Virginia Tech 2015 Recruiting Target List

[Sleepy T]

Actually he did mention the depth chart thing, which is kinda funny. Doesn't get much deeper than the SEC. He also mentioned that he was very comfortable there and that he was very interested in the #1 rated academics wrt International Business.

Seems like he is a good kid. Wish him the best. I want guys who want to be Hokies first and foremost, and that he wasn't.

It has been slow this year, but we will get ours in the end. This class will end up fine. Winning on the field and gettin that swagger back changes everything.

And oh yeah, take it for what it's worth. But the parents although smiling weren't exactly beaming with excitement on TV. Maybe they are just shy folks who are quiet and proud??

 

[vtpoop]

Our recruiting is the food equivalent of a rolled up nutty turd log topped with explosive diarrhea sauce.

 

[HoHumHokie]

So South Carolina just offered him in February and instantly wooed him over!?!? WTF?

 

[wildturkey]

Maybe Buzz Williams should spend a couple of hours doing football recruiting too.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

I'm sure we'll hear that Clark wasn't that high on VT's depth chart and that there's a 2-star guy whose only other offer is from UMass that the staff really thinks is a stud in waiting.

No, we really wanted him but three weeks ago we didn't think we had a chance, and we didn't get him. It sucks.

If this is a reference to my comments about Ferrell, they were accurate and if you don't like what I tell you don't read it. I don't bullshit on here and I think my history speaks for itself.

 

[sparko]

I'm a pretty optimistic guy and I think this class will turn out "OK" ... but OK isn't good enough in my book. Other schools are selling their program better than VT ... period.

Searels seems like a good guy and I know he just got here but he doesn't seem to be burning it up on the recruiting trail yet. Maybe he needs time but I'm not terribly impressed ... yet. Considering his pedigree and our depth chart, he should be able to sell himself pretty easily.

I think we'll be OK but I don't see our recruiting, especially in-state, taking a huge upturn as long as Coach Beamer is around. I didn't buy into the bullshit of programs negatively recruiting because he won't be around much longer but there has to be SOMETHING that's being used against us. Missing on practically every top in-state talent??? That's inexcusable.

And unless you're looking for big city livin, Blacksburg and VT's campus is about as nice as they come. It's not Stanford or Mississippi --- but I've heard that Columbia, SC and USCe's campus is basically shit.

Frustrated --- we need some good recruiting news.

 

[sparko]

On a more positive note, we seem to be in MUCH better shape with Ricky Deberry than was originally believed. In the end, I don't think we get him still but stranger things have happened.

 

[VTscores]

I agree with the general sentiment around here that the recruiting isn't matching the prominence of the program.

It has been nice to make the top 4 of lots of highly rated recruits, but they're simply not winning enough of these in-state battles. It's difficult for us to guess why not, as they're getting the recruits in, but not closing them.

I like the Loeffler/Bud Foster combination, but they have to keep the cabinet stocked with talent. Too bad they couldn't have held on to Grimes a few years, because he was great. Searels has to win a few of these recruiting battles in order to earn his keep.

 

[NickVT10]

I'm a pretty optimistic guy and I think this class will turn out "OK" ... but OK isn't good enough in my book. Other schools are selling their program better than VT ... period.

Searels seems like a good guy and I know he just got here but he doesn't seem to be burning it up on the recruiting trail yet. Maybe he needs time but I'm not terribly impressed ... yet. Considering his pedigree and our depth chart, he should be able to sell himself pretty easily.

I think we'll be OK but I don't see our recruiting, especially in-state, taking a huge upturn as long as Coach Beamer is around. I didn't buy into the bullshit of programs negatively recruiting because he won't be around much longer but there has to be SOMETHING that's being used against us. Missing on practically every top in-state talent??? That's inexcusable.

And unless you're looking for big city livin, Blacksburg and VT's campus is about as nice as they come. It's not Stanford or Mississippi --- but I've heard that Columbia, SC and USCe's campus is basically shit.

Frustrated --- we need some good recruiting news.

When the top in state talent is also top national talent it is hard. We haven't been a top national team so that becomes a problem. Football in VA is different than in Alabama where you go to Auburn or Bama if you are offered a scholly from them. VA doesn't have that long standing tradition so a VT offer to a VA kid is different than that Bama offer for an AL kid or a tOSU offer from an OH kid.

 

[VTscores]

When the top in state talent is also top national talent it is hard. We haven't been a top national team so that becomes a problem. Football in VA is different than in Alabama where you go to Auburn or Bama if you are offered a scholly from them. VA doesn't have that long standing tradition so a VT offer to a VA kid is different than that Bama offer for an AL kid or a tOSU offer from an OH kid.

We lost Clark to USCe, not Bama. It's nice to be considered along side Bama and Ohio State, but if you want to compete with them, you have to also compete with them on the recruiting end, and occasionally win. Not necessarily every time, but some of the time.

 

[Forty_Sixand2]

Nick nailed it.

Our recruiting is actually exceeding our performance. The 2012, 2013 and 2014 classes ranked 22nd*, 17th and 21st respectively. That has far exceeded our on the field performance. The truth is we have had three of our best recruiting classes in a row but we were also in on some big time players who we lost out on and people tend to remember those. Caleb, Ekanem, Edmunds, Clarke, Vandyke, Fuller, Fisher Hodges, Teller, Keihn, McKenzie, Williams, Minor, McKenzie, Ford, Durkin, Phillips, Mihota, Walker, Reavis etc.... all came in the last three classes. Compare that 2009-2011. We are certainly hurting in state but to act like recruiting is dead is just folly. Look above at that last and consider them AS RECRUITS. Those are recruiting battles that we have won. People forget that and remember Nnadi, Hand, Kirven etc... and the losses suck too. However when you are going to recruit big time guys, and you play by the rules you are going to lose more than you win. I consider that group of national recruits that I listed above in a three year span a pretty damn good haul.

It will be interesting to see what happens when London loses his job this year.

South Carolina has been flat better than us the last two years and beaten very good teams. We are a upper middle class ACC team fighting image issues and negative recruiting against Beamer leaving. All of that considered, we have done pretty well. 2015 has been underwhelming so far but Mook and Lewis are studs and the class is still early. Big time recruits commit later. Let's see the list in December.

 

[ckhokie]

No way we should be losing in state guys to USCe. They have competed for an SEC championship legitamently maybe twice, and never won one. I don't get as pissed when we lose someone to Bama, OSU, or even Stanford, but seriously, USCe typically does not do much on the national level, and are not any more of a premier program than Tech. Sure Michigan has history, but these kids are 17 and 18 years old. VT has been a powerful program for most of, if not all of their lives.

Sure the last recruiting classes have been decent, but I think that corresponds much more with the level of in state talent than any improvement on the recruiting trail. We still missed on all of the top talent in the state, and that shouldn't be considered a success in the end. 20-25th (at our best) ranked recruiting classes aren't going to compete for national championships, or even ACC championships with the current competition. I am starting to get fairly worried about this year's class. I know some of the bigger recruits are announcing later, but how many of those do we really realistically even have a shot at?

There has to be some flaw in our recruiting tactics, or just Blacksburg in general, that is not going to change until Beamer hangs it up if it is fixable to begin with.

I get that this comes across fairly gloomy, but as 2008/2009 or whatever showed us, one or two bad classes can really set a program back.

 

[VTscores]

USC has a current streak of 3 11-win seasons, beat Clemson the last 5 times they played, and won their last three bowl games against Nebraska, Michigan, and Wisconsin. OK, I'll admit that USC is pretty good, and has a pretty good story to tell.

Austin Clark hurts a bit because he seems like a perfect candidate, and is local. He would have been a huge recruiting victory.

I think if VT has a good season, they can still end up with a pretty good recruiting class, but I also think that they'll need to be winning a lot in order to do that.

It's a little worrisome because VT usually has a stronger core recruiting class at this point of the recruiting season, but I'm willing to revisit this debate in December.

 

[ckhokie]

USC has a current streak of 3 11-win seasons, beat Clemson the last 5 times they played, and won their last three bowl games against Nebraska, Michigan, and Wisconsin. OK, I'll admit that USC is pretty good, and has a pretty good story to tell.

8 10+ win seasons in a row didn't get us the top talent in our own state, let alone a neighboring one.

USC hasn't even been to a BCS game.

 

[sparko]

Yep -- as others have said, it's a catch22. Perception is everything. We have to start winning the big games and compete for ACC championships again to land the big time recruits. Problem is that it's getting to the point that we'll need to land more of those big-time recruits to get back to that point. As far as defense, I'm not too worried yet. Bud Foster has proven time and time again that he can field top 10 defenses with average talent. The only areas where we're hurting there are landing top DE and LB talent and top DE talent .... and top DE talent.

Offensively -- let's hope that we've got enough of these good ones. Losing Clark who is just up the road hurts though. Grimes seemed like a pretty top notch recruiter. Searels -- let's hope he is too and that he hasn't just benefited from coaching for the likes of Georgia and Texas, where there is plenty of OL talent to go around.

Great points though about who we have landed. Our out-of-state recruiting has never been better and I hope we continue to focus more efforts there.

 

[hokiegrad]

8 10+ win seasons in a row didn't get us the top talent in our own state, let alone a neighboring one.

Face it, VT is considered the Auburn or NCState or Pitt of Virginia, not the Alabama, UNC, or Penn State. The primary public college of the state generally has the bigger following in-state and gets more of who they want when all other things are equal. When things are not equal, as they clearly haven't been in Virginia for some time, we can do a lot better, but there's still more of a pull to the primary in-state college than you'd think there should be, and it's still harder to keep kids from going out of state than it would be for that primary in-state school were they performing well on the field.

I grew up an Auburn fan before going to VT. I know how this works. I'm not saying I like it one bit. Hate writing this, actually. But it's the truth, and needs to be understood.

 

[HoHumHokie]

Face it, VT is considered the Auburn or NCState or Pitt of Virginia, not the Alabama, UNC, or Penn State. The primary public college of the state generally has the bigger following in-state and gets more of who they want when all other things are equal. When things are not equal, as they clearly haven't been in Virginia for some time, we can do a lot better, but there's still more of a pull to the primary in-state college than you'd think there should be, and it's still harder to keep kids from going out of state than it would be for that primary in-state school were they performing well on the field.

I grew up an Auburn fan before going to VT. I know how this works. I'm not saying I like it one bit. Hate writing this, actually. But it's the truth, and needs to be understood.

I'd be very happy being the "Auburn" of Virginia!!!

 

[vtfan15]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>UNC Football needed center for its 2015 class - new commit Tommy Hatton is No. 4 ranked center in nation per <a href="http://t.co/xtHmKlHvLy">http://t.co/xtHmKlHvLy</a></p>&mdash; InsideCarolina (@InsideCarolina) <a href="https://twitter.com/InsideCarolina/statuses/477623039014604800">June 14, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[NickVT10]

We lost Clark to USCe, not Bama. It's nice to be considered along side Bama and Ohio State, but if you want to compete with them, you have to also compete with them on the recruiting end, and occasionally win. Not necessarily every time, but some of the time.

I know we lost him to USCe. My point was that VA recruits don't have the loyalty to VA schools that recruits from other states have to their state schools because we don't have the tradition they do. A top VA talent leaving VA is different than a top AL talent leaving AL...

 

[Sleepy T]

Nobody has really mentioned it, and I am not saying this played into Clark's decision. But perception if the SEC vs ACC makes a difference too. I don't care if FSU won it last year and wins it this year too. Until there is some depth in the ACC and they win big OOC games on a national stage consistently, it will be viewed as an inferior Conference when compared to others.