I would like to announce that I am committed to Virginia Tech #committed pic.twitter.com/CAGD3Lyffv— Amaré D. Barno (@Ayye_Barno) December 17, 2018
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I would like to announce that I am committed to Virginia Tech #committed pic.twitter.com/CAGD3Lyffv— Amaré D. Barno (@Ayye_Barno) December 17, 2018
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I'm sorry, does that say he's 6'6"?!?!
Yes...he's got TE written all over him *ducks*
Great get! Excited by the measurables on this guy
You mean QB?
Damn 6'6 he's the anti-VT linebacker. That guy is huge
Generally true, but we had Tremaine Edmunds as recently as last year haha.
Stop tailing me with a video camera, IceHokie!
Is he going to play LB or are we looking at a potential DE?
247 posted his commitment and said "4th VT DL commit in a week" so im guessing they plan on his playing DE.
Very similar to Chris Ellis, who was the size of NFL
DBLB, but played DE for us.6'4" 260lb is the size of an NFL defensive back?
Disregard I missed my own typo.
you sneaky stealth edit
6'6" - 220 lbs? Are you sure this dude isn't a C/PF recruit for Buzzketball?
Really close. Another two inches and he would be too tall. /s
another 2 inches and 10 pounds and he'll be 6-6, 220 : )
Stole him from Nebraska. #bigdogs
at only 220, you would think Backer? we have Dax and Rivers at Backer currently. Can he add the weight to go to DE?
if he adds 30 pounds in muscle, and switches to DE
He'll likely fit in to the edge rush specialist roll that Dadi Nicholas had as a freshman. My guess is they will try to put 20 pounds on him as long as he retains his quickness.
He didn't say Virginia Tech University. I am a fan.
technically not wrong but still annoying... at least he didn't say "University of Virginia Tech" either
Only Tyrod can get away with calling us that
Oh hey this guys from up the road from me....never hear of him.
That hit at 1:20 think they just left the QB there the rest of the game until they could get an excavator out there to dig his body out of the turf.
I like it I like it a lot
He has a lot of tackles where he grabs the runner high and throws them. He looks to move very well in space, breaks down and doesn't let guys by him. His height may make it hard for him to get lower and drive the ball carrier back. I just get worried he will catch guys like Motu did for 3 years and always fall backwards.
It will be interesting to see how he fits in to our defense. I feel like for OLB, he needs 20 lbs and for DE he needs 30 with that frame.
Film and build reminds me of Dadi Nicolas.
EDIT: Skinny Dadi, he still needs to be Hilgart-ed.
Dadi was 3 inches shorter and 15 lbs heavier. For 6'6", he needs the weight because leverage will be harder. I didnt see Dadi in space much compared to this guy's film so I can't compare much.
How much can we expect though? He isn't a high schooler.
Someone mentioned that he grew from 6'0" as a HS senior to his current 6'6" so I would guess he still has room to grow sideways.
From my #sauces, Barno can really tackle, has good straight line speed and can move in space. As some have alluded to, excellent wingspan and height. Should have significantly more interest. Typical diamond in the rough Foster-recruit. Hopefully will be enrolled in the spring in ordered to get Hilgart-ed.
Maybe an indicator that Devon Hunter is moving to RB?
I don't see how his recruitment affects Hunter. This kid looks like a DE/LB tweener and Hunter is a S/CB tweener
I'd guess playing time at whip, which seems to be the overlapping position between LB and DB. I don't recall Hunter getting much burn at CB.
Barno is not likely going to be at Whip was the point.
That is my thought is he is too big to play at whip, although his experience playing safety may make him uniquely large and qualified. I see this guy getting Hilgartified and coming off the edge with a fury and being able to drop off the line and cover as Bud has been doing more and more of that lately.
edit: oops
I thought there was talk of him filling in the Adonis Alexander "large CB" role that never panned out
if there was, i don't recall it
I think you're mixing up recruits.. there's a tall CB/DB that we are in the mix for
edit: Jamel Hamm
6-5, 200lb CB from FUMA
I feel like both are candidates at whip.
Obviously, Hunter is more safety than linebacker and Barno looks more DE than linebacker but I don't think Barno's height/size precludes him from playing whip.
I'm loving what Tech is doing rn. We really needed to get some experience on defense and these Juco players are really gonna help
Agreed... Sucks that they only have 2 years to play but we need bodies and if that prevents freshman from playing too early, (and they can redshirt), then I am all for it.
New talent coming in is always welcome, but aren't we already pretty set at LB? If I understand correctly, we are only allowed 4 JUCO transfers across all sports. I thought DB and DL were more pressing needs. After the DT commit last week, I thought that if we saw any more transfers, they'd be in the defensive backfield. Does this guy have the speed or coverage skills to play nickel?
I can't imagine he could keep up with slot receivers from a quickness standpoint. This one is curious to me as well. My guess is that he will be tasked with adding some beef and sliding down to DE and use his speed as a pass rusher. We have young LBs who played well enough not to be replaced with JUCO players.
We've been trying to find a way to get Dax to Mike. Deng looked like a good option but he picked Cal. Barre may fit at Backer or beef up at DE or maybe even a situational DE to start.
ACC rules prohibit their members from taking more than 2 JUCO's across all sports that would not have qualified academically out of high school. There is no limit to the amount of JUCO qualifiers that can be taken. As far as I know, Barno, Crawford, and Murray are all qualifiers, and Cunningham is a non-qualifier, which is why he will not be able to sign this Wednesday.
Good info right there.
The dude can lay the boom.
Can someone comment as to why he is JUCO and was originally not thought of as a D1-caliber player? Kid has long frame, and is athletic and can move in space. How did he slip through the cracks?
Is this to provide depth for losing Kearney or are we hoping he beefs up to give us another pass rusher off the edge?
Thanks for any insights.
Was a 6'ish safety when he graduated high school. Has grown 6" since he entered the JUCO and has moved closer to the line. From what I understand, we are wait and see on his positional fit. Probably will start him out at backer in the spring and if he can't cut it, we'll redshirt him and move him to DE.
Thank you. To clarify - is he eligible to redshirt still? Would be an interesting edge rusher - don't see many DEs who played S in h.s.
He is an interesting use of a scholarship as we have some really good young backers on the roster already. Hopefully the coaches think he too good of an athlete to pass on.
Yep. NCAA rules permit you 5 years to play 4, and those years transfer regardless of where you play.
Cool. Any word on how Tisdale is progressing?
On passing downs, we could just put the two of them in the middle of the field and let them wave their arms sideline to sideline.
He was injured I believe so mainly just rehab and scout stuff
Toward the end of this year we saw quite a bit of Emmanuel Belmar playing flat zone from the DE position.
It'd be interesting if Barno kept his ball skills. That would make him the CFB equivalent of Anthony Davis.
Anyone know how much of this recent JUCO success is directly related to Tyrone Nix? His JUCO chops were mentioned as a plus when he was hired.
All of it can either be linked back to Nix or Lecht.
I know that for Crawford, Nix has strong ties down in Mississippi and that's how the found Dashawn. Lechty travels to and evaluates most, if not all, JUCO prospects.
You mean the 10th coach that everyone hated the hiring of?
No one ever said we couldn't land low 3* /unranked players with 1 or 2 P5 offers.
These last two classes have had more 4 star players than I can recall at Tech in a long time. Or we just choosing to ignore that?
You're missing the point being made: Is that because of Lecht or in spite of him?
All I know is Liechtenstein (autocorrect I'm leaving) (Lecht) is going to every school and meeting these guys and guys in future classes while the coaches are running practices back in blacksburg. He is often the first face they meet for the staff.
Well, is that a good enough first face?
so are you wanting someone more...qualified?
Joe, send Emma as the first face.
Which one of those 4* did Letch lead recruiting?
All of them. He is the main point of contact for every recruit year round. He might not be the final salesman but he is that first impression many of them are getting.
Recruiting is all about closing. There is no chance Hudson is going to Lecht instead of Vice or Payoute not going to Zohn if they want to hit them up with questions. That is not main point of contact.
Recruiting is about much more than closing. First impressions and talent evaluations alone are very important. Look at Payoute, from unranked with no P5 offers to Tech offer and commitment in weeks.
I won't speculate on Letch's responsibilities on the staff, but recruiting is sooooo much more than closing. It's scouting, it's building relationships with high school coaches so they tip you off when good players are on the way up, it's reassuring parents that you can take care of their son, it's building a relationship with the kid, convincing that kid that you can help him reach his goals (professionally and academically), and yes, eventually, recruiters have to close. The 'close' is the last 5% of the recruiting process.
I'm sorry but this is just not accurate. He may be 2nd or 3rd for a quite a few but he is rarely the main POC for a recruit. Gallo is the only one I can think of that we would consider him being the "lead" recruiter on.
So he isn't the first coach in the door at most of these high schools? So all those tweets where recruits have tagged him when they get an offer are? He isn't their main recruiter he is their first recruiter there is a difference. When someone for example is recruiting my wife for a position an employee of that firm reaches out gauges her interest and sets up all the details of her visit, then when she gets there she meets her head recruiter. But without that point person setting the right tone and getting the details right for her visit and offer the recruiting would have been dead on arrival.
That's not what you said though. You said that he's the main POC for almost all recruits year round, which is not accurate. I was responding to your statement. Kff17 also asked which 4* recruits he was the lead recruiter on and you answered "all of them". Again, just responding to your statement.
He also is not always the first in the door. He generally is during the season, but during evaluation periods, the coaches are on the road visiting and evaluating equal amounts (aside from Fuente who is restricted by the NCAA to the amount that he can travel/visit). For prospects that the assistant coaches want to offer, the process is the same across the board. Let's say Zohn finds a DE prospect in the 757 that he likes. He'll bring tape, testimonials, whatever info to Bud and Wiles and if they like him, they'll bring it to Fuente for final sign off. They'll then decide if they want to extend an offer or bring him in for a workout or whatever. Lechty does not extend all offers.
Stop using facts to disprove his theory that all our coaches are 100% infallible in every aspect. It's like telling a kid that Santa isn't real.
Sure because thats what I did. My issue is with a select few who think Fuente doesn't like recruiting this link says otherwise http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2018/december/17/2019-verbal-commits-t...
That Tech can just go out and hire whatever coach they want at whatever cost. They can't http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2018/december/5/2018-usa-today-assista...
So yes when I think these guys are busting their asses to get a hard sale to get the best guys they can at Tech I'm going to defend them.
I don't think HokieFireman thinks the coaching staff is 100% infallible at all. Mostly I think he's trying to point out that maybe, just maybe Fuente has a better understanding of his job than the average message board poster, has sound reasoning for his staff decisions, and truly wants the program to succeed. Fireman's defense might end up going too far at times but I understand how it happens on some topics that suffer from egregious amounts of armchair quarterbacking and constant negativity.
I fully believe Fuente wants the program to succeed and is making the best decisions he can within the constraints he operates under. I believe there are numerous reasons he chose Lechtenberg as the 10th coach and we don't have Kliff Kingsbury as our OC. If it's not working and he doesn't adjust, then we have some cause to be concerned. But many posters don't even want to give certain members of the staff a chance to succeed. Ultimately it might take a few years to evaluate the performance of staff members but that should be based on criteria and expectations coming from Fuente, not what a bunch of message board posters think they want that week.
I'm all for defending the coaches when deserved. I don't actually want them to be fired. But every person has room for improvement in their job, including you, me, Fuente, Saban, etc. The refusal to admit that is completely unproductive.
As this exchange shows, HokieFireman's blind defense of the coaching staff goes so far that it is often not based in fact. He's not saying, "give the guy some time to prove his worth." (Which is actually my position on Lechty even if I didn't like the hire.) He's incorrectly stating that he's the lead recruiter on all of our top recruits. That is not true, and whether we give him ten months or ten years, that kind of blind faith prohibits us from making an honest assesment of where we stand when the day of reckoning for that assesment arrives.
Well said. He so desperately wants to defend the coaches that he's mistaking his success or failure in these "arguments" as contributions to their success or failure as a staff. We were having a conversation on the structure of the staff from a recruiting standpoint and he couldn't accept that he was wrong, so he took it as a front against Fuente and co. It's ok for them to need to improve in certain areas, and it's ok to point it out. Blindly defending their every action doesn't do them any good.
You should include my entire quote not just a piece.
Nothing about the entire quote changes the context enough to change what LA is arguing against though. He's either the main point of contact for every recruit year round (your words), or he isn't.
I included that part of your statement because it's the part that applied to what both I and kff said. The second part of your statement was a different conversation. Not including your argument on a different subject doesn't discredit the fact that the first part of your statement was factually incorrect.
You keep trying to move the goalposts or try and take the discussion in a different direction whenever someone calls you out whatever point you're trying to make. Just accept that you got it wrong and move along rather than trying to poke holes that have nothing to do with the subject in someone else's argument.
I didn't know Pizza places played football.
Fuente is the head coach, and I guess it's on him to decide who best contributes to recruiting.
We can debate individual contribution, but all that matters in the end is the result, and a combination of factors influence that.
FWIW I'm not sold on Lecht. I love the idea of having a coach dedicated solely to evaluation and recruiting, and honestly think Fuente doesn't get enough credit for it.
However, I don't agree with the hire necessarily. My preference would be to have hired someone that has shown success as a recruiter but not necessarily as a coach. It's still too early to make a final determination on lechtenberg as his evaluated players are still very young, but he hasn't yet shown the ability to move the needle as a recruiter.
Yes, the jury is still out on the results.
However, they're clearly putting in the effort, and doing the right stuff.
I don't disagree with you. We were one of the first in on Figueroa, which was a great eval. But when he started to get more offers, he cancelled his OV, which is where someone with more experience/effectiveness as a pure recruiter would have helped. And before someone says that he didn't visit VT because it's on the east coast, he visited Tennessee this weekend.
Anyways, back to Barno. Happy to have him in the boat.
UCLA fans that I know say Figueroa is now batting his eyelashes at USC (Trojans)...not even considering the Bruins anymore. Don't want to derail the topic...just FYI for those that were wondering what was up with him.
Definitely felt like he was slow-playing UCLA for some reason and we were the backup plan early on. Then when he had more options, his backup plan improved.
He must have been a SoCal USC fan, not a SoCal UCLA fan.
I am still not thrilled with the hire. A JUCO specialist is helpful only if your HS recruiting struggles. Show me the "Lecht effect" on some high 4* and a few 5* and I will back the guy.
He doesn't just recruit JUCO, he is everydaybon the road visiting and evaluating kids because he doesn't have an on the the field job. No recruiter coach who brings in 4/5 star kids regularly isn't working for 175,000 dollars as an on the road recruiter.
Since about when Cornell Brown signed, VT has had no trouble signing 3 star players. None. THAT process works fine. Beamer, Fuente, etc- signing 3 star kids has never been an issue. The problem is landing 4 and 5 star prospects on the OL and DL especially. The rare SEC type kids that can rush the passer and aren't 215 pounds or DT's that are good, fast, but over 6'0.. THOSE kids we have had extreme difficulty closing on for 20 years. It's Fuente's, Bud and Corn's job to close on those guys. Not the 10th coach that doesn't do on field coaching.
Doesn't everyone have trouble closing on those guys since there are so few of them? Also Lecht job isn't to close its to open.
I don't understand why you think it's unreasonable for a staff member who's only job is to recruit to be able to handle recruiting.
His job if you had read what Fuente said when he was hired was to evaluate, be the first person in the door, be around the state and country when the other nine coaches can't. He also happens to set up the other coaches and official visits so the main recruiters and positions coaches are ready. O and he does it for one of the lowest P5 salaries. So who should Fuente have hired to be only a recruiter the way Fuente wants it done for that price? Bring me a name
I get that, so when do we begin see the in-roads being graded for Fuente, Foster, Corny and Co for the high 4* and 5* HS players? If the guys has one job of evaluating and starting relationships he has to do two things successfully to earn his keep: ID diamonds in the rough consistently or put the top talents on a tee for the "on the field" coaches. As dcwilson said, we don't need support staff to close on 3* recruits, our pedigree and conference alone can do that.
Not really. UVA signed 2 4 star DL this year. Tim brewster used to clean up on them for Jimbo Fisher and will do the same for mack brown.
Briggs is LOLUVA only one and according to several people on here he isn't that good. I couldn't tell you. As for FSU yes they recruited very well as does Bama, Michigan OSU etc. that's still not even a a minority of teams that recruit multiple 4/5 star lineman every year.
I hate to get involved with this argument, but as an aside I noticed NCST has 3 of them committed this class. That's absolutely bonkers to me, their line will be an issue in the future.
Hats off to the coaching staff for focusing on addressing needs in the final push. We still may not see much immediate impact, but at least we'll have some more depth to work with. Obviously they shouldn't have let it get this bad, but they did avoid striking out on the defensive line again.
but can he play TE! /s
I think with that size, he's our next QB1.
I really think we could see us use Barno's athletic ability similar to Snowden's. Use that length to disrupt running and passing lanes as well as bat down a few passes. They are both diamonds in the rough but hopefully turns into success like Snowden has, kid wreaked havoc against us.
Snowden plays in a 3-4 scheme which certainly suits his abilities well. I'm really curious as to where Barno ends up.
Yeah luckily for Barno Tech has been playing at of variations of the base 4-3 with stand up ends. I agree a 3-4 might be a better scheme for that skillset but long and athletic can be used well in any scheme.
I like this pick-up. If it works, Dax can slide in to Mike and run the defense. Recruiting to this physical prototype for backer also allows a potential move to DE if the mobility or coverage skills aren't there for backer. Either way it also puts some damn height on the LOS.
#NextLevelCheckers
how Many scholarships are we looking at for the 2020 class?
As of right now I count 81 scholarship players eligible for next year counting the current commitments. Now of course that number is subject to change due to attrition.
The numbers. They always work out.
I swear, I've heard this before...
And they always have.
Barno >> Stoudemire