#Hokies RB Jordan Brunson has entered the transfer portal, The Athletic has learned. A 2020 signee, he finished his Virginia Tech career having played in two games, with zero carries.That whittles VT's running back room down to eight scholarship players.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) April 19, 2022
And another one. TE Jared Gibble is also in the transfer portal. Part of the 2021 class, he did not play last year. #Hokies— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) April 19, 2022
A rough count of Virginia Tech's scholarship situation after RB Jordan Brunson and TE Jared Gibble went into the transfer portal has the #Hokies at 87 right now. That doesn't include Nebraska DE transfer Pheldarius Payne, who has committed but not yet signed.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) April 19, 2022
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And so it begins. The painful but necessary purge. To these two young men, and to those who will join you in the portal over the coming days, thank you for choosing to be Hokies and for the contributions you made to our football program and in the VT classrooms. You will always be Hokie brethren!
Liked Brunson's HS tape but he was def buried here. Hope he finds a place that allows him to get playing time earlier. Expect more to come as Pry evaluates tape and has conversations with every single player on this team in the coming 2 weeks
Same on Brunson, looked like he could be a tough to bring down between the tackles type of back but never really saw the field for us to find out. Good luck to him and Gibble.
Yes, something absolutely has to give at DE in terms of numbers alone. Also WR unless some of those guys are special teams only.
Eh, no need to run off a bunch of r-fr receivers. It's a very young room and thin position experiences wise, we'll need guys to be able to step up and fill in for the older guys when they leave.
I'm optimistic that Pry has been around big boy football long enough to know not to offer 8-9-10 RBs scholarships in 2 cycles. They just might commit and put you in this situation. Especially at RB, where you can find a quality walk on at that position for practice and/or 3rd string carries in a game. If you are going to over-recruit a position with the logic that "we have to take this kid he is a stud", well said kid better be a stud. You take Kendall Fuller even if you have 12 scholly corners. The RB room under Fu was certainly not that case.
I would take 12 Kendall Fullers and see what I could do to make that work
100%. If you could get 11 Fullers, I'd bet 5 of them would figure out how to play OL.
I wish them the best of luck.
But we all knew this was the only way forward, and it's better for everyone.
Brunson looked the part physically and had good recorded 40 times. I wonder what held him up here. Wish the best to both of them, and thanks for what they did while in the program.
which RB was it that had the broken femur?
edit: joke's on me for not just googling it -- it was Tahj Gary, not Jordan Brunson like i thought it may have been
Tajh Gary
I thought Gary looked like a D1 back in his limited action in that Duke debacle- I think that was the game- Good pad level, good size, decent burst- a Darren Evans type back. Would love to see him get a chance again.
Think he entered the portal a few months ago. Haven't heard if he has a landing spot yet
Yup, entered the portal beginning of February
Tahj looked good in the Friday night NC State game
Edit: believe he had a nice TD called back for a penalty.
Brunson headed to Miami...Ohio
Dang, that was fast! I guess maybe he was already in the portal for a bit before we found out about it.
He tweeted his entrance to the transfer portal at 1:16p and the above commitment tweet at 1:24p
Doesn't being in the portal open things up for coaches to speak to the athlete, but nothing prevents the athlete from reaching out to other programs before announcing. He may have reached out to someone who'd recruited him before and they had an opening?
What typically happens in these scenario:
Not even that complicated anymore... now its more like 1. Your coach gets fired and any and all D1 assistant coaches start texting you all day every day. That's legal now.
I don't really have a problem with that though. If a program overhauls a staff, then kids should be able to leave, and there shouldn't be any friction preventing them from doing so. JMO
So my take on this is Pry knew he was gonna end up letting guys go and told these guys how it was gonna be and said something along the lines of "Hey you're a great athlete you just don't fit our system, I have connections at school A, let me help you find a landing spot you may work at". Or at least that's how I would handle said situation
Good for him on finding a spot to finish his education and play football. Best of luck to him.
I visited that campus as an undergrad, and enjoyed my trip
There was a funny scene from the office where Kelly thinks she is moving to Miami, Florida, but is actually going to Miami, Ohio (which isn't actually a city, just the name of the university).
Provo.
Spain?
No, Utah.
Charleston........
I actually have a funny story about flying from MSP to attend a client's Board meeting in Charleston, WV, landing the night before, renting a car, driving to the Marriott, having dinner, waking up the next morning, annnnd...
finding out I was in Charleston, SC.
That's pretty impressive. I could see this happening to me if I didn't do any of the ticket buying or hotel search. But, even then I would probably map out my hotel --> meeting ahead of time and find out it's a 7HR drive.
This happened in 1992-93, back when secretaries handled travel for you. I told my secretary I needed to fly to Charleston to visit One Valley Bank, a fairly large client of ours and at least at the time was the largest bank in Charleston, WV. A couple of days later was handed a ticket that said 'Charleston', went to the MSP airport (my home away from home at that time), checked in under the Flight # and the gate sign said 'Charleston'. Landed in the dark, etc. Called my client from the hotel lobby phone the next morning (yes, the hotel lobby phone, before even Blackberries were a thing) and asked for directions to the Board meeting. The conversation went like this:
"Are you at the Marriott?"
"Yes"
"In the lobby?"
"Yes"
"Well, look out the window and the tallest building you see will be our bank HQ"
"Um, I don't see any tall buildings?"
"Hmm, OK, just ask the front desk how to get to One Valley Bank. Everyone knows us, we're the biggest bank in West Virginia"
"OK, hold on. Excuse me, miss, can you give me directions to One Valley Bank?"
Desk Clerk: "One Valley Bank? Never heard of it"
Me: "It's the biggest bank in Charleston, West Virginia"
Desk Clerk: "Honey, you're in Charleston, South Carolina!" Much laughter ensued in the hotel lobby.
Me: "Oh shit..."
OK, try getting flights between those two cities in a hurry. I think three flights later I landed in Charleston, WV late afternoon and was able to make my presentation at the end of the Board meeting.
And to think my sister, who lives just outside of Charleston, SC was pissed when she found out I was there overnight and didn't let her know. Hell, I didn't even know...
I flew at least two weeks out of every month for 20-25 years, and this is still perhaps my funniest travel story.
I hear this line in my head delivered in sweet soft southern drawl.
Yes, and you can smell oysters in the hotel lobby bar, as the rain falls outside, thunder strikes, and couple of coeds frolic in the ankle deep water outside, giggling and taking selfies.
And to think my sister, who lives just outside of Charleston, SC was pissed when she found out I was there overnight and didn't let her know. Hell, I didn't even know...
This is a funny story. Thanks for sharing.
This is also a good time to hype the "Charleston Classic" (South Carolina, btw) that the VT HOKIES MBB will be playing come November.
when flyover states get confused for entire other countries...lol
That's pretty classic. Makes sense that it occurred well before access to information was at our fingertips.
I've done some work for Marines Corps in the past that involved traveling to various bases. Had a coworker end up in Albany, NY instead of Albany, GA. He didn't realize it until he went to put directions the rental car GPS.
A few years later a different guy almost ended up in Jacksonville, FL instead of Jacksonville,NC. I was telling him how much Camp Lejuene sucked, and he said something along the lines of how a trip to Florida would be nice escape from winter in Chicago. I was like uh dude Camp Lejuene is in North Carolina. He thought I was pulling his leg until he googled it.
LOL- so true Lejuene is one of the worst places in America.
What about LeJuene sucks? I fish just off of it and have been chased off the bombing range by some large helicopters by guys with big guns.
Ok, I am going to top your travel story, because to get really funny travel overseas. Two guys in our office go to Poland, walk forty minutes from hotel to highly rated restaurant/bar. Great time, get blitzed, call cab, go back to hotel. Next morning one of them says he's low on cash cause he paid the cabbie 1100 zloty (little over $250) plus tip (1250 zloty) for the ride cause that was what was on the screen. Someone figures out that wasn't the meter that was the radio station.
Best I got is I wound up in the wrong country like my second week in Germany.
A friend from high school was stationed nearby. So, two of my friends and I took the train to go meet them.
We get there fine, hang out for a bit, and catch the train back.
We had to switch trains in Trier. So, we're on the platform waiting for our train when a few minutes before it was to arrive, it pulls up to the platform.
We all hop on and kick back for the ride.
It was literally less than 5 minutes before our train was due. Has to be ours, right?
Wrong!!!
Shortly down the line hear, "Welcome to Luxemburg."
We all look at each other with puzzled looks on our faces for a moment. ...and then it hits us.
"Oh, shit!"
Needless to say, we got a very early lesson on just how precise the train schedules are in Germany.
Well, Luxemburg is nice, too.
It's nicer than Wisconsin. That's for sure.
*Reference below.
This sounds amazingly close to the plot (subplot?) of a movie....
I can neither confirm nor deny.
On a side note, I don't know how no one has photoshopped Zelensky's face on this...
They look so much alike it's uncanny. And Ziskey ain't far off from Zelensky.
When we hit port in Bahrain, the video game "Crazy Taxi" was big and Bahraini Taxi drivers would pull some hilarious stunts to try and rack up huge tips.
Back on the ship a few folks were trading Bahraini Taxi stories (running through intersections, taking shortcuts through peoples yards, etc...)
One of the girls spoke up "Whatever you do, don't take a nap in a cab".
Her driver saw her sleeping, so he drove to the shore, pulled off the highway, and parked in front of the sign in front of a bridge. When he saw her move around a bit, he nonchalantly pointed to the sign and asked "Saudi Arabia, next exit".
She freaked out and screamed at him for a bit until she realized he was just messing with her. She ended up tipping him about $20 in dinar for the laugh and the story.
If you end up in Charleston, WV, when you are expecting Charleston, SC, Mardi Gras Casino & Resort is right there. Have to make the best out of a bad situation.
Correct, Miami University (after Native American tribe) is located in Oxford, OH so you get lots of opportunity for name play.
No CITIES named Miami in OH but there are at least 5 TOWNSHIPS (UNINCORPORATED) in various counties
Townships in Ohio are crazy, my favorites are the two Bethels townships next to each other in two different counties though and Clinton Township which has been eaten up by Columbus but still has pockets all over the city.
Ton of qualified co-eds at Miami OH, he's going to have a lot fun there.
These are the threads I love!
Keep whittling in that RB room and let's free up some schollies for other positions of need.
All the best to those young men choosing to exit the VT program.
Best of Luck, I think Pry or Bowen said ideal Running back room would be Six
Lol half of what FuCorn had
All you need to know is that Fu took Blackshear and Herbert when he already had 8 scholarship RBs. Translation? the ones he had weren't ACC players.
Part of it is between redshirts and covid year, we had like 6 freshman RBs at the same time. Then we get Herbert who was a no brainer. Roster management was terrible.
Since the room is so young, it's probably okay to have 7 and let the younger guys battle it out. 4 of them will have freshmen eligibility
we don't have the roster spots to carry 7 RBs on scholarship. I would like to see Black move to a Deebo Samuel type role.
Why are you talking about runningbacks in the travel mistake story thread?