"Dependable" DT Woody Baron Ready to Seize His Senior Season, Build on Family Legacy

Woody Baron got his first taste of Frank Beamer and Bud Foster's way of doing business long before he ever got to Blacksburg.

In his middle school days, he wasn't shy about pressing his uncle, James (Jim), for more advice and tricks of the trade. After all, the elder Baron played defensive tackle for the Hokies back in the mid-1990s just as Beamer's staff was starting to gain some traction at the school, so he had more than a few thoughts to offer his nephew about defensive line play.

But while those tips surely contained more than a few things James learned from coaches like Beamer, Foster and Charley Wiles, he hopes he tapped into something a bit deeper than just X's and O's.

"It starts with Coach Beamer, just the legacy of leadership and love and loyalty...and Bud especially, he's been an influence on a lot of us coming through," James told The Key Play. "All their same qualities filter down through us, including, hopefully, some of the things that I've tried to incorporate and instill in Woody. He had those principles already coming in, those have been filtered down through the top."

It would seem that his uncle's work paid off. Woody has been one of the steadiest players on Tech's defensive line since he arrived on campus, quickly earning playing time his freshman year and gradually seeing the field more and more over the next two seasons.

Now, with just a few months until the start of his final season with the Hokies and a starting spot all but assured, Baron has his best chance yet to put his uncle's tutelage to work.

"Even before I got here, I saw the standard that had been set in Blacksburg by people like my uncle," Woody said. "But you never know if you're ready until September, when we actually get out there on the field."

A 'Biased' Recruitment

Though James will take some credit for mentoring his nephew, he insists that the drive to learn more always stemmed from Woody himself.

"He was one of those kids," James said. "I was pushing him, but he was pushing me to know. It's got to be within, it's got to start within no matter what. He definitely showed that kind of want to and drive right about that age, eighth grade...I think he had his mind made up a long time ago on what he wanted to do."

Whether it was "before school" or "after practice," James remembers Woody "always trying to get some extra in to separate himself from the pack."

That led to plenty of success for the younger Baron as a defensive end at Nashville's Brentwood Academy, and colleges quickly came calling as the accolades piled up.

But Woody admits that he was "pretty biased" towards Tech in the whole recruiting process, and rarely gave much thought to going anywhere else.

"I'd just be at home, and I'd see the stuff my uncle had accumulated from his time at Tech, like sweatshirts and sweatpants, Orange Bowl gear, without even knowing what that was," Woody said. "So I was just pretty much delved into Blacksburg before I even set foot on campus."

By the summer before his junior year of high school in 2011, he got his chance to change that, making his first trip to Tech for a camp to let the Hokies' evaluate him in person.

"I remember it vividly," Wiles said. "Woody came up and went through the camp and we just loved being around him, loved his energy, loved his work ethic, and we had a relationship with his uncle who played here at Virginia Tech, so we just felt like we knew a lot of things about him."

Indeed, James said the coaches weren't shy about asking a few probing questions to get to know Woody better. But based on his comfort level with the staff — including not just his former mentors in Foster and Wiles, but then-assistants Torrian Gray and Cornell Brown, both of whom he played with during his time in Blacksburg — he had no problem keeping the channels of communication open about his nephew.

"To have people that you know can be honest with you, and where they see Woody fitting in, does he have it or doesn't he have it, and to have that kind of insight, just knowing you'd get the truth from somebody like that, that's priceless," James said. "You can't really put a number on that, you know who you're dealing with, and there's a mutual respect, because of the things you accomplished together. You just can't take that away, that never goes away."

The more Wiles heard from James, the more he became convinced Woody would prove to be an equally good fit at Tech.

"So many times you don't really get to know a kid quite like you should until you start living with him on a day-to-day basis, then you really get a good vibe and understand what they're all about," Wiles said. "But in this case, we thought we really knew a lot about the kid, and we did, he was exactly what he thought.

"It makes all the difference in the world, you know exactly what the kid's background is and exactly how he's been raised, and you have a lot higher degree of success knowing what kind of character you're getting."

Those superlatives aside, Wiles still had a few reservations about Woody. The DL coach felt he was a bit "undersized and needed to put on weight" at 240 pounds, and thought a move to DT would probably be better for his career at Tech.

Accordingly, he asked Woody to grayshirt if he were to become a Hokie, meaning that he'd sign with Tech as part of the 2012 class but wait to enroll until January 2013.

James noted that his nephew had plenty of options available to him, claiming that "he could've went somewhere else and redshirted or maybe played freshman year," but Woody resisted that temptation in favor of following in his uncle's footsteps.

"We thought about it and thought it wouldn't be a terrible thing," Woody said. "I saw the kind of defense they played over the years under Coach Foster, so it was pretty much a no-brainer. I just wanted to be a part of it."

A Position Change and a Grayshirt

With his mind made up, and some time to get more acquainted with his new home, Woody set about changing his body to match his move to DT.

"Coach Wiles communicated with me real well coming out of high school that I'd probably get more playing time as a defensive tackle than I would at end, just because we were so deep at the time when I got here," Woody said. "So it was difficult learning something new, but Coach Wiles made the transition as easy as I could."

Indeed, Wiles said the Hokies had a suspicion that "Woody's athleticism and his movement was going to be better suited for defensive tackle and knew that he'd work hard to get big enough," and he rewarded their faith.

"Woody's a quick learner, he's a guy that works away from the building," Wiles said. "He's a gym rat, he's always been a gym rat."

Some long hours in the weight room aside, Baron looks back on taking the grayshirt year as the right decision.

"It was really beneficial to me," Baron said. "I was able to come in and do some spring ball before the season and get my feet under me, learn the defense, so looking back, I think it was a very beneficial decision."

Up to Speed on the Field

But even with a little extra time to get his feet wet, Baron still got quite the rude awakening when he first stepped on the field for real. After all, he played his very first snaps his freshman year against Alabama just as the Crimson Tide were coming off of back-to-back titles.

"I'd taken a semester off with the grayshirt, so I hadn't been on a football team, on a football field for almost six months, and so the game was a lot faster," Baron said. "Going to play Alabama for your first college game, that was intense."

Yet the presence of star DTs like Derrick Hopkins and Luther Maddy ahead of Baron on the depth chart meant he didn't have to worry about playing too much right away. He played sparingly in all 13 of the team's games, splitting his time between defense and special teams, but still got in some meaningful reps.

"I was able to get some experience," Baron said. "I had Derrick Hopkins in front of me and I understood that I was nowhere near as experienced as him, but I was able to get on the field a little bit and get some experience under my belt, and I think the experience has been the best teacher."

He'd end up needing to put that experience to test in a big way by the time his sophomore year rolled around. Though he expected he'd mainly be a rotation player, Maddy's injury early in the season meant that he was suddenly called on to start some games and play a substantial role in the defense with fellow DT Nigel Williams.

"(Coach Wiles) travels anywhere from five to six defensive tackles, and so if you're not the starter, you have to be ready to be the starter, because somebody can get injured, like Luther did a couple years ago," Baron said. "I had to step up, that whole baptism by fire thing, and Nigel as well, we had to grow up fast."

Wiles remembers him "playing a ton" that season, logging 181 snaps on defense in total, but a nagging ankle injury limited his playing time as the season progressed.

By the time his junior year rolled around and he healed up, Wiles was ready to lean on Baron. He started five games, though Wiles notes he was "basically" the full-time starter alongside Maddy, notching 28 tackles, eight tackles for loss and three sacks.

"He's dependable, when Woody tells you something, write it down, take it to the bank," Wiles said. "You just trust him. You know what you're gonna get, man, you know what you're getting with Woody Baron. You're getting a hard day of work and you trust him and know he's gonna do what's best for the football team and not for Woody, and you get guys like that, man, you can win some games."

That's a big part of the reason why Wiles and Justin Fuente are looking to Baron to among the most vocal leaders on the team in his final season.

"Coach Fuente, he's been here since Christmas and you'd ask him today about who are the leaders on your football team, and he's gonna say Woody Baron," Wiles said. "Not only do we want him leading in our defensive line room and for our defense, we want him in front of our football team. That's what kind of guy he is, I think speaks volumes about how we feel about him."

Building a Legacy

For his part, Baron hopes can do half as good a job at providing a template for the next generation of Tech DTs as his predecessors at the position.

"I got here and saw people like Derrick Hopkins, John Graves, Luther Maddy, seeing how they operate on a professional level, seeing how they go about things really laid the foundation for me as far as trying to keep up with them as a young defensive tackle," Baron said.

But he also has the family legacy to consider. Woody says he hasn't given much thought to whether he'll try and follow in his uncle's footsteps and pursue a professional career — James briefly spent time with both the Lions and the Bears before carving out a lengthy career in the Arena Football League.

Instead, his main focus is finishing his degree in Spanish (a major he says he chose to "communicate better" with his Puerto Rican relatives on his dad's size of the family) and doing his best to live up to James' standard in his final season.

"I kind of grew up in his legacy," Woody said.

It's a legacy that James says he fully appreciates, and he plans to be in Blacksburg for every game this season to see if Woody can match the "big expectations" he has for his senior season.

"We've definitely started a family legacy between myself and Woody and he's just done a tremendous job on, and especially off, the field of carrying that name and that legacy," James said. "And hopefully we've done both our parts to help that Virginia Tech brand, put that mortar and brick in that brand, our few bricks and pieces of mortar in there, and hopefully we can add to that and it's just an honor to be associated with it, because of all the people that are associated with it."

But he adds that the Barons might not be quite done at Virginia Tech once Woody steps off the field for the last time.

"We have a nephew coming out in a couple years and we'll see how that goes," James said. "It feels good to have that legacy passed on down, and hopefully it will continue."