead of Jan 1 were Annunciation (March 25) and Christmas, but there apparently wasn't an international standard.
Yeah, Christmas was just the early church hijacking Saturnalia and Yule. There's pretty much universal scholarly agreement that he wasn't born that date. Mankind has been celebrating the winter solstice for thousands of years before Jesus was born. Still, it's the festival that celebrates his birth so it would stand to reason that a Christian calendar that reckons the years from his birth would use the festival of his birth to open the year.
Then again, it would stand to reason that the Julian calendar, being a solar calendar, would have made a solstice the start of the new year.
The moral of the story, kids, is calendars are dumb.
We should switch everything to the Mayan Calendar. Then, we'd be at the beginning of another really long cycle.
Damn that Fall Out Boy song
Every single time they came back or went to a commercial break during the playoff this year I went full on
Ha, the band actually issued an apology because of that. They licensed it to ESPN without knowing that it was going to be played to death.
Never watched ESPN, have they?
well, not sure what they expected to happen with ESPN
Looks strictly like a recruiting hire to me. Obviously he won't be as good as Moorehead, but if he's better than Kevin Sherman I'll be satisfied. And, if he can reel in some talent from the 757, that would be terrific.
Then you should probably get your eyes checked. Zohn is legit.
Eh, no real P5 experience is a concern. Also, Loeffler's system is much more complex than ODU's. I do like how much time it took to get a coach, though. That means the coach looked around and seriously considered all their options, so it certainly isn't bad that this guy was hired. I'm not sold yet though, and neither should anybody else, as he hasn't even coached a practice yet.
With Moorehead being hired as a GA out of Stanford, you could argue that he didn't have any "real coaching experience" at all. Burden has done a ton for the staff at ODU and as been noted by Joe and others, he's been kind of an overachiever for the school and conference. I'm excited to see what he can do at VT with more resources around him.
Yeah, I'm certainly not saying he's not going to be a good coach. I'm very exited to see what he can do. Coaching changes are always exciting (unless it's Curt Newsome), but it's also not fair to just say he's going to be good without him having any P5 experience. I'm not sold yet, but I'm confident.
Everything you say here is valid. The statement that this was "strictly a recruiting hire" was not, nor was the assertion that he will "obviously not be as good as Moorehead." That's what I was referencing. Zohn has a hell of a resume as a WR coach and a developer of talent. For all we know at this point, Zohn could be a better recruiter and WR coach than his predecessor.