Are there any truth to the rumors that his staff is rounding out with John Blake, Chris Beatty, Bruce Pearl, and John Calipari? This will be a disaster hire ultimately for Maryland, IMHO. A recruiter with a shady past and 3-31 record as a head coach- but if there is a DC or MD kid with VT and the Terps in his final two, I know where he will sign.
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Truly a football program with no soul.
They really needed a guy with integrity, but instead, they're putting recruiting first. I have no doubt that this will ultimately lead to more problems.
They'll probably look OK for a few years until the chickens come home to roost. Let's see how that works out for them.
This really isn't an odd hire for UMD given their past. Just history repeating itself. Followed by them floundering in medicorety and just hoarding conference monies.
looks like he'll fit right in
It's a shame UMD's AD didn't have internet access before making this hire.
Seems like a quality, upstanding dude to be the "leader of men".
Any parent who can read and sees his past, should never send their son to play for this joker.
Look up the AD..........
UMD.....destined to continue as Big 10 bottom feeders.
Quality shit post. I approve.
I just can't get enough
Probably not
Art Briles for OC?
I figured he'd be headed for Liberty...
they deserve each other. so glad they jumped out of ACC and we don't play them on the regular.
They were in the Atlantic so we didn't play them "on the regular" anyway
#accscheduling
*shrug emoji*
once or twice in 20 years is too regular for my taste
Well then don't look at our Future Schedules
Sept 19, 2026 - @ Maryland
Sept 18, 2027 - vs Maryland
Sept 16, 2028 - @ Maryland
Sept 15, 2029 - vs Maryland
I'm guessing- JMHO- That Locksley won't be coaching there in 2026. Plank not the most patient, and I think there will be "issues" there, and they will still get their teeth kicked in by OSU, Mich and PSU every year.
WaPo already isn't a fan of his. They are relentless. And will do in public what Plank cannnot.
They are in the B1G now, so I'm sure they'll find a way to weasel out of them before 2025
We better hold on to that top LB recruit we have for 2021 from St Frances with both arms and legs. Locksley has a sketchy past but that man is a dynamite recruiter and he knows and can relate to kids from the DMV really well.
It's amazing to me that Mike Locksley has a speech, technique, spiel, process , that literally nobody else- except Tim Brewster and John Blake- has replicated, stolen, etc. I mean it really is amazing how a guy with a 3-31 record and checkered past is a great "recruiter". You would think somebody else in coaching could have figured out his technique.
$ome technique$ are u$ed unethically and $o hopefully many coache$ aren't replicating tho$e particular technique$
Ju$t $ayin
It's certainly not unique to our fanbase, but we have to move past the "everyone cheats but us and that's why we lose recruits!" defense mechanism.
Yeah, many of us have moved from "everyone cheats but us" to "everyone cheats". It's the natural flow of cynicism.
Well, not everyone, but you have to call it like you see it.
Well 2 schools have dramatically improved their recruiting profile the past 20 years without cheating/Scandal- Oregon and Clemson. So if Locksley starts pulling in top 10 classes for the 12th best team in the B1G, you draw your own conclusions.
IF
Funny bit of timing there.
I know, small potatoes, NCAA-level of "who cares?" (And most of the issues are from other sports.) Just funny that I read that right before opening this topic.
Do people really think that "everyone cheats but us"? I don't think that. I think there are quite a few schools that don't cheat. They're just not better than us in football because of that. ;^)
I think everyone cheats, but there's levels. I think any VT player could get a couple hundred dollars under the table if they or their family were in a bind. I think this is pretty common at any school. I think there's a small percentage of schools/fanbases giving players 5 figures, cars, houses, etc.
Agreed on the levels of cheating, if everyone cheated like Auburn (Cam) then lots of programs aren't getting their money's worth. For all that I dislike about Paul Johnson it's hard to imagine rampant NCAA violations from him. He is too smug he would want everyone to know how he beat the system. WVU would surprise me post RichRod.
But I find it hard to believe that a school exists that all athletes have never recieved an extra benefit. There are too many vectors to cover. A coach can't give a player a ride somewhere unless it's an emergency. At Shultz breakfast was $1.20 for all you can put in a container with 2 drinks, you are going to say no one left there with 3 milks with some one over looking it? Has a staff never miscommunicated at called 1 recruit 1 too many times by accident and not know it. Still against the rules. No player has ever gotten away with selling a book to the book store.
When I was st VT I saw a player have to start as a freshman because of injury in the first game, he was suddenly driving around in a new explorer, I didnt know him, might have been a gift from parents for starting, but optics weren't great.
Under Beamer we didnt use scouts/middle men so that is a huge Avenue of violations we didnt have. Or mafia levels of accounting were going on.
One thing about recruiting that gets overlooked is just that some people come across as simply more convincing, charismatic, etc. It's the same reason some people are great at sales and some people are terrible at it. We all know those people that everyone likes, or always draws the positive attention of a room. Someone can be a terrible person and still come across as the greatest most trustworthy person these kids and their parents have ever met. Recruiting is very much an art, and for one reason or another Locksley is very good at it, especially in the DMV area.
You are right - especially about sales. The head scratcher is that Urban Meyer and Nick Saban are far from dynamic personalities and they recruit better than anyone. At some point locksley will have to win games to recruit well in the B1G.
All reports are that Nick Saban is fantastic in a recruits home. Why waste charisma on the media, save it for the kids. He does seem like the kind of guy that walks into some ones home, tells them how lovely it is, says his pleases and thank yous, and asks for 2nds at the dinner table.
He also puts like 10 to 15 kids a year into the NFL... so he has that going for him as well.
Kinda my point. Locksley doesn't put 10-15 kids a year in the NFL. Neither does Tim Brewster or John Blake, What is this secret recruiting sauce these guys have.
Coupons
He better be good at it after the McNair tragedy. It should be an uphill battle for him to make recruits and their families feel comfortable sending their kids there.
He's actually a great fit given the McNair tragedy. Locksley lost a child recently, and his kids coincidentally went to the same high school as Jordan McNair.
Honestly, Locksley is to Maryland as Ed Orgeron is to LSU - both local guys/culture fits, both great recruiters, both had not so great stints coaching at not-so-great schools, both received mentorship from some hall of fame coaches before becoming an HC again.
This was the only move they could really make. I mean who would want to go coach umd right now? Recruiting the DMV area just got tougher for us
Meh. It's all a big game anyway...and I have a hard time believing that this single coach is going to completely impact the DMV recruiting scene. It is still Murland that he's recruiting them to. And his past isn't shiny and bright. AND, our track record in the DMV hasn't been outstanding either...so I'm not sure there's going to be much of a shift in things at the end of the day.
No, but we should be able to pick up some ground in this area, and that just got a little bit harder. I'd have wished this had taken a bit longer. All of that said, however, I think we might appeal to a recruit that doesn't want to stay quite so close to home, or who wants to play in a real college atmosphere. The atmosphere in College Park doesn't compare to Lane.
Locksley can probably tell a compelling story, and the Alabama connection won't hurt.
The real problem with Maryland, though, is that they're in it for the wrong reasons. They see football as a cash cow, and I think that as long as they see it that way, they'll be throwing good money after bad.
It will be an interesting experiment in any case.
UMd and UNC improving their recruiting staffs do no help to VT, regardless of how the coaching staff translates that to W/L on the field. PSU, Clemson, OSU, and FSU are going to continue to get guys also. Getting talent to Blacksburg has been a struggle, and if we're not improving our staff at least in-line with how our direct opponents in the area are, we're falling further behind.
How has UNC improved recruiting staff? Thigpen staying on is only guaranteed thing there so far publically.
Not accurate.
Tim Brewster was hired to coach TEs and serve as the Recruiting Coordinator. He is an absolutely elite recruiter.
Dre Bly's name will resonate in the 757 with kids.
Thigpen is a strong recruiter.
edit: Joe essentially made the same point as my OP a couple posts down. Both UNC and UMd have bolstered their recruiting staffs this year. Not sure why you're fighting it.
Brewster recruited great at FSU and somewhat at A&M (didn't have a lot of time there) let's see how he does at UNC without name or money of other two places.
Dre Bly hasn't recruited a single college kid in his career and hasn't coached a day of college let's maybe give him some time before we anoint him.
Bruh.. you say "they've made no staff changes" and I'm giving you two - one who is one of the better recruiters in the nation, and another who is a 2x Pro Bowler and All American from the 757 - an area we recruit. So now you double down on "yeah well we'll see if they're any good"
I said 'Bly's name will resonate.' Which it will. We've got fans clamoring for DeAngelo to come coach and recruit the 757, this is no real difference when it comes to name recognition back in his neighborhood. We'll see if it leads to more guys faxing in LOIs, but it definitely puts UNC in a better spot in the 757 than they have been, which isn't great for Tech. Not sure why this needs to be so challenging.
I never said they haven't made staff changes I said I don't see where they have made themselves better recruiters. How can anyone say that when they haven't signed a single kid yet, is there some potential there yes but to anoint a brand new coach not just to the team but to college football in general as a great recruiter is I think jumping off the deep end.
O I think Locksley is a great recruiter for Maryland don't doubt that. I doubt that Mac Brown is going to make UNC into a top recruiting school yes.
I made this point in another thread, but will summarize it. Mack doesn't have to transform North Carolina into a recruiting powerhouse for it to hurt Tech.
These are 247Composite scores of Tech North Carolina commitments/signees over 2017-19 cycles.
J.R. Walker 0.8977
Elijah Bowick 0.8709
Dax Hollifield 0.9376
Tre Turner 0.9273
Alan Tisdale 0.8917
D.J. Crossen 0.8817
Nadir Thompson 0.8710
Joe Kane 0.8514
Hendon Hooker 0.8903
Caleb Farley 0.8781
Drake Deiuliis 0.8738
Zion DeBose 0.8496
Turner and Hollifield are the only two that were bigger than regional recruits. Perhaps even consider Hooker too because he flirted with Oregon late in the process, OK. The other nine though, it's really bad if North Carolina inks some of those (and that's not even considering N.C. State's increasing footprint). 1) Those are the high 3-star prospects Fuente and Co. are supposed to be solid at developing into ACC championship caliber players. 2) It's win-win for UNC. They hurt Tech (divisional opponent), and they get better.
DC recruiting outside say... Gonzaga (maybe Bullis) is hot garbage. And DC kids historically don't have a great record of success at VT. No big loss there. MD has some good croots every now and then but VT hasn't had a pipeline to that state since Hite retired. I'd say other B1G schools are the real competition for the best MD croots anyway.
Moorehead was making pretty good in-roads in the DMV - DC and MD specifically. There is a ton of talent in the area, closer geographically than the 757, Tech doesn't sniff now, which is why many of us were talking about trying to hire someone like Aazaar Abdul-Rahim.
Might be worth it to open up Gonzaga and get back in with DeMatha, Good Council, etc... (the private/jesuit/catholic league schools). But I wouldn't waste the resources on anything else unless there was a strong pre-existing relationship. Besides, unless the medical science around CTE/TBI leapfrogs, I'm inclined to believe the talent playing football today might be playing lacrosse or soccer 5-10 years from now... at least in the DMV.
Might be better to focus on NC/SC/GA.
you know I've wondered about that. High School football was pretty big in NoVa when I graduated 10 years ago, I went to Centreville, and the Centreville/Westfield games usually drew a huge crowd (for a HS game anyways) . Haven't kept up with HS football in the area but you got to think a lot of parents are gonna not let their kids play football with all the concussion research in the last decade.
High school football is dying in the state of Virginia. Not slowly either.
Hold on there... Good Counsel is in the WCAC with Gonzaga, DeMatha and St. Johns etc...
Good Council is also in Maryland, not DC.
As is Dematha.
I don't understand the point of this exchange. Are you taking issue with any of the above statements or just stating obvious facts for the fun of it?
Maryland sucks.
Ultimately, I'm not sure if Locksley will pan out at Maryland, but from a recruiting perspective, it's the best hire Maryland could have made. Regardless, for the Hokies in the short-term, Maryland will make life difficult for Tech recruiting DMV. Similar to Brown at North Carolina, that's not optimal. Two of Virginia Tech's prime recruiting grounds have head coaches with strong recruiting backgrounds.
via https://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/terps/bs-sp-mike-locksley-maryland-f...
Locksley and Brown are both "stop gap" coaches who will both be gone within three years, trust me. Both are there to change the tarnished images of their respective programs in the short term. Just ask James Franklin, cause that's what he'll be telling perspective recruits on the recruiting trail, as should we.
Soooo, can we get Matt Canada as OC ?
If we did, it would be his 8th stop in 10 years. And only NCSt has more than one consecutive year in that span. Just so you know...
He should have never left Pitt, but to be fair who wouldn't leave Pitt for LSU.
Also, UMD was not his fault. He probably would have been their longer if Durkin didn't screw up.
Don't want him. He has a reputation of being very difficult to work with (hence all the movement).
What a dumpster fire.
Locksley is getting his staff together. Looks like he is hiring Butch Jones to be associate head coach and the TE coach. I can't wait to see the scandals that come out of Maryland from this combination.
There are also rumors of them getting Elijah Brooks, the Dematha head coach, to join the Maryland staff as well. This could easily become a pipeline for getting all of the great Dematha players into Marlyand
Between the two of them I think they almost have a winning record in P5 football.
This facade staff will come back to reality finishing 5th in their division every year. Then the recruiting will fall off because not even Locksley's "boys" will want to play for a losing team.
My Inner Circle of athletics is watching this staff and not happy. Maryland will be a big problem in DMV recruiting wise. Even if they don't win a ton of games they'll pull
Yeah, I'd guess this is true.
They clearly think that recruiting is what's important, and it certainly is.
Don't worry, Fireman will be here to tell us soon that it won't matter because no one knows if they're actually good coaches, and that we'll be fine getting 3*s and coach em up.
Maryland Football Staff (so far)HC: Mike LocksleyOC: Tee MartinAHC/TE: Butch JonesRB: Elijah BrooksCB: Cory RobinsonWho knows if they will win, but I wouldn't want to be up against them if I was in a recruiting battle 😨— Rutgers Fan (@RU_Knighted_18) December 11, 2018 " target="_blank">
Person who has expressed concern over being strawmanned blatantly strawmanning someone.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but this is a bad post. I'm sure you can be more constructive than that.
Except I never have said that I hope we lose - which is what you were inferring.
Literally every post about recruiting, or our lack there of, is blindly defended or excused using the same laundry list of excuses - including many on this exact topic.
Except I deliberately posed it as question so as not to assert you said that. None of that changes that you strawmanned Fireman after complaining about thinking you were being strawmanned in the past. It's unnecessary and you diminish your own point in doing it.
Yup
Even if it doesn't translate to wins on the field for them, having them assemble an elite recruiting staff is bad news for us because they directly compete with us for recruits, and they'll start winning more of those battles than they lose, meaning we'll end up with worse rosters.
Eventually, our administration will come to the realization that we need to get our heads out of our asses and actually overhaul recruiting from the foundation up so that we have the players to execute our gameday strategies. If our peers are getting better at recruiting and we're holding firm, its a net loss to us.
We were already up against Durkin for the last few years, and Locksley even further back.
So Maryland having good recruiters isn't a new thing.
But we've always wanted a really good recruiter on staff.
VT's recruiting has been decent, even if we're acutely aware of the misses.
This requires bold as somehow it still falls on deaf ears.
Recruiting has been the weakest part of our program for years, and still refuses to be addressed.
Is this true?
Seems to me that we've recruited some really good players lately, and that this year's class would be ranked higher if we had more room on the roster.
I think the rub is that just by treading water we're falling behind, or it could at least be seen that way.
I don't even think we're treading water. I think the recruiting classes have actually been better.
I remember some of the Beamer classes being artificially inflated by some really highly rated players who never even showed up. I'm not sure if that ever got normalized out in comparative classes or not.
The more recent classes have seemed to me to have highly-rated players across the board, even if we haven't gotten as many 5 star players.
It's just my impression, and I'm sure there are some recruiting data types here who can tell me if I have a reasonable interpretation or not.
My impression is that Maryland has had some great recruiting classes for a few years, meaning they're comparable to ours, but not significantly better. They may resume that, but I still have faith in Fuente.
Yeah. I used to work at a place where the founder had this saying... "when you stop getting better, you stop being good". You always have to be improving upon what you have and you always have to be striving for more. Once you get complacent, the world passes you by. Even Alabama and Clemson, the two best teams in the sport the last 3 to 5 years, are continually getting better.
I just don't get that same feeling of continual improvement at VT that I get elsewhere, in particular on the recruiting front.
You're talking about the "Good to Great" concept.
But I do see improvement.
Yeah, we've missed on a couple of blue chippers, but we're turning up on a lot more radars than we used to. I feel like it's only a matter of time.
Just need some stellar RBs and DTs, right?
Have budgets for UNC or UMD come out yet for these guys? Because as in most things money comes in as major part. Just look at how poorly our assistant coaching budget is and then ask what staffer on UNC or UMD is coming to tech, and who are they replacing st what salary.
Again, it's not just a budget thing. We need to make better staffing decisions, and get wiser with the money we have. That isn't expecting too much.
Mitchell makes $20k more than AAR (and one is in DC, one in Blacksburg). AAR would be a huge improvement to this staff over Mitchell.
Justin Hamilton would be an improvement over Lechtenberg. Salary isn't a factor there either.
Maybe this would be a good time to snipe one of Durkin's Maryland assistants.
We do need a recruiter in that area.
I don't know how practical that is, but Locksley seems to be hiring a real Suicide Squad group of characters: everybody who worked for him over the years.
I mean, Butch Davis? I don't know if that's a good hire or not.
You think a great recruiter and good coach is going to accept 175k salary? Also who is AAR? And when did new UMD salaries come out?
Well Justin Hamilton is already employed by the program and makes less than 175k, so yes. I think he would take that salary.
AAR is Azaar Abdul-Rahim. Maryland's DB coach - who are leading the nation in INTs, and is probably a better recruiter than anyone we've got on staff. He makes less than Mitchell.
He made less under the old coach we don't know what he is making now unless it's leaked? If Bud Foster wanted Justin Hamilton as his DB or safety coach don't you think he would have been made it when the opening suddenly happened this summer?
I have no issue with wanting bigger names coaches/recruiters, more support staff or anything else. My issue is when no one stops to look at how Whit pays for that.
I don't know why you're trying to nitpick this so much. 2019 season salary has nothing to do with the point.
In 2017 AAR made $170k. The same year, VT paid Brian Mitchell $260k.
In 2018, AAR got a raise to $250k, while Mitchell was making $270k. It is not out of line to think we could likely have him or someone of similar ilk on staff.
Your issue of how Whit pays for it doesn't seem to be an issue at all. We are, and have been paying more for less, as-is.
You also assume he or others want to be at Tech and not their current spots. Thigpen and AAR have both stayed through two coaches at their current jobs.
A great example is Foster he makes much much less than market value but stays at Tech. Your jump to the conclusion that Fuente and Whit just refuse to hire anyone better isn't based on any facts.
If I recall, we went after AAR when searching for the 10th assistant, but he had no interest in living in rural VA.
Edit here to reduce # of comments:
I don't disagree that recruiting is our program's major shortcoming, but I'm not sure how our budget can be used better. In order to win now, we need great coaches. In order to win in the future, we need great recruiters. Ideally, we find someone who is stellar at both, but is that person going to want to come here for a couple seasons, much less spend more time here? Even more ideally, we want a head coach who can develop assistants and teach them how to recruit. I'm not convinced that Fuente can't be that guy in the future, but he has his work cut out for him.
Curious on your take - in your opinion, who are the 5-10 best (position coach) recruiters who have recently or currently coach at a school between PA and GA, and what are their salaries? AAR is one, who else you got?
Is he originally from the Maryland DC area? That would explain a lot.
I hadn't heard that. Do you have a link? It's not surprising he wouldn't take a 10th coach role after being a legit position coach. He's got DC aspirations.
No credible sources. Just a rumor I've heard from multiple people. LA Hokie speculated about it during discussions around the Galen Scott replacement:
I don't think you can make the argument that recruiting is alright when we have gaping holes at positions like DT and FS going into next year. We might be doing well in some areas, but there is a hell of a lot of room to improve, and the moves being made around us only makes that kind of improvement (or hell, makes operating at where we have been) far more difficult.
I agree with that. Clearly there are some holes, but they've been exacerbated by attrition, and weren't solely due to recruiting. Yet they're still a problem, and haven't been addressed yet.
I compare it to the Beamer years, and there were always holes. TE to QB, anyone?
We've been short on LBs since Hall and Adibi left, now we seem to have fixed that with Rivers, Ashby, Dax, Tisdale. WRs were not great for a couple years before Ford, cam, bucky. We had a drought of TEs for a while after Jeff King. There have only been a few years in Techs history where we had backups ready to play at any position. Even in 99, we didn't rotate the dline like Bud wants to do now.
I don't know what people are expecting but when Jones, Harris, Marcus, and Kendell are your alltime 5*s ... well teams with out holes have that in a single year.
Turns out this was just a trade, Durkin to Alabama.