Not a whole lot of earth shaking stuff here, but enjoy.
- The team had 2 practices in Bburg before heading to the Queen City. Then started on Sunday with a typical game week schedule except for skipping the usual off-day on Monday. Trying to get the guys into their usual routine.
- Pop is going to be the starter, but Schlee will play (I sense some Collin Schlee trick plays coming). Drones is getting practice reps, but he is still in rehab protocol.
- Jaylen Jones is still not well and not expected to play. Alves and Reddish are the first team, Noah Jenkins is a guy who has practiced well at the boundary position and Braylon Johnson is taking advantage of the opportunity and can play both corner and safety.
- Foster will be in the box with a headset and Quinn will call plays from the sideline with assistance from Pry.
- On the DC hire: "I have had multiple conversations, all of them by phone right now and a couple zooms, but nothing in person yet, but we've got some things scheduled"
- On the Moore hire: "He's got a great plan in how he develops his players and I think the proof is there with what he did at West Virginia" ... "most
importantly I think he can really help us take that next step on the offensive line in the classroom, on the field, and in recruiting" - Moore was interviewed after the Rudolph departure as well.
- No Holloway for the bowl, there has been an open audition for PR with Jennings, Heath, and Keylen Adams mentioned
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Comments
You think the DC talk is just coach speak, or are they still fishing?
IMO - it's going how it always goes with Whit. Pry gives him a wish list, Whit runs it though his super secret industry leading process, and when the top 2-3 guys want 1.5 million to be the DC here, they move on to the next options.
With VT facing irrelevancy, maybe it's time for Whit AND Sands to put up or shut up talking about how important football is to VT. This is not the time to skimp on something the team REALLY needs.
Pry is signing D2 and FCS guys in the portal, so how important IS football to VT? That is the bottom line. If the answer is that they will turn out to be Bashul Tuten or we can't do any better, well there you go. Ultimately we will bring in more non P4 portal guys than P4 guys this cycle. Yeah Yeah, diamonds in the rough, yadda - but we have been 6-6 for 10 years give or take. Losing guys to the SEC and replacing them with guys from Wingate is not going to reverse that trend in any universe.
Let's not knock all the lower division guys...insert Tugboat!
I'm not knocking anyone. I am stating the fact that in terms of every metric available we are not raising the talent level on the roster. We simply are not. Also subjectively - when your strategy is to hope to find a beast from FCS every year, well that is going to miss more than hit.
Don't worry I have no illusions of our talent levels.
I agree. While I understand that one can occasionally benefit from or develop a "diamond in the rough", the real measurement of where you are as a program is in comparing metrics to your contemporaries and to the programs you wish to emulate. So yeah where we rank on those metrics provides the clearest (and most unbiased) view of the program.
Pretty sure with Altuner we've now signed more P4 transfers than any other transfer class we've had at VT but that wouldn't fit your narrative as well so keep focusing on the couple FCS guys.
Edit - looks like we took 5 in 2024
According to 247:
2018-2022: 0 P4 Players in
2023: 2 P4 Players in
2024: 5 P4 Players in
edit 2 just to keep piling on - ACC Teams with P4 transfers in
BC: 1
Duke: 1
Clemson: 1
FSU: 6
GT: 3
Louisville: 3
Miami: 1
NCST: 1
UNC: 5
Pitt: 1
Cuse: 3
UVA: 2
WF: 0
GO ahead and move the goalposts... put words in my mouth.. fine. Im used to it. to recap i said THIS VT TRANSFER CLASS - I could give a shit about BC and GT - THIS VT CLASS will have more non P4 guys than P4. THAT is what I fucking said.. THAT is "my narrative". FFS
You're correct, I jumbled a few of your comments from other threads into context of you being disappointed with signing players from a lower level. Apologies for the assumption that that was your overall message.
So we're adjusting now to just being upset that we've signed more non-P4 players than P4 players. Noted, just trying to get out Infront of this before you make the same comment on the next 20 recruiting threads.
here you go bro- so we don't get it twisted. You can save this, print it, do whatever you want, call me out later... but let's get right to it. The talent we are bringing in is not good enough. I said it- print it in bold. You can do all the mental gymnastics you want. We are not bringing in talent in the portal that is good enough to win more than 6 games. We are losing better talent than we are gaining. Print it, bold it, use it to call me a total idiot later. We are not bringing in good enough talent to improve. Period.
You can make that argument all you want, but I don't know how they graded Delane so high. He covered well sometimes and was an absolute liability others. Also, I don't know how good the grades are in terms of matching eventual contribution, but the grades that MaxAndCheese put in the transfer tracker looks like the grades are better by at least a little on average of most of the players that are coming in compared to who left. The exception is the O line and we were replacing the coach, so it's unfortunate. I haven't seen Altuner's grade yet, but hopefully that brings the incoming average up for that group as well.
I know you want better talent from the portal, but guys who've proven they can contribute in the P4 are looking to play at a blue blood if they can if they're coming from the rank and file P4, guys at the best programs that are proven contributors aren't going to want to go to a program that's a step down. We don't want guys who weren't contributing at better programs, so that leaves guys who weren't good at other rank and file P4 who did well that maybe we can offer more NIL money to or G5/FCS outstanding performers. I think it is what it is until we start winning games. And I think getting guys who performed well at those programs probably can be good enough to beat the bottom to mid tier ACC teams.
From my small and insignificant observations, it appeared to me that Delane missed when he also felt the need to play Safety as well as his own position on particular plays.
I am harboring a sneaking suspicion that the Safety play was actually the weak point.
Just as we had had other problems on the defense with guys not playing with decisiveness, they lacked confidence with other guys behind the Dline and they were hedging their bets on some plays.
That may be the case (but I wouldn't think so based on what I saw at Duke where I was actually at the game). But even if it is the case, I still don't understand how he was graded as high as he was.
".....CLASS will have more non P4 guys than P4."
Isn't this the case for the vast majority of schools?
Looking at 247sports top-rated Transfer portal classes for 2025, you only have to go down to the #9 class of Wisconsin to find it so.
FWIW, On3 rates our average incoming transfers about 13/14th right now. Pretty good for D2 and FCS guys. We aren't winning a Natty any time soon but I believe the portal has raised our overall talent level and production ability since Pry has been here. We need to clean up game day and we need more production from off season training and at certain positions and we could push for ACC contenders. As a fan of VT in the current age this is the goal. This gives us a chance to make it to the dance. Maybe this leads to an overhaul at the top in terms of strategy and implementation which leads to greater success but right now we are doing pretty well with the portal for where we are in the landscape, despite the legitimate gripes you might have about other aspects of the organization/team
I think he's settled on one or two candidates, but the in-person interviews are delayed because they are still coaching.
Pull for Boise St tonight and maybe we can speed up the process!
I'm hoping for this, actually.
No need to provide extra encouragement for me to pull against Penn State. Always and forever willing to jump on that bandwagon.
"No need to provide extra encouragement for me to pull against Penn State. Always and forever willing to jump on that bandwagon."
Except that pulling for Boise State means that our intended target may not be as good as we hope. Holding them to few points means our (hopeful) guy is good at his job. So, unless we hoped for a very low scoring games that Boise State won, I'm encouraged by how well PSU's defense did tonight. I'd ordinarily want them to be eviscerated, but I'm okay with tonight's outcome given how well they did against a talented offense.
They did a good job on Jeanty.
Agree. PSU did what Foster and Belichick famously did, which is take away the opposing offense's best player/strength and force them to try to beat you with someone/something which is not your strength.
I'm going to optimistically read his response as. Both teams are still actively preparing for games. We're locked in on our guy but scheduling hasn't allowed time to have those conversations in person yet. After our schedule frees up post bowl game we've got a plan to be flexible and meet in person no matter the status of the target DCs team (Penn State)
That just means that Duke's DC is a possibility/s
We could probably get Tulsa's DC on the cheap, though I'm sure Whit would be happy with any of these in the "top" 10.
Miami just fired their DC- for the 3rd straight year- maybe we can get him?
There is a part of me that wants nothing to do with anybody that willingly associated with a Miami program.
Yeah this is where my head's at too. There's just too much smoke around Dex and maybe JSJ joining him. How have we completely coincidentally rebuild the entire safety room with no DC? I think even some of the VT board insiders on other sites are just trying to throw out some misdirection and riddles now just because it's getting so obvious with PSU still in the playoffs.
The fact that the safety room is rebuilt could be an indication that the DC-to-be-hired may have some experience coaching top-end safeties. Or maybe it's just coincidence.
Oh also, guess who Cam Seldon's primary recruiter at PSU was...
Fascinating! I wonder what Foster will be doing? I wonder how much time he's spending watching film leading up to this? I wonder if he's excited to do this, or if he's doing it as a favor/out of obligation?
So curious!
Bud will be on Minnesota game film like flies on shit
Maybe we'll actually see some halftime adjustments for a change.
there is something telling me that Bud will be a Jerry Kill type guy for the new DC (imo is going to be Dex)
Hopefully Bud won't have to punch some one
On the surface, this is great right? The best to ever do it lending an eye and some coaching to Pry? what could go wrong? well you could hire a DC with a fragile ego and bring drama. Bud could still have coffee every day with cancer Bellein holding onto 1999. Franklin and Dabo can call Pry desperate and Bud a dinosaur in recruiting.
And you could also not have Bud and still have all those things, except Bud being called a dinosaur.
Without knowing the answers to the questions of "who is the DC?" and "what is Bud's actual involvement?" we can't even begin to know whether his increased involvement will be a good thing or a detriment.