Latest / Boundary Corner Podcast / The Re Return

Transcript

The Re Return · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 0:00
  Alright. And welcome back to the Boundary
• 1:22
  Corner Podcast, a part of the College Shuttle network along
• 1:26
  with my partners, Brian Look, Don, the Tally, Shelton Moss and
• 1:30
  our special guest from 247 Sports tonight.
• 1:32
  PT scoops on Matae Sis. I am Curtis Wilson and we are,
• 1:37
  as always, brought to you by the Counts Family Pharmacy and
• 1:41
  Doctor Jeremy Counts down at 301 S Main St. in Blacksburg.
• 1:47
  Go to see him when you can. We are also brought to you by
• 1:50
  Moments on the Maury, Moments on the Mori on by proud Hokie
• 1:54
  located outside of Lexington, VA.
• 1:56
  Looking for a getaway spring, summer or fall next year?
• 1:59
  Take a look at Moments on the Mori.
• 2:01
  Fishing kayak and relaxing by the fire pit down by the river.
• 2:06
  We're just hanging out on the back deck.
• 2:07
  Awesome place to go. I'm going to give you a
• 2:10
  shameless plug and tell you real quick for 247 Sports right now,
• 2:13
  you can join 247 Sports. Get all the inside scoops, save
• 2:18
  50% off the annual membership. OK, y'all at top now because I'm
• 2:25
  at breath. Take a breath, Curtis.
• 2:28
  Take a breath. You can, you can sip on a brew.
• 2:31
  I think you've also got some some ultra.
• 2:34
  There you were. You were pounding earlier.
• 2:36
  How long Mickey all? Hey, hey, hey, how you been,
• 2:39
  man? I'm good.
• 2:41
  I know we were chopping it up a bit before but always excited to
• 2:45
  be on here. We got the full crew today.
• 2:47
  I saw the new intro that got me fired up so just excited to chat
• 2:52
  with you guys. It's always just it's, it's the
• 2:54
  best coming on here, so really looking forward to it.
• 2:58
  Let's say we are always excited having you on here because we we
• 3:02
  talked recruiting and we get to talk some recruiting in a very
• 3:05
  positive light this time. But we also have some some
• 3:08
  interesting things swirling about on the staff hires.
• 3:12
  So we got a couple fun things to to chop it up with you on
• 3:16
  tonight. 100%, 100% Mateis got the knowledge.
• 3:22
  Cannot wait to hear what you think about the 26, about the
• 3:25
  staff hires. Shelton, it's been a while since
• 3:29
  you showed up. How's life, big guy?
• 3:32
  Oh, it's been good, man. I'm just going to go going all
• 3:35
  over the place. Been to DC couple times last two
• 3:37
  weeks working with with basketball.
• 3:40
  So yeah, man, I've been obviously plugged in.
• 3:44
  We'll talk about the the coordinator hires certainly some
• 3:48
  some some polarizing takes on the TLII saw a lot of that.
• 3:52
  I think some people kind of leaning into, you know, it's a
• 3:56
  let their voices be heard. But yeah, definitely, definitely
• 3:59
  excited about positive hoking. News.
• 4:05
  Good to hear, Tally. Are you there, Tally?
• 4:12
  Paige and Tally. Paige and Tally Sally was having
• 4:16
  desktop issues a few moments ago.
• 4:18
  Can you hear us, Tally? You can't hear us.
• 4:22
  I we can figure that out. We can figure getting you the
• 4:25
  phone out. It's it's the youth freezing
• 4:28
  that we have issues with. Can you hear me now?
• 4:31
  All right, we're going. We're going to give him a second
• 4:35
  Tally. Just talk whenever you need to
• 4:39
  Tally. But we are going to unload a lot
• 4:42
  tonight. We do have the staff hires.
• 4:46
  He is moving. I can hear it.
• 4:49
  I can hear it. We can hear you now.
• 4:52
  All right, Can you hear us? He's back.
• 4:56
  He's back, OK, We we can deal with that.
• 4:58
  We can deal with it. But we are going to talk to
• 5:00
  staff hires. We are going to talk to class of
• 5:02
  26 what, what a, what a show that was last week.
• 5:06
  But before we start with anything, it broke, I want to
• 5:10
  say about two hours ago, roughly about 7:00.
• 5:15
  And this is this is big news for anyone that is a Virginia Tech
• 5:18
  fan. Michael Vick is going to be
• 5:21
  inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame next
• 5:25
  season. Well deserved.
• 5:28
  A a a man who truly not only put this team on the map, you know,
• 5:33
  20. It's getting close 26 years ago
• 5:36
  now, but also really changed the way college football was played
• 5:41
  in the way the quarterback position was played.
• 5:44
  So him getting his flowers is awesome.
• 5:46
  I don't know what y'all want to say on that.
• 5:48
  Feel free, gentlemen. It's been a long time coming.
• 5:51
  Well deserved. Glad that it's happening as
• 5:54
  we're kind of getting our shit back together a little bit on
• 5:59
  the on the coaching front, especially with the way this
• 6:02
  class got put together. I think it's just it's good
• 6:04
  timing all around. Good way to kind of you know, re
• 6:09
  re establish Virginia Tech as a national brand.
• 6:13
  I think it's all aligning well for Virginia Tech and just it's
• 6:16
  a great honor for him and like I said, well deserved it.
• 6:20
  Like I said, long time coming I. Agree everything y'all saying is
• 6:26
  true. Like you said it's a long time
• 6:29
  coming. He overcame a lot, changed the
• 6:31
  game of football and you can't talk about the the game of
• 6:36
  football without. So I feel like players like that
• 6:40
  discern Hall of Fame Dame, that's what he did.
• 6:45
  So I'm like him, love. It because that's what he's
• 6:51
  going to say nothing. I'm excited.
• 6:57
  We we, we just barely can hear you just so you know, so you
• 7:02
  might want to try the bugs again like it's picking you up again.
• 7:07
  I don't want to, I don't want to curse it, but I know the buds
• 7:11
  weren't working. If you do the buds, you might
• 7:13
  have to go into the little app and change it.
• 7:15
  But but tell you while he's trying to figure that out, what
• 7:18
  about you and Shelton? You can go after him and tell
• 7:19
  you about this induction for Mike Vick.
• 7:22
  Yeah, I think you guys covered it pretty well.
• 7:24
  It's obviously a huge honor. You know, he changed things for
• 7:27
  Virginia Tech. It's, you know, he's he's the
• 7:31
  guy that you think of when you think of Virginia Tech.
• 7:33
  You still see his jerseys at all the tailgates, you know, just an
• 7:37
  electrifying player. And, you know, he's been a great
• 7:39
  ambassador for Virginia Tech and just happy that he got his
• 7:43
  moment. I know tonight was big and
• 7:46
  obviously got a lot of recognition on the on the
• 7:49
  timeline there, but we'll be even bigger when he's, you know,
• 7:52
  actually inducted. Yeah, I just, I just saw it on
• 7:58
  Twitter. It's pretty good.
• 8:00
  Obviously the NFF is a really well, well, regular
• 8:04
  organization. I think.
• 8:05
  I think for me, the the thing that you know, I admire the most
• 8:08
  about Victoria is just, you know, his redemption story and
• 8:11
  you know, how much, how much effort he's made to, you know,
• 8:13
  redeem himself as a person and just all the good he's been
• 8:16
  doing. Obviously coaching now, which is
• 8:18
  great. So hoping you get things turned
• 8:21
  around there, down there and in Norfolk.
• 8:22
  But great, great story and really tremendous honor for him.
• 8:28
  All right, Was he back? Let's see if he's back here.
• 8:34
  Can you hear us, Tally? You can hear us.
• 8:37
  Don't talk so I can hear you. Can you hear me?
• 8:41
  It's all come together. It all works out.
• 8:45
  All right. It's all right.
• 8:50
  We still got you. All right, well, let's get to
• 8:53
  it. What we talked about at the top,
• 8:55
  the big news of the last few days.
• 8:58
  And let's start with Sunday. So everybody's hanging out, you
• 9:04
  know, probably most of us watching football.
• 9:06
  Brian just trying to get through his fantasy match up because he
• 9:10
  was in a war to make the last playoff spot and he did.
• 9:12
  It got it. Man, I got it.
• 9:14
  Done. I got it done man thank you. 52
• 9:17
  yard touchdown from Saquon Barkley on the fake tush push
• 9:22
  that solidified the win for me. Yeah, but so we're all doing
• 9:27
  that and having fun, you know, dinner.
• 9:29
  I'm sure you're doing things with your family, all of us
• 9:31
  having meals, whatever. Watching Sunday and all of a
• 9:34
  sudden, Pete Nacos forever at the other one.
• 9:38
  Yeah. I'm not going to mention their
• 9:39
  name tonight with you on the day, but Pete Nacos makes a
• 9:42
  mention. Print Pry will be the next
• 9:45
  defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech.
• 9:49
  You are our esteemed guest, so I will give you the four first.
• 9:51
  What was the first thought that popped in your mind when you
• 9:54
  read that or when someone texted you?
• 9:56
  Probably you, you probably knew it an hour before it broke.
• 9:58
  And you're just like, how do I, how do I break this down?
• 10:01
  I mean, I can give a little back story on just like my whole
• 10:04
  process. Obviously we had been hearing
• 10:07
  for a while that Brent Pryor was going to be involved in some
• 10:10
  way. In my mind when I read that, I
• 10:12
  thought, OK, analyst makes sense, doesn't have to move, you
• 10:16
  know, buy out money, however that works.
• 10:18
  We started hearing more and more towards the end of last week
• 10:23
  that like it was legitimate interest in the defensive
• 10:27
  coordinator position day by day kept materializing.
• 10:31
  We heard a couple other names of people that were potentially
• 10:34
  interviewing for the position. But I would say as of I think it
• 10:39
  was Sunday or Saturday night, once the news broke, that's kind
• 10:44
  of when everything kind of came together and you know, we had
• 10:48
  been talking about how do we prepare for this and what's the
• 10:51
  reaction going to be? I think my first initial
• 10:54
  reaction, it was just like, this is super weird.
• 10:57
  And like I've had a couple days to sit with it and I think, you
• 11:01
  know, I'm somewhere, I'm still in the confused camp a little
• 11:05
  bit. Like I see the I see the
• 11:08
  benefits of it. I think when James Franklin took
• 11:13
  over, and we've kind of seen and we'll get it into it with the
• 11:16
  next hire, but he's really trying to build this thing with
• 11:20
  guys that he trusts. And you know, when he kind of
• 11:23
  got ran out of Penn State, he was kind of at a moment in his
• 11:27
  career where he had to make those big hires and kind of go
• 11:31
  outside of his tree. And I think he's someone that,
• 11:35
  you know, knows what he has. And Brett Pryor, I think they
• 11:37
  had nine top 25 defenses together from Vanderbilt and
• 11:42
  Penn State working together. He's someone that when the
• 11:46
  talent level is right, he he does the job well.
• 11:50
  And I think when you look at the downsides to Brent Pry over his
• 11:54
  time, it's obviously been his head coaching capabilities.
• 11:58
  I think everyone knows he loves Virginia Tech.
• 12:01
  He endorsed it for James Franklin.
• 12:03
  We saw the emotional reaction in the introductory press
• 12:06
  conference. I think none of us, like we all
• 12:09
  kind of joked like maybe maybe that they'll get the band back
• 12:13
  together. But I think, you know, you
• 12:15
  definitely have to swallow a lot of pride to be able to come
• 12:18
  back. And it's definitely a weird
• 12:21
  thing. I've never seen something like
• 12:22
  this before. But I think, you know, James
• 12:25
  Franklin had to revalidate that decision, opted in and said, I
• 12:31
  want Brent Pry like he's the top guy if you take it from a
• 12:34
  candidate position. And, you know, Brent Pry had to
• 12:37
  opt in too. So I think if you have that
• 12:39
  trust, you have the proven track record.
• 12:43
  He's a guy with now head coaching experience, for
• 12:45
  whatever that's worth from his time at Virginia Tech.
• 12:48
  So I think you can look at what he's done with James Franklin as
• 12:53
  a defensive coordinator and say I like this.
• 12:55
  But then the flip side is I know people have been talking about
• 12:58
  how how the defenses fared over the past couple years, the hires
• 13:04
  that he's made and kind of his evaluations on defense.
• 13:08
  I think a lot of that's circumstantial, but at the same
• 13:10
  time, like I understand the criticisms of the hire as well.
• 13:14
  So I'm somewhere in that confused boat.
• 13:17
  I think ultimately I do like the hire and I think it's pretty
• 13:21
  cool to see kind of unprecedented.
• 13:24
  But ultimately it's a guy he trusts the most.
• 13:27
  And you know, James Franklin is willing to take that bet all.
• 13:32
  Right, Sally, you're holding laughs with like Ellis.
• 13:36
  Tell them go next. So your thoughts, you thought
• 13:40
  here you go in the film statistics about being trained
• 13:44
  here and stuff. When it broke, what was your
• 13:47
  first? Yeah, so when it first broke, I
• 13:51
  had to check that the the Twitter account wasn't a troll
• 13:55
  because that's actually what I thought.
• 13:56
  Like I had to verify multiple times that this was a legitimate
• 13:59
  account. We need that because I just had
• 14:00
  no idea that this was even being considered a possibility.
• 14:04
  I was pretty shocked. I I I thought it was a little
• 14:07
  bit weird, not necessarily bad, but just a little weird that he
• 14:09
  would bring a guy who you know, who who things didn't end very
• 14:13
  well as as head coach. The team apparently kind of quit
• 14:15
  on him. But you know, that being said,
• 14:17
  he's does have very good defense coordinator chops.
• 14:19
  I think when you look at it from a statistical standpoint,
• 14:23
  obviously he put together a lot of good defense state.
• 14:26
  I would say in general, I think prize a coach that is that is
• 14:29
  going to put a product on the field that is equal to his
• 14:33
  talent level. I think he generally performed
• 14:34
  pretty up to, you know, up to par with the talent that he had.
• 14:37
  He didn't necessarily over perform, but he also didn't
• 14:39
  underperform either. So whatever talent that Franklin
• 14:41
  can assemble around him is probably, you know, going to be
• 14:44
  reflected on the field. So in that sense, I'd say, you
• 14:46
  know, if they recruit well, I expect him to put a good defense
• 14:49
  on the field because I trust prize defensive instincts for
• 14:51
  the most part. But, you know, his time at BT,
• 14:55
  you know, they had a decent year in 2022 with a not great roster,
• 14:59
  but there were also some developmental issues.
• 15:01
  Linebacker, they couldn't figure that out.
• 15:03
  You know, the defense kind of underperformed in 2024.
• 15:07
  Now this fell apart this year. Again, I know that's not saying
• 15:09
  it's all prize fault, but he is, you know, a defensive on head
• 15:12
  coach and he does have to take, you know, some degree of
• 15:14
  responsibility for that. So I think on balance, it's
• 15:19
  interesting, unconventional, intriguing.
• 15:22
  I don't know exactly what words describe it.
• 15:24
  I'm not by any means pushing the panic button.
• 15:27
  I just thought it was not the route they were going to go.
• 15:29
  So I'm still trying to kind of process all that.
• 15:32
  Tally, can you just say check 1-2, can I hear you check?
• 15:39
  1-2 you all. Right.
• 15:42
  We can hear you. I'm going to let Brian go and
• 15:44
  then we'll get you back in, OK? Just make sure you're still
• 15:46
  hearing us, Brian. Still freezing?
• 15:49
  You're still freezing, but I can hear you.
• 15:51
  I can deal with you freezing as long as I can hear you.
• 15:54
  There we go. There we go.
• 15:55
  Brian. Your take?
• 15:59
  I thought it was weird, but a kind of a good weird, mainly
• 16:06
  because I think it's, it's a, it's a low risk higher overall.
• 16:13
  I I think with, with Brent Pry, you know what you're getting
• 16:16
  the, the resume is there. We've seen what his output
• 16:20
  output can look like, especially if you can get top 25 talent
• 16:24
  around him. And on that defense, he's going
• 16:27
  to put up consistent defenses. There's a reason that he was
• 16:33
  elevated to a point where the Virginia Tech job was on the
• 16:36
  table for him, and that's because he performed well at
• 16:38
  Penn State in the defensive coordinator role and he had a
• 16:43
  personality that some thought would would would be a really
• 16:47
  good asset as a head coach. So you still get all of that
• 16:52
  without the areas of deficiency that we have seen from Brent
• 16:56
  Pride, which is building a coaching staff, you know,
• 17:03
  getting things going from a full roster standpoint, especially
• 17:06
  when you look at position groups like online.
• 17:09
  I know Sheldon, you mentioned linebacker as well.
• 17:12
  You know, a couple other position groups that struggled
• 17:14
  and obviously the the game day and game management struggles
• 17:17
  that we saw during his tenure there.
• 17:19
  A lot of those things go away moving back into the defensive
• 17:24
  coordinator role. The the weird thing is that you
• 17:26
  fired a guy three months ago and now he's back in your building
• 17:30
  in a prominent role with your program.
• 17:34
  And obviously I would, I would assume that Franklin probably
• 17:39
  had some degree of conversations with this this roster before
• 17:46
  pulling the trigger on this. So that that's my hope.
• 17:50
  That's my understanding at this point.
• 17:53
  And it sounds like there was enough folks on board where it
• 17:55
  made sense to to to move forward that at least with the guys that
• 17:59
  Franklin's looking to retain on this current roster.
• 18:01
  Yep, we lost Tally. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 18:04
  get my $0.02 before I let him go off it.
• 18:10
  It, it felt weird for like for me, it felt weird for about 30
• 18:13
  minutes. But then I I started thinking,
• 18:16
  but wait a second. If James Franklin had taken
• 18:19
  Florida State or went anywhere else in this cycle, people would
• 18:24
  be lauding the move. Look at him.
• 18:26
  He went right back out, got Brent Pride, got a really good
• 18:28
  defensive coordinator, really good recruiter.
• 18:32
  Guy's not a head coach. Guy's not a head coach at all.
• 18:36
  And and as I sat there, it became less and less weird
• 18:39
  because if we think about a Brent Price feelings towards
• 18:41
  Virginia Tech, watching the Cal game, that videotape of him
• 18:45
  watching his guys down in the Charlotte bar play that game, he
• 18:50
  was openly cheering for him, openly happy that they won that
• 18:52
  game. A lot of coaches can't do that.
• 18:56
  I think Brett Pry understands what he is as a person now.
• 19:00
  He knows what he is a person. I am a defensive coordinator.
• 19:03
  I'm not a head coach. This is what I'm meant to do.
• 19:09
  I love this place. We all know he loves Virginia
• 19:11
  Tech. He felt like it was.
• 19:13
  It gave him the shot to where he wound up today.
• 19:16
  And to me, it's just like if he goes anywhere else, it's not
• 19:20
  weird. It's only weird here if he feels
• 19:22
  it weird. And I have a feeling.
• 19:23
  James Franklin maybe what took to Sunday Matei for everything
• 19:26
  to come down is he probably asked every single player on
• 19:30
  that roster who's going to probably stay if he comes back,
• 19:34
  are you OK with it? And I think if that had went
• 19:37
  sideways, I don't think he's the higher to be a decoordinator
• 19:40
  right now. But that's the way I feel.
• 19:43
  Brian Shelton Matei Feel Tally How do you feel about your boy,
• 19:49
  you know, getting hired as. Do y'all?
• 19:51
  Can y'all hear me? First of all, Yep.
• 19:56
  Can you not hear me at all? Hang on, I can hear you.
• 19:58
  The audio is a little. Yeah, you're a little little
• 20:01
  little. Clown muffled.
• 20:04
  Muffled. Yep.
• 20:07
  So I've been, I think Brett Pry is messing up my my bra.
• 20:12
  Yeah, you're good now. I think that's what's going on.
• 20:17
  Brett is messing me up, but I mean, I don't know, man.
• 20:22
  The initial like I was on vacation when I heard it, so I
• 20:27
  don't know how that came through.
• 20:29
  That was the only thing that came through.
• 20:31
  Brett Pryor, defensive coordinator, while I'm trying to
• 20:34
  enjoy my cruise and I'll live it.
• 20:38
  I was like, what the what are we doing?
• 20:40
  You know, just honestly, it's like, think about you getting
• 20:45
  fired from your job, right? You get fired.
• 20:48
  You don't just get fired like you get fired bad.
• 20:51
  Brian, get the fuck out. You're out of here, buddy.
• 20:54
  You haven't done a good job. Get out.
• 20:57
  You know, just take what you can grab in this little box and have
• 21:01
  a nice life. And then you walk back in the
• 21:05
  building. That's a Friday.
• 21:07
  You get to walk back in the building Monday and see the same
• 21:10
  people that told you to take that box and get out.
• 21:15
  It's just weird. It's crazy.
• 21:18
  It's crazy, man. Like I, that was my initial
• 21:21
  reaction. It's kind of like going through
• 21:24
  a bad divorce and then your mom or dad says she's still a part
• 21:30
  of this family and she's coming to all the family functions.
• 21:33
  You know what? I'm saying you said that to me
• 21:36
  and I cracked up. I cracked up when you said that.
• 21:38
  But, you know, Culverheads have prevailed and thought about it a
• 21:42
  little bit and talked to some people and I'm like, OK, I get
• 21:45
  it. I understand he wants people
• 21:47
  around that he trusts, you know, they're going to raise the
• 21:50
  talent in the in the program. So we've seen what they can do
• 21:54
  when they do have talent. So a lot of times that that's
• 21:58
  what matters. You know, we had some talent,
• 22:00
  but talent will be elevated. I do think Brett Pratt can call
• 22:04
  defense, and I think Curtis put it best.
• 22:08
  If he went somewhere else and all of this happened, nobody
• 22:12
  would have batted an eye. You know, if he would have got
• 22:14
  the job at Florida State and then he brings Brett Pryor on as
• 22:17
  his defensive coordinator, people would probably have been
• 22:20
  over the moon. OK, yeah, he did good.
• 22:22
  But just he or him getting him getting fired and then rehired
• 22:29
  in three weeks or however three months, it was just a shock.
• 22:34
  So I'm interested to see what happens.
• 22:38
  It's going to be Sally went out there and got the the Internet,
• 22:40
  Sally just so he can follow up on on these coaching hires.
• 22:44
  And then he saw Brentavious Pride come across his screen and
• 22:48
  I think. This is the first day I got it.
• 22:52
  Like the third day, you know, I got to like a thoroughly and the
• 22:55
  first thing that I see it pops up if somebody puts that and I'm
• 22:58
  like, like Shelton said, I'm like, this has got to be a joke.
• 23:01
  Like somebody's this is a fake account.
• 23:04
  This is a fake account. Look, when when Franklin got
• 23:08
  hired, you know, there were there were some people were
• 23:10
  like, go ahead and get Brent, bring Brent back right now.
• 23:13
  And like I was like, you know what, I can I can see it happen.
• 23:17
  But like, my first instinct was like, maybe defensive analyst,
• 23:21
  somebody comes in, kills it two years, maybe Brent's that second
• 23:24
  DC higher under Franklin at Virginia Tech.
• 23:27
  I didn't think we'd see it out the gate.
• 23:30
  So that's where it's different for me.
• 23:31
  And it's it's certainly a unique situation.
• 23:36
  But like, to Curtis's point, you know, I think the his time at DC
• 23:43
  at other stops speaks for itself.
• 23:46
  Yeah. I don't think we're like, you
• 23:48
  know, at least on the defense side of the ball.
• 23:49
  We're not, we're not, we're not banking on a risky hire here.
• 23:53
  I mean, this is a guy that, you know, for all intents and
• 23:55
  purposes, when he's had some good players around him, he's
• 23:59
  he's done well. So as long as Franklin and, and
• 24:02
  the rest of the staff can get, you know, top 30, top 25, top 20
• 24:06
  classes coming into Virginia Tech every year, I don't think
• 24:08
  we're going to have a problem on defense.
• 24:10
  Not at all. Also, just to quickly kind of
• 24:14
  put a bow on it, you know, like James Franklin and Brent Pryor
• 24:17
  have known each other for 30 years now.
• 24:19
  There's probably no one else in the industry that James Franklin
• 24:22
  trusts more. And like, I think Sheldon made a
• 24:26
  good point too, that when Brent Pryor was calling the defense in
• 24:28
  2022, like it was a top 45 defense, the talent wasn't all
• 24:33
  there. I think kind of the
• 24:36
  inefficiencies of Brent Pryor as a head coach where like he
• 24:40
  didn't have all the resource. Like I'm not going to put it all
• 24:42
  in the resources, but like he didn't have necessarily the top
• 24:47
  end resources or was a good enough head coach to bring the
• 24:51
  type of talent needed to bolster that defense or the offense or,
• 24:55
  you know, the program in general or bring in the right hires.
• 24:58
  Like, that's his downside. You know, James Franklin and
• 25:02
  Brent Prye, great friends, their families are great friends.
• 25:05
  Like if this works out, the ideal vision, like Brent Prye is
• 25:09
  not leaving probably for another head coaching opportunity.
• 25:13
  Like he's. Going to say.
• 25:14
  Exactly. And like he did get interest,
• 25:18
  Arkansas reached out. They wanted to give him the job.
• 25:21
  Mississippi State was looking at him before Arnett.
• 25:24
  Brent Prye is still very well regarded even elsewhere, right?
• 25:28
  And, you know, I think the downside, like worst case
• 25:31
  scenario it would be, it's almost unimaginable.
• 25:34
  But like, if James Franklin had to fire Brent Prye again, you
• 25:38
  know, or probably gets fired again from Virginia Tech, I
• 25:42
  think that would be insanely awkward.
• 25:44
  But other than that, like you can see the upside with this
• 25:47
  move. All right.
• 25:49
  So I want to get into now what broke earlier today, but I need
• 25:53
  y'all to read the chat before we start.
• 25:55
  Matan, we'll kick it to you first read the chat, but then
• 25:58
  I'm going to kick it to you because we're going to talk
• 25:59
  about what just broke about two minutes ago.
• 26:01
  Tahal, the COOC tight end coach, former Penn State offensive
• 26:07
  lineman, is basically announced. Pete Damel comes out today.
• 26:11
  He is going to be the next offensive coordinator at
• 26:14
  Virginia Tech. He will call plays.
• 26:16
  Matei, I need you. We've been looking at what he's
• 26:19
  coached, but you give me the lens of recruiting because a lot
• 26:25
  of Penn State fans are like crap.
• 26:28
  They frickin stole how And now who do they have in the DMV?
• 26:36
  Yeah, I mean, how's a great recruiter?
• 26:39
  Obviously tight end galore. Coached a bunch of great tight
• 26:43
  ends at Penn State. I think Friar Moose was the
• 26:47
  earliest one. Obviously Tyler Warren had his
• 26:49
  big season. You know, he has guys like Luke
• 26:53
  Reynolds, Andrew Olesh, 4*5* guys, DMV guy through and
• 26:59
  through. I think the interesting thing
• 27:02
  was that they were always going to target him.
• 27:04
  Maybe even we'll see what happens with the transfer portal
• 27:07
  in terms of Penn State tight ends.
• 27:09
  But that's obviously a big part of what Virginia Tech's offense
• 27:12
  is going to look like in the future.
• 27:14
  And, you know, in targeting him, it was interesting that, you
• 27:18
  know, with his name had come up. It was something that we thought
• 27:21
  maybe would be a tight end roll, but ultimately, I think in order
• 27:26
  to get him to Virginia Tech needed that upgraded title.
• 27:29
  I think I understand the Tyler Bowen comparisons like I pointed
• 27:35
  them out today, but I think there's a lot of respect there
• 27:39
  from James Franklin. And again, it's kind of the same
• 27:41
  thing with pride that this is someone who James Franklin has
• 27:44
  worked with for five years. Like really trust him.
• 27:47
  He's a quick mover. He came in as an analyst.
• 27:50
  He's a former Penn State offensive lineman, quickly
• 27:53
  worked his way up to tight ends coach and then Co offensive
• 27:56
  coordinator. I know they do that quite a bit
• 27:58
  at Penn State. And ironically, it's always like
• 28:01
  a tight end coach that has the Co C title.
• 28:04
  But he's just another one that, you know, really well regarded
• 28:08
  by the players, really proven recruiter.
• 28:11
  Obviously, we don't know what that looks like as a play
• 28:14
  caller. That's the one kind of I think
• 28:16
  where everyone's head was at today in terms of, you know,
• 28:21
  they thought they were that Virginia Tech was going to get a
• 28:23
  bigger name. But, you know, they did
• 28:26
  interview some other offensive coordinators.
• 28:29
  One went to Ole Miss today. I think that timing kind of
• 28:31
  speaks for itself, but James Franklin once again kind of made
• 28:35
  the call that after having extremely long interviews with a
• 28:41
  lot of candidates, this is going to be our guy.
• 28:47
  Shelton, any feels on this? Yeah.
• 28:52
  I mean, I think it's I would have preferred someone with a
• 28:56
  little more extensive play calling experience not to, you
• 29:00
  know, down play him. I know he was a cozy for a
• 29:02
  couple years. I don't think he was a play
• 29:05
  caller though. Somebody please Fact Check me if
• 29:06
  I'm wrong about that. Had a couple years at Western
• 29:09
  Illinois as a cozy as well. I know he's a good coach by all
• 29:14
  accounts, a very good recruiter. So I don't want to, you know,
• 29:16
  down play that part of it. I just, I felt like with the
• 29:19
  budget that Tech had, I would have expected more, you know,
• 29:21
  kind of big time hotshot OC hire.
• 29:26
  But, you know, we'll see how it works out.
• 29:28
  I mean, I, I, I feel like, you know, coordinator hire is really
• 29:31
  tough to judge because sometimes, you know, I was
• 29:32
  looking at looking at Siginetti's guys today, you
• 29:35
  know, they both came with them from GMUI mean they didn't
• 29:37
  really have any powerful experience when they came there
• 29:39
  and only, you know, maybe two or three years of, of, you know,
• 29:41
  coordinator experience in general.
• 29:42
  So, you know, there's not like one specific mode that you have
• 29:45
  to have in order to be successful as a coordinator.
• 29:48
  So I try to keep that in mind. But yeah, I mean, it's just kind
• 29:53
  of a, you know, again, kind of like probably a little bit maybe
• 29:56
  slightly more unconventional higher.
• 29:57
  But you know, I'm not going to write off a guy before he's he's
• 30:00
  coached a game of football at BT, So we'll see.
• 30:03
  Brian Siegler. A lot of thoughts on this.
• 30:08
  I'll put you in the middle. Yeah, a lot, a lot of thoughts
• 30:11
  on this when I saw it come through, you know, I started
• 30:17
  doing some digging, doing some doing some research because how
• 30:19
  was the name that had come up early like Patel alluded to, but
• 30:24
  we weren't exactly sure to what capacity that role was going to
• 30:28
  be. You know, now we found out, you
• 30:31
  know, OC play caller, whether or not, you know, there's a Co OC
• 30:36
  down the line that's going to be attached at the hip with with
• 30:39
  how that remains to be seen. But as the rest of this staff
• 30:43
  shapes up, you know, it's it's it's easy to out the gate make
• 30:48
  the comparisons to Tyler Bowen, you know, COC Titans coach at
• 30:53
  Penn State, call plays at AFCS school for one year had a couple
• 30:59
  games where you call plays at Penn State, you know, in the
• 31:03
  last couple years, but but wasn't a full time play caller.
• 31:07
  So very similar resume. But when we look at the
• 31:11
  circumstance of the higher, the circumstance of this higher is a
• 31:14
  lot different. And when I look at the
• 31:17
  circumstance, this isn't a first time full time offensive
• 31:22
  coordinator play caller going into a first time head coach
• 31:28
  situation in Blacksburg like it was with Tyler Bowen and Brent
• 31:33
  Pry. This is a very established head
• 31:36
  coach in James Franklin and offensive minded head coach in
• 31:40
  James Franklin. So I think when you look at this
• 31:45
  situation, it's it's definitely a better situation for a first
• 31:49
  time play caller to come into relative to what Tyler Bone was
• 31:54
  stepping into with Brent Pry in Blacksburg.
• 31:58
  That being said, by all accounts, this was the guy that
• 32:03
  Franklin was ready to hire two years ago before they put AK in
• 32:07
  that role. It sounds like there was push
• 32:09
  from the AD that they wanted a big time name, big time, all the
• 32:13
  all that stuff. And they ended up with AK
• 32:18
  instead of, of of hiring and and promoting howl at that point.
• 32:21
  So that speaks to where James Franklin's head was, you know,
• 32:25
  just two years ago. So yeah, that that's a lot to
• 32:29
  unpack and unwrap there. And then you look at the
• 32:33
  recruiting pedigree, this guy in the DMV area, and I think that
• 32:36
  speaks for itself. And then just the developments
• 32:39
  he's been able to do with his position group.
• 32:41
  We'll see how much of of a hand he has on an individual position
• 32:46
  group as things kind of, you know, flesh out with the rest of
• 32:48
  the staff. But parallels to Tyler Bowen
• 32:52
  aside, and you're not going out there and breaking the bank on a
• 32:58
  more established play caller. Yeah, I think there's there's a
• 33:02
  lot to like about this. But if I think there's there's
• 33:05
  we're still a kind of in wait and see mode to see what the
• 33:08
  quarterbacks coach looks like in particular.
• 33:11
  And then kind of the way the rest of the staff on offense
• 33:14
  shapes up to to kind of help out this first time play caller in
• 33:19
  Blacksburg. You had a chat telling you what
• 33:23
  the quarterbacks coach looked like.
• 33:25
  Well, I know, I know. We we going to talk about that.
• 33:28
  Because yeah, I was just looking away for a little bit.
• 33:30
  Just had a the news broke. On here but tally how do you
• 33:34
  feel about how in general about you know what you've read of him
• 33:37
  and I know you text and talk to people.
• 33:40
  Yeah, so, well, I talked to you that because I was, I was out
• 33:44
  driving first day back at work. So I had to come with Curtis
• 33:47
  because I got a new route. So I was up in Tennessee driving
• 33:51
  and in the country couldn't see nothing and got a camera in my
• 33:54
  car. So I really can't be looking at
• 33:55
  my phone anyway. So I was like, Curtis, tell me
• 33:57
  what's going on because I can't see it.
• 33:59
  So Curtis broke down kind of how he felt and I'm looking at
• 34:02
  things. And then after I get home, I do
• 34:04
  a little bit of research. And I was like, you know what
• 34:06
  that is research matters. It don't matter.
• 34:08
  So I had to go back and think about some of the stuff that the
• 34:13
  coaches say. A lot of times it is coach
• 34:16
  speak. But if you go back and you
• 34:18
  listen to James Franklin in his interviews, he says I've had
• 34:23
  really good players that it don't matter what the play call
• 34:26
  is, they're just good. Like I had Sequan Barkley in the
• 34:29
  backfield and he just went and made plays.
• 34:32
  So when I started thinking about that, I'm like, OK, he's going
• 34:39
  to get people around him that he trusts because he's been at Penn
• 34:43
  State for 12 years, 11 years. And then they go out and get
• 34:47
  this kick ass ADR or DC, right? Who is it?
• 34:51
  What's his name? Nose.
• 34:52
  So they're going to get Nose last year.
• 34:55
  We get fired this year. So I know in his mind, I don't
• 34:59
  know what their relationship is, You know, I don't know what was
• 35:02
  said, You know, behind the scenes and stuff.
• 35:05
  You got to win games, of course, you got to beat certain people.
• 35:08
  But he's been coaching the same for all these years.
• 35:12
  Then you go get this new guy in and all of a sudden everything
• 35:16
  goes to hell in 1/2 basket, right?
• 35:18
  So when you do that and you pay somebody $3,000,000 or
• 35:22
  $2,000,000 or however much money they're getting paid, they're
• 35:26
  probably going to have a relationship with that AD and
• 35:28
  go, hey, I don't like his philosophy or he wants me to do
• 35:31
  this and I don't want to do it. So I just really feel like James
• 35:34
  Franklin said, I just want to get guys around me that I trust
• 35:38
  and I want to go get players that are talented enough to beat
• 35:42
  the players across the field from him.
• 35:45
  He's got the opportunity to do that because what you don't
• 35:49
  spend on coaches, you're going to spend it on NIL.
• 35:52
  You got to go get a quarterback like it didn't matter.
• 35:55
  It didn't matter what we did when Bowen was here, but when he
• 36:00
  had the ball off to Tooting, good things was going to happen,
• 36:03
  right? That's true.
• 36:05
  That's true. We just got him hurt, you know,
• 36:07
  we just got him hurt. We didn't need him hurt.
• 36:09
  But I just think they're going to focus more on, I think
• 36:12
  they're going to focus real heavy on getting the Jimmy
• 36:15
  Jimmies and Jones in. All right, I'm last to go here
• 36:22
  and I've been pretty positive. I'm a pretty positive person as
• 36:25
  most people know me. I I do not like this hire.
• 36:28
  I do not like this hire. And, and y'all are putting some
• 36:31
  good points. He's a good recruiter.
• 36:33
  Tally's putting it up, but we're going to just have really good
• 36:35
  plays and we just call a simple inside zone run.
• 36:37
  They're going to go 75 yards for a touchdown.
• 36:40
  We ain't got to worry about good play calls.
• 36:42
  But I worry he's only called plays one time.
• 36:46
  He's caught a few here and there.
• 36:49
  He does not have the experience. He is 34 years old.
• 36:51
  He is 34 years old and now we're putting him in charge of our
• 36:57
  offense over the last 15 years. I'm stealing this from somebody,
• 37:02
  from my neighbor. The last 15 years, even in our
• 37:05
  bad years, we have not had to worry about defense.
• 37:09
  Even in our bad years, Brent Pryne 2021, that was like a 52nd
• 37:14
  ranked defense. What, literally backs in a bunch
• 37:16
  of guys. We probably wouldn't have been
• 37:18
  on many other rosters. We're turning it over to him.
• 37:23
  I hope I'm wrong. I hope a year from now y'all
• 37:25
  make fun of me and say look how wrong you were, look how wrong
• 37:28
  you were. I'm worried about this hire and
• 37:32
  now I'm even more worried about it because of what just broke 10
• 37:35
  minutes ago now, and that is Danny O'Brien is going to be the
• 37:38
  quarterback coach. Danny O'Brien's been a
• 37:40
  quarterback coach for two years at Penn State.
• 37:43
  Two years. Yes, he did analyst work and he
• 37:45
  did assistant quarterback work. Yay.
• 37:47
  Apparently Trace Mcsorley's coming.
• 37:49
  Yay. The only person right now in the
• 37:54
  room that's still left that has play calling experience is Matt
• 37:58
  Moore. Matt Moore called a Troy.
• 38:01
  He called his first year at West Virginia.
• 38:02
  That is the only other guy who has play calling experience on
• 38:06
  this offense this half. And we don't know if he's going
• 38:08
  to get fired or not. So, Mattel.
• 38:10
  You know who does have have play calling experience?
• 38:13
  But Jimmy Franklin ain't called freaking plays in almost a
• 38:16
  decade and a half, Brian. Have, have, Are you sure about
• 38:20
  that? Because I've seen something safe
• 38:23
  folks say that I, I don't even know who's been calling plays at
• 38:25
  Penn State, but I'm, I'm just throwing it out there.
• 38:27
  So he is a he's, he's still a offensive minded head coach.
• 38:32
  You got to this. This is and, and, and more.
• 38:36
  This is more. This is a better situation than
• 38:39
  a Marvin Pratt situation because he is also not a first time head
• 38:42
  coach bringing somebody along like a Chris Marv.
• 38:47
  And you know who else played quarterback?
• 38:48
  Curtis, James Franklin. That's true.
• 38:53
  All right, Matei. Matei was feverishly,
• 38:56
  feverishly. Let's see.
• 38:59
  Matei is like. He's like, hang on, we're
• 39:01
  breaking some fucking news here. What's the background on Danny
• 39:06
  because I don't have much on him other than I know he coached at
• 39:09
  Penn State, Matei and I'm sure that's what you probably, you
• 39:12
  probably had a note card already on and know how well you're
• 39:15
  prepared. Not not super well, if I'm being
• 39:18
  candid. I know Trace Mcsorley was the
• 39:22
  name that was mentioned there. Didn't quite know what they were
• 39:26
  going to do. Obviously knew O'Brien could be
• 39:29
  the quarterbacks coach that just broke like 20 minutes ago, Matt
• 39:33
  Zeditz from CBS Sports. But I think the connection
• 39:36
  there's, he played at Maryland. I kind of vaguely remember him
• 39:41
  playing there under James Franklin.
• 39:44
  The relationship goes back to, like, 2009, I believe.
• 39:49
  He was a, like a, you know, kind of like the same thing, you
• 39:54
  know, starts off as an analyst, quickly works his way up,
• 39:59
  becomes the quarterback's coach. I think 20 was it last year was
• 40:03
  his first full year. Yeah, last year.
• 40:06
  But Like was working with Sean Clifford in 2023.
• 40:10
  I think, you know, we kind of see it with the last two hires.
• 40:14
  And I think to your point about like James Franklin being
• 40:17
  offensive minded, I think the next step in that is that like
• 40:21
  he's not, it's clear, like it's been clear, but he's not
• 40:27
  outsourcing these jobs to people that he doesn't have a trusting
• 40:31
  relationship with or like he's not just paying off the biggest
• 40:36
  names on the board. I think, you know, I tried to
• 40:40
  hammer that point home that like, these candidates are being
• 40:42
  compared against those outsourcing candidates, and he's
• 40:45
  once again choosing his own guys.
• 40:48
  And I think, you know, there's ego involved with all of this.
• 40:52
  And I think it, you know, whether it's good or bad, we'll
• 40:55
  we'll end up finding out. But I think James Franklin wants
• 40:58
  his own guys and to do it his way and really trust that, you
• 41:02
  know, these guys that have come up with me and will place their
• 41:06
  trust in me, like we'll all do it together.
• 41:09
  So I agree with your points that like if the talent is there,
• 41:13
  they're able to do it. But like it's very clear that
• 41:16
  he's going to do it his way and he's seen a lot of success in
• 41:19
  the past doing it that way. And I think if you can somehow
• 41:22
  translate that PSU model, like we see what the last two hires,
• 41:26
  these are guys that start off as analysts were promoted
• 41:29
  internally. That's kind of his MO.
• 41:31
  Like that's the way he prefers to do it, like bringing on guys,
• 41:35
  teach them from the ground up. And a lot of them have been
• 41:38
  successful. Some of them have moved on to
• 41:40
  other jobs. It's it seems to be that's how
• 41:44
  this staff is going to continue to shake out.
• 41:46
  Maybe a couple big names here and there, but otherwise I
• 41:49
  think, you know, it's going to be his guys.
• 41:53
  What you mean a couple big names here?
• 41:55
  Wait a minute mate. OK.
• 41:59
  Laying it out here, Shelton, anything on this?
• 42:01
  I mean, it looks like you're reading too, so.
• 42:05
  Yeah, I was doing some dig on his background.
• 42:07
  Obviously you mentioned offensive end of this for a
• 42:09
  couple years, three years and then one is Aga and then the
• 42:13
  past 2 is quarterbacks coach. So a little bit of a thin
• 42:16
  resume. It just mainly just one program.
• 42:18
  It gives a little bit of pause. But I, I saw I was thinking
• 42:21
  about this, you know, I don't think like, you know, at this
• 42:25
  point in, in Virginia Tech's, but you know, where, where they
• 42:29
  are as a program. You know, the money we're
• 42:30
  putting in, the coaching staff that, you know, we, we'd like to
• 42:33
  have, you know, we expect to compete for playoff spots.
• 42:35
  You know, we want to be a program like Utah or BYU or
• 42:38
  Vanderbilt that, you know, develops talent and has good
• 42:41
  coaching and, you know, can at least kind of punch by the
• 42:43
  weight class to try to compete for a playoff spot once every
• 42:45
  couple years. You know, So from that
• 42:48
  standpoint, like, you know, 8 to 9 wins might be OK.
• 42:51
  But like, you know, the question we have to ask ourselves is
• 42:53
  like, is this staff, the staff that's going to lead us to, you
• 42:57
  know, competing for playoff spots?
• 42:58
  And, you know, right now I'm a little bit iffy on it just
• 43:01
  because of getting lack of, you know, experience in certain,
• 43:03
  certain spots. You know, doesn't mean to be
• 43:05
  bad, but it's like, you know, again, like what I was talking
• 43:08
  about with the budget we have, like, you know, we were kind of
• 43:13
  expecting a home run higher. And I think, you know, right now
• 43:15
  it's like, OK, maybe we get a double, you know, try to stretch
• 43:18
  into a triple, but it doesn't, it doesn't seem like a home run.
• 43:22
  So that's kind of just, you know, the, the thoughts I've
• 43:23
  been having. It's like, you know, where the
• 43:25
  goals, you know, the goal, the goals are are, you know,
• 43:28
  increased here. So, you know, we want, we want
• 43:30
  coaches that can can match those expectations.
• 43:34
  Yeah. I mean, we, when we look at it,
• 43:40
  we don't really have a lot on O'Brien from a recruiting
• 43:46
  standpoint. It's a very limited sample size.
• 43:48
  So this is probably the first hire that you can't really say
• 43:52
  point to and say this guy is a super plus recruiter because we
• 43:57
  we probably don't have enough data on him at this point to
• 44:00
  really say that one way or the other.
• 44:04
  You know, we we know that the caliber of players that were
• 44:07
  comfortable playing for him that were originally committed to
• 44:11
  Penn State and have since been one of them committed to
• 44:17
  Virginia Tech now. And the other one what went to
• 44:20
  Auburn, went to somewhere else, went back to Penn State,
• 44:24
  whatever, whatever, whatever his his path there was.
• 44:30
  Yeah. That was another player that
• 44:31
  that at one point was also comfortable playing and being
• 44:35
  coached by Danny O'Brien. So, you know, limited sample
• 44:39
  size on what he's doing from the recruiting standpoint.
• 44:42
  So we don't really know what that looks like.
• 44:46
  I'm interested to see if Trace Mcsorley's coming over as like a
• 44:53
  Co quarterbacks coach, assistant quarterbacks coach, what that
• 44:57
  role looks like for him. And you know, we're still, we're
• 45:02
  still got a couple other spots that we got to fill here and,
• 45:05
  and kind of figure out who on the current staff is being
• 45:08
  retained on the offensive side. If anybody.
• 45:12
  You know, I think we've got some some general ideas on that at
• 45:15
  this point, but we haven't heard anything official and really
• 45:18
  none of these, you know, outside of the national publications, we
• 45:20
  haven't really seen any official announcements on this.
• 45:23
  So we're, we're still kind of waiting on the official details,
• 45:27
  titles, roles, all that fun stuff as far as what, what,
• 45:31
  what, what these guys are going to be doing within the, within
• 45:35
  the team other than these, you know, high level official roles
• 45:38
  that, that we have with OC and DC and quarterbacks coach.
• 45:41
  So I'm, I don't feel better about the how higher with the
• 45:49
  Danny O'Brien higher. I, I don't necessarily feel
• 45:52
  worse about it. I feel about the same as I felt
• 45:57
  when when the howl higher came across.
• 46:01
  If we had brought in somebody like Decker from ODU in that
• 46:06
  role and he was a Co OC, I think I'd feel even better about the
• 46:10
  howl higher. This kind of just kind of keeps
• 46:14
  me in a, you know, slightly above lukewarm feeling on the
• 46:19
  howl higher and very much TBD on Danny O'Brien.
• 46:25
  I know you kind of let me. Throw this out.
• 46:27
  Let me throw this out right quick.
• 46:30
  And Curtis, I'm going to let you divvy it up if you want to.
• 46:32
  Can you hear me pretty good? Yeah, you're good.
• 46:34
  You're coming through pretty good.
• 46:36
  So James Franklin got a, what are we #24 are we 24 or 2524 top
• 46:44
  25 class? He got a top 25 class by
• 46:47
  himself. By himself.
• 46:50
  All right, so we're we can sit here and divvy up all of what we
• 46:55
  think about the coach and we know we got to play games and
• 46:58
  all that. I I'm not saying that that
• 47:00
  doesn't matter, But if James Franklin did all of this by
• 47:03
  itself and these guys that have been working with him have been
• 47:07
  developing talent are coming in and then thinking about some of
• 47:12
  the names that we've heard on defense.
• 47:15
  What do you think the the ceiling is for recruiting?
• 47:20
  I didn't even talk about coaching yet.
• 47:22
  What do you think the ceiling is for recruiting on the coaches
• 47:24
  that he's bringing in if he got a top 25 class in two weeks by
• 47:30
  himself? Mate, sis, that is your wheel
• 47:33
  buddy. Where is the ceiling?
• 47:37
  It's it's tough to, it's tough to answer because obviously like
• 47:41
  top 25 is the expectation. I think one of the best parts
• 47:46
  about James Franklin as a coach is bringing in talent and you
• 47:52
  look at the resources that he's paired with and was able to get
• 47:55
  from Virginia Tech. Like I, you know, my personal
• 47:59
  expectations are like right around that top 20 mark.
• 48:02
  I think it's, I remember probably being on this podcast a
• 48:07
  couple years ago talking about Brett Pry and I'm like, you
• 48:09
  know, Top 40, like maybe that's the goal.
• 48:12
  And all of a sudden now you're shifting to top 20.
• 48:15
  But I think like you obviously have so many blue bloods out
• 48:18
  there. And I know like it's, it's a
• 48:21
  constant arms race, like more and more programs.
• 48:25
  Utah just did something today with private equity.
• 48:29
  I'm blanking on the name, but someone just got like a massive
• 48:31
  donation. Michigan State got like 400
• 48:34
  million. Like it's just a constant arms
• 48:37
  race of these programs that are gonna try to keep building it
• 48:40
  up. I think the benefit to James
• 48:43
  Franklin is he's already been in this area.
• 48:45
  He has those relationships and guys like are never like he's
• 48:50
  going to be able to kind of unlock that tier where you can
• 48:53
  still get that elite caliber player without having to pay an
• 48:57
  arm and a leg over the competition.
• 48:59
  Like those relationships still matter at the end of the day.
• 49:02
  So with the blue bloods, like that's usually the top fifteens.
• 49:06
  I think you can see some years where maybe the talent is a
• 49:09
  little richer and Virginia Tech moves up.
• 49:11
  But overall expectation I would say is, you know right around
• 49:15
  that 20 mark all. Right.
• 49:19
  Do you want to add anything else about the QB coach before we
• 49:21
  start pushing along here? I don't know that, man.
• 49:25
  I'm just glad we got a quarterback coach.
• 49:26
  I'm just glad they're not letting offensive line or tight
• 49:31
  end coach, coach the quarterbacks.
• 49:34
  At least put something in there. This doesn't make it to the
• 49:36
  quarterbacks. This is what's sold talent.
• 49:38
  Wait a second. He played quarterback in
• 49:40
  college? Yeah.
• 49:41
  He played quarterback in the Canadian Football League.
• 49:43
  Yeah. I think it said he threw 3
• 49:48
  touchdowns and 10 picks so we don't need him to play all.
• 49:54
  Right before we get into the class of 2026, there is really
• 49:58
  one reason why Danny O'Brien left Finn State.
• 50:01
  He did not want to coach Peyton Thousand because he got rid of
• 50:04
  him once and then he tried to get back on board with him.
• 50:06
  So really, Danny O'Brien just said, I ain't messing with that
• 50:09
  kid. I'm out of here.
• 50:11
  I'm going down to Tech because that class that James Franklin
• 50:15
  pulled in last week, I'm going to start the questions off Brian
• 50:18
  Shelton, get them loaded. But what I want to put it is,
• 50:23
  you know, Brian Dawn said something and mate, you've been
• 50:25
  doing this a while with 247. Have you ever seen anything like
• 50:30
  what happened in that two week span in your in, in like not
• 50:34
  just tech, other place or places that were 50 to like 20?
• 50:37
  Have you ever seen anything like the way this class flipped from
• 50:41
  1:24 to 24 in two weeks? No, not at all.
• 50:45
  And like I think we all knew when James Franklin was going to
• 50:48
  be hired, like he was going to raid the commitment list of Penn
• 50:51
  State. I didn't know how successfully
• 50:53
  he was going to be able to do that, obviously working with a
• 50:56
  two week window, but I've never seen it elsewhere where a team
• 51:00
  has moved up that much. Conversely, I've never seen,
• 51:03
  like, the Penn State slide is probably the biggest slide I've
• 51:06
  ever seen landing with two guys in their class.
• 51:10
  But, you know, I was kind of joking around with some of the
• 51:13
  people like Brian Doan and Evan Colby.
• 51:18
  I was just saying, like, the dopamine we were getting from,
• 51:22
  you know, just writing up the articles, having them ready to
• 51:25
  go, like hearing another one was coming.
• 51:28
  It was just like, it was unbeatable.
• 51:31
  And obviously it happened in a short period of time.
• 51:33
  But these are relationships that spend, you know, years and
• 51:38
  years. So, yeah, James Franklin was
• 51:40
  able to do it. I'm sure, you know, there's some
• 51:43
  whispers that, you know, maybe this guy's going to be your
• 51:46
  position coach. I think that's starting to come
• 51:48
  to fruition now. But ultimately, I mean it, I, I
• 51:54
  thought they would definitely have a chance to push for a, you
• 51:58
  know, top 3530 class. But to land in the top 25 I
• 52:03
  think is insanely respectable and impressive.
• 52:11
  Whoever will stand. Yeah, I mean, seeing, seeing the
• 52:13
  climb was, I mean, it was kind of unprecedented, like going
• 52:18
  from like moving up 100 spots in the rankings.
• 52:22
  I, I don't know if that's ever been done.
• 52:24
  I mean, mate, you can, you can Fact Check me on that.
• 52:27
  But that was a a climb that I was not expecting when when
• 52:31
  Franklin took over, I was like, if this, if this class ends up
• 52:35
  top 50, I'll I'll feel OK, I'll feel like, all right.
• 52:38
  Well, he salvage he salvage the class after, you know, losing
• 52:42
  the coach, losing a couple your your your top flight pieces in
• 52:47
  the class. You know, you, you maybe could
• 52:49
  bring a, a Tommy Wilder back in. You get a couple guys from Penn
• 52:53
  State that are in the four-star caliber and then you kind of
• 52:56
  fill out the rest of the roster with some, with some, you know,
• 53:00
  decent caliber three star guys. And yeah, then we see what
• 53:03
  Franklin was able to throw together in a two week time
• 53:06
  frame and it's it's really impressive because it gives us a
• 53:11
  really good starting point. It got us a whole lot of
• 53:15
  national press, which is coming at a very good time.
• 53:20
  That's one thing that we're seeing with Franklin is that
• 53:22
  when when Franklin does something, the the national
• 53:26
  publications get a hold of it pretty quick.
• 53:30
  So as long as we can keep the ship moving in the right
• 53:32
  direction, that's going to be a big benefit for the brand of
• 53:35
  Virginia Tech. Yeah, I think for me, the, the
• 53:39
  most impressive thing for Franklin is just how much work
• 53:41
  he's put into making this class happen.
• 53:43
  Because you know, that type of that type of shit we've seen
• 53:45
  with this recruiting class is the product of countless hours
• 53:48
  of hard work, you know, making calls, talking to kids, you
• 53:51
  know, convincing them that this is a place that, you know, they,
• 53:54
  they, they want to spend the next, you know, years of their
• 53:56
  career, even though they don't know the entire coaching staff,
• 53:59
  you know, mapping, mapping out, you know, who you want to
• 54:01
  target, Just just all the work that goes into it.
• 54:03
  I know we don't want to throw his predecessor under the bus
• 54:06
  too much because, you know, we, we obviously all love him.
• 54:08
  He's going to be our DC soon. But he unfortunately did not do
• 54:12
  that stuff when he got hired here.
• 54:13
  And I think it was a main contributing factor to, you
• 54:15
  know, how poor his first season was because you just, you just
• 54:18
  got to have a plan. You get hired.
• 54:19
  I think, you know, he's just so relentless as recruiter.
• 54:22
  Franklin. Franklin that is so just, you
• 54:25
  know, credit to him for all the work he's done because that is
• 54:27
  all that is all effort on his part.
• 54:28
  So I think it's, I think it's great to see.
• 54:30
  I think also just his ability to have two weekends was so crucial
• 54:35
  because like whenever we're talking to recruits, whenever
• 54:38
  I'm talking to you guys, it's always the atmosphere is great
• 54:42
  and we love Lane Stadium and all of that is great.
• 54:46
  And you're able to pair that with, you know, not only a home
• 54:49
  weekend, but then the last weekend of the year, which you
• 54:52
  know, having Franklin in Blacksburg while the team is out
• 54:56
  in Charlottesville. Those were two crucial weekends
• 54:59
  to get guys to come on campus. I think there's, you know, a lot
• 55:03
  of lessons in this. But like 1 is that he was able
• 55:06
  to get all those guys to come because they could have gone to,
• 55:09
  they could have gone elsewhere. Some of them did visit over the
• 55:12
  two weeks, other places. But you know, able to keep that
• 55:16
  conversation open, able to get them to campus, explain to them
• 55:20
  what the situation is. And then you're all of a sudden
• 55:23
  you're able to see, OK, this could be my home pair.
• 55:27
  The atmosphere for the guys that were there for the first
• 55:29
  official weekend with the relentless nature of Franklin
• 55:33
  and saying you can help build this place up.
• 55:35
  And, you know, those were crucial, crucial weekends in
• 55:38
  order to make this all happen. Yeah, no.
• 55:42
  And I was going to say just to, you know, kind of go along with
• 55:46
  what Matea is saying and also let Matea kind of giving this
• 55:50
  kudos because I know they do a lot of work and look at a lot of
• 55:52
  fam and interview a lot of, you know, kids that's getting ready
• 55:57
  to go to college and things like that.
• 56:00
  It you have to be able to coach. I do understand that.
• 56:03
  But talking to some of the parents, parents and players are
• 56:07
  really, really impressed with James Franklin, like him just in
• 56:10
  the room. He's going to get in the room
• 56:13
  with some of those kids. And there's no such thing as a
• 56:16
  can't miss prospect because that things happen.
• 56:20
  But when you look at somebody like, I don't know, Trevor
• 56:24
  Lawrence, right? We kind of knew what Trevor
• 56:26
  Lawrence was going to be going to Clemson.
• 56:29
  We kind of knew what they expect, right?
• 56:31
  So Virginia Tech hadn't had very many opportunities to get in the
• 56:34
  room with a player of that caliber.
• 56:37
  I think James Franklin gets you in those rooms, at least to be
• 56:40
  able to talk to those parents again.
• 56:44
  You know, that trying to diverge too much information and stuff
• 56:48
  that I'm not supposed to talk about.
• 56:49
  But we had a kid that was committed elsewhere, had been
• 56:53
  committed elsewhere a long time and recommitted elsewhere.
• 56:59
  And next thing you know, he's sending his stuff into Virginia
• 57:01
  Tech. It's all because of Franklin.
• 57:04
  It's all because of talking to his parents, saying things like,
• 57:10
  I'm sorry, we didn't. I don't know how we missed this.
• 57:15
  You know, this evaluation wasn't, I'm sorry we didn't get
• 57:19
  it, but what can we do now? We're at this place.
• 57:23
  What do we do now? We want you here.
• 57:25
  And this is going to Virginia Tech.
• 57:28
  Matei Tally brought it up and I want you to just hit on it real
• 57:31
  quick. What did go on with I got his
• 57:35
  name here? Hold on with Ty.
• 57:41
  He's committed though. He has signed the line.
• 57:43
  We knew he flipped, but what happened with that?
• 57:46
  Because that seemed like a 180 in less than 20 hours.
• 57:51
  Sorry, I cut out a little bit, you said Tyrell Grant.
• 57:53
  Tyrell Grant flipped. I mean, like Tally said, Tally
• 57:56
  was trying to be nice. I mean.
• 57:58
  Yeah. I mean, he signed.
• 58:01
  So he clearly wanted to come to Virginia Tech, but what
• 58:03
  happened? Because that was like, boom.
• 58:06
  Keep in mind too, like he was committed to Syracuse, visited
• 58:10
  officially to Virginia Tech, so the interest was already there.
• 58:14
  I know he put out a tweet that I think a lot of people are
• 58:17
  referencing that says like 1000% or 10,000% committed to
• 58:21
  Syracuse. That was kind of prompted by
• 58:24
  Syracuse for him to put that out.
• 58:27
  I think the entire time he was kind of thinking, OK, I want to
• 58:30
  make this happen. How do I make this happen?
• 58:33
  What's the right way of doing it?
• 58:34
  And I just think with the timing of everything, that being I
• 58:39
  believe it was Tuesday night of last week and then he announced
• 58:44
  on signing day, I want to say like it was, he was already
• 58:50
  trending that way. And I think some other events
• 58:54
  LED up to it off. We can talk about Matt Sieg if
• 58:56
  we want to, but they were really targeting him as a safety.
• 59:00
  And I think, you know, once they kind of work things out, there's
• 59:07
  multiple components to it. It was just like everything was
• 59:10
  in alignment. And I think he saw it as, OK,
• 59:13
  this is a can't miss opportunity.
• 59:15
  I got to make the switch all. Right.
• 59:18
  I mean that was one that we kind of we saw and we were like, OK,
• 59:22
  that was a little bit of a surprise coming coming down from
• 59:25
  us. But it sounds like, you know
• 59:27
  there was a little bit of that in the works for a little bit
• 59:28
  longer than I think some of us knew there.
• 59:31
  The thing I want to talk about with this class that this is
• 59:36
  this has got to be, I mean, some of it was already being
• 59:39
  addressed before frankly got here, but this is Franklin.
• 59:42
  I think seeing what this current roster is and where the biggest
• 59:46
  hole in the roster is, 6 tackles in this class.
• 59:52
  Talk a little bit about that and kind of some of these guys that
• 59:55
  may have already been on Virginia Tech's radar.
• 59:58
  Obviously Tommy Water was was committed at one point, then
• 1:00:00
  came back. And then maybe some of these
• 1:00:03
  guys that Franklin was able to to to sway in our direction as
• 1:00:07
  things started to wrap up there. Yeah, and I think, you know,
• 1:00:09
  Thomas Wilder coming, coming back was huge.
• 1:00:13
  Obviously had to win that again. He really liked Maryland.
• 1:00:16
  Like I thought for a while he was going to go to UMD, but he
• 1:00:20
  always loved Virginia Tech was, you know, I think James Franklin
• 1:00:23
  was kind of dicing on the cake there to bring him back.
• 1:00:27
  Obviously getting a lot of these guys to visit was big Benjamin
• 1:00:32
  Azuka, He would he came in obviously Penn State flip ace
• 1:00:37
  Hamilton flipped to Michigan. They're kind of targeting like
• 1:00:40
  an interior guy and Azuka like I'm extremely high on him.
• 1:00:45
  I think if he I keep saying like if he were 6566, this would be
• 1:00:50
  like absolute national prospect. He's already highly rated, like
• 1:00:55
  high three star on the verge of a four-star, but you know, 63315
• 1:01:00
  inside guy can play guard, maybe even center.
• 1:01:03
  We'll see how everything shakes out there.
• 1:01:04
  Obviously, Kyle Altuner if he comes back, Marlon Bright up in
• 1:01:10
  New Jersey. I know he played in Class B
• 1:01:12
  competition, but he's just someone that has the body, has
• 1:01:16
  the athletic ability. State champion in in New Jersey,
• 1:01:21
  played some other impressive schools out of state as well.
• 1:01:25
  Again, Penn State flip, Maddox Cochran, he was like, I think he
• 1:01:32
  was big too, Not only like anytime you're talking about
• 1:01:35
  Wisconsin and offensive line category, like give me that guy.
• 1:01:41
  And he was someone that I think on the day that James Franklin
• 1:01:44
  was hired, he decommitted, whatever that means.
• 1:01:50
  But he was someone that was targeted, obviously, like
• 1:01:54
  another tackle guy in state guy getting Tyrell Simpson to
• 1:01:59
  reaffirm massive, massive body. Like, I know he's listed at 6-7.
• 1:02:04
  He might be 6-8. And I think just like with all
• 1:02:08
  of these guys, it's just like their size and ability feels
• 1:02:16
  different than previous classes. And I feel like I've come on
• 1:02:20
  here and probably talked about, oh, Virginia Tech has signed
• 1:02:23
  like 2 commitments this cycle. They can project either way.
• 1:02:29
  It's like a lot of these guys are tackles.
• 1:02:31
  And I think James Franklin was talking about in the press
• 1:02:33
  conference, not that you want to jump too far ahead and say
• 1:02:36
  Virginia Tech's going to the semifinals, but he was like, if
• 1:02:39
  you're playing 16 games, you're going to need that depth on the
• 1:02:43
  offensive line. And they absolutely crushed it.
• 1:02:45
  Not only were they able to get the RE affirmations, Thomas
• 1:02:48
  Wilder back in, get the flip of Cochran, they're able to bring
• 1:02:54
  all the Penn State guys with them.
• 1:02:56
  And I just think it goes to show like that was the major area of
• 1:03:00
  need and they got some really talented players to come along.
• 1:03:05
  Yeah, it's, it's like we lately we've been used to having, you
• 1:03:09
  know, maybe making a, a splash with one of those caliber
• 1:03:13
  players and then like, you know, no knock on Buddy, but a whole
• 1:03:16
  lot of Buddy wagged them kind of in the back and they're kind of
• 1:03:20
  filling out the rest of that class.
• 1:03:21
  And then you've got, you know, he's really, you know, the lower
• 1:03:24
  rated guy, but it's still a Woodbury Forest commit, which is
• 1:03:27
  a place that historically Virginia Tech is not done very
• 1:03:30
  well. And we're starting to make some
• 1:03:32
  some headway in. So it's it's good seeing that
• 1:03:35
  come along in the process as well.
• 1:03:39
  I love the focus in the trenches on really on both sides.
• 1:03:41
  But obviously the offensive line was the area of need for
• 1:03:45
  Virginia Tech. When we look at the biggest
• 1:03:48
  problem with this last year's team, it's we were one injury on
• 1:03:55
  the offensive line away from having no tackles that were
• 1:03:59
  ready to play football. We were one and and.
• 1:04:01
  We lost the guard and had to move the guy we were playing at
• 1:04:04
  tackle into guard and we were a absolute liability right tackle
• 1:04:09
  the rest of the year. And we were a miss a mishmash of
• 1:04:13
  of different players across that line other than Al Tuner, who
• 1:04:17
  was probably the the most consistent player on that
• 1:04:20
  offensive line all year. So getting these guys in the
• 1:04:24
  building and, and obviously seeing what we can do with the
• 1:04:26
  portal is going to be very important.
• 1:04:29
  Yeah, I talked with these guys. I talked to, you know, some
• 1:04:32
  other folks. Knowing who we're targeting in
• 1:04:36
  the portal is going to be just as important in securing a
• 1:04:39
  quarterback in the portal as anything else.
• 1:04:41
  Because if you've looked at this offensive line, you know that
• 1:04:44
  we're going to need some immediate help, even though
• 1:04:47
  we've got some of that long term help coming in with this 26th
• 1:04:49
  class. 1000% there. I want to take it just a couple
• 1:04:57
  different ways because normally we always, it's really weird
• 1:05:01
  because you've been on here before, we always talk about
• 1:05:03
  who's that diamond, Who is the diamond to top the Virginia Tech
• 1:05:07
  recruiting class? And this year was supposed to be
• 1:05:10
  Thomas Wilder with everything that's happened.
• 1:05:13
  I mean, Terry Wiggins, Messiah Thomas, Troy Hume, Davion Brown,
• 1:05:19
  and even get down into Pierce Peterson.
• 1:05:22
  I mean, these guys are super highly ranked guys.
• 1:05:27
  And it's crazy because it's like usually we were like one, maybe
• 1:05:31
  2. It's just like it's 6.
• 1:05:34
  There's six guys. And even if you start going
• 1:05:37
  lower, like a Tyson Harley, I mean, these guys are studs and a
• 1:05:42
  lot of them are already like physically built to get here.
• 1:05:46
  So which one for you that as you started seeing, it's going to go
• 1:05:52
  this way where you're like you're you this you can show
• 1:05:55
  your fandom aside because we know you graduated from tech.
• 1:05:58
  What one did you like? Like as you start seeing the
• 1:06:00
  notes and you get stuff in like, I want him.
• 1:06:02
  Like if we don't get anybody else, if we get this kid, I'm
• 1:06:05
  going to feel. Yeah, I mean it.
• 1:06:07
  It's got to be Terry Wiggins. Like, I know he's at the top,
• 1:06:10
  but like, he is just such an impressive player.
• 1:06:14
  And he was someone being courted by Colorado.
• 1:06:17
  UNC kind of opened things up late there.
• 1:06:21
  But if you just, like, watch him, he is just so impressed.
• 1:06:25
  And you look at it and it's like Virginia Tech hasn't had as
• 1:06:28
  talented of a linebacker since like, I can't even name what
• 1:06:32
  like Tremaine Edmonds, you know, I know Dax was insanely highly
• 1:06:37
  rated, but the things and Terry Wiggins is more of an outside
• 1:06:41
  linebacker. But it's like he's just so
• 1:06:43
  impressive and like every bit of his rating is deserving.
• 1:06:49
  And, you know, to have a shot there, not only have a shot, but
• 1:06:54
  I think he was even saying he did his commitment on the CBS
• 1:06:57
  Sports college football show. But he was like, you know, I was
• 1:07:01
  able to get down to Virginia Tech.
• 1:07:03
  I was not considering them before James Franklin.
• 1:07:06
  He's like, now that I've been here, like if I had been here,
• 1:07:09
  like, maybe I would have considered them.
• 1:07:11
  I don't know how true that is, but it was just interesting that
• 1:07:14
  it's like I was kind of talking about it earlier, but just like
• 1:07:17
  opening up, like James Franklin opens up the door.
• 1:07:20
  And then once these guys are on campus, it's like you're able to
• 1:07:23
  merge those two things that, you know, I guess the one thing that
• 1:07:26
  has been working for Virginia Tech has been the campus, the
• 1:07:30
  atmosphere, the fandom. But it's now you're merging it
• 1:07:33
  with a very serious head coach that's going to come after you.
• 1:07:36
  And to get a guy like Terry Wiggins, I think he's just like,
• 1:07:40
  he is so good. Curtis, who was your, who was
• 1:07:46
  the guy that you circled and said, all right, that that's the
• 1:07:48
  guy that I'm most excited about? Well, when everything started
• 1:07:51
  coming down and it's probably just being old, it was Messiah
• 1:07:55
  Mickens because you mean Virginia Tech fan of as long as
• 1:07:59
  I've been a fan. You start hearing top rated
• 1:08:02
  running back in the state of Pennsylvania, it goes to KJ
• 1:08:06
  every time. And then you look at the kids,
• 1:08:07
  Bill, 510 to 10. I mean, yeah, he's got to learn
• 1:08:12
  the game. But running back, running back
• 1:08:13
  is one of those positions where legitimately you can say he
• 1:08:18
  could probably play this year or next season without any issue.
• 1:08:24
  We already saw Jeff Everson do it, do it last year.
• 1:08:27
  What about Tally? What about you, all those big
• 1:08:29
  guys? Which one did you like?
• 1:08:31
  Man, you know what I I mean, Usually I would, I would say
• 1:08:35
  Wilder just because of how I went and him being would have
• 1:08:42
  been the crown jewel of the class and didn't coming back.
• 1:08:44
  But for knowing what we need besides offensive line and we're
• 1:08:49
  already hitting on that because Brian's talked to us a little
• 1:08:51
  bit about it and the piggyback off of what the taste says.
• 1:08:54
  I mean, it's the trio of linebackers that they got
• 1:08:57
  because if you look at what we, if you look at what we've
• 1:09:00
  struggled in as linebacker play, you know, we had Noah Chambers
• 1:09:04
  out there as a true freshman this year and we were so excited
• 1:09:09
  to see him make plays. He probably shouldn't have been
• 1:09:12
  on the field that many plays. You know, he wasn't, he was
• 1:09:15
  forced to do that, you know, because we lost the coach and
• 1:09:18
  people transferred. And no knock on, no, I think he
• 1:09:21
  did a great job. But I mean, when you're a
• 1:09:23
  freshman and you're going against grown men and having to
• 1:09:27
  play like that because we have no depth and we haven't
• 1:09:29
  recruited well in that position, it's tough.
• 1:09:33
  You know, and and sometimes you get your safeties hurt like you
• 1:09:36
  radish, because they're having to come down and fight against
• 1:09:39
  lineman and tight ends and you know, things like that instead
• 1:09:43
  of being able to cover for you. So like what they said, you got
• 1:09:47
  Wiggins, you got Harley and you also got Lamar.
• 1:09:54
  So you got all three of those linebackers that are very, very
• 1:09:57
  if you go watch the tape, they're very and and probably if
• 1:10:00
  I just had to pick one, mine would probably be, I hope I'm
• 1:10:03
  saying his name, right, Lamar, like it would probably be him
• 1:10:06
  just because he's a Virginia kid that was never looking at
• 1:10:11
  Virginia Tech. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:10:13
  Like he was, he was gone and you get James Franklin and this kid
• 1:10:18
  is known very well by, you know, one, one of my good friends,
• 1:10:21
  Dwight Victoria, because he goes to the kid goes to the school.
• 1:10:24
  Dwight son went to high school and no disrespect to Virginia
• 1:10:30
  Tech from the kid, but he just that's what wasn't a school that
• 1:10:34
  he was going to. But when James Franklin comes,
• 1:10:37
  he gets you in the door with those kids, you know, and that
• 1:10:39
  kids 636-4220 already. Come on, man.
• 1:10:43
  Like that's the kind of linebackers that we need to get
• 1:10:48
  us back to where we where we need to be as far as defense.
• 1:10:52
  So I've been kind of shaking my head at some of these offensive
• 1:10:56
  highs. But if the defense shakes out
• 1:10:58
  like I think, I think, I think some stuff will look good.
• 1:11:03
  Yeah, the one that that was kind of standing out to me was, was
• 1:11:11
  was Tyson Harley and a couple reasons there.
• 1:11:13
  I feel like he's looking at his tape man.
• 1:11:15
  He he pops off, you know, looks like he's probably going to play
• 1:11:20
  more of an edge role, I would imagine at this level.
• 1:11:25
  You know, we'll see if, if, if he ends up landing at one of the
• 1:11:27
  linebacker spots, but I, I kind of see him being more of an edge
• 1:11:29
  player and I think he'll, he's going to make some noise.
• 1:11:34
  But also one of the things that when you look at Virginia Tech
• 1:11:37
  recruiting, you know, I already talked about Woodbury Forest
• 1:11:40
  earlier. One of the, one of the schools
• 1:11:44
  in that, in that, in that Catholic triangle there in
• 1:11:48
  Maryland that we've in DC area we've struggled to get in with
• 1:11:51
  is Gonzaga. And this is a Gonzaga kid.
• 1:11:55
  So that, that to me is, is stating that, you know, with
• 1:11:59
  Franklin, there's not really, you're not locked out anymore.
• 1:12:02
  And, and, and maybe this helps, you know, long term, looking at
• 1:12:05
  some of the, the downstream channels, maybe we get back into
• 1:12:09
  Verina in a, in a consistent way.
• 1:12:12
  That's another school where we've been kind of locked out of
• 1:12:15
  for a, for a good while for, for Virginia Tech recruits.
• 1:12:18
  A lot of UVA kids, couple got kids going to West Virginia.
• 1:12:23
  You know, there's been guys kind of jumping here and there.
• 1:12:26
  So it it's nice to see us get a kid from from Gonzaga, highly
• 1:12:31
  rated kid, very talented kid, somebody that's going to be able
• 1:12:34
  to contribute to the defense. I think pretty early.
• 1:12:36
  Because when you look at guys that are pass rushers and things
• 1:12:39
  like that, that's a position where you can come in on the
• 1:12:42
  defense and play pretty quick. That that that position in
• 1:12:46
  cornerback. Usually you can get guys on the
• 1:12:48
  field pretty quick. So I imagine we'll see a little
• 1:12:50
  bit of Tyson Harley in in 26, but he'll definitely, I think
• 1:12:53
  make make an impact by the time we get to 27.
• 1:12:57
  Also, just quickly, not like you could go down the rabbit hole as
• 1:13:01
  much as you want, but like with these schools and opening up
• 1:13:04
  doors with James Franklin, but like I don't want to mention
• 1:13:07
  Wiggins too much more, but goes to Coatsville.
• 1:13:10
  The number four overall recruit next year is from Coatsville.
• 1:13:15
  Offensive tackle, 5 star guy, like 6A powerhouse in
• 1:13:20
  Pennsylvania. A lot of good talent there.
• 1:13:22
  Obviously Terry Wiggins one of them, but like you can go up and
• 1:13:26
  down the list in terms of where guys are coming from.
• 1:13:29
  Obviously Virginia Tech is has the green run pipeline with
• 1:13:33
  three guys in this class, couple guys from the previous class,
• 1:13:36
  but a lot of schools that you're looking at and you're like,
• 1:13:39
  yeah, it's great. They got this really good
• 1:13:42
  prospect for the cycle, but it's also opening up the door for
• 1:13:46
  future cycles as well. Curtis, you back with us.
• 1:13:51
  I know you were. Popping them out there, I'm in
• 1:13:54
  and out. I'm having issues left and
• 1:13:55
  right. It's like a man Alabama or
• 1:13:57
  something right now. So I don't know what's going on
• 1:14:02
  with the Internet. Here we just we just talked
• 1:14:04
  about about Tyson Harley a. Little bit.
• 1:14:06
  Oh yeah. Oh, I heard it.
• 1:14:08
  I just can't see anybody and like my screen's freezing every
• 1:14:11
  time I click away from it. But mate, let's discuss this and
• 1:14:15
  I want to go back to the offensive line because we I feel
• 1:14:18
  like it might have been over recruited.
• 1:14:20
  Do you see any of those guys potentially flipping the size of
• 1:14:23
  the ball because you got guys like I'm pretty sure buddy
• 1:14:26
  Wagnam and then Benjamin is Akua.
• 1:14:30
  It's a Curtis pronunciation right there.
• 1:14:33
  Smaller, more compact guys could could we some of these guys go
• 1:14:37
  over to the defensive tackle room, even though we did have a
• 1:14:41
  couple really good lineman come in in this class.
• 1:14:45
  Yeah, I don't know. With Azuka, it's interesting
• 1:14:47
  because like he's such a big athlete.
• 1:14:49
  Like I believe like he was playing defensive tackle for his
• 1:14:53
  high school team. I think he had a pick 6th seal
• 1:14:56
  the national championship game. He's also a heavyweight
• 1:14:59
  wrestler. Like he's just a very athletic
• 1:15:04
  dude. But I think like the plan for
• 1:15:07
  all of them is keep them on the offensive side.
• 1:15:10
  I know that there was, I think, some speculation with Garrett
• 1:15:14
  Witherington, the Kentucky flip, he's like 65290.
• 1:15:18
  That's what he's listed as. People were wondering, will he
• 1:15:21
  be flipped to the offensive side?
• 1:15:23
  Like the plan for him as well is like interior defensive tackle.
• 1:15:28
  I think a lot of these guys kind of have their positions kind of
• 1:15:31
  locked in for now. Sounds good, Shelton.
• 1:15:35
  Anything you want to ask How you've been quiet here?
• 1:15:38
  I mean anybody in person? I mean it's kind of crazy
• 1:15:43
  because Shelton, if y'all don't know.
• 1:15:45
  Shelton is a St. Chris alum. 2 private schools
• 1:15:49
  from Richmond. Yeah.
• 1:15:52
  Were. Any of those like I mean, my
• 1:15:55
  father-in-law saw the Benedictine kid play the state
• 1:15:58
  championship and I and I and I mentioned he's like the kids
• 1:16:01
  massive to be playing at private school level.
• 1:16:04
  But Sheldon, anything on that? Well, you mentioned St.
• 1:16:10
  Chris, Mama Mater. I'd love to see if we could, if
• 1:16:12
  not flip Darius Gray out of out of Richmond, maybe a couple
• 1:16:16
  years later down the road in the portal we can get him back.
• 1:16:20
  But yeah, it is interesting. You know, I, I I've talked a lot
• 1:16:23
  about, you know, some of the issues with, you know, Virginia
• 1:16:26
  high school football coaching and development.
• 1:16:29
  You know, the overall rates of blue chippers being drafted in
• 1:16:32
  Virginia has been pretty poor the last few years.
• 1:16:34
  So I like for that to change. I don't know if Mattea has any
• 1:16:37
  insights on, you know, just what the overall crop is in terms of
• 1:16:40
  Virginia high school football talent.
• 1:16:42
  Like, you know, do you think it's better than it has, better,
• 1:16:46
  you know, talent wise than it has been in the past?
• 1:16:49
  And you know, specifically like what sort of regions of the
• 1:16:52
  state you feel like are kind of most ripe for the targeting for
• 1:16:55
  Vt? Yeah, I think it's definitely
• 1:16:57
  changed a lot since I first started covering recruiting.
• 1:17:02
  Obviously the 757 used to be massive.
• 1:17:05
  I think, you know, the power is kind of spread out there.
• 1:17:09
  I think there's a lot more talent in Northern Virginia,
• 1:17:13
  which when I first started wasn't the case.
• 1:17:15
  Obviously, Richmond has its guys.
• 1:17:19
  I think, you know, again, Richmond has been a successful
• 1:17:22
  area that you kind of want to lock in on, stick with Northern
• 1:17:26
  Virginia and then you know, there's going to be guys from
• 1:17:29
  the 757 every single cycle. But I will say, like I think I,
• 1:17:33
  I might have even said it on here, like the last couple
• 1:17:36
  cycles I felt were a little weak, but I felt this one was
• 1:17:41
  like significantly stronger than the previous ones.
• 1:17:45
  Yeah, it feels like we were. This class was a lot deeper.
• 1:17:48
  You saw, I think like more a lot more 4 star guys in the in the
• 1:17:54
  10, you know, top ten in this class.
• 1:17:56
  And I think we've seen in the in the last couple cycles as well.
• 1:18:02
  And obviously, you know, being able to get get Tommy water at
• 1:18:05
  the at the back end of that, that top ten I think was
• 1:18:07
  important just just for showing that we can pull pull top ten in
• 1:18:13
  this state. I think you're looking into 27.
• 1:18:16
  I'm hoping we can get at least, you know, maybe two or three in
• 1:18:19
  that Virginia top 10. Brian, Brian, we Got to Wilder
• 1:18:23
  and Fat Rat are both in the top 10.
• 1:18:26
  Yeah, yeah, He did it up at 10, didn't he?
• 1:18:28
  You're. Right.
• 1:18:28
  He did it up at 10. Yeah, so.
• 1:18:31
  Let's get 3 next time though. There we go.
• 1:18:33
  Let's. Get Let's get one top five or
• 1:18:36
  two. I want to ask you this, Matei,
• 1:18:40
  because on signing day, I mean, it was awesome, right?
• 1:18:43
  The flips, the kids that we didn't see coming signing.
• 1:18:48
  How much of A scare did James Franklin put into Michigan?
• 1:18:52
  Because those 3 Virginia kids who were supposed to sign pretty
• 1:18:55
  early in the day, it just kept getting pushed back and pushed
• 1:18:59
  back and and pushed back to the savion hitter up in Louisa
• 1:19:03
  County here, right, right. You know, northwest of Richmond.
• 1:19:07
  He didn't sign until the next day.
• 1:19:10
  Yeah. Was that just an all out
• 1:19:13
  Franklin Bliss to saying you know what, why not?
• 1:19:16
  I know the, I know a lot of people are looking into the
• 1:19:19
  header news and saying Virginia Tech.
• 1:19:21
  I think there was some other forces there too, some other big
• 1:19:26
  time schools. I think Ohio State was in the
• 1:19:28
  mix. Tennessee had been trying
• 1:19:30
  forever. So I think that was a little bit
• 1:19:33
  of it. Travis Johnson was very real.
• 1:19:37
  James Franklin wanted him. I was telling you guys before
• 1:19:41
  the show, like I think it was around like 240, five, 3:00 and
• 1:19:47
  we thought, you know, basically we thought it was completed.
• 1:19:50
  The announcements were going to come out, but then the Travis
• 1:19:54
  Johnson news started to come out.
• 1:19:57
  Certain things happened there that opened the door for
• 1:19:59
  Virginia Tech to kind of get involved.
• 1:20:01
  There were serious conversations.
• 1:20:03
  And I think ultimately he decided to stick with what he
• 1:20:07
  knew. But I think that would have
• 1:20:08
  been, you mean talking about a top five guy in state?
• 1:20:12
  He's very, you know, legitimate wide receiver.
• 1:20:15
  Bringing another guy in like that, I think would have been a
• 1:20:18
  huge message to Virginia. Just moving forward, so very
• 1:20:23
  real there. And then Andre Clark as well,
• 1:20:26
  another Virginia guy out of Richmond.
• 1:20:29
  There's some smoke there as well that Virginia Tech was involved.
• 1:20:33
  But I think that one was less drama than the Travis Johnson
• 1:20:37
  one. Close, close. close tally.
• 1:20:42
  Shelton Brown, Anything else that is, is because I know what
• 1:20:48
  I'm doing. I'm literally going up and down
• 1:20:50
  the recruit list and I'm going up and down some notes I've made
• 1:20:53
  and it's like, go ahead. I was just going to say, are you
• 1:20:58
  think, are you starting it now with the, with the, with the
• 1:21:00
  higher announcement, are you starting to think who's our
• 1:21:02
  quarterback going to be next year?
• 1:21:05
  That's where that's where my head's out.
• 1:21:07
  So he's probably got 3 text messages already.
• 1:21:12
  We'll see. Is is Beau Purbulla available?
• 1:21:14
  Let's let's make that phone call.
• 1:21:19
  What do you live in Missouri? Who knows you?
• 1:21:21
  Live in Missouri. Is on the money nowadays if you
• 1:21:26
  ain't playing for the national championship or even sometimes
• 1:21:29
  if you are playing for the national championship.
• 1:21:31
  Depends on the money, so who knows.
• 1:21:35
  You got to look at the roster. You got to look he is a now the
• 1:21:38
  big thing with him is your PA kid.
• 1:21:41
  He is not a Midwest kid. He is like 1617 hours from home.
• 1:21:46
  And I know money's a lot, but he made a good amount of coin this
• 1:21:49
  year. I I mean, and he played good
• 1:21:53
  until he got hurt. I mean, it's if, if Mattel, you
• 1:22:00
  just listen, if something happens, you text us next week,
• 1:22:03
  OK. So we can like be fully prepared
• 1:22:06
  for it. But we we've got time and we've
• 1:22:10
  talked just about every kid here.
• 1:22:12
  I want to ask your opinion on this because obviously Penn
• 1:22:16
  State is still, regardless what anyone says, north of
• 1:22:21
  Blacksburg, north of Richmond, Penn State is still going to be
• 1:22:25
  our primary rival in getting recruits.
• 1:22:32
  Matt Campbell, Mountain Union guy, coached in Ohio, been out
• 1:22:38
  in Iowa for years now. We've already stole a couple of
• 1:22:42
  their heavy hitters in that region.
• 1:22:44
  Can he? What do you think's going to
• 1:22:47
  happen there? Because it's not his foray to
• 1:22:50
  recruit four and five stars or get top 25 classes.
• 1:22:54
  He and somebody will say we hadn't had the budget, but it's
• 1:22:56
  like, but still, they're still, we didn't have the budget.
• 1:23:01
  We were getting Top 40 classes. Yeah, I think it's going to be
• 1:23:05
  interesting because he also brought his GM over from Iowa
• 1:23:09
  State. I have a lot of respect for Matt
• 1:23:12
  Campbell. Like he was someone that I felt
• 1:23:14
  like was involved last search, the one before, like a, you
• 1:23:18
  know, kind of a dark horse name that could make the leap to
• 1:23:21
  Virginia Tech. But I've always admired him from
• 1:23:24
  a distance. I think he's a great coach.
• 1:23:26
  He does a lot with a little and he's basically being given like
• 1:23:32
  an entire war chest to work with now.
• 1:23:34
  So it's going to be interesting. Obviously he's going to have to
• 1:23:37
  make a lot of inroads there. I think we saw with the Terry
• 1:23:40
  Smith retention making him the highest paid non coordinator.
• 1:23:45
  I think he's getting like 2,000,000 per year over four
• 1:23:48
  years or something like that, which is just insane.
• 1:23:50
  And I know a lot of that is to kind of prevent the pillaging
• 1:23:55
  from Virginia Tech on Penn State's roster, but I think that
• 1:24:00
  will play a role in it as well. But I think, you know, it's
• 1:24:03
  going to be interesting because, like, he really hasn't.
• 1:24:07
  I think most of his recruiting classes were in the 50s to maybe
• 1:24:10
  60s. And he's been able to really
• 1:24:12
  develop guys. But he's going to have to
• 1:24:14
  assemble a staff that not only has, you know, coaches that he
• 1:24:18
  trusts, but recruiters that can open those doors in those areas.
• 1:24:22
  And I think he talked about it and said, like, Toledo wasn't
• 1:24:26
  too far from the footprint, but it's going to be a different
• 1:24:28
  game going up against James Franklin.
• 1:24:31
  And it'll be really interesting to see.
• 1:24:33
  Like, I still think Penn State is, you know, a name brand
• 1:24:37
  program, and they'll win their battles.
• 1:24:39
  But I think James Franklin definitely evens up the fight a
• 1:24:42
  little bit. Yeah, I think that's the big
• 1:24:46
  thing that I'm I'm looking forward to is seeing how this
• 1:24:48
  thing shakes out. To your point there, you know,
• 1:24:51
  Matt Campbell has you know some he's shown a lot of ability to
• 1:24:59
  punch above his weight class in terms of the town on his roster
• 1:25:02
  very consistently. You know, sometimes 20-30 spots
• 1:25:07
  higher than the talent that's on his roster.
• 1:25:10
  You know, the question is going to be, can he consistently bring
• 1:25:13
  in enough talent to be competitive the way that they
• 1:25:19
  want to be in this in the Mid-Atlantic?
• 1:25:23
  Are they going to be able to recruit the same level that they
• 1:25:26
  are from Iowa State and then bump that up and up a degree?
• 1:25:30
  Because if if, if they're looking to be competitive the
• 1:25:33
  way they were under Franklin, he's going to need to get those
• 1:25:37
  numbers at least into the top 30, top 25.
• 1:25:40
  Obviously, with the war chest at his disposal, that will be a lot
• 1:25:43
  easier than it would have been at Iowa State.
• 1:25:48
  But you know, they're still kind of remains to be seen what what
• 1:25:51
  the full pictures going to look like for him at Penn State and
• 1:25:55
  whether or not the roster at Penn State to what degree they
• 1:26:00
  have loyalty to Terry Smith and how they feel about the the the
• 1:26:05
  Campbell hire relative to what James Franklin can offer here in
• 1:26:10
  Blacksburg. Well, the other thing too, in
• 1:26:12
  that case is, well, does Franklin, does, does Matt
• 1:26:16
  Campbell want them? You can say what you will about
• 1:26:20
  you're right, Matei is a development guy, but there is
• 1:26:23
  always going to be a guy that just they don't want, like Nope,
• 1:26:28
  doesn't fit. What I like to do, I do not
• 1:26:30
  want. And sometimes it's very talented
• 1:26:32
  individuals. They get pushed out the also the
• 1:26:36
  pieces. Say what you want to say about
• 1:26:38
  the defensive side of the ball, the offense is shaping up more
• 1:26:44
  and more to be pulling Penn State guys.
• 1:26:48
  The defense, Yep, Brent Pryor hadn't been there in four years.
• 1:26:53
  But if some of the other stuff that we're seeing comes to
• 1:26:55
  fruition and I ain't, I'm not going to say people are asking
• 1:26:58
  about things in the chat. When it happens, we'll talk
• 1:27:01
  about it'll be a lot of fun to talk about.
• 1:27:03
  But if those things come to fruition, Matei, it's it's going
• 1:27:08
  to be like, I know what that head coach does.
• 1:27:11
  I know his program. I like it.
• 1:27:13
  I've developed, I've gotten better.
• 1:27:16
  And you know what? He's put a bunch of guys in the
• 1:27:19
  NFL in the last 15 years. Yeah, 100%.
• 1:27:23
  I mean, that was that was a big conversation point with a lot of
• 1:27:26
  the guys that ended up flipping to Virginia Tech from Penn
• 1:27:29
  State. They're like we trust his
• 1:27:31
  pedigree and putting guys into the league, guys of our stature,
• 1:27:36
  you know, the 8 composite 4 stars and other highly rated
• 1:27:38
  three stars. But I think it will be
• 1:27:41
  interesting. Like one example I would give is
• 1:27:43
  that like Matt Campbell was someone that recruited Ethan
• 1:27:47
  Grunkmeyer, who I think was a five star quarterback.
• 1:27:50
  And it's like he is able to, like he is evaluating talent to
• 1:27:54
  that caliber. It's just he wasn't able to
• 1:27:57
  enter those types of conversations before.
• 1:28:00
  So what will it look like now that he has more things at his
• 1:28:03
  disposal? So I think it's going to be
• 1:28:05
  really interesting, obviously, of Jane Franklin that knows
• 1:28:08
  everything there is to know about Penn State and we'll see
• 1:28:11
  what those battles look like. I mean, it's been heated between
• 1:28:14
  fans on the timeline on Twitter. I'm sure it's going to be heated
• 1:28:19
  recruiting battles. And I'm, I'm all here for it
• 1:28:21
  honestly, like it's about time that there's, you know, some
• 1:28:25
  serious battles on the front. And I feel like, you know, a lot
• 1:28:29
  of the guys in the past that Virginia Tech has looked at,
• 1:28:32
  they've identified guys that have kind of fit their mold that
• 1:28:36
  may happen to be like a fringe 4 star or something of that.
• 1:28:39
  But now it's like you're going up against, you know, a premier
• 1:28:44
  program in the North and Penn State for, you know, top guys in
• 1:28:48
  the state now. So it'll be interesting.
• 1:28:52
  Tally Shelton. Anything else on this?
• 1:28:55
  So I'll just throw something that will tell you right quick,
• 1:28:58
  and I know it's a long way away, but this is what he does and I
• 1:29:03
  don't get to talk to him much, so I'm just going to ask him.
• 1:29:06
  Looking at the 2027 class of Virginia students, who does
• 1:29:13
  James Franklin need to be on right now?
• 1:29:17
  Who is a guy that needs to be at Virginia Tech in that 2027
• 1:29:23
  class? I mean, the easiest name to
• 1:29:25
  throw out is probably Chris Whitehead.
• 1:29:28
  Six point. Five 230 number one player in
• 1:29:31
  the state think he's I think he's a composite 5 star, but
• 1:29:38
  yeah. Yeah, he I'm looking, I'm
• 1:29:40
  looking at y'all stuff right now.
• 1:29:41
  Composite 520th in the country. Yeah, he's, I mean, legitimate
• 1:29:46
  offer list already probably has over 30 offers by this point,
• 1:29:53
  but he's someone that definitely kind of moved the needle with
• 1:29:56
  the James Franklin hiring, like has already been reached out to.
• 1:30:00
  There's a lot of talent in the 2027 class.
• 1:30:03
  We're just starting to look at it now.
• 1:30:05
  But you know, with those official visits that I kind of
• 1:30:09
  mentioned, and there's still some 20 sevens on campus too.
• 1:30:13
  Like you have to imagine like how much of A whirlwind this all
• 1:30:16
  was. Like you're trying to build out
• 1:30:18
  a class, but have enough foresight to say there's some
• 1:30:21
  really good players in this state and surrounding states.
• 1:30:24
  Let's shoot them an invite, make them come to the Miami game and
• 1:30:27
  see what happens. And I think they're able to kind
• 1:30:30
  of, as I said, like open the door a little bit.
• 1:30:33
  So we'll see because, you know, it's as impressive as it was
• 1:30:38
  when you have a two week Sprint and you're able to say the right
• 1:30:40
  things and, you know, kind of portray the right things.
• 1:30:43
  It's a lot harder when you have to do it for a full cycle.
• 1:30:45
  So but you know, to even be in consideration of a guy like
• 1:30:50
  Chris Whitehead in previous cycles, you know, if if you were
• 1:30:53
  in there, he would probably be heading off to the SEC right
• 1:30:57
  away. So guys like that, I'm looking
• 1:30:59
  at I, I don't think they're going to win every battle
• 1:31:01
  obviously, but to be in the conversation and see what
• 1:31:04
  happens like that's what it, that's what it's about.
• 1:31:08
  Good deal. All right, real quick,
• 1:31:11
  everybody, because I don't know. Well, we'll all get together,
• 1:31:16
  but let me ask you this mate. Did the CFP get it right?
• 1:31:22
  And secondly, how's it going to change next year?
• 1:31:25
  Because it's going to change next year, clearly.
• 1:31:29
  First thought, yes, I they got it right.
• 1:31:33
  I know there's like, I believe in my heart that Notre Dame has
• 1:31:38
  the talent to play, but like the aftermath from all of that, I'm
• 1:31:41
  just like, enough is enough, man.
• 1:31:44
  Like it's, it's just crazy. Like the MOU yelling at the ACCI
• 1:31:50
  think the the problem is the committee.
• 1:31:53
  It's always been the committee. It's just like the process makes
• 1:31:57
  no sense. But in terms of what what they
• 1:32:00
  were supposed to do this year, I think they got the field right.
• 1:32:03
  You know what in folk Notre Dame, man, they, they have been
• 1:32:11
  teetering around stuff forever and the ACC bailed them out
• 1:32:14
  during COVID, letting them jump in that they fucking stole our
• 1:32:17
  spot in what was it, 2016? I can't remember what bowl it
• 1:32:22
  was, but we ended up playing in the freaking Belt Bowl after
• 1:32:25
  playing in the ACC championship because Notre Dame stole the
• 1:32:29
  spot. So I don't want to hear nothing
• 1:32:30
  about what Notre Dame talking about.
• 1:32:33
  I'm just, that's just what I got to say about it.
• 1:32:36
  I like Marcus Friedman, but hey, go get your hairpin long and
• 1:32:40
  chill out. Man, I, so I know I put this on
• 1:32:45
  the timeline. I was all about Notre Dame being
• 1:32:50
  in over Alabama. I think Bama had a awful loss
• 1:32:56
  against FSU that you just cannot ignore.
• 1:33:01
  And then so they had the worst loss of the teams that were kind
• 1:33:03
  of looking to sneak in there. And then they got absolutely
• 1:33:08
  boat raced by Georgia in that SEC championship game.
• 1:33:12
  So those two things for me kind of bumped them down.
• 1:33:16
  I thought they should have been out.
• 1:33:17
  I thought Notre Dame should be in.
• 1:33:19
  I thought Miami should have been over over Notre Dame.
• 1:33:22
  Regardless. So I think they got that part.
• 1:33:23
  Right. It's so hard how they got it set
• 1:33:26
  up because you know that is not playing in a, in a, in a
• 1:33:31
  championship game. Some of the other things, it's
• 1:33:34
  almost like you don't want to make the championship because
• 1:33:36
  you got a chance to go in there and look bad.
• 1:33:38
  So if we even count that. Game, you know the committee
• 1:33:42
  fucked themselves because they didn't anticipate the whole
• 1:33:47
  Miami not playing in this championship game thing UVA
• 1:33:50
  losing to Duke. They didn't anticipate that
• 1:33:52
  because they they put JMU in Tulane higher and higher in the
• 1:33:57
  rankings every week than these other ACC teams other than
• 1:34:01
  Miami. UVA was kind of hovering right
• 1:34:04
  there just above them, but they were they were one loss away
• 1:34:07
  from being behind them. And I would see if they didn't
• 1:34:09
  win the conference outright, they weren't going to be in any
• 1:34:11
  way. And then they started, you know,
• 1:34:14
  getting sneaky with where they were putting Notre Dame ahead of
• 1:34:17
  Miami. They started creeping Alabama up
• 1:34:20
  the ranks even though they lost a close Iron Bowl.
• 1:34:23
  Like they gave them credit for losing a close Iron Bowl.
• 1:34:26
  Winning bad Auburn team won the iron.
• 1:34:29
  Bowl They won the Iron Bowl. That's the thing.
• 1:34:33
  You said loss. If they would have lost the Iron
• 1:34:36
  Bowl, they wouldn't have been in the SEC Championship.
• 1:34:38
  I'm saying that it was a close, close win.
• 1:34:42
  They win. Auburn had the loss against in
• 1:34:45
  the Iron Bowl. Yeah, anyway, what my my point
• 1:34:47
  being they they moved them up despite it it only being a close
• 1:34:51
  win in the Iron Bowl. Shelton.
• 1:34:53
  They they put themselves in a bad situation where if UVA lost,
• 1:34:57
  they were going to have to make some some weird decisions and
• 1:35:02
  they were going to get screwed either way and they screwed
• 1:35:06
  themselves because of the way they set it up.
• 1:35:09
  Yeah, I think the two big things that people are frustrated by is
• 1:35:11
  obviously 1. Notre Dame, Miami and then two,
• 1:35:14
  Alabama. Like mate was saying, it's not,
• 1:35:17
  it's not, you know, putting Miami in over Notre Dame and you
• 1:35:20
  could have a reasonable argument for either team.
• 1:35:22
  Obviously, I think most people would say Miami because they
• 1:35:24
  beat Notre Dame head ahead. It's the fact that the committee
• 1:35:27
  decided to switch their seeds a week after both teams did not
• 1:35:31
  play for absolutely zero reason. I don't know what the
• 1:35:34
  justification for that would be, but they don't seem to have a
• 1:35:38
  clear process to where they stick by and then Alabama not
• 1:35:41
  moving down at least even one seed after getting trounced by
• 1:35:45
  Georgia in the in the title game.
• 1:35:47
  I saw STAT earlier a few days ago that said that Alabama was
• 1:35:51
  one of I think maybe 20 something conference
• 1:35:54
  championship losers that did not that did not, they were the only
• 1:35:58
  one of 20 some teams that lost a conference title game and they
• 1:36:02
  did not move down a seed in the past four years.
• 1:36:05
  So that is pretty suspicious and I it's not a good look for the
• 1:36:10
  committee. So big picture, I think you
• 1:36:12
  know, my, my basic take of the committee is like, I think it's
• 1:36:15
  a massive conflict of interest. Having a playoff is essentially
• 1:36:18
  being run by a television network that also owns the
• 1:36:21
  rights to the conferences that are being in said playoffs.
• 1:36:25
  So I think the structurally, I think we got to look at more
• 1:36:29
  structural issues if you want to solve this problem.
• 1:36:31
  But it's it's a mess but. Here's the biggest thing, the
• 1:36:36
  team that they have the most money in this conference, they
• 1:36:39
  have the most money invested in, amazingly has the most teams in.
• 1:36:45
  They effectively their product. If you did this in the business
• 1:36:49
  world, you'd go to antitrust court and probably lose billions
• 1:36:52
  upon billions of dollars. But it's OK in college football,
• 1:36:56
  it's an antitrust suit waiting to happen because Alabama really
• 1:36:59
  shouldn't be in. There are three loss team.
• 1:37:01
  Everybody's like, well, they have like the best win.
• 1:37:04
  They also have the worst loss of any of the 12 teams in.
• 1:37:08
  They have the single worst loss. If this was any other
• 1:37:12
  conference, that team would have been shoved out the second they
• 1:37:15
  lost on Saturday. It's a conflict of interest.
• 1:37:18
  It is antitrust lawsuits that should be coming out to wazoo
• 1:37:21
  from these other conferences. They just don't have the balls
• 1:37:23
  to do it because there's no way. Like you just said, Shelton,
• 1:37:26
  they are running this playoff committee.
• 1:37:28
  They run the show. They're probably telling who
• 1:37:30
  they want in on. So there we go.
• 1:37:34
  Never put you. You're right, Wilson, You don't
• 1:37:37
  ever put it in the committee's hands.
• 1:37:39
  Matei. It's almost been an hour and 40
• 1:37:42
  minutes, man, It's like old times every time you step in
• 1:37:47
  here. So it's been awesome.
• 1:37:50
  Brian, Shelton, Talley, anything y'all want to hit on the team?
• 1:37:53
  Anything you need to hit on before we wrap this up tonight?
• 1:37:58
  I'll say one thing, just really, I know we've been going for a
• 1:38:00
  long time, but I was listening back to when we were kind of
• 1:38:05
  previewing this class and one name I brought up, T Ron
• 1:38:10
  Richardson. I was like, that's the guy.
• 1:38:14
  He's way better than a three star stick by that today.
• 1:38:18
  Go back and listen to that if you're curious.
• 1:38:20
  But favorite of the cycle. So I'm just going to leave that
• 1:38:25
  there. Kind of put a bow on the clock.
• 1:38:27
  Flip flip at the end. Flip, flip, Brian Shelton,
• 1:38:30
  tally, anything to hit Mattel with as we get to DOE.
• 1:38:34
  I'm all set. I'm glad the chat got to see us
• 1:38:36
  react to the Danny O'Brien news in.
• 1:38:38
  Real. Yeah, that was crazy.
• 1:38:41
  That's why so much fun doing these.
• 1:38:43
  Live well. Listen mate, as always man, it
• 1:38:46
  is awesome having you join us. We'll try to get with you.
• 1:38:50
  It took us a while to get with you last year but you know
• 1:38:54
  things happen. Do not forget you can join Vt
• 1:38:58
  Scoop 247 Sports 50% off a annual VIP membership where you
• 1:39:03
  can see Matei's writing some of his scoops.
• 1:39:07
  You Evan and Colby are doing awesome jobs over there, man.
• 1:39:11
  You guys do awesome jobs just putting content out.
• 1:39:15
  So shout out to you all on that. I but anyway, we are going to
• 1:39:19
  wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought
• 1:39:22
  to you by Counts Family Pharmacy in Blacksburg.
• 1:39:25
  Brought to you by moments on the mall in Lexington with our guest
• 1:39:31
  Matasis. I'm Curtis Wilson.
• 1:39:33
  I'm Brian Siegler. John to tell it.
• 1:39:36
  I'm John Moss. Visit boundarycornerbt.com to
• 1:39:39
  listen to all of our episodes. Go back and look at when he did
• 1:39:42
  suck about TR on Richardson, one of the flips from down in
• 1:39:45
  Hopewell. Also follow us on Twitter,
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• 1:39:50
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• 1:39:56
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• 1:39:59
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• 1:40:02
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• 1:40:04
  Where you can find where he is playing live, all of his music
• 1:40:07
  on Apple and Spotify, his Facebook and YouTube pages.
• 1:40:11
  We appreciate y'all listening. We appreciate the chat cuz you
• 1:40:14
  guys are on fire tonight and as always, let's go.
• 1:40:18
  OK.