Thank You, Coach Wiles @coachwiles concludes a 24-year tenure at Tech that included championships & numerous outstanding players.👉 https://t.co/XjJ730S2F7#Hokies 🦃 pic.twitter.com/ZZqkwUApJz— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) December 9, 2019
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Talked about this a little bit earlier this morning, guess now that it's official I can throw this out there -- Fuente decided not to renew his contract, came as a complete surprise to Wiles and his family.
I don't see how this could be a complete surprise.
Given that we've known all season that Bud was leaving, and that we'd have a new defensive coordinator.
Just reporting what I was told.
What? But we hired someone inside the program so that doesn't make sense
I'm pretty surprised that we hired a DC from the LPD tree and Wiles wasn't retained, but from August until yesterday, if I were Wiles, I would've assumed my run in Blacksburg may very well be done after this season.
Yeah, pretty surprised that JHam wouldn't want to keep Wiles.
If he had chosen to retire with Bud it wouldn't have been a surprise.
But for Wiles to get fired (and let's not nit-pick semantics, this is being fired) is a BIG surprise to me. Especially with the huge improvement the young defensive line made this season.
This isn't about the past, it's about the future.
I have to believe that it's J Ham's call.
I'm sure you're right, I'm just sad to see it.
If you're Foster, are you absolutely losing your shit this morning?!
He retired, not his call.
I'd be surprised. Bud knows how the business works, he knows there are hard decisions to be made in that role. Unless JHam had explicitly told Bud that Wiles would stay on if he got the gig, I doubt he's angry. Disappointed maybe.
Might I inquire about the nature of the source? I get that people are not over the moon with Fuente, but the way you have suggested this went down looks really bad for him. It implies he is either totally heartless, or totally daft. Possibly both. I don't know the guy and I'm a million miles away from any sort of inside info on the program, but I'm trying to rectify reports like this with the person I see in press conferences and hear about from other sources. Further, if such a thing were true I have a hard time believing he would be on good terms with Bud or Beamer or Whit or anybody else he didn't hire specifically. How could a man burn that many bridges in one fell swoop at place where the motto is "this is home" and still expect to function? Either the man has lost his mind, or the situation is more nuanced.
It could also mean that Wiles and his family ignored the writing on the wall and while it was a "complete surprise" to them it may not have a been a surprise to anyone else in the program.
Uh whether he should've seen it coming or not it's still a bridge burned. It's on Fuente to communicate up front
a lot of good programs had to burn some bridges just to move forward. we have basically experienced 20 years of FSU-lite. That's not disrespect to our program, but this past decade super similar to FSU from 2001-2011 (and Beamer's run is really one of few coaches in the same class as Bowden in terms of consistency). I find it interesting that Jimbo didn't retain Mickey Andrews initially. I know his run ended in flames. but I do think there's something to be said for coaches who are so important for the reputation of the program and the culture and whatever buzzword, that it's impossible to move forward under a new regime? Have we ever acknowledged just the frankenstein like nature of this coaching staff? It's gotta suck for Fuente. First shot w a premier-ish program, and there is just way too much baggage to actually instill a culture change. I'm a kool-aid drinker i know, but I genuinely think it's better going forward if this can be as much as Fuente's staff as possible the next 2-3 years. and then fire him if he's garbage.
this is a rant, but i've avoided VT football stuff for two weeks just for my sanity after UVA. it's not the end of the world by any means, but it's hard not to act like it. I think we also need to realize that Fuente is in the Gary Patterson mold and NOT beamer. Beamer could get you 10 wins out of a team of two stars. Beamer also could get you 9 wins out of a team of 5 and 4 stars. I think with Fuente we absolutely do have a shot at reaching higher highs. I just think the rebuilding years, the young years, and the lean years are probably gonna be tougher. We are used to 10-4, 11-2, 11-3, 10-3 etc etc but with fuente's coaching style, and the way he builds teams, I see it being more like 8-5, 6-6, 12-2, 9-5
dadgum skutt you beat me by 13 seconds!
WTF
This is unfortunate
I hope he will be coaching the bowl game.
He is not.
Not happy about the lack of recognition he's getting. He deserved to get it alongside Bud. This move, moreso the way it's been handled, has been the most troubling for me.
I don't know how you could do that, given that we didn't know who the new Defensive Coordinator was going to be.
True but what he's done for the progam is worth more than a tweet at noon on a monday in the middle of all these announcements, especially since he's not going to be coaching in the bowl game.
I can't disagree with that.
But they're doing some coaching changes, preparing for a bowl game, notifying recruits, searching for new coaches, and there are lots of moving parts.
Getting let go is NEVER easy.
Damn. This is super disappointing. He deserved better.
Agreed. Bud's defense wouldn't have been stellar without the ability for Wiles to identify and develop talents on the line.
Man...not so sure how to feel about the spring practice now.
When I first heard the rumors about Wiles, I thought he was retiring or something. The fact that he was canned is altogether puzzling and enraging.
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Letting him coach in the bowl game with Bud has little to no impact on the program. Thats a big miss on our part.
Is he not allowed to or choosing not to?
Hokiesports release is unclear about the reason, just says he won't be coaching the bowl game
That's what I'm wondering. Maybe Wiles is pissed and chose not to.
Or maybe it's easier to find a new, quality job in Dec when not still coaching rather than ending up last in a game of coaching musical chairs.
That's a good point. We should have found a way to make it happen either way.
Chris Coleman of Techsideline just tweeted that he was offered to coach in the bowl game and he declined.
I can't really blame him if he was pretty much notified this week that he would not be extended. I would be very pissed off as well.
This is very much reading tea leaves but how could VT reasonably know what staff would be kept if we didn't know who our DC would be 72 hours ago? If we were pursing Odom and if he would've ended up as the guy, who's to say he wouldn't have kept Wiles?
I mean this sucks but it could very easily just be the cost of doing business.
At first, I read this as they offered Chris Coleman the opportunity to coach the bowl game.
Anything tied to recruiting?
It seems like all the coaching changes are in positions where we have big recruiting targets lined up. Grimes at CB, Bryant/Naquan at DL, and Campbell at RB all would have new position coaches. It's somewhat of a stretch but that's what I'm guessing these changes come down to.
Plus the one big change that's not coming (Corn) is tied to DD sooooooo....
Players hit the portal last off-season, now it's the coaches. Help, pls.
Fans next?
Sure, you go first...
Wishful thinking for DCWilson?
Only kidding DC
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So are all of Beamer's coaching staff gone now with Wiles' departure being official?
Yep.
So much for upgrading our recruiters, or even keeping it at the same level.
Recruiting coaches? We don't need no stinking recruiting coaches!
Except we need to recruit coaches
...that can recruit.
This is actually one of the main reasons he's not here.
Agree.
You can make a long list of missed Prospects on the DL over the past 5 years alone.
Had we not gone to the JUCO ranks, we literally would not have had enough Scholarship bodies to form a 2-deep at DT this year. That is not normal.
Burden, Wiles, Mitchell were all having trouble recruiting enough talent and/or depth at their positions. It might be a coincidence that they are all not back, but I think probably not.
I suspect JF feels the heat in Recruiting...it remains to be seen whether the new guys he brings in will be the answer.
Edited: spelling is hard
You do realize that coaches recruit by geographic area primarily? And the list of Wiles recruits who have been valuable players - especially out of Florida - is pretty long.
I'll be the first to say that I have never been a big fan of Wiles' coaching and personnel philosophies. But the dude can croot. And we need that. Wiles is a super nice guy and has a way of relating to people. He has spent 24 years building relationships with schools and coaches all over the southeast, primarily Florida.
And maybe JHam wants to do some new things and bring in new blood, and that's fine, but they better be able to recruit.
Yes, I very much do realize that there are Geographic "regions" to Recruiting, but do you believe at all that when we target a top DL target, the Position coach isn't a main part of his Recruiting, regardless of region?
I'm not trying to bash on Wiles, but I think its a big stretch to portray him as an ace Recruiter that will be very difficult to replace.
Here are some names just off the top of my head...V. Dimukeje, K. Wardlow, A. McNeil, R. Sandidge, B. Johnson, A. Jones, A .Powell. These all are guys in just the past few recruiting classes that we have been unable to land, nearly any of these players would be significant contributors here. More so, there is really no reasonable excuse for the lack of DT in the 16-18' classes..whether it is your "region" or not, as a position coach, it is your job to make sure you are getting enough players to fill your positional needs.
Thus the use of the word "primarily"...
You might see some sort of move away from "twitch over size", but I don't think you'll see an appreciable difference in the caliber of player which will be recruited for DL. Unless other factors change - specifically athletic $$ significantly increases - VT will still not be in the set of programs that will be able to recruit "twitch AND size".
Bud Foster's defensive philosophy and scheme at Virginia Tech wasn't just X's and O's. Becoming and being DBU (among other things) meant compromises in other areas of the defensive scheme. For the most part, VT recruited players to fit the entire defensive scheme within its limitations wrt recruiting. And it did it fairly successfully.
My guess is if Foster and Wiles had coached at, say, Florida, the scheme and the type of players recruited for it would have been somewhat different than at VT. Largely because they could.
Sure, but I'm also going to guess that VT recruits better than they did when Bud first formulated that strategy at VT.
Will be interesting to see what they can do.
I'm sure VT recruits better now than then, but I'm not sure what your point is. The basic premise was still the same if you can't get size AND speed in one package with any regularity.
The point is that VT is a lot more competitive from a recruiting perspective now than when Bud first utilized the strategy of recruiting speed over size. Nobody questioned it, because it was working. Recently, it hasn't been working as well.
We have more options now.
VT is a lot more competitive from a recruiting perspective now but it hasn't been working recently. That's a contradiction wrapped in wishful thinking.
We have more options now? Please do tell us what those options are.
Anybody who is paying attention will see that less-than-blue-blood kids kids are no longer interested in going to 2nd tier programs to sit for 2 or 3 years. They'd rather go to a lower level P5 or G5 program and play than go to a better, but non-blue blood, P5 program and risk sitting for a few years. The result is depth is getting spread around more evenly, programs like VT aren't getting the depth they once did, and "upsets" are happening with greater and greater frequency because the talent imbalance isn't what it used to be.
My fear is VT ends up trying recruit more size (with fairly predictable moderate success) but ends up neither big nor fast - and no defensive identity.
What I'll say is it's amazing the bubble people put themselves in with regard to recruiting. They blame everything but the real culprit - themselves and their wallets.
Will we have any coaches for the bowl game?
Bruce Smith to coach DL. /s
Bruce Smith could strap on a helmet on New Year's Eve and crush a QB, I'm certain
Logical me: I'm disappointed for Coach Wiles and his family. If this was truly out of the blue for them, then it's classless. I thought the D-line was very much improved as the year went on. I'm sorry to see him go and hope he knows how much he meant to Hokie nation.
Irrational me: What in the actual hell is going on with Fuente? I'm with French on the other thread, this administration is completely tone deaf in its perception. Not that it matters to them, but really? Who gets the D-line job, Fuente's botanist? Wiles should have been an asset to the success of JHAM in his new DC role, now you will get one more unknown commodity going into a make or break year.
Really irrational me: FIRE EVERYBODY BUT JHAM!!!!
J Ham didn't want Wiles as his DL coach.
You can't very well give J Ham the job and not let him make any staff changes.
Is this just a guess, or something you've heard? Because it doesn't make much sense to me. I don't see any reason why JHam wouldn't want the guy, unless there's some very hush-hush shenannigans going on away from the field that I really don't want to know about.
Heard this morning that him and Wiles didn't necessarily eye to eye on personnel and that J Ham wants to get bigger on the DL.
And in reality, if J Ham requested Wiles stay, then he would be staying.
I can confirm. They want to do something's different at the Dline as jHam has been exposed to different Dline techniques that he would like to implement and that's why this is happening.
Different techniques and getting bigger on the line would help with recruiting DE and DT...
...so our DLine is going to get bigger and more disruptive?? YES PLS!!
The bigger issue is Wiles only knows buds style of play and Jham wants to add something new in that Wiles isn't familiar with. It's kind of the can't teach and old dog new tricks type deal.
But Wiles is an intelligent football coach not a dog lol. And Bud's style of play has been done a pretty damn good job so far. Obviously it's JHams choice when it comes down to it but it's still a bad look regardless of these justifications. Who can he hire at DL coach that'd be an upgrade over Wiles?
Sometimes it's not about raw talent, but scheme fit. If Wiles didn't buy into the new scheme at his position of expertise, wouldn't Jham want to hire somebody who shared his vision enough to execute it?
I only half buy this argument. You give Wiles two or three Tim Settles and he'd "adapt" just fine.
But you could say that about pretty much any DL coach.
It was part of Wiles job to go get the Tim Settles' not have them given to him.
I'll just say this. In the Hamilton DC thread, there's talk about Foster taking heat for Hamilton and that being an example of outstanding leadership. If that's true for that situation, then Fuente deserves the same praise for taking the heat here with Hamilton wanting to go in a different direction on the DL.
Don't we all want to get bigger on the DLine? I always assumed that our lack of size on that unit was an unfortunate circumstance of our recruiting prowess, not an intentional design. We'd like bigger linemen, but all the croots with the necessary speed and desired size were going to Bama, Clemson, Auburn, OSU et. al. Very interesting.
Of course every man wants to get bigger on his D line. Lack of size of your unit can hurt your recruiting prowess. You have to work hard to over come such hurdles to score with the 5* crowd. I hear being funny or having lots of money helps.
Well this may be insane but I'd feel better going with the guy who's been here 24 years and had one of the most consistent units in the country over that period rather than the guy with 1 year of FBS coaching experience
I know I am in the minority but I was really hoping this would be the case with the new DC.
I respect Wiles time and dedication to VT but I have found our inability to coach size on the DL to be absolutely baffling. And when we did have size they often were moved to OL in a matter of days arriving on campus. It was not about twitch, speed and scheme. There are quick DL that have size.
We just couldn't ever recruit them because we have had a history for a long time of moving players off DL and using LBs as DEs and DEs as DL. That's not how you land 5 star DL / DE recruits. So it was never a surprise to me when we missed out on so many VA prospects over the years.
I also found Wiles disingenuous about moving players when interviewed about it.
That may rub people the wrong way. I really don't mean to disrespect the man because he gave his coaching career to VT and deserves to be hoisted and carried out on shoulders from a game, but I for one am VERY excited about the prospect of a new DL coach.
I am not sure how much of the players moving was Wiles decisions. How many of the big men that Charlie was able to bring into the program and was planning on coaching were forced to go to O-Line because of absolutely horrible O-Line recruiting? Charlie has always coached up the D-Line, and even when weak on depth has tried to make a unit that works well together.
Also how much of the lighter, quick D-Line was based on Bud wanting a light, quick D-Line. The D-Line coach does what the DC wants.
false logic. It's extremely poor management to use resources for one project to cover the losses of another project. It may have been by necessity but it did damage. That shouldn't be overlooked.
You don't recruit kids to be one thing and move them because you can't recruit at another thing. And before it's said I know players are being moved on every team. It just happened so much on our DL that we became known for it.
I don't have the time to google all of Wiles interviews and all the times players were moved. It's been a lot. And it's been a known issue since when I was at VT in the late 90s. Another TKPer told story of his cousin a P5 recruit dismissing VT because we had a reputation of moving DL. If you want to go back to check it out, please do so.
But when you have a reputation like that and you're a 5 star DE/DL choosing between VT and your other top school, you pick the other one. You don't take the added risk that you could be moved.
To the second point, I could've sworn (by which I mean I definitely remember reading stories written over the past 20 years or so) that the lighter DLine approach was a "we're doing this because we have to" thing from Bud. It's always been easier for us to pick up undersized/lower ranked linemen and figure out a way to work with that because the bigger guys were going elsewhere - that was a big part of the reason Bud gets so much credit as a great coach, because he managed to figure out a coaching solution to a personnel issue that we didn't seem to be able to solve through recruiting, especially when we were a smaller name in the 90s.
Yep. Most schools can't get size and speed. They have to choose one or the other.
Those programs which generally stick to one of the two usually have an identity and are pretty successful. Those who take a mish-mash of size and speed usually end up as neither.
I can understand that JH wants to get bigger on the DL, but I'm not convinced there won't be a trade-off.
Wiles should have done a better job recruiting his position. There is really no excuse around it. Per your the other posts about money and how it's somehow donors fault - maybe money helps when we're going up against the likes of FSU, PSU, or Alabama, but let's not act like CW didn't lose a tremendous amount of talent - who would have contributed at VT - to places like NC ST.
I don't disagree but it had a knock on effect. The "we're doing this because we have to" extended to moving players that came who did have size immediately over to the OL. Whether that's because "we have to" lure DL recruits in to cover shit OL recruiting or "we have to" because our scheme is gimmicky to the point that it's only designed for smaller speed guys does it really matter? Either way it discourages the elite DL/DE who only want to play that position from choosing VT because of the "we had to" issue.
Foster made a mountain of a Defense that is literally legend status. But it has its break points. DL size is one, recruiting for DL is another and an inability to stop mobile QBs is another.
Even some of the most thin have been among the top units in the country
Again agreed. But then don't complain when we never land recruits and struggle to fill bodies on the DL. (not you specifically, fans in general) It's a double edged sword. I just like to recognize it openly.
Okay but then you don't complain when we don't get to the quarterback and guys stand in the pocket and throw for 3-400 yards, as you say it's a double edged sword. I'm just acknowledging that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
No need to complain. I'm certain all of the DL and DE at standard size getting sacks for other teams can similarly do so at VT.
chase young doesn't have enough "twitch" to play at VT
/sssss
I wonder how much of that is on Wiles vs our OL not having any depth in the late Beamer years.
I suppose I'll withhold judgement until we see who the replacement is, but this certainly looks like a very bad move to me. Good luck in whatever you choose next, Coach Wiles. You'll be missed around here, big time.
I don't really see this as anything too shocking. Fuente took over a program that had an entrenched coaching staff and players with lots of loyalty to them. I really expected that the holdovers would be retired or let go in a few years. I doubt all of them would mesh well with a big program culture change. I think Bud was the catalyst for this since he was the biggest and most important retainee from the Beamer years.
Chances are some of the inconsistencies we've seen have been a result of mixing of staffs.
I can see it now-
Hokiesports news flash: Coach Wiles replaced by Bob Engleberry. He's worked at the concession stand as a graduate assistant for the last 3 years. Coach Fuente said, "the guy poors a mean cup of Sprite, we thought he'd fit what we're trying to do here. His recruiting will be a great asset to our staff as we continue to recruit the roughest of diamonds/cubic zirconia."
Then, again, Fuente could have just cleaned house on day one.
We've witnessed first hand why this is the approach most new coaches use.
This transition was about as smooth as it possibly could have been, while attempting to maintain the strength of VT's defense.
I just heard from #Sauce Fuente is trying to build the inside of the building like Clemson, by having analysts on staff. Bud is already confirmed, and it looks like they are trying to get Wiles on board as well.
That would give us two analysts on defense and one on offense with Kill.
If true..... This would be a very strange process to make that happen. Again, a lot of unknown unknowns here but why would you announce a firing and then ask the guy to stay on as a consultant?
I have no idea if this is true but the conversation could've gone something like:
VT: Charley, we appreciate everything you've done but we want to move in a new direction at D-Line and will be looking elsewhere to fill that coaching position. That said, we recognize how much you mean to this program and we greatly value your insight. We would love to keep you on the team as an analyst.
That's not an unreasonable ask, particularly if he was considering retiring in the not too distant future. He would get to stay in Blacksburg and have a lot less work load.
Again, that's not to say anything about what did or didn't happen. Just saying it's not that hard to see how that conversation may have gone.
You may be right, but it's still a little puzzling. It would seem a much better strategy to announce an end to his coaching contract at the same time as announcing his new advising role with the team. There very well may be some reason this was not possible. That whole story is just missing some pieces to make it fit. Like others I hope the school treated Wiles well, class act, and we won a lot of games over the years on the backs of his d-line and the many other fine Hokies he recruited. Charlie, we're all gonna gonna miss you a lot, the only guy that could ever out-folksy Frank Beamer, at least on a good day.
I may be wrong but my understanding is he wasn't fired per se, he just wasn't renewed and instead asked to consider staying in a staff role.
IIRC, this is similar to how Hite and Coach Cav transitioned out as assistant coaches, which was never as "mutual" as was messaged publicly at that time.
Everything I heard about Hite was he loved the transition. Cav was a very different story.
Also know this to be true. Cav was really unhappy about being let go.
Without going into too much detail, I can tell you that neither were happy. Hite was just much better at pretending it was all good whereas Cav didn't really attempt to hide his displeasure very much.
Billy was developing some serious eye problems that made it very difficult to have him traveling to recruit.
I wonder how much was disappointment in FB's decision vs. disappointment in his body failing him.
Only coach I can remember wearing sunglasses, including night games.
The sun never sets on a badass.
RIP Matt LaPorte
Too right, mate.
Clearly couldn't see shit. He's trying to pound it when 32 is clearly high fiving.
Now that I think about it I do remember Hite saying he was happy about not recruiting as the landscape was changing a lot. Which there are lots of coaches that don't like recruiting.
Specifically the way recruiting had changed over the course of his career.
LOL Coach Cav was never a really happy guy. He was curmudgeonly.
From the one time I met him at one of those Hokie Alumni events, I'd totally agree with you.
He could put on a great salesman face though. He brought a ton of those recruits in back in the day.
The players were always surprised when he came out to practice for the first time and acted like a cranky old coach when he was such a friendly recruiter.
I know Billy loosely and remember talking to him in 2011 about it and he was super excited to not have day to day responsibilities but still be a part of the team
Coach Hite is absolutely hilarious.
When we would go to UNC during warm-ups, he would look up at the retired names around the stadium (Lawrence Taylor, Julius Peppers, etc.) and he would go:
"Looks like they took my name down".
LMAO. He was a pure GEM.
It's interesting too that VTs national relevance lines up with his tenure more than any of the other coaches imo
He was the lone hold over from Coach Doley's staff. He moved to Tech from UNC.
God I miss Billy Hite and his thoroughbreds
I miss Billy hite because he knew how to recruit running backs. Period,
And coach them up. He coached Darren Evans and Ryan MF Williams, these are the two names that I associate heavily with Hite.
There's about 30 more guys out there to associate. Hite was here before Beamer.
I missed them all as I joined fandom the time Bryan Randall was the quarterback. I think Kevin Jones was the running back but memory is hazy.
Jones was amazing to watch, I remember watching a run his frosh year which he looked like he was jogging and no one was keeping up. He made running look effortless.
Both of those guys didn't need a whole bunch of coaching up. They were natural RBs. Same with Brandon Ore. Just give 'em the ball and a crease.
I remember David Wilson making huge strides between 2010 and 2011
I remember David Wilson taking fast strides
I remember him taking fast strides right at me!!
This gif ALWAYS makes me crack up. Thank you.
Remember back when Bud returned from his coaching trip with Iowa or Missouri and he said that they needed more staff to ease the burden off the coaches?
Glad that VT is finally adapting to the time even though it's late in the game.
I wouldn't have been surprised if Wiles retired with Bud, but I felt like he had a few more years left in him. I thought he would stay 2 or 3 more years under JHam to help with the transition and then retire. This doesn't seem to make much sense from the outside, he's a helluva coach.
So Fuente promoted a first-year P5 position coach to DC, promoted a non-position coach to RBs, and didn't renew our best and longest-tenured position coach.
Got it.
Reading above it sounds like it may have been JHam's call.
So Fu promoted a guy with 1 year FBS coaching experience then approved his move to terminate a guy who for 24 years coached what is consistently one of the top units in college football
Would we have been that shocked if Wiles had been let go when Fuente came on board originally?
Of course not, because that's what most new head coaches with big paychecks do. We were in an very unique spot at that time with retaining Foster to be honest
You are missing a few critical details there. He promoted Bud's hand picked successor to DC, he promoted a non position coach that has coaching experience to RB coach, and we have no idea JHam's input on Wiles.
Ok, a few missing critical details here too.
"Coaching experience, such as UT Martin and Central Connecticut State" and "UVA-Wise and VMI"
You can't halfway commit to this decision. Fuente handed JHam the keys to the defense. He trusts him. If Fuente was concerned with that experience he wouldn't have given him the job. Can't say yep Justin you have the job, but just so you know I'm keeping Wiles, a guy who has been running this system for many years now and essentially has the authority to overrule you if he wants to. Ham's gotta do it his way.
I think that once Bud was gone then Wiles was going to be gone regardless of who the new DC was going to be. I don't think it was a J Ham decision. Now if you have guys have actual sources/sauces that it was a J Ham decision then fine, otherwise this is all just pure speculation.
I will add this, I was hanging with former Tech RB Josh Oglesby a few weeks ago, and he was saying that running back coaches have the easiest job of all the coaching staff. For the most part RBs rely mostly on their god given talent. The hardest thing they have to learn is protections and pass blocking.
Coming from coaching experience in other sports, I can say that often times, the best coaches are those who can learn the scheme and communicate it well, structure practices to reinforce it, and build the culture within their room. Running back in particular doesn't have the nuance of something like DB from a technique perspective, so talent and instincts are far more critical than positional running technique.
edit: this is in response to the general TKP reaction, not to Wiles leaving.
So...who's gonna coach the team in the bowl game?
Bob Engleberry (see above)
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Yup. When Frank retired, we had a long period prior to that of little change.
Now that we are closer to the real world of college football and don't have the comfort of knowing our legend is returning, this is how the off season looks at most schools. Shifting, shaking, moving, realigning. All of it.
After Kill was brought in, we looked like a completely different team. If this is the trend with putting analyst inside, then I'm all for it.
Not surprised and not disappointed. Charley has been a long time member of the staff at Tech but this was a long time coming. The failure to land any prototype NFL lineman (Hand, Ferrell, Sweat, Nnadi, ad nauseum) based on scheme has IMO been a huge hindrance to greater success. I've lamented many times you can be both quick and large, see Settle, the only prototype guy at VT the last 15 years
Nnadi is pretty much exactly the kind of DT we catch shit for. He was a big recruiting miss, but he is 6'1 like most of our DT's have been.
He was never coming here. Not even on his radar. We need to move past our thoughts on Nnadi. I agree with Sweat, Hand and the rest though.
FWIW it's not like we don't go after the quick and big DL, it's that there is a limited number of those guys available and they mostly end up at blue bloods. Once they're gone you can go for big and slower or quick and smaller. Seems like we'll be flipping our second choice now to big and slower when we can't get the big and quick guys.
oh oh how I wish all of our coaches were held to this standard in recruiting. That would be awesome. What NFL WR have we produced the past 15 years? Isiah Ford bouncing on practice squads? What pro RB have we produced the past 15 years? David Wilson? for 3 years? I would love it if this was the position coach standard here all around. We would catch Clemson much quicker that way.
I agree with you, but just in the interest of answering your rhetorical question -- I went back to the 2004 draft since you gave a 15 year time frame.
At WR: Ernest Wilford, David Clowney, Eddie Royal, Josh Morgan, Justin Harper, Danny Coale, Corey Fuller, and Isaiah Ford were all drafted.
As for RB: Kevin Jones, David Wilson, and Ryan Williams were all top-40 picks and had their careers cut short by injury. Cedric Humes was also drafted.
Isaiah Ford was the leading receiver for the Dolphins yesterday- 6 catches for 92 yards. Pretty awesome that he balled out once he got his chance, right?
I could be wrong, but I'm guessing Tre Turner will get drafted. Tayvion Robinson is looking promising as well.
Every one of those guys went to blue blood program with a football budget much bigger and much greater program cache than VT's. You're greatly overestimating the impact of coaches in recruiting and underestimating the impact of money in recruiting.
If anyone is too blame for recruiting "failures", it's VT's athletic fundraising arm and donors.
Fuente quote taken from the Hokiesports.com article. After reading that... anyone who thinks Wiles is coming back in an analyst capacity is dreaming. I for one applaud Fuente for making a bold move if he doesn't like the status quo. Big time coaches get rid of people in .5 sec if they have lost their edge, technical or otherwise. My question is----- Is Fuente taking a hard enough evaluation on Brad? Let's hope so.
He should have cleaned house after 2018, when the defense was ranked 100th in the country. That would have made more sense and sent a much bigger message.
With 5 freshmen starting? You show me any other program that has to start 5 freshmen and I'll show you a defense that isn't going to do well and it doesn't matter who is coaching them.
There are rumors that they are at least considering replacing Cornelsen. Could be saving money on some of these other positions to be able to afford a big name OC.
Lechtenberg?
I'm laughing so I don't cry.
I am not really upset with this move, as long as the Athletic Department treats Wiles well with an analyst position or some other form of compensation for his decades of work. Always have wanted to see the D-line get bigger, and was very excited about the results we got from Tim Settle. Speed or "twitch" seemed to be more important than size in our recruiting which resulted in smaller, shorter lines that could be gashed if the free hitter missed or the gap fits broke down. Settle always required two blockers when he was fresh, and we could certainly use more linemen of his size and skill. Glad to hear JHam wants to increase the size of the D-line. Have no idea what that will mean for the scheme, but it encourages me nonetheless. Will of course be very interested to see who replaces Wiles, am hopeful for an outside hire with decent chops.
What, we weren't paying him all along? I can see keeping Bud on. But we'll be needing Wiles' salary to pay his replacement.
Most of the rest of your comment I agree with. Part of hiring a new coach is that we change some things.
Yes, he was well paid. 24 years is extraordinary loyalty nowadays, and it always appeared to me that Wiles was to Foster what Foster was to Beamer. It may be big business, but treating people well is never a bad decision. Just my 2 cents worth.
He had job security and a great job for 24 years, in an industry that's famous for not having that.
What is going on today?!
Game of Thrones off season.
*Rains of Castamere begins playing on a kazoo*
Honestly not surprised and not upset at this move. Appreciate everything Wiles has done for VT and a great coach, but this is several years overdue. It's time to cut ties with the last relics of the Beamer era and move forward with a full transition. I mean seriously, Wiles had no idea he could possibly not be retained with Bud retiring? New coordinators likely mean new assistants. I'm tired of the mindset of some of the VT old guard that they are just guaranteed a position at VT for life and can retire when they want with little accountability. Again, Wiles has been great for VT over the years, but his positional group has gotten thin with many recruiting misses in recent years. It's long past due for a fresh perspective here. Wish him well and hopefully he can stay on as an analyst of sorts. But I'm looking forward to who JHam can bring to revamp our DL.
If Wiles got canned and Corn is still serving in his coordinator capacity by year's end, I'm gonna have a stroke.
Excited to see how the guy who cuts Fu's mom's hair does coaching the D-Line next year though.
Don't like that there wasn't a discussion with Wiles about the process; we are adults here and the man was with VT since 1996, some respect is due
To be fair, I don't think we knew definitively who the replacement was going to be.
But Wiles did know some change was coming.
Fuente better win big with no decline in the play of the defense and an effective offense in 2020. Anything less and the fans will become a very unkind mob! Maybe they already are.
Fans: "We demand some changes!"
Fans: "Woah, you're changing some things!"
That's a good one, haven't heard that one here today.
You know, I find most people on TKP to do a good job giving reasons for their opinions and being consistent with them.
I guess you've been reading different comments.
Or maybe you just find it easier to make blanket statements if you ignore what people are actually saying.
Yeah but the changes that are happening were at groups that improved vastly this year (CB, DL) and guys that are getting promoted don't have credentials to be in the positions they're getting. Burden is the exception, though to be fair he was coaching out of position.
Bottom line is they better bring some solid replacements in....also for everyone lauding the change, has anyone though about how the players feel about these moves? Already saw Chatman's twitter where he threw shade at the Mitchell move, he can't be the only one who doesn't appreciate it.
FTFY
We want some changes to the staff (and mostly on the offense, looking right at you Corn), but overall the main argument in favor of JHam over the last month or so was continuity on defense. Now with Wiles gone, there is exactly zero continuity on defense, turning what I already felt was a suspect hire into something even worse.
Also, who the fuck spells it "woah"
So I have always spelled it woah, but now my computer says I should spell it whoa, which seems to correct?
Did Mandela die in prison in South Africa in the 80's or get released and become president in the 90's?
Loony Toons or Loony Tunes?
Berenstein Bears or Bearenstain Bears?
There is not such thing as Jiffy Peanut Butter?
Black Rob has entered the chat...
Black Rob: Please review my instructional video provided below. It's like WHOA!
DJ Dangerous also enters the discussion...
Hit the Woah dance
Looney
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-were-watching-woah-w...
Send your resume to Fuente already
So all change is the same? There is zero difference between good and bad things? This is six year old logic
From what I've been seeing in person and online, they already kind of are already getting mob-like....
I just hope that the 2020 omelet is exquisite after breaking these eggs.
I don't mind waiting to see how it turns out.
This might be lowest level of excitement I've ever have going into next season.
Really?
I'm more optimistic about next year than I was about this year.
I see the defense regressing and the offense staying about the same. I know some guys will get better but with a harder schedule another 8-4 or worse season is again in the horizon..
Why wouldn't the offense get better?
Most of the same guys on the team should mean some improvement.
Personally, while it sucks for Wiles, I'm willing to give JHam the benefit of the doubt. It's his defense now. Let him build it and take in the direction he sees fit.
You summed this up perfectly. We need to put ourselves in CJF shoes and JHams. Who takes this job if they are told "You need to keep these 4 coaches" or "I need to approve every move you make".
JHam is coming in and making changes he sees fit. Which is actually very refreshing because I was concerned with his "inexperience" he was going to come in and try to keep it as status quo as possible. I was worried he wasnt going to put his touch or wrinkle on anything.
Please, someone make Charley a t-shirt that says "24 years of coaching and all I got was this lousy tweet."
I can understand all of the reasoning above about how it's a new regime and Fuente/Hamilton want to get rolling with new assistants. But for a guy who gave nearly a quarter century to the program, and did it very well without any off-the-field controversies, this comes across as almost completely lacking the Hokie Respect that the athletics program promotes at every turn.
If you're outraged by this, then you should be equally as outraged for how the departures of Billy Hite and Jim Cavanaugh were handled by Beamer.
Hite wanted to leave, and left on his own terms. But agree regarding coach Cav.
Nope... Hite was required to change roles, it wasn't his choice. Coach Hite doesn't rock the boat though, so he didn't complain publicly. Cav was always outspoken and grouchy, so it was a lot more obvious when he wasn't 100% happy.
This is incorrect. Hite was excited for his assistant to the head coach role or whatever
I'm about 95% sure that I recall Hite's daughter, Bryn, making a Twitter or Facebook post implying that was not the case at the time. If I'm able to dig it up I will add it.
Also it's entirely possible that Hite gave that impression to you but, as DCHokie02 said above, "Hite was just much better at pretending it was all good."
I suppose it's possible that he lied to me to save face, but it seemed sincere. His sister thought it was sincere too
Lie to save face? It's safe to say Billy Hite doesn't need to do anything to "save face" to a fan so I certainly hope that wasn't the case. I'd lean more toward the concept that some people prefer not to openly complain about private matters and instead choose to emphasize potential positives even in tough situations.
I used to tailgate with the Hites and he told me this while we were walking through Merryman on the way to his office to pick up the ACCCG tickets he got for me.
I'm nobody special, but I wasn't just a rando fan asking either.
I'm not saying he didn't say this to you, but i'm also not gonna say he told you the truth.
I imagine that you both may be right (and wrong about the fact that its mutually exclusive).
Hite could have been excited at the prospect at the new position and happy to ease into that role while still being disappointed and upset about not being an everyday coach. He is a human, and last I checked, humans are complex emotional beings capable of feeling more than one emotion.
Wiles got big-dogged.
By who?
I hate to see Wiles go.....BUT
He's the last holdover from the Beamer coaching era. He's been a great DLine coach, but we've struggled at depth for a while now and for some reason, recruiting that position has been missing, even though Wiles has been great at bringing in players at other positions.
I'm also guessing that JHam has an idea who he wants and who he needs, I hope anyway.
My biggest fear right now is that we aren't able to fill these coaching vacancies with talented guys who've been coaching for a while.
None of this had to be easy for Fu. Things needed to be shaken up.
The timing seems about right to pull off the band aid. Who knows what other plans they will have with this defense. I will miss Wiles but the Justins deserve the right to make this thing their own.
J
C
Price
I'm not really shocked by any of this. I'm guessing that Fuente felt the fire this past season and decided if he's gonna go out, he's gonna go out with people he thinks give him the best chance to win. I'm assuming that a goal of the revamp is to add more support staff to hopefully help as much as the Kill hire did.
I heard Odom wanted to see what head coach positions became available before finalizing a deal and that Clemson was making a run at JHam for the same position and big pay bump. Fuente was worried about losing out on both and pulled the trigger on promoting JHam. I'm guessing that either LB or DB coach will be the one with 757 ties other than that It'll prob all be Fuente guys rather than legacy VT or area guys
With Wiles leaving, a name we should be on the lookout for is Daryl Tapp. Currently serving as a special teams QC coach for Vanderbilt. For the youngis, Tapp was an All-American DL under Bud from 2002-2005, 2nd round draft pick and a 12 year NFL veteran. Extremely well regarded. By all accounts, Tapp and Hamilton are close:
Link Here
Wouldn't be shocked to see Tapp and Tyler manning the front seven next year. If this tweet from Kyshoen Jarrett is any indication, he may be joining us next year as the secondary coach:
People can get mad all they want right now but if this ends up as Tapp-Tyler-Jarrett-Hammer with Bud and Wiles as analysts, I'd be damn happy.
Your "link here" line lights up like a link but otherwise is normal text
Aaliyah is so hot.
She passed away too young 😓
Hmm.
Reading the Roanoke Times article got me excited about J. Ham coordinating the defense this fall. I would love to know what scheme he will run.
So would the rest of the offensive coaches in the ACC.
So you're saying not to expect to see the spring game on TV this year?
To be fair, most think that the ACC Network will require the spring game to televised from here on out.
Jarrett would be a really solid pickup. I remember that after he got the career ending injury, the Skins kept him around to work on their support staff. He definitely would have something to bring to the table.
I had the distinct pleasure of having Darryl Tapp as a customer in my store once while I was working in Blacksburg, and he was one of the friendliest customers I'd ever had. Until I read the linked coach's profile at Vandy, I didn't realize he had been in the league for 12 years, or that he had interned with the Saints. Good for him, I really like that guy.
I remember he gave my family a chair that he use for hes dooroom. I sat in that chair for years
Hmm... Uhhh... You know... I really don't know how to interpret the last part of that first sentence, there are too many possibilities.
Would love to bring in Kysheon as a GA or analyst. By all accounts he was one of the smartest guys to play in our secondary.
Guys, we're good. The last time a team promoted the waterboy they won the Bourbon Bowl. 2021 National Champs is confirmed!
I don't get happy or sad about coaches. I'll be happy when the program starts recruiting, acting, and winning like a program that intends to make the playoffs.
And I don't think VT will have to follow the Ole Miss (edit: Hugh Freeze) plan to do so.
If there really are young'uns who don't know the name, here's all you need to know about Darryl Tapp. He walked into practice one day, picked up the lunchpail, and announced that he was keeping it, and if anyone wanted to take it they had work harder than him.
He kept it for two years.
I really want Tapp over any other candidate. I think he has loads of potential, and think he could be a really good recruiter for us.
I want him too but we are going to need to get some guys with some solid experience on this staff. The high risk, high reward move we just made was JHam. Fuente needs to now surround him with the best supporting cast he can. Several high risk, high reward guys all on the same coaching staff at the same time could spell a recipe for a not so good defense.
Have a close source that says Hampton head coach Robert Prunty will be the new def line coach and terms were agreed upon a month or so ago.
Spent four years as the University of Cincinnati's associate head coach and defensive ends coach and three years as co-defensive coordinator. Big time connections to the 757. Big 12 Conference Recruiter-of-the-Year in 2010-11 and 2011-12 before earning similar honors as the American Athletic Conference's (AAC) top recruiter in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
https://hamptonpirates.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/robert-prunty/981
Go on....
Would be a great hire IMO!!
Agreed. He would be a Prunty good hire.
Take your leg and get outta here.
Linked to the program by Whit via being on Tuberville's staff at Cincinnati. Are there enough degrees of separation from Fuente to make this a good hire? 🤔
they worked in the big-12 and aac at the same time... so i doubt it
That settles it. I'm getting my torch.
Head coach in FCS D-1, to D-line coach in FBS Power 5? He's also been semi succesful, 6-5, 7-3, bad year this year at 5-7.
I recall a MAC or SunBelt head coach leave for a coordinator position recently, can't recall who. But, to me, I'd be surprised if he moves in this direction.
Sooooooo...Grimes dad will be okay with this, or...?
247 crystal ball has him now at 50% VT (not that that means anything). But he's been about us since the 8th grade when we offered him and has remained interested despite us not always being the greatest. If we are able to maintain momentum heading into next season and have a good class, I think he commits.
CB to tech is from October of last year so i wouldn't take it as meaning anything.
Have a friend whose son plays for Hampton. Said the coach recently informed the players he's leaving to be def line coach for VT
SAUCE.GIF
Is Robert Prunty related to Karon Prunty? If so, we had 100% of Karons CBs but he committed to Kansas on 12/8 which might mean the elder Prunty was planning on a VT job but something didnt work out and so the younger Prunty made a different choice...
Or they aren't related and I just like reading tea leaves.
"He is married to Kimberly and has one son Robert Prunty, Jr. and a daughter Gabrielle."
That's what it says on his Hampton bio so, no he is not.
might not be immediate family, but could still be related
^IIRC there are rules about hiring relatives/relations of your recruiting targets. Could actually be a good sign
Terms were agreed upon a month or so ago? That's an interesting tidbit.
Is David Bennett available?
We need more dogs on defense
Yaassss! I'm jealous I didn't think of coach Bennett.
Firing our two best recruiters. Bold strategy cotton.
According to the naysayers, we didn't have any recruiting game, anyway, so what were we clinging to?
the naysayers pointed out facts like our 80th ranked class. I'm sure unproven recruiters will help
Solution?
U right, better to stick with 80th than try to make improvements.
Improvements? interesting. Who has Lechtenberg signed?
I get it, you'd rather stay status quo
It's opposite day on TKP....
I mean, no harm to Wiles and Mitchell, but the guys they've been bringing in for us lately have helped us to records of 10-4, 9-4, 6-7, and 8-4 (possibly either 9-4, or 8-5) in the years they've been here together. Respectable, but we can do better. And I absolutely don't mean this as a knock on the players, I'm grateful for every one of them.
People clamor for change, then when change happens, the bitch and moan. maybe they aren't the changes you'd prefer but the staff knows better than you. or me. or any of us (except maybe MacGruber).
Would you rather them make some moves in an effort to improve, or keep the status quo listed, as listed above?
Man, I forgot all about MacGruber - what the heck happened to him?! TKP has been sorely lacking in butt jokes recently.
We're going to have to disagree on that.
via GIPHY
He got penalty boxed when Joe was frustrate
You've got to at least give the guy an opportunity to prove himself.
The dudes had like a week man, c'mon, I find myself siding with you fairly often, but this is ridiculous
I can't tell if this and the other responses are sarcasm. It's hard to get a good class when you're only replacing 5 seniors and maybe a small handful of potential transfers. Also if we go after juco transfers instead of recruiting high schoolers.
Quantity has zero to do with quality..nothing. And nope, 4 and 5 star players are not afraid of VT's depth chart.
Quantity has a lot to do with recruiting rankings.
It's part of the way they're figured. Also, it's highly affected from your highest ranked recruit. But you know all of this, so I'm not sure why anyone has to point it out.
In a smaller class, it does mean less.
But I'd also like to point out that this year's class isn't necessarily complete yet.
Nope. I'm not talking about nor do I care about "composite team rank" - which factors in size. Don't care. If we have 3 scholarships to give, should we not try to sign 3 good players? Our highest ranked recruit is in the 750's overall. You can spin it however you like- quality wise it's not good. And signing day is 6 days away. If it's not complete, they need to hurry.
You're simultaneously criticizing this staff's recruiting ability and complaining that we're replacing members of this staff, though we don't even know who their replacements are yet. And you're basing it on one recruiting class that isn't finished yet.
At best I'd have to rate your analysis as INSUFFICIENT DATA.
i agree but this is also sort of naive. there's so much coach churn and players who might decide to go pro by the end of the season that i'd be worried if we were content with our recruiting class and roster and not looking to try and land some of these players that are getting walked by other programs in an effort to better our class
the fact of the matter is that continuous improvement always goes hand-in-hand with a certain level of fluidity -- if we decide to be static about our class, we're inherently not trying to improve it.
i think early signing day will be more of a pleasant surprise relative to where we were in mid-october than a dour one.
Good point. The coaches are out on the recruiting trail.
They're out trying to sign coaches and players. They're doing exactly what we've asked them to do: they're trying to improve the program.
There's not a single 4-star player in this class - this has never happened to VT in the modern recruiting era. Only 5 of the 11 commits have offers from at least one P5 school. Of the ACC schools, only Duke, Syracuse, and Wake have classes without a single 4-star recruit, and all three of those school have commits who are ranked higher than anyone in our 2020 class.
I have no idea how you can justify this. Are kids not interested because they don't think they can get immediate play time? Other coaches can recruit around this. Maybe our coaches are just incredible at evaluating talent? I don't buy it. Maybe our coaches are trying to build pipelines to certain schools/regions? That explanation would most satisfy me.
Even more concerning - it's not like Clemson and FSU are the only members of the ACC recruiting well - Coastal foes Miami, GT and UNC have eleven, five, and seven 4-star commits, respectively. Now, I recognize that I sound like an envious, ungrateful child, whining about how his friends have better toys than he does, but this is a problem, that if not addressed immediately, will cripple us in 2-3 years. The coastal is up for grabs right now; either we can hope that UNC and Miami continue to miss field goals and suffer from boneheaded coaching calls every time they play us, OR we can recruit competitively, and take control of the division.
I'm happy Fuente is making changes, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but if we want to be competitive not just next season, but in the seasons that follow, we have to do better.
There's not a single 4 star in this class yet
I agree with you -- but doesn't make much sense to me to judge the class until we know what the class actually is
The fact is that Fuente's recruiting has been great until this year.
So while I don't like having an off-year in recruiting, this year does seem to be that. But it is also a very small class. It's also not done.
Also, recruiting woes and coaching turnover might be related.
Fuente's recruiting has not been 'great;' it's been inline with the norm at Virginia Tech over the past 10-15 years.
It has been in line with VT best recruiting classes in the last 10 years, not the worst.
No... it's been in line with the average, slightly better. Fuente's average recruit rating from 2016-2020 is 0.8610. If you exclude the transition year, it goes up to 0.8642. Beamer's average recruit rating from 2005-2015 was 0.8582. That's a difference of .0060 - for reference, the difference between the #1 and #3 ranked class for 2020 (Alabama and LSU, respectively) was .0120; about twice this number.
I'd consider recruiting classes with a difference of .006 to be "in line" with each other. Given the arbitrary nature of recruiting rankings, I'd say that's well within the margin of error.
That's my point... Above, you said the following:
I don't understand how anyone could classify Fuente's recruiting as 'great' so I responded by saying:
To which you responded:
I don't understand how you can describe Fuente's recruiting as VT's 'best' recruiting, or 'great' even if you remove this year. The numbers suggest that he recruiting at a pretty typical rate for VT (again, not 'best' or 'great'). And this looks purely at the quality of the recruit, and does not even begin to address the roster imbalance issues that we were facing in 2018.
You pointed out yourself that Fuente's recruiting is in line with Beamer's recruiting.
I'm saying that's a GOOD thing.
I'm not sure what the expectations were, but I can see a method to the madness here. Stabilize the program, get back to winning, improve the winning percentage and recruiting.
I saw Fuente's job as righting the ship that was listing when Beamer left. Now fans are pretending that the ship wasn't starting to list.
lol
What's really going to be fun are the logically flawed rationalizations for why UNC is beating VT's ass and why VT can never hope to compete with them on the recruiting or hiring trail or with facilities (if that starts to happen)... I know that if I were an HC making millions in this environment, I'd be very interested in strategic communications and would delegate someone as responsible for maintaining accounts on popular message boards with the sole purpose of spinning and countering bad news or criticisms of the program. Media marketing for the program isn't confined to Twitter.
But the coaching hires are interesting given the desire/need for more analyst positions and better (football only) facilities that not only appeal to recruits but allow the program to house and utilize more analysts and support staff. This off-season will be interesting to watch just to see how well they develop this side of the program and how clever they have to get with budgeting and staffing.
I'd be very interested in strategic communications and would delegate someone as responsible for maintaining accounts on popular message boards with the sole purpose of spinning and countering bad news or criticisms of the program.
Fuente has VTKey on here
Your last sentence. I'm guessing a primary driver of the coaching changes is to have a younger coaching staff who can relate to recruits and players better than most older coaches and therefore do better at recruiting. If the new D line coaching rumors are true, it also seems like the staff wants to do better in the 757. Getting Good out of state players is fine but VT needs to do much better in state. This year's recruiting class, as of today, is one of the poorest for quality players from in state in many years. The very good 18 & 19 classes had lots of out of state players. That may or may not be sustainable.
Also, thef younger coaches should not command the salary of 20-30 year veterans, leaving more $$$ for analyst positions like Kill. Some risk to be sure, but Kill seemed to make a significant difference. Maybe another couple analysts like Kill will reap more benefits. Seems like the blue blood programs are taking that path.
Yes, don't worry VT has a long history of flipping good players late in recruiting and closing on 4 star guys. S/
we don't. but if you don't think there's a chance of at least one 4* signing with us in the 2020 class, you're either too pessimistic to be reasoned with or not at all paying attention
Is this the smallest class in the modern recruiting era?
For VT, yes - this is our smallest class in (currently) the modern recruiting era. We have currently have 10 commits in this class. Smallest class I could find historically was 18 recruits in the 2006 class, which was good for 31st overall, but 22nd in terms of average rating.
Maybe that's at least one of the reasons 3 coaches are out.
No justification needed my man. 3 coaches have been shit canned so far. What more do you want?
This post wasn't intend to call out the staff; it was directed at the fans who are saying this class is only ranked poorly due to size. I was hoping to convey that (1) this class is pretty far below VT's recruiting standard, regardless of size and (2) this has implications not next season, but in 2/3 seasons down the road.
the coaching staff isn't even filled out yet and you're already claiming they're unproven lol
If they hire great recruiters to replace Charlie and Zohn, great. We will see
Which side of the fence did you fall on when it came to who was responsible for our defensive line depth problem?
Settle declared early. That blew everything up. Fuente couldn't plan for that huge impact. IIWII.
That did happen. In fact you might say that left us with a lot of youth up front.
You can't have 1 player leave early- that kills everything. Takes 4-5 years to rebound from that roster-wise. Yes.
So getting back to the point. You think Wiles wasn't responsible for defensive line depth?
Sure he had some accountability. Fuente made the decision on Hill, and can veto any offer so it's not Wiles alone in a vaccuum. Also Charlie coached 24 years at VT. Yes, in 2017-2018 he had some depth problems. He also signed a bunch of great players over the years and fielded great lines that did not have NFL players on them. But yes, recently ran into some depth issues. Get him out of there.
Projection. I never said he should be fired.
For clarity, I'm pressing you on this because I wanted to see if you held the incongruous beliefs that Wiles was simultaneously our best recruiter and also responsible for depth issues at DT and DE.
So....we recruit a TOP player, that leaves early because he is a top player, but that actually hurts us.
SO.....what's your solution to recruiting? We get a top recruit, that hurts us down the line. We don't, we struggle early to build their experience....just basing it on what I'm reading here.
My solution to recruiting? Out recruit Wake and UVA... start there. After that, Keep the assistants that have actually produced results in said recruiting. But we shall see. Fuente may get Tim Brewster to coach safeties.
But you don't believe composite recruiting stats...
What metric do you want to base this on?
(I mean, loluva has a "top recruiting class" every effin year and can't produce on the field. Even this year, best player is a transfer, so that's not really recruiting from the ground up.)
I do believe in average rank per player. That is a quality metric.. not larger=better- that's BS. Look at the average star per player- those are typically the best classes.
For what it's worth, I had a little back & forth with Dalton Keene's dad on the tweeter, evidently Wiles being let go was not JHam's decision....if true, I retract my previous statements of just "letting JHam build the D the way he sees fit"
Even if it wasn't JHam's decision, he (still) now has to build the D the way he sees fit...
True, my comment in that regard earlier though was with me thinking JHam let Wiles go, because he wanted to take things in a different direction...which it sounds like was not the case.
Either way, it's a part of the business. Part of the business that Hokie fans aren't as used to as nearly every other program in the country.
Any more details? Curious if it WAS JHam's decision, Fuente just did the firing/letting go? Seems strange for Fuente to call the shots if he's giving the reins to JHam and if Bud will still be around, unless Wiles was disappointed he didn't get the gig and said something to players or other coaches that Fuente branded as not cohesive. That's a LOT of reading in of things on my part, but just seems strange that it WOULDN'T be JHam's decision (to me) even if Fuente did the firing/letting go.
I've got to believe they both have input, but the final say is always going to be Fuente.
I wouldn't believe for a second that this came as a surprise to JHam, though.
He replied to a comment of mine, and I didn't want to press too hard, since it is maybe obvious where he got his info from. He essentially said JHam and Wiles are great friends, and that the decision to let Wiles go was not his choice.
Gotcha. This is the tough part about working with people you like and get along well with. This was the challenge with Beamer who was so loyal. It sucks, but is a good sign to me that they appear to value performance over personal feelings even though it makes firings tough.
Yet Cornelsen is still our OC. 🤷♂️
The insinuation here is that it's tough but necessary to let him go... But imo the toughest part about letting him go isn't the personal relationships, it's that this dude built and developed consistently some of the top units in the country given less than stellar talent. How in the world is getting rid of him seen as the necessary or inevitable move. (Not talking time you in particular but that seems to be the take of many people up here which is puzzling to say the least)
A good boss would make that call to allow for JHam to not have to wear that as a brand new coordinator. That would be rough for a former hokie who played for Wiles to have to make that call. Maybe JHam said I'd like to go this direction, Fuente said ok it sounds like we need to go a different direction at that position group. JHam is still great friends with Wiles and doesn't want him to lose his job, while still agreeing with Fuente that it is in the best interest of the defense to make a change. So the end result is that Fuente privately and publicly states that it was his call.
I'll go along with this.
As some (maybe most?) of you know, Wes Keene (Dalton's dad) is a longtime friend of Charley Wiles. They were college roommates. That's how Dalton ended up at VT to begin with. So there is def no doubt where Wes got his info. As with anything though, there are going to be 2 sides to every story, and I agree you were right to just let things lay after he responded. I don't see any value to be gained on pressing for more details to try to pin down exactly how this came about and try to dole out portions of blame, as none of that changes the fact Charley is gone. It's a tough situation for everyone.
Getting fired and getting broken up with are never easy, no matter what anybody says. Everybody wants to go out on their own terms.
I would assume Keene's dad would be an authority on all things Wiles as they were college roommates at Murray State.
I was quite surprised that Wiles was let go, even more so given J-Ham was named defensive coordinator. Figured that connection would've ensured continuity. Anyways, he was a great talent evaluator, developer and solid recruiter. But change isn't easy, and ultimately we won't know whether it was a good/bad move for a long Wiles (sorry).
And to note because it was discussed in a few sports above, Wiles really prioritized twitch when he targeted recruits. It wasn't necessarily that he wanted undersized DL, it's that blue bloods got most of the big and fast ones. Tech had to identify and develop smaller under the radar prospects that had pop.
I somewhat agree with that last part but there have been a lot of recruiting misses the last few years in Wiles' territories where they lost recruiting battles for DL prospects who were far from blue bloods.
I have no problem letting Coach Fuente build the staff that he wants. He's the head coach and I love Coach Wiles. One of the good ones from the time I was there.
That said, the former players are absolutely livid over it. It is a change, and sometimes its hard for people to get aboard with change.
Even more curious to me is that Darryl Tapp played for Wiles right? Wonder what their relationship was like and how he feels for taking over(well atleast half) of Wiles' duties.
All wounds heal with time.
Tracy Claeys - LBs coach
Darryl Tapp - Def Assistant
official
Wiles is added to the NC State Staff
The Coaching position is not stated and not sure if he is joining as a staff member
I'm just picturing our typical undersized DL against Clemson every year.
Yikes
Well, look at their current roster, Don think that'll be an issue. Also, State is running 3-3-5, so one less guy to recruit
Because teams with bigger defensive linemen have really been working Clemson over lately?
I'm picturing a decent chunk of the VT-Florida pipeline shifting to NC State...
I don't see it happening.
Not with the #Everywhere2VT movement getting cranked up.
Florida has heard of VT at this point.
Knew he wouldn't be unemployed for long. Wish he woulda landed somewhere outta the ACC, but at least he's not in the Coastal
from the link:
So I guess he'll be working for NC State AND a secret consulant/ analyst for VT. Man I was so wrong about those Wiles consulant/ analyst rumors from a 'inside source' being ridiculous.
/s
Really excited for him! NC State has more of an NFL D-Line pipeline than VT in the last 10+ years, and Raleigh may be easier to recruit to than Blacksburg.
Won't be surprised if he recruits better at NC State.
So he ends up coaching one of his big misses...Alim McNeil.
In 2020, coach transfers to follow player. /s