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Spring Break! · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 0:00
  Music and Welcome back to the Boundary
• 0:46
  Corner Podcast along with my partners Brian Siegler, Jonathan
• 0:50
  Talley, and Shelton Moss. I am Curtis Wilson and this
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  episode is brought to you by of the Main Street Farming and Main
• 0:57
  Street Pharmacy. And Doctor Jeremy counts in
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  Blacksburg your friendly neighborhood pharmacy, Three O 1
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  S Main St. Blacksburg, VA Good to see all
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  four of you three of you boys tonight.
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  How's everybody doing on a Tuesday in March?
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  Well, you. Were going to say tired Sheldon.
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  Sheldon got worked over the weekend.
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  Y'all. Yeah, I'm doing.
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  No, I'm doing fine, though. And good news is I'll get to be
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  in Tampa this weekend, so I'll be basking in the sunshine of
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  that that warm Florida air. So I can't complain too much,
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  man. I've been enjoying life.
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  Look. Look out for Florida, man.
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  Look. Out for Yeah, look out for
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  Florida, man. Man, you might be on the safe
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  side there. Tally what you've been up?
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  Man, did y'all tell him to look out for Florida, man, or did you
• 1:45
  tell him to look out for Florida, man?
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  Florida Band He. Florida band, Totally different
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  context. I was trying to make sure I
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  didn't need to be. Maybe all of the above, you
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  know? Who knows?
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  Yeah, I'm kind of close to Florida.
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  I was trying to see what was going on.
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  I'll be out of the loop sometime.
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  Doing good, man, doing good. Somebody asked me for a weekly
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  update of my son. He is doing doing well.
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  He started PT last week, couldn't do much BT because he's
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  still in his boot, but physical therapist stretched him out a
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  little bit from what he's told me.
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  He goes back to the doctor on the 20th or the 25th of this
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  month and they'll decide whether he comes out of his boot and can
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  start kind of resuming activities.
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  So he says that once he's released from the boot, he
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  thinks that he'll probably only have to see him for probably 3
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  weeks and he should be good to go.
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  Said everything looks strong, everything looks like it's going
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  the way it's supposed to go. Told him just don't do nothing
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  stupid, don't walk without the booth until they tell you.
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  And just to let everybody know, no, this is not a cleansing hat.
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  This is my son and daughter's high school.
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  It is Grissom High School. So that is AG, not AC.
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  Just want to let you know it just in case somebody had an
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  ass. Old English G right there.
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  That's a. That's a no.
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  Looking hat, Tally said. I'm getting ahead of the
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  charges. Let me get ahead, man.
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  Let me go ahead and get this out of here.
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  I. Like that look man, the the the
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  high school my, my kids will eventually attend starts with
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  AG. That's a that's a sick looking
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  little hat right there man. They so they used to do.
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  They're the they're the Grissom Tigers.
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  So they used to do a hat that looked very similar to clemency
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  hat man. It was just a tiger paw and when
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  the new coaches came in it was like we need to get away from
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  this. There.
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  You go. So they started changing some
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  stuff up. It looks much better.
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  I like the new new stuff that they have.
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  Nice. All right.
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  Well, we got a bunch to unload tonight.
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  We have not one, but two guests later on joining us, Matassas
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  from 247. We're going to be talking
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  everything, recruiting and in just a little while here Tally,
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  I don't have Hunter's last name, so I can't give him that credit.
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  Hunter. He probably don't.
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  I don't even know if he wants people to know it.
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  What's Hunter? Hunter is.
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  Hunter Joe Rogers. That's all we know about.
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  I don't even know if he has a last name.
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  He does of some type, but Hunter is a huge wrestling aficionado,
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  keeps very big tabs on the program.
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  We've got some questions for him as we head into ACC Tournament
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  week with just a few weeks away from the national finals, so
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  we're going to get with him first.
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  He's going to be joining us momentarily here, but let's
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  start it off with some boobs, boys.
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  And I didn't get to see it. I got texted a few times while
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  we go on the road and blow out somebody.
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  Because they're the worst team in the ACC.
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  Because it was new, we did too. Excited.
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  Notre Dame ain't much better than them, and we couldn't go
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  beat their asses. I'm Brian.
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  Go, go on like I don't even. I'm just.
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  I'm just going to drink while we talk about.
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  Me, I'll. I'll let Sheldon ride on this
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  one. Look, I know it's it's always
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  good to get a win. You don't take a, you never take
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  an ACC Rd. win for granted. But men, oh man, Louisville's
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  bad like this. This is like the equivalent of
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  being like a bad man major team. I mean they're just like they
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  are. They are 195th in Kim Pong.
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  And to put in perspective how bad, how bad Kenny paint has
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  been, that's actually like a 100 spot improvement from what they
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  were last year. So this is yeah, it's a bad team
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  and I could go into a tangent about how you know what, what a
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  disastrous coaching job this is. But nonetheless, Hokies, I
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  thought they moved the ball really well.
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  They hit threes, had a lot of open threes, they knocked them
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  down, shot 45% from 348% overall.
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  And I thought that they just, you know, they just played like
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  they were the better team and looking at the stats out,
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  rebounded them by three, had four more assists and 10 steals.
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  That's a big one. I'm not sure if that's a season
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  high, but I bet, I bet, I bet it's certainly close.
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  So, you know, obviously a good game, you know, not gonna make
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  too much of it, but you know, good to finally take care of an
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  inferior opponent like they should have.
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  Finally, get a what? That's just the 2nd Rd.
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  ACC win for the Hokies of this season.
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  Yep, 2nd Rd. win and I was looking at the numbers earlier
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  this week. I think Tech has like something
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  like the the second, third Worst ACC Rd. record for the past
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  couple seasons and like one of the worst in Power 5.
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  So I honestly, I just don't know what the you know what the
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  solution there is. I don't know what's causing it
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  but they just they just can't play on the road.
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  But I'm glad that glad that wasn't the case tonight.
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  Tally, Tally, anything to add or you've been looking down the
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  whole time? Tally said.
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  He's he, he threw away the men's team a few weeks ago.
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  He's done with. Them.
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  No, no. I threw.
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  Yeah, I threw away a lot of basketball for a while.
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  The Lakers, too. They was.
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  I wasn't watching them either. You know, the Lakers are trying
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  to do a little something, so. They they always wait until they
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  get in a pinch and then they want to try to fight out of it
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  and hey, let's try to make the playoffs and and get
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  everybody's. Hopes up.
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  So at least we're only three games out of the 5th season, so
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  at least we got you know, it ain't that much ground to make
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  up. Right, right, right.
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  So with with the, with the Hokies game tonight, they had
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  five people in double figures. So I mean that's, yeah, that's
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  pretty positive I can say, you know, to go on the road and you
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  got five people in double figures.
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  But I guess I want to ask Shelton, what, what happened to
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  Louisville, man, like Louisville basketball used to be top tier
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  or or close to it. What?
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  What? What is wrong?
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  I mean Kenny Payne happened. That's pretty much the simplest
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  answer I I I in fact I was like the second you said that I'm
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  looking at you right now. This is from a a a Rivals guy, I
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  think from from Louisville tie spotting, he said.
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  A quote from an ACC coach that played Louisville this year.
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  They're the worst coach team we've ever seen.
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  We watched their shell drill. We watched their shell drill
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  before the game and even that was terrible.
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  So. I don't know.
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  I mean they like when you watch them play.
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  I mean you can tell they're just you know, they they don't know
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  how to pass the ball. They don't know angles.
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  You know they they can't really get into their offense because
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  they they just don't know how to set it up properly.
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  You know they're helping off off shooters in the in the strong
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  side of the court like it's just it's just bad bad basketball.
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  So I don't know as far as like you know how he's been so bad.
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  I don't know but it's a it's a it's a disastrous coaching job.
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  Like I would say probably I mean one of the one of the worst
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  coaching jobs we've we've seen in college sports because
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  Louisville is a is a top 15 program with national
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  championships in the last 20 or so years and they are now like
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  you know the equivalent of like a a crappy mid major team for
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  the last two seasons. It's just been been mind
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  boggling. And they put so much money into
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  that program, too. Like, it's insane how much money
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  goes into that program. There's no excuse for them being
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  that awful, Whether it comes down to the Kenny Payne hire or
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  anything else. From an infrastructure
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  standpoint, there's no excuse for them to be that bad.
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  None. Yeah, I've I've heard some mixed
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  things about their overall athletic department health.
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  But I would, I would agree with you.
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  Generally speaking that's that, you know, that's a big time,
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  Brandon. There's no excuse to be that
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  bad. Well, I hear you talking,
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  Shelton. They can't pass.
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  They can't set up plays. Listen, I had a 10 year old
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  playing a 1011 year old playing a 1011 year old this year and
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  the first six games were brutal because they didn't know how to
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  pass. They're 10 years old and you're
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  telling me these guys are collegiate athletes, they don't
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  know how to pass? That's problems right there.
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  Probably something. I mean, I'm assuming Shelton, in
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  your opinion this isn't going to be a one year fix.
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  I would say, I would say no. I mean obviously they'll they'll
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  get rid of them at the end of the year.
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  But even with the portal, I mean it, it would probably take you
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  know two class, I think. I think basketball is a sport
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  where it's easier to to rebuild on the fly.
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  So if you hire a good coach who can bring us players in, you
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  know that makes it a little bit easier.
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  But still it's probably, it's probably going to be you know 11
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  rebuilding year and then maybe the second year thing they can
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  get a turn around. But yeah, they're in a they're
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  in a really, really deep spot. All righty.
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  Well, let's flip over now to what was the good field story
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  for Hokies this winter. And that was the women's because
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  they went on the unbelievable 10 game win streak.
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  Get to #5 in the country after beating UNC took back-to-back
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  losses. The Notre Dame losses.
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  Fine. Notre Dame's a top 15 team.
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  You went to their house, you took one is what it is.
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  The freshman That guy's really good.
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  She is. She is really good.
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  I do not. I do not know her name, but she
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  is really good. But they'll go.
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  Thank you, Shelly. Yeah, Hannah Hannah had Dog Go.
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  Yeah, she's a she's a dog all. Right, yes.
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  But then clearly everybody saw Sunday what happened with the
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  lost UVA in the injury to Liz Kitley.
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  You know, I think we've all seen knee injuries.
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  I mean, we we're all shown. You're the youngest of us here,
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  but you've watched a lot of sports in your life and until
• 10:50
  you hear it's good, I'm assuming the worst.
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  I don't know. I don't know if y'all feel any
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  other way, but I'm assuming the worst and I hate it because if
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  this team doesn't get put in South Carolina's bracket with
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  Liz Kitley, this team can go to the final, this team could can
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  go to the final four. You know, I'll try to be a
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  little positive there. So I mean, y'all say something
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  because I don't know. Because it because it hurts.
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  It hurts. It's, it's somebody said.
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  It's the story to Hokies, always.
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  I don't even you don't even want to think about that.
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  You know what I'm saying? You don't even want to think
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  about like all of the somebody said, you know Hokies being
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  cursed and thing like, I try not to even think about that because
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  I think about like it's it has nothing to do with us, you know
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  what I mean? It's all to do with this young
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  lady, the work that she's put in.
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  She's going to the WNBA, she's out there doing what she's great
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  at doing. She's out there doing what she
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  loves and she goes down, you know what I'm saying?
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  Like, I just feel for her and her family and and I know it's
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  not a death sentence, you know what I'm saying?
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  As far as her being hurt, But at the same time like she just won
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  what ACC Player of the year, right?
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  For the third straight time. You know and if that's the last
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  time that she gets to suit up and she has to go out like that,
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  like that just that's that's horrible for her, you know that
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  that's how she goes out. But I will say it was very, very
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  non contact. It wasn't like she came down and
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  twisted on somebody's foot like she came down kind of on her own
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  and that knee buckled and I mean looking at somebody that's had
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  knee problems and knee surgeries, it just didn't look
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  good. So prayers for her and her
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  family, man. I hope that everything you know
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  she she can bounce back even if if that is it you know I hope
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  she she's, you know she can she can bounce back and and and keep
• 12:47
  moving forward with that. You you hate for someone who is
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  you know in the same conversation as far as impact in
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  their individual sport as Michael Vick that to go out in
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  this fashion like so for for me, like I know we don't know
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  anything yet. I think with Curtis I think
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  we're kind of thinking it's going to be the worst.
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  But you know, there's still that hope in there that that she gets
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  to come back and kind of finish this thing out, this ride out on
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  their own terms in some way, shape or form so because.
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  Real question Real. Question next next level talent?
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  Real question now if that's the last time that we see Leah's in
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  a Virginia Tech jersey, does that jersey get retired?
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  It better it it should already been.
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  I mean, if we're being honest, I mean it should have went up the
• 13:39
  last last home game in Castle in my opinion.
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  All right. You heard what Brian had to say,
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  Sheldon, You got anything to add on that?
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  Sheldon, can I ask you this question?
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  Just because you're analytical and you think about this shit,
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  man, she's not on the team. How far can they go?
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  How far they how good if listen, but Sheldon thinks that way,
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  man. So Sheldon can give us a good
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  feel, woman. Obviously a lot of it depends on
• 14:07
  seeding. You know if you're a four seed
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  you got to play the you got to play the five in the in the
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  round of 32 that's going to be difficult but I still think they
• 14:14
  could get to the Sweet 16 without her.
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  Realistically that's probably the ceiling.
• 14:19
  I think it just because I mean again it depends on what if they
• 14:23
  get a two seed, if they you know seek into two seed, OK that's
• 14:26
  that's a lot better. If it's a four, which I think
• 14:28
  could happen depending on, you know, if they say they lose in
• 14:31
  the first round or the semi finals, like that could happen
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  and the committee's like, Oh well, we don't know if she's
• 14:35
  healthy, you know, that's going to be a lot more difficult.
• 14:37
  But I still think they could. With the talent they had, they
• 14:39
  could still get to the Sweet 16. But that's probably that'd
• 14:41
  probably be the ceiling without her, in my opinion.
• 14:44
  Yeah, I mean my thought was your best case scenario, if it's like
• 14:46
  an MCL sprain or something, if, if they can get out of the first
• 14:50
  weekend, she might have a chance to to get back on the floor and
• 14:54
  you know see what, see what that that that knee can do and kind
• 14:57
  of go from there. But yeah, I'm, I'm kind of with
• 15:00
  you. I think you're getting out of
• 15:02
  that. First weekend is probably the
• 15:03
  ceiling without her, you know, Is it a lot of it?
• 15:07
  Like you said, it's going to depend on seating, especially
• 15:10
  that kind of first round game. Well, you know the the sad part
• 15:14
  about is I'm looking down here on my phone.
• 15:16
  The sad part about it was the way her extract was starting to
• 15:19
  play. They were gelling together and
• 15:21
  you think about those are what Liz's 66 extracts what, 6/4 and
• 15:25
  1/2. She's not small by any means.
• 15:28
  Claire's Claire Strack is that there would not be many teams in
• 15:32
  the tournament when that when that set went out there that
• 15:35
  could have anywhere near the size, near the size.
• 15:38
  I know South Carolina is a physical team.
• 15:41
  I don't think they have that size like that.
• 15:43
  So that's what sucks because we started seeing them play more
• 15:46
  and more together over the past few weeks and was like, man, you
• 15:49
  get them on the floor together. Like what can you do?
• 15:51
  Because if they play double, you play that double post game, it's
• 15:54
  like, what are you going to do? You going to double both of them
• 15:57
  and leave King and you only leave a more wide open?
• 16:00
  You ain't going to do that. It just sucks because I think we
• 16:05
  all felt throughout this season was this was a legitimate
• 16:09
  national championship contender. Do it the way the team was
• 16:12
  composed. And in the last six weeks we
• 16:15
  felt even better about it. Because when they had that 10
• 16:19
  game win streak beating good competition, winning away games,
• 16:22
  winning at sites where it is a little tough to play.
• 16:25
  It's like if that catches right at the right time because the
• 16:29
  losses don't hurt because there's a lot of times you see
• 16:32
  let's get the losses out of the system.
• 16:33
  Let's get that feeling Brian, you and tally play.
• 16:37
  Let's get that feeling of losing a game under our skin.
• 16:41
  So when we get in that game and it's 5050 going into the fourth
• 16:44
  quarter, we don't want to lose this game.
• 16:48
  You might have fell after Notre Dame and UVA Screw that.
• 16:51
  We don't want that shit. We don't want that all.
• 16:54
  Right. Yeah, you want to get it out.
• 16:55
  You want to get those out before the tournament because when it
• 16:58
  comes to tournament time, that's when we're going to go home.
• 17:00
  So you know, I ain't saying the games don't count, but you know
• 17:03
  in that situation you'd already secured the regular season ACC
• 17:07
  championship and you know you already got your double by.
• 17:10
  You want to get the If you're going to lose, that's the best
• 17:14
  time to lose is there. All righty, what is the
• 17:21
  wrestling man looking like, man? So it should be hopping on here
• 17:25
  in just a second, Said. He's hopping on now.
• 17:28
  Good. Deal good deal by.
• 17:32
  The way just want everybody to look at my cool glass here.
• 17:36
  I'll see. This I see what you got there
• 17:38
  you see? That they'll see that that is
• 17:40
  effectively a map of campus my wonderful wife gave me for
• 17:43
  Valentine's Day. And it's funny, I look on here.
• 17:46
  You can't find Lane Stadium anywhere, but you can find the
• 17:49
  stadium woods. You can find Merriman.
• 17:52
  So I'm wondering do you have to do you have to buy the rights to
• 17:54
  lean to put it on your your cool glass.
• 17:59
  By the way small batch, small batch.
• 18:00
  Evan Williams right here if y'all wondering what's in it.
• 18:04
  Hey, that's a good Tuesday. You got some, You got got a nice
• 18:08
  cup. Getting some brownie points
• 18:09
  because you plug in your wife. Pause.
• 18:14
  Hey, wait a second. My wife also went out to dinner
• 18:16
  with some colleagues of hers tonight so I could put the
• 18:20
  littlest one down and the middle one down before she got home.
• 18:23
  Hey, you doing good? You're doing real good.
• 18:25
  I'm going to also plug something, but this ain't got
• 18:27
  nothing. Well, this right here.
• 18:29
  Anybody who has kids that play basketball and you get on
• 18:35
  TikTok, this is a silent basketball.
• 18:39
  Shut up. Yes, this is.
• 18:42
  This is what you were. Bounce it on your desk there, I
• 18:44
  need to see it. Hardly no noise.
• 18:50
  That's on the floor. That ain't much noise.
• 18:52
  That's on the floor. You got hardly no noise from
• 18:55
  this thing, so I'm telling you if you got kids.
• 19:00
  I do. I'd like this.
• 19:02
  I must have bouncing in the basement all the time.
• 19:03
  Man, it was like, and it was like, I don't know, maybe 15
• 19:08
  bucks, 15 bucks. I would take a look at silent
• 19:12
  basketball. Silent Basket, I'll take it,
• 19:18
  'cause you go to the YMCA and man, oh God, I get your head
• 19:23
  going right there. That gets going right there.
• 19:26
  It ain't even a joke. Yep.
• 19:28
  Fun. Yeah, I got, I got the hoop in
• 19:31
  the in the court there, so that's that's usually where I
• 19:33
  stay. So a little extra sound from the
• 19:35
  ball don't really hurt nobody out there.
• 19:37
  Mine likes that in the basement you've seen the set up here at
• 19:40
  the house by we got full court so and it don't it don't matter
• 19:45
  up there but he likes hey listen I saw my son grow as a player
• 19:49
  this year. He had a lot of fun playing
• 19:50
  basketball and kid knows what to do with the basketball.
• 19:55
  And yeah, all righty, let's roll this.
• 19:59
  Man on. Ladies and gentlemen, we got our
• 20:05
  wrestling expert tonight, Johanna Rogers.
• 20:09
  Joe, how you doing, buddy? I'm good.
• 20:12
  Fellas, how are y'all doing tonight?
• 20:14
  Good man. Good.
• 20:15
  You been getting any sleep? Zero sleep, man.
• 20:19
  I just made another baby run to the pharmacy.
• 20:22
  Had to get formula all. Right.
• 20:26
  You got three dads here, Joe. I got 3, Telly got 2.
• 20:29
  Brian got one. Here's a rule.
• 20:30
  When that baby sleeps, you sleep.
• 20:34
  I don't care if it's three in the afternoon.
• 20:37
  I don't care if it's five in the morning.
• 20:38
  That thing decides to zonk out and just say fuck the bullshit,
• 20:42
  I'm going to bed right now. I'm getting at least 1/2 hour in
• 20:45
  man. Get me something.
• 20:47
  Get the sleep. In when you get that power nap.
• 20:50
  I'm learning, I'm learning. I'm new at this.
• 20:53
  Well, just listen. It takes a village.
• 20:57
  And I'm sure you got friends and family give you all the advice
• 21:01
  that they can, man. And trust me, it's it's it ain't
• 21:04
  no better feeling than it. I tell you that much right now
• 21:08
  against other three here. All right.
• 21:10
  Well, let's get into it, man, because we know how big of a
• 21:13
  wrestling hokey wrestling fan you are.
• 21:16
  And we got a lot of questions we want to ask you.
• 21:18
  And Tally just went off camera. We lost him.
• 21:19
  Jesus Christ, All right, but I'm going to start this one out.
• 21:23
  Sheldon Brian Talley going to throw some questions in here.
• 21:25
  So 2024 season expectations. I mean for this team it was
• 21:30
  pretty high. Great finish last year in 2023,
• 21:33
  a lot of guys coming back. Teams currently ranked 13th in a
• 21:37
  lot of the polls nine and four record overall.
• 21:41
  In your opinion, has this team overachieved, underachieved or
• 21:46
  from your expectations, achieved about where they should?
• 21:50
  I'm going to say with the circumstances about where they
• 21:53
  should, sometimes it's been a little underachieving.
• 21:56
  We've had some injury issues, 125.
• 21:59
  The plan was for Eddie Ventresca.
• 22:02
  I mean, he's a returning All American.
• 22:03
  The plan was for him to come back, give Cooper Flynn, who's
• 22:08
  ranked 4th in the nation, but give him his Olympic red shirt
• 22:12
  and then let him develop. So that way one of them is going
• 22:15
  to end up going up to 133 at some point eventually.
• 22:18
  So Eddie gets hurt early in the year.
• 22:21
  He's never looked right, Lost some matches to guys that
• 22:24
  normally wouldn't. They had to pull Cooper Flynn's
• 22:27
  red shirt, bring him back after he wrestled the tournament over
• 22:31
  in Croatia and throw him into the lineup.
• 22:35
  It's a different style of wrestling as well.
• 22:38
  Olympic wrestling, it's mostly freestyle, is what Cooper Flynn
• 22:41
  was doing. So we've had a couple of those
• 22:44
  circumstances where it's like, man, I really can't put that,
• 22:47
  you know my original expectations for the year 141,
• 22:54
  they had kind of planned on red shirting Tom Crook as well.
• 22:58
  That didn't work out either. You know Matt Church, couple of
• 23:01
  the other guys, they tried this Hunter Mason, they tried to step
• 23:04
  in and didn't work. They had to pull another red
• 23:07
  shirt there. And then if you go to 157 Bryce
• 23:10
  Andonian like the most electric guy in the country, it's been
• 23:14
  hurt all year for the second year in a row.
• 23:16
  So and you know you get to that point that's three out of 10
• 23:20
  weight classes that's 30% of your roster that's had that
• 23:24
  you've had issues with injuries and you know circumstances that
• 23:28
  you can't control. So I think they've bounced back.
• 23:30
  I think they've hung in there, they they've responded.
• 23:35
  Nice. Thanks for the explaining with
• 23:37
  the Cooper Flynn thing, because I remember Eddie from last year
• 23:41
  when I looked up Cooper being four, it was just fly away
• 23:43
  saying Cooper's a young guy. That's a that's impressive for
• 23:47
  him. But again you follow it closer
• 23:51
  than we do. That's why we love having you on
• 23:52
  Brian Shelton. Y'all got anything?
• 23:54
  Anybody want to jump in for the next one here?
• 23:56
  Yeah, I think the big thing for me, like, you know, we knew, we
• 23:58
  know about Bekaya, we know about Caleb.
• 24:01
  Let's kind of take them out of the conversation.
• 24:03
  Where are some other guys that have kind of wowed you this
• 24:04
  year? There's a few, I mean one of
• 24:09
  them is TJ Stewart at 184. I mean even if you look at the
• 24:13
  184 weight class, it took kind of that first semester to get TJ
• 24:17
  right. He red shirted last year, but
• 24:19
  it's TJ Stewart. He is Mackay Lewis esque at 184
• 24:24
  and he is so electric. You just saw he beat a top ten
• 24:27
  ranged guy back-to-back matches and it's so hard.
• 24:30
  Wrestling is so hard to beat somebody that's somewhat level
• 24:33
  with you twice in a row, much less beat him like you did, Beat
• 24:37
  him back-to-back, beat him in his home place at NC State,
• 24:41
  Yeah, it's pretty incredible. So TJ Stewart, he's real
• 24:45
  impressive. Another one that they're kind of
• 24:48
  looking at too, from what I understand is Sammy Sasso at
• 24:51
  197. It's got a few flashes, but you
• 24:56
  know he, he hasn't got the starting job yet.
• 24:58
  It's probably going to be a next year thing and then people eat.
• 25:01
  So he is a judo wizard. You know, he's big on the
• 25:07
  throws. He's filled in at 65.
• 25:09
  He's filled in at 57. So like, that's another guy that
• 25:13
  I think is eventually down the road going to be really electric
• 25:15
  for us. He's going to be another
• 25:17
  Andonian. Ominous.
• 25:19
  Could I ask this? I don't have this on here, but
• 25:21
  when you're mentioning some of these guys filling in, what does
• 25:25
  that make you feel like? Is the program where you there's
• 25:27
  guys filling in that are winning matches that are carrying the
• 25:30
  torch on? Does that say we're getting to
• 25:34
  those the next echelon of a wrestling program?
• 25:38
  Absolutely. You see Penn State do that, It's
• 25:41
  you start stacking depth that way, just like football.
• 25:44
  You know, Brian played football, he understands playing college
• 25:46
  ball. Same thing at the college level,
• 25:48
  you start stacking depth and it's really hard to do in
• 25:51
  wrestling because you only get 9 scholarships for 10 slots.
• 25:56
  So you're really relying on now and I'll but the SERTC as well
• 26:02
  and Tony Roby's done a really good job of developing that so
• 26:06
  we can get other guys money. One of the problems though that
• 26:09
  we have in Virginia is our laws are different.
• 26:12
  So NC State has a huge advantage because out of state athletes
• 26:18
  can get in state tuition there. So they're paying like you know
• 26:23
  half or maybe a third in their instance for scholarship money
• 26:28
  so they can get guys more bang for their buck.
• 26:31
  So we're also fighting that battle being in Virginia.
• 26:34
  Aaron Rouse, if you're listening, please change that
• 26:36
  for us. You know what it was getting
• 26:40
  kind of there was some motion in the in the Senate, in the in the
• 26:44
  in the House there and it's kind of stalled.
• 26:47
  I haven't heard a whole lot from it in the last like 6 to 8
• 26:49
  months. But there was a big push, I
• 26:51
  think you know about a year ago or a little over a year ago that
• 26:55
  to to get that moving. But it it it's kind of, it's
• 26:57
  been a hang up. I know it's probably not a
• 26:59
  priority, especially, you know, in an election year and all this
• 27:02
  bullshit, but. But that's why it's so hard to
• 27:05
  stack depth in wrestling. There's only a few schools that
• 27:08
  can really do it and it's like your top four, like Ohio State,
• 27:12
  they can do it, but they're not elite at it.
• 27:14
  They're here and there. Penn State, they're #1 have been
• 27:17
  for a long time and they've got some injuries.
• 27:19
  I'll talk about that in a minute.
• 27:21
  And that's why this helps them. But Penn State, obviously, I
• 27:24
  mean, you'll see them get the number one recruit and they're
• 27:26
  able to just like stack him right underneath the starter,
• 27:30
  which most places that guy's not going to go and sit, He's going
• 27:34
  to want to go start and then Iowa, that's your other big one.
• 27:37
  You're going to see guys, Iowa has crazy money for their
• 27:41
  wrestling program. It's absurd.
• 27:44
  Wow, that was that. Always Will.
• 27:47
  I mean, I mean, that takes it though.
• 27:48
  I mean, Iowa has been good. I mean, I'm 40 to me, I can
• 27:52
  still remember as a kid, Iowa's been good for 30-40.
• 27:56
  Close to 50 years is a great program because that happens.
• 28:00
  Let me ask this because you mentioned Bryce Adonia a little
• 28:02
  while ago with the injury and has anyone else taken step backs
• 28:06
  this year in your eyes? And when that happens in
• 28:09
  wrestling, why? Like you know, Brian's talked
• 28:13
  about football that sometimes it's just guys growing,
• 28:15
  developing, they don't go as fast.
• 28:18
  Is that the same in wrestling or is it different things?
• 28:22
  Absolutely. And I think part of it's
• 28:24
  wrestling's such a mental sport. So when your body grows as well,
• 28:28
  if you start getting to where you have a really hard weight
• 28:29
  cut, it drains you and then you might be right, OK, you might
• 28:34
  think your body's right and it's not.
• 28:36
  So it's really hard to find that balance.
• 28:39
  So that development with wrestling, it's kind of it's
• 28:43
  kind of like football. But the way I like to say it's
• 28:45
  think about like when you tear your ACL, it's really hard to
• 28:48
  bounce back and get to the level that you're at.
• 28:50
  So when you have a set back, it's it's a mental thing.
• 28:54
  It's mentally being ready, being able to get back out on the mat
• 28:58
  and get back to that level. You're fighting yourself as much
• 29:00
  as you are wrestling the other guy.
• 29:02
  So who's done it this year? Who is taking that step back?
• 29:05
  Who is, I won't say disappointed you, but like they've got to get
• 29:10
  over that hurdle at least next year because what you mentioned
• 29:13
  earlier about we're, we're feeling backed up where if
• 29:16
  you're not good enough next year, you're not going to be the
• 29:18
  guy in that weight class. Yeah, we've had a couple guys.
• 29:21
  Andy Smith, he took a step back. He actually laid out a really
• 29:26
  bad performance against NC State.
• 29:28
  He ended up getting Tech fog, gave a bunch of bonus points,
• 29:32
  which is critical, and a tight duel like that.
• 29:34
  Andy Smith, he took a step back. We didn't think that was going
• 29:37
  to happen. And then another guy's Hunter
• 29:39
  Katka. We saw Jimmy Mullins actually
• 29:41
  wrestle at NC State. You know, he does football and
• 29:45
  wrestling. He's going to have to make a
• 29:46
  choice. At one point, I think Tony
• 29:48
  Robbie's actually said that, but so he's got a guy on his heels
• 29:52
  and Hunter Katka's kind of that guy.
• 29:54
  That's he was such a big name recruit, kind of like Conor
• 29:58
  Brady too. He's kind of hit a wall at 165.
• 30:00
  He's plateaued and never been able to get over that.
• 30:03
  They kept thinking when he came in, like this guy can develop,
• 30:06
  he'll be really good, Never really been able to get over
• 30:09
  that wall. So you got those three guys and
• 30:13
  Brady, you know, he's got Hipolito now pushing him for his
• 30:16
  spot as well. But Kak is one that's just, it's
• 30:19
  kind of disappointing in a way because he was such a big
• 30:22
  recruit that we thought we had finally got heavyweight figured
• 30:25
  out because we had a long period where that was a really weak
• 30:27
  spot for us. So we recruit it hard, recruit
• 30:30
  it hard. And I mean now we got Mullins
• 30:33
  that we got another guy in the works as well with him behind
• 30:36
  Katka. And those are our three spots
• 30:40
  where guys have kind of not got to that next step that we
• 30:43
  thought they would. But we're fortunate enough that
• 30:46
  the staff's done well. They've put a good game plan in
• 30:48
  to try and make a run and get us at that next level, but we got
• 30:52
  guys that are young guys, freshmen, true freshmen that are
• 30:54
  coming for their spots now right on their heels.
• 30:57
  Sheldon, I know you got one you want to ask here.
• 31:00
  Yeah, well, I had to ask about the the man, the myth, the
• 31:03
  legend, Mackay Lewis. Obviously, we know he's one of
• 31:05
  the best in the country at his weight class.
• 31:07
  How impressive has he been this year?
• 31:09
  And and what do you think are the odds are that that he can
• 31:10
  win that second national title that's eluded him for a few
• 31:13
  years now? Well, it's funny you bring that
• 31:15
  up because his odds just shot up.
• 31:18
  Kid from Penn State that seems to be his arch nemesis and have
• 31:22
  his number. Carter Sterochi.
• 31:24
  He might have just torn his ACL. He was.
• 31:27
  They had senior night at Penn State.
• 31:30
  He was going for the pen. He could have Tech filed the kid
• 31:32
  from Rutgers. Easily tried to get cute, went
• 31:36
  for the pen, got stuck in a funky little roll.
• 31:39
  His knee got caught up under him and it looks like he's going to
• 31:43
  weigh in and forfeit at the Big 10 tournament.
• 31:46
  Rochi's number one ranked, Number one?
• 31:49
  He's out. Most likely he is out.
• 31:52
  Everybody else that's in the weight class, Mchai Lewis's
• 31:54
  beat, so his odds just shot up. But as far as impressive goes,
• 32:00
  Mchai is incredibly impressive. He's only been taken down six
• 32:03
  times in his entire career. That is pretty much unheard of.
• 32:10
  Of those pretty. Much all been the same guy and
• 32:12
  now he's gone, but I think one of the challenges.
• 32:16
  Yeah, I don't like nobody being hurt, but I mean, if you keep
• 32:19
  losing to the same guy and you ain't got to fight in mind, it's
• 32:22
  that's pretty good. Makes your life a lot easier.
• 32:25
  Makes your life a little bit easier.
• 32:27
  The second title eluding him, I think some of that was going up
• 32:30
  a weight class. The title he won was at 165 and
• 32:34
  then he decided to go up to 174. Kind of takes a little bit for
• 32:38
  your body to grow in to nine more pounds of mass, you know,
• 32:42
  with cutting and figuring out that speed and strength
• 32:45
  combination. Because he was incredibly strong
• 32:47
  at 165. So if anybody's got a shot, he's
• 32:51
  the guy. I really want him to get it.
• 32:53
  He's probably the best wrestler to ever come through Virginia
• 32:55
  Tech, and he deserves it. 9%. Wow, that's what's up.
• 33:00
  Caleb Henson. Let's talk about him a little
• 33:02
  bit. Caleb's freshman year was pretty
• 33:05
  impressive. He took fifth at Nationals.
• 33:08
  This year, he's been even better.
• 33:09
  He's only had one loss to a top guy and I guess the question I'm
• 33:16
  going to ask you is can he overcome that loss in the
• 33:18
  Nationals and get revenge for a title?
• 33:22
  Absolutely. And his chances also just got
• 33:24
  better. Penn State, their 149, is also
• 33:28
  now out for the year. It's already official.
• 33:30
  He's done. The one kid to beat him, Ridge
• 33:34
  Lovett, just slipped up and lost the parko from Arizona State, so
• 33:39
  it looks like Caleb Penson will get that one seed.
• 33:41
  He has an easier path to the finals because that'll put Parko
• 33:44
  and Lovett at 2:00 and 3:00, so they'll meet in the semis on the
• 33:48
  opposite side of the bracket from him.
• 33:50
  That takes a lot out of you when you have a tight match to get
• 33:52
  into the finals like that. So I like Caleb Penson's chances
• 33:55
  a lot. That's.
• 33:57
  That's man. So Joe's telling us here that
• 34:01
  it's not only one guy that has a potential chance in a national
• 34:04
  title, but two guys and. And I know my buddy Dave Fucha,
• 34:09
  who helped us with less than last year, It's like that's when
• 34:12
  you get into that territory, winning the national title.
• 34:15
  Brian, I think you got something because we mentioned Joe
• 34:17
  earlier, we know it's a big weekend.
• 34:19
  It's ACC tournament weekend. What you got, Brian?
• 34:21
  Yeah, I mean, you know, ACC championships, you know, NC
• 34:24
  State's kind of been that, that rival, that top dog that we got
• 34:27
  our, you know, circled on the calendar there.
• 34:30
  You know, what are the chances that the Hokies have to to go
• 34:34
  out there and have themselves a little bit of a weekend in the
• 34:36
  ACC's? I mean, you've always got that
• 34:38
  chance and I think it's kind of interesting.
• 34:41
  Everybody sees NC State, they win the ACC tournament like, oh,
• 34:44
  why can't we do that? But if you look at the national
• 34:46
  tournament standings like the last 10 years, they've only
• 34:49
  finished ahead of us once. We always finish ahead of them
• 34:52
  at Nationals. And the reason for that is, is
• 34:55
  the ACC has such a small wrestling conference, it's only
• 34:58
  six teams, so you don't get much of a gap.
• 35:01
  And the problem with that is where NC State wins champions
• 35:05
  championships in the ACC is their guys like at 197 for
• 35:10
  example, they'll have a a guy that's a champion, our guy's
• 35:12
  getting 3rd or 4th and where we have a guy that's a champion,
• 35:16
  he's usually beating the NC State guy in the finals.
• 35:19
  So that points gap is really tough.
• 35:22
  It's going to be hard to do it based on seeding.
• 35:24
  Unfortunately, I think it's going to be really, really
• 35:28
  tight. There's a couple areas that you
• 35:30
  could pull it off at. I mean 141 would be 1 because
• 35:34
  you're going to have Tom Crook and NC State's Ryan Jack in the
• 35:37
  finals. I mean the semi finals, excuse
• 35:39
  me, but everywhere else and 1:57, that's gotten Bryce
• 35:42
  Andonian will meet in the semis, but everywhere else it would be
• 35:45
  kind of a finals match up for us to go over top of NC State.
• 35:49
  So it's going to be tough. A lot of things would have to go
• 35:52
  our way. It's possible that a lot of
• 35:54
  things would have to happen all. Right before I get into kind of
• 35:57
  the the final questions here for you, would you rather win the
• 36:01
  ACC title or is it every year be above them and say fuck y'all
• 36:05
  y'all cannot get above us in nationals?
• 36:08
  It's got to be nationals because that's where you take your next
• 36:11
  step to try and get to a national title.
• 36:13
  If your goal is not to win a national title, then why are you
• 36:16
  doing it? So it's got to be Nationals.
• 36:19
  You want to get in the top four. That's when you get on podium,
• 36:23
  that's when you get a team trophy.
• 36:25
  We did that back in 2014. Kevin Dresser, Tony Roby, When
• 36:29
  they were getting this thing going.
• 36:30
  So you want to get a team title and you want to get on the
• 36:33
  podium. So it's always going to be
• 36:35
  Nationals. At the end of the day, AC CS is
• 36:37
  just A. Qualifier.
• 36:39
  Got it. All right.
• 36:40
  Well, this is what I got for you at the end here.
• 36:43
  This is if you if you watch us and I know you occasionally
• 36:46
  listen and watch us, Joe, we do tell the truth Tuesdays after
• 36:49
  every football game, we come in here and we lay it on.
• 36:51
  We tell the good, the bad and the ugly.
• 36:53
  We don't bullshit around, so now this is Tell the truth Tuesday
• 36:58
  National finals, I'm going to go to each weight class.
• 37:01
  You give me your expectations, wrestler names, however you
• 37:05
  feel. Let's start.
• 37:07
  We've you already talked about 125 already, but what's your
• 37:10
  expectation for 125 down at Nationals?
• 37:14
  125 is tough. I really want to see Cooper
• 37:17
  Flynn get into the semi finals, get on ESPN, put on a show.
• 37:23
  If he gets through, that is just bonus points.
• 37:25
  That's gravy. But I want to see Cooper Flynn
• 37:28
  get All American and hit the semi finals this year.
• 37:30
  All right, what about 1:33? Latona, he's had a little bit of
• 37:34
  a tough year. The cut's getting tough for him
• 37:36
  at 133. His body's going.
• 37:38
  He's really tall. He's from Alabama, like our guy
• 37:41
  tally over here. Yes, he's.
• 37:44
  Probably out there. He's probably out there with a
• 37:45
  dip of snuff right now. I got one in right now, so I
• 37:53
  really want to see Sam let's I'm an all American again.
• 37:56
  I think top eight is worth kind of the expectation there.
• 37:59
  Nice. What about 1:41?
• 38:03
  I think Tom Corp, the goal for him this year is to get to the
• 38:06
  next day to stay in contention and get to Day 2.
• 38:10
  Because at day two you're in the blood round, you're one match
• 38:12
  away. The blood round's like the round
• 38:15
  of 12, and that's where you narrow it down to all Americans,
• 38:19
  to the top eight. Get to Day 2, get to the blood
• 38:22
  round. That's his goal.
• 38:24
  All right, Joe, 149. National title.
• 38:29
  That's that's your boy Caleb, right?
• 38:31
  Stamping it. National title All.
• 38:33
  Right, 157. Oh, Bryce is so electric.
• 38:39
  The guy that won it last year from Penn State is coming back.
• 38:43
  Bryce had him on his back. Probably should have been a pen.
• 38:47
  Anything could happen. Put him in the semis.
• 38:50
  Put him in the semis. And I I think what you said
• 38:54
  earlier with Bryce and injuries, you think Bryce has that
• 38:56
  potential to get close? Yeah, OK.
• 39:00
  He is super close and if he's healthy, maybe he's not burnt
• 39:04
  out from not having to cut weight all year.
• 39:06
  Right. Here we go, one seat to five.
• 39:12
  Just make weight. No DQS.
• 39:21
  No. Forfeits no who is 165 by the
• 39:24
  way, just. Gunner.
• 39:25
  Gunner Oh, OK. Highly rated kid, right?
• 39:29
  Kind of. Pretty highly.
• 39:29
  Rated He was barely highly rated coming out of high.
• 39:32
  School. All righty.
• 39:35
  Who's got next? We know about 174.
• 39:40
  Two time. Two time we want to see it.
• 39:44
  We want to see it hanging. 184 coming up, TJ Stewart, His dad's
• 39:49
  a great guy. I got to give him a shout out by
• 39:50
  the way, great person. I'm going to say TJ Stewart's an
• 39:54
  All Americans freshman and he's going to make some noise, all
• 39:57
  right? Got two more?
• 39:59
  We got the two big boys here, 197 Tom Crook.
• 40:03
  Let's see. I'm going to see Andy Smith just
• 40:05
  win a match this year. Just win one match.
• 40:07
  Give us some points. Stay alive.
• 40:12
  Hey, we wait 285. Hunter Kafka has to hit the
• 40:16
  blood rounds, or it's probably probably curtains for it for a
• 40:21
  starting time. Does he have years left?
• 40:24
  He's got one more. OK, so if you don't think he
• 40:26
  makes blood rounds, they go try to find somebody else to take
• 40:29
  that spot? Yeah, because Jimmy Mullins has
• 40:32
  all the potential in the world. All righty, so I'm going to wrap
• 40:36
  this up. We wrap this up.
• 40:40
  Hokies team finish will be. I'm going between 8:00 or 9
• 40:47
  swing to top ten top 10 nation this year, all right.
• 40:51
  And kind of a review. That's respectable considering
• 40:55
  you know all the all the things you mentioned earlier with the
• 40:57
  injuries and everything else, and especially if you can get
• 41:01
  Makai and Caleb, those those natties, that'd be a that'd be a
• 41:03
  good little sundown. They get the natties.
• 41:05
  You're looking at 6th, probably, yeah, Or 6th right outside the
• 41:09
  podium. And you're in a year that's kind
• 41:12
  of having a little bit of a rebuild, you know?
• 41:16
  Is, is there any scenario where you see podium?
• 41:19
  Like, is there anything when you're looking at these weight
• 41:21
  classes and the guys, could someone take a Connor Brady?
• 41:25
  Could Connor Brady get over whatever's going on?
• 41:29
  Yeah, you're going to have to backfill with all Americans.
• 41:31
  That's the only way to do it. So you're going to have to get
• 41:35
  multiple all Americans and then have probably 2 finalists, maybe
• 41:39
  3. OK.
• 41:40
  All righty, Joe. Listen, man, thanks for the
• 41:44
  education. We really appreciate it in
• 41:46
  wrestling because, you know, I enjoy watching it.
• 41:50
  I've got some friends I text with.
• 41:52
  We appreciate you coming on tonight, taking your time.
• 41:55
  If that baby's sleeping right now, get your ass to bed for
• 42:00
  real. If it ain't, I don't know what
• 42:01
  to tell you to do. Watch the rest of it.
• 42:02
  Watch the rest of us with Mattei and see what's going on.
• 42:04
  But hey, man, we really appreciate you taking your time
• 42:06
  tonight, man. OK.
• 42:08
  Thank you guys. I appreciate everybody having me
• 42:10
  on and I appreciate the the dad advice from Tally.
• 42:13
  I called Tally and he's always got my back.
• 42:16
  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, man.
• 42:17
  I try to keep it real. Hey, listen to me.
• 42:19
  Whatever your wife tell you to do, you better fucking do it.
• 42:24
  That postpartum is real. You better listen to what that
• 42:26
  woman was saying. Yes, Sir.
• 42:29
  All righty. Well boys, before we bring on
• 42:32
  the Tasis on the backside of the program here, we are going to
• 42:35
  take a break from our digital partners and Main Street
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  Pharmacy. I can probably save you a lot of
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  money and I can take a lot better care of you.
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  That's pretty much it. My name is Jeremy Counts and I'm
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  a pharmacist. I own and operate Main Street
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  Pharmacy here in downtown Blacksburg.
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  My brother's a pharmacist. I'm a pharmacist.
• 42:53
  My uncle's a pharmacist. My dad's a pharmacist.
• 42:55
  I remember he would give me M and Ms. to count in little pill
• 42:58
  counters. This is something I've always
• 43:00
  done and I'm just lucky that what I know so well is something
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  that I can do and feel good about it and get back to people.
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  Pharmacies are your frontline defense.
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  Pharmacy's job is to make sure you're getting optimal care for
• 43:12
  the lowest price possible. Also, we take the pressure off
• 43:16
  of emergency rooms. I'll tell people immediately
• 43:18
  when they need to go to the doctor, or I'll tell them if
• 43:20
  they just need a cream over the counter.
• 43:22
  If there's something that isn't commercially available, if it's
• 43:24
  something that's not available in a certain strength or a
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  certain form or anything like that, we'll make it tailor made
• 43:30
  medications. Some of those options save
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  people a lot of money. What motivates me?
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  I get to take care of people and live in Blacksburg.
• 43:36
  That's all neat. As we take a quick break, we'd
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• 43:59
  Now back to the episode. All right.
• 44:02
  Welcome back again. We appreciate Joe Hunter Rogers
• 44:05
  there taking some time, get us a little education on wrestling.
• 44:10
  And now let's flip it back to football gentlemen.
• 44:14
  He joins us twice a year. We love having him from 247
• 44:18
  Sports. Let's talk some recruiting.
• 44:20
  Y'all cause 2025 is hot and ready.
• 44:22
  Matastas, how are you living, buddy?
• 44:26
  What's going on, guys? We got the full crew.
• 44:29
  Full crew, full boat. Tonight, man.
• 44:31
  You're you. It's your lucky day.
• 44:32
  It is. Loving it.
• 44:34
  But hey, what's been up man? How's how's life been in the
• 44:37
  last few months here? Life has been good, obviously.
• 44:41
  You know with all the recruiting changes, with the Portal and IL,
• 44:45
  everything, it's just it's constantly going on.
• 44:51
  You know, took a little time after signing day to kind of you
• 44:54
  know, step away for a bit, but you know, right back in and now.
• 45:00
  And obviously right back in and I'm going to start this one off,
• 45:03
  boys, because a massive hire today, I don't care what anybody
• 45:07
  says, massive hire. Especially with the recruiting.
• 45:12
  Implications, especially with the recruiting implications.
• 45:14
  Gunner Brewer, who was formerly the wide receiver coach for the
• 45:17
  Maryland Terrapins, is now joining the Virginia Tech Hokies
• 45:22
  as the director of high school relations.
• 45:25
  I mean, I looked up Gunners when I saw this happen.
• 45:29
  I immediately went to 247. I did.
• 45:31
  Matei. I did.
• 45:32
  I'm not. This is not a shameless plug.
• 45:34
  I went to 247 and I looked up, Oh well, who's this guy?
• 45:37
  Recruited Jesus, he ain't no slouch when it comes to
• 45:43
  recruiting. So what's your takeaways on this
• 45:46
  man and seeing someone of his? I'll not.
• 45:49
  He's not gonna be an on field coach.
• 45:50
  He's strictly going to be dealing with high school
• 45:53
  relations. Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:55
  You know, just First off, I was a little worried that they were
• 45:58
  going to spoil this a couple weeks ago.
• 46:00
  I mean, he was on Twitter following like half of Hokey
• 46:03
  Nation. So I was a little worried they
• 46:06
  wouldn't get the announcement out in time.
• 46:07
  But you know, exceptional hire a guy that's been around for, you
• 46:11
  know, 3 decades at this point, like he was coaching Randy Moss
• 46:14
  back in college. So this is a guy that, you know,
• 46:17
  totally like gets it from a wide receiver coaching perspective,
• 46:22
  knows how to identify talent. And not only that, but I think
• 46:27
  he, you know, he's a guy that has, you know, offensive
• 46:31
  coordinator experience from his time at UNC.
• 46:34
  He's been around a lot of big programs that recruit very well.
• 46:38
  So he's bringing a ton of experience, a ton of
• 46:41
  connections. I just think it's the perfect
• 46:43
  fit. Yeah.
• 46:45
  When we were looking at we were like all right so you got you
• 46:48
  know you're you're pulling a guy that's an on field coach and now
• 46:51
  you got him in just this off field role like that.
• 46:53
  That's an impressive way to eat off the plate of another Power 5
• 46:58
  school and it's it's twice we've done it in consecutive off
• 47:02
  seasons too looking back with the Elijah Brooks hire last
• 47:05
  year. So to me just really impressive
• 47:09
  way of filling in the role with with Glenwood's departure.
• 47:13
  So I'm just I'm excited to see what he's going to do and
• 47:17
  whether there's going to be any you know, residual impact with
• 47:20
  his history with wide receivers in that in that room as well.
• 47:22
  So we'll see. Yeah, that's the interesting
• 47:26
  piece about it, in my opinion. I'll just say don't fuck it up.
• 47:30
  Just come in and and do something positive.
• 47:34
  You know we got the wide receiver room going good.
• 47:36
  Just come in and and we might need some help in some other in
• 47:39
  some other areas. Don't come in and fuck nothing
• 47:41
  up. Let them roll.
• 47:44
  Let them roll. Bad boys all.
• 47:46
  Right. What y'all got next, boys?
• 47:48
  Brian, Tally, Shelton. Fire away.
• 47:51
  I guess my question is go ahead bro.
• 47:54
  You go ahead, Sally. I'll let you ride I.
• 47:55
  Was just going to ask him to tell you what games is he going
• 47:57
  to this year, Man, we we see you all the time.
• 48:00
  I mean you come on the show, but I don't I don't think I ever
• 48:01
  seen you at a games. What games are you going to Any
• 48:04
  games? Yeah, I'm planning on it this
• 48:07
  year. I wasn't.
• 48:08
  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it down last year.
• 48:11
  I went to the Rutgers game, which was away.
• 48:13
  I went to the Tulane Bowl game, which was interesting.
• 48:18
  Michael Pratt was up there in the press box eating everyone's
• 48:21
  pizza. Oh, that's why we don't see him.
• 48:23
  I forgot we was dealing with. We dealt with the.
• 48:27
  He opted out, but he was there. But in terms for next year, like
• 48:32
  you know, I'm, I'm super excited about Miami.
• 48:36
  You know, Clemson is a huge one. Obviously those two games are
• 48:39
  probably the biggest games on the schedule and I think you
• 48:43
  know really this is the first time in a while that Virginia
• 48:47
  Tech has expectations of doing very well.
• 48:50
  You know it, I think it varies depending on who you ask,
• 48:54
  whether it's eight and four, nine and three.
• 48:56
  You know, some people think much higher than that, which is fine.
• 49:00
  But regardless, I think like we haven't seen Virginia Tech go
• 49:04
  toe to toe against some of these better programs in a very, very
• 49:07
  long time. And you know last year was kind
• 49:10
  of the case beat the teams who you're supposed to be lose
• 49:13
  against. You know the teams that are
• 49:14
  better than you. So you know those are are are
• 49:18
  the two that I'm looking at and then you know the pipe dream of
• 49:21
  Stanford little vacation out there, I think that would be
• 49:25
  fantastic. So looking looking forward to
• 49:27
  that if I can, if I can swing the flights, I'll be there.
• 49:31
  You said a lot of games, man. You didn't say the one that I'm
• 49:34
  thinking about. You need to clear that schedule
• 49:37
  and get down there to to Nashville.
• 49:40
  Nash. I know.
• 49:42
  I'm scared, though. Last time I was in Nashville
• 49:44
  didn't end up too well. So, OK, yeah, we'll see.
• 49:47
  No. But I don't, I don't even want
• 49:48
  to ask what happened. But we've had a lot of stuff
• 49:51
  happened in the last couple of years, a lot of losses we had
• 49:53
  COVID, So if something bad happened, you might need to stay
• 49:56
  away. Are you guys all going down for
• 49:58
  that one? I'm, I'm going to be there.
• 50:00
  I think I know, Tally said. He's going to try to be there.
• 50:02
  Curtis, we got a, We got a. TBDTBD, We're TBD.
• 50:07
  Nashville is up there. Nashville is only about an hour
• 50:09
  and a half of my house, so. Tally running the whole weekend
• 50:13
  down there. Oh yeah, I'm, I'm going to be.
• 50:15
  I'm going to be ready to go. I'll I'll make it a four day
• 50:17
  stay. I'm going down Thursday.
• 50:19
  Nice. I'm going to have fun.
• 50:21
  What are you going to? Do Oh yeah.
• 50:22
  I'm going to take my wife out one night.
• 50:23
  We we're going to have a have a good time before all the
• 50:25
  football shenanigans start on Friday there.
• 50:28
  You go there, you. Go.
• 50:29
  What you got, Brian? Yeah, I mean the the, the thing
• 50:32
  I want to talk about we just kind of wrapped up winter
• 50:34
  workout, we're kind of getting into spring break what what
• 50:38
  what's this period like for the coaches in terms of kind of
• 50:40
  ramping up some of those 2025 visits and things like that.
• 50:44
  Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a huge emphasis right now on
• 50:47
  recruiting. I think winter workouts were
• 50:50
  great for the team. You know, heard really good
• 50:52
  things about Keyshawn Burgos. I think he had a really, really
• 50:56
  good winter. So excited to see what he looks
• 50:59
  like in the spring. Some of those younger offensive
• 51:02
  lineman lathe did a really good job.
• 51:05
  Johnny Garrett's a guy that I'm really excited about as well.
• 51:08
  I think we've been hearing more and more, especially like later
• 51:11
  on in the season last year. So I'm excited to see what he
• 51:15
  can do. But yeah, just wrapping those
• 51:17
  up, I think we're 10 days away from the first practice.
• 51:21
  So there's a little bit of time right now to kind of hone in on
• 51:25
  on the recruiting board and and really get things rolling here.
• 51:29
  Are you going to try to get to any spring practices or spring
• 51:31
  game this year? I'm hopeful that I can make it
• 51:34
  down to the spring game so that I'm targeting being down there
• 51:38
  for that. So yeah, we'll see.
• 51:41
  All righty. Well, let's let's put a wrap on
• 51:43
  2024 first because so many, so many guys in this class.
• 51:49
  Guys a year ago tonight mentioned, I remember Keelan,
• 51:52
  Brody Adams was one of the guys you mentioned.
• 51:55
  We've got to know his dad. We've seen him develop.
• 51:59
  We saw where he rated. So.
• 52:00
  But Keelan, you got Gabe, you got Chance Wiggins, Quinn,
• 52:04
  Reddish so many names. But let me ask you this, what
• 52:09
  guy in that cycle, in a 2024 cycle you believe is still by
• 52:13
  247 criminally underrated Like this guy is not where he He is
• 52:19
  way too low. Yeah.
• 52:21
  I mean, that's a great question. I think this year they did a
• 52:24
  pretty good job. I mean obviously it's like the
• 52:26
  highest average recruit rating for Virginia Tech in 24/7 since
• 52:32
  the database began. So you know they got a lot of
• 52:35
  quality guys. There's there's no real fillers,
• 52:38
  no guys that are really below an 86 I believe from our in house
• 52:43
  rankings. So I think they did a really
• 52:45
  good job. The the obvious answer would
• 52:47
  have been Andrew Hanchuck. He was he recently got elevated
• 52:51
  to an 88 but he was a guy that you know sustained an injury
• 52:55
  junior year kind of turned it around senior year.
• 52:58
  Like this is a guy that if everything went according to
• 53:00
  plan like he would have been lined up for OSEU like he would
• 53:05
  have gone there. It would have been a done deal
• 53:07
  four-star guy you know with the injury stuff with some schools
• 53:11
  questioning OK is he getting two big post injury.
• 53:14
  Should we move him to offensive line?
• 53:16
  Like I remember when he committed, a lot of people on
• 53:19
  Twitter were saying this guy could potentially move to the
• 53:23
  offensive side of the ball, but this guy's an absolute freak.
• 53:26
  I think Brent Pride called him a Unicorn.
• 53:29
  He's also someone who's on campus now doing a really good
• 53:32
  job. I think he will be really good.
• 53:34
  I think it will take him some time before he really gets
• 53:37
  involved. But he's one of those guys.
• 53:40
  And then I would say another one would be Tommy Ricard.
• 53:43
  I think he's not talked about it as as much but you know he's a
• 53:48
  guy that I think interior offensive line could potentially
• 53:51
  move to center in a couple years.
• 53:53
  But you know he's strong as an ox and and he'll maul people.
• 53:58
  So I think they they did a really good job with him and
• 54:01
  getting him on board. That's pretty good because that
• 54:06
  was two names that I didn't even, you know, have on, on, on
• 54:09
  on the names of of people that I would have asked about.
• 54:12
  So that's why you here, man. You give us the inside, you
• 54:16
  know? That's why we love you to be
• 54:17
  here. Callie, go back in your memory
• 54:19
  bank him and he you mentioned hand Chuck last July.
• 54:23
  I remember you talking about him and you said if he hadn't hurt
• 54:27
  his knee this kid would be way up here.
• 54:30
  I I liked it. Y'all at 247.
• 54:33
  Even though he is a hokey, you know y'all only can give him an
• 54:35
  88. You know you give grief about
• 54:37
  that all the time. But I like what they did is they
• 54:40
  basically they saw his production and senior and said
• 54:43
  now this guy isn't in 85, he in the Navy he is he's borderline
• 54:47
  of four. So I love that.
• 54:49
  Which one of Y'all got next? Brian Talley?
• 54:54
  I mean I think that the biggest question I I have is like of
• 54:57
  these guys in that 2024 class, who do you think can have that
• 55:00
  most immediate impact? Yeah, that's another great
• 55:03
  question. I think a lot of people will
• 55:05
  jump and say Kamari Copeland just because you know, he played
• 55:08
  Iowa Western Community College like he's a you look at him
• 55:12
  like, I don't know if you guys have seen like those videos.
• 55:15
  Oh, I have. He is unbelievable like he's.
• 55:20
  Absolutely. Unbelievable.
• 55:22
  He's he's got that mean streak in him, but he's also the the
• 55:25
  kindest guy you'll ever meet. Like, he loves Virginia Tech.
• 55:29
  That guy is a mauler and super strong.
• 55:32
  I think, you know, he'll fit in in the 2 deep at the very least.
• 55:36
  I think he could play right away.
• 55:39
  But you know, in terms of like true freshman guys, I would go
• 55:44
  with Gerard Johnson. I think he's a guy that you know
• 55:48
  when they, you know, when they went in home with him, they were
• 55:51
  like, Yep, you could play right away.
• 55:52
  Like, he's a guy that's built to play right now.
• 55:56
  I think it's interesting with his development.
• 55:58
  He's obviously an edge. He's a little bigger at like
• 56:01
  24245. I think he's a guy that, you
• 56:04
  know, it's going to be tough to keep the weight off of him like
• 56:06
  he's going to in a college weightlifting program.
• 56:09
  He's really going to bulk up and I'm curious to see if he'll
• 56:12
  slide inside later on in his career.
• 56:15
  But definitely someone that I could see making a run at the 2
• 56:18
  deep as a true freshman. That's what's up.
• 56:23
  Yeah, that's exciting because yeah, that that's definitely an
• 56:26
  area that I think they targeted heavily with some of the deep
• 56:29
  tackles we went on some of the overall depth that we're trying
• 56:34
  to build at the edge position. So if we can get edge short up
• 56:37
  and again get some guys, get some bodies in there to replace
• 56:40
  some of those departing D tackles, that's going to be
• 56:41
  really important for this year A. 100%.
• 56:44
  I'll tell you, we know you have to watch a lot of film and we
• 56:47
  know you have to, you know, probably go to a lot of
• 56:50
  different games and things like that.
• 56:52
  But out of the recruiting class for 2024, who was your, I would
• 56:56
  say just personal favorite that you've seen the Virginia Tech
• 57:01
  pool? It's tough to pick a favorite.
• 57:04
  I think, you know, I I've really liked a lot of the guys that
• 57:07
  they brought in in 2024. I think, you know I instantly go
• 57:12
  to Tyler Mason. I know he put up video game
• 57:15
  numbers. He was playing single a like I
• 57:17
  get it. It was not great competition and
• 57:20
  he probably should have been on another team.
• 57:22
  But hey, like this guy is legit. I think, you know he could be
• 57:27
  someone that you could put in that underrated category.
• 57:30
  I think he was like an 86 on the composite.
• 57:33
  He's he's a guy that. I mean he's on campus right now.
• 57:36
  He looks good. Like he is someone that's really
• 57:39
  pushing. I know running back is set for
• 57:41
  next year, but like and and and to say, like, oh, he'll be the
• 57:45
  third running back, he'll get one carry every three games.
• 57:48
  But like, this is a guy that you know, really could play right
• 57:51
  away if the situation were a little different.
• 57:54
  He's, he's a flexible guy. He's going to play at running
• 57:58
  back, but he's a guy that could switch over to safety.
• 58:00
  Like he has that type of athleticism.
• 58:03
  And you know, I'm really excited about him.
• 58:05
  He's put on a lot of muscle. He's really just done everything
• 58:10
  that everyone has asked from him, so really excited about
• 58:13
  him. I mentioned Andrew Hanchuck,
• 58:16
  He's, you know another guy that's really impressing.
• 58:19
  And then the last one I would say is Joshua Clark.
• 58:21
  Like he was my absolute favorite throughout the process.
• 58:25
  You know Alexandria guy, I think, you know he's I think the
• 58:29
  lone true cornerback in the class.
• 58:32
  Cheetah picked him out early on and you know, he's a guy that I
• 58:36
  really, really like. Fluid hips reminds you of, like,
• 58:39
  your classic Virginia Tech cornerback.
• 58:42
  I think he's going to be really, really good.
• 58:44
  Very excited about him. Yes.
• 58:47
  And it it is what's up in the 2024 class was great, not the
• 58:52
  biggest class and I got someone will hit on a little bit later
• 58:55
  with you Matei. But I want to flip over now and
• 58:58
  let's pivot a little bit to portal, because last year, very
• 59:02
  big Portal class. This year, not as big, but with
• 59:05
  guys like Montavious Cunningham coming in from Georgia, Southern
• 59:11
  Georgia State, always mix them up.
• 59:13
  Y'all State, State. Thank you.
• 59:16
  Sam Brumfield, Middle Tennessee at middle linebacker, Kevin
• 59:20
  Gilliam, the Highland Springs product who went out to
• 59:22
  Oklahoma. And like a lot of guys from
• 59:25
  Virginia who leave, they got to come back home to find the place
• 59:28
  to make it happen. And the nearest Peoples and all
• 59:31
  ACC performer, we talked about Nashville.
• 59:36
  In your opinion, could all four of these guys be starters week
• 59:42
  one in Nashville? Yeah, absolutely.
• 59:44
  I mean that's that's the plan with these guys.
• 59:46
  I mean, they won't say it, but Sam Brumfield is pretty much
• 59:49
  walking into a, you know, empty Mike linebacker position like
• 59:54
  they struggled last year there. They needed to identify someone
• 59:57
  to bring in. Obviously has a lot of ties with
• 59:59
  Marv. From various stops, but he's a
• 1:00:02
  guy that will come in right away like he's built for it.
• 1:00:05
  He's seasoned Montavius Cunningham really like him.
• 1:00:09
  I think he can fit in a lot of different positions.
• 1:00:12
  Curious to see how he ends up. It sounds like he's, you know,
• 1:00:15
  probably that starter at right tackle as of right now.
• 1:00:20
  We'll see if that holds up. I, you know, he seems like
• 1:00:22
  someone that, you know, long term you would want him at, you
• 1:00:25
  know, on the interior of the offensive line.
• 1:00:29
  But despite him being, you know, 6364, he's got really long arms.
• 1:00:34
  He's someone that can hold up at a tackle position.
• 1:00:36
  So curious to see kind of what his plan is.
• 1:00:39
  And then Calvin Gallium, he was kind of a late ad right after
• 1:00:44
  the bowl game. I think we saw, you know, you
• 1:00:47
  mentioned that, you know, last year, a lot of Portal ads.
• 1:00:50
  This year is a little tougher just with the numbers, the
• 1:00:52
  scholarship situation. So, you know, attrition had to
• 1:00:56
  happen for him to come in. He's a guy that I'm excited to
• 1:00:59
  see. He also looks like an absolute
• 1:01:01
  unit. Just some of the photos I saw
• 1:01:03
  from, you know, of him, he looks totally built to to be in there
• 1:01:09
  and and handle extended action. We'll see.
• 1:01:12
  I know he's been in a limited role, but he's definitely
• 1:01:14
  capable of being a full time starter.
• 1:01:16
  And then Aeneas Peebles, he's probably, you know, he, he's the
• 1:01:20
  crown of this crop. He's the guy that's going to
• 1:01:23
  come in and you know, really, really excited about him.
• 1:01:26
  I think like you, you think about all the guys that you lose
• 1:01:29
  from last year and then you bring in someone that's maybe
• 1:01:31
  better than all of them. You know, I would hate to say
• 1:01:34
  that you, but you know, could be true.
• 1:01:37
  So definitely a huge ad. I think all of them are are very
• 1:01:42
  strategic. A lot of them have various
• 1:01:45
  connections to the coaching staff, so I think they did a
• 1:01:48
  good job. Even though it's a small class,
• 1:01:50
  they identified what they needed and and brought in guys that
• 1:01:53
  can, you know, plug and play right away.
• 1:01:57
  Agreed. 100% All right, let's flip again and let's head to
• 1:02:01
  2025. And I think Shelton's got a
• 1:02:03
  question for you concerning the class of 2025.
• 1:02:08
  Yeah. Well, I wanted to look kind of a
• 1:02:10
  big picture at Vt recruiting. So I'm a big numbers guy and
• 1:02:14
  over the summer I spent some time working on a recruiting
• 1:02:16
  database last ten years or so, just looking at how classes
• 1:02:19
  ended up and how different programs succeeded in
• 1:02:22
  particularly I looked at geography.
• 1:02:24
  So I looked at, you know, different states for GN North
• 1:02:26
  Carolina, sort of those Mid-Atlantic recruiting
• 1:02:28
  battleground States, and I found a couple interesting
• 1:02:31
  observations. So over the past few years or
• 1:02:34
  so, the state of North Carolina has absolutely outpaced Virginia
• 1:02:37
  in terms of producing NFL draft picks.
• 1:02:39
  And that's generally speaking how I'd like to sort of define
• 1:02:42
  success because I think in order to win, you know, 8 to 10 games
• 1:02:44
  at the Power Five level, you got to have NFL players in your
• 1:02:46
  team. And from 2016 to 2020, the
• 1:02:49
  conversion rate for Virginia blue chippers getting to the NFL
• 1:02:53
  was pretty bad. I mean one of the worst states
• 1:02:55
  in the country. So obviously you know things can
• 1:02:58
  change and when Bry got here he talked about recruiting the
• 1:03:00
  footprint, recruiting Virginia. I think people sometimes
• 1:03:02
  conflate those things because obviously you know North
• 1:03:06
  Carolina, the DMV, Tennessee etcetera, those are all big
• 1:03:08
  parts of Virginia's recruiting our our prize recruiting
• 1:03:11
  footprint. So I what I wanted to ask was
• 1:03:14
  with obviously Prize got a lot of, you know, he's got a lot of
• 1:03:18
  commits from Virginia, some highly rated prospects.
• 1:03:21
  Do you see the overall talent level in Virginia and and
• 1:03:25
  Virginia high school football improving?
• 1:03:26
  And how do you feel like the staff has gone about in terms of
• 1:03:28
  just balancing, you know, how they manage between, you know,
• 1:03:32
  getting guys from Virginia and Maryland and DC and you know
• 1:03:36
  North Carolina? How do you feel like that has
• 1:03:37
  all sort of come together? Yeah, I definitely feel like the
• 1:03:40
  overall talent pool of Virginia has gone up.
• 1:03:43
  I think it was a couple years ago, I was looking at the top
• 1:03:45
  ten and I was looking at guys that were highly rated, four
• 1:03:48
  stars. And I was like, there's no way.
• 1:03:50
  There's absolutely no way these guys are are rated this way.
• 1:03:53
  I think there was kind of a weird mass exodus with some of
• 1:03:57
  the bigger schools, especially in Virginia Beach, a lot of guys
• 1:04:00
  that were transferring out kind of programs, falling through on
• 1:04:03
  funding, they weren't able to attract as many top talents to
• 1:04:06
  their school. So those guys were going out of
• 1:04:08
  state and I think that was a big reason that we saw for a couple
• 1:04:12
  years it was, you know, right around COVID that we saw a huge
• 1:04:16
  drop off in Virginia specifically.
• 1:04:18
  But I think things have kind of come back together like we see
• 1:04:22
  schools like Oscar Smith are on the right track again.
• 1:04:25
  You know, bringing in more talent, at least collegiate
• 1:04:28
  talent wise. I think, you know Maryland's
• 1:04:31
  always going to be huge, a lot of private schools, a lot of big
• 1:04:33
  time schools there and North Carolina has really, you know,
• 1:04:37
  made a major emphasis on bringing in talent and and
• 1:04:41
  really investing in high school football.
• 1:04:44
  So I think we've been seeing that for a while.
• 1:04:46
  North Carolina's definitely, I mean there was that whole
• 1:04:48
  movement, I think it was 2018's class where you know, it's like
• 1:04:52
  NC 2, Vt because they're quite literally was not enough talent
• 1:04:56
  in Virginia to you know make a football team.
• 1:04:59
  So I definitely think that you know, the staff is cognizant of
• 1:05:03
  of all of that. They'll probably try to pick a
• 1:05:06
  handful of guys every year from the DMV, from North Carolina.
• 1:05:10
  You know, if everything were to go to plan, you would you would
• 1:05:13
  get it, you know, 8 to 10 guys from Virginia.
• 1:05:17
  Your next highest pool would be from North Carolina and then the
• 1:05:21
  DMV specifically like Maryland. So has been I I think Virginia
• 1:05:27
  is still catching up in terms of talent.
• 1:05:29
  I think it's going to take a little bit, but there's
• 1:05:31
  definitely some legitimate talent we saw last cycle, the
• 1:05:34
  cycle before, but it's it's definitely ramping up.
• 1:05:39
  It is to hear. Yes, really good news to hear.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah, let me let's start there because we got you know 2025, we
• 1:05:45
  already got some some verbals from some of those Virginia
• 1:05:47
  kids. You know, you talked about the
• 1:05:49
  757. We got a couple of those guys
• 1:05:52
  along with Carter Stallard in the boat right now.
• 1:05:57
  What's the buzz about the Hokies already grabbing 3 Virginia
• 1:06:00
  kids, including those two guys from the 757?
• 1:06:03
  Yeah, it's out. It's absolutely huge.
• 1:06:05
  I mean, I think specifically the 757 has been a thorn in the heel
• 1:06:11
  for Virginia Tech for the past decade, and Virginia Tech is
• 1:06:15
  really making major strides in the area.
• 1:06:18
  I think you think of, even last year, a guy like Brody Adams, I
• 1:06:21
  know that there's a lot of pessimism at the beginning.
• 1:06:24
  You know, you get a guy like that in the boat, green run guy.
• 1:06:27
  Now you got two more green run guys.
• 1:06:29
  Like he was huge in in getting knowledge and Jay into the boat.
• 1:06:35
  You know, both guys really rely on him.
• 1:06:37
  And you know, that was a huge conversation, being able to walk
• 1:06:40
  into schools and and, you know, have legitimate conversations.
• 1:06:44
  How's my guy doing at school? You know, it's not just, hey,
• 1:06:48
  I'm here to see who's, who's your best guy.
• 1:06:51
  Like can we get someone to come visit?
• 1:06:53
  Like you're not opening doors anymore.
• 1:06:55
  I think they're they're open now.
• 1:06:56
  So definitely the 757 has been great.
• 1:07:00
  I think Fontelle has done a great job in Richmond
• 1:07:02
  specifically. And then you know we've seen the
• 1:07:05
  last two off seasons, the coaches have done chalk talks
• 1:07:09
  going to different areas making sure to get to the 757 this
• 1:07:12
  year. Lot of great feedback from the
• 1:07:15
  coaches there like really excited about the program.
• 1:07:18
  I think you know you you look back at the Fuente days and I
• 1:07:21
  hate to say it, but you know there were some schools that
• 1:07:24
  completely closed the door on Virginia Tech like did not want
• 1:07:27
  to send their their kids to the school and I think now like very
• 1:07:31
  open minded. I think people really want to
• 1:07:33
  give Virginia Tech the first shot which is great.
• 1:07:36
  I think that's why you're seeing a lot of these guys lock in
• 1:07:38
  official visits right away and you know, build more
• 1:07:42
  relationships. I will say, you know, it's still
• 1:07:44
  like they're doing a great job. I think Virginia Tech is right
• 1:07:48
  on schedule, but but these relationships take years and
• 1:07:52
  years and years and you know they're doing a great job now
• 1:07:56
  and I think it's it's perfectly where they need to be, but still
• 1:08:00
  work to be done and. Kind of the piggyback off of
• 1:08:03
  that, what what you run into with this, You know, you just
• 1:08:09
  start to get those kids back on, on campus and in the games.
• 1:08:14
  Just say we'll take Brody Adams, for example.
• 1:08:18
  The reason it's so, you know, so big to have a kid like that on
• 1:08:22
  campus is he can talk to the people in this high school, not
• 1:08:26
  just about football. You know, how is your quality of
• 1:08:29
  life in Blacksburg? You know, what do you get your
• 1:08:31
  hair cut when you're there? What do you like to eat when
• 1:08:33
  you're there? Where can I go fishing?
• 1:08:36
  You know what I'm saying? Things like that that kids talk
• 1:08:38
  about besides football. But if you don't have people on
• 1:08:41
  rosters that can go and actually talk and give that, you know
• 1:08:45
  that that that you know word of mouth, which is what we didn't
• 1:08:49
  have for so long, then you don't you don't have somebody that's
• 1:08:52
  out there advocating for you. So like you said, those doors
• 1:08:54
  have been opened and kind of takes us to to the next point of
• 1:09:00
  what we're looking at. You know, when you were here
• 1:09:03
  last time, man, you told us some stuff.
• 1:09:04
  And I'm going to be real. I didn't.
• 1:09:06
  I didn't believe you. I didn't like some of the names
• 1:09:10
  you was calling. I was like, there's no way that
• 1:09:12
  that kid is looking this way. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:09:14
  Speaking of, I hate to keep bringing Brody up, but Speaking
• 1:09:17
  of Keelan Adams, like, I was like, there's no way.
• 1:09:19
  But he's looking at Alabama, He's looking at Ohio State, He's
• 1:09:23
  looking at South Carolina. And he, he commits and goes to
• 1:09:26
  tech. So a lot of these kids that
• 1:09:28
  we're seeing now, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:09:30
  This kind of got a hokey fan like myself like Oh yeah, we got
• 1:09:33
  a shot, you know you what is it Brick Clatterbone.
• 1:09:39
  You know a kid like that did somebody like me thought, OK
• 1:09:42
  he's going to Clemson you know then and you just keep watching
• 1:09:45
  and you keep you know hearing things and you see hey we do got
• 1:09:48
  a shot you know we're in there you know Deuce Edwards, Messiah,
• 1:09:53
  Delone. The names go on and on of of
• 1:09:56
  kids that that I feel like we have a shot at.
• 1:10:00
  But you're the expert. So out of those kind of
• 1:10:04
  high-ranking kids out of Virginia, have you seen, you
• 1:10:07
  know, kids or do you have any kind of expectations for
• 1:10:10
  Virginia Tech with any of those high-ranking Virginia kids?
• 1:10:14
  Yeah, I mean, I wish I could come on here and say, you know,
• 1:10:16
  100% this guy's coming in. I think, you know, this year's a
• 1:10:20
  lot more competitive in a good way.
• 1:10:22
  I think last year we saw some key battles that Virginia Tech
• 1:10:27
  was able to win and a few other battles they were never in.
• 1:10:31
  I think when you look at this cycle, you have a lot of talent
• 1:10:34
  specifically in Virginia. And I think Virginia Tech is at
• 1:10:38
  the very least in every single battle and I think that's huge
• 1:10:41
  for this year. You mentioned Brett like this
• 1:10:44
  was a guy that was a shoo in for Notre Dame.
• 1:10:47
  Things kind of changed there a little bit.
• 1:10:51
  I wasn't sure that Virginia Tech was really ever like seriously
• 1:10:55
  considered. And then all of a sudden, you
• 1:10:58
  know, they're they're very much in the mix.
• 1:11:00
  I know education is huge for him.
• 1:11:02
  They put out a huge pitch about Virginia Tech's education there.
• 1:11:05
  I think, you know, the parents are very involved as well.
• 1:11:08
  He's a guy that's like complete ghost mode when it comes to
• 1:11:11
  media, which is fine, you know, fair enough.
• 1:11:14
  But so it it it is tough to get Intel on him but he is planning
• 1:11:19
  an official visit to Virginia Tech which just kind of shows
• 1:11:23
  his interest level in the Hokies.
• 1:11:25
  I think he's taking it very seriously.
• 1:11:27
  I think right now it's between Clemson and Virginia Tech.
• 1:11:31
  So we'll see what happens there. I know Clemson is absolutely
• 1:11:34
  cleaning up right now in Virginia.
• 1:11:36
  You know they're they're a program that has a lot of things
• 1:11:39
  figured out when it comes to high school recruiting.
• 1:11:43
  You know, Mika Matthews is another guy, top of the top of
• 1:11:46
  the top of the list, dual sport athlete, plays baseball.
• 1:11:52
  I I know they brought him out to the facilities there.
• 1:11:54
  He he was able to kind of chat with everyone on, you know, both
• 1:11:58
  for baseball and for football. They see him as a wide receiver.
• 1:12:02
  He's a guy that sits very well with Virginia Tech, like he's
• 1:12:06
  he's kind of cut his top group. I know UNC is big on him.
• 1:12:09
  They're the ones to watch out for.
• 1:12:11
  But Virginia Tech is right there.
• 1:12:13
  They've done a really good job with him.
• 1:12:16
  Caleb Williams is another guy. He's been to Virginia Tech
• 1:12:18
  multiple, multiple Times Now. He's set four of his official
• 1:12:22
  visits. Tennessee is a big player for
• 1:12:24
  him, as as you'll see with all these guys.
• 1:12:27
  You know, I'm mentioning like big name programs, like Virginia
• 1:12:30
  Tech really has to battle against some of these big
• 1:12:33
  programs. But they have the last shot at
• 1:12:36
  him. You know, he's a legit 66250
• 1:12:39
  kid. You know he's he's going to be
• 1:12:42
  huge. I know that they're really
• 1:12:43
  trying to get bigger in the trenches, and he's a guy that is
• 1:12:46
  just an athletic freak. So he's huge.
• 1:12:50
  He's locked in his official deuce.
• 1:12:53
  Edwards is a guy that I thought was going to be a Hokie in
• 1:12:55
  January. He's someone that decided to
• 1:12:59
  kind of wait out the process. He's gotten a lot more interest
• 1:13:03
  from Power Five schools, a lot more offers.
• 1:13:06
  He does have an official visit lined up.
• 1:13:09
  I would say Virginia Tech is the team to beat for him right now.
• 1:13:13
  Really, really good cornerback. Probably out of all the guys on
• 1:13:17
  the list, he's he's the one that probably sits at the top right
• 1:13:21
  now in terms of, you know, my confidence level, Messiah
• 1:13:24
  Delome, Warwick Guy, if that sounds familiar.
• 1:13:29
  Oh yeah, very. Good quarterback came from
• 1:13:31
  there. Absolutely.
• 1:13:33
  Absolute beast, you know, is really in tune with OSU right
• 1:13:38
  now. I think another good staple of
• 1:13:43
  your recruiting is not only this cycle, but last cycle 2 Ohio
• 1:13:46
  State really tried to get a couple guys from the commitment
• 1:13:50
  list and there's a lot of battles right now involved with
• 1:13:53
  Ohio State. So you know Virginia Tech is
• 1:13:56
  looking in the right places to find some talent.
• 1:14:00
  Jalen Gilchrist, He's probably the number one guy when it comes
• 1:14:04
  to the recruiting board. USC is or South Carolina I
• 1:14:10
  should say is is the top team right now.
• 1:14:15
  I think there is a lot of ground to make up.
• 1:14:17
  He was kind of a kid. And you know, there are various
• 1:14:19
  guys within the state of Virginia that envision playing
• 1:14:22
  college ball in the SEC, going out of state, kind of, you know,
• 1:14:26
  going towards the nicer things in life.
• 1:14:28
  And I think Virginia Tech really had to come in there and and
• 1:14:32
  make up a lot of ground to convince him that, hey, maybe
• 1:14:34
  staying at home isn't so bad. Like, here's the vision we have
• 1:14:37
  for you. He's a top 100 guy.
• 1:14:40
  He knows that he's loved that Virginia Tech.
• 1:14:43
  And I think while you know a lot of the people at 24/7 would say
• 1:14:48
  that South Carolina is on top right now, I think Virginia Tech
• 1:14:53
  is not far behind. He's planning an official visit
• 1:14:56
  that should be coming up and I think that's a huge sign of his
• 1:15:00
  interest if he really just wanted to go out of state.
• 1:15:02
  I think, you know, he's been to Virginia Tech, he's seen what
• 1:15:05
  they have to offer, but I think he really is listening.
• 1:15:08
  So we'll see. And yeah, those are some of the
• 1:15:11
  top guys in in Virginia. Now you can't got to say much on
• 1:15:17
  this because I know you got a job to do and I don't want to
• 1:15:20
  interfere with that, but I got to speak on something and I'm
• 1:15:23
  going to ask. I'm going to ask y'all have
• 1:15:25
  y'all seen Shane Beamer talking about his coaches and bringing
• 1:15:31
  in new coaches and people have y'all seen that?
• 1:15:34
  I have not. I've heard.
• 1:15:35
  I have not seen the tape yet. Is a madman right now.
• 1:15:40
  I hope he don't win a game next year.
• 1:15:42
  I hope he loses every fucking game that he plays and nobody
• 1:15:46
  goes to South Carolina. So just because you brought up
• 1:15:50
  Jalen Gilchrist, I thought about that.
• 1:15:53
  I've heard a lot about that recruiting battle and you know
• 1:15:56
  I'm going to I can't speak too much because I I'm not there.
• 1:15:59
  It's second hand information but pretty reliable sources.
• 1:16:04
  Shane is. Shane is a motherfucker man.
• 1:16:06
  He he does not. He does not.
• 1:16:11
  I don't know what it is but he does not want Virginia Tech to
• 1:16:14
  do anything. He is out to to bury Virginia
• 1:16:19
  Tech and he's got some bad stuff to say about pride man.
• 1:16:24
  So I don't know, man. I'm going to be interested to
• 1:16:27
  see if Shane makes it out of this next year.
• 1:16:29
  You know what I'm saying? All jokes aside, you know,
• 1:16:32
  that's why I I'm interested to see what he does.
• 1:16:35
  I mean, being in the middle of SEC country, like nobody's
• 1:16:39
  checking for South Carolina when you start talking about SEC
• 1:16:43
  races. So I'm going to be interested to
• 1:16:47
  see what Shane does, because Shane Shane's got a lot to say
• 1:16:50
  about Virginia Tech right now. Yeah, he's a savage, that's all.
• 1:16:53
  I'll say, yeah. I was going to say I wasn't
• 1:16:55
  going to ask you to say much, but I've got some I've got some
• 1:16:59
  stuff there. We it's crazy to me because I'm
• 1:17:01
  like, I'm thinking like we're Virginia Tech, man, we ain't.
• 1:17:04
  We ain't. We ain't making no noise for
• 1:17:06
  real like that. But he really hurt, man.
• 1:17:08
  He is hurt. You mean tell you when you hear
• 1:17:11
  something like that and we can say in here we can talk about
• 1:17:14
  that. Sounds like somebody's scared
• 1:17:16
  because he knows. Well, hold on.
• 1:17:19
  He was there. He knows what happens when it
• 1:17:22
  starts rolling and then go down to seven, five and they hit in
• 1:17:26
  the North Carolina and they go into South Carolina, they go
• 1:17:28
  into Tennessee and they start pulling guys out.
• 1:17:31
  He knows if that happens because of where he's recruiting, that's
• 1:17:34
  his top guys and if we start picking them all, he knows he's.
• 1:17:38
  Well, right now he knows he has to go to the Mid-Atlantic to
• 1:17:41
  pull the caliber of players to compete, compete, just compete,
• 1:17:46
  not even do any winning, just fucking compete in the SEC,
• 1:17:49
  right. So if we start eating off that
• 1:17:51
  off where he feels comfortable, you know, I, I, I'm with Curtis
• 1:17:56
  a little bit. He's a little playing, a little
• 1:17:58
  scared playing a little. Scared.
• 1:18:00
  He's been he's he's full court press on Gilchrist right now.
• 1:18:04
  He's the one that's making the trips.
• 1:18:05
  He's he's he's full court press on that because he's wanting.
• 1:18:10
  He's a little nervous, but that's OK That's OK.
• 1:18:13
  But you know what Mateo, you probably can speak a little bit
• 1:18:16
  that this is when he when when he got that job and where we
• 1:18:20
  were coming out and who we had on staff.
• 1:18:24
  Nobody was scared. Now you got Brent Pry, Ace
• 1:18:28
  recruiter, You got Fontelle Ace the the the the landscape has
• 1:18:33
  changed so he knows. He looks up at the alma mater
• 1:18:35
  and says they ain't joking no more up there.
• 1:18:40
  Well I I'll, yeah, I'll say this just from my some of it's
• 1:18:44
  speculation but some of it's like I said some second hand
• 1:18:47
  information. So the the wide receiver coach
• 1:18:49
  that he had there right that left he got demoted as a result
• 1:18:55
  of not getting certain recruits I'll say that.
• 1:19:01
  So what was what? What happened with him is he got
• 1:19:05
  demoted because he didn't get certain recruits that they
• 1:19:09
  thought were in their boat. And I was like, OK, I ain't
• 1:19:13
  going to say I didn't believe it, but when he came out on the
• 1:19:16
  Curtis, you got to go watch it. He's in the press conference.
• 1:19:19
  He goes, yeah, I don't, I don't. You know this guy.
• 1:19:21
  He left and we got our money back from him and more and we
• 1:19:25
  brought in another guy that's even better than him.
• 1:19:27
  I was like, I've just not heard a coach come out and say that
• 1:19:32
  and something. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:19:33
  Like, I guess if I'm. I guess if I'm a fan, I might
• 1:19:36
  try to gas it and go, man, our coach is real, but that's just
• 1:19:40
  not diplomatic. You just don't do that.
• 1:19:42
  You just don't do that. And it's like I said, does he
• 1:19:46
  have Asperger's or something? Like he just like, he comes out
• 1:19:49
  and says stuff. Like when you go back and look
• 1:19:52
  at the stuff that he said, like about the about the the refs
• 1:19:56
  like somebody was eating hot dogs.
• 1:19:59
  He'd just be he'd just be crazy, man.
• 1:20:01
  So yeah, Shane, Shane, we on your ass.
• 1:20:04
  All you. You better not fuck up, boy.
• 1:20:06
  We on your ass, Shane. Callie, you make me stay up till
• 1:20:09
  1:00 this today looking at all these videos.
• 1:20:12
  I'm going to get your ass next time.
• 1:20:14
  I'll see. You you got.
• 1:20:15
  Hey, I'll send it to you, Squish.
• 1:20:17
  Send it to me tomorrow morning. I'll watch it at the bus stop,
• 1:20:20
  OK? We can do that all.
• 1:20:23
  Right. I'm going to flip back and I
• 1:20:24
  want to talk about a non Virginia kid, but someone with a
• 1:20:27
  direct relation to Virginia. Let's talk about Behemgling up
• 1:20:30
  out of Maryland. We got to ask it.
• 1:20:33
  I mean, Fahim is a top 20 player in the country.
• 1:20:35
  He's elite, he's elite. He's a five star little brother,
• 1:20:39
  has had a tremendous 2 years at Virginia Tech so far, tremendous
• 1:20:44
  all American his freshman year and did not really have the
• 1:20:48
  sophomore slump. He didn't have the massive step.
• 1:20:51
  He took a solid step to that second year.
• 1:20:54
  But you know, most time we talk about sophomore slumps guys
• 1:20:56
  struggling, all right, I'm going to throw this one out there from
• 1:21:00
  my my fellow. So do we have a Lloyd Christmas
• 1:21:03
  with with him? Do we have a chance with him?
• 1:21:07
  Or you know what? Because little brother's got one
• 1:21:13
  more year left. Man, his brother's on, brother's
• 1:21:18
  on campus. He's taking, he's taking trips.
• 1:21:20
  I'll say you got a you got a chance.
• 1:21:22
  I ain't going to say how big of a chance is, but I'll say you,
• 1:21:25
  you got a chance, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:21:27
  It comes down to production too. I mean with a lot of the guys, I
• 1:21:32
  think like we took a step last year from what we were as you've
• 1:21:36
  seen which pry. Sell the shirts, man, Sell the
• 1:21:40
  shirts. We see the shirts with the three
• 1:21:42
  and the seven on the back and then the the question mark like
• 1:21:46
  we want them shirts. What is that going to be?
• 1:21:49
  We had three, then we had seven. What is this next year going to
• 1:21:53
  be? That's going, Hey, that's going
• 1:21:54
  to be a big thing, man. What are you hearing?
• 1:21:59
  I think, you know, there's not to sound too overly optimistic,
• 1:22:02
  but I there is a very serious chance here.
• 1:22:06
  Virginia Tech is very much in the running.
• 1:22:08
  Maryland's another one that's very close with him.
• 1:22:11
  He's obviously, you know, as you mentioned, a top 20 guy like
• 1:22:14
  Alabama was all over him. I think they were the favorites
• 1:22:18
  early on. And then Nick Saban left and
• 1:22:20
  things kind of, you know, took a turn there.
• 1:22:24
  LSU is a big one for him. And then again, Ohio State that
• 1:22:28
  they've been making moves with him.
• 1:22:31
  So he has, you know, there's very legitimate competition and
• 1:22:34
  all out competition for him. He's a guy that, you know, it's
• 1:22:39
  a little similar in a sense to the Dax Hollyfield situation.
• 1:22:44
  I know he's much higher ranked, but it's you have all these nice
• 1:22:47
  things in front of you. He's going to take all his
• 1:22:49
  official visits. He's going to hear the best
• 1:22:52
  pitches from all the best schools.
• 1:22:54
  And I think, you know, the the playing card for Virginia Tech
• 1:22:57
  is, you know what you have there.
• 1:22:59
  You're going to come into a favorable position.
• 1:23:01
  You have familiarity. Everything's going to be about
• 1:23:03
  you. You can step on the field early.
• 1:23:06
  There's a lot to love from that pitch.
• 1:23:08
  And you know, that's something that obviously resonated with
• 1:23:11
  Dax Hollyfield. Sometimes you come back to the
• 1:23:15
  school that's been there all along and I know they're going
• 1:23:17
  to stay consistent. So I do think there's a chance,
• 1:23:20
  but it's going to be a long and wild ride to get there.
• 1:23:25
  So we'll see. Like, it would not surprise me
• 1:23:27
  if he goes to LSU this summer and decides, you know what?
• 1:23:31
  I've seen everything. Like, I've seen those locker
• 1:23:33
  rooms, They're pretty nice. So it could be anything.
• 1:23:37
  But I really do think Virginia Tech has a very legitimate
• 1:23:40
  chance. I know even with his brother,
• 1:23:42
  like you know, there was opportunities for him to play
• 1:23:46
  elsewhere and he chose to stay at Virginia Tech.
• 1:23:48
  So I think there's a lot of love from that family for what
• 1:23:52
  Virginia Tech can provide and especially an NFL pipeline.
• 1:23:55
  So there's a lot to love there for Fahim, but it's it's going
• 1:24:00
  to take some time to to really iron that out.
• 1:24:03
  So what you're saying is we need to fast track those locker room
• 1:24:05
  renovations? Oh yeah, we also need.
• 1:24:10
  To get monsoon to the NFL those two days.
• 1:24:14
  Hey, Tally, we need to go up there in that flight when he
• 1:24:16
  leaves to LSU. It ain't going to happen.
• 1:24:19
  Yeah. Let's go.
• 1:24:20
  Come on. I'm going to tell you up in
• 1:24:22
  Northern Virginia, we'll we'll run some of Lotions 11 shit like
• 1:24:25
  he ain't making it to LSU unless he wants to drive.
• 1:24:27
  I'll be the pilot. There we go.
• 1:24:29
  Let's do it. What you got, Brian?
• 1:24:32
  Yeah, I mean, let's, since we're talking about Fahim, let's go
• 1:24:34
  ahead and talk about some of these footprint states that
• 1:24:37
  aren't Virginia. You know we got some officials
• 1:24:40
  on the board out of Maryland from Fahim Malik, a couple other
• 1:24:45
  guys, a lot of guys out of North Carolina like Shamarius
• 1:24:52
  Peterkin, Tayshaun Austin, Tennessee with Sam Haley, Carson
• 1:24:56
  Lawrence. Last couple cycles prize kind of
• 1:24:59
  hit the surrounding states pretty hard and we've seen a lot
• 1:25:03
  of the states kind of thrown out there with a lot of the offers.
• 1:25:06
  Maryland and North Carolina really heavy this cycle with
• 1:25:08
  with number of offers. What state do you think will
• 1:25:11
  bear the most fruit come signing day?
• 1:25:13
  Yeah, I definitely think it's going to be either North
• 1:25:16
  Carolina or or Maryland. You know ton of guys there for
• 1:25:20
  now that have set up official visits.
• 1:25:22
  I think they'll be even more as they continue to kind of
• 1:25:25
  evaluate talent there. You know this first crop and a
• 1:25:28
  lot of the guys that we're seeing taking these official
• 1:25:30
  visits are really the guys that are narrowing in on their
• 1:25:33
  recruitment, guys that are cutting down their list trying
• 1:25:36
  to get to campuses this spring, in the summer and trying to make
• 1:25:39
  decisions before their senior year.
• 1:25:41
  There's going to be even more guys that go throughout the fall
• 1:25:44
  that Virginia Tech's going to want to, you know get later on
• 1:25:47
  in the cycle ton of talent in North Carolina right now.
• 1:25:52
  You know, you mentioned some of the names.
• 1:25:54
  Peter Can is is a huge one. He's teammates with Jadon Blair.
• 1:26:00
  They're they both set up official visits, both 4 star
• 1:26:03
  guys, you know, both really involved with UNC, but I think
• 1:26:08
  Virginia Tech has a good shot there.
• 1:26:10
  I think Blair also has a lot of interest from Notre Dame and
• 1:26:16
  then you look at Malik Washington, very intriguing guy.
• 1:26:20
  I think he was just elevated to a four-star prospect.
• 1:26:23
  Our guys at 24/7 just really love him.
• 1:26:27
  His blend of athleticism. He's really a an amazing
• 1:26:30
  quarterback. It's kind of interesting with
• 1:26:32
  the situation right now. I know that Keldon Ryan is is
• 1:26:35
  verbally committed, but Virginia Tech is open to taking two
• 1:26:39
  quarterbacks and you know they would love to get a guy like
• 1:26:42
  Malik Washington. He's 64210.
• 1:26:45
  You know, really fast runner, really good arm, a bit
• 1:26:49
  unorthodox, but just an absolute gamer and and a guy that you
• 1:26:55
  know they want to fit that mold of Kyron drones too.
• 1:26:59
  So I I think he's a guy that you know they're really going to
• 1:27:03
  push for. Try to get that second
• 1:27:05
  quarterback commit in the class. You know Fahim is there.
• 1:27:09
  I think he can start a movement with some of these other guys.
• 1:27:13
  Skyler Harvey's a very interesting guy.
• 1:27:16
  I think at the time of writing up a post visit recap, he only
• 1:27:21
  had one Power Five offer and that was from Virginia Tech.
• 1:27:24
  And at the end of the interview I did with him, he just sent me
• 1:27:27
  his entire offer list like legit was just, you know, sending
• 1:27:30
  photos And I was like where did all this come from?
• 1:27:34
  Like we we heard you had one Power Five offer and all of a
• 1:27:37
  sudden you have 10. So he's a guy that really got a
• 1:27:39
  lot of interest and you know, absolute huge human being at
• 1:27:44
  6-7, I think over 300 lbs. So a lot of guys to like in
• 1:27:49
  Maryland and North Carolina. I think one of those two states,
• 1:27:52
  we'll definitely take the cake for most outside of Virginia.
• 1:27:57
  That's a lot of good stuff right there.
• 1:27:59
  We like to hear all of that. I guess we'll switch a little
• 1:28:02
  bit. In the last, you know, in the
• 1:28:05
  last cycle, JC beat the He beat the allegations, man.
• 1:28:11
  JC beat the allegations. Everybody said JC couldn't
• 1:28:14
  recruit. JC proved him wrong.
• 1:28:17
  He's out here doing his thing, just living his life like it's
• 1:28:20
  golden. You know, he's bringing in some
• 1:28:22
  good talent. They sees a cool guy frontal is,
• 1:28:25
  is, is is who he is. You know they both led the
• 1:28:28
  charge as far as recruiting goes.
• 1:28:32
  So besides those guys, I'll ask you, do you see another position
• 1:28:36
  coach that could probably get in that top 20 ACC recruiter this
• 1:28:40
  year? Absolutely.
• 1:28:42
  I think if there's going to be a guy on the staff, it's going to
• 1:28:44
  be cheetah. Like there's so much defensive
• 1:28:47
  back talent this year. I think that's the position
• 1:28:50
  group. They're really going to try to
• 1:28:51
  hammer home. We talked about a lot of
• 1:28:53
  four-star, five star safeties, a bunch of high three stars.
• 1:28:58
  We talked about Deuce, Fahim. You already got knowledge in the
• 1:29:01
  boat. There's a lot of talent there
• 1:29:04
  and I think he's a guy that, you know, he only took one DB last
• 1:29:07
  cycle in terms of cornerbacks. I know that they brought in some
• 1:29:10
  safeties, but I think they're really going to hammer that home
• 1:29:13
  this year and there's a a ton of talent there.
• 1:29:17
  I think if all goes according to plan like he'll be top 15 for
• 1:29:21
  sure. Nice.
• 1:29:24
  We need it. We need it.
• 1:29:25
  And I think you see Cheetah's personality and you think
• 1:29:28
  defensive backs and that personality is.
• 1:29:30
  I feel like a lot of them will probably click right away with
• 1:29:33
  them. I want to ask you this because,
• 1:29:35
  you know, you talk to high school recruits, you talk to
• 1:29:38
  coaches, you talk to people. But what comes up about this
• 1:29:42
  staff when you're talking to a player we're we're recruiting or
• 1:29:45
  maybe when we've already landed? What's like the words that come
• 1:29:48
  out? What's that constant?
• 1:29:49
  Like every player I talk to, this is what I hear because I
• 1:29:53
  think that's something we all are interested in because, you
• 1:29:56
  know, we've interviewed, we've had the pleasure in the last
• 1:29:59
  year. We've interviewed Coach Pry,
• 1:30:00
  we've interviewed Coach Minds, we've interviewed Coach Price
• 1:30:04
  and we interviewed Coach Mullen. When you talk to someone, what
• 1:30:09
  is it about this staff that they say?
• 1:30:10
  It's like every time I hear this.
• 1:30:12
  Yeah, I I think the buzzword that every recruit that I've
• 1:30:16
  ever interviewed has said is family.
• 1:30:18
  I know it's a little cliche, but when you think of Virginia Tech,
• 1:30:22
  like the coaches, like, genuinely enjoy recruiting.
• 1:30:26
  They genuinely enjoy creating these relationships, not just
• 1:30:29
  with the recruits, with the families, with the coaches,
• 1:30:31
  trainers, people in the community.
• 1:30:33
  I know they talk about it all the time.
• 1:30:35
  They do back it up. And when you look at some of
• 1:30:38
  these other schools, you got your Ohio State's, your
• 1:30:41
  Alabama's, Penn State's like no shade on them.
• 1:30:44
  Like there are 100 interns that are, you know, texting recruits
• 1:30:49
  and and sometimes you're not talking to your position coach,
• 1:30:53
  right. And I think like with Virginia
• 1:30:56
  Tech, you're, you're getting, you know, a full court treatment
• 1:31:01
  from everyone from the ground floor all the way up.
• 1:31:04
  Like Brent Pry is not just saying, you know, go out there
• 1:31:07
  and recruit like he's putting an effort too.
• 1:31:10
  And I think that's that effort goes a long way with these
• 1:31:14
  recruits. And I think, you know, that
• 1:31:17
  family atmosphere, they know it's a fun time.
• 1:31:19
  They know they're going to be developed.
• 1:31:21
  They know like success will come on the field, or at least they
• 1:31:24
  hope so. But overall, I think it's just
• 1:31:27
  that atmosphere that, like, the coaches genuinely care and they
• 1:31:31
  want to recruit. It's not that they have to.
• 1:31:34
  Yeah, I can say that because you know, when you go back and look
• 1:31:36
  at like the the draft day thing they had as far as what was it
• 1:31:42
  like signing day when Pride's talking man, he's you can tell
• 1:31:47
  he's dug into the families, he knows all kinds of stories about
• 1:31:50
  moms, brothers, fathers. So, I mean that's not everybody
• 1:31:57
  doesn't do that. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:31:58
  I ain't going to say that's the blueprint because you got some
• 1:32:00
  coaches that bigger programs that just that's not what they
• 1:32:03
  do. You know they may be an ex as a
• 1:32:04
  old guy. They may have a person that
• 1:32:07
  handles that you know, but prize taking that and like you said, I
• 1:32:10
  can see where they've taken the family mantra and they they they
• 1:32:15
  really live it. So that's that's pretty cool.
• 1:32:19
  Well, the other thing, Tali, you mentioned about that is the
• 1:32:22
  bigger programs. I don't think that resonates
• 1:32:25
  with them. I think that because what we're
• 1:32:28
  Ohio State, you want to go to league, you want $1,000,000.
• 1:32:31
  Right. Come here.
• 1:32:33
  That's all they've got. Now what you see a lot of times
• 1:32:36
  is people go there and they come out with the stories of, man,
• 1:32:39
  they were assholes like like, you know, and that's OK, that's
• 1:32:44
  OK. It's football.
• 1:32:45
  People have to be jerks. You got to be assholes because
• 1:32:47
  you're trying to get the best out of them.
• 1:32:49
  But the whole thing you hear so many times is they were two
• 1:32:54
  faced. They got me in that door and
• 1:32:57
  immediately they were different people.
• 1:32:59
  And it feels like to me. And again, having Kevin drones
• 1:33:04
  shout out Kevin, I know Kevin was listening, is listening
• 1:33:06
  tonight and having other people talking with his.
• 1:33:09
  Now these guys aren't like they going to be straight up with
• 1:33:12
  you. They're going to be straight up
• 1:33:13
  with you from day one. And I'm sure there's some of the
• 1:33:16
  tougher conversations that they have with these kids that they
• 1:33:19
  continue having where it's, you know, you're Alabama, you're
• 1:33:23
  Georgia, You don't, you don't have to have those hard
• 1:33:25
  conversations because you know what?
• 1:33:28
  You don't want us. You're OK.
• 1:33:31
  That kid right there he wants is just as bad.
• 1:33:34
  Right. I think too, like again no shade
• 1:33:37
  to some of the other schools I mentioned, like they do have
• 1:33:40
  proven recruiters, They do have good connections with kids.
• 1:33:43
  I think the difference is where Virginia Tech has been, there's
• 1:33:47
  more of that like urgency in the recruiting process.
• 1:33:50
  You kind of mentioned it like these other schools, they have
• 1:33:52
  brands, they've been at the top. They they year in, year out,
• 1:33:56
  they're bringing in guys no matter what they say, what they
• 1:33:59
  do. But like for Virginia Tech, they
• 1:34:01
  want to do it the right way. They want to build those
• 1:34:03
  relationships. And I think it's important too,
• 1:34:06
  'cause they're realizing like if you're having these fake
• 1:34:09
  relationships and you're bringing guys in and saying the
• 1:34:12
  right things, like they're just going to enter the transfer
• 1:34:14
  portal and leave. Like they truly want to build it
• 1:34:16
  up. So I think they're they're
• 1:34:18
  investing that time now so that these guys are staying, they're
• 1:34:22
  helping the rebuild, helping get Virginia Tech back to where it
• 1:34:25
  needs to be. Yeah, When you talk about the
• 1:34:27
  transfer portal too, like building those relationships,
• 1:34:30
  even if it doesn't come to fruition, the first go round
• 1:34:34
  with the transfer portal, so many opportunities to get a
• 1:34:37
  second shot at the kid. And if you were building that
• 1:34:40
  relationship to begin with, when you look like a kid, like Kelvin
• 1:34:43
  Gilliam like that, that's an opportunity that you know you
• 1:34:46
  stick with it, you keep going and then you know it comes back
• 1:34:49
  around for you and you're able to to to maximize that.
• 1:34:52
  So that's really important and I think the staff has done a good
• 1:34:55
  job about the. 100% APR too, you know, that's.
• 1:34:58
  Exactly what I was going to say, I was going to say, it comes
• 1:35:00
  down to you know what I'm saying, You, you.
• 1:35:03
  It starts with ideal. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:35:06
  Like you're selling your business plan and you go and try
• 1:35:08
  to get a loan from the bank. You got to make it look good.
• 1:35:10
  So the bank gives you the loan. Well, now I put that in football
• 1:35:14
  perspective, probably came out and said, hey, this is what we
• 1:35:17
  want to do. This is how we're going to do
• 1:35:18
  it. Then you go get a kid like APR
• 1:35:20
  and he comes in and he produces. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:35:23
  You say, hey, I need you to come.
• 1:35:25
  You know you can come in. We've seen what you did at
• 1:35:28
  Florida. He comes in Virginia Tech and
• 1:35:31
  he's a star, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:35:33
  And not only is he a star on the fields like everybody, like he's
• 1:35:36
  a legend in in Virginia Tech fan eyes.
• 1:35:39
  You know what I'm saying? So you can use that story now to
• 1:35:43
  sell that to the next recruit on on in the transport.
• 1:35:47
  Look at, look, look at Kyra drones.
• 1:35:50
  You know he was a Texas kid that was at Baylor.
• 1:35:53
  You know, we've heard his story and then boom, we pulled him to
• 1:35:56
  Virginia Tech to Blacksburg. And the kid is already being
• 1:36:00
  mentioned with, you know, I don't want to put too much
• 1:36:02
  expectations on his back, but he's already been mentioned with
• 1:36:05
  the likes of Tyrod and, you know, Jerrod Evans and, you
• 1:36:09
  know, Hidden Hooker. So.
• 1:36:12
  I can't remember the Twitter account, but there was one out
• 1:36:15
  there that was, you know, dropping the stats for JT
• 1:36:19
  Daniels and Kyron drones and they were very eerily similar in
• 1:36:23
  a lot of those key factors. And so it's it's kind of crazy
• 1:36:27
  seeing like that vision play out for that that the coaches
• 1:36:30
  presented, because the coaches sold a vision when there wasn't
• 1:36:35
  production to back it up and we finally got some production to
• 1:36:39
  back it up. Now it's about taking that next
• 1:36:41
  step. But it's also, we've said it how
• 1:36:44
  many times, and I think we've said it with, I know you've been
• 1:36:46
  on here, Matei, the APR, he came in, he produced, they went and
• 1:36:50
  got all those receivers. Last year you saw Ollie Jennings
• 1:36:52
  that first game blow up and then he gets hurt.
• 1:36:55
  Jay Lane, Quan Felton. Great years.
• 1:36:58
  Every guy that stepped foot on the field out of the portal, so.
• 1:37:02
  Now they can't. Forget to, but that whole piece
• 1:37:07
  is now all right. A lot of these guys are going to
• 1:37:10
  be leaving that portal is going to become easier because they're
• 1:37:13
  going to walk in. You see our system, you see
• 1:37:15
  production. Why aren't you going to come
• 1:37:18
  play here? They look and and and and it's
• 1:37:21
  going to get to a point, in my opinion, that there's going to
• 1:37:24
  be big, big names at big, big schools that they're going to go
• 1:37:28
  flow, they're going to mess with.
• 1:37:29
  They're going to say you go ride the bench another year over
• 1:37:32
  there. You come here.
• 1:37:34
  Look. Look what we've done.
• 1:37:36
  Look what we've done. All right, Sheldon, I know
• 1:37:39
  you've got one more you want to talk with here as we wrap it up
• 1:37:42
  with Matasys tonight. Go ahead, Sir.
• 1:37:45
  Yeah. So this year 2024 grid
• 1:37:49
  recruiting class for Pride from a numbers perspective, class
• 1:37:52
  average was around or over 88, which I think looking at the
• 1:37:56
  numbers right now was the best in sort of the modern era.
• 1:37:59
  And I know it's, it's easy in today's day and age, I feel like
• 1:38:02
  to maybe downplay high school recruiting within the age of the
• 1:38:05
  transfer portal. But Pride's talked all the time
• 1:38:07
  about how he wants to build this program off the backs of high
• 1:38:10
  school recruiting and sort of use the portal to supplement
• 1:38:13
  here and there. What is the what is the buzz
• 1:38:17
  amongst your colleagues 24/7 and just the other inside voices
• 1:38:21
  about about recruiting for this class and just how much
• 1:38:23
  anticipation there is? Yeah.
• 1:38:25
  I mean, I certainly thought that last year was kind of the
• 1:38:28
  anomaly where you know they're taking 16 guys, taking a handful
• 1:38:32
  of transfer portal ads, spaces were limited, not a ton of
• 1:38:37
  seniors, not a ton of attrition. I think natural attrition was,
• 1:38:41
  you know, right in line with kind of what we expected.
• 1:38:44
  But I think you know going into 2025 we're actually going to
• 1:38:48
  kind of see somewhat similar like I don't I think the day and
• 1:38:53
  age of getting 25 kids from high school are just completely done
• 1:38:57
  like most programs across the country are not going to take
• 1:39:01
  massive, massive classes. I think we'll see something like
• 1:39:05
  18 to 21 range with this class depending on you know, available
• 1:39:09
  talent guys that they really like positions that they want to
• 1:39:13
  fill up. But other than that, I think you
• 1:39:15
  don't keep that flexibility to add some guys from the transfer
• 1:39:19
  portal is huge. We've seen the success rate so
• 1:39:22
  far. So definitely think it's going
• 1:39:26
  to be in the same range and look like you look at last year they
• 1:39:30
  have what the 47th overall class and people are like you know
• 1:39:33
  you're talking about the but when you have a class of that
• 1:39:37
  size, if they were to continue on, if they are taking more
• 1:39:40
  talent, you know assuming they're 86 and up or 87 and up,
• 1:39:44
  you know then you start creeping into the top 30.
• 1:39:46
  So I think if you have a class with higher average recruit
• 1:39:52
  talent that's smaller, you know that if you were to add 8 more
• 1:39:56
  guys, you'd be in the top 25. I think that's the position you
• 1:39:59
  want to be in. It's not about having an
• 1:40:01
  overwhelming amount of numbers, It's about having quality, you
• 1:40:05
  know, late teens and then add some transfer portal guys.
• 1:40:11
  So Patel you think kind of aiming for that 88 average every
• 1:40:14
  year is going to kind of be that goal going forward, trying to
• 1:40:16
  keep that average high regardless of whether where
• 1:40:20
  we're falling on the the total numbers since that does kind of
• 1:40:24
  factor in more than number of the recruits?
• 1:40:26
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean for as long as I've been
• 1:40:28
  doing this, then the goal was always about a top 25 class, A
• 1:40:33
  top thirty class like that. That is what was being said.
• 1:40:36
  And I think, you know, that's kind of shifted.
• 1:40:39
  It's not as important to have those top, top, top classes
• 1:40:43
  unless you're bringing in 20 plus guys.
• 1:40:45
  So I think you know it's really important now to fill out your
• 1:40:49
  your spots with the top guys on your board, guys that you really
• 1:40:54
  value highly. And I think that's kind of the
• 1:40:57
  approach that they're going to go with.
• 1:40:58
  And of course like you'd love to have a top 25 class, like who
• 1:41:01
  wouldn't? But yeah at the end of the day
• 1:41:04
  it's a numbers game. You want to make sure that you
• 1:41:06
  have enough room to to. If whatever happens that season,
• 1:41:10
  you need a plug and play some guy like you, you need to have
• 1:41:13
  room for that. Yeah.
• 1:41:14
  And I guess we're still kind of seeing some of the after effects
• 1:41:17
  of the COVID year for a lot of these these high schools
• 1:41:21
  recruits. So that's probably maybe this is
• 1:41:24
  the last cycle and and it kind of starts to go away a little
• 1:41:26
  bit heading into 2026. But seems like this is going to
• 1:41:30
  be the last year that's majorly affected by that.
• 1:41:32
  Yeah, I mean wasn't there that there's like an Oregon, former
• 1:41:36
  Oregon tight end that's like playing his eighth year or
• 1:41:39
  something is in 9th year it's 8. Say it's the kids should.
• 1:41:45
  I hope it's the last year of that because like it's, it's
• 1:41:47
  hard to keep track of. Well, I mean, you always get it.
• 1:41:51
  Like, you know, if people get hurt, yeah, you want to give
• 1:41:54
  them that chance, right? But it's like once you hit year
• 1:41:58
  six, get out. You just taking up a college tip
• 1:42:02
  spot, like go get on with your life unless you're trying to get
• 1:42:06
  a doctorate and you don't want to pay for.
• 1:42:09
  It fair enough. I mean, right?
• 1:42:11
  Well, I'm trying to get a doctorate and something crazy
• 1:42:14
  and get out of here and make some money and I don't have any
• 1:42:16
  debt so I get that Brian Shelton, Telly, y'all.
• 1:42:19
  Got anything else from the Tay sis tonight?
• 1:42:22
  I don't, man. It's been a wonderful time as.
• 1:42:25
  Always Mattei appreciate you coming on as always, man.
• 1:42:27
  It's always a blast when you're here.
• 1:42:29
  Love talking recruiting obviously, but you're you're not
• 1:42:32
  just a recruiting guy, you you have an all around knowledge of
• 1:42:35
  of Virginia Tech and the sport in general.
• 1:42:37
  So we really appreciate that. I appreciate you guys.
• 1:42:40
  I think I'm I'm getting up there with most recurring maybe.
• 1:42:43
  Hopefully so. You you are fighting Mike
• 1:42:46
  McDaniel right now for it. So if you want to sneak one on
• 1:42:48
  just to come shoot shit with us one night, you can pass Mike.
• 1:42:52
  Oh yeah. I'll just come on for 5 minutes
• 1:42:53
  just to pass, yeah. Just just say pass Mike but man
• 1:42:57
  let me tell you the The thing is we we have you on you know we'll
• 1:43:00
  obviously we'll look to summer to have you on again once we get
• 1:43:03
  in that hotbed of recruiting calm in July.
• 1:43:06
  But it's every time you come on here you're you educate us on so
• 1:43:10
  many things. I mean there's so many names now
• 1:43:12
  that we're thinking about and the direction of this class is
• 1:43:14
  going to go. But the other thing I'll say is
• 1:43:16
  this you're a Virginia Tech alum.
• 1:43:19
  You love this program like you love it.
• 1:43:22
  We know that, we know from having conversation with you
• 1:43:24
  absolutely love this program and it shows in your work, it shows
• 1:43:27
  in the passion, dedication and then we we are really appreciate
• 1:43:31
  you sort of being our guy 247 for the last three years.
• 1:43:36
  Three years. Yeah, three years.
• 1:43:38
  Yeah, it don't seem like three years, but it's three years,
• 1:43:40
  mind. It.
• 1:43:41
  It really is. Time flies, man, but we
• 1:43:43
  appreciate you always coming on. And tonight with Mutasis that
• 1:43:48
  wraps up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast, brought
• 1:43:51
  to you by Main Street Pharmacy Curtis Wilson.
• 1:43:54
  Brian Siegler, Jonathan Talley. Kelton Moss.
• 1:43:59
  And with our guest Mutasis from 247, check him out on 247 right
• 1:44:03
  now. Are y'all running?
• 1:44:04
  Any specials that you know of? Not that I know of.
• 1:44:08
  Evan will probably kill me for that, but I do not know right
• 1:44:10
  now, so I'll check it out. Go visit Vt Scoop for all the
• 1:44:14
  specials. Check out Matei's articles on
• 1:44:18
  there. Absolutely we do.
• 1:44:21
  Thank you And visiting visiting our website
• 1:44:24
  boundarycornervt.com. Listen to all of our episodes,
• 1:44:28
  go back and check out last year and what Matei said.
• 1:44:30
  He won't lie about 2024. He spoke some truth on this
• 1:44:33
  episode. Check out the merchandise shop
• 1:44:35
  while you're there. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook,
• 1:44:37
  Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube account.
• 1:44:40
  Always on all your favorite podcast sources.
• 1:44:43
  You know them all. As always, we let our buddy
• 1:44:45
  Jason Long down in the Roanoke Valley play us and play us out.
• 1:44:49
  Check him on March 16th at the Grandin Village Farmers Market
• 1:44:52
  down in Roanoke. He will be there playing live
• 1:44:55
  that morning. Check out his website,
• 1:44:57
  jasonlongmusic.com, where you can get all of his music, his
• 1:45:01
  apple, his Spotify, his YouTube and Facebook pages.
• 1:45:04
  We thank you all out there for listening tonight.
• 1:45:06
  And as always, let's go the.