Divine Deablo Sticking with VT

According to 247. Plans to enroll in January

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Thank you, Divine news!

Can someone give a short review of the announcement? I don't have VIP Access on 247. I'd like to know what he thought of Fuente.

"...When we step on that field, they bleed like we bleed and we're gonna show the world."
-Corey Marshall

We don't post content taken from behind paywalls.

"Exit light..."

Would still like to see a link and maybe a little more context for a new thread. Give us something to discuss or click on ourselves.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

The link they provide gives you zero information; it's 100% behind a paywall. But it's funny because the real info isn't paywalled:

Looks like a normal tweet, right?

Click it to expand the media...

...and there's no reason to give them any money. If you visit their page, it makes reference to a scoop about a "committed prospect," yet there it is for all the world to see :)

So yes, context and info for discussion is nice, and I petitioned for that earlier today, but I just wanted to make the above statement to avoid Joe catching hell from any of these paywall guys. People have copied and pasted from articles and they've had to be taken down. If there's additional information, cool, but the headline (MASSIVE scoop, according to VTScoop on Twitter) is 100% visible to everyone, which I found kind of funny.

"Exit light..."

That's fair. Thanks for the heads up.

"...When we step on that field, they bleed like we bleed and we're gonna show the world."
-Corey Marshall

Pretty much that he was called by Fuente and that he was impressed by him. Nothing too groundbreaking

So we have something actually linking Fuente to a recruit. Now I'm really excited. (the Mayberry thread seemed like a lot of speculation and assumption).

___

-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

Yeah thats all I wanted to know. Pretty awesome to see Coach Fuente's name already attached to some recruits.

"...When we step on that field, they bleed like we bleed and we're gonna show the world."
-Corey Marshall

Here is the announcement "I'm sticking with VT"

You're Welcome

The Dude Abides

This is great, love his highlight footage and glad to see Fuente was able to ring him back in.

-Semper Primus

Im most excited just to hear this guys name called for the next four years, it rolls off the tongue beautifully... Divine-Touchdown-Deablo

Divine Deablo: He Catches Touchdown passes and opposing DB's catch Hell!!!!

All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding, dang my dang a long ling long....

Divine Deablo: He Catches Hail MaryTouchdown passes and opposing DB's catch Hell!!!!

FTFY

Slightly erratic, mostly sane, always a Hokie.

This guy is going to scare the hell out of opposing DB's....

I hope Fuente didn't sell his soul to keep him in the fold....

VHokie

2026 Season Challenge: TBD
Previous Challenges: Star Wars (2019), Marvel (2020), Batman (2021), Wrasslin' (2022)

I'm having a devil of a time keeping up with all the good news!!!

"Take care of the little things and the big things will come."

I'm having a devil diablo of a time keeping up with all the good divine news!!!

FTFY

Excellent. Now to get Patterson back onboard or flip Ellis.

"I liked you guys a lot better when everybody told you you were terrible." -Justin Fuente

Fuente was in yhe 757 with Foster today. So I'd say there is some solid recruiting going on!

Patrick Jones II from Grassfield makes his decision tomorrow. He would be another DE for the lunch pail!

FIRST DOWN, HOKIES!

It looks good for him if Foster stays

If?

bahhh "now that Foster is staying"

That's better :)

Still incorrect unfortunately...

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

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I believe he picked Pitt instead of VT.

Onward and upward

Yea knew that I just thought he was making some veiled statment that Foster was not staying.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

No...nothing veiled to it at all. Just noting that the prediction was, unfortunately, also incorrect.

Damn! This is the freakiest thing I've seen in a while... threw up a little bit.....

Long live Rasche Hall

That sounds like a fun road trip!

"For those who have passed, for those to come, reach for excellence."

Ain't that the truth? I'd love to be a fly on the wall...

Reel men fish on Wednesdays

CJF: "Yeah, Bud, I know, 99 bottles...I've heard it...we've all heard it..."
(to himself: Should have kept that secret meeting going a little longer...)

___

-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

What Tech did for the Fuente family during halftime of the bball game was truely awesome!

What did they do?

Wasn't shown during the broadcast, don't leave us hanging! Details!

Plan for the worst and hope for the best, not the other way around.

Didn't take long to deck those girls out in hokie cheerleader stuff. Happy wife (kids), Happy life.

As a parent of young kids, I'm not sure how happy my wife would be to have to make a public appearance at 8pm on a weeknight dragging all three kids along. Notice how she's carrying the youngest? That's cause it's probably past her bedtime and is either half asleep or grumpy as hell*

*total speculation from my own experiences...

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

True dat, but when you are pulling in $3.2mm/year (or whatever plus bonuses, appearance fees, etc.) you can get away with shit like that. Or so I would imagine since I don't make close to that much money.

"Give me a fu¢king beer", Anonymous Genius

Speaking only from personal experience, having a daughter about the same age, I wish mine were ready for bed at 8:00. I try to get her into bed, but she's typically still firing on all cylinders. She's usually grumpy around that time, but only because I'm trying to get her ready for bed.

“You got one guy going boom, one guy going whack, and one guy not getting in the endzone.”
― John Madden (describing VT's offense?)

Our basketball crowds are embarrassingly small. It's chicken/egg, if we had a better crowd last night, we very well might win that game. But we had a bad crowd because we don't win those games.

I'm sure Buzz is quite frustrated.

This goes back to my earlier point about location. How many alumni fans live within 45 minutes of Cassell to show up to the games? Compare VT to another in state school VCU. VCU built a smaller venue and have most of their alums within an easy drive. VT can fix one of those two issues, make Cassel smaller. The other will always hurt.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

Alumni aside, they need to market to the community better. I mean, I grew up going to LOLUVa basketball games not because my parents were alumni, but because it was the only show in town. Surely we could fill Cassel with locals if we tried. Give away tickets in bunches to local high schools or companies or whatever. What's worse, giving away free tickets and having a packed house or not selling tickets and having those seats be empty? We could get some momentum and then scale back the freebies.

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

However I know alums in NOVA, Tidewater and Richmond who buy season tickets to support the school and got to a few games a year. But the rest of the games those seats sit empty or maybe they give them to a friend a few times a year.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

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that's a fair point

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

I think making Cassell smaller is probably the answer. Another part of the problem is that there aren't that many premium seating options - they've taken some steps by adding courtside seats & moving the media, but there's other ways to add these options.

UR did a great job renovating the Robins Center a couple years ago. It went from this:

to this:

Cassell could likely be renovated in a similar fashion. Just for comparison, Cassell's capacity is right around 10,000. The Robins Center used to be used to be around 9,000 and now holds closer to 7,200. The smallest arena in the ACC right now is Miami's BankUnited Center at 7,972, so it's not like a smaller venue can't be successful in the ACC.

The smallest arena in the ACC right now is Miami's BankUnited Center at 7,972, so it's not like a smaller venue can't be successful in the ACC.

Yeah, but Miami's fans couldn't fill a highschool gym anyway.

The Orange and Maroon you see, that's fighting on to victory.

I know we like to pile on Miami, but what Larranaga has done there is quite the accomplishment.

They've already sold out every home game for the rest of the season, and this is a school that has very little basketball tradition. Hell, they didn't even have a team from 1971-1985.

I like that corner club concept. Cassell has all those extra rows tapering up into the corners that are basically the worst seats in the house and are hardly ever used. Replacing them with corner clubs or corner suites can give out-of-town donors looking for priority points another place to park some cash instead of buying primo sideline seats that they never sit in.

Wiley, Brown, Russell, Drakeford, Gray, Banks, Prioleau, Charleton, Midget, Bird, McCadam, Pile, Hall, Green, Fuller, Williams, Hamilton, Rouse, Flowers, Harris, Chancellor, Carmichael, Hosley, Fuller, Exum, Jarrett

That's not a bad idea at all. It certainly would solve some of the appearance of the premium seating up front being empty. While upgrading premium seating might eventually help with donations, that's not really what's causing a low-turnout problem at mid-week basketball games.

Seems to me the first solutions would be to a) win more games and achieve some success (I think Buzz is working on this), and b) encourage higher student and local fan turnout. Buzz is trying to address a), so maybe there are some solutions to b).

this is exactly what Cassell should do. the economics of club/premium seating far outweigh the loss of seats. get donors into the box and students on the floor. that's how you keep both a packed house and a packed wallet full of donor money.

When I was going to school from 08-12 we had no problem filling the arena for respectable games, even when our ceiling was a tournament bubble team. The team just needs to win, and that's going to take a few years.

I agree.

Don't shrink the arena, grow the fan base.

After all, isn't that why we hired Buzz and renewed the recruiting interest? It's a bit early to be throwing in the towel.

I'm anticipating some big ACC games in that forum.

I don't have any doubt that consistent winning would help us fill Cassell back to its current capacity.

The issue is that there are very few premium seating options, and that wouldn't change even with a winning program that fills the building to 10,000 capacity. Donors with money enjoy suites/private party areas, and they'll pay more for those privileges. In the long run, I think that's better than keeping a bunch of cheap seats in the corner.

Unless the athletic department has wheels in motion to build an up-to-date arena (and I've heard nothing on that front), Cassell is lacking the modern amenities that we see in many arenas. For perspective, Cassell is the second oldest arena in the ACC. The only one older is Cameron Indoor Stadium and whether we like it or not, VT doesn't have the tradition & history of Duke to warrant keeping Cassell "the way its always been."

The administration has made great strides in upgrading the football facilities to be top-notch, which include updated locker rooms, Lane Stadium video board and practice facilities. While we have a very nice basketball practice facility, Cassell is behind the times and standing pat would be foolish.

You make a good point. I think it's worthy of consideration.

Then I think about how loud Cassell gets when it has a full house and VT is facing a top ACC competitor. UNC's arena has 21,000 seats, so VT at 10,000 is already "intimate" in ACC terms.

I could go either way on giving up seats, but if it's for clear improvements, I'd hear out the ideas.

Of course the first and best idea is to win some games and get a bigger crowd.

Correct, and coupled with the fact that there are lengthy studies on sports arena economics that have found that venues with no premium seats actual lose money exponentially in terms of opportunity cost it makes sense to build these. It is a must in this day and age.

There are only so many games the money fans from NOVA, Tidewater and Richmond can come to, especially during the week.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

True. What can be done to make these games more attractive for local fans and students?

Watching a winning team

Well, yes.

I know that it's a big circle but that's basically what it boils down to haha.

As a former student I found myself going to less games just because of the inconvenience. You couldn't park in Cassel lot which meant you were walking from Lane south. I'm sure that was more me being lazy but I was there at the end of the Greenberg era (awesome/went to a ton of games) into the Johnson era (not awesome).

the economics of premium seats far outweigh these seats being empty for some games.

I agree that's why there will ALWAYS be empty seats especially at a place not in a major metro area like Blacksburg.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

I think that's true, but I'd like to see more students there.

I like Buzz's idea of getting more students next to the floor as well. It may go hand in hand with some more boxes for premium seating.

not sure i understand. you mean they will ALWAYS be empty because having premium seats means added financial revenue?

premium seats allow you to name sale each box. "this premium box seating sponsored by such and such". for renting out for large party groups. for recruit hosting. for student give aways. and most importantly for donor hosting.

not having these seats means you lose all of that. do we need boxes on each corner? maybe not. But it needs premium seats.

it also allows for the students to get down to courtside because you provide an outlet for the donors that do go to games and want the best seats.

so will the be empty? maybe. probably. does that matter? no, not even a little.

build the seats.

What I'm saying is selling seats/boxes whatever to major donors mean that those seats will not have butts in the them every game. People are complaining about attendance, I'm saying that location prevents sellouts every game in basketball, but that's it's ok because Tech can sell high end seats for,more mo sh even if people are not in them.

Wet stuff on the red stuff.

Join us in the Key Players Club

Having watched odu games at the Ted in both general seating and the sponsored boxes, i can say this is exactly how i would go.

The boxes are largely paid for through the sponsors and there was never a shortage of food and drink(maybe not possible with tech) sales. My wife enjoyed the experience while the guys loved the game. Its still a loud arena but comfortable for the fans not looking to squeeze in the commoners seats.

The upgrades in 2004ish(?) were great but its time to go to next level.

A tourney bid would solve alot. Remember we didnt do much for upgrades prior to the early 2000s with regards to football.

‘Boy, wake up, we’re going over the mountain,’ and that was code for we’re going to watch Virginia Tech play football today,'

It's never been easy to fill Cassell on a weeknight, certainly. But we should have a better crowd than that.

It used to be the complaining about the crowds was on the out-of-town season ticket holders. But the students aren't there either. Looked like maybe 2,000 students last night. That's terrible.

Yea... the student section last night was weak. It doesn't make sense to me, because break is over and it was the ACC/BIG Challenge...

However, after being there last night, I think that Cassell wasn't as empty as it looked on TV. It's just that the sections that get shown on TV were the most empty

LOLUVa doesn't let that stop them...

EDIT: the analyzed version (credit fernleyhokie)

Warning: this post occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)..

Someone please find the breakdown someone on here made of all the parts of this that are photoshopped.

gracias, sir +1

Fernley, that was one of my all-time favorite threads, and you were the instigator of this. If I recall correctly, media outlets used your effort, as well as Alum07's, to poke fun at LOLUVA. You guys are awesome. Everyone should be legging you for historical significance.

Agreed, that was a great thread for sure. Also a favorite for me. And credit to yourself, Guitarman and Alum07, and really everyone... there are a lot of legs packed into that thread. A lot of great loluva bashing. Now we just have to wait a few months to see what they try to spin for next season.

"Come see UVA football. It's more fun now because there's one fewer cop in the stadium!"

"Exit light..."

more ex-cop coaches than fans at a loluva spring game

The head coach and the DC together on a recruiting trip, and in the 757 no less. When is that last time that happened at Tech?

ChicagoHokie

Hopefully the day before Josh Sweat announced his decision

Plan for the worst and hope for the best, not the other way around.

It happened as often as Frank was allowed to do so by the NCAA, with the exception of last year cause, yknow, throat surgery.

As often as allowed is a stretch.

Show me proof he didn't.

why shift the burden?

🦃 🦃 🦃

Actually, knawaz03 would only need a few examples of no head coach to prove his point, whereas TechHokie would need to account for every single recruit. Shifting the burden makes sense here.

(unless you're making a Zohn joke)

___

-What we do is, if we need that extra push, you know what we do? -Put it up to fully dipped? -Fully dipped. Exactly. It's dork magic.

I'm actually ok with this becoming a "shift the Burden" pun/rumor thread, because arguing Frank's recruiting tendencies is 1) completely moot and 2) really just about the principle of the thing I guess. Still, I'd be very much interested to see proof Frank didn't take his allowed visits, since he was definitely in-home with guys like Sweat and Ford a couple years ago.

Yes. This is completely moot. And yes, Frank did have an in home visit with Sweat. But he did nothing in the two years prior to that visit. Whereas Jimbo developed a real relationship with him.

All the more ammo on the need for change if he did visit IMHO.

If he didn't, Sweat, etc. can say "well coach didn't visit", if he did and could not get a commitment for many of those higher profile recruits it starts to point to Franks inability to connect with these guys and close the deal.

'Its easy to grin, when your ship comes in, and you've got the stock market beat,
but the man worthwhile, is the man who can smile, when his shorts are too tight in the seat'

It'll be a damn shame and disservice to everyone if he doesn't turn into a star with a name like that.

The devil on my shoulder has never been so excited...

via GIPHY

"Welcome to the Terror Dome." -- Corey Moore

Offers per Rivals:

Virginia Tech
Clemson
Duke
East Carolina
Florida
Georgia
Louisville
N. Carolina
N.C. State
Ohio St.
Penn St.
Pittsburgh
South Carolina
Tennessee
Virginia
Wake Forest
West Virginia

'Its easy to grin, when your ship comes in, and you've got the stock market beat,
but the man worthwhile, is the man who can smile, when his shorts are too tight in the seat'

I can't help but be giddy and optimistic that Fuente will elevate VT to the level where seeing us on an offers list has the same effect as seeing FSU/OSU/etc.

2026 Season Challenge: TBD
Previous Challenges: Star Wars (2019), Marvel (2020), Batman (2021), Wrasslin' (2022)

I had good sources that said he was opening his recruiting back up, but.... I would imagine Deablo would be an easy one to bring back in the fold.

Hi, Divine. I'm an offensive minded coach and I only have two receivers that I can depend on. Wanna play, like, .... now?

Leonard. Duh.

Will say this, Mayberry kid is a sleeper. Played QB and Corner in HS. 4.3ish speed. Plays as fast on the field too. Glad to see Divine sticking though.

Any news on Josh Jackson?

He is #conFuente

EDIT: "con" meaning "with" #spanish

Glad to hear that the Devil did not, in fact, go down to Georgia....that would be a sin.

VHokie

that would might be a sin.

Fixed for lyrical accuracy.

2026 Season Challenge: TBD
Previous Challenges: Star Wars (2019), Marvel (2020), Batman (2021), Wrasslin' (2022)

You are correct....

But I'll take your bet
And you're gonna regret
'Cause I'm the best there's ever been."

VHokie