So I did this a few times last recruiting cycle to try and keep track of where we stand with recruits, as well as try to keep an overview of the class as a whole. It was also fun to look back on the first couple of these posts I did and see how well it did or didn't match up (here is a link to the second one I did last March. Of the 25 recruits on the list, we kept 4/5 of the current commits, got 8/20 of the wish list, and 1 from the watch list).
For this year, I will try to cap the number of recruits to 22 as the rumors are that this will be a smaller class than the last two. I am also trying to balance being hopeful and realistic. For example, for the primary list I didn't just put the best recruit we have offered at each position, but tried to put guys that I have heard have some sort of connection to VT (visits, Warm on 247, family connections, mentioned on this site, etc.) As always, I want to be clear that this is all #sauceless. If you want the inside scoop you need to ask LA or BAG, but I thought it might be interesting to some to see a lot of the recruiting news compiled into one place. I'll try and update this at least every couple months and repost. So here is the 2019 list, I'll share some thoughts at the end. Happy Monday!
| Name | Position | Stars | Composite Score | Notes |
| Devyn Ford | RB | 4 | 0.9664 | Warm, 9/30, 2/2 visit |
| Traevon Kenion | WR | 4 | 0.9236 | Warm, 6'4" |
| Tayvion Robinson | WR | 4 | 0.8948 | 757 |
| Jacoby Pinckney | WR | 3 | 0.8827 | Warm, 6'3" |
| Elijah Bowick | WR | 3 | 0.8577 | Committed |
| Nick Gallo | TE | 3 | 0.8327 | 6/17, 9/30 visit, Hokie Brother |
| Quinn Carroll | OT | 4 | 0.9704 | Hokie Brother |
| Donavan Beaver | OT | 3 | 0.8556 | VA, 9/30, 11/18 visit |
| Bryan Hudson | OG | 4 | 0.9241 | in top 5 |
| Riley Simonds | OG | 3 | 0.8739 | 11/18, 1/14, 2/2 visit, Buford, GA |
| Jesse Hanson | OG | 3 | 0.8778 | Committed |
| Savion Jackson | DE | 4 | 0.9802 | 9/30, 1/14, 2/2 visit, top 3 |
| Hakeem Beamon | DE | 4 | 0.8914 | UNC Commit |
| Adarious Jones | DT | 3 | 0.8778 | 757, Bishop Sullivan, 6/17 visit |
| Ben Smiley | DT | 3 | 0.8728 | 757, Indian River, 9/30 visit |
| Traveon Freshwater | ILB | 4 | 0.8979 | in top 5 |
| Kane Patterson | OLB | 4 | 0.9069 | Warm |
| Tayvion Land | CB | 4 | 0.9348 | Leader as of 1/14 |
| Nyquee Hawkins | CB | 4 | 0.9276 | 2/2 visit, PSU & VT |
| Mike Sainristil | CB | 3 | 0.8467 | Committed |
| Khalid Martin | S | 3 | 0.8794 | Warm, in top 4 |
| Jahad Carter | WR/DB | 3 | 0.86 | Committed |
Others to Watch:
| Name | Position | Stars | Composite Score | Notes |
| Jalon Jones | QB | 3 | 0.882 | MS de-commit |
| Derrian Brown | RB | 4 | 0.9441 | 1/14 visit, Buford, GA |
| Jordan Houston | RB | 3 | 0.8728 | Warm |
| Jalen Mitchell | RB | Warm | ||
| Cam Hart | WR | 3 | 0.8556 | 6' 3", MD |
| CJ Johnson | WR | 3 | 0.8266 | Top 3 |
| Tiquest Terry | WR | Blacksburg, not yet offered | ||
| Andrew Kristofic | OT | 3 | 0.8728 | 2/10 visit |
| Jake Pope | OT | 3 | 0.8333 | Warm, in top 3 |
| Antoine Whitner | OT | 3 | 0.8333 | Richmond, 11/18 visit |
| Jakai Moore | OG | 3 | 0.88 | 1/14 visit |
| Brandon Smith | DE | 4 | 0.98 | Warm, 4/13, 9/30 visit |
| Howard Cross | DE | 4 | 0.9178 | 1/14 visit |
| Jaden McKenzie | DT | Not Yet Offered, Kane HS teammate | ||
| Drake Thomas | ILB | 3 | 0.8789 | Joe Kane's HS, 9/30 visit |
| Ah'Shawn Moore | OLB | 3 | 0.8667 | 757, Indian River |
| Jaylon Scott | OLB | 3 | 0.8556 | Not Yet Offered, Dax HS teammate |
| Dean Ferguson | OLB | 3 | 0.8333 | Warm |
| Cam'Ron Kelly | CB | 4 | 0.9304 | 757, Artis teammate |
| Myles Bell | CB | 3 | 0.8778 | 6/15 visit, leader as of 1/10 |
| Semar Melvin | CB | 3 | 0.84 | Warm, in top 2 |
| Nicktroy Fortune | CB | 3 | 0.8333 | Not Yet Offered |
| Nick Cross | S | 4 | 0.9178 | Dematha, MD |
| Anthony Harris | S | 3 | 0.8778 | 1/14 visit |
| Tyler Rudolph | S | 3 | 0.8678 | Warm |
| Lannden Zanders | S | Not Yet Offered | ||
| Litchfield Ajavon | ATH/S | 4 | 0.9501 | VA |
| JR Walker | ATH/S | 4 | 0.9067 | 2/2 visit |
| Malik Washington | ATH | 3 | 0.8577 | Warm |
*Shout out to hokie07ME for the table tutorial
Thoughts:
-If we landed everyone in the primary list that would give us an average rating of 89.70. That is up from 87.46 last year, and based on last year's team rankings would be good for about the 17th ranked class.
-Top priorities for this class in my mind are Devyn Ford, OL, and DL (especially DT).
-I love the possibilities for OL next year, we definitely did not have this many solid recruits interested in us at this point last year. We already have Hanson, and I also really love Beaver, Hudson, and Simonds. I think Carroll is probably a long shot, but his older brother was a long snapper at VT, so I didn't want to count out the family ties.
-DT is still a little worrisome to me. I think Jones would be a great pick-up. People are really excited about Smiley, but he seems a little small, and I haven't been able to see any of his tape to get really excited about him. A couple of names that I would be excited for but I haven't seen mentioned much with VT are Joshua Harris and Mario Kendricks.
-From the secondary list some players I really love but I don't think we have a great shot with are Cam'Ron Kelly and Litchfiled Ajavon. Some sleepers that have some of my favorite HS film are Tiquest Terry, Jordan Houston, and Lannden Zanders.
I would love to hear what people think. Keeping the primary list to 22 was pretty hard. I can't imagine how hard this is for the staff. Here's to hoping to another year of improvement on the recruiting trail. Happy TKPing!
Comments
This is awesome
Thank you for this. As mentioned in another thread, Brandon Harris is a guy we'd love to have. A 6'4" monster DE, this two-sport athlete is rated the #1 player in VA by some sights. His teammate joined us as a preferred walk-on last week. Keep an eye on him. He is being courted by Bama, Clemson and many others, but I'd say we have an outside shot.
Did you mean Brandon Smith?
Conversely, did he mean Drew Harris?
It looks like he played for IUPUI recently. His Twitter doesn't provide too much guidance, either. He may actually still be on the market.
=D
Is he looking to transfer in? Maybe we can put him on Lawson's scholly because I'm hearing he may transfer too.
I love this idea. It's always cool to see who you end up with from the starting targets. We could easily get a guy we haven't even heard of at this point. I also wish 247 kept track of each players composite score over time. Maybe they do and I haven't been able to find it, but it would be cool to see guys that started out high and dropped, and others that really developed into talented players.
It would be cool to use that as a metric of how good a coaching staff is at recruiting and evaluating talent. Obviously how their college career pans out would be a better metric, but to see the difference between a classes composite score with all of the players at their first rating and then their last would be really interesting.
Excellently done. Recommend having table listed based on star rating though as opposed to however you have it sorted now.
EDIT: Or overall composite rating.
Done by position currently. But yes, I agree.
Composite ranking is the secondary ranking. Position is the primary. It seems more intuitive that way to me, but idk, I like to know what VT can get position wise and then see who are the best prospects.
I think it's amazing that landing all of those top recruits on our list only gets us to 17. Goes to show even with recruiting improving like it has just how much farther ahead the big boy schools are.
That's based on average recruit ranking though. I think the way Brookland came to 17 was by finding the lowest ranked team that had a slightly lower average recruit ranking in the 2017 class (Tennessee at 87.24). On the flip side, Auburn had the 9th ranked class that year with an average recruit ranking of 89.34.
If you go by 247s points method and use their class calculator, you end up with 255.6 points using the same list of recruits. That's good for the 10th ranked class in 2017.
Edit: I just looked and that would give us the 14th ranked class so far in 2018.
You are correct, I just looked for 2018 classes that had a similar number of recruits and average ranking. I didn't factor in specific recruits by using the calculator, thanks for that information.
Also, to the point in the post above, the primary list I made wasn't exactly a best case scenario with all the guys at the top of the board. I left some guys off that would increase the rating because it seems like we have a better shot with others at the same position, specifically guys like Brandon Smith, Cam'Ron Kelly, Litchfield Ajavon, Darnell Wright. Guys like that would definitely elevate the class, though the point still stands, I'm not sure how high we could go even with our top of the board guys.
#1) I'd be thrilled with 17.
#2) The more highly rated recruits we pull, the fewer there are to go around for everyone else so it cold potentially be better than 17.
Smiley might be a little on the light side at 270 right now but he looks like he should be able to EASILY put on 30-40 lbs with his frame. Drew double teams all year in a tough district!
Rumor has it that Smiley (and Tech) are no longer interested in each other...
Is that because we have bigger fish?
Don't know why but I his tweets aren't encouraging FWIW.
Not sure if we cooled off or wanted him to position-switch, but not looking good.
I don't think "no longer interested" is accurate. AFAIK he's still most definitely a take. VT has expressed interest in him playing OL.
As far as his tweets, he was at UVA last weekend and seemed to have a good time. His mom did as well. However, I don't think we'll miss out on Smiley (or any target we really want) bc of UVA this year come signing day.
I'll yield to the big guns - BAG and LA - but I'm pretty confident that we are pursuing some other guys right now.
I think Smiley is up to 265/270 and is gonna be a beast. RB, OL, and DL are definitely focuses but I think this year we will continue to increase our avg. recruit rank up above .885. If we can land Ford and Savion Jackson as 5 star headliners, I think we have a chance to get in that #15-18 range. Still super pumped about having solid inroads with the OL, RB, and DL targets you mentioned, now just gotta close.
Are you saying Ford and Jackson are 5* because you are using different sources, or because you think they are sure to get bumped up?
Well they have both been ranked 5 stars at some point (Ford being #10 overall on rivals, Savion on 247 earlier before now being 2 spots out of 5* status) but from their talent/film, I anticipate both being consensus 5 stars by the end of this recruiting cycle.
I would rather they stay 4* for now. They're the same quality player regardless of the ranking but I'm a little afraid of the 5* making someone feel obligated to go to Alabama, Georgia, or anOSU
You know the crazy thing is that Georgia already has three 5* guys in the 2019 class. Kirby's absolutely killing it.
I'm still in a "believe it when I see it" mode for Tank Land
Two things in our favor with Tank Land.
1) He was hurt by the way we handled the Capehart situation, but time is best healer of wounds, and there's been time for things to cool off and apparently the coaching staff had a heart to heart with him about it.
2) He's a small cat and he's probably not going to get any taller, so some of the bigger schools recruiting him might be cooling on him. Some DC's have pretty strict size reqs for db's based on their style of defnse. We are pitching a specific slot corner role to him whose importance has (fortunately) been highlighted in the NFL over the last few years.
Hmmm...
Still an ultra-talented guy. Tank as a slot corner for us would be awesome. Just not as many teams fielding 5'8/5'9 type corners outside these days.
I'm saying I think you answered your own question if April/May/etc. rolls around and he's committed elsewhere lol.
So these are the names that will break my heart...
There will be KJ's and there will be Dax's
Recruiting progress will be measured by more Dax's and less KJ's. Hopefully this year shows a positive trend.
We also have to realize we were pretty out of our league with KJ. It is not very often at all we reach that high with a guy and succeed. But yes, we will start landing more mid-high 4* guys than we will chasing top 20 guys and we will see the difference it makes pretty fast.
Hopefully this disregards rating of player....and just refers to their respective recruiting success.
We offered a 4* TE out of Florida, Keon Zipperer.
We are going to need to button up our recruiting efforts if we want to sew this one up.
Zipper pun. Leg.
Why is DE Beamon on the "list" when he's already committed to UNC, meanwhile DE Brandon Smith who is uncommitted and has us in his top group is on the "others to watch list"
Because it seems much more likely we could get Beamon than Smith.
Because we actually have a good relationship with Beamon and many feel he could easily flip before he signs.
Smith is a super high profile player who, while we talk to and are interested in, has many other blue blood programs he is considering a little more than us at the moment.
OK cool
Thanks for the shout out, but being able to read this without my eyes bleeding is all the thanks I need. Great work compiling all this and presenting it well.
User generated content is the sex. I saw a mouse run across the floor of the restaurant as I paid my check tonight. Balls.
I would like to nominate this style of prose to be known as the lowku:
User generated content is the sex
I saw a mouse run across the floor of the restaurant as I paid my check tonight.
Balls.
No real syllable count rules, just three barely related sentences, then end
Don't worry, mice eat cheese.
Was the food good?
I really would like to hear more buzz about defensive tackles. Otherwise, you have to really like the start to this class. The skill position and secondary spots may be filled up before the first fall practice with the way dudes are flocking to the commit bucket. Offensive line recruiting sounds promising.
If those spots fill out as expected, all in on Ford, and then load up on the defensive front.