Another VT player has hit the transfer portal, per @EvanGWatkins247 QB Devin Farrell intends to transfer. Tahj Bullock entered this morning. That's two QBs leaving the program. https://t.co/MvrWQJ6Etk— VTScoop247 (@VTScoop247) April 24, 2023
There's the suspected 2nd QB in portal. Best of luck to Devin in his future endeavors!
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
Woah. Pop Watson making everyone on the depth chart feel unsafe? I hate to lose Farrell but if this means Wells, Drones, and Watson are 1,2,3 I'm ok. Hope Farrell lands somewhere that's good for him because I think he's got a bright future.
Don't forget Wittke. We have 4 QBs on scholarship so that is plenty.
Yeah but two are true freshmen in the same class. We really have two QB's.
I think it's too bad we lost Farrell. Say Wells and Drones both get hurt this year, unlikely but not impossible. You'd like to still have Farrell in that position
If we are down to our 3rd string QB the season is lost regardless. At that point we are playing for next year anyway. Neither Bullock or Farrell in that position would help.
Eh I don't really agree with that. Happened to State last year and they were fine. If you say their pieces were better than ours true but that's basically admitting our season is lost already.
Farrell has a grasp on the offense at least and looked pretty decent with the worse team in the spring game. Pop Watson looked good but is a 5'10 170 lb true freshman
I'm 5'
89" 160 - and nowhere near athletic enough to be on a D1 college football field - so the fact he's there and getting folks out the door at his size is remarkable.Didn't we beat a team in their house who went on to win the national championship with their third string quarterback?
Yeah, but we don't have anywhere near the talent on our team that Ohio State did. Hell, even NC State had more talent last year to pull that off than we do this coming year. I think we are going to be significantly better this year but we aren't even in the same zip code near being ready to win with a third string QB.
Okay but by that logic our season is already lost
How in the hell did you come to that conclusion? All I said is we don't have the talent to win if we lose our top 2 QBs. Guess what, there aren't many teams that can handle that situation. The simple fact is we aren't a good team yet (certainly no where near Ohio State's talent level) but that we are improving. Pry himself said exactly that just a few days ago. You are the one coming to some ridiculous conclusion on that statement.
Because I don't think losing two QB's would tank the season unless we really had nothing behind them (neither of our top two are very good either lets be honest).
If that's the case wouldn't we want to have a guy like Farrell there who can at least step in and run the offense and is decently accurate
I would say the next two seasons are a lost given the state of the program, if this is viewed in the context of relevance. I have permanently lowered my expectations for VT FB to be a middle of the pack program winning 5-8 games a year and maybe 9 if lucky. Basically a Boston College of old with a every now and then Matt Ryan year. I just don't see it possible anymore which leads me to not care that much about VT FB or CFB in general based on what it has become. It's just sad that what I loved has been destroyed and now I recently filled the eternal void with WBB. Nothing to take away from what they did there but it is not the same for me.
How and why do you think Farrell could step in and run the offense? Neither he nor Bullock was ever higher than 3rd string which meant the coaches thought they were significantly behind everybody else. What evidence is there that Farrell could just step in and take the reigns? The coaches didn't think so and that's why Farrell and Bullock are in the portal.
Seemed like the next choice to leave by circumstance. Bringing in two new freshmen QB's (Wittke and Watson), unlikely to bounce after their first spring, and a third in the portal (Drones) meant we had more QB's on the roster than a team usually carries. I wish him all the best and was excited to get him. I think he can play QB somewhere at the FBS level.
Pop bout to be QB1, book it. s/ kinda
Yeah there's no way haha. He'll be 3rd string unless someone gets injured
A guy can wish, can't he? (not for someone to get hurt, but for Pop to continue to thrive to where he is the best on the team)
Of note - the QB room is getting much younger. Wells is a r-Jr, Drones is a r-SO (?), and then we have all freshmen.
Still feeling good about the QB room.
Wells is the clear starter, while Drones has FBS experience.
If redshirt rules are still in place, I wouldn't be averse to getting Watson and Wittke a few drives of experience (if we have that luxury).
A year to learn and hit the weight room will be helpful for both of those guys. I love that we have them both for the spring too.
I'm going to stay reserved until we see the product in a live game. We haven't had a "good" qb room situation in arguably a decade (Thomas, Motley, Leal), maybe longer.
And that's not saying much lol
No, it isn't. But what we did have was 1) a proven starter, 2) a #2 that had been in the system a couple years and understood the offense... We haven't had that since.
Willis/Hooker/Patterson is probably on that level, it just wasn't managed well
He hasn't gotten it by now he never will. He'll still throw 20 pics this coming year.
So there's no hope. Cool. Have fun with that.
He's going to double the number of picks he threw last year with a year in the system? And with improved weapons? Seems unlikely.
Something had to give. A bit bummed we never got to see his explosiveness we heard about.
Hope he finds somewhere to show off his talents we saw in last years spring game...but not unexpected imo. Like a few have said, I think it says a lot about the potential of Watson going forward.
Anybody else thinking this is probably Wells last year as starter? I think next year either Drones or Watson could potentially pass him.
I think last year was Wells's last year as a starter (at VT at least).
Based on the spring game, Wells is still the man to beat in the fall. That said may the best QB win.
Based on a scrimmage in which one QB had the 1st team O-line, the other did not. QBs are noncontact, so the QB that was more athletic didn't get to show off that ability. And one QB had 4 drops by his WRs, two of those drops end up as INTs.
If you take away the four drops by WRs, Drones is 7/9 for 100 yards and no interceptions. And, potentially, those drives that ended due to drops/INTs end up in TDs (one INT was in the redzone).
I'm just saying, Wells was set up to succeed and he matched his 2022 spring game output. Wells did look better than he did fall 2022 (as one would expect and hope in a scrimmage). But Drones actually played well, and if the Drones and Wells were on the opposite teams, the outcome would have been way different. So, I wouldn't buy too much stock in one scrimmage.
So Drones being surrounded by nothing in the spring game is a reason, but Wells being surrounded by nothing in 2022 is an excuse?
what does this even mean?
The original comment was "Based on the spring game, Wells is still the man to beat" I'm just providing context to the Spring game. The statement wasn't "Based on his experience in 2022, Wells..." If you want to have a conversation about 2022, then start a new comment line. These non-sequiturs are just noise and confusion.
They really should've had Wells and Drones swap teams at some point... but I'm assuming the coaches have seen all the stuff from Drones that we would've seen then
I think you haven't looked at how little Wells was surrounded with last year or watched the competition.
Oh, I definitely recognized that. See this pre-transfer comments like this one from last year:
I don't think that Drones is a Tyrod 2.0, but I do think he's more than 'marginally better' than Wells. Based on everyone I've read/heard from who have seen parts of practice (admittedly, they are all random 'insiders' on the internet), they all say that it's clear that Drones (a) has an equal, if not better arm, (b) is a home run threat, and (c) is a better fit for Bowen's desired RPO offense. The only question is if he can pick up the play book - personally, based on French's review of Drones, I think that Drones can do that. I also think that the coaches intentionally placed Wells with the starting OL in the spring game to give him a favorable opportunity and keep him from transferring..
If I'm giving odds, I think it's a 50-55% chance that Drones is the starter week 1, and a 75% chance that he's the starter by our first ACC game (Pitt on Sept 30th)
I haven't seen much evidence Drones is "more than marginally better" than Wells. I have seen wishful thinking that Drones is "more than marginally better" than Wells.
If I'm giving odds, I think it's an 80%+ chance Wells is the starter for game 1. Although he's not the physical talent of Drones, he just looks appreciably more advanced at the position than Drones to me. After that? Anybody's guess since I think the bigger question mark is whether this coaching staff will be any more cohesive (against a tougher early schedule) than last year - and the QB is the first to get blamed if things go south.
Definitely wishful thinking that Drones might be better than Wells. Wells was pretty bad last year, though, so I understand why folks want Drones to be the guy. What is unclear to me at this point is if Wells is just bad or if the mix of coaching philosophies and poor talent around him just made him look bad in '22.
I hope that whoever plays a bulk of the season plays much better than Wells played last year. Whether that's a vastly improved Wells or a more capable Drones isn't all that important to me. I just want these coaches to be able to get a lot more out of the qb position this go round.
I'm with you in that I think the odds are good Wells will start game 1. My hope is that he is either much better than '22 Wells or he's surpassed by a better qb by the end of September. If he's the same and nobody can take his job then I think we'll be in for a longer-than-expected season. And I would expect Bowen's seat to start heating up. I understand that VT had a talent issue when he arrived but our schedule, though tougher than last year, is still relatively manageable for a decent coach. Especially with all the moves made this off season. We're nowhere close to the talent we had under Beamer (yet) but we should still be able to win 6 games with good coaching. 7 would be a big step in the right direction and anything less than 5 would be a huge cause for concern.
Even at Marshall, Wells with protection >>> Wells under pressure. If our line doesn't suck hopefully we can see some improvement
I think part of the issue with Wells is that as the season went on I don't believe he thought he could trust his receivers to get open and he was under constant pressure, so he checked down to RBs coming out of the backfield a lot.
If the pass wasn't there right away he didn't have time to wait for the receivers to do anything and didn't trust in their ability to do get open so that hampered his play a lot.
Hopefully he will be improved this season. I really don't care if it's him or Drones as long as they are playing smart and winning.
Wittke made some throws in spring game, so not totally bummed about this.
Wishing you the best Devin. Hopefully he finds a place that is a good fit for him.
I liked his potential and wish he would stay, but it's probably best for him to try to find a less crowded QB room. I just hope he doesn't end up at Georgia Tech.
Damn, I was really hoping it would work out for Farrell at VT. I have a feeling this will not be the last we hear about him, and that he is going to play somewhere soon.
Disappointing because it felt like he had potential and you want to hang on to those guys at QB. But he wasn't recruited by this staff.
Shame, as I thought he was definitely our top guy behind Wells and Drones. But can understand him wanting to move on, as he likely won't play anytime soon with those two in front for a while longer and Pop Watson seeming poised to challenge after a redshirt year. Too many QBs so expected attrition there. Best of luck.
There is no 'oof' hard enough to react appropriately to this data from AB
not good bob
maybe he was whispering the wrong things?
He was whispering, but the QBs thought he was just some weird dude whispering random stuff to himself constantly.
A completely under-rated movie. I love it. Most hate it. I can basically recite the whole thing. So many great one-liners in that.
I would agree. Very quotable. The only thing I don't like about it is that I can't replicate the high pitch tongue shrill from the Medieval Times battle.
I like the Star Trek weapons and music for that scene.
Man, this scene always cracks me up
also
I think there is a very good reason Fuente's name hasn't popped up for a single HC position yet. His failure here was colossal.
And his staff... the vast majority are either not coaching or coaching at some small school. It's a huge telling tale of what we had back then.
+ Knox Kadum (portal)
And Burmeister was a position switch after the portal
Ugh...that says so much.
The epitaph on the Fuente era will always be Hooker. Justin couldn't get him out of town fast enough, he goes to Tennessee and appears poised to be a 1st Round Draft pick (after blowing an ACL less than 6 months ago!!!!).
Pure coaching ineptitude.
As for Farrell, I thought he was a bit of a Project for a P5 QB. Lots of athleticism but not sure that he was ever going to move into the top 1-2 in the QB room. I hope he finds a good landing spot and is successful going forward.
That's not good, but I'm guessing it's not that different from many programs.
Not included is Malik Willis, who decommitted in part because Fuente didn't think he could be a QB.
Our conversation list is so small compared to Colorado...
This isn't a surprise, though, is it? Didn't he walk in and literally tell the team to pack their luggage?
Half of these though are guys that he was high on. Several of these guys balled out at their Spring Game on the First Team side but are still leaving.
See now, that's exactly the kind of depth and context that I completely didn't bother to gain. Leg for you.
On3 looks kinda like "OnE" therefore this really means "one 3" which could be interpreted as 13. Luminati confirmed
Their tally for the Spring is up to 31 per ESPN. This is all between today and April 15th.
Yeah just saw that. They have 22 scholarship players remaining from 2022.
Prime is doing what Fuente did. The difference is this exodus was planned
31 is just 13 backwards
Colorado is going to be lucky to win a game this year. I get what Deon is doing (still can't stand the prick) but it is going to have a cost this season.
I think they win at least 3. Which would be a 50% improvement from last year.
EDIT: Buffs won just 1 game last year (not 2 like I thought), so winning 3 games would be a 200% improvement 😱
The Buffs won 1.5 games last year?
Edit: I'm hardly a PAC-12 expert, and I have next to zero knowledge of what Deion is actually doing with the program other than making noise, but they do not have an easy schedule. At best I think their most winnable games are against Colo St., Nebraska, and Standford. But I think your guess is about right... they'll win 2 of the aforementioned games, and then probably pickup one later in the season that nobody thought was possible.
Lol your comment made me laugh, but he is technically correct. 2 * 1.5 (50% increase) = 3
I'm not mathing hard enough today
1.5 would be a 100% increase (100% of 1.5 is 1.5, and 1.5+1.5=3).
I think they won 2 games last year (might be wrong) and a 3 games is a 50% increase (you're increase by 1 game, which is 50% of 2 games)
I fucking love coffee. In fact, I'm going to make some now.
In the start of 2022, Colorado was 63rd in 247 team talent composite with three 4-stars and 73 3-stars (for context, VT had ten 4-stars on roster). Deion's 2023 class has one 5-star (one of 17 schools to land a 5-star in Class of 2023) and three 4-stars. He also brought in a pretty impressive coaching staff.
I don't know if/how quickly this will translate to on field wins, but I see 5 'winnable' games on the schedule (Nebraska, CSU, ASU, Stanford, Arizona) and two upsets that I think are unlikely but possible (Wazzou, who I think could regress, and TCU who is losing A LOT of talented playmakers).
I think they win CSU and Stanford, and one of Nebraska/ASU/Arizona. I think they keep it close against one of Wazzou and TCU. The other games I think they get mostly blown out.
But going from 1 win to 3 wins (with much improved recruiting) feels like a success in year one there.
They will have to overcome a lack of depth, a lack or development, and a lack of chemistry. A few schools have had great success in the portal, but I think this will be the first experiment of this massive of an offseason overhaul in football.
It works in basketball, but basketball lends itself to an overhaul and an allowance of development and chemistry building during the first half of the season. Plus, star power can overcome issues such as a lack of cohesiveness.
So I don't think CU will be able to have success against the early winnable games, except maybe CSU and maybe Nebraska who is in their own rebuild. Too great of a lack of offseason development and too many units will be lacking cohesiveness. Weaker Pac12 teams (e.g., AU/ASU/WSU) are possible later in the season.
If CU pulls off a bowl game, just give Sanders greatest coach of the transfer portal era.
Lincoln Riley at USC, Year 2 under Tucker at Michigan State?
I think we're pretty aligned here - 3ish wins seems about right.
neither of those overhauls were near the same level. They added a lot of talent, but they didn't gut their rosters.
Agree. Those other overhauls were mostly systematic (I think) and less about swapping players. Colorado is having to do both.
Okay, so, as I learn more about what Deion is doing, you are absolutely correct. On3 reporting >50 Colorado players have entered the portal. Max Olson saying that Deion has room to bring in 70(!!!) players in a single offseason.
Deion is playing with fire... if this doesn't work, he could find himself in a Kansas/Charlie Weis situation.
I'm not sure how to feel about this situation. Interesting to follow for sure tho
I hope it fails miserably and blows up in his face. Personally sick of hearing about Coach Prime and his massive publicity stunt coaching job, if you can call it that.
Agreed. There is no way he can have any continuity with roster turnover like that. He will get talent but he will not keep depth. Give me the under on wins for colorado
On one hand, I completely agree. On the other hand, Prime is doing things that every coach does, he just makes no effort to hide it. I kinda appreciate the authenticity.
This is where I am too. I think he's arrogant af and the media portrayal of him and his time at Colorado makes him seem to lack empathy. He's easily hate-able. At the same time, he's not trying to sugarcoat anything and I respect that to a degree. He doesn't seem like the "participation award" type and I appreciate that. Even if he may go a little far in the other direction.
Exactly - he's doing things that lots of coaches do when they come to a downtrodden program, but he's doing it in front of a camera and not hiding from it.
Also, lots of people (me included) have a perception of Deion from his playing days and that is certainly affecting how they feel about him as a coach.
He isn't hiding it, but not letting guys get practice film, pushing almost the entire roster out and thinking he can replace them with better players from the portal in 1 offseason is crazy though.
Everything that happens is about Prime, not about the kids. That will come back to bite him when his players have no loyalty and are constantly moving in and out of the program.
This part is a little baffling, especially since the practice film was from a completely different coaching staff. That said, the guy complaining about this should have ripped it himself (this is pretty common). Presumably he had it for film review in the past.
This is the reality of college sports that no one talks about: Guys get cut, or - even worse - they get passive aggressively pushed out. It's shitty, but until there is collective bargaining, there is nothing to stop this from happening (although just dignifying it would be a nice start). Has any other coach cut 50 scholarship athletes in a single season? No. But we've seen coaches cut 20 or 30 players in a single offseason.
I agree replacing 50 players will be tough... but if Deion thinks he can do that, then I say go for it.
I agree, but I think it's that's true for Jimbo, Brian Kelly, Lincoln Riley, Dabo, Freeze and at least half the coaches in the sport. The only difference is that Deion is up front about it.
I'm not going to sit here and praise Deion, but I think it's important to acknowledge that this is how the sausage is made; Deion's sausage factory just has windows.
Dabo doesn't belong on that list. He is very loyal to his players almost to a fault. Clemson rarely takes any players from the portal.
I respectfully disagree. Yes - Dabo scouts for a very specific culture fit. As a result, Clemson coaches and recruits don't really use the portal.
BUT - just because Dabo doesn't use the portal doesn't mean that he doesn't make everything about him. He revels in the attention, has to share his opinion on everything, etc.
yeah, Dabo cares more about Dabo than anyone else. That is pretty evident by the way he carries himself.
Remember when Dabo said he would quit coaching if players starting getting paid? ...yet he is still there. He doesn't care about players nearly as much as he wants us to believe he does.
For all the gripe about Deion's antics and attitude, the press tried to get his former players and school to bad mouth him after he left for Colorado, nobody bit. They loved him and what he did for the school. Based on reports, he put more of his money into the program and facilities than what they paid him.
Now, was that a show to get a bigger job with a bigger payout by being a big fish in a small pond? Time will tell.
Please forgive my lack of knowledge, but is there any barrier to a coach taking away someone's scholarship? If a person is doing poorly on the field or cannot get on the field, can you just yank their scholarship and give it to someone else or does there have to be some sort of cause beyond just not being a very good player or not showing the effort needed?
Just wondering what would happen if coach wanted to get rid of player, told them they had no future on the team but the player didn't transfer out. Just wanted to stay there and attend classes without having to pay tuition. Assume there must be a way to remove them even if they don't want to go.
Coaches can remove players from the team at their discretion, but all P5 leagues have covenanted that you still keep your scholarship unless you have violated team rules/some academic or disciplinary reason for terminating the scholarship. So coaches can ask you to leave program but they still have to pay your scholarship.
That is typically only on a year to year basis though. Most scholarships are only good for 1 year. They introduced 4 year guarantees a few years back but no one really gives those out because there is no benefit to the school. So at the end of a school year you could remove the entire team if all are on the 1 year scholarship.
Unless something has changed, that I could easily be unaware of, there is no convenient protecting scholarship renewals
FTFY
That is true for most levels, but not for P5. P5 conferences have covenanted they will cover them for all four years. Trying to find the original articles circa 2015 but P5 is on the hook for all four years.
https://universitysports.com/n/the-truth-about-athletic-scholarships#:~:....
Here's the article about PAC 12 doing it but it eventually became an agreement for all P5.
http://es.pn/1wEVRUg
Hmm googled shared a lot of things that said that schools could cut you after the year ends, but your sources are compelling.
My guess is that - while P5 conferences have publicly made this agreement - it's not enforced or even enforceable.
Edit: great piece from Matt Brown on this:
I imagine in this new NIL landscape and transfer portal era, they probably want people to forget they agreed to that anyway.
P5 conferences guarantee scholarships for the academic year. While a school could, in theory, give out a multiyear scholarship, it never happens in P5 football.
The coach will have to manage the timing, but yes, this can be done.
Short Answer: No
This is the scenario I was talking about when I said the coach might 'push the player out' - The coach can make life miserable for said player. In the SZD podcast episode I linked above, Godfrey talked about reports that Deion just refused to acknowledge players who he wanted to transfer out, position coaches were instructed to give no constructive feedback in film review (just a negative review then move on), etc. He then goes on to talk about how common this is, saying that he knows Kiffin and Kelly have both done this. I've heard Patterson did this as well. Sounds a lot like the way Fuente handled the Mook situation too.
The opposite of this is sitting the player down and being 100% candid with them (I assume/like to believe that this is what Pry does given how often he talks about having 'tough conversations').
Reports were Beamer was more candid when he had those talks. However I do remember one DB that ignored Frank and just kept showing up and working his butt off to play so sometimes that approach pays off
Thank you VTJ12, King James and Bar1990. So it sounds like they would be able to complete the academic year but if they need more to graduate, they are just paying like the rest of us. And I presume the scholarship still counts against the total allowed for that year, but then when the next year starts, it is freed up.
It counts for the total but they're wierd on when the total matters, we could have 100+ on scholarship right now. We just have to get under by a certain point in the summer some time. I don't know the exact time frame but at some point we have to be at 85.
Correct
Well, actually not necessarily:
His persona doesn't come across as leader of 120 young men to me, it comes off as a guy acting like he is going to fix a program because he is Deion Prime Sanders. The next few years will answer it if he is burning through 40 transfers a year.
I agree the publicity of it makes his windows much bigger.
I think if you asked 100 coaches if they would release practice film even from a previous staff, 100 of them would say absolutely not. Coaches hoard information this isn't new, but I'm sure Deion said it in the most asshole manner possible
SZD talked about this yesterday. Richard talked to variety of coaches/players, all of whom said it's actually pretty common to for players (who leave on good terms) to get their practice film from coaches.
Yep and a bunch of our guys had practice film on twitter. Artis, Bullock and Farrell at the very least
Exactly. There is no way to develop team chemistry with what he is doing. He thinks with NIL now in play he can just shove the whole roster out and buy players to put together a dream team. That is going to fail so hard - players coming solely because of some cash and Coach Prime are going to check out quick when they lose and things start going the other way. Just see this being so toxic, and this is just the perfect case example of everything that is wrong about the current system. I'm all for players being able to earn and just coming to the realization that major P5 ball is a minor league. But we need collective bargaining and regulation of the system, or else this is just going to spiral out of control.
My conspiracy theory is that the NCAA is purposely letting things spiral so they go to congress and say "You see, I told you we need an anti-trust exemption!"
FTFY - I'm not 100% sure about Prime's authenticity. But you can say - He's not hiding what he's doing.
That's very fair. Yea, every P5 coach has a bit. The difference with Deion is that his bit is 100% transparency.
Isn't there a cap on how many players you can bring in each year? Both recruits and transfers?
It used to be 25 scholarships/year. They paused it until COVID eligibility is exhausted. I think the NCAA plans to revisit at that point.
Going off memory here, so someone who is better informed/sources can correct me.
With the cap coming back next year, this is the last year anybody will do a major roster swap like this.
Got it - I wasn't sure if the cap was definitely coming back or if it was to be determined. Assuming this is the last year, big risk Deion is taking.
Edit: looks like rule ends in 2024, so I think there's one more year?
Especially if he is bringing in 50+ players that are juniors, seniors, and graduate players. There won't be a lot of young depth on his team and the 25 scholarships a year could hit him hard in a year or so.
Crazy...
What makes it more interesting is only 1/31 transfers and 5/19 commits are from the west coast/rockies. Then they've got a couple from Texas, but the rest are from the southeast. There is no way that is sustainable long term.
Right now Colorado is a Sun Belt roster with a couple of super stars. They're going to get bulldozed by Oregon/Utah/Oregon St etc. might sneak a couple of wins here and there to get to 3 or 4.
I don't know man, there are a handful of coaches/schools that can recruit nationally. Deion is one of a kind. I too am suspect that this can work long term, but if anyone can do it, it's a celebrity like Deion.
VT wins 3 maybe 4 more games in 2022 if we had depth. You could see you defense was struggling late in games when they had to play lots of snaps. That's 3-4 players on defense that were VT 2022 stater level, so didn't have to be great. With out depth you will lose at the P5 level.
With depth we definitely win GT, NCST and ODU....possibly Miami.
Hell even without depth we almost won those games. That swings us to a 7-4 season. My goodness how different the convo would be then.
Without a ridiculous amount of penalties we likely win these games.