https://athlonsports.com/college-football/acc-coaches-talk-anonymously-a...
For the one that everyone here cares about:
Virginia Tech
"The blueprint that [new head coach] James Franklin has had in his career from Vandy to Penn State translates very well to that league.""Virginia Tech should be one of the top three programs in the ACC when done right. I'm excited to see what they do because I've got a ton of belief in the recruits they brought in and the infrastructure that's in place for them to be successful."
"The level of respect that I have for the humbleness and lack of ego that [former head coach] Brent Pry has to [stay on as defensive coordinator] is off the charts. I don't think enough can be said about how special and how difficult that kind of a move is. Being able to take the head coach duties off his plate again might provide better defensive production."
Some others of note:
Pitt
"They're a really good defensive team, and they're adequate on offense, I guess."
North Carolina
"I don't think there's a sense that they've improved their evaluation abilities for this day and age of college football to bring in the right guys."
Clemson
"It's almost like they overcoach their defensive players instead of letting them cut it loose and play. There were some schematic things where you felt like you could get them out of position. Usually, teams that are really talented do a little less and try to just let those guys cut it loose."
"Their backup QBs didn't play much last year, and I didn't think they were very good. I'd be shocked if they were better on offense even if they're coached better. When Clemson is good, their quarterback is really good."
Florida State
"They don't have the booster support that people might think that they do."
"The volatility with [head coach] Mike Norvell is something that I've never seen. Norvell is a really good coach, but one of the hardest things in football is fighting complacency. I think once things started going well, they gave in an inch here and there, then you look back in a year and you see that you gave up a mile."
Its nice to see the good things being said about us again. The last few years you could tell things were just not going to go well here, and everyone else knew it.
Comments
For UVA
So far, we havent seen that come to fruition at least in their recruiting rankings...so their 'unique' approach might be working in reverse for them. Time will tell
I've been surprised to see UVA become a transfer program. That was previously a struggle due to academic transfer credits. Whether it's sustainable is an entirely different question. They had a horseshoe up their rear-end the entirety of last year + a cupcake schedule.
Yes, but based on the last couple of academic rankings where Tech has pulled ahead of UVA they might not care about the academic transfer requirements anymore.
This is completely anecdotal, but when I was in school (~10 years ago) I think transferring into UVA may have been easier than VT. I knew multiple people that were able to transfer into UVA but not VT coming from out of state schools.
Out of high school, UVA was more difficult unless you were going for engineering or architecture, but for whatever reason VT was particular about some aspect of transfers that made it hard.
In fairness, when it comes to athletics, I don't think there are very many programs that really pay serious attention to the academic credentials of people they accept if that person is good at a sport that the school cares about.
The guy I knew from Stanford describing the clearly bimodal distribution of the student-athletes vs. the other students comes to mind along with UNC football and basketball, and the story from my sister-in-law about papers she graded at TCU (or was it SMU, I can ask), and the story from one of VT's professors (although this was about someone at Minnesota when he was there), and 2 stories from VT people who either tutored or were roommates with the girlfriend of 2 people with names I choose to not to reveal but people on here would recognize, and ...
Yep, signature checks out
Enquiring minds want to know if these two people knew they were sharing said girlfriend?
Ha, yeah, I should have split them up better.
VT person #1 was the tutor of someone that people on here would know the name of.
VT person #2 was the roommate of a girl that was dating someone that people on here would know the name of.
At least the VT professor was talking about someone who was a student at University of Minnesota and not at VT. Said there was no major easy enough for this guy. Eventually, they came up with a new major just for him: Hospital Recreation. Supposedly, he would go to the hospital and bounce the ball to entertain the patients and would get credit for this.
He is just learning about Philanthropy and charitable giving seems legit.
Completely my speculation, but I think their plan is to let others "waste" money on high school recruits and to pull whoever they want from the portal. That's a tough way to build a cohesive environment and culture, but if you pay enough money and bring in the right pieces then there is a chance that the blind squirrel will find a nut every few years.
Worked for Miami, Indiana, and Ole Miss last year. Three of last year's final 4 gave >50% of their snaps to transfers. I don't think it's any tougher to build culture with transfers than high school recruits.
You could argue that it's easier with transfers since they've already gone through the high school to college transition which is a much more drastic change than going from one college to another. They're also a little older so you'd hope there's a bit more maturity and career-minded focus involved.
Problem is, many of them believe they can go pro if only they had a little better situation. Somewhere where they can be valued for the "God given talents" they so fervently believe they have been gifted with. I guess the really smart ones are a bit more realistic, but are starting to realize the money's likely to be much better and easier to earn in college NIL days and think about how to maximize that to help start their life.
But how many of these transfer-based programs have failed? Also, does Indiana actually count with how many transfers came from JMU?
I do think it's possible and may even become more normal with NCAA football becoming the middle-ground between XFL and NFL. If players are just free agents, then maybe culture won't matter at all and it's all about who has the experience and fit for a particular scheme.
I'm also trying to convince myself of this, really. If I'm wrong, then we are wasting money on high school recruits and UVA has the winning strategy with potentially deeper pockets.
If spending money on transfers is more valuable than spending it on HS recruits, won't the market adjust to account for this, and transfers will start getting bigger bags? Sounds like it should normalize itself.
I guess the concern is that we are in the early stages and we might be on the wrong side while UVA is on the right side. Idk though, there is still a ton of talent coming out of HS that is good to have in your program
Yeah, I'm not sure. Hopefully the market adjusts or has adjusted (I have no idea how much any of these student athletes get paid). Hopefully there are appropriate regulations put in place soon. Otherwise, there will be a bunch of farm teams and a then a handful of programs with dumb money that will pay for the best 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th year players.
All of the best transfers were once high school recruits. Someone has to be the first school to give a talented player his first snaps. Why not us?
For every FSU 2023 there's another FSU 2024.
It's not 'better' or 'more valuable', It's just more likely to pan out. You give a high school recruit $250k and you could get $500k production or a career bench warmer. You give a transfer $250k and you're probably getting between $350k production and $150k production.
I'm sure there's a better analogy out there, but the benefit of the portal is (ironically) predictability.
I think you're spot on here. I also think that some coaches/GMs/DPPs are going to understand the market better than others. It truly adds another dimension to scouting.
How many high school-based recruiting programs have failed? Clemson and Stanford have both fallen off in part because they avoid the portal like the plague (Yes, I know Dabo shot himself in the foot whereas Stanford is dealing with academics, but the problem is the same). UGA, USC, and BYU are also mostly avoiding the portal, but two of those programs are getting almost all bluechip players out of the portal, and the other is getting 25 year old married men.
Yes? Cig took 13 players with him from JMU entering 2024. There are 105 roster spots. That number was down to 7 in 2025. Indiana's roster was only 34% transfers, but >65% of starts were from transfers (and I believe I saw another stat that over 70% of total snaps were from transfers, but I can't find the source for that).
Culture doesn't win games. Scouting does. Recruiting does. Deployment does. It's easy to have great culture when you're winning a lot. It's almost impossible to have a great culture when you're losing a lot. I think winning breeds culture more than culture breeds winning.
More cynically, I believe that the 'culture' narrative in college football is/was something perpetuated by coaches and agents to increase the mythos around coaches, getting them more power/control/money. With the benefit of hindsight, we see that a lot of the 'culture' coaches actually just out-scouted the recruiting services to get more talent.
You're oversimplifying it/thinking about it wrong. The question is not 'is a high school recruit better than a transfer?' - it's a matter of risk/reward. A transfer is a relatively known quantity; you've seen them produce against a similar level of competition, so you know what to expect out of them. A high school recruit often has a much higher upside and a much lower floor.
THe other thing that is interesting is the game-theory of it all. If UVA pursues mostly transfers, then supply is higher for high school recruits in the region, which means VT can take more. If we can take more high schoolers (and we can retain them), then we can weather the unpredictability. It's definitely a fascinating twist on a rivalry that has gotten pretty inconsequential in recent years.
Anyways, TL;DR:
EDIT: I posted about this here in January. TLDR x2, coaches should aim to cut/improving the bottom 25% of your 2-deep ever year. The rest doesn't really matter.
The general sentiment of that Pitt comment feels like it's evergreen
I'd love to know which coach this was
Virginia Tech
"Look, I'm just gonna say what every coach in this damn league is thinking but too scared to admit publicly. Since James Franklin got to Virginia Tech, the whole balance of power in the ACC is screwed. They've got recruiting rolling, NIL money flowing, Lane Stadium turned back into a damn war zone, and now every kid from Virginia to Georgia thinks Blacksburg is the place to be. That program's got swagger again, and honestly? That's terrifying."
"You walk into Lane on a Thursday night now and it feels like the gates of hell opened up. Our assistants are sitting there watching film going, 'How the fuck are we supposed to stop this?' They're deep, physical, fast, and Franklin recruits like a man possessed. If the rest of us don't figure something out quick, Virginia Tech is gonna run this conference for the next decade and everybody else is just fighting for second place."
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spoiler: it was chatgpt when prompted to provide an assessment of VT football from the perspective of a worried ACC coach
I'd love to be sure they feel that way now, but hopefully we'll make damn sure they feel that way soon.