Virginia Tech hires RBs coach Elijah Brooks from Maryland
The Hokies' staff shuffle is beginning to find an endpoint. The Orange and Maroon have hired Maryland RBs coach Elijah Brooks.
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Brooks played his high school ball at DeMatha Catholic in the DC area before going on to a college career as a running back at Kent State and FCS William & Mary. Following his playing career, he returned to his alma mater as running backs coach before ascending to the top spot from 2011-18.
Maryland hired him away from the powerhouse high school program, and the returns have been solid for the Terps. He coached Jake Funk to an All-Big Ten third team honor in 2020 (Funk was a 2021 NFL Draft pick of the Los Angeles Rams), and helped Anthony McFarland and Javon Leake find success in the 2019 season, his first with the Terps (McFarland was a fourth-round Draft pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020, and still plays for the team). Under his tutelage, Maryland's rushing attack has been top-half of the Big Ten every year, despite not boasting the offensive line talent of some of the other programs in the league.
More importantly, though, Brooks has been known as an ace on the recruiting trail. The Terps finished No. 5 in the Big Ten in the Rivals Team Recruiting Rankings in the 2021 cycle, No. 8 in the 2022 cycle, and No. 10 in 2023. They achieved those results despite not finishing higher than fourth on the field in their own division in the preceding seasons. The footprint comes into play in a major way: 13/24 signees in 2021 came from DC, Maryland, or Virginia, while that number was 12/23 in the Class of 2022, and 10 of 25 back in February.
Brooks has been a strong recruiter at some of the programs that the Hokies have struggled to find a major foothold in, including Baltimore St. Frances, the DC public schools, and his alma mater DeMatha.
From a recruiting standpoint, his hire is precisely in line with the Hokies' desire to dominate their home region and land the majority of their classes from the Commonwealth and DMV area before branching to a wider geography. Harming the recruiting firepower of a regional rival within that footprint is just a bonus.
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