Today we have Jordan Williams releasing his top 5. 1 team from Clemson, Penn State, Tennessee, USC, UVA and VT will be left out. My guess is that would be Penn State. From tons of media/recruitniks its between Tennessee and VT with Clemson being the dark horse.
In other news Kalil Pimpleton has been pushed up from 2* to a .82 rated 3*. Would expect his final rating to close out somewhere around .84-.86. Will be interesting to see if he continues to play QB for his HS or does he move to WR full time.
In with the New
Class of 17 3* WR out of Laurel, MD Cameron Sullivan-Brown has received an offer. HUDL Played both ways WR/CB in High School but my belief is that he would be slotted in the WR spot if he committed to VT.
Unranked class of 17 ATH/WR Jaelon Darden HUDLreceived an offer about a week ago. Another speedster who can make you miss in the open field. Playing QB in HS as you would expect but definitely expect him to line up in the slot. Has also received an offer from Memphis and I would expect more P5 offers to roll in for him.
Cmon G pic.twitter.com/ddz7BacYvp— Ath (@_12_era) May 29, 2016
Class of 18 4* #2 Ranked Dual Threat QB out of Georgia Emory Jones received an offer. HUDL This is a BIG TIME offer and we will be battling the BIG BOYS but its great to see us looking ahead and going after the top talent.
Blessed & honored to say I just received an offer from Virginia Tech #Hokies pic.twitter.com/hVcNWCnsCI— Emory Jones (@eXjones6) May 25, 2016
Class of 18 TE from Ponte Vedra Beach, FL Zach Sheffer has received an offer. HUDL Other offers from Michigan, Tennessee, Auburn, Duke to name a few.
Thankful to receive an offer from VT! #Hokies @CNee247 @Corey_Bender @njrivals1 @HamiltonESPN pic.twitter.com/3vsWQVF6zD— Zach Sheffer (@zachsheffer) May 26, 2016
Justin Fuente QB Camp
man this is a smart smart move and I love it. For upcoming 5-9th graders only and could/probably will provide an inside track to some future QB commits.
Announcing 2016 Justin Fuente QB Camp for rising 5th-9th graders. pic.twitter.com/iuh4JnUnMT— Brad Cornelsen (@coachcornelsen) May 25, 2016
Comments
awesome sauce on the camp. Just please don't extend any scholarship offers to 5th graders...
Unless said 5th graders are Fullers
at this point any Fuller progeny would get an offer along with their social security card.
"So it's a girl, you say? Can she kick? OK, when she's able to talk and walk, we'll come by and talk with her."
hmmm my son doesn't play QB but im considering sending him to the camp anyways. he dabbled some in it last season but he starts at WR. hes a lefty and the coach put in some stuff rolling to the left and reverse passes for him and stuff. he entered the season as the #2 on the QB depth chart and got a lot of early work. but then when he realized he wasn't going to beat out the kid for the #1 spot he quickly asked to be moved back to WR. I still think it would be a good experience for him though.
If I was in 5th-9th grade I might start playing football just to attend
Do it! Get us some inside sauce.
It's a marinade.
Jordan Williams eliminated VT
Edit 247 info was wrong
welp...
Source? His twitter says nothing.
interesting because he is announcing around 4..
It's Tech, Clemson, Ohio State, Tennessee, and UVa.
We got eliminated though
/s
Too bad his Twitter says otherwise. His tweet has VT, Clemson, loluva, osu, Tennessee. Check some facts
That's the same as being eliminated, really.
Touche. Flash forward 2 months, narrows it down to Tenn and VT. Flash forward again to signing day, picks Tenn over VT.
This is why I stopped following recruiting. It's too painful. Except reading the TKP boards about recruiting, following decision dates, and watching the posted hudl film. Other than that, I stopped....
My thoughts exactly. It's torture allowing yourself to get your hopes up and then have the inevitable disappointment in the end. I see so many people here and other places chirping about "we need better recruiters, closers, etc." The reality is, we are a .500 program right now. The recruits we're chasing now were in elementary school when we won our last ACC title, and it's been longer since we were truly nationally-relevant. We also haven't exactly been sending players to the NFL in droves lately, either.
Our lack of any semblance of a functional offense for far too long, too many gaffes on the national stage, and a lack of a modern approach to recruiting until it was too late have all contributed to where we are now. I think we are in great hands with Fuente, but we have to win before we can expect to come out on the good side in many of these big recruiting battles. I'm sick of hearing about how we just don't have recruiters. If you're bringing in loads of 4 and 5* guys to any other .500 school, chances are we would think something pretty sketchy is going on. I don't want us to lower ourselves to that. We can win, build this thing back under Fuente, and do things the right way. I'm not going to focus too much on recruiting until I see what Fuente can do on the field.
"4 and 5* guys to any other .500 school, chances are we would think something pretty sketchy is going on"
Pretty good point there. That's my first thought.
I get bummed when we lose out on these guys, and have to forcefully stop myself from thinking of what could have been, when I see a school "steal" "our" recruits (looking at your FSU). Just human nature, fan nature.
My remedy is to think about guys like Tim Settle, who is now less than 100 days from being unmercifully unleashed into the college football world.
Was Tenn relevant when kids started choosing them again. They were closer to a .333 program when Butch took over but he was able to sell his vision to them about how they could turn around the program. What was the results of that for him? Multiple top 5 classes and now look where they are. You don't have to be winning to be able to attract recruits if you are able to sell how you will use them and what they will get out of it.
SEC schools never lose relevancy in recruiting.
Ok how about Maryland?
filled their staff with recruit-first guys. We chose a different path.
so the point is that it isn't about having your program be relevant. its about having coaches that can sell.
tell that to vandy...
notice a difference in recruiting with franklin and without? Sellers can sell, period.
The definition of an anomaly: using Vandy in a discussion about SEC football.
this was your comment was it not, "SEC schools never lose relevancy in recruiting."? Vandy gained relevancy under a coach who could sell. Since then, what? The SEC has plenty of schools that are not recruiting juggernauts. Vandy isn't the only one. Miss st, missourri, Kentucky, Arkansas, ole miss (until a new HC, go figure) are not big time recruiting programs. What do most SEC schools that recruit really well usually have in common? A dynamic HC that can sell. Saban, Butch, Richt (while he was there), Les Miles and on and on and on.
Vandy is in the SEC in name only, they don't share any of the characteristics of the rest of the conference.
I'm not even following what point you are making or why I'm responding. I guess that our problem isn't relevancy, it's coaches selling? Sure, that's a problem. But relevant programs generally don't hire coaches who can't sell, so it 's not easy to differentiate between the two.
And I really don't care that much, I just saw the comment that UT recruited when they were irrelevant....which I disagree with because they are never not relevant.
VT's problem in recruiting, if you think they have one, is that we aren't relevant enough, we hired a coach who isn't a proven recruiter and he filled his staff with coach first, recruit second guys. That's not a great recipe for recruiting success. If VT is going to "succeed" in recruiting (and I think we'll do fine), it will be because our offense recruits itself and/or the Memphis coaches grow into very good recruiters. Both of those things very well may happen. Or not, and we'll struggle for recruiting relevancy.
Second paragraph is spot on, kudos.
Point was it doesn't take winning to recruit. That's an excuse that people use. New coaches should be able to come in and sell a vision without even playing a game.
Yup.... Part of the reason (ok, the main part) Clemson got so good was because they went all in on stockpiling the program with coaches who could recruit. Suddenly, they were getting annual Top 10 classes overnight despite fielding a team who was a perennial .500 record at best, led by a head coach who's was a position coach the previous year.
Recruit... then win... its how you turn a program around in this era. You want to see a much closer-to-home example, look at what Buzz is doing. He comes in and we're immediately getting Top 20 classes despite being the definition of basement dweller in the ACC. 2 years later, and all of the sudden, hey we might actually be a good team next year. But that wasn't going to happen if we didn't recruit our asses off up front.
I'm sure Fuente is going to have some success here, but if he wants to have any long term success, we need to recruit, and we need to start landing some big time recruits sooner rather than later.
I also think that getting the basketball program to the top of the ACC will also make VT a little more exciting and attractive. Having a good 2nd sport at a VT would help more than one would think. I know I saw more football players supporting the basketball players and vice versa a lot more these past few years and its good to see.
That's one cherry picked example that happens to bolster you're argument. Besides Clemson what non-blue blood has ever started suddenly recruiting at an elite level?
Look at almost all the new powers in College Football; Oregon, TCU, Baylor (pre-scandall), Stanford, etc. None of them got to where they were by suddenly recruiting elite talent. They all introduced a unique scheme and culture, coached up decent talent, became perennial top 10 teams, and now are starting to get some good recruits 10 years later. And even now, they're barely breaking the top 25 in recruiting rankings, but still regularly putting up top 10 rankings.
This delusion that anyone can come in and compete for 5 star recruits with a .500 team and an average at best recruiting budget undermines any progress we might actually make.
Don't think anyone here is expecting us to land 5 star recruits. We should do a better job of getting 4 star kids especially at positions of need though (i.e. DEs that the state has been loaded with or OTs which the state hasn't).
I personally think our ceiling is around the top 20-25 recruiting rankings on average, but don't think we'll be close to that this year where you should see a new coach bump.
For starters, UNC, and they were very close to sneaking into the playoff last year had they held onto their lead over Clemson in the ACC title game.
For others? Ole Miss ran most of the 2014 season in the Top 5 before collapsing late, and they sucked before suddenly recruiting their asses off.
Youre listing two schools that are in the midsts of two of the biggest college sports scandals in a while...
Yeah.... and I'm waiting with baited breath to see them get punished for it....
that scandal had nothing to do with the current coaching staff at unc and they are recruiting well despite that hanging over them...
But the coaching staff that got fired was the one who started the recruiting turn around, and several of the payers that graduated last year were recruited by Davis as HS rising juniors in 2011.
UNC actually hasn't recruited that well over the last 4 classes. This year is the first year they are recruiting at an elite level (probably will end up around 15) with next year looking even stronger if they have another successful season. Winning cures all as long as you have a staff thats willing to bust it on the trail to seize the momentum.
It doesn't matter unless it does matter. There isn't one formula.
I'm not sure if you would agree or not, but in the current state of VT football, we need to win. In part, because we hired a recruit second coach who populated his staff with equally as unproven recruiters. So, win. If you do that, it's going to make those unproven recruiters into proven recruiters much faster.
What I tried to outline is our current state of affairs in a fairly unbiased observation. Sure, there are other examples of how it has been done and there are hundreds of methods to program success. But with our current staff makeup, our recruiting will improve with more offensive excitement, equal defensive pressure and.....wins.
To me, this goes back to Al Groh's staff. None of those players he was able to recruit got better once they arrived on campus. They were recruit first coaches. The best schools have recruit/player development balanced coaches, but that's what makes them the best of the best. For the rest of us, you tend to have to choose one path or another. We have chosen our path, we should have a staff heavy in player development with potential to improve as recruiters. UMD, on the other hand, has by-and-large chosen the other path.
Edit: Final point, winning and relevance aren't the same thing. Tennessee and Penn State are great examples of that on one side, Baylor and TCU on the other.
There is one formula. For the most part schools with big athletic/football budgets and have wide & deep fan/business support also get the best recruiting classes. The things create program cache. The outliers are schools in recruiting rich areas. Coaches/recruiters have a fairly insignificant impact.
VT is sort of one of those three. I'll say it yet again, for VT to get to the next level of recruiting, the athletic budget needs to increase by 30% and then maintain that level with consistent growth.
You can bet the farm that Whit Babcock understands this.
Too bad the fans/alums don't and refuse to give.
How much money were they giving from 98-05? That's such a tired excuse
Not enough. Did you read the information put out this year? How far behind VT is to P5 and ACC schools in total giving and number of people giving.
Played for a national title, won ACC titles, Sugar Bowls, money ain't everything ask Boise State
Ask a team that bounced around more conferences than Tech has been in its entire existence in 5 years. Why do you think they did that, $. Tech is the only school with a small budget get to a NC game, it takes money to support sports teams. It's really that simply.
Pitt won a national title. BYU. GT split one. Miami's athletic budget was small when Jimmy Johnson was there. It's not unheard of. Boise consistently wins. Hell even Houston and Memphis and Temple had great seasons last year.
None of those titles came in NC game years (BCS, playoffs)
In the history of college football the BCS and playoffs are a short blip. I didn't know we were boiling down 120 years to 15. In that case there are about 9 schools total that have ever won
Money matters now more than ever. You can throw BYU, GT, etc. out there, but the game has changed SUBSTANTIALLY. Especially in the last 10 years or so.
Precisely. In the era of college football being nationally televised and thus making the big, big money schools have had to spend more and more to stay at the top. Anything before the mid 90s just cannot be compared.
That doesn't take away from the achievement, but gone are the days where a regional team can go undefeated and gain media recognition enough to propel them to a non-outright championship or co-champion.
Big money dollars from television has drastically changed the game and how much universities must spend to keep up with the times. You only have to look at how a nationally televised win over Texas propelled VT to relevance towards the title run in '99, national recognition for the first time ever and a decade of 10 win seasons that allowed VT to spend more on football than at anytime ever in history.
Boise State doesn't recruit for crap. And if they had to play 6 or 7 decent teams a year instead of 2 or 3, we'd see how good their recruiting is.
The old "how much $$ were people giving in '98-'05" is the tired excuse...and delusion.
It's not '98-'05 anymore. Recruiting is totally different now. Diamonds in the rough are MUCH harder to find and getting tougher with camps everywhere and unlimited ability to hold them
Throwing money at it won't necessarily guarantee a positive upswing. Look at all of the fast risers over the last few years. Mo' money, mo' problems.
The topic was recruiting, not results. The schools with $$ bring in recruits. And the teams that recruit well have a much highly likelihood of long term success. Period.
I think BUY is a better word for what Butch does then SELL. They hired a coach who knew how to get away with getting recruits paid by boosters, like a bunch of SEC schools do, and so far they have not been caught. Ask most TN fans if you don't believe it.
Just ask MoD. He knows all about $100 bills on windshields and such.
It'll be interesting to see the roster take shape as we recruit for the new system.
hahahah #RIPUNCas pointed below probably his uncle.I don't think this means what you think it means. Since it's also in his profile I'm guessing it actually means RIP to someone, possibly Uncle?
good catch...
Judson plans to visit for three days later this month...
So is there a camp this month or is this kid just choosing to visit for 3 days?
Seems like he is going between 2 camps to get alone time with the coaches.
Micro Camp is on June 16 and the 5 - 9 grade QB camp starts on June 20.
6:1 quarterback coach to camper ratio? I think they mixed that one up.
2 coaches, Fuente and Cornelsen per session
Yeah, but who are the other 4 coaches riding in the camper with them?
Perhaps this guy?? I'm sure he has given up on his dream of playing and moved on to coaching.
Laughing so hard I can't even tell which coach is Fuente. The one front I assume.
are they serving milkshakes?? sure as hell looks like they brought everyone to the yard...
Looks like we made the cut, contrary to some #badsauces above.
I'm loving the "lunch pail" emoji!
But we gotta get rid of the chicken head!
True that, but at least it's better than the OSU almond emoji!
UVA is on his top 5? Wow, new coach must be offering new ascots to recruits.
Defensive end Luiji Vilain is announcing his commitment on June 12.
Unfortunately, it seems as if Michigan has him locked up: http://mgoblog.com/content/tuesday-recruitin-near-peak.
Man I feel like a lot of these VA kids like Vilain and J. Williams basically list us in their top groups because we are the big in state school, yet in all reality we really aren't much of a consideration for them.
To be fair, Vilain isn't really a VA kid so being a state power probably doesn't have much sway when he has no roots here. Williams is a classic case of that though
I mean is he really a Virginia kid?
No, from where he is from Michigan is probably one of the schools he has known the most about his whole life. Add in Harbaugh, and yeah he is essentially a Michigan lock.
We are in it for Williams. Not so much Vilain, but we will be in it until the end for Williams. I suspect that his eventual top 3 will be Tennessee, Clemson, and VT.
We'll be in it right up until the moment he leaves our hat on the table during his decision press conference
Yeah, and an hour before his decision a 247 insider crystal balls him to VT, the fanbase goes crazy, and then he promptly chooses someone else.
This is the only way I can properly express my mixed feelings about this...
*sigh*... I know
He would be a great one to get. He should flourish wherever he goes. Here's to hoping he has a change of heart in the next 10 days.
It appears that Fuente is going to be busy with camps this June
Link
6/10 = Specialists Camp (11th & 12th graders) Blacksburg
6/11 = One Day Mini Camp (10 - 12 graders)Blacksburg
6/12 = One Day Mini Camp (10 - 12 graders)Blacksburg
6/13 = 1/2 Day Micro Camp (10 - 12 graders)Blacksburg
6/14 = 757 Camp (10 - 12 graders) Kellam High School
6/15 = NOVA/DC Camp (10 - 12) St. Stephen's & St. Agnes Upper School
6/16 = 1/2 Day Micro Camp (10 - 12) Blacksburg
6/20 - 6/21 = QB Camp (5 - 9) Blacksburg
Man, I know it's going to be a lot of work...but I like seeing this.
Sheridan Jones
Hudl
Dang, the kid also has offers from Maryland and two SEC schools (Florida and Tennessee) already
Class of 21... 5* QB
19th offer from Tech? I guess we really want this kid
give him some credit didn't say VT University or University of VT
Offer out to Johnny Jordan, #15 center in the country, from Gonzaga HS in DC:
http://virginiatech.247sports.com/Bolt/Virginia-Tech-offers-Washington-D...
Dude served up enough pancakes for the whole team to eat.
Since there are multiple threads in this topic touching on recruiting capability as a whole, I just respond in general.
Has there been any consideration that just maybe some kids don't want to go to VT? Yeah, we went and loved it (I knew I wanted to go to VT when I was a freshman in High School). However, we may not be the majority.
Let me break this down with stuff.
By VA DOE, there are approximately 90,500 High School seniors enrolled for the 2015-2016 HS year. Based on the freshman snapshot for Class of 2020, there were 6,098 accepting offers of admission (25,263 applicants of those 17,540 were offered admission, so over 11,000 kids declined to take VT up on that). By the way, this was a record amount of applicants, representing a 12% increase over the previous year.
Based on the current undergraduate enrollment, 70% of students are from Virginia. There are 42 states and 4 territories represented and 328 international students. But we'll just go with the Virginia Freshman, which is approximately 4,269.
That's less than 5% of the graduating Virginia Students selecting VT to continue their education. I'm sure this applies to football recruiting in some shape or form as well. Granted, this doesn't take into account that some of those graduating students may not be able to continue their education, but I'm sure plenty more of those kids choose out of state schools, vocational schools, etc. Just figured it would help put it into perspective, some of these kids just don't want to come here.
- Various sources were used to complete this, such as VA DOE and VT sites.
Schools recruit just like their football programs. I was lucky to get a scholarship to attend Good Counsel, just one of the many private schools in the DC Metro. There would be weeks upon weeks of colleges rolling through recruiting kids to apply. Info sessions, college fairs, etc. I never heard of some of these schools like Colorado Mines and Florida Tech, which I ended up applying for.
VTs outreach goes into PA, NJ, Maryland, and NC. Those are the big recruiting regions for admissions.
Fernley and Eddie could you repost. Your posts went to single width and I couldn't read them.
Precisely. In the era of college football being nationally televised and thus making the big, big money schools have had to spend more and more to stay at the top. Anything before the mid 90s just cannot be compared.
That doesn't take away from the achievement, but gone are the days where a regional team can go undefeated and gain media recognition enough to propel them to a non-outright championship or co-champion.
Big money dollars from television has drastically changed the game and how much universities must spend to keep up with the times. You only have to look at how a nationally televised win over Texas propelled VT to relevance towards the title run in '99, national recognition for the first time ever and a decade of 10 win seasons that allowed VT to spend more on football than at anytime ever in history.
Football is still football. Coaching is coaching. Either you can develop guys and out coach and out play the other teams or you can't. Baylor, Oregon, Boise, TCU, even Houston and Memphis and Duke to a lesser degree, came from nothing and generated success and it wasn't about money spent. Style, coaching, innovation, are just as if not more important than a bunch of 5 star guys. Miami, Texas, USC, consistently out recruit Oregon, Baylor, and TCU. To say you can't be competitive without a huge budget or a lot of money spent, or a whole team of five star guys is just incorrect. Sure money helps any problems in life but innovation is more important
no one is saying innovation isn't important. What we are saying is the difference between consistently winning and being elite comes with a price tag. I will never belittle the 10 win streak we had but it didn't garner a hell of a lot of elite wins did it? And if you want your team to start winning the big games consistently then you need to pony up some serious cash to spend on facilities and recruiting. That's just how it is.
You name Oregon, Baylor and TCU. Oregon you just have to drop off right away. They get more uniforms, have one of (if not) the best football facilities in the country, stadium upgrades, etc, etc... that dedication to Oregon by Knight started before they became innovative and relevant.
Baylor and TCU are good examples of scrappy teams but they are not consistently winning elite games either are they? Combined they only went to 3 BCS level bowls since the year 2000. Baylor lost and TCU split. VT went to 5 and won only 1.
Great. We are all scrappy teams that fight hard to get to the big boy table. Now don't you want to win? Well, that takes money. More than we currently have.
Baylor are going back to being irrelevant again.
Because their coach left not because their bank account shrank
Clemson
What about them?
and?
since 2000 split 4 BCS/playoff level bowls all of which have come in the Dabo era whereby they have spent twice what VT does on recruiting year in, year out. They are trying to punch above their weight and almost pulled it off last year, but are not winning elite games consistently.
so, Clemson, proving my point that you have to spend more to achieve more.
Not to mention their coaching salaries. Which are/were massive.
Who in the world are you saying is elite then? Alabama? Ohio State? How do you account for teams with massive budgets that can't win the "elite" games like Texas, Michigan, Notre Dame, or USC? You can't just pigeon hole your criteria till it only includes teams that support your arguement.
Admittedly I was using a simplified stat but it was consistent. Wins in BCS/playoff bowls since 2000. That certainly won't account for every game against the nig boys like VT's win over OSU, but I was more in the frame of: after being that scrappy team all season and then you get to the big boys table in these type of bowl games, did you win or lose?
So I haven't pigeonholed anything. I think you have though. You are giving Clemson credit for bucking the trend but are not acknowledging the fact that they had to spend, spend, spend way above VT to get what they did.
You can ignore that (which is our point) just to prove your point.
Clemson won a national title in 1980, regardless of your formula of only considering 15 years of football. And they were spending more money than VT all through the 80s, 90s, and 00's and it has only recently with the new staff that they've had "elite" success.
Sorry, but you're still missing the point. We aren't "throwing out" anyone's championship. What we are saying is in modern college football, the era of national television, the requirement to spend more to keep up is real and gets more pressing every year.
What you spent in 1980 to win a championship pales in comparison to what you need to spend to win a championship these days. The trend is distinctly upwards.
And your example of Clemson, which has non-elite revenues, still must outspend on recruiting and asst coaching salaries more than most to get the recent success they have. Not to mention the recent commitment of $106 million on athletic facilities upgrades. Ignoring that fact won't prove your point. Similarly, ignoring the fact that the trend of spending since whenever to now has been staggeringly more, and that in the modern age (bcs and playoffs) that trend has gotten even steeper, also won't prove your point.
So while I agree teams can be successful while having middle of the pack earnings and spending, they have yet to prove you can win championships and consistently (year in, year out) be in contention to play in the more elite bowls and win. What Hokiefireman is saying is we need more commitments/donations to allow our team greater spending power in order to get more success. He is not wrong.
But, recognize, that we all agree with you about innovation. More money doesn't automatically equate to success. Texas is the perfect example. I dare say that more money wouldn't have improved our own success the last few years either. Innovation is a key to winning.
Innovation and money are the keys to championships.
The one thing that makes the biggest difference about having money is that you can buy the best coaches. If you can afford a top 5 coach you can consistently get a top 10 program. They prove they can coach by winning against programs with better athletes, so they get hired away by programs with more money. They win there, an then get paid to coach at the highest levels. Now they have a record of success, huge media hype, and a program with history, and recruiting at the highest level gets easier, not harder. That is how money buys championships.
Not all teams with massive budgets get elite level results, but you would be hard pressed to find an elite team that doesn't have a massive budget.
Looking at their bowl games over the last 4 years i'd say they are winning the elite games consistently.
They have both been in the top 5 the last 4-5 years so I don't know what your definition of elite is
Yes and to achieve that and be 50% in bcs/playoff level games they have had to spend double what VT has in recruiting as well as have the 3rd highest asst coaching salaries in the ncaa.
So I don't what your definition of "they had to spend more than VT" is. (our point)
They are doing great but recognize one big reason why.
So is it time for another new recruiting thread yet...
I 2nd that
^This X1000 ^
Locked threads would be cool. Only mods could contribute to them. That way we see when offers/commits occur without all the noise.
Commitments get their own threads.
Awesome that this thread is already over 120 comments, almost entirely a giant argument that's been had over and over again.
But one observation: Almost everybody referencing Clemson's rise and whether or not we could follow that model is totally wrong. I grew up 15 minutes from Clemson and went to Clemson and y'all aren't seeing it for what it is.
Clemson, has been recruiting well on and off for awhile:
Clemson is less than 15 minutes directly off I-85 which puts them about an hour and a half away from Atlanta straight down, Clemson itself is about 25 minutes away from Georgia (where they recruit heavily) less than two hours from Athens. They are about 2 hours from Charlotte in a straight line up 85. They are 30 minutes from Greenville, a growing and thriving city in SC, and about 45 minutes to one hour from four incredible high school powerhouses that have been consistently nationally ranked in Byrnes HS (which has been #1 in the nation before) Dorman HS, Spartanburg HS (more recently), and Gaffney HS.
Their success was not from "loading up on known great recruiters" at all. Dabo Swinney was a diamond in the rough, unproven guy who was a good recruiter but wasn't hired because he had a storied history of landing 5-star guys at different places. Tony Elliot and Jeff Scott are both former Clemson wr's that just turned out to be good recruiters. Also, they didn't suddenly become relevant because they just immediately started recruiting well. They became relevant because they paid Chad Morris 1m a year to install a HUNH offense that took them immediately from one of their worst offensive years ever in 2010 to a record shattering one in 2011 (Morris first year) so in reality, it was a great offense and great coaching that helped jump start their recruiting, because they had an offense that players wanted to play for. Then they paid Brent Venables, a proven coach, to make the defense better and he did, the recruiting followed their success and in a way did follow the money because they invested heavily in attractive coaches and now are spending a ton on recruiting. But it wasn't just one or the other, it was both. They didn't go hire a bunch of known super recruiters, that's just plain not true, they didn't only get better because of coaching either. It was a lot of things and they have been a sleeping giant for a long time. I've grown up around it my whole life and the ball got rolling in several ways, and combined with the very attractive location for both the recruits and for the school's recruiting purposes, led to success.
Just to clear things up.
It may be the same argument but at least the thread's not loaded down with huge, pointless GIFs that turn the page to mud yet.
Ugh it's just too tempting
To post pointless gifs or not to post, that is the question.....
if only this were animated, then it would be a...wait for it...pointless gif
Just for fun...
And Frank Underwood is from Gaffney, so you can't discount that
Unfortunately, I believe the biggest challenge for VT recruiting is our location. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Blacksburg and the New River Valley, but our closest proximity to a "recruiting hotbed" is 3 hours (Richmond).
I can easily see a 757 kid get discouraged on his first ride to Blacksburg, thinking "I have to drive this far every time?". Especially, when they pass LOLUVA on I-64 and still have another 2 hours to go.
Obviously, this isn't the case for every recruit, but I don't think any of us can deny our location sucks for recruiting.
Devils advocate Charlotte and Greensboro are less than 3. But I agree with your overall sentiment.
Location is the #2 challenge. Money is the #1 challenge. Whit Babcock knows this and it's why he is doing what he is doing - even at the risk of alienating certain vocal portions of the fan base.
Challenge #2 can't be erased, but it can be minimized. But unless challenge #1 is addressed and solved quickly and permanently, VT has no chance of overcoming challenge #2 going forward.
If they go past UVA on their way to Blacksburg, I think they are doing it wrong. If I recall, 460 west straight in would be a faster approach.
Depends on where you're coming from I suppose. From VB to Blacksburg it's usually about the same amount of time for me. That being said I burn significantly less gas taking 460.
Downside to 460: no rest stops
Tahj Capehart will announce his top 10 soon. Tech and Maryland have figured prominently in his recruitment, and Alabama and plenty of other marque Power Five schools have offered. Given he hasn't cut his list to single digits yet, a decision does not to be coming any time soon.
TyJuan Garbutt got bumped to the number 10 player in the state in the 247 Composite. So we now technically have one top 10 instate prospect.
Vilain to Michigan
http://www.maizenbrew.com/2016/6/12/11729786/michigan-football-recruitin...
Today 06/12/2016...Tech FINALLY extended an offer to K'Vaughan Pope (Dinwiddie HS). He is only a rising Jr. but already has 13 offers. For anyone that does not know him.....he is a MUST get game changer. I have watched this kid play for several years..and he is the real deal (WR / TE / LB ). I predict him to be the #1 recruit in Virginia and top 10 in the nation in rankings next year.
money is definitely on ricky slade being the #1 prospect for '18.
watched pope's hudl. great frame, athleticism and love how aggressive he plays but he's definitely very raw. Wonder if he won't grow into a DE or TE.
I will say T. Mitchell will be #1
that's a good one too.
He very well could be....he plays the TE possession in high school mainly, but is utilized a lot like Bucky Hodges. He is all over the place. Kid has wheels for a big man....made the ESPN Sports Center top 10 one night, hurdling a player for a touchdown! He is usually the biggest, tallest kid on the field down here in 4A and has some serious catching ability. I'm just glad the Hokies offered him. I know his dream school is Florida and they just offered last week...but we will see...hopefully he comes here to the good guys!
Every.... freakin... time I see this thread on the Tracker...
LIKE DOES HE HAVE A CAR
OH does he!
Remember when he did this?
https://twitter.com/4stillRunning/status/159733463044456448
Even more pressing, what the phuck is wrong with people in Atlanta!
it's no fun to play against a guy that round the bases before the ball even leaves the infield...
So what would happen, theoretically, if he kicked a TOWERING fly ball, rounded the bases and scored before it was caught? He would score before he was officially out.
We need answers to these types of questions in the offseason. Fascinating.
When I saw him tweet this, I seriously considered driving to Atlanta to play kickball with him. Unfortunately, I work until 5:30 and Atlanta is 2 hours away from my office.
Ok, story time. The summer before Wilson set the single-year rushing record at VT, he tweeted out something along the lines of, "lookin' for a cookout in Blacksburg. Who's doing one?" It just so happened that some of my good friends were doing just that, and one of them tweeted at him to come to Green St. It also just so happened that a bunch of Wilson's track teammates lived on Green St. and one of them had the same name as my friend who tweeted Wilson. So, David goes on over to the cookout with a couple other players, and is surprised to find a small bunch of regular peeps just chillin and having a cookout. My buddy gave him half a burger (they were running low by that point) and thus takes credit for a small portion of his record-setting rushing yardage that year.
Hopefully half of his yardage. I think he deserves it.
how much of that yardage was running circles around Clemson's defense?
Ever Wonder what a Sat Camp actually entails?
A Michigan Fan went to the one they had in the Houston area recently and did a solid breakdown of the day I think is worth the read. I don't really agree with the assertion that no kids are breaking through to be noticed at the camps, maybe for a S-Tier school like Big Blue, but there is always meat left on the bone for everyone, a that is a strong space VT can enter again. If you can see the kids coachability is super high even if he is rough, it colors how you watch his film and how you view his upside.
I do think he makes a spot on point right after though. Most recruits will be comfortable on some level with going to the closest "power" program. The camps then can do a lot to make that jump to going 100's of miles away more comfortable. Even getting them to visit campus becomes easier, because they have had that personal interaction with the coach. It isn't a voice on the phone asking, its the guy who helped your footwork or improved your swim move.
Like from R/CFB
4* OG TJ Moore lists his top 8 VT included.
4* OG while playing with a blindfold on?! Imagine just how good he could be.
Leticus Smith just committed! TE from Georgia 3 star. I'll let others add the beef to this commit
Henri Murphy is planning to visit this weekend. He was hot on the Hokies until Arkansas (home state) offered, Tech could do themselves a ton of favors with a great visit.
Jordan Williams told TSL that VT and Tennessee are his co-leaders.
Didn't he just put out a list that had us like 4th?
yes within the last week. he was at the recent 757 camp though. previously he had I think Clemson first, uva, tenn, us and osu in that order over on rivals. he has since dropped osu from consideration it seems.
the whims of a 17-18 year old kid
Ever since Crosby committed to the bad guys I have been fairly confident that Jordan would do the same thing after narrowing it down to us and them. I have gotten way too used to second place when it comes to recruiting.
at least we'll always have Chris Clarke...
And the new punter
So Devon Hunter released his top 11 via a video. These kids are starting to take it to a whole new level.
top 11? really narrows it down
I'm waiting for a "We made [insert 5 star recruit here]'s top 128!!!!"
Now I'm expecting nothing less than an Apollo Creed-like final announcement.
Devon Hunter has been getting awfully friendly with UNC. Any updates on him in terms of us good guys?
Also, anyone heard any updates on Khalan Laborn?