The Hokie Haven Mailbag!
You had questions, publisher Tim Sullivan has answers. Not a subscriber? Join today to get access to our premium message board, The Gobbler, to participate next time around.
Not a HokieHaven.com subscriber? Join today for access to all our premium content and message board community. Already INSIDE? Join the conversation on The Gobbler!
LakeErieHokie: Why do we have so much trouble getting kids from Saint Frances in Baltimore?
There is never a single answer to a question like this on the recruiting trail. Ultimately, it's a combination of factors. One of the primary drivers is that those kids have options around the country, and VT hasn't been a "beat Alabama or Michigan or USC for a top recruit" type of program for quite some time. But there are more specific reasons when it comes to SFA.
First, kids who attend St. Frances Academy are not necessarily from Baltimore, and plenty of them aren't even from the DMV - or Maryland/Virginia at all. That means there's non natural affinity to Virginia Tech based on geography or childhood fandom. Now, the Panthers do have some players from the 757 on their roster, but when they aren't surrounded by fellow players from the region, the likelihood that there's a critical mass that gets kids excited about the program is lower.
Secondly, therehave been some strained relationships over the years - mostly originating from the Fuente staff, but not as easily mended by hires of Tyler Bowen, Elijah Brown, et al in the time since. When there's any sort of tension between high school coaches and a specific college program - particularly when those coaches have plenty of other programs knocking down their door to give guys an opportunity - it can take time. When the high school program also has a (justifiable) impression that sending kids to programs far from home gives an air of more prestige, it makes it all the more difficult.
Again, it's a complicated question, and there are many, many more factors that can be brought into play, but that's the broad strokes of the most-important ones.
hokiejoe21: Is Pry’s departure from PSU the main reason they are having less success with va players?
It certainly plays a factor, though not in the "we don't have Brent Pry, now we are bad at recruiting Virginia" sense. It's more about Virginia Tech being a legit competitor for Virginia talent (so Pry's presence - and emphasis on his staff's recruiting regions - is the bigger factor than PSU actually losing the individual). Brodie Adams or Joshua Clarke may well have been a Nittany Lion if the Hokies hadn't gotten serious about locking down the Commonwealth.
There's also something to be said for PSU's recruiting quality... it has not fallen off at all, in part because of the ability to compete nationally as the program settles into that second on-field tier of teams that are unlikely to challenge for the playoff, but are the best of the rest. If they can land top-15 classes without leaving Pennsylvania/Maryland/New Jersey except in specific instances, the need to make "specific instances" exceptions for a prospect in Virginia - when that's a state that has lots of competition (and not just from VT) - is lower. Seven of their 13 four-star signings in 2024 came from PA or MD (and others came from Big Ten territory), so a one-year absence from Virginia doesn't necessarily mean anything beyond not going there for talent in this class.
ashcroft: When is VT football going to concentrate more recruiting resources in PA/NJ area?
The answer to this one sort of acts as the corollary to the previous: the short answer is whenever they need to in order to get the roster they want.
The staff is first and foremost going to focus on Virginia, Maryland, DC, North Carolina (and upstate South Carolina) and Eastern Tennessee. That six-hour driving footprint is something they're serious about. There's value in building from close to home.
But this group also landed players from Florida (Davi Belfort), Georgia (Web Davidson), and Ohio (Andrew Hanchuk/Tommy Ricard). And yes, even one from New Jersey (Aidan Lynch). When they build the on-field product into something that's more attractive to prospects, it'll be easier to go compete in Penn State's backyard, for example. But Pennsylvania and New Jersey are just a couple options outside the footprint for building a roster, and PSU has been a clear better option for players who are good enough to have their choice. The staff has still put resources into recruiting those areas, but may have better luck landing players out of that territory if the momentum of 2023 continues upward.
DennisBane: I'm really exited about 2024. However, the following year, VT will have a lot of Seniors and Super Seniors graduate. On top of that, we should have several NFL early departures. Do you feel like the cupboard is full enough to sustain a 2 year improvement, or will the portal be needed even more next year than this year?
The reality is that in modern college football, you barely know what your roster is going to look like by the time August rolls around (though there's more certainty with a VT staff that emphasizes continuity and cohesion), much less the next August when you look at where things stand in January.
The Hokies' skill-position players on offense (as well as a few key defenders) were mostly first-year members of the program after entering the Transfer Portal at previous institutions. A few more starters in various spots were second-year players after joining before the 2022 season. Losing a talented senior class is not the kiss of death it once was. Players will come and go in the Transfer Portal every single offseason in modern CFB.
Meanwhile, after the Fuente coaching staff did a terrible job in roster management, it took less than two years for the Pry staff to identify the weaknesses, address them through the Portal and recruiting, and stabilize the class balance for seasons to come. They know what they're doing in a way the previous guys did not (and did not care to learn).
Certainly, you can expect there to be a dropoff after the starting RB, all four starting WRs, a handful of linemen, and some defensive players graduate and head to the 2025 Draft - and there's a decent chance the QB has a big enough year to join them, along with anyone else who steps up and has opportunities to go early. But the hope now is that it's a dropoff from an ACC-contending team to... a team still in the hunt for a conference title. With correct management, the peaks can be just as high without the valleys being too low.
nosmada: Not BEST, but who is the MOST IMPORTANT player in 2025? the Brodie type
There's no in-state guy that's quite as crucial as Keylen Adams was for the 2024 group. But the answer here is still obvious: Faheem Delane.
Not only is this a near-five-star kid from the footprint, but he's one whose older brother plays for the Hokies, so that connection ups the likelihood of landing him... and the negative perception if the Hokies fail to do so. The fact that he continues to keep the Orange and Maroon in the hunt as most of his other options are perennial contenders? That's a positive. But sealing the deal with him would indicate that the Hokies are able to close on players (yes, even if there are factors helping out) that they wouldn't have gotten a sniff from under the Fuente staff. Delane puts Virginia Tech on the recruiting map in a way we're expecting the team to put itself on the on-field map this Fall.
If you want to focus on an in-state guy who is the highest-ranked target from the Commonwealth that the Hokies have a great shot to land, it'd be linebacker Brett Clatterbaugh. A guy outside the Rivals250 (which, to be fair, is where Adams ended up in the 2024 rankings) doesn't move the needle in the same way, but there's something to be said for Pry's staff focusing on finding the right guys rather than a couple weeks of headlines for highly-ranked commitments, when those players may or may not fit the needs of the program.
hokiejoe21: Additional thoughts on VT’s position when realignment happens again. Why do you hear more about UVA to SEC instead of VT?
It really depends on the final evolution of realignment. Does the Big 12 survive? Does the ACC? If it's either Big Ten or SEC, you have to think the SEC snatches up the Hokies to get a solid football/basketball program (even if the media market is not en exciting one, that final phase really goes past market relevancy). If the ACC/B12 survive another round, I could see Virginia Tech sticking around and being content as a Big Fish in a Small Pond - so long as that pond retains an automatic bid to the 12-team playoff.
Side rant here, but the greed of TV executives (almost exclusively on the part of ESPN, which also destroyed bowl season unilaterally, only to have its on-air talent bemoan the death of bowl season every December) to take the fun regionalization out of college football stinks. It won't destroy the sport - as long as universities with huge alumni bases are suiting up, there's a huge audience available - but it takes it from something that was fun and off-the-wall and turns it into a crappy version of nothing more than an NFL minor league. Big brands like Virginia Tech having to hope the roulette wheel lands on them, rather than having a geographically-coherent conference home, is pathetic, and Disney's sports arm should be ashamed of what it's done to the ecosystem.
As for UVa to the SEC... they provide something very different from Virginia Tech: middling sports programs with a bit more proximity to DC (in a world where markets do end up mattering), and a hell of a lot more proximity to the best recruits in the region. It's also a different sort of academic institution, and you can see (if disagree with) the logic that a liberal-arts focused institution makes more sense than a big engineering school.
Realistically, there's value in UVa's inability to be consistently good in the main revenue sports (while rarely being horrifically bad, recent football struggles excepted), because it gives current members little to be scared of without dragging down conference strength. But at the end of the day, if a league takes UVa over Virginia Tech, it's mostly for non-sporting reasons.
copper21: Is Pry happy where we stand when it comes to progression of the two coordinators?
"Progression" is the right word to use here, because neither OC Tyler Bowen nor DC Chris Marve is a finished product. I don't think either faces a threat of being fired, so if that's the line we're drawing in the sand for Pry's happiness, then yes, they're there. The ship is pointed in the right direction, but there are offseason growing pains to endure nonetheless.
I'm not inside Pry's mind, so I can't tell you in his heart of hearts how he feels beyond that there's no personnel change coming (unless it's outside of his individual control - whether a different school would hire one away, they'd decide to move on themselves, or if there's pressure from somewhere in the VT ecosystem may end up being a different question). It would be unwise of him to be satisfied with either: the weaknesses of Bowen's scheme a year ago were clear, and he made no changes until a quarterback injury forced him to do something completely different - and that something ended up being much better. For Marve, the questions are less about his job as a coordinator (he's been fine, though the year-to-year dropoff is troubling) and more about how his coordinator duties weigh on his position group, which has been perhaps worst on the team two years in a row - and not because of a lack of talent.
Pry is a first-time head coach and understands that his assistants are not finished products. It's almost easy to forget what a huge volume of game-management mistakes Pry made in year one, since they were basically eliminated in year two. That year-over-year growth for him should give him confidence that his guys have the same upside as they get comfortable in their roles, and he gets better at providing head coachly guidance.
I'm still personally a little wary that some of the struggles happened the way they did, and there's no guarantee that either coordinator is clearly The Guy until it shows on the field. But for now, "progression" is better than any alternative other than going 0-60 on immediate improvement to an elite level.
roy4582: Where would you rank tech in the ACC next season? Who are the teams ahead of us?
I think the late-season run has fans a little overzealous with the predictions. The Hokies were smashed by the three best teams in the ACC, and beat the five worst teams in the ACC, and played nobody in between. Where they fit into that six-team meaty middle is anyone's guess (and the 5-3 record can be a little misleading without any games against a true peer of the conference standings). I would estimate three or four of the teams that the Hokies didn't play would have been favored head-to-head this Fall.
That said, VT returns more of its production than basically any team in the country, and certainly most in the ACC. Starting QB, RB, four top receivers (including one who only got a couple games), all five offensive linemen (though one or two could be replaced by a youngster or incoming transfer), two top cornerbacks, two regularly-used safeties, all top defensive ends (and adding an All-ACC tackle who played elsewhere), all special teams specialists... grading looking forward, and with the understanding that the coaches figured some things out midyear (see above), there's a lot of upside here.
We're too far out to know how the talent at other programs will shake out by fall camp. But it would be safe to guess the Hokies will be voted one of the top 3-4 teams in the league at ACC Media Days next Summer, and will snag a number of No. 1 votes.
rawest00: Your thought on which incoming freshmen may have an impact next season? With almost all starters returning there may not be as many opportunities as usual, absent injuries.
I think you nailed it with the second sentence there. It simply won't be a typical year in terms of opportunity for young guys - or at least not typical through the lens of the past six or seven years. Too much talent comes back to assume guys jump right into the mix. That said, some players are simply good enough to get onto the field, and there may be a couple of those in the Hokies' 2024 signing class.
I think Quentin Reddish is all-but assured to make an impact on special teams, and should work his way into the mix as a regularly-used backup defensive back by the end of the year. Kemari Copeland is not your typical recruit (he's entering his fourth year out of high school after a prep season, a redshirt, and a juco year), but given that he's coming in at a position without established starters, he should be able to get onto the field. Also at defensive tackle, Emmett Laws's size may keep him off the field as a true frosh, but it feels just as possible that his pass-rush ability on the interior still means some passing-downs cameos.
And while the wide receiver room is deep with young players after the senior-heavy first line, the physical potential of Keylen Adams and Chanz Wiggins might be impossible to keep out of the lineup. They are the two players with the opportunity to change the "doesn't matter if the depth chart looks possible to crack, they are just that good of athletes" calculus.
hokie23DS: Will we see any commitments for 25 by this spring?
Depending on what "by spring" means, it all-but assured. They may not be the most exciting ones (though last year saw Davi Belfort join the class first, so it's also possible that exciting ones do end up among the first commits), but I have a hard time seeing this staff make it out of February without at least reeling in a player or two to set the base for the class. They have an understanding (see above about personnel management) of how to build a class and build it sustainably, and getting at least a couple commits from junior days - and at least one of those a public commit - is an important ingredient there.
By the end of spring practice in April, they should have a handful of pledges, and a number of their top targets identified and recruiting pitches made, with those players ready to announce decisions by the time camp season begins in June. That's also what happened last year (though some of those decisions didn't go public until a little later), and the staff's blueprint is one that works, and they'll adhere to it until the broader world of recruiting forces changes.
----
Chat about this story and all things Hokies and Hokie recruiting on our premium message board, The Gobbler!
Follow on Twitter: @Hokie_Haven @sullivti @realtbannerman @connormardian10
Like us on Facebook, support the site by following our YouTube channel and Instagram account @Hokie_Haven.
Tips/questions/concerns? E-mail publisher Tim Sullivan here.
Not a HokieHaven.com subscriber? Join today for access to all our premium content and message board community.
---