Recent Comments

My disappointment is not with the lack of flipping recruits. I am very happy with the recruits that signed.

My disappointment is that we have a lack of objectively good depth at LB & DE, and filling those needs over the past several seasons has been less than stellar.

My only real knock against Bud is that his system is probably the single biggest impediment to convincing 4 star talent to sign.

You can poo poo the star system all you want, but there is no doubt Foster has targeted that talent himself and values it very highly. That sort of objective talent can overcome a lot of the issues we have directly faced: lack of speed, lack of size, lack of strength at the point of attack.

Ultimately he needs heady guys filling those positions. Brains/technique will generally suffice for his system. But if the light doesn't turn on, or if we lose a starter to injury, we run into exactly what we've seen on the D these past couple seasons.

So yeah, I think Bud needs to up his game on the recruiting trail. I think Fuente did an awesome job holding the commitments we had, and getting some other key players into his program, and that given a full season, next year should go better in terms of recruiting the O-side of the ball.

I also think the energy of the new staff will likely light a fire under everyone's tail in terms of recruiting.

In the end, I have high hopes for next year, and just think this year was never going to be a big recruiting season regardless of who we had on staff.

Sad to see TG leave. I really hope this isn't a sign of friction between the old and new staffs. My biggest concern about this entire arrangement was whether or not the old guard guys could handle and adapt to Fuente's way of running the program. If he felt slighted or disrespected by the pay cut or any new staff arrangements, I really question why he came back on the staff in the first place. I really don't like the timing of this announcement. But it is what it is. Really liked him as a coach, but with the Tolliver and Davis fiascos within the past few seasons, and then the odd miscommunication during the season between he and Bud about personnel during games, something was kind of off.

I wish him nothing but the best, and it's some consolation to finally see the Beamer coaching tree expanding. I really hope we use this opportunity to hire a top-notch coach as well as recruiter. I understand the sentiment by some to stay within the VT family for this hire, but I really think we need to hire the best candidate we can find nationally. If that is someone with ties to VT, great; if not, so be it. By the same token, I also really would not like to see Fuente hire somebody from within his Illinois State/Memphis network just because he knows and trusts them. We need a great coach and somebody who can recruit. I believe I saw it mentioned earlier in this thread, but someone mentioned Chip West as a candidate. UVa affiliation aside, he had a tremendous amount of success recruiting in the 757 (some at our expense, and I believe most of UVa's biggest recruits were from him). Would also be a great move to counter London and Beatty at UMd. Hopefully there will be a great pool of candidates assembled by the athletic department.

I'm curious as to how TG's departure may affect Bud's scheme this upcoming year. Gray was known at being great with teaching man coverage techniques, so will we be able to run as much Cover 0/Bear as Foster wants? May or may not have significant impact, but will be interesting to watch nonetheless.

For me, 9/3 against Liberty is a must win.

I don't think we could handle a season where playing Liberty wasn't penciled in as a win. Losing would be one thing, but not expecting to win would be another.

To steal info from another post- looking at offers, a lot of these guys were underrated IMHO. Not sure how guys like Denmark, Diablo, Moore, Kumah, Jimmie Taylor, etc are not 4* per Rivals. So, really could have been a class of seven 4* and three 3/4* out of 21.

Point being this is a much better class than at first glance. Just too much emphasis/ diappointment being placed on inability to 'flip' guys.

Evans - Missouri, Texas; #1 JC QB- 4*
Jackson- Boston College, Navy, Northwestern, Oregon State, Utah and West Virginia (#4 player in Mich)- High 3*

Moore OL- Auburn, Mississippi State, Georgia, Cincinnati 4*
Hoyt OL- BYU, Pittsburgh, Virginia
TJ Jackson OL- NC State
Kearns OL- California, Florida, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Kentucky, NC State, Syracuse- High 3/4*
Hopple OL- Pittsburgh, Virginia, Wake Forest, West Virginia
Dzansi OL- Temple, Hampton, Rhode Island (edit: Vice mentioned he is a slam dunk champion at Hylton and runs a 4.9)

Patterson WR- North Carolina, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest- High 3/4*
Kumah WR- Kentucky, Maryland, Miami (Fla.), Tennessee- 4*
Diablo WR- Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, South Carolina and Tennessee- 4*
Denmark WR- Clemson, North Carolina, Notre Dame, South Carolina and Virginia- 4*

Rodgers ATH- Temple, Rutgers, NC State, Old Dominion (#23 player in NJ)

Eron Carter LB- Air Force, Army, UCF (wrestler, track ath, 3.9 gpa)
Bellmar LB- Colorado State, Missouri, Syracuse, Virginia
Beckett LB- Maryland, Rutgers, East Carolina, Indiana, Wisconsin

Floyd DB- North Carolina, Wake Forest, and West Virginia High 3*
Ladler DB- Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State- 4*
Quillen DB- Georgia, NC State High 3*

Taylor DE- Duke, ECU, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, NC State, Tennessee- 4*
Hewitt DT- Purdue, Rutgers, Colorado State, Iowa State (2 time Fla 7A all-state)

Okay, my concerns come not from our poor recruiting but from conference rivals recruiting better and better.

From 247, ACC teams above us in class rankings include UNC, Duke, Miami, Louisville, Pitt, Clemson, and FSU. Add to that teams we are playing in the near future like Tennessee, Penn State, and Notre Dame, we're setting ourselves up for some uphill seasons.

We could have some rough sledding in the near future ladies and gents. It's gut check time not just for the team but for the fan base as well. We could lose a lot of people. It's a one day at a time approach. For me, 9/3 against Liberty is a must win. Right after that game, Tennessee will be next on the chopping block.

That is how you win recruiting battles. Prove you develop talent, win games, and grow resources.

yeah more than just the pay cut, I have tons of respect for TG + VT and it wouldn't be my place to share what could be false information on a message board.

IDK, Motley is most familiar with ACC and the receivers currently on the roster. If Fuente is going to trot out a single read passing game I think Motley can be dangerous. He has a cannon of an arm and he's a talented runner. If Fuente can get him to zero in on accuracy just a bit and takes a lot of the thinking out of it he could be really good. There's really no way of knowing though. I trust the coaches to start the best QB.

To be honest I'm in the minority here and see our recruiting as pretty good

(and yes, it's hard cider)

... and if he wanted off-the-field action, he'd have picked FSU.

That makes it 100%

I agree with this, but Saturday's in the fall are still a long way away from Thursdays in February. We're gonna speculate and gnash our teeth, it's what fans do. That said, when we go back to war in the fall, we'll be going with the army we have, not the army we wish we have, so let's just hope the coaching staff will settle down and gel by then. We still have a bevy of good coaches and some promising young players.

That's a pretty recent change too, as of about an hour ago it still said VT