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Spring Fever · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 1:19
  And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast, a part of the
• 1:23
  College Total Network along with my partners, Brian Siegler,
• 1:26
  Jonathan Talley tonight with our special guest managing editor of
• 1:30
  Tech Sideline, David Cunningham. I am Curtis Wilson and we are
• 1:34
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• 1:36
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• 2:01
  Moments on the Mori David Cunningham Long time no talk
• 2:06
  man. How you been?
• 2:08
  Doing well guys, Great to see all you guys.
• 2:11
  You know, it's, it's funny, I, I travel all over the place during
• 2:14
  basketball season and it's nice to be back at my desk in my
• 2:19
  house. Honestly, getting ready to chop
• 2:21
  up some spring football. It's been a while since we
• 2:24
  chatted and basketball season's taken a little bit of a toll on
• 2:27
  me, but I am, I am. I'm ready for football, man.
• 2:31
  Can I ask a question? How many miles have you logged
• 2:34
  this January? Because you you went to just
• 2:38
  about every away game run. Yeah, I mean, well, it's funny,
• 2:42
  the winter storm kind of threw everything out of out of whack a
• 2:45
  little bit because I didn't, I was supposed to go to Louisville
• 2:47
  again and didn't go. I know in in the first two weeks
• 2:52
  of in in the final week of February, in like the first two
• 2:56
  weeks of March, I think I drove around 2000 miles.
• 3:01
  And that's not, I mean, and that doesn't even factor in flying to
• 3:04
  Austin for the NCA tournament. So busy, man, going a lot of
• 3:09
  places. What helped this year was I did
• 3:12
  not travel over Thanksgiving because both teams were out of
• 3:15
  the country. Usually, you know, past couple
• 3:17
  years I've gone down to Florida. So that was actually kind of
• 3:20
  nice. I got to got to spend
• 3:22
  Thanksgiving with family for the first time in a in a couple
• 3:24
  years. But but yeah, basketball
• 3:27
  season's done and in the books. And we got spring football on
• 3:30
  the horizon, man. And James Franklin's got those
• 3:34
  boys working. There, there's definitely some
• 3:37
  juice. We're we're starting to see some
• 3:38
  things start to trickle back onto the to the X timeline a
• 3:42
  little bit. It was a little quiet in in
• 3:44
  January and February there at least relative kind of what
• 3:47
  we've seen the last few years. But it's nice to get things
• 3:51
  cranking up again. Yeah, it looks like get getting
• 3:56
  some every time a practice is out.
• 3:57
  We're getting some some cut UPS. They're getting to see a little
• 4:00
  bit of action. So that's been nice.
• 4:03
  Yeah, when I think, yeah, the the really cool thing was and I,
• 4:08
  I, I did not get to see it because I was trout.
• 4:10
  But the really cool thing is last Thursday, Tex, I think
• 4:14
  second full practice, James Franklin opened the entire thing
• 4:18
  to the media. So the media got to watch a
• 4:21
  whole practice a whole. A whole like beginning to.
• 4:25
  End like beginning to end talking like 2/2 and 1/2 hour
• 4:28
  practice. So I mean, that's something that
• 4:32
  haven't, we haven't had to happen in a real really, really
• 4:34
  long time, probably going back to Beamer, so.
• 4:38
  That was a bitter call to the Unicorn, I think, when he was.
• 4:41
  I don't know that I would expect it.
• 4:43
  I wouldn't know that I would expect it often.
• 4:45
  But you know, and I wish I was there.
• 4:47
  Of course I was in Texas, but I think it is it, it's been an
• 4:54
  interesting, you know, getting to know Coach Franklin obviously
• 4:57
  and, and building up that media relationship with him and the
• 4:59
  Virginia Tech media contingent is a bit different from Penn
• 5:02
  State and, and kind of starting from Ground Zero in that regard.
• 5:08
  But yeah, I mean, him opening up an entire practice, like I know
• 5:11
  talking to Chris and Andy, they they really appreciated just
• 5:14
  getting a chance to yeah, to, to watch guys work and and get a
• 5:19
  real sense more than just like 5 to 10 minutes at, you know, at,
• 5:23
  at practice once a week. So yeah, pretty, pretty cool.
• 5:26
  And of course, we'll have the spring game coming up.
• 5:29
  That's going to be exciting. I know like like you were just
• 5:31
  alluding to, they're usually like that'll meet that media
• 5:33
  availability is more like one or two practice sessions, not
• 5:36
  necessarily a full, a full length practice.
• 5:39
  So that's that's pretty exciting stuff.
• 5:42
  So let me ask you something, David.
• 5:43
  First of all, Brian, if you'd have put some glasses on the
• 5:48
  avatar when it first started, that could have been David.
• 5:51
  Like, I mean, it looked it was Sheldon, but it could have been
• 5:54
  David. So you needed to change that up
• 5:57
  a little bit. But just a quick question,
• 6:01
  because you are in the media from a scale of, you know, we're
• 6:06
  cool to a scale. I want to slash somebody's
• 6:08
  tires. How mad does media members get
• 6:11
  about the no access? Not saying you or your kind of
• 6:15
  Co workers that you work with, but just overall, like, is it a
• 6:19
  thorn in the side of like media guys that can't get access to
• 6:23
  programs? And not just saying like
• 6:25
  Virginia Tech in general, but just overall, because that's
• 6:28
  what your job is right to, you know, cover a sport.
• 6:31
  But when you have a lot of coaches that are more closed
• 6:33
  off, how does that feel in your in in your from what you've
• 6:40
  seen? Yeah, it, it, it honestly is
• 6:43
  very, it can be very frustrating because the difficult part is
• 6:51
  it's not like I, I think a lot of people by my colleagues in my
• 6:55
  position, you just want to kind of tell what's going on, right?
• 6:59
  You got to, you have a job to do to the fans.
• 7:02
  Hey, man, like you're investing money into this program, you're
• 7:06
  paying for season tickets. Here's what's going on in your
• 7:08
  football program on a day-to-day basis.
• 7:11
  That's my job to to say, hey, here's what's going on.
• 7:14
  And when coaches, I saw a lot of them, you know, now in this era,
• 7:20
  it's not like Frank Beamer, who, you know, who ran his own
• 7:24
  website and and posted stuff about what was going on all the
• 7:27
  time. Every day.
• 7:30
  Coaches have become more secure and more closed off about a lot
• 7:33
  of that stuff. And the most frustrating part
• 7:36
  becomes when there's not a lot going on like this past season
• 7:41
  when they're when the team is interim head coach and it's just
• 7:44
  losing game after game after game.
• 7:46
  And you're not, you know, they, they cut off practice access and
• 7:52
  kind of just shut things down. It just becomes very dull and
• 7:57
  repetitive where you're not getting anything.
• 8:00
  And it's really difficult because it's like we have no
• 8:02
  really no idea what's going on outside of games.
• 8:05
  You know, I think a lot of my colleagues, even across the
• 8:08
  country and even across the, it's, you're just looking to
• 8:13
  kind of say, Hey, here's what's going on.
• 8:14
  You're not necessarily looking to take take shots or find the,
• 8:18
  the, the good or the bad. You're just kind of like, hey,
• 8:20
  here's here's this guy, he's playing well, you know, here's,
• 8:24
  oh, this guy's a guy to watch at practice.
• 8:26
  And I I think the, the Penn State media, yeah, James
• 8:33
  Franklin was there for a dozen years and I think that kind of
• 8:36
  that relationship wears after a little bit.
• 8:40
  And I think it was got a little frustrating for him because
• 8:45
  they're Penn State. The Penn State media contingent
• 8:48
  is large. The Virginia Tech media
• 8:50
  contingent is not that big. You know, normal practice,
• 8:54
  there's 5 to 10 people for us at Penn State practices, probably
• 8:59
  20 to 30 people. So it's much different.
• 9:02
  And I think the opportunity for him to kind of start fresh and
• 9:06
  say, hey, you know, the, the press conference we had last
• 9:10
  week, he handed us, he handed us a sheet of player availability.
• 9:16
  Hey, you're all the guys that are out for spring practice and
• 9:19
  asked us if it's helpful. It's like, yeah, that's very
• 9:21
  helpful because we don't have to spend our time asking silly
• 9:25
  questions about injuries, but at the same time, we kind of want
• 9:28
  to know what's going on with with guys, right?
• 9:30
  Like. What what, what David is saying
• 9:32
  is he doesn't have to be over there on the sideline, is that?
• 9:35
  60, yeah. Who's got the blue on today?
• 9:39
  Who's got the blue all on? Oh my God, yeah.
• 9:41
  I get how helpful that can be because if you know, a guy's out
• 9:45
  and again, in that in press conference, there were a couple
• 9:47
  guys missing that he that forthright came beyond and said,
• 9:50
  oh, no, they're not practicing or they're out for a while.
• 9:54
  They may come back. Well, that that that helps with
• 9:56
  the story, right? Because y'all are looking to say
• 9:59
  like, you know, we know Logan Howard, he's recovering
• 10:02
  immediately. OK Johnny Garrett started last
• 10:04
  year. Aiden's played two games.
• 10:06
  Are any of these other transfers going to step up now?
• 10:09
  You know, you get to walk in and say who's over at left?
• 10:14
  Who's at right, whether it's the full session of the past or the
• 10:17
  half session or which are the ones are going against the bags
• 10:21
  together. Oh, now I know who that is.
• 10:24
  And that gives us information as fans out here.
• 10:28
  And and that's what you're there to do.
• 10:29
  I always liked what what you just said and what you're saying
• 10:35
  is you're just trying to report it because you have a vested fan
• 10:40
  base. People want to know what's going
• 10:42
  on. You made even better point.
• 10:43
  There are some people that are stroking checks.
• 10:46
  Some of those people have big enough checks where they'll know
• 10:48
  what's going on. Others who aren't stroking big
• 10:51
  enough checks, we'll know what's going on.
• 10:54
  Like I gave $2000 last year. You know, it's not a lot, but
• 10:58
  it's what I can afford. Can I get something?
• 11:01
  And if they aren't letting y'all in there or you know, Damon from
• 11:06
  Roanoke Times or other people, then nobody knows.
• 11:09
  And, and, and occasionally fans can check out.
• 11:15
  They can just check out and say, you know what, I don't know
• 11:17
  what's going on. I'm not going to watch the
• 11:20
  presser. You know what, maybe I'll turn
• 11:21
  the game on Saturday, so. Well, this is my thing.
• 11:24
  If you're not a good enough fan that you can't call D Kuna and
• 11:29
  say hey man, what's going on? That's your fault.
• 11:33
  I mean, I've never checked out because I have access to my guy
• 11:37
  right here. I want to know something that
• 11:40
  y'all don't need to know. I just called David.
• 11:43
  I haven't seen man so. Oh my God.
• 11:46
  If you are not a good enough fan when you're not friends with
• 11:51
  David, shame on you. Oh my.
• 11:54
  God, hey, I appreciate it. The the, the, the and tally's
• 11:58
  not wrong either. I mean, and that is the thing,
• 12:00
  like there are times where like, like Curtis or Brian will
• 12:03
  message me. He's like, hey, like especially
• 12:06
  Curtis. Curtis will be like, what, yo,
• 12:07
  what's going on with this guy? And I'm like, I'm honest.
• 12:10
  I'm like, hey, here's what I'm hearing like and, and but, but
• 12:14
  yeah, I mean, it's you got, you got season ticket holders, man.
• 12:18
  Like they need to, they deserve to know what's going on in the
• 12:20
  program. And I think some coaches look at
• 12:23
  the media as an adversary. I think James Franklin's been
• 12:26
  doing this long enough that he understands the relationship and
• 12:29
  understands that he can build from Ground Zero and go, hey, we
• 12:33
  can set the kind of the foundation of what we want this
• 12:35
  to look like, what we want the relationship to look like at
• 12:38
  Virginia Tech. Now I'm, I'm doing this here for
• 12:41
  the first time and things I like that we did at Penn State,
• 12:44
  things I didn't like, hey, here's how we're laying it out.
• 12:48
  You know, if we give the media a full practice to just get a
• 12:52
  sense of watching guys run around and how they stack up
• 12:56
  against each other and, and really see them on the field,
• 12:59
  that's helpful. And as long as everybody's on
• 13:03
  the same page, I think it's beneficial for everyone.
• 13:05
  So it's been really cool to build a relationship with him so
• 13:08
  far and, you know, heading in the right direction.
• 13:11
  And I, and really I'm, I'm excited to to now that
• 13:15
  basketball season's done, kind of focused fully on football for
• 13:18
  for the rest of the spring. And I know that spring game, you
• 13:21
  know, he wants that stadium full.
• 13:23
  I'm interested to see what that crowd is going to be like.
• 13:26
  Yeah, it'd be. Interesting.
• 13:27
  I remember the Fuente year me and Brian went and that was like
• 13:31
  40% that was like that was jam packed.
• 13:35
  But, you know, we're only a few years off of a Sugar Bowl at
• 13:38
  that point in time. Now we're a few years off of a
• 13:40
  yeah, but we're going to get back to football in a little
• 13:43
  while. Basketball season's over.
• 13:45
  As David said, he logged like 8000 miles between airplane
• 13:50
  travel, car travel and all that stuff.
• 13:53
  But we want to talk about both teams and we're going to start
• 13:56
  with the better of those two teams.
• 13:58
  How about that? I'll I'll be nice in that phrase
• 14:00
  and let's talk with the lady Gokey because I think for a lot
• 14:05
  of us, you pay attention to it a few years ago when they were a
• 14:09
  top ten team. I mean, all eyes were on.
• 14:12
  I don't think the eyes were on them as much this year because
• 14:14
  it was it was Megan's second season, Megan Duffy's second
• 14:17
  season. And it was just kind of like,
• 14:19
  you know, they did OK last year, but then they had that huge in
• 14:24
  the middle of the season beat some good teams.
• 14:27
  It's like, well, wait a second, they got a chance to make the
• 14:29
  tournament and then they count winning, pick off some more wins
• 14:32
  near the end of the season. And then the next thing you know
• 14:34
  is they're in to me, just from my knowledge of it, I feel like
• 14:40
  a year ahead of schedule. So David, you know, before we
• 14:42
  get into the, the, the your trip and everything, do you think
• 14:46
  they were a year ahead of schedule when it comes to making
• 14:50
  the turn? A little bit.
• 14:52
  I, I think, I think they, I would say they probably
• 14:55
  overachieved a little bit. I think they did more with with
• 14:58
  less as far as this roster goes. I think I, if, if you know,
• 15:05
  Megan Duffy kind of squeezed everything out of this team.
• 15:09
  And I, I, I look at this team on paper and go, man, there are,
• 15:14
  there are a lot of holes and, you know, there.
• 15:17
  And, and by that I mean that some of the depth I had
• 15:22
  questions about they, they relied on a lot of role players
• 15:28
  that had not played big moments before.
• 15:32
  And sometimes it works, sometimes it didn't.
• 15:35
  But you're talking about a program that and, and what
• 15:38
  people, but it's hard for people to forget is, you know, before
• 15:42
  Virginia Tech made the NCAA tournament in 2021, the Hokies
• 15:46
  went 15 seasons without making the NCAA tournament.
• 15:50
  And we're 59 and 159 in the ACC. We're talking 125% of it's
• 15:57
  games. You're finishing bottom of the
• 15:58
  league every year. And Kenny Brooks came in and
• 16:01
  stabilized. It obviously took him to the ACC
• 16:03
  championship game and one one titles took him to the final
• 16:07
  floor. But when the 2 greatest players
• 16:11
  in program history walk out the door and you have to rebuild and
• 16:15
  you're in this era with the portal and NIL, it's difficult.
• 16:19
  And I think Megan Duffy has done a great job of stabilizing.
• 16:22
  They went 12 and six in the league and tied Notre Dame for
• 16:27
  fifth. Like, that is a great
• 16:29
  accomplishment. They maybe could have been a
• 16:32
  little bit of a higher seed in the NCAA tournament, but but
• 16:35
  just getting back there I think is a great accomplishment in
• 16:39
  itself. And I, I, I, I wrote about this
• 16:42
  the other day on techsideline.com.
• 16:46
  It shows that the program is moving in the right direction.
• 16:49
  And I think they overachieved a little bit compared to how good
• 16:53
  their roster actually is. And it shows that they've
• 16:56
  really, they really maximized. They obviously have two really
• 17:00
  good players and Carly Wenzel and carries Baker, but they
• 17:02
  maximized everyone else around them.
• 17:05
  And I think they were really fun.
• 17:06
  Watch, they lost two games in January back-to-back to
• 17:10
  Louisville, Miami and Louisville.
• 17:12
  And it kind of felt a little bit like, oh, man, like we, how is
• 17:16
  this going to go? Like, they've got an interesting
• 17:18
  stretch coming up where they could string together some
• 17:21
  games, but they really need to show it.
• 17:23
  They haven't really found consistency yet.
• 17:26
  And to their credit, they stepped up.
• 17:28
  They won seven games in a row and they really went from being
• 17:32
  towards the bottom of the league in terms of this actual
• 17:34
  standings to up towards the top. And yeah, they dropped a couple
• 17:39
  games here or there against Notre Dame, NC State, North
• 17:41
  Carolina, but they ended the season on a high, secured their
• 17:45
  spot in the NCAA tournament. They were way off the bubble and
• 17:49
  step in the right direction. And the biggest thing for me is
• 17:53
  you got to keep building on it like, like I think recruiting to
• 17:57
  an NCAA tournament, like, hey man, we just went to the NCAA
• 17:59
  tournament. We're going to have most of our
• 18:00
  pieces back. You want to come be be a part of
• 18:03
  this. I, I think that's a great
• 18:05
  recruiting pitch and credit to the staff and the players and
• 18:08
  everyone involved because they did a really good job of, I
• 18:12
  think surprising a lot of people in terms of expectations.
• 18:16
  And I think a lot of people looked at this team on paper and
• 18:19
  said, yeah, they'll, they'll probably be, you know, WBIT or
• 18:24
  WNIT team, you know, maybe if, if, if, if they're on the
• 18:28
  bubble, that'd be good. And they were way off the
• 18:30
  bubble. They did better than that and
• 18:32
  job well done by them and I think this this program has a
• 18:36
  bright future under under Megan Duffy.
• 18:39
  Yeah, I I'm with you on that. And, you know, when we look at
• 18:43
  what they were able to do, I mean, it's really kind of
• 18:45
  impressive to Curtis's point up, you know, definitely feel like
• 18:48
  they were, you know, ahead of schedule.
• 18:50
  You know, I probably had them like flirting with the bubble
• 18:53
  this year. Maybe not quite, you know, not
• 18:56
  quite getting in, you know, kind of right there on the bubble.
• 18:58
  But you know, they were able to you're really string some good
• 19:01
  games there in that one stretch you talked about with that seven
• 19:04
  game turn around finished off off the season strong.
• 19:08
  Let's talk about your your trip out to Austin.
• 19:10
  I know you kind of alluded to the the seating may may wasn't
• 19:13
  as as favorable to the Hokies as as we would have wanted.
• 19:18
  What was that trip out there like?
• 19:20
  How did that match up kind of your work against work against
• 19:24
  them a little bit in that game? Well, I, I think the, the
• 19:27
  difficult part is, you know, anytime in the women's game,
• 19:32
  anytime you end up in an 8-9 game, it's going to be very
• 19:34
  difficult because in the women's game, top 4 seeds in every
• 19:39
  region host. So unlike the man where you go
• 19:43
  to neutral sites like Florida played in Tampa, Duke played in
• 19:46
  Greenville in the women's game, you know, Virginia Tech's going
• 19:50
  to Texas. That arena's gorgeous.
• 19:53
  I'd never been to Austin. Really cool city, lot of really
• 19:56
  good food. Had a great trip, would highly
• 19:59
  recommend they get matched up with Oregon.
• 20:03
  Only ever played them once and I think that's the unique part of
• 20:05
  the NCAA tournament. You're seeing teams that you've
• 20:07
  never played before. I thought the difference was
• 20:12
  Tech's. Oregon's role players honestly
• 20:14
  were a little bit more consistent than Tech's.
• 20:16
  And Hokies got in foul trouble early in the game with Carly
• 20:18
  Winslow, Kerris Baker, they fell behind.
• 20:21
  And when your top two players are on the bench in foul
• 20:23
  trouble, it's. How how do you handle it?
• 20:27
  And took Tech's credit, it pulled out of the hole it it
• 20:30
  allowed A12O run, bounced back with a 12/2 run was in within 4
• 20:34
  at halftime. And then in that third quarter,
• 20:37
  Tyler Freeland got in foul trouble and Tech really
• 20:40
  struggled a little bit in the interior and organ dominated in
• 20:43
  paint. They they have a, a couple
• 20:47
  pretty good post players that they kind of fed through and you
• 20:52
  know, Tech, Tech struggled offensively.
• 20:54
  I thought the Oregon defense, they took away a lot of what the
• 20:59
  Hokies wanted to do and just wasn't a really good shooting
• 21:02
  game from Tech until the fourth quarter when, you know, Kerris
• 21:05
  Baker went off for 17 points and a little bit too late.
• 21:09
  But it just it's difficult. This is a team that at times
• 21:16
  this year, you've seen it, North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame,
• 21:20
  you know, they, they've had lows for maybe not an entire quarter,
• 21:24
  but a couple minutes at a time where they've either struggled
• 21:29
  really, really poorly on the offense or defensive side of the
• 21:33
  ball where they can't get a bucket or they can't get a stop.
• 21:36
  And that's what happens when there's a little bit of
• 21:39
  inconsistency, you know, it just pops up for 5 minutes maybe.
• 21:42
  And that's why I felt like you saw it in the first half and
• 21:46
  then to Tex credited battled back, and then you saw it again
• 21:49
  in the second-half and it was just a little too much to
• 21:51
  overcome. But like I said before, making
• 21:54
  the NCAA tournament in itself, I think it's a huge accomplishment
• 21:56
  for this staff and much better feeling for them last year then
• 22:02
  last year, you know, when they were the first team out of the
• 22:05
  tournament, a lot of disappointment going around and
• 22:08
  they they were the fact they were securely in that they
• 22:11
  didn't have to flirt with the bubble that they were a solid 9
• 22:16
  seed. Now the question is, OK, can
• 22:19
  next year, can you be 567? Can you, can you, it's not easy,
• 22:25
  but can you move up a couple seed lines and potentially be in
• 22:30
  that realm where you avoid a dominant #1 seed and can you win
• 22:35
  a game in the tournament Now? You know, I think they have
• 22:38
  positioned themselves well to do that in the future.
• 22:40
  It's just difficult. I think Oregon is is a is a
• 22:43
  pretty good good team and honestly just got better of that
• 22:48
  match up if that makes sense. They, they came out to get, I
• 22:51
  mean that first quarter was what was it 20 or 18?
• 22:54
  It was a it was a big. Yeah, I mean, they had a 12O run
• 22:59
  and it's like you get, you get put on your heels like that and
• 23:02
  just makes it. You can't allow big runs like
• 23:05
  that. And, and there have been a
• 23:06
  couple different times this year that that tech has allowed it
• 23:10
  something like that. And and it just makes it really,
• 23:13
  really difficult to recover. Yeah.
• 23:15
  Let me let me ask this because it it is you know where we got
• 23:19
  to look forward now to it because you just kind of
• 23:21
  mentioned it saying can they steal one next year etcetera,
• 23:25
  etcetera. There are only two players
• 23:27
  effectively graduating. Now, I'm not going to talk
• 23:31
  portal because it's tough to keep up with men's basketball
• 23:35
  portal. I can't imagine the women's
• 23:37
  basketball portal being even crazier.
• 23:40
  But you got Mel Daly with just a backup guard, a nice piece, and
• 23:45
  they replace if I'm butcher in the name, Kyla Freelon.
• 23:49
  Yeah, Kyla. Kyla Freelon because basically a
• 23:53
  double double right at 10 points, close to 10 rebounds a
• 23:57
  game, Definitely kind of a force in the middle or the force in
• 24:01
  the middle, I should say, for the Hokies on that aspect.
• 24:05
  And they replace her production And I and I, and I like to pose
• 24:09
  this to you because you've been keeping up with them all year.
• 24:12
  You obviously saw some of the freshman play.
• 24:15
  Is there someone to slip into her spot?
• 24:16
  Because what you feel is if someone comes into her spot,
• 24:20
  maybe higher regarded, maybe a better overall player, that is
• 24:25
  that bouncing point to say, you know, you already mentioned
• 24:28
  carries Baker coming back. We already know Carly Wenzel
• 24:31
  lean score coming back next year.
• 24:33
  They'll both be, I think, seniors.
• 24:36
  But can you get that replacement in the middle?
• 24:38
  And can that person, you know, can they go 13 and 10 a game and
• 24:43
  add that little bit extra? And if they are, who is?
• 24:47
  Well, that that's a great question.
• 24:49
  I I like the the two freshmen they have on the roster this
• 24:51
  year in the post, Anaya Trent, who who played a good bit in in
• 24:56
  kind of a backup role and and Imani Jenkins, who didn't play
• 25:00
  as much. I think they're really good
• 25:02
  pieces. They are both highly touted
• 25:04
  freshman. The the thing about Freelon is
• 25:09
  she she was really, really athletic, a little bit
• 25:11
  undersized at six one, but ran the floor extremely well and and
• 25:16
  was very like exactly what you want from an athleticism,
• 25:21
  ability to jump up and grab rebounds.
• 25:23
  The the part that was missing is they didn't really have any back
• 25:26
  to the there was no back to the basket outlet there.
• 25:31
  Tech had that a little bit last season with Rose Meesha playing
• 25:34
  the five. I think if in my opinion,
• 25:39
  Curtis, they they need two things in the transfer portal.
• 25:43
  They need a post player, a back to the basket post player,
• 25:45
  somebody you can kind of throw the ball into.
• 25:47
  They can go one-on-one on the block a little bit.
• 25:50
  They're a good rebounder and a good score and they need, they
• 25:55
  need a three-point shooter because they've got a lot of
• 25:58
  good role players, but not a lot of them are consistent 3 point
• 26:03
  shooters. They're really two good ones are
• 26:05
  Carly Wenzel and Karis Baker. And as a result, when your two
• 26:09
  leading scorers are not shooting it well or being limited or just
• 26:14
  aren't having a good day from 3:00, you need to have another
• 26:17
  outlet. And you saw it last year with
• 26:21
  Matilde Eck and Lonnie White. They were able to make threes.
• 26:25
  They were able to kind of face it a little bit.
• 26:27
  Now, Tech was better, much better defensively this year,
• 26:30
  Tech rose about 75 spots in adjusted defense from last year
• 26:36
  to this year. Tech was a top 25, top 30
• 26:40
  defensive team. This year.
• 26:41
  The offense took a little bit of a dip, though.
• 26:44
  And I think if you can it it, it'll probably the defense might
• 26:47
  might dip slightly with Freeland gone because she was such an
• 26:51
  integral piece. But but I think if you can go
• 26:55
  out and get a big in the portal and get a three-point shooter
• 26:58
  and then, you know, see, I don't know who who might leave.
• 27:02
  I would expect probably one to two players to portal out just
• 27:06
  because that's kind of the norm. But they've got a good core to
• 27:09
  build around. And I think that's the exciting
• 27:11
  thing. You, you can kind of identify
• 27:16
  the exact roles that you need. Hey, we need a, we need a
• 27:21
  starting center to come in and get us 12 and 10A game, right?
• 27:28
  And, and our freshman bigs who are going to come in, they're
• 27:33
  going to take the next step and they're going to play a little
• 27:35
  bit more and they're going to take some of that pressure off.
• 27:38
  Like Anaya Trent was really good defensively, but she was limited
• 27:41
  offensively as a true freshman. And and they've got two really
• 27:45
  good highly touted recruits coming in, two McDonald's All
• 27:48
  American Game nominees. They've got they got a a guard
• 27:52
  from Washington state, like way out West, Kaleo Anderson coming
• 27:56
  in and she's at ESPN like top 70 recruit.
• 28:00
  And then they have Ariana Harris Mont, who is 64 post player from
• 28:05
  Maryland Abu Williams product that's coming in.
• 28:08
  So they continue to add good pieces.
• 28:11
  I think they're probably one or two piece pieces away.
• 28:16
  Like I said in the portal, you add those, those players and,
• 28:20
  and everyone else, the role players continue to get better.
• 28:24
  And I think you've got a really good team on your hands and you
• 28:27
  probably do maybe you're a next year, you're a six or a seven
• 28:30
  seed. And I think that's that's kind
• 28:32
  of the next, the next step for for this program.
• 28:35
  And I really like where they stand.
• 28:37
  And it'll be very interesting to see who they go after in the
• 28:40
  portal who's available. And again, it's so much about
• 28:44
  money now that that it just, it makes stuff a little bit more
• 28:48
  difficult than it would before. But if you can keep everybody
• 28:52
  together, you're in your bot. Yeah.
• 28:56
  Let me ask this one last thing before we move over to men's and
• 28:59
  we'll let Tally ride on that a little bit.
• 29:01
  And and this is kind of a segue question because because this is
• 29:05
  like kind of a little bit of a comparison.
• 29:07
  When we look at the NIL challenges that basketball has,
• 29:11
  is it significantly more difficult in the women's game
• 29:16
  with NIL versus the men's or, or what are the challenges in
• 29:19
  women's that you know, we we may not see in the men's and vice
• 29:22
  versa? Well, I think the, the big,
• 29:25
  that's a great question. I think the, the in the women's
• 29:28
  game, the the ceiling. Like if you say that Yukon's a
• 29:36
  good example, right? If you say Yukon is making
• 29:40
  Yukon's payroll is X Yukon is Yukon was an overall number one
• 29:44
  seed in this year's NCAA tournament.
• 29:47
  You say that team has the most payroll of anyone in the
• 29:50
  country. What is it the gap from that to
• 29:56
  the final at large team that made the NCAA tournament?
• 30:00
  I would say is like this. It's pretty small.
• 30:03
  Like the teams at the top obviously have are really,
• 30:06
  really, really well resourced, but it's kind of scrunched a
• 30:13
  little bit because in the men's game, it's like the Dukes and
• 30:19
  the Carolinas are writing blank checks and the teams kind of in
• 30:25
  that next tier, like the Virginias, the Louisville's, you
• 30:29
  know, they're like double what Virginia Tech's roster was this
• 30:33
  year. And and Virginia Tech's
• 30:35
  competing for an at large spot. You you saw Virginia was a three
• 30:39
  seed. So like that there's just a
• 30:42
  giant gulf in in in the men's where the the amount of money it
• 30:50
  takes to fund an NCAA tournament team in the men's continues to
• 30:54
  skyrocket and it continues to to take crazy jumps up on the
• 31:00
  women's side. It's not that steep.
• 31:03
  Like I would say 1,000,000 in the women's game is a ton like
• 31:08
  that is, you know, but a million in the men's game that might not
• 31:14
  even get you a starter. And I think that is that is the
• 31:18
  difference, Curtis. Let's see one player.
• 31:21
  Could you get one player for 1,000,001?
• 31:23
  Starter for a million. One in the men's game.
• 31:26
  Maybe. I mean that and that's people
• 31:29
  were talking about this on on Twitter earlier.
• 31:32
  If you guys remember my Nigel Pack from Miami, he transferred
• 31:36
  from Kansas State to Miami a couple years ago.
• 31:38
  First era of the portal was when when the Canes went on their
• 31:41
  final Four run and it was like a two year $800,000 deal.
• 31:46
  And he was like, that was like one of the biggest deals at the
• 31:48
  time, man. You've got guys moving places
• 31:53
  for like 2 to $3,000,000 for one year now.
• 31:59
  And, and it's just, it's very, very difficult because there are
• 32:04
  some teams in the ACC, but they're, I mean, like when you,
• 32:12
  you're a school at Virginia, like Virginia Tech, where you
• 32:14
  also got a football program and the football program is getting
• 32:19
  the majority of your Rev share and the majority of your IL,
• 32:23
  which it should. It's a little bit different from
• 32:26
  a place like VCU where VCU doesn't have football.
• 32:31
  So VCU can invest all at once essentially into men's
• 32:34
  basketball. And there are some mid majors
• 32:38
  that have really been able to take advantage of it.
• 32:40
  And there are some power conference schools like Wake
• 32:43
  Forest and Notre Dame that simply do not have the resources
• 32:48
  for their men's basketball programs.
• 32:51
  And it's a really tough spot to be in because if you want to
• 32:53
  make coaching changes, you got to show that you have the money
• 32:56
  and resources to get an attractive coach.
• 32:59
  But the reason you're in the position you are, unless you
• 33:02
  just have a flat out terrible coach, is because you don't have
• 33:05
  resources. It's a cycle.
• 33:07
  And you don't see that as much on the women's side because your
• 33:13
  your typical NCAA tournament roster in terms of payroll is is
• 33:17
  lower. So it's easy.
• 33:18
  You know, again, $1 million in women's basketball that can get
• 33:22
  you 234 starters maybe. You got a much flatter curve.
• 33:28
  Yes. On on those those payrolls.
• 33:31
  Yeah, it's a lot of numbers, man.
• 33:33
  And it's, it's so interesting. And, and that's why I think
• 33:37
  what, what the women are doing is very exciting because if, if
• 33:41
  they get a bit more investment, they can, they can go from being
• 33:47
  a, a nine seed in the tournament to being a six or a five seed.
• 33:52
  Like you're not. The gap is is much smaller than
• 33:56
  than it is on the men's side. So real quick, who's this
• 34:02
  Another. Tech W Hold this one right here.
• 34:06
  On the one, the one above that one where he says the NIL
• 34:12
  challenge is the same, Brian Franklin wants it all.
• 34:15
  So I've heard a lot of people have taken this stance and the
• 34:20
  only thing that I say about it is Mike Young has been here.
• 34:23
  How many years? Seven years.
• 34:27
  James Franklin, he just got here.
• 34:30
  So what is the caveat of what happened before now?
• 34:35
  Like, I don't think it's a James Franklin problem.
• 34:39
  And I'm not saying that people are blaming James Franklin
• 34:41
  because of Tech basketball not performing well, but I think
• 34:47
  that some people use that as a lazy argument.
• 34:53
  You can't sustain a good basketball program year in and
• 34:58
  year out without having a budget, without having the money
• 35:02
  to keep players, pay players. I understand that we had a
• 35:06
  roster this year that could have made the tournament.
• 35:09
  Some of the games that we lost, we were out coached.
• 35:12
  Some of the games that we won, Mike out coached the other
• 35:15
  coach. So I'm not saying that he's a
• 35:17
  bad coach. I just haven't been hearing a
• 35:19
  lot about, well, you know, Tech's going all in on football
• 35:23
  and it doesn't leave anything for the other programs.
• 35:27
  The other programs have to sell themselves to get a share of the
• 35:32
  money. And I'm not saying that Mike
• 35:34
  Young isn't doing that. But anyway, that just segues us
• 35:39
  into talking about basketball on the men's side.
• 35:42
  So, David, I'm going to be quiet and let you kind of jump in on
• 35:45
  this rant that I've kind of went on and set me straight.
• 35:50
  Well, I think it's AI. Think it's a great point.
• 35:53
  Think think back to last men's basketball season.
• 35:56
  Virginia Tech won 13 games and at after the season, the the
• 36:01
  Virginia Tech administration essentially admitted that it did
• 36:04
  not. It underestimated how much it
• 36:08
  took to compete and under severely underfunded the
• 36:11
  program. It's like, yeah, you won 13.
• 36:14
  You only won 13 games because you didn't have money to retain
• 36:17
  guys. That Tech was in a much better
• 36:22
  position this year. Like the jump Tech took from
• 36:26
  last year to this year when it went from, you know, somehow
• 36:31
  finishing with 888 ACC wins with that bad of a roster but only
• 36:36
  winning thirteen overall to being on the NCAA Tournament
• 36:40
  bubble this year. Huge jump.
• 36:43
  And Tech did really well in the offseason last year in terms of
• 36:48
  getting the funding right to give Tech a chance.
• 36:52
  But your point is exactly right. Hokies should have made the NCAA
• 36:55
  tournament this year. They had an end.
• 36:57
  They had the roster capabilities of making the NCAA tournament.
• 37:01
  But they dealt with injuries, of course, but they also did not
• 37:05
  necessarily, they didn't close games, to be frank.
• 37:10
  And that that falls back on everybody, everybody involved.
• 37:15
  So another question too, David, I don't want to cut you off, but
• 37:18
  another question just of me watching Neo got a lot of, I
• 37:22
  don't want to use the word hate, but he got a lot of people that
• 37:26
  was on this case through the year.
• 37:30
  I understand it, you know what I'm saying?
• 37:32
  If you're supposed to be the star, you know these, they bring
• 37:35
  you in to be the star and you, you know, fail at certain or
• 37:39
  certain times of the year, you're going to, you're going to
• 37:40
  catch that flag. You may know a little bit more
• 37:44
  than us. How hurt was he?
• 37:47
  Because I, to me, it seemed that he was a much different player
• 37:51
  before he started getting a couple of injuries than he was
• 37:55
  toward the end of the year. How much of that do you think
• 37:59
  was confidence to compare it to injury?
• 38:03
  Well, he, he got banged up with his ankle like November, I think
• 38:09
  if you remember, he took a spill and Chuck was playing in the
• 38:13
  Bahamas and it was like, Oh my gosh, is he going to come back
• 38:17
  in the game? And, and he did.
• 38:19
  But Mike Young told us in January that for basically a
• 38:28
  month or two that Neo had kind of been being he, he had he
• 38:33
  hadn't been do like practicing like extra because they were
• 38:38
  trying to basically save him. Like he was banged up to the
• 38:42
  point where he could play and he could do the normal practice,
• 38:47
  but it wasn't like he was necessarily doing one-on-one
• 38:50
  individual drills, right? So he's not necessarily working
• 38:53
  on his craft. And the other thing is, I think
• 38:56
  he overcompensated a little bit just by nature, by by human
• 39:01
  nature with the injury, because if, if your ankles hurt, well,
• 39:05
  you might put a little bit pressure on your other ankle,
• 39:07
  but that throws off your shooting motion.
• 39:10
  And it's like then then you're you're overcompensating with
• 39:14
  your shot. And he went on that cold spell
• 39:17
  in January. And that really hurt because
• 39:21
  when Tyler Johnson's out and Toby Luau is out and you're
• 39:24
  dealing with all these other, it's just at, at the same time
• 39:28
  though, man, they, the, the, the number of games that they had.
• 39:35
  I mean, trust me, man, I'm sitting there in the Moody
• 39:37
  Center in Dallas. I was, I was front and center.
• 39:41
  I was the only Virginia Tech media member there when, when
• 39:43
  Booby Miller had that buzzer beater on Virginia Tech.
• 39:46
  I mean, I, I, I, I, I literally was even with him where he shot
• 39:53
  that on the court, my vantage point behind the basket.
• 39:57
  I mean, that changes where you don't, you make free throws and
• 40:03
  don't turn the ball over in the final seconds.
• 40:05
  You win that name at Miami if you don't foul when it's a tie
• 40:11
  game and they're in the bonus. Why did he?
• 40:14
  Why are you taking me through all of these games?
• 40:16
  Why? Did he?
• 40:17
  Why? Did he told him in a while go
• 40:19
  foul him and he wasn't even Like he just ran to the three-point
• 40:23
  line and fired the man, the hottest guy on the court?
• 40:26
  Yeah, I hate, I hate to bring all of it up, but my, my point
• 40:29
  is that like, despite all that, there were chances for wins,
• 40:33
  man, like. Oh.
• 40:34
  For real. And it's and it's part players
• 40:37
  got to go out and make plays, but also in those key moments
• 40:40
  down the stretch, you got to close out you, you've got to
• 40:43
  coach better. Like those guys have to be
• 40:45
  prepared. And I think the Stanford game is
• 40:48
  a great example. You don't you don't lose a 13
• 40:53
  point lead in the final three minutes by one thing.
• 40:57
  It's a it's a perfect storm. And and the difficult part is I
• 41:03
  thought Virginia Tech to circle back around tally to what you
• 41:08
  originally asked. I thought Virginia Tech did a
• 41:10
  good enough job giving Mike Young and this coaching staff
• 41:15
  the resources to compete this year.
• 41:19
  They had a good enough roster and they just didn't go out
• 41:23
  there and win enough games. It's as simple as that.
• 41:26
  And the tough part is you talk about marketing yourself if
• 41:30
  you're a Virginia Tech fan, knowing that that a little money
• 41:36
  goes a longer way in the women's game than the men's game.
• 41:39
  The women are coming off an NCA tournament.
• 41:41
  The men declined an NIT bid, which is a whole nother story.
• 41:47
  Which you've. Got and you've got a football
• 41:51
  program that is turning things around with one of the best head
• 41:56
  coaches in the sport. What program are you going to to
• 42:00
  to give money to you? You said it yourself, you have
• 42:03
  to prove that that you deserve the right resources.
• 42:08
  So it's not like, Oh my gosh, all these resources are being
• 42:12
  diverted football necessarily, because from my understanding,
• 42:18
  Tech will at least have what it had last season as far as
• 42:21
  resources go. But it's like, if you want more,
• 42:25
  I mean, you got to prove that you deserve more.
• 42:29
  Yeah, I don't know, man. And another thing with me,
• 42:32
  again, I'm not a coach, I'm not a recruiter.
• 42:34
  I look, I'm a salesperson. So I always look at things from
• 42:38
  a sales perspective. Again, this is just me looking
• 42:43
  at it. Isaiah Vick is a decent
• 42:47
  basketball player, on the verge of being a good basketball
• 42:51
  player. 2 years removed from high school, went to prep
• 42:54
  school. I'm not saying Tech isn't on
• 42:58
  him. I don't know how the NIL works
• 43:01
  on players, how much you give to a certain player.
• 43:04
  But I do know he's from Virginia and I do know that the Victoria
• 43:08
  family is Virginia Tech. I don't think that you have to
• 43:13
  sell Virginia Tech to a kid like that, and I don't think that you
• 43:17
  have to sell as a Victoria to Virginia Tech.
• 43:20
  I just don't understand why he's not there.
• 43:22
  I just think that low hanging fruit like that is the thing
• 43:26
  that makes me feel like has the game passed the coaching staff
• 43:29
  by at Virginia Tech? I would be getting legacy kids
• 43:34
  like that just for nostalgia, just for.
• 43:40
  I mean, Carmelo Anthony's son can play, but did he really do
• 43:46
  anything this year? You know, they didn't really
• 43:48
  have a good coach, but there was no there was no way that they
• 43:52
  were letting him like, not be highlighted to go to Syracuse.
• 43:56
  You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm.
• 43:59
  Just saying that's a. Great point.
• 44:00
  We don't want to rehash the Steph Curry conversation.
• 44:03
  So, so, yeah, so I don't want to go into all that, but I'm just
• 44:06
  saying it's not the same, you know, with the vigs being
• 44:09
  football players, I understand it's a different sport, but I'm
• 44:14
  just saying it's little things like that, the game within the
• 44:16
  game where you can sell tickets, where you can sell the program a
• 44:21
  little bit more. Hey, it's going to be Victoria
• 44:24
  night. I don't know.
• 44:25
  And we talk about Michael Vick so much, put his fucking nephew
• 44:28
  on the team and let's see if we can sell some more tickets and
• 44:32
  raise some more money. Maybe.
• 44:35
  I don't know. But that's just me on on little
• 44:38
  things that I see that I think we can improve on.
• 44:41
  But David really kind of hit the nail on the head with what he
• 44:44
  came into taking a run and actually put him into some
• 44:48
  decent words so everybody can kind of follow.
• 44:52
  We had a good enough team to win to be a a tournament team again.
• 45:00
  Another tech W, he said. Very low team IQ, very low IQ
• 45:05
  team as a which is which is right, but as a coach, you have
• 45:10
  to know that team. You have to know who needs to be
• 45:13
  on the floor at certain times so we can close the game out.
• 45:18
  Oh, go ahead, go ahead. That was my.
• 45:21
  Biggest issue with those 3 or 4 losses?
• 45:24
  Giving up sizable leads in the last three minutes.
• 45:29
  If it happens one time, OK, we'll coach them up.
• 45:31
  If it happens a second time, it's like somebody needs to come
• 45:35
  off the floor during this period.
• 45:38
  We need to make in those three games, it didn't happen.
• 45:42
  It almost happened to 4th. I don't know if you were in
• 45:44
  Syracuse that night, Syracuse was that close and I would have
• 45:48
  lost my shit that night. Because it's like, why are you
• 45:51
  keep running at the last three minutes with 7 plus point leads?
• 45:55
  You're running the same five guys, you're running the same
• 45:57
  place and it has failed three times.
• 46:00
  Because we go back and look at those three games, all buzzer
• 46:04
  beaters, all late game chokes, I'll say it chokes players,
• 46:09
  staff, whatever, whoever you want to blame, you win those
• 46:12
  three games. They're playing last weekend.
• 46:14
  Because at that point in time, what's the record 24249 you're
• 46:19
  in? Heck, you might even be a seven
• 46:22
  seed. All right, Ron, what do you
• 46:25
  have? I'm sorry, I had a you started
• 46:27
  saying. I'm like, oh, Tally Rehash.
• 46:29
  We, we, we put it to a good point now because we got it to a
• 46:32
  point. We've assessed what's going on
• 46:34
  with this year. We've, we've assessed how, how
• 46:37
  things are looking from a, from a talent standpoint, from an
• 46:41
  output standpoint. It, it, it wasn't exactly what,
• 46:44
  what they wanted it in, you know, the, the, the, the root of
• 46:49
  the 'cause there, there's probably a lot of things in
• 46:51
  there. I mean, we mentioned injuries,
• 46:52
  we mentioned, you know, not being able to close out games.
• 46:54
  We mentioned, you know, some of those struggles that NEO had.
• 46:58
  But let's focus on Mike Young a little bit from a future
• 47:00
  perspective because, you know, we're looking at him kind of
• 47:04
  heading into this kind of lame duck year.
• 47:06
  But David, as you pointed out earlier, you're not necessarily
• 47:10
  getting more money into the NIL this year, more than likely, but
• 47:16
  you're also at a point with a lame duck coach.
• 47:18
  It's going to be harder to build a roster that it was this past
• 47:21
  year, even with the same money, even if everyone else stands pat
• 47:25
  because of that situation. What's Tech's strategy kind of
• 47:29
  moving forward? Are they are they going to look
• 47:31
  look towards like having a coach in waiting?
• 47:34
  And to your point in until that investment comes in, I don't
• 47:37
  know if landing a big splash outside of that is, is a
• 47:40
  possibility in the near term. It's, it's a complicated
• 47:44
  situation, man. And that's like, imagine if they
• 47:48
  had, imagine if they were pitched this offseason was we
• 47:52
  made the NCA tournament and we've got guys from an NCA
• 47:55
  tournament team coming back or even or even, or even we we made
• 48:02
  we went to the NIT. I mean, I saw I was.
• 48:05
  Going to ask like what you thought.
• 48:08
  About this, I saw the comment about Ace Custis man, can you?
• 48:11
  I mean, this is a program with, yes, this is a program with NIT
• 48:15
  history. Like Hoagies have won it twice.
• 48:18
  Ace Custis and David Jackson. We're on staff now.
• 48:21
  We're on that team and like. So Ace Custis is not dead, Jim.
• 48:27
  FYI. He's literally on the stand.
• 48:31
  Yeah, but. Metaphorical grave, yes.
• 48:33
  Yes, no, I but I mean you're you're in a weird you're in a
• 48:40
  weird spot because you can't and and and Wake Forest and Notre
• 48:44
  Dame and Pitt. You know, Pitt has Pitt has Jeff
• 48:47
  Cable coming back for another year, man God.
• 48:51
  But like, there are a lot of programs that are in this exact
• 48:54
  same spot where you don't really have the kind of money to go out
• 49:01
  and, you know, A, get rid of the current code, but then B, go out
• 49:06
  and shell out resources for a new coach to get a, a better
• 49:10
  roster. You don't really have that if
• 49:15
  you run it back with the same amount of money.
• 49:19
  It kind of depends on what you can get at value at value, but
• 49:27
  your chances to win are are more difficult and it's it's it's a
• 49:32
  it's a it's a damned if you do named if you don't situation.
• 49:35
  I believe you said that earlier, Brian, and it's it's really
• 49:38
  difficult and I'm not I'm interested, you know, when the
• 49:43
  portal opens in about two weeks. Interested to see how the Hokies
• 49:46
  attack it. What I will say is losing, you
• 49:51
  know, I, I am expecting of dollars to leave, whether or not
• 49:55
  he's going to seek professional opportunities or or portal
• 49:57
  somewhere else. That frees up a good, a good
• 50:00
  chunk of, of space in terms of payroll that that should help a
• 50:06
  little bit. And maybe if you get a slight, A
• 50:10
  slight bump, it would help too. But you're just in this weird
• 50:17
  middle ground where you look over to Charlottesville and they
• 50:23
  had about double your payroll this year.
• 50:26
  And it if you don't do anything, they're going to have like
• 50:29
  triple your payroll next year. But to Tally's point earlier,
• 50:34
  like, why if, if there are questions about the staff, about
• 50:40
  the administration, if I'm a big donor, why would I?
• 50:44
  They have not proven that I should give them my money?
• 50:47
  Like I'm thinking about this from a fans perspective.
• 50:50
  So exactly, so my thing is, I, I, I'm tired of having a
• 50:53
  conversation. So most of the time in the
• 50:56
  chats, even on on X Twitter, whatever you want to call it,
• 51:01
  like I'm fatigued at having a conversation about money.
• 51:05
  Again, coming at it from a sales perspective, you, you're never
• 51:10
  going to get where you want to go unless you don't, unless you
• 51:12
  ask for it. You got to have something to
• 51:14
  show and you got to ask. A year ago we talked about
• 51:17
  football. Well, we can't compete because
• 51:19
  of this. And then, you know, we get rid
• 51:21
  of a culture where we can't get this coach because we don't have
• 51:23
  enough money. Lo and behold, James Franklin
• 51:26
  walks through the door. So it can happen that you can
• 51:30
  get certain things to happen. I'm not saying you get there
• 51:33
  overnight. I'm not saying you get there in
• 51:35
  a year, but if you're showing improvement, steady improvement
• 51:39
  or you're showing a plan, sometimes it's not even
• 51:42
  improvement because some coaches are just out here low in the the
• 51:47
  freaking AD to sleep and they're just giving them what they want.
• 51:51
  So if you have a plan, you can get to a certain position.
• 51:56
  I just think Mike's happy to be there.
• 51:58
  That's been my that's been my my stick on Mike.
• 52:02
  I just think that he's a great guy, and sometimes great guys
• 52:06
  finish last. We don't need a great guy.
• 52:08
  We need a good guy and a little bit of an asshole.
• 52:10
  All right. Can I, can I close out
• 52:13
  basketball with this? Dave Well, I was going.
• 52:15
  To I was going to say something. Well, I was going to say that
• 52:17
  you, you also have to have the right people in place to to get
• 52:23
  stuff accomplished. I mean, part of the reason that
• 52:25
  that Virginia Tech has James Franklin is because the board of
• 52:30
  visitors said we are appointing this search group search
• 52:36
  committee to go find the next coach.
• 52:40
  And in part because with Babcock went to the board of visitors
• 52:45
  and outlined this plan with Jay Pearson and Ryan McCarthy and a
• 52:48
  couple others worked on this funding plan.
• 52:50
  Virginia Tech now all of a sudden over the next couple
• 52:53
  years is going to invest $229,000,000 into athletics.
• 52:57
  James Franklin's not here if that does not happen.
• 53:01
  But that does not happen if a guy like Jay Pearson, a guy like
• 53:06
  Ryan McCarthy are not in the current positions they're in and
• 53:10
  they're not the ones that are pushing stuff along.
• 53:14
  You have to have the right people in place and and they
• 53:16
  have to want to do something about it.
• 53:19
  Yeah. Like I would think about it from
• 53:21
  like a a business perspective or a project management
• 53:23
  perspective. You got to have like that
• 53:24
  project champion that's kind of moving things in the right
• 53:29
  direction, even if they're not the ones that are touching the
• 53:32
  day-to-day operations of the program.
• 53:35
  You got to have somebody that's ringing that bell consistently,
• 53:40
  whether it's and that I can't always be your coach like it.
• 53:43
  It's at some, at some point you've got to have advocates in
• 53:47
  the front office as well and in the in the AD office that are
• 53:51
  ringing the bell on your behalf to kind of move things in the
• 53:54
  way that you need to do them from a from a financing
• 53:56
  standpoint. And I feel like basketball
• 53:58
  doesn't necessarily have that. And some of that is the output
• 54:01
  we've seen on the court. And I think some of that is just
• 54:06
  basketball hasn't always been the bell cow at Virginia Tech.
• 54:10
  So there isn't that like natural voice to say we need to get this
• 54:14
  thing where we're consistently competitive in the ACC, you
• 54:19
  know, competing for an ACC Championship, making the
• 54:21
  tournament, you know, once every four years at minimum.
• 54:25
  Like we don't have that kind of voice, I think in that in that
• 54:28
  group that's really ringing that bell on a consistent basis.
• 54:34
  So, David, real, real quick. Curious to hear what you have to
• 54:37
  say about this. Oh.
• 54:37
  No, no, no. This is.
• 54:38
  This is. More I didn't know if I didn't
• 54:40
  know if you were going to go go on another on another rant.
• 54:42
  I'm not going on another tangent with basketball.
• 54:44
  I'm I'm, I got mine out. But here's my question.
• 54:49
  If Mike Young pulls things together, makes the tournament
• 54:51
  next year, it's all hunky Dory. He's going to get extended three
• 54:55
  years. He'll get a solid contract.
• 54:57
  He'll take a hometown discount. What happens if he can't pull
• 55:03
  things together? It's a I'm looking at the
• 55:05
  records here from the last few years.
• 55:07
  It's a 16 and 16 season. What happens?
• 55:10
  Because the contract is up at that point, right?
• 55:14
  Let let me ask you this if Virginia Tech needed to hire a
• 55:20
  new men's basketball coach, who's hiring him?
• 55:24
  No search committee. The search committee to actually
• 55:29
  get shit done. Probably, but.
• 55:34
  And and at that point like so so I guess that's another thing
• 55:38
  like David, I've got an AD where in in the two biggest the the
• 55:43
  the two sports that actually make money for your school, the
• 55:46
  AD. Can't.
• 55:47
  The AD is is now not trusted to hire that coach that.
• 55:52
  That mean that's the that's the difficult, that's the difficult
• 55:54
  part. Like, like seriously, there are
• 56:00
  just so many moving, moving parts in terms of the
• 56:03
  administration. And yeah, I mean, the Virginia
• 56:08
  Tech did not let wit Babcock hire the football coach and he
• 56:11
  was home blown. He was involved.
• 56:14
  Well, maybe Buzz Williams will get fired from Maryland and it's
• 56:17
  a layup for. You do not, Curtis.
• 56:20
  You're kidding yourself. You don't want buzz back here.
• 56:23
  All I can remember is that team should have been.
• 56:26
  You're just all, all you're remembering is this is going to
• 56:29
  a Sweet 16. You're damn right.
• 56:30
  You're. Not I mean.
• 56:35
  All you If all you remember is Hunter Couture blasting Duke in
• 56:38
  the ACC Tournament championship game, you'll be you'll be great.
• 56:44
  Hey, just remember he made 3 consecutive tournaments.
• 56:49
  Oh yeah. So.
• 56:51
  Get the fuck out of here. But.
• 56:53
  Hold on, that is Wit's best higher as AD, right?
• 56:59
  Buzz. Buzz.
• 57:01
  Yeah, man, it would be. It would either be.
• 57:02
  I mean, no. No, Bill Martelli is not coming
• 57:08
  to Virginia. Martelli, you signed a contract
• 57:11
  extension. He just found an extension and
• 57:14
  his next step is probably going to be to go up north to
• 57:16
  Villanova. And and the way the way VCU is
• 57:19
  able to put money into into that, like I don't know if we
• 57:22
  can necessarily offer him more than than what VCU is doing.
• 57:27
  We'll do that. Behind paywalls, right?
• 57:30
  Here, I mean, I would, I would here's the thing.
• 57:32
  I would say that that VCU not to get off on a on a big tangent,
• 57:36
  but VCU just VCU Villanova, like being a mid major with no
• 57:40
  football program. Those are great positions to be
• 57:44
  in. And the VCU men's basketball
• 57:46
  program, man, it basically runs itself.
• 57:48
  It does like they have. They have not missed on a
• 57:51
  coaching hire in 20 years. My neighbor's a BCU alum and we
• 57:56
  were talking about it. Go back to when they hired Jeff
• 57:59
  Cable. Jeff Cable and every single guy
• 58:02
  they had hired in the last 22 years has gone to the
• 58:08
  tournament, won some games and got a bigger job.
• 58:12
  Yeah. But Curtis, to to your point
• 58:15
  about what happens, it is a it's a very interesting discussion
• 58:20
  because the Virginia Tech Board of visitors did not let the
• 58:24
  current athletic director hire the football coach like there
• 58:28
  would not have been if if that group trusted him to do so,
• 58:35
  there wouldn't have been a search committee.
• 58:37
  Well, the search committee, thankfully for Virginia Tech,
• 58:41
  the search committee was involved and as, as has been
• 58:45
  discussed, Jay Pearson, Ryan McCarthy, Bud Foster pulling the
• 58:50
  right strings and getting James Franklin to Blacksburg.
• 58:53
  Do you want to assemble a search committee to hire a new
• 58:56
  basketball coach? That might be what you have to
• 58:58
  do, but the but but the fact that you can't just go have your
• 59:04
  AD hire a guy, it makes it a little bit difficult.
• 59:10
  And, and yeah, to to since Phil Martelli, Phil Martelli stuff
• 59:14
  keeps coming up. I think he's a great coach and I
• 59:16
  think he fits VCU perfectly. And that, I mean, it's always
• 59:21
  like I have, I have friends that live in Richmond that are die
• 59:24
  hard VCU fans And they, I mean that that program, that
• 59:28
  program's fun, man. And, and, and you could argue,
• 59:31
  you could argue that that the only reason Virginia Tech and,
• 59:37
  and VCU are even close to to being comparable jobs is because
• 59:44
  the Hokies are in the ACC and the Rams are in the A10, which
• 59:48
  is only really a one or two bid league most of the time.
• 59:53
  But if VCU is putting as much into the program as Virginia
• 59:56
  Tech and is in the A10, that kind of tells you all you need
• 1:00:01
  to know, man 100. Percent all.
• 1:00:04
  Right. Let's move.
• 1:00:06
  Great basketball, Paul, we just did an hour on basketball.
• 1:00:10
  That's how impressive you are, Mr. Cunningham.
• 1:00:13
  But let's get over to spring football.
• 1:00:14
  A lot of different stuff going on until we just want to hit
• 1:00:19
  more than a few here. Give me, give me some from what
• 1:00:24
  you've seen and what you heard, not just quarterback
• 1:00:27
  observation, because it, I mean it just it, it seems like Ethan
• 1:00:31
  Grunkemeyer is just like you. You were doing the little thing
• 1:00:34
  earlier. It seems like it's like that,
• 1:00:36
  like Ethan Grunkemeyer's here. Everybody else is well below.
• 1:00:40
  Do you get that feel in person? Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I
• 1:00:44
  feel like Grunkemeyer is the guy they they wouldn't have brought
• 1:00:48
  him in otherwise. And, and, and it's interesting
• 1:00:53
  getting to know James Franklin and how he portrays himself to
• 1:00:57
  me and how he builds a relationship with us, Something
• 1:01:00
  that has come across which makes sense.
• 1:01:03
  And, and all coaches go through this, but James Franklin and the
• 1:01:08
  coaching staff don't want to say, hey, Ethan Gronkemeyer is
• 1:01:12
  going to be our starting quarterback in practice 5 of
• 1:01:16
  Spring Law. Because when you are preaching
• 1:01:22
  open competition to every single player on the roster and then
• 1:01:26
  you pencil a guy in and said, tell the media, hey, this guy's
• 1:01:31
  going to be our starting quarterback.
• 1:01:33
  You're, you're just going, you're, you're giving mixed
• 1:01:37
  messages to the team. I can see.
• 1:01:41
  That, yeah. But Curtis, to your question,
• 1:01:44
  yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't think there's a a way that
• 1:01:47
  Gronka Meyer is not the starting quarterback and that's why you
• 1:01:49
  bring him in. And he's got a great
• 1:01:51
  relationship with Danny O'Brien, the quarterbacks coach.
• 1:01:53
  And from my understanding the the Virginia Tech wide receivers
• 1:01:59
  are have been excited about just having a quarterback that is as
• 1:02:08
  pass friendly. If that's the right way to
• 1:02:10
  phrase it as as as drunk a Meyer.
• 1:02:14
  I mean, he's a, he's a pass first guy that's.
• 1:02:17
  What we do well, Dee, we know. We know one person who is not
• 1:02:22
  going to be the quarterback, AJ Bryan.
• 1:02:25
  Yeah. Because he is moving to receive
• 1:02:28
  them from what we've seen. Yeah, he and he weren't.
• 1:02:30
  You the first to report that. It was.
• 1:02:32
  It was Andy. It was Andy.
• 1:02:34
  Well, but, but I think I mean Andy and of course Colby
• 1:02:39
  Crawford and, and all, and Damien sort of let all the
• 1:02:41
  people that were in practice and, and that interviews the
• 1:02:43
  other day got that. But OK, you, you move AJ Brand,
• 1:02:48
  who, who's a really good athlete out of South Carolina, you move
• 1:02:51
  him from quarterback, a wide receiver.
• 1:02:53
  You pare down your quarterback room a little bit.
• 1:02:54
  Now you got four guys in there. You got a red shirt sophomore
• 1:02:58
  and and like 2 red shirt freshmen and A2 freshmen.
• 1:03:01
  That's a really young room. But I think they really like
• 1:03:05
  what they have in Gronk and Iron Man and he's your quarterback of
• 1:03:08
  the future. And you you go from having a run
• 1:03:12
  first quarterback in Kyra and drones to a pass first
• 1:03:15
  quarterback and and Ethan Gronkemeyer.
• 1:03:17
  That is a big difference as far as players, you know, just the
• 1:03:23
  working relationship behind the scenes.
• 1:03:25
  And Curtis, to your point, I, I cannot, I mean, I'm interested
• 1:03:32
  to see how Bryce Baker continues to progress.
• 1:03:36
  Obviously, he's kind of a local guy from like the Winston Salem
• 1:03:40
  area, Greensboro area, you know, he was highly recruited.
• 1:03:44
  But it kind of seems like Cronk Mayer's job lose.
• 1:03:50
  And I it'd be hard to imagine a world where, considering how
• 1:03:53
  well he played at Penn State last year, he's not, he's not a
• 1:03:57
  starter. But I, I can't fault the
• 1:03:59
  coaching staff for not coming out and being like, Yep, he's
• 1:04:01
  our starter. Because the one thing you don't
• 1:04:03
  want to do is is say there's no competition.
• 1:04:09
  Right, Yeah, Yeah. And especially when you're
• 1:04:11
  coming in and you're preaching like nobody's job is safe.
• 1:04:13
  I'm evaluating everybody across the board, you know, as a new
• 1:04:17
  head coach, you, you, you're doing that regardless.
• 1:04:20
  And, you know, I think it's also one of those things where it
• 1:04:23
  doesn't want to seem like he's, yeah, potentially playing your
• 1:04:27
  favorites with Penn State guys either.
• 1:04:28
  So you got that dynamic that's thrown in there as well.
• 1:04:31
  But to that point, I think the one thing that I've seen
• 1:04:34
  consistently when I'm, you know, following on social media and
• 1:04:37
  things like that, you've got Penn State accounts that have
• 1:04:40
  obviously been in our mentions across the board, but they have
• 1:04:45
  not said one bad thing about Grunk and are very fucking
• 1:04:49
  disappointed that he didn't stick around even with them
• 1:04:53
  getting Rocco coming over. So that that alone and obviously
• 1:04:57
  the output that he had, you know, the back half of last
• 1:04:59
  season, that they kind of speaks for itself on that front.
• 1:05:02
  So it's yeah, I mean, it's it's exciting that, you know, feel
• 1:05:05
  like you got a quarterback that knows how to get the ball out,
• 1:05:08
  knows how to, you know, throw back your balls can get the ball
• 1:05:12
  to guys in different places on the field.
• 1:05:14
  I think that's one of the things we struggled with really going
• 1:05:16
  back a number of years, not just, you know, with Kyron Jones
• 1:05:19
  at the at the helm there. Those kind of intermediate the
• 1:05:23
  same routes. I mean, think things that
• 1:05:24
  require precise location. You know, those, those are
• 1:05:29
  starting to, you know, probably come back into play in the
• 1:05:31
  offense a little more consistently with somebody with
• 1:05:33
  that type of accuracy and and and poison the pocket.
• 1:05:36
  So excited about that. I know we've seen some some word
• 1:05:40
  come out with some, you know, position shuffles along the
• 1:05:44
  offensive line. You know, we, we heard some
• 1:05:47
  conversations with Johnny Garrett slide inside a guard,
• 1:05:50
  some kind of being that swing player from what you've heard,
• 1:05:55
  from what you've you've seen read all that.
• 1:05:59
  What are they doing? And it does any of this have to
• 1:06:01
  do with the fact that Howlin's kind of out for for the spring
• 1:06:05
  at this point? I, I think so I, I mean,
• 1:06:07
  obviously that hurts your tackle depth.
• 1:06:09
  You know, I think he's, I don't know that I would pencil him in
• 1:06:12
  as a, as a starter at one of the tackle spots, but he's Logan
• 1:06:16
  Allen, Oklahoma transfer. He's played a lot of ball man.
• 1:06:20
  He's he's one of your most experienced guys.
• 1:06:23
  And Justin Terry, the Ohio State transfer who's with Matt Moore
• 1:06:26
  at West Virginia, he's also been a little bit banged up.
• 1:06:29
  But I, I think right now it's been interesting.
• 1:06:33
  Montavious Cunningham's at right tackle, Johnny Garrett's at
• 1:06:36
  right guard. Part of it is Matt Moore, I
• 1:06:41
  think has a good feeling for what some of these guys can do
• 1:06:44
  at their normal positions. And and something that James
• 1:06:48
  Franklin talked about is we got we just got to put the best five
• 1:06:51
  guys on the field. So you got to test stuff.
• 1:06:54
  And that's the perfect time in spring ball.
• 1:06:55
  Just kind of mess around a little bit and go, all right,
• 1:06:58
  let's let's throw Johnny Garrett in here at right guard and and
• 1:07:01
  see how he holds up and if he's playing pretty well.
• 1:07:04
  All right, cool. You know that that gives us
• 1:07:07
  another option. You know, like from Franklin
• 1:07:11
  gave a good example of last week, he said, you know,
• 1:07:14
  sometimes say your right tackle gets hurt, sometimes your next
• 1:07:22
  best player is not your backup right tackle.
• 1:07:25
  Your next best player is your backup right guard and then you
• 1:07:29
  slide your right guard over to right tackle.
• 1:07:32
  So I think it's just it's continuing.
• 1:07:34
  Hey, that's what I do. That's what I do on the game all
• 1:07:36
  the time. It's continuing game all the
• 1:07:39
  time. It worked.
• 1:07:40
  It's continuing to develop depth and I think, honestly, I think
• 1:07:45
  bringing Matt Moore back is huge.
• 1:07:48
  Like just from a continuity standpoint man.
• 1:07:50
  I think what is it? Has it been four coaches in four
• 1:07:53
  years or. We had Crook for like a year and
• 1:07:58
  a half. Like 4 coaches in like it's like
• 1:08:00
  4 coaches in six years, man. That's crazy.
• 1:08:03
  Like that's nuts. I mean Vice, Vice, Rudolph,
• 1:08:07
  Crook and more dating back to 2021.
• 1:08:12
  Yeah, yeah. 54 coaches, five years, I mean, and so like just
• 1:08:17
  having a a guy, yeah. But the, the big thing is your
• 1:08:21
  your offensive line coach and your offensive coordinator have
• 1:08:25
  to be on the same page. And it was interesting when we
• 1:08:27
  talked to Matt Moore back in February.
• 1:08:30
  Seems like he and Ty Howell really understand each other.
• 1:08:34
  You know, just that relationship of how the offensive line is, is
• 1:08:38
  panning out and being, I mean, offensive line, I would say is
• 1:08:43
  one of the hardest spots to recruit just because you've got
• 1:08:47
  to develop guys over time and being able to map, keep map
• 1:08:51
  more, which means keeping all these guys and then adding a
• 1:08:54
  bunch of Penn State guys, adding a couple other portal guys.
• 1:08:57
  It's like, all right, that group is much different from from
• 1:09:01
  where it was last year. But but we all agree you
• 1:09:03
  actually have to recruit and attempt to get off at zip line
• 1:09:07
  and end the door. Why would you think otherwise?
• 1:09:12
  Like what, 5 / 3 years? It seemed like you just wanted
• 1:09:15
  to kill yourself. Tell it what you got.
• 1:09:18
  It's it's why we ran into a situation last year where we
• 1:09:20
  had. A Lynch.
• 1:09:22
  The the next guy up at tackle and and that's not, I'm not
• 1:09:24
  trying to knock aid Lynch when I say that, but I.
• 1:09:26
  I don't think he would he. Was not.
• 1:09:28
  He was not ready to have to play the number of snaps he played
• 1:09:32
  last year, but you didn't have any tackle depth.
• 1:09:36
  And so all of a sudden you've got a guy that you know, is
• 1:09:38
  probably at least a year away from, you know, you being
• 1:09:42
  comfortable with him playing that number of snaps ended up
• 1:09:44
  getting kind of thrown to the fire.
• 1:09:45
  And I don't think it it helped him or his development or his
• 1:09:50
  perception. I think with, with the fan base
• 1:09:52
  that, you know, throughout that process and you know, getting
• 1:09:54
  guys in the door that, you know, with a guy like Terry and a guy
• 1:09:58
  like Howlin that have, you know, are either highly touted or have
• 1:10:02
  played a significant number of, of, of snaps at this point.
• 1:10:06
  I think that that that bodes well.
• 1:10:08
  And that gives you that, you know, position versatility to be
• 1:10:10
  able to see what Johnny Garrett can do at guard.
• 1:10:12
  And obviously we've seen Cunningham play guard and
• 1:10:15
  tackle, you know, alternatively throughout his time here as
• 1:10:18
  well. So having guys with that
• 1:10:22
  position versatility where you can go a man or two down at
• 1:10:25
  guard or tackle and still feel like you've got a, a decent 5
• 1:10:29
  that you can put out there. I think another thing too is
• 1:10:34
  just with the recruiting of offensive lineman.
• 1:10:39
  A lot of times, like I think David just said, like offensive
• 1:10:43
  lineman, you have to develop at that position.
• 1:10:45
  And it's so hard to like go into a high school and know who's
• 1:10:49
  going to be a good offensive lineman and how long it's going
• 1:10:52
  to take them to be ready because most high school offensive
• 1:10:55
  lineman are either much bigger than everybody else they're
• 1:10:58
  playing, or they're just more athletic.
• 1:11:00
  So depending on who they're playing, they just look so much
• 1:11:03
  better. But when you get to college,
• 1:11:04
  everybody's big. What I like about what they've
• 1:11:07
  done is they've brought a lot of lineman in and a lot of them are
• 1:11:12
  already at plain size. So even if they're not on the
• 1:11:16
  field to contribute in the two or 3D, they're going to give
• 1:11:20
  some of those defensive players a good look because it's at
• 1:11:23
  least a body that is the right size to be playing in the ACC.
• 1:11:28
  Because you can go back to some of our defensive lineman.
• 1:11:31
  It's like, Oh my God, Burgos just killed Clemens.
• 1:11:36
  He's going to have a good year. And then he can't fucking tackle
• 1:11:39
  nobody on South Carolina when he's in the backfield.
• 1:11:43
  So yeah, I mean, getting a good look at practice probably helps.
• 1:11:47
  So I'm glad that we at least have some depth there so some of
• 1:11:51
  these guys can develop, can get some practice run and they went
• 1:11:55
  and got a lot of them. I think we may have like 910
• 1:11:57
  lineman. They're coming in out of those.
• 1:12:00
  It's like somebody's got to be ready to step up and do
• 1:12:04
  something, you know? So when I say do something, hey,
• 1:12:07
  he just rolled his ankle, we're going to wrap him up, put him
• 1:12:10
  back in. I need you to go give me a
• 1:12:11
  series. Last couple of years we didn't
• 1:12:14
  even have that like we didn't, we just had nobody that could
• 1:12:17
  step up and go play or we didn't trust anybody enough to be able
• 1:12:20
  to go do that. So I'm, I'm definitely, you
• 1:12:23
  know, excited about getting just a little bit deeper on that
• 1:12:26
  offensive line so we can determine who the best five are.
• 1:12:32
  Or 7 and you say that tally you, you start from where and where
• 1:12:37
  you were last year, this year, truly guys who were offered
• 1:12:41
  somewhat rated or coming from it's 1717 offensive lineman.
• 1:12:47
  And I know a lot of freshmen, right Cunningham, a lot of
• 1:12:50
  freshmen. But that's what you have to do.
• 1:12:53
  You have to just stack and you have to pray.
• 1:12:56
  We will come out of this place. You don't have to pray, you just
• 1:12:58
  have to develop. You have to pray.
• 1:13:00
  I mean like what you have to do. What you I was going to say,
• 1:13:04
  hey, yeah, we ain't going to go into the Bible study here
• 1:13:06
  because I'm going to tell y'all right now You can you think that
• 1:13:09
  you're just going to be a millionaire by sitting at home
• 1:13:11
  and praying? You ain't.
• 1:13:12
  You better get that Bible. No, but Curtis, what you have to
• 1:13:15
  do is you got to get a lot of them and not all of them are
• 1:13:19
  going to pan out. True.
• 1:13:21
  But that's why you go get you. You get 5 or 6 lineman in a
• 1:13:26
  class and hope that two or three of them hit. 111 high level one
• 1:13:34
  OK one. And I was going to say even with
• 1:13:38
  that too, in the years past, that's kind of how it's been.
• 1:13:41
  You had this one guy that you were like, we got to get him on
• 1:13:44
  the field right now because that's what we need.
• 1:13:48
  Well, they wouldn't got about four that have the same about
• 1:13:51
  the same talent level. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:13:54
  When you look at like Tommy Wilder, Tommy Wilder is not on
• 1:13:57
  campus yet, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:13:59
  So of course his development is going to be behind some of the
• 1:14:01
  guys that are there. But you look at like a Marlin
• 1:14:03
  bright. These are high level football
• 1:14:06
  players. These are high level guards, I
• 1:14:08
  mean high level offensive lineman.
• 1:14:10
  So you went out and get three to four of those guys and you say,
• 1:14:15
  like you said, if we develop them in two hit and we're
• 1:14:19
  bringing in five one next year, you know, like it's what we got
• 1:14:24
  to do. That's what you have, That's
• 1:14:26
  what you have to do. You have to build in the
• 1:14:27
  trenches. There's no other way to win
• 1:14:30
  football games. Yeah.
• 1:14:32
  And one of the things we weren't doing is that we weren't
• 1:14:34
  recruiting, but we also really weren't attacking the portal at
• 1:14:38
  that position either. And I know that position is very
• 1:14:41
  hard to to bring in high caliber players in the portal anyway,
• 1:14:45
  but when you're when you weren't doing both, it's like we're not,
• 1:14:48
  we're not backfilling, but we're also not getting better on the
• 1:14:51
  front end either. And so you get situations like
• 1:14:54
  we've had the last two or three years where the offensive line
• 1:14:57
  is really, you know, even with some of the problems that we had
• 1:15:00
  at quarterback, like a lot of those were offensive line
• 1:15:03
  related to some degree. So you get this trickle down
• 1:15:07
  effect where you're not good up front and it affects every other
• 1:15:11
  position group on the team. Let's move over to wide
• 1:15:16
  receiver. I mean, we, we, we, we know that
• 1:15:18
  James Franklin is a Aiden Green disciple at this point.
• 1:15:23
  He's, he's been, he's been hyping him up a lot and, and
• 1:15:25
  talking about him and really, you know, highlighting his
• 1:15:28
  leadership and his ability to, to come in there and not be
• 1:15:33
  afraid to say what he's thinking.
• 1:15:35
  I think that's, you know, that's been a big thing that that
• 1:15:37
  Franklin has complimented him on.
• 1:15:39
  But let's go back beyond him a little bit.
• 1:15:41
  Who else is standing out in that room that you've seen so far?
• 1:15:45
  Well, I think the it's funny, Franklin, you, you can tell how
• 1:15:50
  Franklin feels very easily about a position group because like
• 1:15:55
  wide receiver, like last week he was asked about the wide
• 1:15:58
  receivers and he was like, there are a lot of guys who are
• 1:16:02
  unproven and I, they, they have not done enough for me to talk
• 1:16:08
  about them. Like it's like, hey, you got a
• 1:16:13
  lot of chance, Wiggins, Keelan Adams, like how's that room
• 1:16:17
  coming along? And he's like, we got a lot of
• 1:16:20
  guys that need to step up. We got Aiden Green, Keyshawn
• 1:16:25
  Brown from Duke. I mean, he's the big one.
• 1:16:29
  And Franklin touched on him the other day and he's he's, I think
• 1:16:34
  he's going to be an instant impact guy.
• 1:16:36
  He was very, very productive at Duke last year.
• 1:16:41
  Yeah. I, you know, Fontelle Mines
• 1:16:43
  raved about him. Actually.
• 1:16:45
  I thought this was very interesting.
• 1:16:46
  I mentioned this on our podcast. We spoke with Fontelle Mines
• 1:16:51
  back in February, and he's, he told me that he recruited
• 1:16:57
  Brown's from Winston Salem. He recruited Brown and Brown had
• 1:17:03
  Brown visited Virginia Tech for a camp and Fontelle did not
• 1:17:10
  offer him. And this time around in the
• 1:17:15
  portal, Fontelle said the first thing he did was he reached out
• 1:17:18
  and apologized for not offering him.
• 1:17:21
  He was like, that's my bad, man. Like I missed like, I feel like
• 1:17:25
  you don't really see that kind of honesty, you know, just in
• 1:17:28
  that process like that. But I mean, he he could not stop
• 1:17:31
  raving about about Brown and he's he he kind of he's very
• 1:17:35
  reliable in terms of I think he catch, he catches everything.
• 1:17:39
  He's maybe a little bit undersized, but I think it's
• 1:17:42
  kind of exactly what you want in terms of bringing another
• 1:17:45
  experienced guy to pair with Green after that, Brian, it's
• 1:17:50
  pretty open-ended, man. Like one of the reasons I think
• 1:17:55
  sliding AJ Brand over to wide receiver is so interesting is
• 1:17:59
  because it's kind of an open competition.
• 1:18:03
  You scroll through the list, you know, Marlene Jackson, he's got
• 1:18:07
  it. He's got his arm in it sling.
• 1:18:08
  He was the Louisiana Tech transfer that they brought in.
• 1:18:11
  But this is also an offensive coordinator, Ty Howell, who had
• 1:18:16
  in the past at Penn State, he and James Franklin, I know he
• 1:18:20
  wasn't the OC, but he's been a tight ends coach and they love
• 1:18:24
  using tight ends. So the nice thing is you've got
• 1:18:28
  a really good tight end room to kind of maybe balance it out a
• 1:18:32
  little bit, But they need wide receiver is a room I look at and
• 1:18:36
  they'll go they need guys to step up, man.
• 1:18:39
  Like there's there's kind of an open competition, you know,
• 1:18:42
  outside of green and brown. It's like everything else is
• 1:18:46
  open, man. You got to go prove it.
• 1:18:47
  And and this is a great opportunity for Wiggins.
• 1:18:50
  Adams highly touted guys like that to to kind of prove that,
• 1:18:54
  hey, like we belong. Like, you know, it's our turn to
• 1:18:58
  to play. Yeah, that room is a bunch of
• 1:19:00
  talented guys who they're saying exactly what you're saying.
• 1:19:04
  They have to prove it. They all mostly were pretty high
• 1:19:09
  end guys coming out of high school, played well in high
• 1:19:12
  school, have shown flashes at times, some in games, some at
• 1:19:18
  practices, some at spring games and stuff.
• 1:19:21
  But it's who's going to take the who's going to take the crown?
• 1:19:23
  Who's going to take to me? You, you want 5 like who wants
• 1:19:26
  3-4 and five? Because if you take it this
• 1:19:29
  year, you're likely going to have it for the next two years.
• 1:19:34
  It's going to be yours. It's it's going to be your show
• 1:19:37
  to run tally. What do you want to talk on
• 1:19:39
  next, man? Well, I mean, we kind of brought
• 1:19:41
  them up already when you talk about the tight end room and the
• 1:19:44
  tight end room being pretty, I mean pretty looking like it's
• 1:19:49
  going to be pretty good. I don't want to jump the gun.
• 1:19:51
  But I mean, when I look at Luke Reynolds, I just think that he's
• 1:19:55
  a can't miss tight end. And when I say can't miss, I
• 1:19:58
  don't know how far he goes. I'm not saying he's a NFL tight
• 1:20:02
  end, but I've seen him play a couple of games of college
• 1:20:05
  football and I've seen him into practices with the limited
• 1:20:09
  access that we've got and he looks like he is head and
• 1:20:13
  shoulders better than. What we're normally having in
• 1:20:19
  our tidying room, no disrespect to any of the other tight ends
• 1:20:23
  that we had, but what have you got to take a look at Luke
• 1:20:27
  Reynolds and when we talk about that tight end room and what do
• 1:20:31
  you think about him, David? I mean, I and anytime I think of
• 1:20:34
  Luke Reynolds, I just go back to the Pinstripe Bowl.
• 1:20:37
  If you recall, he, he put a spin move on one of those Clemson
• 1:20:41
  defenders. You're, you're talking like a, a
• 1:20:43
  tight end who looks like he's playing like running back.
• 1:20:46
  Just the way he moves. Very agile guy.
• 1:20:50
  He's he's big. The the biggest thing for me
• 1:20:53
  Tally is I I think he is a pretty proven blocker.
• 1:20:57
  And the. Virginia Tech tight doesn't
• 1:20:59
  struggle with blocking man over the last few years.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah, let's, let's get Sheldon on that one.
• 1:21:07
  I, I think, I think Reynolds, I mean, he's, he's a tremendous
• 1:21:12
  upgrade. He just makes that room better.
• 1:21:15
  It's kind of one of those like rising tides lifts all boats
• 1:21:18
  then. Like.
• 1:21:19
  Your tight end room was fine. I can really use the tight ends
• 1:21:24
  a lot under that last coaching staff.
• 1:21:28
  It it'll be different now. And I think the interesting
• 1:21:30
  thing is I think Benji Gosnell is a little bit underutilized.
• 1:21:33
  Again, not great as a blocker, but he's been pretty reliable as
• 1:21:37
  a as a pass catching tight end If if you compare him with Luke
• 1:21:43
  Reynolds and you brought in Matt Henderson, who I believe is a
• 1:21:47
  Richmond guy. And and I mean, he he's a really
• 1:21:54
  good athlete. And Harrison is saying Jermaine
• 1:21:56
  is back. I mean the tight end room might
• 1:21:59
  be one of the. Harrison.
• 1:22:00
  Don't forget Harrison. Yeah.
• 1:22:02
  Oh, and sorry, Jerrikas Harrison.
• 1:22:03
  I knew I was. Yeah, I knew I was leaving
• 1:22:05
  somebody out. You know, Jerrikas Harrison, I
• 1:22:08
  was talking to Andy and Chris about this the other day.
• 1:22:11
  You know, they said they went out to they went out to practice
• 1:22:14
  and they were doing tight end blocking drills and the guy who
• 1:22:17
  was standing out more than anybody was Hairston and just
• 1:22:19
  how he was just flat out blocking dudes.
• 1:22:23
  Yeah, I think it was one of the videos that they posted where
• 1:22:26
  Franklin got all over him in a good way, like just giving him
• 1:22:29
  props on his on his blocking. And I mean, as a, as a, as a
• 1:22:34
  tight end, that that it's you got to be able to catch passes,
• 1:22:40
  but you got to be able to block and you got to be able to block
• 1:22:42
  in space. We can go into a whole, I'm I'm
• 1:22:46
  sure Brian can write up a whole show for pulling, ripping,
• 1:22:51
  reaching, different things like that.
• 1:22:53
  But again, big man, usually tight end being in space, trying
• 1:23:00
  to block little shifty guys sometimes doesn't work.
• 1:23:04
  So when you're bending that corner and you're coming out and
• 1:23:07
  you got a block of safety or a cornerback, a lot of times
• 1:23:11
  they're not going to come and meet you head up.
• 1:23:12
  They're going to find a way to, you know, Juke you get around
• 1:23:15
  you, you know, slide under you, different things like that.
• 1:23:19
  So when I just watched that clip again, we ever had a lot to
• 1:23:22
  watch. But I'm a tight end guy.
• 1:23:24
  So when I seen that, I got pretty excited as well because
• 1:23:27
  I've seen US run plays or us run screens and somebody goes, why
• 1:23:32
  do we keep running that? I'm like, we're really only one
• 1:23:35
  block away. Miami running the fake field
• 1:23:39
  goal. I mean, form a play call, but we
• 1:23:41
  were one block away from scoring a touchdown on that fake field
• 1:23:45
  goal and that and that block would have came from a tight
• 1:23:48
  end. So I think I'm pretty sure it
• 1:23:50
  was a tight end. Yeah, I, I look at, I look at
• 1:23:53
  the tight end room and I think that is probably one of the best
• 1:23:56
  position rooms on the team from and I like the variety of skill
• 1:24:01
  sets you have because you've got you know, I mean, and you talk
• 1:24:05
  about Doricas, I mean, he's a former walk on man.
• 1:24:08
  Like he has worked his way up and he caught some touchdowns
• 1:24:11
  last year. He paved the way for Kyron for a
• 1:24:13
  couple touchdown runs. I mean, he's a guy who has
• 1:24:16
  earned his keep and, and you've got him and Saint Germain and
• 1:24:20
  Gosnell along with Henderson and and Reynolds and that's a pretty
• 1:24:24
  stacked room. That's the kind of problem you
• 1:24:27
  will have. You won't have 100.
• 1:24:30
  There's depth there and everything.
• 1:24:32
  And, and, and to Tally's point, I mean, you know, Titan is such
• 1:24:34
  an interesting position with, with the type of blocks that,
• 1:24:39
  you know, you got to execute. I mean, you got to be able to
• 1:24:41
  stalk block like a wide receiver.
• 1:24:42
  You got to be able to, to block in the alley.
• 1:24:44
  And then you also have to do pretty much anything that a
• 1:24:48
  tackle would do in those, you know, tight formation run
• 1:24:51
  situations. So I mean, it's a, it's a very,
• 1:24:53
  very skill set that you have to have on top of, you know, also
• 1:24:56
  being a, a reliable receiver. And, and it sounds like there,
• 1:25:00
  there's going to be a whole lot more receiving that we saw with
• 1:25:03
  Monty last year coming from that tight end group.
• 1:25:06
  So I'm excited. I I think, like you said, I
• 1:25:09
  think this is probably, you know, top to bottom, probably
• 1:25:12
  the the deepest position, at least on offense.
• 1:25:14
  I would say, you know, when you combine experience with ability
• 1:25:20
  and then some of that, you know, guys like Hairston that have
• 1:25:23
  really earned their keep and, and, and have shown, you know,
• 1:25:26
  flashes in, in, in various capacities over the last couple
• 1:25:29
  years. Let's flip it over to defense
• 1:25:34
  and I'm going to focus on the safety room to start out here.
• 1:25:37
  Yeah, we did. You know, we were some delay in
• 1:25:41
  kind of finalizing the coaching staff who was going to coach
• 1:25:44
  safeties, who's going to coach cornerbacks didn't really go out
• 1:25:47
  and get anybody in the portal to to shore up that room.
• 1:25:52
  What's your feeling on that room and and is there any new faces
• 1:25:56
  that are kind of mixing in there that we didn't see last year?
• 1:25:59
  Well, I think I think it's good that Ted got Quentin Reddish
• 1:26:02
  back. I think that's that's important.
• 1:26:05
  But he's also coming off an injury.
• 1:26:07
  That's a little bit that's difficult, man.
• 1:26:12
  I will group the safeties and corners together because I think
• 1:26:15
  they're in kind of different situations.
• 1:26:20
  I look at the cornerback room and I go, I see a lot of guys
• 1:26:23
  with experience and a lot of guys that can play right now.
• 1:26:27
  And there might be a point where it's like, man, we've got more
• 1:26:31
  corners that we want. Like we, I wish we could play,
• 1:26:35
  you know, we got to sit one or two of these guys because they
• 1:26:39
  all can't be on the field at the same time with corners.
• 1:26:42
  I look at safeties and I go there.
• 1:26:46
  There is a there a lot. Don't you?
• 1:26:49
  There's, I mean, there are, there are questions, man, Like
• 1:26:53
  I'm, I'm just interested, I'm interested to see how that
• 1:26:56
  dynamic plays out. You, you bring back some guys at
• 1:27:01
  like Tyson Flowers, I think Franklin spoke, Franklin spoke
• 1:27:05
  about his leadership ability and I think that's great.
• 1:27:08
  But Flowers was a little bit hit or miss at times last year.
• 1:27:12
  David said. David said we we glad you're a
• 1:27:15
  leader, but. We That's being kind.
• 1:27:16
  Of some ways people that get tackled.
• 1:27:20
  Well, you need you. Need either you need.
• 1:27:23
  Leaders and he's a guy that that last year after losses stood in
• 1:27:27
  front of the media and and spoke.
• 1:27:29
  That takes a lot of guts, man. Yeah, with the season going the
• 1:27:32
  way it did, what can under a under a different coaching
• 1:27:38
  staff, can he kind of take that next step a little bit and be a
• 1:27:41
  little bit more consistent? And I think you look at that
• 1:27:45
  room as a whole and that's kind of a theme.
• 1:27:48
  It's a lot of unproven guys who it's like, can they all kind of
• 1:27:53
  vibe? And I don't want to like get off
• 1:27:55
  topic and go look at cornerbacks, but like there's so
• 1:27:57
  much experience there. And, and, and also I really like
• 1:28:01
  a lot of the young, young guys that are kind of coming off up
• 1:28:05
  the ranks. It's like, OK, you know,
• 1:28:07
  acknowledge Herald, right? Like seems like he's chomping at
• 1:28:11
  the bit a little bit ready, ready to play.
• 1:28:14
  It just seems a bit of a different situation.
• 1:28:17
  And I'm curious to see how the coaching staff kind of manages
• 1:28:21
  it because it seems like the safeties and corners are in two
• 1:28:25
  different spots. Yeah.
• 1:28:27
  Definitely always doing with that safest position just to be
• 1:28:30
  honest. Let me ask this real quick on
• 1:28:33
  Curtis. I'll let you go ahead.
• 1:28:33
  Sorry. Well, Woody, honest truth, I
• 1:28:35
  think it's like, I'm not trying to downplay the position, but
• 1:28:41
  don't spend money on safeties. Like don't like the NFL doesn't
• 1:28:45
  spend money on safeties. The teams that normally spend
• 1:28:47
  money on safeties, they're usually ADS teams that just like
• 1:28:52
  they figure out the safety room, you figure out what they can do.
• 1:28:55
  And my thought is kind of what you said, David, it's but with
• 1:28:59
  the exception of Reddish, because you feel like Reddish is
• 1:29:01
  young. He took a step last year, he got
• 1:29:03
  hurt, but he he took a legit step from first year to 2nd
• 1:29:05
  year. I think they're figuring out
• 1:29:08
  each of these guys can do something OK.
• 1:29:11
  If the front 7 can be OK and the outside guys can cover, we can
• 1:29:16
  figure out what each can do. And when we get to that
• 1:29:19
  particular point of the game, y'all to go in because y'all are
• 1:29:23
  good at playing cover too high. Y'all good at playing cover 1.
• 1:29:27
  You can play somewhat man on a tight end matchups across the
• 1:29:31
  boards. I would love David in nine
• 1:29:35
  months because that'll be Christmas to get snap counts on
• 1:29:40
  safeties. I guarantee it.
• 1:29:42
  With the exception of Reddish, the other ones are going to be
• 1:29:44
  level unless someone like a Sheldon Robinson steps out
• 1:29:49
  because if a young guy jumps. In.
• 1:29:52
  Huh. Robinson looks like a grown man.
• 1:29:54
  He doesn't like a grown man and I'm saying if he takes a step
• 1:29:57
  then those guys are done to him because it's going to be radish
• 1:30:00
  it strong, it's going to be him at free and those other guys are
• 1:30:03
  just going to be hoping to get on the field for punt block.
• 1:30:06
  Go ahead, Brian. Sorry.
• 1:30:06
  I was just going to say, you know, I think the, you know, the
• 1:30:09
  the dark horse of the unknown quantity and all this thing is,
• 1:30:13
  you know, where does Sherrod Koval maybe maybe fit into this
• 1:30:17
  conversation? Is he at a point now where he's
• 1:30:20
  going to be a heavy contributor or is, or is he still kind of
• 1:30:23
  floating in that four or five area in the in the in the depth
• 1:30:27
  chart? You know, we saw Jordan Bass,
• 1:30:31
  you know, go out there and he'll hit somebody, but there's
• 1:30:37
  there's some other areas where where he struggled.
• 1:30:39
  I mean, I think, you know, on the whole, to Curtis's point
• 1:30:43
  with, you know, not really overpaying in that position, you
• 1:30:45
  know, if we can get guys that can, that can play Cover 3 match
• 1:30:48
  and you know, fill the alley and hang and fit properly and and do
• 1:30:52
  all those things that you need to do, from a basic standpoint,
• 1:30:56
  maybe that doesn't matter as much.
• 1:31:00
  I mean, I got a lot of confidence and not to get us off
• 1:31:04
  topic, but I got a lot of confidence in the the cornerback
• 1:31:07
  that came from Troy, not because I watched so much of his game,
• 1:31:12
  but of course, being in Alabama, I've seen a lot of Troy team, a
• 1:31:16
  lot of Detroit team play. And we've had some local kids
• 1:31:20
  that have went there and I've kind of talked with, you know,
• 1:31:23
  some coaches, high school coaches and Troy alums and
• 1:31:27
  things like that. And they really, he was a really
• 1:31:29
  good player for them. He just has a lot of ability and
• 1:31:33
  I'm hoping that that translate to him getting, you know,
• 1:31:36
  significant snaps with us and, and, and contributing there
• 1:31:40
  because I think we have a lot of talent in that room.
• 1:31:45
  When you talk about, you know, the cornerback room and it's a
• 1:31:48
  mix of a little bit of experience along with talent.
• 1:31:54
  Indiana showed us that you're going to need experience to win
• 1:31:57
  it, you know what I'm saying? So having experience is good,
• 1:32:01
  but they also had talent too. You can't just be old, you know
• 1:32:04
  what I'm saying? Like they had.
• 1:32:06
  Experienced. Talented guys.
• 1:32:08
  So I'm hoping that we have a good balance of that enough in
• 1:32:12
  like the cornerback room that it helps with the safety because
• 1:32:16
  you do see sometimes those get kind of interchanged and things
• 1:32:19
  like that. But I'm excited about, you know,
• 1:32:23
  that room. But the next thing is what I
• 1:32:26
  wouldn't be excited about is being a young offensive lineman
• 1:32:30
  and having to block Kamari Copeland on the defensive line.
• 1:32:35
  Kuna, have you seen anything out of our defensive lineman?
• 1:32:38
  I know we've had a lot of transfers to come in and it may
• 1:32:41
  be a lot of unknown things there, but as far as the
• 1:32:45
  defensive line, what are you kind of seeing and knowing and
• 1:32:49
  thinking? Kamari Copeland's a big dude,
• 1:32:52
  man. He is big.
• 1:32:54
  Strong big strong dude too. I mean, Frank Franklin basically
• 1:32:58
  said it that that Kamari Copeland was like the the number
• 1:33:02
  one guy. Hey, we need to bring, we need
• 1:33:04
  to make sure he's back on this team next year.
• 1:33:08
  And. And I'm curious to see maybe
• 1:33:12
  Sean Spencer kind of said that too.
• 1:33:14
  All the interviews kind of run together.
• 1:33:15
  But but when we had a chance to talk to Sean Spencer, he raved
• 1:33:18
  about Copeland. Just man, this he he's a hard
• 1:33:21
  working guy and obviously he's got a lot of talent, but I I'm
• 1:33:25
  curious to see what other guys come up around him like.
• 1:33:27
  I think Elaj Fall is a guy who who quietly had a good year last
• 1:33:32
  year. I agree.
• 1:33:35
  Can, can, can he be a pretty good duo with with with
• 1:33:38
  Copeland? And then outside of that, it's
• 1:33:41
  kind of a bunch of unproven guys at at tackle.
• 1:33:44
  A guy I, I'm really curious to to see where he ends up, is T
• 1:33:49
  Ron Richardson. He's a big dude, man.
• 1:33:53
  He is a monster. He's from the Richmond area.
• 1:33:59
  He got rave reviews from from Spencer and the coaching staff
• 1:34:03
  and I think they've got a lot of guys with with good work ethics
• 1:34:07
  in that room and Laws. I think this is his redshirts
• 1:34:12
  sophomore season. Maybe maybe like this is his
• 1:34:15
  opportunity, I think to kind of be a a big piece as like that's
• 1:34:20
  maybe the second or third guy behind Kamari Copeland, you
• 1:34:24
  know, and they brought in, I'm looking at my roster here.
• 1:34:28
  They brought in Aterica from from Penn State and they brought
• 1:34:31
  in Eric Mensa from Ohio State. It's like, OK, you got some some
• 1:34:34
  guys with experience a a little bit.
• 1:34:36
  The guys have been in programs before.
• 1:34:39
  Can can that translate over? But I'm kind of curious to see
• 1:34:43
  how that that rest of the depth chart shakes out kind of behind
• 1:34:46
  those three guys at the top, you know, you what you have in them.
• 1:34:51
  Yeah. And, and and that kind of where
• 1:34:54
  so many of the positions are, it feels like, right.
• 1:34:58
  But I think we all feel like this the talent levels raised.
• 1:35:03
  I think I don't, I mean, everybody goes back to 16 and
• 1:35:07
  17, right? And that's a decade ago, first
• 1:35:10
  of all, that's a decade ago. And that's the last time we felt
• 1:35:14
  like we had we looked at, hey, I'm just being real.
• 1:35:17
  But in 16 and 17, you start looking at the roster, it's like
• 1:35:22
  it was a lot of talent on those teams.
• 1:35:24
  It was a lot of talent. And I know, you know, schemes
• 1:35:29
  are great, you know, coaches are great.
• 1:35:32
  And James Franklin understands, I think better than anyone.
• 1:35:35
  And he's said it numerous times, all this stuff's great, but if
• 1:35:38
  you don't have the players, if you don't have the players to
• 1:35:41
  compete, if you don't have the depth, you're not, you're not
• 1:35:44
  going to compete. And that's simple as it is.
• 1:35:47
  And to me, he's taking us just from my vantage point, he's
• 1:35:52
  taking us like somewhere between 4050.
• 1:35:57
  You feel like it's somewhere in the 20s.
• 1:36:01
  Just talent watch, just talent. I know you get the blue chip
• 1:36:04
  ratios, but you start looking and it's like, well, the
• 1:36:07
  quarterback has experience and not this guy has experience.
• 1:36:10
  Well, that guy has experience. And that's that piece you talked
• 1:36:14
  about the rising tide. Well, if you have a quarterback
• 1:36:16
  who can play, you don't need to lean on everything.
• 1:36:20
  We need to talk running backs tonight.
• 1:36:21
  And we're going to lay off that for a little while because that
• 1:36:25
  room again, I think it's when we feel like it is what it is.
• 1:36:30
  But David, in any, any last words before we close her out
• 1:36:34
  tonight, man? Well, I want to, I think
• 1:36:36
  linebacker, linebackers will just be like, like how they, how
• 1:36:42
  they balance. We, we, you know, tally
• 1:36:45
  mentioned Jacquez White, the Troy kid.
• 1:36:47
  You know, how they balance the corners and safeties and also
• 1:36:50
  the strengths. The linebackers, like, I think
• 1:36:52
  they, you know, they bring in Keon Wiley from, from Penn State
• 1:36:57
  and I think they really like Caleb Spencer and and Curtis
• 1:36:59
  Jones from West Virginia. But like obviously Noah Chambers
• 1:37:04
  had a phenomenal freshman year. But like, what does that look
• 1:37:07
  like like? And I think that's the beauty of
• 1:37:09
  spring ball with the new coaching staff.
• 1:37:12
  It's like you have all this time to figure all this stuff out.
• 1:37:15
  You can look and go, all right, well, we're working this guy
• 1:37:18
  here and this guy played really well today.
• 1:37:20
  All right, maybe we can give him another look.
• 1:37:22
  And I, I think for Virginia Tech fans who, who, who are are
• 1:37:28
  excited to go to the spring game, like I think that's the
• 1:37:31
  going to be the beauty of like this year's spring game is like
• 1:37:34
  there are a lot of young guys the, the talent level, as Curtis
• 1:37:38
  has just talked about in this program, the talent level is
• 1:37:42
  much better. There's more talent in this
• 1:37:44
  program and as a result, there's going to be more competition.
• 1:37:47
  And as a result, it's going to be hard for guys to get on the
• 1:37:49
  field. And that's exactly what you
• 1:37:51
  want. And I think you're going to see
• 1:37:53
  that and it's not just one position, it's across the board.
• 1:37:59
  And I'm curious to kind of continue to, you know, got a
• 1:38:04
  couple weeks before his spring game.
• 1:38:06
  Curious to see like what kind of young guys or, or transverse
• 1:38:11
  newcomers kind of crack these rotations and, and maybe do a
• 1:38:17
  little bit more than just like flash at this spot or flash at
• 1:38:21
  that spot like, oh, hey, this guy like, you know, are we going
• 1:38:24
  to see I'm making this up? But like Akeel on Wiley, Oh,
• 1:38:28
  he's he he's won the spot at he's he's the kind of the leader
• 1:38:32
  at at the will right now, right. Like do we see a kind of a any
• 1:38:37
  of these transfers or any of these freshmen kind of come in
• 1:38:40
  and make an instant impact? But it's going to be more
• 1:38:43
  difficult now because you have raised again the talent level in
• 1:38:46
  this program. So they're just in a much better
• 1:38:49
  spot and spring ball is fun because they can get all hands
• 1:38:54
  on. They don't have to worry about
• 1:38:55
  all the, Oh my, the constant game planning for, for different
• 1:38:59
  opponents and whatnot. It's just ball, man.
• 1:39:02
  And you, you, I think more than anything, every single time you,
• 1:39:08
  you see a clip, every single time you watch them, the the
• 1:39:14
  program has started to exude toughness again.
• 1:39:18
  And that's what Virginia Tech football was built on.
• 1:39:23
  There we go. Let me ask you one more
• 1:39:25
  question. But, and this is going to be
• 1:39:27
  directed at at Tally's drinking buddy here because because you
• 1:39:30
  brought up the linebacker room and and not even approaching it
• 1:39:35
  from the well, that's a good point.
• 1:39:40
  We have that. But Phil.
• 1:39:42
  Phil's had a couple beers tonight.
• 1:39:43
  Bill's had a couple beers. Phil's also not prized biggest
• 1:39:48
  fan either so we get that. But thinking about it from just
• 1:39:53
  the position group standpoint, you know, we, you know, we look
• 1:39:56
  at the opposite side of the ball, you retain 2 coaches on
• 1:39:58
  the defensive side of the ball. Obviously prize is the guy back
• 1:40:01
  here. So he has familiarity with the
• 1:40:05
  guys that are remaining on the roster from last year.
• 1:40:08
  And obviously he's got a, you know, close confidant and
• 1:40:12
  Franklin there to kind of assess some of the guys, especially the
• 1:40:15
  the Penn State guys that are coming in there.
• 1:40:16
  Does he have that kind of? A unique lens to look at his
• 1:40:20
  position group relative to kind of where everybody else is on
• 1:40:24
  the defensive side of the ball. Absolutely.
• 1:40:27
  And he's the guy. I mean, there's no one that
• 1:40:30
  should know the defensive personnel for Virginia Tech
• 1:40:33
  better than Brett Prye, considering these are all guys
• 1:40:37
  he's recruited. I mean, even even the guys who
• 1:40:39
  Tech got this offseason, he had a hand in recruiting them.
• 1:40:44
  And I think you've seen he's refreshed, man, Like he's, he's
• 1:40:50
  different. I think there is a giant weight
• 1:40:52
  that's been lifted off his shoulders as far as like he
• 1:40:57
  didn't have to do with the deal with the day-to-day, all the
• 1:41:02
  pressure that comes with being the head guy.
• 1:41:04
  You've got so much on your plate.
• 1:41:06
  You can just go coach X's and O's and, and, and push your kids
• 1:41:12
  and be in team meeting rooms again.
• 1:41:14
  I mean, at the end of the day, I think that's what most, most
• 1:41:17
  coaches like to do. They like to, to recruit and
• 1:41:20
  develop kids and, and build relationships with them and, and
• 1:41:23
  push them and, and put them in the right positions to succeed
• 1:41:27
  and scheme up stuff. And that's what you're seeing
• 1:41:29
  from Pride. And it'll be interesting him
• 1:41:33
  being the defensive coordinator it if if the Hokies don't play
• 1:41:38
  well defensively mean. It could be rough on him.
• 1:41:44
  It could be rough on him, but Oh my gosh, David, the content that
• 1:41:49
  I hope we don't have it. I hope the content is I sit here
• 1:41:53
  and pray the content is that guy was never a hoe coach, but damn
• 1:41:57
  it, look at that defense. Just look at he knows what he's
• 1:42:00
  doing. He's in his vibe.
• 1:42:01
  Let's just hope it's that way. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:42:05
  Because I don't feel like sitting here having drinks every
• 1:42:08
  Tuesday night feeling miserable. I'm such a.
• 1:42:12
  Good dude too, He. Is yeah, might be his problem.
• 1:42:18
  This is what I'll say, though. I mean, just everybody knows how
• 1:42:22
  I felt about it when it first happened.
• 1:42:24
  When it went down, I was like, what are we doing?
• 1:42:27
  I've never seen this happen. We we just fired a coach and
• 1:42:30
  hired him back. Whatever, we all what we are
• 1:42:33
  now, right? So when I look at things from a
• 1:42:35
  holistic standpoint, you're either giving, I mean, just say
• 1:42:40
  we were building a house with Legos.
• 1:42:43
  At least now they're going to give him bricks to build a house
• 1:42:45
  with. If you look at the if you look
• 1:42:48
  at the linebacker room compared to kind of what we had, again,
• 1:42:54
  the talent levels raised, Like if I had to see Jaden Keller go
• 1:42:57
  out and not make a tackle one more time, I may have drank
• 1:43:01
  myself to death. Like, you know, if I had to go
• 1:43:05
  see Sam Brumfiel not be big enough to bring ACC running
• 1:43:09
  backs down, it just you got tired of it And it's not, you
• 1:43:14
  know, I get it. All of that falls on the head
• 1:43:16
  coach. Brett Pryor was the head coach.
• 1:43:19
  He's not the head coach now. So I feel like, again, this is
• 1:43:23
  me looking at it, you know, sober mind, months after this
• 1:43:27
  happened. I think that James Franklin
• 1:43:30
  knows what is expected. And I think he stepped up to
• 1:43:35
  say, OK, if you give me this, I can produce this.
• 1:43:39
  And he knows what's on the line. More than just Virginia Tech,
• 1:43:43
  His name's been ran through the mud for the most part by Penn
• 1:43:47
  State people, you know, a couple of other fan bases, but mainly
• 1:43:50
  them. So I think he's really out to
• 1:43:52
  prove something. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:43:54
  I mean, he's still one of the best head coaches in college
• 1:43:57
  football. They don't want to admit it, but
• 1:43:59
  he is. So I think that I mean, this is
• 1:44:01
  his stop. This is where he goes out and
• 1:44:04
  proves like y'all don't realize that I've been doing this for
• 1:44:08
  everywhere I went. I built the program.
• 1:44:10
  I was at Vanderbilt, I built the program when I was at Penn
• 1:44:13
  State. I built that program.
• 1:44:15
  So now I'm here and if you're not going to be here and do this
• 1:44:18
  with me, you're not going to be here.
• 1:44:20
  So I think Brett pride knows that he he wouldn't have stuck
• 1:44:24
  around and and risked because he's in a he's in a weird spot,
• 1:44:27
  man, you know what I'm saying? Coming off of him loving, he, he
• 1:44:31
  legit loves Blacksburg and loves Virginia Tech, but he did a
• 1:44:35
  shitty job of being a head coach.
• 1:44:39
  He knows that. So he's got to look all of the
• 1:44:42
  same people in the face everywhere he goes.
• 1:44:46
  And I, I don't think that he's taking that lightly.
• 1:44:49
  So that's what's in my mind. That's what I'm thinking.
• 1:44:52
  Phil, I'm with you. I understand where you coming
• 1:44:55
  from, but let's give him just maybe a little bit of grace
• 1:44:59
  after the first drive of the season.
• 1:45:04
  Then we can start in and kind of figure out what we.
• 1:45:08
  Want I got one drive one drive. You got.
• 1:45:13
  One drive you got? Yeah, I mean.
• 1:45:15
  It's going to be going to be interesting once we get to like
• 1:45:17
  ACC play. I mean, he's just going to be
• 1:45:20
  judged by by such a unique light.
• 1:45:23
  But I think Franklin made the point that wherever he went,
• 1:45:28
  pride was going to be his top option as defensive coordinator,
• 1:45:33
  right? You know, say for example, he
• 1:45:35
  took the Franklin took the Arkansas job.
• 1:45:38
  He was going. There he like he's probably
• 1:45:40
  taking pride there. Nobody bests not.
• 1:45:43
  So what? Yeah.
• 1:45:43
  So why not Virginia Tech? It's just weird because he's the
• 1:45:46
  former head coach, but it says a lot about him and his family
• 1:45:50
  that they're able to kind of weather this and and wear it and
• 1:45:55
  own it and go we're going to. And and I think he truly is
• 1:45:58
  like, I want to get this program back.
• 1:46:01
  And I know I did a poor job, but I want to help fix it.
• 1:46:04
  And I think he's in a good spot too.
• 1:46:08
  And again, I think he feels more free now.
• 1:46:09
  He feels more like himself. He can, you know, instead of
• 1:46:13
  having to deal with with with with donors and money and and
• 1:46:17
  managing a roster, he can just go, yeah, I like that blitz.
• 1:46:21
  Like. Yeah, I know I don't got 2 zeros
• 1:46:25
  on the field. Hey, well, also, I mean it,
• 1:46:29
  it's, it's something to say, you know, he's, he's now in a
• 1:46:33
  position where he knows he's good at what he's doing.
• 1:46:36
  Yeah. And, and so he's, he's going
• 1:46:40
  into game day with that confidence.
• 1:46:42
  Like, I don't think he was going into a ton of games where as a
• 1:46:46
  head coach where he felt like he was 100% confident in, in, in
• 1:46:51
  what was going to happen in that game.
• 1:46:53
  Now matchup dependent, obviously, but I, I don't, I
• 1:46:56
  don't think he you'd always felt 100% confident in what, in what
• 1:47:00
  was going on there. I think it's a defensive
• 1:47:02
  coordinator. I mean, this is something that
• 1:47:04
  he's done, you know, for over a decade at a very high level and,
• 1:47:08
  and done it very well. And, you know, that gives you
• 1:47:12
  some confidence and, and, and you've done it at a, at a
• 1:47:15
  program like Penn State. So it's not like he's, he's done
• 1:47:17
  it well at some, you know, middle tier big 10 school.
• 1:47:21
  He's, he's done it in a top four, top five program in the
• 1:47:24
  Big 10. So, you know, I, I think that's,
• 1:47:27
  that's something that, you know, he's going into each game on
• 1:47:30
  Saturday or Friday or Thursday or whatever the fuck night we're
• 1:47:33
  playing on. And he's he's in a position
• 1:47:35
  where he feels confident before the whistle's blown and and not
• 1:47:39
  dependent on the game flow going the way he wants it to.
• 1:47:42
  He's. Back.
• 1:47:43
  In the field. Oh, go ahead, David.
• 1:47:45
  I'm sorry. Sorry, Tammy, go ahead.
• 1:47:47
  No, I was just going to say I know Curtis is getting ready to
• 1:47:50
  wrap us up. Are you going to the spring
• 1:47:51
  game? I mean, I'll be working, but
• 1:47:55
  yeah, I'll be I. Figured I will I will be there.
• 1:47:58
  Yeah, I'll, no, I'll be there and I'm I'm excited to first
• 1:48:03
  spring game under James Franklin.
• 1:48:04
  I hope the weather's great, excited to to see what's
• 1:48:08
  hopefully a great crowd. And I'm sure we'll be a very,
• 1:48:11
  very lively couple days in blacks for for the Boundary
• 1:48:14
  Corner crew. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:48:15
  Oh yeah, definitely. I'll be there with bells on
• 1:48:18
  towel. I got to talk Tally into getting
• 1:48:19
  up there with me, man. Yeah, I'm trying to get that,
• 1:48:21
  man. I'm, I'm, I don't know, I'm
• 1:48:22
  about 5050 on it for my bid to make it.
• 1:48:24
  But Curtis keeps getting. Talked into assistant coaching?
• 1:48:28
  Yeah. We're going to have to work on
• 1:48:30
  Curtis, man. He got he he he doing too much
• 1:48:34
  for that baseball team right now.
• 1:48:35
  Man, I just hope the weather's better than last year.
• 1:48:37
  That was that was some of the worst spring game weather that
• 1:48:39
  we've had and without rain, like normally like rain can be a
• 1:48:43
  factor obviously like but like that was some of the worst
• 1:48:45
  spring game weather we've had where.
• 1:48:46
  Rain was ever talked to me about Blacksburg and rain in.
• 1:48:50
  Your no no no after the game in 20. 20 that Purdue game and I
• 1:48:54
  thought we was going to die. I legit thought that that was
• 1:48:56
  the last day I was going to be on earth for about an hour
• 1:49:01
  because I remember us sitting up in the stands and we were like,
• 1:49:04
  man, this ain't maybe it's just going to pass us over.
• 1:49:06
  And then I was like, no, this ain't passing over, Curtis.
• 1:49:09
  Like we probably need to. We need to get out of.
• 1:49:12
  This somebody's like, hey, it's a tornado over there.
• 1:49:14
  And I'm like. Curtis had some intuition like
• 1:49:17
  y'all, we need to like get over here.
• 1:49:19
  It's kind of you all the way to die.
• 1:49:22
  That was that's what was in my mind.
• 1:49:25
  And then we waited like 10 hours and we had the best seats I'm
• 1:49:29
  ever sitting in Atlanta Stadium. Ever, ever.
• 1:49:33
  Well, listen David, almost 2 hours in, we, we knew it was
• 1:49:36
  going to be this way. Anytime you join us, you're,
• 1:49:39
  you're so much fun to talk with. Man, I hope these boys, because
• 1:49:45
  in all likelihood, I'm not making it.
• 1:49:47
  And if I'm making it, I'm coming in sideways and I probably got a
• 1:49:49
  kid on my side. So I can't go too crazy.
• 1:49:53
  But hopefully y'all can catch up with them.
• 1:49:56
  Everybody go follow David D Real D Connor out on Twitter.
• 1:50:00
  Yes, it's still Twitter. Go to tech sideline, watch him
• 1:50:04
  on their pod, watch his writings.
• 1:50:06
  He's an awesome individual when it comes to just Virginia Tech
• 1:50:10
  in general. So we appreciate you taking your
• 1:50:13
  time with us tonight, man. I appreciate it.
• 1:50:15
  This is this is awesome. I always enjoy it.
• 1:50:18
  Sorry I couldn't do it last week because I was traveling for
• 1:50:20
  basketball, but I appreciate you you fitting me in and man
• 1:50:25
  anytime I talk with you guys it's always a blast and two
• 1:50:29
  hours man it went by quick we but guess what man, there's a
• 1:50:33
  lot to talk about and and I. Well, David, when you spend an
• 1:50:36
  hour and 30 minutes talking about how much you love
• 1:50:38
  basketball, that's what happened.
• 1:50:41
  What it is? It was.
• 1:50:42
  Like 45 minutes. It was an hour.
• 1:50:45
  It was an hour on that. We did talk 15 minutes to open
• 1:50:48
  up other stuff. Though it was.
• 1:50:50
  Asking the questions. Man, I was going to say it was,
• 1:50:52
  it was a good talk about basketball.
• 1:50:53
  I needed some of that man because I was coming from a
• 1:50:55
  negative. Place you and Curtis got your
• 1:50:58
  rants off so I hope you guys feel much better.
• 1:51:00
  After I do feel better after talking to you, Andrei, we see
• 1:51:03
  you, man. Andrei's sitting going to the
• 1:51:05
  spring game, Brian. So if I'm not there, you find
• 1:51:08
  Andrei you. Got to find you.
• 1:51:09
  See me? You come holler at me, man.
• 1:51:11
  We're going to be the game, we're going to have a little
• 1:51:13
  little live stream on Chicken Hill before the before the game
• 1:51:16
  kicks off too, so. That's where it's like, we'll,
• 1:51:19
  we'll, we'll tell you. And ready and ready since it's
• 1:51:22
  going to be your first time trying to message us, trying to
• 1:51:26
  message Brian or Tally or myself on Twitter at the Boundary
• 1:51:29
  Corner. Well, so we can get you where
• 1:51:32
  Chicken Hill is and where folks are going, man.
• 1:51:34
  But with that being said, this wraps up the this episode of the
• 1:51:38
  Boundary Corner podcast brought to you by moments on the more
• 1:51:41
  with our very special guest managing editor of Tech
• 1:51:43
  sideline, David Cunningham. I'm Curtis Wilson.
• 1:51:46
  I'm. Brian Siegler.
• 1:51:48
  Jonathan Tally. As always, visit our website
• 1:51:51
  boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes.
• 1:51:55
  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, subscribe to the
• 1:51:58
  YouTube or your favorite podcast source.
• 1:52:00
  We're on them all. As always, we are played in and
• 1:52:05
  out by our buddy down in Roanoke, Jason Long.
• 1:52:08
  Check out his website jasonlongmusic.com.
• 1:52:12
  Also check out he is going to be doing some live shows on the
• 1:52:17
  weekend of April 10th at Pollard One O 7 S and at Crooked
• 1:52:22
  Shoreline on the 11th. Go check him out doing some
• 1:52:25
  acoustic sets down there. We appreciate y'all for
• 1:52:28
  listening. We appreciate y'all in the chat.
• 1:52:30
  Phil, have another beer and let's go.