Recent Comments
I was thinking about majoring in sports journalism when I was a senior in high school. My college counselor told me (granted this was in 2005) that the majority of the major sports writers came from Syracuse & Northwestern. Northwestern (Mike Greenberg, Mike Wilbon, Darren Rovell, JA Adande etc.) and Syracuse (Bob Costas, Mike Tircio, Dick Stockton) both have tons of alumni working at ESPN.
Then again, a lot of the big sportswriters/commentators I know came from small schools (Bill Simmons, Holy Cross, Skip Bayless, Vanderbilt, Tony Kornheinser, Binghamton, Bomani Jones, Clark Atlanta)...to be blunt, I don't know how good the comm program at VT is in comparison to some of the other schools out there. I doubt it's to the point where it can dramatically help or hurt Barnett from a sports media standpoint.
Awesome show, and I agree with your last paragraph. I think his garage/storage unit is a big case room with him trying to track down the Yellow King.
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I caught those highlights as well, left a bad taste in my mouth.
Bama doesn't really need to recruit negatively against us. They have won 3 of the past 5 national championships and have a steady line of players going into the NFL. Nobody plays the game to lose and most, if not all, of these top ranked kids dream of playing in the NFL. Saban is an excellent coach and knows how to develop talent.
Yep, Searles is exponentially better than Newsome, but Grimes will be a star. Grimes is on my short list for next HC at VT.
Syracuse is bad at football
Loeffler is way overrated by everyone.
Based on performance: 1Bud, 2Gray, 3Wiles, 6Moorehead (SSS), 5Searles(traditionally), 6Stiney (as OL/ TE coach), 7Loeffler, 8Shane, N/A: Brown (he coaches one position and they are rarely on the field)
Based on Recruiting: 1Shane, 2Gray, 3Moorehead, 4Stiney, 5Wiles, 6Searles, 7Bud, 8loeffler, 9Brown (but there are no bad recruiters on staff anymore)
Overall: 1Bud (lots of bonus points for performance), 2Gray, 3Moorehead, 4Wiles, 5Stiney, 6Searles, 7Shane, 8Loeffler, 9Brown
I get what you're saying, but early failure is the only commonality that I was pointing out. That's why I brought it up.
Seems like Alabama is able to convince players to decommit from our program and then use the academics of the school as a convenient excuse. This strategy shouldn't even be effective because Alabama isn't that great of an academic institution.
The same thing happened with Hand, he wanted to be an engineer, and when it came down to Michigan, Virginia Tech, and Alabama, he chose the latter. So I sincerely doubt that academics are much of a factor to these high rated recruits unless they're going to Stanford. Alabama is certainly using some negative recruiting tactics against us specifically, and I doubt that narrative is purely academic.
Pretty sure worsham field is usable for that sort of thing. The kickers practice there all the time
Also a big part of the location is the time it takes to get everyone there. The coaches are only allowed so much practice time with the players as team organized activities. They stated that walking to and from the field counts towards that time especially if they have to move in the middle of practice. Having the facility immediately next door makes it a 30 second trip vs having 100 guys trying to move to the south lot or tennis courts. It eats practice time. The 75 yard and 65 yard fields plus the 100 yard indoor field is enough. They aren't going to be running special teams and position drills at the same time. They can practice 100 E/W outside or inside for kick offs, etc.
Bama may have 5 fields but that is nothing more than a giant waste of money and resources. If a recruit decides on one school over another because the number of outdoor practice fields, I don't think that kid would qualify for VT anyways.
You're right, I will change those.
Here's a list of advantages:
-The ACC champion will have a greater strength of schedule. The 2 teams in the ACCCG will have just defeated a quality opponent the week before.
-Potential for the rivalry games to still be played if the 2 teams are in the playoff.
-Play 3-4 ACC opponents that weren't on the schedule the year before.
-No heavy divisions. In 2012 and 2013, it could have meant FSU-Clemson in the ACCCG.
As for the FSU-Florida, GT-Georgia, and Clemson-SC games, they can all be played another week.
And if UVA fans cry because they don't get to play us one year, tell them they aren't worthy of playing us.
I thought the crowd would just roar BOOOOOOOB whenever the secondary makes a big play. But then again, we would all lose our voices in the first quarter. The above is a better solution.
I wish all athletes would consider what school they want to go to based on what they want to study and how good the school is in that particular area. It would lead to more money being spent on academic departments, which everyone gets to use, and better the school as a school. In the end, these kids are being paid with a scholarship to study so this should always be reason number one for a recruit. Good for him.
The reason I chose Tech was because it makes a hell of a better engineer than GT, NCSU and Clemson. I think Vincent Mihota and Travon McMillian would agree.
So he's going to Bama. Good for him.
Nope, got this reading thing down pretty good. A few of the articles I've read stated that lack of d-line coaching was a valid reason for the guys looking to go to the next level to avoid VT. Not saying I agree, but that is what I read.
The indoor practice facility makes sense though considering it has a clear purpose that is not covered by anything else currently at Tech. It offers an indoor, sheltered environment for the team to practice in the event of inclement weather. The Rector Fieldhouse doesn't belong to the Football team so that's not an alternative. That belongs to the Track & Field team, despite the fact that Football often kicks them out when they need it because money talks. Having more outdoor practice fields when ones already exist on the other hand doesn't serve any purpose that isn't already being served.
so we'll have a 75 yard and a 65 yard outdoor field which are both more than enough room for anything the coaches would do in practice other than kickoffs and MAYBE punts (depending on the situation focus). If they want to practice kickoffs and/or punts on a 120 yard field with 2 end zones, they will still have 2 options. one indoor option and one outdoor option because they will still have the markings and room for the full sized field running across the 2 shorter fields. it's not like we're ever running 2 full field scrimmages simultaneously. and even if we did, we have one indoor and one outdoor full sized field side by side!
this set up doesn't get in the way of a functional practice in any way, and having it immediately adjacent to the outdoor fields, club house and stadium gives maximum flexibility to the coaches for breakouts and for weather concerns.
But then you won't allow for a kicker to practice for judging things like wind direction and speed, which would make all the kicking practice good, but we would still see issues on gamedays.
I think this is partially true. But the line improved last year, and as I've always said, just getting "average" out of an offensive line would be a huge step up for us, and allow us more options at QB than we had before.
I'm one of the lonely Glennon apologists, who believes he could have been a stellar QB for us had the line been the least bit dependable.
If you can safely expect to not be pressured by a 4 man rush (much less the sieve we'd show against a D2 4 man rush), just about any good QB is going to have opportunities to shine.
I think Grimes set some terrific standards in performance and culture at Tech, and from all we hear, Searels is the man who can take that framework and build on it. I have a hard time believing the line won't show more improvement this year.
The fact that our O-lines consistently under-performed against lesser talent and basic schemes was all the info Beamer ever needed to fire Newsome with extreme prejudice. I expect I will always harbor just a little anger against him for sticking with Coach Sieve as long as he did. The justifications were just ludicrous, and the way the players & fans were treated for pointing it out was damn near inexcusable.
That small bit of venting aside, I'm absolutely pumped about the new vigor & the direction out team is headed.
I may have to try it again - I couldn't get into it the first 2 episodes- I literally fell asleep both episodes.
Again with Hand? Forget about him. We made to the top five of arguably the best player in the country. At the end of the day, he made the decision go play for the the best football program in the country instead of us. He didn't want to be a dick so he said "Virginia Tech didn't offer my major" instead of revealing the real reason why he didn't want to come here.
He also said Bud Foster was his favorite defensive coordinator.