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It isn't my lift or property at the lake but a friends who didn't actually have a boat when he bought the property in 2020. He gets permission to use my boat and I have a free storage spot. It works out for both of us.
Always welcome to join me on Claytor.
Has anyone heard of college teams developing analytics departments? I haven't been paying close enough attention to realize whether this is happening yet.
As far as on the field analytics, it's outsourced to consultants. PFF also has a lot of detailed player information. As far as back-office analytics, I'm not sure it's there yet. Even the programs on the leading edge of NIL and whatnot are still mostly reactive.
multiview is so huge for college football saturdays. it alone is worth the price of admission
MW definition of well-rounded:
fully or broadly developed
MW definition of complete:
fully carried out
Definitely near-synonyms and I probably wouldn't read too much into off-the-cuff coach speak. But I want to read into it and I agree with Chris. I would interpret it that Flowers can do more things well (e.g., multiple positions, multiple skills) and Covil has mastered his particular position and the skills necessary for that position.
There is something to this. North Carolina is about the same, first kid to stay in state is #13. Tenn is dominating Tenn though and Louisville grabbed most of the top of KY. Clemson and Sakerlina have most of the top in their states. I know things are more national, but it still feels like we should be starting from a little higher ground with VA kids and the more you land the more momentum you have with others. Hell Maryland kept the #1 overall recruit in the country home (for now).
I agree with this, or at least in theory. VT 2025 will be a good litmus test.
All football teams have a budget. Mid-tier ACC teams can do one of the following: go in on HS recruiting or go in on portal recruiting. It seems that VT is allocating more of their budget to portal recruiting than HS recruiting. GT, on the other hand, is putting a lot of their budget into HS recruits. It will be interesting to compare the two Techs over the next couple of years.
In baseball, analytical models are becoming major resources for roster development. So much player data is put into ML models to make decisions on drafting, international signings, and trading. I haven't followed NFL roster development, but I'm guessing ML models are also becoming major resources. I do wonder how much is being used at the college level, but I would think analytics probably would be super useful in determining how to allocate budgets for roster development. The major difference for CFB, however, is that the landscape has changed so much over the past 5 years that data to build models that reflect current roster development is rather limited. And I think player success in college football is both more volatile and heavily influenced by situation, especially collegiate coaching, fit within scheme, outside private coaching, S&C development, and teammates. Even with those caveats, if collegiate teams are not looking into developing an analytics department, they will fall behind those that do. In fact, I would argue that because of those issues, having a well-developed ML model to filter through the noise could greatly improve collegiate roster development.
Has anyone heard of college teams developing analytics departments? I haven't been paying close enough attention to realize whether this is happening yet.
I think this is just the nation of the nationalization of recruiting, that started 15+ years ago.
Looking at class of 2025... Only three of the top 10 Florida high school athletes are staying in state. 1 of the top 10 and 5 of the top 25 in California are staying in state. Three of the top 10 kansas high schoolers are staying in state. 2 of the VA top 10 stayed in state... it's not a regional sport any more. And that's not just due to Conference Realignment or NIL or portal... that's just life in America - people move way more than they used to.
my point is two-fold. 1. Fuente wasn't a great coach in Blacksburg - partly because we haven't had a good offensive coach in Blacksburg, like, ever. So him being the "best" we've had doesn't mean he's necessarily good. Just better than what we've had otherwise.
2. Maybe he was actually a good coach, but Blacksburg is just cursed and it doesn't matter how good a coach is, they're not going to be able to get our offense to play better than a mid-major. Basically, I don't think it's the coach. I think it's VT. VT just isn't meant to have a good offense and I don't care if you put the best offensive mind in the world on our sidelines, we're just not gonna be good at offense. I'm going to harbor this silly belief until someone comes along and proves me wrong. I will never EXPECT a coach to actually put a good offense on the field in Blacksburg. Many have tried. Many have failed.
The more I think about it, the apparel deal should go to the highest bidder, brand be damned. With NIL a player could cut a personal deal with any brand. Practice and game attire in the schools brand and can wear the other brand everywhere else. From a marketing perspective, Tech can really only use the game and practice pics anyway. The school shouldn't care way kids wear around campus (as long as it's not offensive).
Subtle evasiveness - sounds like a real first-in, last-out kind of guy.
Fuente is probably the most astute offensive football coach
Yes, he was "considered" an offense minded coach. What he showed us all is that it was his way or the highway (read: Bench!). If you tried to think through your reads and not do the primary play plan - he shut you down. This was all exposed after he left.
Sorry, I am not buying this line based on the product we all saw from him here.
I hope Montgomery's plan will work (but that jury is still out). I don't have enough data there to disagree that he has had success in the past and that this kind of QB could work with his plans. I feel our OL will be improved and that the youth that came with Moore will be a base to build on through next year at least.
Functionally Athletic seems like the 2025 version of a real gym rat.
All he can do is prioritize where the dollars go and go get more of them. Better apparel deals, more advertising dollars, continue to grow the Hokie Club, seek innovative ideas for the Hokie Club, improve gameday experiences to improve per game revenue (paint the damn endzones, get LED lights to add lighting effects, etc).
I agree... and I think growing HC is key. Everything else is on the margins IMO. Need to be ready to land that big whale if/when the opportunity comes.
I would be A-ok with a QB that only ran for 350 yds and threw for 4,000. I think the modern QB needs to be able to be a threat with his legs and make a defense pay for dime looks and deep zones through designed QB runs, but don't have to be LT3, J Evans, and Drones style battering rams. Give me Lamar Jackson and Kyler Murray types.
What can the AD do? NIL drives a lot of recruiting (especially in basketball). Either you have the cash or you don't.
All he can do is prioritize where the dollars go and go get more of them. Better apparel deals, more advertising dollars, continue to grow the Hokie Club, seek innovative ideas for the Hokie Club, improve gameday experiences to improve per game revenue (paint the damn endzones, get LED lights to add lighting effects, etc).
EDIT: As far as where they go, recruiting staff, on-campus or off-campus events for HS players and coaches, travel budgets, etc. It looks like Tech should be skewed toward acquiring talent more than retaining it as we can't keep up in the portal.
Results in all avenues is not possible, but I hope they are looking for improvements with GREAT urgency, because I don't ever see much progress or Tech in front of change and innovation. All things VT still seem like an aw-shucks small time mindset. Academics seems to have alignment and goals, Athletics seems to be always trying to figure out how to keep up, not how to get in front.
Baylor lit everyone up with guys who had strong, accurate arms and weren't very elusive like Bryce Petty. RGIII was the exception and he still had a huge arm and could connect on a bunch of downfield shots. Montgomery's Tulsa team scored 52 on VT in Beamer's last game using a similar strategy with Dane Evans at QB.
Petty ran for a total of 338 yards in college with on an average of 1.8 ypc (sacks included because CFB stats are dumb). Dane Evans was even less with 244 yards and 0.3 ypc.
I don't know if he's still running that scheme, but this kid seems to match those sort of QBs.
I hope the AD is paying attention and taking this as a 5 alarm fire
- What can the AD do? NIL drives a lot of recruiting (especially in basketball). Either you have the cash or you don't. Do you think Whit's issue is that he's not good at convincing donors to give? What if the donors are just cheap?
- I'm not sure it's a '5 alarm fire' - I mentioned this above, but I'm not convinced that high school recruiting is the future for schools like VT. Why not let G5 and FCS kids develop talent for us, then we swoop in and take them? I'm asking this a bit rhetorically - I know we can't portal 80 kids per year, but it doesn't make much sense to take a project as a high school recruit at the P4 level.
If we can't keep pipelines open in the state of VA, there is not much hope for sustained success.
What about our pipeline of transfers back to VA? If we get 1-3 APR-level transfers each year, is that better than getting 1-3 of the VAHS top 5-10?
My current view - that I'm still very much workshopping/debating - is:
- I imagine VT can afford to pay for some pretty good players, but we can't afford to spend on someone who doesn't develop; we just don't have that margin.
- Traditionally, every signing class has between 30 and 50% of players who underperform their ranking.
- So, to VT has to mitigate risk when acquiring talent.
Best way to do this is via the portal. Gotta figure you want 1/3 of your talent coming from high school, 1/3 of your talent being portal guys with over half their eligibility remaining, and 1/3 of your talent being plugging holes for the current season.
Assuming my thought process is correct (big assumption) - you'd expect HS recruiting to fall off.
I'm convinced that Blacksburg is where offense comes to die. I'll never expect our offense to go. Fuente is probably the most astute offensive football coach we've had and he couldn't make it work without substantial talents. I'm not expecting this new set of coaches to do any better than what we've seen over the last 30 years. Our offense will probably score 28 ppg and fall somewhere in the lower middle third of offenses in the ACC and we'll lose 6+ games because we just can't score enough. Because that's what our offensive identity has been for my entire lifetime regardless of the coach.
I just want VT to actually be considered by the top players within 250-300 miles as a place to excel athletically. VT doesn't appear to even get a thought from the top VA kids.
I went on Rivals to look at the class of 26 and 27 and VT does not show up much at all in the interest column of the top athletes. Both basketball and football have very bleak futures if this keeps up. I hope the AD is paying attention and taking this as a 5 alarm fire. If we can't keep pipelines open in the state of VA, there is not much hope for sustained success.
I've had a lot of problems over the years, but luckily only one came close to causing a tragedy. No consolation, though. Unfortunately, when I bought my boat, 13 years ago, the trailer was probably older than the boat and wasn't all that solid even then. Now, at 20 years on the boat, I am paying the piper. Lucky, though, so far. A busted spring 300' from my house, the other spring breaking in the driveway as I fixed the broken one, and now this. Lucky again, though because the driveway guy has various machines that will help me move it for their work and then move it back for my misery to come. Boat lifts and waterfront aren't in my range, but this ain't gonna be cheap either. Time to sell the boat and go when I can mooch a ride? At 75, it's at least worth a thought.
Need to have a dramatically improved offensive line for a QB like this to work. For so long the QB has had to scramble so much and/or be a rusher. No pro-style QB could work at VT because we could never protect them long enough to be successful. Hopefully the line will make these kind of strides, because I'd love to see us have a QB who actually is a QB and not having to make the plays with their legs.
Don't get me wrong, happy to have a QB that can make plays running and scrambling. Vick, Tyrod, etc. I just don't want that to have to be the primary or only way to make the offense go.
Does anyone from the NFL elaborate? It seems after Belichick's success, everyone in the NFL takes this close-to-his-vest approach.
He seems extremely cerebral and has the history of being a great teacher. That's pretty dang good qualities for a defensive coordinator. To be successful, he would need some bull-dog like motivators for position coaches, which he definitely has a few of those. Bud Foster is also around, and he's the GOAT at motivating players to play their nuts off.
I am hopeful he can instantly modernize and upgrade the defense. His lack of DC experience at the highest levels, lack of experience on play calling, and just the general miss-rate of coordinators in college football has me worried.
While I am worried about play calling, one of his major contributions to this coaching staff is developing situational awareness. I doubt he makes the same boneheaded play calls that we saw the past few years that showed no situational awareness, like the all-out blitz on 3rd down against Syracuse up multiple scores that resulted in a very long and super quick score.