Great Article about the turnaround of JR Collins

I encourage everyone to read Nathan Warters feature on JR Collins, who almost "fun-ed" is way off the football team in December but now is 30 pounds lighter and looking like the the guy who was the defensive MVP in the first half of 2011.

http://www.freelancestar.com/2013-08-21/articles/15823/college-football-...

One quote really stood out to me. Collins said Early on in my career I thought I didnt have much to work on and it kind of made me complacent." That wasn't just an attitude issue. Collins got an opportunity to play as a rotation lineman in 2010 as a redshirt freshman backing up the DE tandem of Stephen Friday and Chris Drager. that was in the midst of a very poor recruiting stretch for the Hokie defense, especially for defensive linemen. Collins didn't have competition for reps his first two seasons, which enabled the attitude of entitlement that ended up derailing last season.

Now, there is intense competition on the DL, with more coming if VT can land talents like Derrick Nnadi and Ricky Walker. At the same time, while the defensive talent has been upgraded, the offense has seen a major step backwards in top line talent. Hopefully, the top young players on offense are self motivated to succeed until offensive recruiting can catch back up. I am very pleased to hear how veterans like David Wang and Andrew Miller have improved while taking leadership roles this fall. That is needed where there isn't as much competition to combat complacency.

Again, kudos to JR Collins for earning his degree and perhaps winning back his starting job, and kudos to Nathan Warters for doing a terrific job telling his story.