Latest / Boundary Corner Podcast / Going Deeper

Transcript

Going Deeper · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 1:19
  And welcome back to the Boundary Corner Podcast, along with my
• 1:23
  partners Brian Siegler, Jonathan Talley, and Shelton Moss, I am
• 1:27
  Curtis Wilson and we are brought to you by Moments on the Maori.
• 1:32
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• 1:35
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• 1:37
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• 1:42
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• 1:46
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• 1:51
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• 1:54
  Have a great time. Owned by a proud hokey and you
• 1:59
  can check them out at the link. I'm going to drop in in just a
• 2:02
  moment and also on their Instagram site at moments on the
• 2:07
  Maori. I'm tired, y'all.
• 2:12
  I'm going to bed. Bye.
• 2:14
  Hey man, we just got started. I just got to start ready, man.
• 2:19
  It's it's, it's been, it's been a long few weeks, Tally, and I
• 2:24
  think we're all going through it in one way shape or form.
• 2:30
  I know Brian's been busy at work.
• 2:31
  Tally, you mentioned right before we jumped on half of your
• 2:34
  house is sick, which ain't never fun because you, you, we all
• 2:38
  love our families. But when people get sick, you
• 2:41
  don't want to be near them because I ain't trying to get
• 2:44
  sick. And Sheldon, you've been all
• 2:48
  over the place, man. Yeah, man, I had AI had an
• 2:52
  eventful week in Blacksburg this weekend.
• 2:53
  I was covering the baseball series for William and Mary.
• 2:57
  So it's kind of weird being back at my alma mater covering for
• 3:00
  the opposing team. But it was great to see some
• 3:03
  some old folks, you know, saw, saw, saw my boy Deacon us.
• 3:07
  So that was good, pretty good series too.
• 3:09
  I don't know if we have many listeners to follow the baseball
• 3:11
  program, but it's a pretty, pretty good series.
• 3:15
  I'd say some, you know, good funnily sound baseball was
• 3:17
  played. I'd say Virginia Tech.
• 3:20
  Their pitching and defense will be much improved from last year.
• 3:22
  I don't think they're going to be as reliant on their hitting,
• 3:26
  but but yeah, it's it's good. So I think I think hoagies
• 3:29
  overall look pretty good. Tribe string looks pretty solid.
• 3:32
  So hopefully some things look forward to the spring for
• 3:35
  baseball. Yeah, you were mentioning which
• 3:38
  which one of the pitchers that you said.
• 3:40
  From what you just saw of him, he's definitely going to get
• 3:43
  drafted pretty high. Yeah, Brett Renfro, he was he's
• 3:48
  he was their ace coming to the season, super talented and
• 3:51
  obviously their number one, their number one guy.
• 3:53
  It was him and Griffin Steed with the with the top one and
• 3:55
  two starting pitchers. So and this is this is draft
• 3:59
  year as well. So and then also I think Preston
• 4:01
  Crawl, I don't know what year he is.
• 4:02
  I can look him up here, but he was filthy.
• 4:05
  So those two guys, yeah. So he's a junior, so I don't
• 4:07
  know if he has any draft prospects, but certainly Renfro
• 4:09
  and Siegar are up there as far as you know, guys who you know,
• 4:12
  could get could get their name called.
• 4:15
  But like I said, they will be much better as pitching's out
• 4:17
  hopefully with, you know, the new pitching coach I think came
• 4:21
  from Creighton has a really good reputation.
• 4:22
  So hopefully we won't, we won't see as many, you know, dreadful
• 4:26
  4 1/2 hour, 16 run ball games that we did the last couple of
• 4:30
  years. Dreadful.
• 4:33
  You know you don't like a 16 to 14 thriller, Shelton.
• 4:36
  Nope. Not for me, you.
• 4:40
  Don't like what, 12 bombs in one game?
• 4:43
  Boom. No, if they're if they're solo
• 4:45
  bombs, that's fine. It's more so just the walks, the
• 4:47
  hit batters, the pitching changes.
• 4:49
  Just non-stop pitching changes. Man, don't don't get me started
• 4:52
  on the old the old fishing coach.
• 4:54
  I don't want to. I don't want to go down the.
• 4:56
  Road, but Shelton Shelton is also an Sid here Shelton when
• 5:01
  there's a 16 to 14 game you're looking on like I'm going to be
• 5:05
  here until like 11 minimum if it's if it's like a 6:00 start
• 5:11
  because it's like. Because I got to show up, I got
• 5:13
  to show, I got to be the first one there.
• 5:14
  I got to show up two hours, 2 hours early.
• 5:16
  I got to say the whole game. I got to stay for an hour after.
• 5:19
  Like it's just miserable. So, but that's what I mean.
• 5:21
  But at the same time I was trying to say like, you know, we
• 5:23
  get paid to, I get paid to watch sports for a living.
• 5:25
  So, you know, try to take the count my blessings, so to speak.
• 5:29
  And that's the thing with baseball, you know, you got to
• 5:31
  get 27 outs minimum, no matter how long it takes to get there.
• 5:38
  Speaking of baseball, yeah, Speaking of baseball, announced
• 5:41
  Jossie Seton Hall's players. Oh.
• 5:45
  God. That was.
• 5:46
  Horrendous. Yeah, that's, that's the damn
• 5:49
  way to go, man. That's a horrible way to go.
• 5:54
  In so many different ways, because that was a three two
• 5:58
  game when he hit it, you know the two run bombed.
• 6:00
  It would made them go up like, like everything painful about
• 6:04
  that. Everything's painful now.
• 6:06
  Now Speaking of baseball tally, are y'all in full swing?
• 6:09
  Tomorrow's the first game, got a double double header.
• 6:13
  Tomorrow starts the season off so we will see.
• 6:18
  I broke my chair. I got to get a new chair.
• 6:21
  So you break your chair. Whoa, whoa, why'd you break your
• 6:23
  chair? I mean I had it for like
• 6:25
  probably 7 years now. OK, you know I'm a big ass man
• 6:31
  jumping up and down on that chair, pushing up.
• 6:34
  On the West. It just, it got to the point
• 6:39
  where, you know, it's one of those chairs that fold in and
• 6:42
  out and it just wouldn't fold in and out easily anymore because
• 6:46
  the back part disconnected and being, you know, I just been
• 6:50
  fighting I've I've really needed a newer for about two years, but
• 6:53
  I've been fighting against it so.
• 6:56
  We, we all are that way. I got to go get it.
• 6:58
  We all went that way. I got a question now.
• 7:00
  Now that you got to go get a new chair, are you going to get one
• 7:03
  of them like hammock swinging chairs or you can just rock out
• 7:06
  there because I know. My wife's got one.
• 7:09
  Yeah, my wife's got one. I'm too big for them times, man.
• 7:12
  You too big for it? OK, No man, I don't.
• 7:14
  I don't. Even if I wouldn't, I don't want
• 7:16
  to be in that. And they make a big man chair,
• 7:19
  which is what my other chair was tall, wide, very comfortable,
• 7:27
  you know, got a got a cup holder.
• 7:30
  So I'll be going and hopefully can find that one.
• 7:33
  I think I got it from Academy last last time I got it.
• 7:36
  So I'll be going to look for one like the one I had somebody
• 7:41
  says, who's that? Oh, that's bag bag said the
• 7:44
  rockers are nice. You know what, man, I'm real
• 7:47
  weird about chairs. Like, I'm real weird about like
• 7:50
  baseball chairs and the Rockers are pretty cool, but once they
• 7:55
  start squeaking, it sounds like a scary movie.
• 8:00
  So I'll be at the game and somebody will be in one of those
• 8:03
  damn rocking chairs and you hear, and I'm like, Michael
• 8:09
  Myers is on the way. You know, I'm not paying
• 8:12
  attention to the picture because I'm hearing that damn squeaking
• 8:14
  chair. So shout out to the people who
• 8:17
  got squeaking chairs and won't spray them with WD40.
• 8:23
  Spray your chairs, man. Spray your chairs, people,
• 8:25
  because it gets annoying when Charlie's sitting there trying
• 8:28
  to watch his son pitch and you just squeeze, squeeze squeeze,
• 8:31
  squeak like. Trying to yell at the I'm trying
• 8:34
  to yell at the umpire and y'all got them squeaking chairs
• 8:38
  interrupting my thought process. Can't get my cuss words
• 8:41
  together. Like, is he mad at me?
• 8:45
  Umpire's like, is he talking to me or is he just stumbling over
• 8:48
  his words over there? Who knows?
• 8:51
  All right, Well, it has been a few weeks since we last came in,
• 8:55
  but there's not a lot been going on.
• 8:56
  Yes, the press conference happened, but.
• 8:59
  I I watched. It I listened to it, it was
• 9:02
  cool. Don't ever get Mike feedback on
• 9:05
  James Franklin. He will come after your ass in a
• 9:08
  heartbeat. We all learned that.
• 9:10
  But it wasn't a lot. It wasn't, you know, you maybe
• 9:13
  got to know Ty Howell a little bit better.
• 9:15
  Like if like he was talking about his dad.
• 9:17
  Well, me and Brian had already. We all knew his dad was a high
• 9:20
  school football coach down in Bonn.
• 9:23
  His we had buddies down there who already knew.
• 9:25
  Oh, yeah. Coach so and so.
• 9:26
  Yeah. Long time legend down in Bonn,
• 9:27
  though it wasn't anything revealing.
• 9:29
  He's always been here. As we know, they're not going to
• 9:33
  give you much on those interviews and they're not going
• 9:36
  to get a lot anyway. Like who's the number one
• 9:39
  defensive end? Like you ain't giving that shit.
• 9:42
  So that was cool. But what we're going to do
• 9:45
  tonight, since it was finally revealed, we're going to talk
• 9:48
  about the complete sports support staff for football a
• 9:51
  little bit. And yes, Sir.
• 9:54
  Hey, before we get into that, I want to ask Shelton a question.
• 9:58
  All right. Sheldon, do you think because
• 10:01
  I've been looking at all of the the media people that have kind
• 10:05
  of been in an uproar about access and not being, you know,
• 10:12
  not getting a lot from the new staff or not getting a lot from
• 10:15
  James Franklin and me knowing that you are in, you know, media
• 10:20
  positions and things like that. Now that we've seen kind of two
• 10:26
  spectrums of coaching with Fuente and Pry, Fuente not much
• 10:33
  access, very closed off, Pry really open, very fan friendly.
• 10:39
  What do you think makes the best coach for the media?
• 10:45
  So I would say that's an interesting question because I
• 10:49
  feel like the, the, the fan perception of Fuente was so much
• 10:53
  because he just wasn't openly like he didn't really openly
• 10:56
  embrace the fan base and like he he did, he did close off the
• 10:58
  media to some degree, but he also just wasn't the most, you
• 11:01
  know, folksy, engaging person in the world.
• 11:05
  I think from from the people that I've talked to, I think
• 11:07
  it's more so they want access to the players and to be able to
• 11:10
  speak to the players that they want.
• 11:12
  And so that's based on, you know, what the what the Sid and
• 11:15
  the coaches, you know, who they make available.
• 11:17
  I would say from the people that I've talked to cover the team,
• 11:20
  they were a little bit frustrated by some of the media
• 11:22
  availabilities, you know, just not getting certain players in
• 11:25
  on time are not getting players that they requested, which is,
• 11:28
  you know, that's just part of the game.
• 11:30
  But I think the best, the, I mean, the best coach is 1 who's,
• 11:33
  you know, open and transparent and, you know, allows people to,
• 11:37
  you know, to, to seek the stories that they, they, they
• 11:40
  want to cover. So without knowing exactly what
• 11:42
  Franklin's doing, it sounds to me like Franklin's been, you
• 11:45
  know, it's going to be pretty intentional with like Travis
• 11:46
  about, you know, OK, this is what we're doing like this.
• 11:48
  I'm, I'm running the show here. So we'll see how that goes.
• 11:54
  But I do think that, you know, there, there are some things
• 11:58
  that could be managed better when it comes to Vt media
• 12:00
  relations. I'll I'll say that without going
• 12:02
  too too many. OK, Yeah, I don't want to get
• 12:05
  you. I don't want to get you in no
• 12:06
  trouble. I just wanted to, I just wanted
• 12:09
  your take on that because I was kind of sitting back in the
• 12:12
  wings and kind of seeing some tweets and looking at some
• 12:16
  things that people say. I always say the best coach is
• 12:18
  the one that's winning. You ain't got to talk to me at
• 12:20
  all. Just if you winning then I'm OK
• 12:23
  with it. But when you start losing, hey,
• 12:27
  you got to answer some questions.
• 12:29
  Well, I like the way because Franklin didn't address that in
• 12:32
  the press conference because he was like, I know y'all got jobs
• 12:34
  doing all these stories and we're going to like figure that
• 12:37
  out. What he's basically saying to
• 12:39
  them is I'm not going to completely shut you out, but you
• 12:42
  ain't going to be running around Merriman all the time doing
• 12:44
  whatever you want when Brent was head coach will be intentional
• 12:48
  about it. You'll get your stories, you'll
• 12:50
  get the players we want you to get, but it ain't going to be a
• 12:54
  free for all no more. Let's let's do this.
• 12:56
  Let let's put it in terms that Curtis and I know pretty well
• 12:59
  like, so if, if you're, if you're a, if you're a classroom
• 13:04
  teacher, right, and you go in into the start of the new year,
• 13:09
  you got this fresh set of people in your class.
• 13:13
  You're not going to start off at whatever your, your most liberal
• 13:20
  situation would be as far as classroom management.
• 13:23
  You're going to start probably about as tight as you as you can
• 13:26
  get. And as you get comfortable with
• 13:28
  them and they get comfortable with you, you'll figure out how
• 13:30
  you can stretch that a little bit where, where the limits are
• 13:34
  with that. You're not going to come in
• 13:36
  there because it's a whole lot of a lot harder to rein things
• 13:41
  back in once you've allowed something that it is to slowly
• 13:45
  loosen your grip on the reins as you go along.
• 13:49
  That is the truth. It's a lot tougher to close it
• 13:52
  once it's been opened and that can be the case in so many
• 13:57
  different ways and so many different lights.
• 13:59
  So good point there, Brian, Good point.
• 14:02
  All right, before we get into football with Toy Talk staff and
• 14:05
  then what we're going to do tonight is we did a blind depth
• 14:08
  chart. We just said we think this is
• 14:11
  going to be the depth chart the best how many ever we chose in
• 14:14
  each position. But before we get into all that,
• 14:17
  we got to talk basketball for a couple of minutes and I'm going
• 14:20
  to I'm going to I'm going to take the lead on this because a
• 14:22
  few weeks ago after a loss, I can't remember which one it was.
• 14:26
  I buddy fill over at moments on the Merry Mari texted me and he
• 14:30
  said Mike Young's got to be fired.
• 14:33
  He's like he's got to be fired. And and and at first I was kind
• 14:37
  of oh, come on, man, I mean, you know, we're having a better
• 14:40
  season than last year. It's Yadi Yadi.
• 14:42
  He's like, no, he's just got to be fired.
• 14:45
  And we started the conversation and, and then Tally I, I brought
• 14:50
  that to y'all and Tally, you jumped right in and you agreed
• 14:53
  pretty quick with Phil. Yeah, well, I didn't want to be
• 14:59
  the first person to go, but because people already know how
• 15:03
  I feel, you know? Like it's what you said, it's
• 15:06
  what you. Said, I mean, I've been, I've
• 15:08
  been kind of on that. Now let me say this, Mike Young
• 15:13
  has showed me that he can coach, he's a good coach, but at some
• 15:17
  time, you know, at some point it just doesn't work.
• 15:20
  And like I keep telling people, because I've had some people say
• 15:23
  in the chat, you know, or we don't have enough money for
• 15:26
  basketball or, you know, we don't do this.
• 15:28
  If you're making millions of dollars as a coach, you're
• 15:33
  expected to do certain things. If you can't get that done, it
• 15:37
  may be time just to move on. Even if you have the same exact
• 15:41
  resources, even if you pay the next person the same exact
• 15:44
  money, I'm not saying you have to go get somebody in our eyes
• 15:49
  better or more experienced or this.
• 15:52
  Sometimes you just need some new blood.
• 15:54
  Mike Young's been here since what, 2019?
• 15:59
  Is it 2019? Yeah, he's been here since like
• 16:01
  2019. And again, he's done a he's done
• 16:04
  a pretty decent job for for what He's been the hands that he's
• 16:08
  been given. I just think that the game has
• 16:10
  passed him by and you have to move on because you never know
• 16:15
  who's the next hot thing until you try it.
• 16:19
  Like, look at Miami's coach. He was a assistant for however
• 16:24
  many years and then he gets hired.
• 16:27
  You know, Miami has their long time coach that leaves because
• 16:30
  he don't want to deal with NIL. Understandably, They hired this
• 16:34
  dude, you know, a little bit younger coach.
• 16:36
  He comes in and brings a whole new energy.
• 16:39
  They don't want 21 games this year.
• 16:41
  You know, look at look at UVA, which, you know, again, I know
• 16:46
  these are different programs, but sometimes new blood isn't a
• 16:49
  bad thing. UVA got put in a bad spot by
• 16:52
  Tony Bennett leaving. But he did, you know, he he he
• 16:57
  left the way that he left, but they go out and make a high.
• 17:01
  This guy comes in, he's changed kind of the game of how UVA
• 17:05
  plays, but he's still got them playing at a high level.
• 17:07
  So I just think that, you know, tech needs something else.
• 17:11
  That's just my opinion, I don't know what that something else
• 17:14
  is, but I just feel like they need some new fresh blood in to
• 17:18
  try to turn the corner and do something different.
• 17:26
  Who's going to jump in? I'm Shelton, whoever wants to
• 17:28
  see. Brian, do you want to take?
• 17:29
  Shelton, do you want to? Go, come on, Brian, you look
• 17:32
  like you got something to say. Yeah, let's go, Brian.
• 17:35
  You want me to go? All right, I'll go.
• 17:36
  Yeah, you do that. Go.
• 17:37
  There you go. The, the way I, I'm looking at,
• 17:40
  at Mike Young at this point, I think we've got enough games out
• 17:44
  there where we've seen what he can do, what he can't do.
• 17:49
  Was talking to these fellows earlier today and I'm like,
• 17:52
  he's, he's pretty much shown himself as a very, you know, the
• 17:56
  floor for his teams is very high.
• 17:58
  He's going to get a good amount out of the players on his
• 18:02
  roster. I think sometimes he's not
• 18:06
  developing that at the high end. So like the ceiling is very
• 18:11
  dependent on the chemistry of the team, both from a ability
• 18:16
  standpoint and from, you know, the team chemistry in general.
• 18:20
  That's why you see, you know, you can get those very high
• 18:22
  highs, but all the pieces have to be in place for that to be,
• 18:27
  you know, for for them to really reach that level.
• 18:29
  And we've seen that really happen one time.
• 18:34
  And beyond that, it's it's like they're good enough just to be
• 18:40
  at that, at that cut level, at that cut line for the
• 18:43
  tournament. And it only takes one or two bad
• 18:46
  games to to put you on the other side of that.
• 18:48
  And, you know, this season has been the classic of dropping the
• 18:52
  games that you have, you, you, you can't close them out.
• 18:58
  You know, we we've seen that pretty consistently, I think
• 19:01
  throughout this year. And and that's where you get to
• 19:04
  a point of, yeah, is this coaching?
• 19:08
  It may be, it may be, it may not be.
• 19:09
  But if it's not getting done, then you need to try something
• 19:13
  different. Yeah, So I'd say, I'd say, you
• 19:21
  know, my my basic stick on Mike Young is like obviously a flawed
• 19:24
  coach. I think he's good with the
• 19:26
  offensive X and those, but I think they're you know, there's
• 19:29
  just certain things like program management wise, attention to
• 19:31
  detail that I think can be lacking at times.
• 19:33
  Recruiting again, we know it's a different ball game now.
• 19:36
  I know he's not gotten the resources that, you know, he
• 19:39
  would like. I do also think that he's not
• 19:41
  the type of coach that's going to fight tooth and nail to get
• 19:43
  more resources. He's just not the type of guy
• 19:46
  He's a he's a he's a nice guy, which is great, But I just
• 19:49
  think, you know, sometimes you got you got to be an asshole and
• 19:52
  and demand, you know, more, more resources if you want them.
• 19:55
  And he just he's not got to do that.
• 19:57
  I think he's a coach who is a very good fit for a school who
• 20:00
  does not, you know, have AI guess you could say a cutthroat
• 20:04
  basketball following. You know, we are a football
• 20:07
  school. We're investing in football now
• 20:08
  and you know, basketball has played second fiddle and maybe
• 20:11
  that's fine. So I think you know, BT should
• 20:13
  ask themselves. You know, what is our what is
• 20:15
  our expectation level for basketball?
• 20:17
  Like, do we want to fund this thing a lot or just a little
• 20:19
  bit? If you want to fund it a little
• 20:21
  bit and get, you know, decent results on a shoestring budget,
• 20:23
  I think Mike Young is your guy. But I think, you know, at the
• 20:27
  end of the day, if you feel like, you know, you weren't
• 20:29
  making progress, then, you know, maybe it's time to push him out
• 20:33
  the door and you know, you can, you know, ask him to retire or
• 20:36
  not renew his contract and then try to find, you know, younger
• 20:38
  coach, like Tali said, the guy Miami is doing a really good job
• 20:42
  this year. So I don't know.
• 20:44
  I, I think, you know, obviously the the resources, as we, as
• 20:46
  we've seen with coach Franklin, you know, the resources play
• 20:49
  plays a huge part in your ability to acquire talented
• 20:52
  coaches. So again, that's kind of the
• 20:54
  rub. It's like, you know, if you do
• 20:55
  move on for Mike Young, what type of coach you're going to
• 20:59
  get? Again, I like Brian said, I
• 21:01
  think he he will, you know, make a, a decent team out of scratch.
• 21:07
  But there is a but there is a ceiling there.
• 21:09
  And I do think this team has underperformed a little bit, you
• 21:12
  know, just based on the talent they have, the roster
• 21:14
  construction, I I think they could, they could do a little
• 21:16
  bit better than they are. I know they're, you know,
• 21:18
  they've got some flaws, but I just think, you know, it's not
• 21:21
  quite, they're not quite playing as a team.
• 21:24
  And whether that's the players, the coaching, I don't know.
• 21:26
  But you got to get better results.
• 21:27
  So, well, I guess that's a long winded way of saying we'll see
• 21:31
  what happens in about a year or two.
• 21:33
  Well, it can't be a year or two. It's going to be a year at most
• 21:38
  because his contract ends basically this town next year.
• 21:42
  And I think that's why Phil came to me and said, I mean, he's got
• 21:45
  to be fired because you can't extend him because he's got one
• 21:49
  year left. Can you really extend him after
• 21:50
  what's happened this year? You can't because to your point,
• 21:53
  Shelton, this is a talented team.
• 21:55
  This is a talented team. And I would say we're 17 and 10.
• 21:59
  If this team was 20 or 21 and seven or eight, I don't think
• 22:04
  we'd have a conversation right now.
• 22:06
  It would probably be we're in the tournament extend like 2
• 22:09
  years. But I think now it's the point
• 22:11
  that you said, do they want him to go out on his own terms?
• 22:13
  And if they have him go out on his own terms, then there
• 22:16
  there's somebody sitting on the bench that's probably got to
• 22:18
  automatically be put in the position.
• 22:20
  Similar to what happened at Miami with Jim Larronega and the
• 22:24
  assistant coach there. Similar what happened with Tony
• 22:26
  Bennett when he decided in October of 2024 that he didn't
• 22:30
  want to coach anymore because this was just this era sucked.
• 22:35
  So to me, if they choose to go with someone here, I know the
• 22:41
  name Chester Fraser. Some people are like, hell no,
• 22:44
  do not make him head coach. Some people are like, why not
• 22:47
  ankle hurt anything. If you go ahead and put that
• 22:50
  moniker on someone, then yeah, I'm fine keeping him for a year
• 22:53
  because at least you get to keep the continuity of the current
• 22:57
  staff. But you basically get to say,
• 22:59
  yeah, Mike's coaching next year, that's it.
• 23:02
  And then after that it's Chester show, so you can sell something,
• 23:07
  but the reality. You don't want to lame duck you.
• 23:09
  Like you do not want to, you can't have.
• 23:10
  A lame can't recruit, you can't do anything.
• 23:13
  You can't do anything. So it's effectively this is
• 23:17
  where Wit is an AD. Wit has to make the decision of
• 23:20
  what he wants to do and how he wants to play out basically a
• 23:23
  month from now, unless something crazy happens in the next month,
• 23:27
  which I just can't foresee happening after what's happened
• 23:30
  after last night's loss and not Even so much last night's loss.
• 23:34
  And I know, yes, yes, I had someone at work today come to
• 23:37
  me. Florida State's not as bad as
• 23:38
  their record is, I know that. But that was a game.
• 23:42
  And you got just absolutely murdered second-half.
• 23:45
  Murdered. They folded.
• 23:46
  They quit. And and and and and and and.
• 23:49
  It goes back and everybody's like, well, that's on the
• 23:51
  players tally. You always talk about it.
• 23:54
  If the players start quitting and the players can't be
• 23:57
  cohesive, guess who's getting paid $3.6 million to not make
• 24:02
  them quit and to keep them cohesive?
• 24:04
  Who is it? It's.
• 24:05
  The coach. It's the coach.
• 24:07
  Let me ask you this, Let me ask you all this.
• 24:10
  Where do you think this roster ranks in terms of the most
• 24:16
  talented rosters Mike Young has had during his tenure?
• 24:19
  Second most talented roster. That's about where I have.
• 24:23
  I'd say 2, maybe three. You can make an argument for
• 24:26
  three, but I think I think 2 is where I put it.
• 24:28
  I put it at 2:00 and and that's putting and that's not putting.
• 24:33
  2121 that won the ACC tournament is like 3 to me.
• 24:39
  That's that's the one I was waffling 2:00 to 3:00 on. 2020
• 24:43
  was the most talented team he had and unfortunately because
• 24:46
  they were in if if y'all can go back and remember, I mean it's
• 24:49
  been 6 years which is freaking nuts.
• 24:51
  That team was in. We were like, at this point in
• 24:54
  time, it's like techs in the question is, are they going to
• 24:57
  be a 7 or they're going to be a four?
• 24:59
  Can they do something late in the season, make a deep run in
• 25:02
  the tournament? That team was talented.
• 25:05
  The next year was similar to waffling and then they got hot.
• 25:09
  But to me, this is the second most talented team he's had.
• 25:13
  Yeah, I it's certainly like in terms of like raw individual
• 25:15
  talent, definitely. Again, like I was saying though,
• 25:18
  I just don't know if it, it just hasn't really kind of gelled
• 25:20
  cohesively. Like if you were to ask me that
• 25:22
  question, I'd say like probably the second most talented team,
• 25:25
  but like that 22 team, they might not have been like as as
• 25:29
  talented from like a pure basketball perspective, but they
• 25:31
  were experienced. They knew Mike Young's system
• 25:33
  and they were just so skilled and just played so well as a
• 25:36
  team together. I think again, and and that's
• 25:39
  where Mike is at his best, where he's got experienced guys with
• 25:41
  no system who play together as a team.
• 25:44
  He just hasn't been able to, to recapture that obviously because
• 25:47
  of the Portland and IL and, and again, funding is again a
• 25:50
  factor, but this year's team just doesn't I, I just feel like
• 25:53
  they're not, they're not like the sum of the parts, you know,
• 25:57
  they just don't, it just doesn't mesh entirely well.
• 26:00
  Yeah, yeah. And that that's, that's the
• 26:01
  part, that's the hard part when it comes to basketball and when
• 26:04
  you have to answer those questions.
• 26:06
  When you talk about the most talented team, it's like when
• 26:11
  you look at player by player, it may be OK, this player is more
• 26:16
  talented than this player and you can go down the starting 5,
• 26:20
  whatever the case may be, But the team that may not be the
• 26:23
  most talented plays Better Together.
• 26:25
  Like the teams that were led by Storm Murphy played much more
• 26:30
  cohesive than the teams led by Nico or Neo, excuse me, and Ben
• 26:36
  Hammond. I think both of those, I think
• 26:39
  Ben Hammond and Neo are more talented players than just say
• 26:44
  like Storm Murphy or even Sean Padula.
• 26:46
  But at the same time, in that system that he has, those
• 26:51
  certain players are going to work better.
• 26:53
  So it's so hard to critique where the team ranks, you know
• 26:58
  what I'm saying? So that's that's my dilemma.
• 27:02
  And I just feel like that's why I keep saying that I think the
• 27:04
  game kind of has passed him by. Not saying in a bad way that
• 27:09
  Mike Young doesn't need to coach.
• 27:10
  I I don't want people to think that I'm just crapping on him.
• 27:13
  But I'm just saying in certain, certain settings, it don't work.
• 27:16
  You know what I'm saying? Like I watched my son play
• 27:20
  certain teams and I'm like, this don't work.
• 27:22
  You know, if you got a team full of guards, why do we want to
• 27:25
  slow the game down and set stuff up?
• 27:28
  We don't have a big man get the ball off the rim and get to the
• 27:31
  other rim, you know, just things like that so.
• 27:33
  Well, and and you know, the the sad part is you mentioned that
• 27:35
  tally about not having a true big man, although Horn and the
• 27:39
  other kid do well, but it's not built.
• 27:42
  But before Toby Lewall went down and I do think that's a big
• 27:46
  piece. How many times were they
• 27:48
  rebounded and just with him and Neo and with him and just push
• 27:53
  like something we never seen in a Mike Young system.
• 27:55
  They were pushing an alley oop dunks right to.
• 27:57
  The rail, I think, Neil. He got hurt.
• 27:59
  That just completely screwed. Everything I think Neil's heard
• 28:02
  and he they're not saying it. I don't.
• 28:05
  I think they're just making him play through it.
• 28:07
  He plays like he's hurt. To me.
• 28:11
  Me watching him play early in the season, it could be a
• 28:13
  confidence thing, but I think something's wrong with it.
• 28:16
  Could be, and that's the thing. Sometimes you just don't know.
• 28:20
  And if it is a confidence thing, if it's, if it's, if it's not
• 28:24
  injury, like you say tally and it is truly a confidence thing.
• 28:26
  I'm I'm going to say it back again.
• 28:29
  That's what coaches are supposed to do.
• 28:30
  Coaches are supposed to build that confidence.
• 28:32
  And, and, and if you can't do it yourself as the head coach, then
• 28:36
  you know how to step back and get an assistant and who he
• 28:38
  vibes with and to get his mentality and to get his
• 28:42
  confidence back up. That's what coaching is.
• 28:45
  I was, I was having a conversation today.
• 28:48
  Shelton I know Brian has coached his son Tally, You've coached
• 28:52
  yours. I've coached hours.
• 28:54
  But we've helped with teams, right?
• 28:56
  You ever talk to a kid and try to help them and you just see it
• 28:59
  that whatever you're saying it, it ain't it ain't clicking.
• 29:02
  And you got to walk away. And Shelton, you might have the
• 29:05
  experiences as well. And you just walk away and you
• 29:07
  go tell another coach, help them do this fundamental task.
• 29:11
  For whatever reason, I can't get through to them.
• 29:14
  And then the next coach comes up perfect.
• 29:16
  You know, they they stroke it off the tee or Brown.
• 29:17
  They know why I played soccer for years.
• 29:20
  Like, oh, they know exactly what to do now.
• 29:22
  Yeah. And there, there, there's no
• 29:24
  difference. It's the same message.
• 29:26
  It's just a different voice. But again, that's coaching.
• 29:30
  That's someone saying I can't relate to that kid or get that
• 29:34
  information to him or build that confidence up.
• 29:37
  I've got to step back and I got to put somebody else in so.
• 29:39
  It's funny because you know when, when people get, you know,
• 29:42
  we can, we can call it the yips, we can call it whatever we want
• 29:45
  to call it. When you, when you get into a
• 29:48
  funk, you get into this lack of rhythm, you know everything
• 29:51
  else. You got to understand the
• 29:53
  personality that you're working with and you know, everybody's
• 29:57
  going to be different. You know, some guys to get their
• 30:01
  confidence back, they need you to trust them, keep trusting
• 30:03
  them, give them those those shots, give them those
• 30:06
  opportunities. Some people need you to kind of
• 30:10
  refocus them on the part of their game that is successful.
• 30:13
  So they have a foundation to build off of.
• 30:15
  So it it's really about kind of finding out what's going to work
• 30:18
  for that individual person. They really, you know, get over
• 30:22
  whatever hump they're they're they're experiencing.
• 30:25
  And, and it doesn't look like, you know, if it's not an
• 30:27
  interrelated issue that Mike Young hasn't been able to find
• 30:30
  that with Neo, especially since we really gotten into ACC play.
• 30:34
  I feel like, you know, we got an ACC play and it just, he's been
• 30:41
  the different animal in a bad way.
• 30:43
  You know, he's had a he's had a couple games where he's looked,
• 30:46
  you know, somewhat like the the player we saw early in the
• 30:49
  season, but for the most part, you know, lack of confidence,
• 30:54
  inconsistent play, you know, about a one to one assist to
• 30:59
  turnover ratio in a lot of games.
• 31:01
  Like it's just it's, it's not what you want to see all.
• 31:05
  Right. Well, First things first.
• 31:07
  I did not expect us to go 20 plus minutes on basketball, but
• 31:12
  we just went 20 plus minutes on basketball.
• 31:14
  So clearly things are out there. The season's not over, but they
• 31:20
  are going to have to have to me a six or seven game win the
• 31:25
  streak to get in the tournament and that means closing out with
• 31:28
  two big wins on the road 2 should be wins and then a couple
• 31:32
  in the tournament to get in. All right, let's get over here.
• 31:35
  Let's talk some football and a quick.
• 31:38
  Quick shout out to women's team though.
• 31:40
  Women's basketball doing very well.
• 31:41
  Had a couple big wins in California so just want to give
• 31:44
  them a shout out. And they are technically, if I
• 31:47
  looked at the last thing that we saw, they're in, right?
• 31:51
  Yes, they got a very good spot. I think I'll make it.
• 31:54
  OK, so the women's spot in hopefully they can make it.
• 32:00
  I feel like Megan Duffy's put a is putting teams together,
• 32:04
  putting good recruits together. But I think the best part about
• 32:08
  where she is, she's in year 2, NIT last year, get the
• 32:13
  tournament bid this year. That like it's stepping stones
• 32:16
  to me with women's suits versus men's suits, like men's suits.
• 32:18
  We want we want it now women's hoops, it's like it's going to
• 32:21
  take a few years. That's cool.
• 32:22
  We get it. All right, flip it over to
• 32:25
  football. Let's talk about the support
• 32:27
  staff and all the guys who are part of that because and when I
• 32:34
  say support chef, I'm truly meaning on field guys or
• 32:37
  directly related strengths and conditions staff out there.
• 32:40
  You know, me and Brian looked at it that got moved one up.
• 32:43
  We saw, if you hadn't seen Chuck Lucy's video today, everybody
• 32:47
  see it. Everybody see a little snippet
• 32:49
  of him in the way in the room today.
• 32:51
  I that man seems like he can motivate, but we're talking
• 32:55
  truly on the field and this is the largest support staff techs
• 33:00
  ever had. It is slowly but surely creeping
• 33:03
  to levels of true top 25, top 30 teams.
• 33:08
  There are a total of 14 support staff members this year.
• 33:13
  That includes 4 analysts along with 10 assistant positional
• 33:16
  coaches. I know what I want to talk about
• 33:20
  but I want to kind of slowly get there.
• 33:23
  But let me let me ask y'all this.
• 33:27
  Is anyone surprised that this much emphasis you know, we're
• 33:33
  talking about I think it was 10 last year and you're basically
• 33:38
  talking about going up almost 50% this year with more support
• 33:42
  staff and effectively analysts this year.
• 33:45
  Are y'all shocked by that in any way?
• 33:49
  Not shocked. I think, you know, when, when
• 33:52
  everyone was talking about the staff spend and you're not
• 33:57
  necessarily targeting high dollar coordinators and things
• 34:00
  like that. You know, money's being spent,
• 34:04
  just it's being spent in a different way than I think some
• 34:08
  of us expected it to be. And you know, the, the biggest
• 34:11
  piece is, is the analyst that we have on board, you know, looking
• 34:16
  at looking at these guys, I mean, these are, you know, kind
• 34:20
  of heavy hitters. I, I, I would call them in terms
• 34:23
  of, you know, bringing analysts on board from Virginia Tech.
• 34:25
  So I'm excited to talk about them a little bit.
• 34:30
  Sheldon Talley, any shock that the support staff is this big or
• 34:33
  you think this is the the cost of doing business and also the
• 34:38
  the thing about having James Franklin on staff?
• 34:42
  Yeah, definitely both. I think, you know, that's kind
• 34:44
  of just the way that departments operate these days.
• 34:46
  I've gotten my my thoughts about that.
• 34:48
  But the game is the game. So you got to you got to pay to
• 34:51
  keep up. And they also loosened up some
• 34:53
  of the restrictions on the number of assistant coaching you
• 34:56
  can have because, you know, back in the old days, we'd have, you
• 34:59
  know, Jerry Kill be hired as like an assistant to the staff.
• 35:02
  And then, you know, he'd be like, you know, coaching, but
• 35:04
  not coaching on the side. So Vince was like, all right,
• 35:08
  we're just going to get rid of that.
• 35:09
  You can coach, you can hire as many coaches as you want to.
• 35:11
  So they've taken full advantage of that.
• 35:14
  And like I said, I think Franklin's very, he's a stickler
• 35:17
  about details. He wants to have every, every
• 35:19
  position filled, you know, every little nook and crane that he
• 35:21
  can find some sort of, you know, competitive advantage, you know,
• 35:24
  have people, you know, kind of, you know, delineate those
• 35:27
  responsibilities to other people in the room so that no one's
• 35:30
  really overworked. I I think is, is philosophy.
• 35:33
  So just a combination of, you know, having, having the money
• 35:36
  to spend it, Obviously you're, you're going to spend it.
• 35:39
  And I think Franklin kind of knows what he's doing there.
• 35:40
  So not surprised at all. That's what I'm saying, yeah,
• 35:46
  definitely not surprised. And I feel like it's needed, you
• 35:49
  know what I'm saying? You got this, what, 105 kids on
• 35:52
  on the roster down. The more staff you have, the
• 35:56
  more eyes you have on them to be able to connect with them, watch
• 36:00
  them having more people in the weight room, having more
• 36:06
  strength and conditioning staff help because each group will
• 36:10
  have a strength coach with them, you know, and it comes down to
• 36:15
  making sure people are getting those reps in that last Rep, you
• 36:19
  know, because when you got somebody going to school and
• 36:20
  then that 160 when they get there and 163 to four years
• 36:24
  later, what are we doing? 100% on that. 100% on that,
• 36:30
  Yeah. So anything else tally?
• 36:33
  Is it all right? I mean, it is the IT is the
• 36:37
  makings of a true Division One staff.
• 36:41
  And I think that's, I love what Jim put up there and I think I
• 36:45
  put it up for a second, but it's like you get away from the mom
• 36:47
  and Popeye. We're going to do, we're going
• 36:49
  to do, we're going to do more with less.
• 36:51
  No, we're going to do more with more because that's the only way
• 36:54
  it can be done nowadays. Now we look, we got the list
• 36:58
  here. Y'all can see it on Virginia
• 37:00
  Tech's website here. But I'm I'm going to go to
• 37:04
  Shelton because Shelton, as you looked through the support staff
• 37:09
  as high as were being made, like which one did just popped out at
• 37:15
  you and it's like, I love that hire like that makes me happy.
• 37:20
  Well, I'll be kind of revealing my bias here because you guys
• 37:23
  know it would be my fan. So you guys stole our our head
• 37:26
  coach, Danny Rocco, who's being an analyst, I guess his title's
• 37:31
  senior defensive analyst for offense.
• 37:33
  I guess they just make up any title you want these days.
• 37:37
  But he'll be analyzing the analyzing the defense, whatever
• 37:42
  he's going to be, he's going to be analyzing something.
• 37:43
  I know that for sure. And they got his his kid in
• 37:47
  there, Dave Rocco as well, and then Greg Wood.
• 37:49
  So I actually, I'm very well familiar with the work that he
• 37:52
  did. Assistant special teams coach,
• 37:54
  he did a fantastic job at VMI. He produced several FCS all
• 37:58
  Americans. I think some long snappers
• 38:01
  kicking game wasn't wasn't quite as good in some years, but I
• 38:04
  think that's more of a more of a talent thing.
• 38:05
  But he he did a great job at VMI.
• 38:07
  Both those guys did relative to, you know, the, the challenges of
• 38:10
  that school. So again, just just the fact
• 38:12
  that like I know the work that they did personally, you know,
• 38:15
  kind of like, I guess you know, kind of puts the gives me some
• 38:18
  inside info there, but I think those are two pretty awesome
• 38:20
  hires. Nice tally.
• 38:23
  What about you? I don't know how much in depth
• 38:25
  and research you did on them, but of all these support staff
• 38:28
  hires, any of them catch your eye?
• 38:30
  Any of them you like. Just a lot of different ones of,
• 38:35
  you know, the Rocco family just because Sheldon put that, you
• 38:39
  know, talk to us about it. But I like the the Conchlin hire
• 38:43
  as well, you know, just being able to have somebody else with
• 38:47
  some, you know, coaching experience and another analyst
• 38:51
  that you can lean on because you know, defense has been Achilles
• 38:55
  heel for us as of late. So again, I don't know, they
• 38:59
  kind of make up different things for what these people are, but I
• 39:04
  think conference going to help with the defense as far as being
• 39:06
  an analyst. So where did he coach?
• 39:09
  He was a head coach somewhere. He.
• 39:11
  Was a head coach at Wofford. There we go.
• 39:14
  So head coach at Wofford, you know, and to bring them home and
• 39:19
  again, to have more eyes to be like, hold on that don't look
• 39:22
  right because we need them. Our eyes on pry, pry.
• 39:26
  The eyes are on you, buddy. We we still don't know how we
• 39:30
  feel. We think you're a good guy.
• 39:34
  I don't want to say happy that you're here.
• 39:36
  You're here. So it is what it is.
• 39:40
  But we still still got to have as many eyes eyes on you as we
• 39:55
  can get. So man man, James Franklin mess
• 40:01
  with our your Internet here. You're starting to speak bad of
• 40:04
  his boy pride cutting you in and out, Tally.
• 40:09
  He said he hears that. It's just that's just like Mike
• 40:11
  feedback. Off man, I don't.
• 40:12
  Like that noise? Alright, Brian, I I got a
• 40:18
  feeling who you're going to mention so.
• 40:22
  So I mean, you know, we've talked a bunch about both of
• 40:27
  these guys, but you know, I feel like Warren Ruggiero like that,
• 40:37
  that's a big deal. You know, when we were talking
• 40:42
  that offensive side, defensive side was like Ruggiero and
• 40:45
  Conklin are like, I couldn't have really picked up a a couple
• 40:50
  of gets for offensive and defensive analysts.
• 40:52
  They could have been much better than that.
• 40:55
  Yeah. But but now you bring in
• 40:57
  Ruggiero, I mean, I think that's his his resume is is just
• 41:01
  impressive. What he's been able to do on the
• 41:04
  offensive side of the ball has been really incredible in his
• 41:11
  career. You know, seeing what they were
• 41:15
  able to do with, with some of the things that, you know, he
• 41:21
  was able to do with Iowa as an analyst this year.
• 41:24
  Yeah. They that that offense was not
• 41:27
  an Iowa off and like an improved entity, if, if you will, even if
• 41:31
  not a juggernaut on the offensive side of the ball.
• 41:37
  Yeah. So, you know, you've got that
• 41:40
  experience there. We saw what he was able to do at
• 41:41
  Wake Forest. I I just think this is a guy
• 41:44
  that has seen a lot of football and it's going to really help a
• 41:49
  young coordinator like how kind of get his feet under him as he
• 41:52
  gets into this role. Yeah, you mean y'all, y'all kind
• 41:58
  of hit all the guys that are out there.
• 42:00
  Plus, you know, you bring some staff continuity back with guys
• 42:03
  like Cam Phillips, Vay Winslow, Mike Mosinko, who was a tight
• 42:11
  end coach going to QB. Mosinko was AQB in his true
• 42:15
  life, so him coach Titans make sense.
• 42:17
  But the one question, the one thing that is a little out here
• 42:20
  and we were discussing about it, Brian Chris is still on staff in
• 42:24
  an endless role. This man has now survived the
• 42:28
  Fuente era, He survived the prior era, and he's living his
• 42:33
  life in the Franklin era. Brian was very nice, Curtis.
• 42:39
  I think this fits him good. Brian was being very nice to
• 42:41
  Brian. Chris, you were like, don't
• 42:43
  crack, baby. He's like, it's this is going to
• 42:46
  be the best role he's been in because of all the.
• 42:49
  City don't crack. Because of all these guys, he
• 42:51
  and his resume, it doesn't come close to Rosiero's, Danny
• 42:55
  Rocco's or Josh Complans. Not even close.
• 42:58
  He's never been a head coach. He's never been in OC, you know,
• 43:02
  Ruggiero OC long time never been a head coach.
• 43:04
  Danny Rocco successful at Richmond, successful at
• 43:06
  Delaware. He's a top three all time handy
• 43:08
  city quarterback. Curtis get off that snap.
• 43:13
  So, so, so Shelton, me and Brian have been discussing this and
• 43:17
  and and and you're kind of like, well, these are weird ass titles
• 43:21
  for Rocco and Chris. Senior defensive analyst for the
• 43:24
  offense, senior offensive analyst for the defense.
• 43:26
  Well, you start thinking about it.
• 43:28
  Well, wait a second. What they're doing here is
• 43:31
  basically they are giving the coordinators basically a
• 43:35
  Brigadier General with their true analysts, and then they're
• 43:38
  basically giving them another Brigadier General as the analyst
• 43:43
  for the offense. And what they're doing in that
• 43:44
  sense is probably, and this is just thinking high level to look
• 43:48
  at the titles. Probably Danny Rocco's job is
• 43:51
  going to be to point out to Ty Conklin, this team does this
• 43:55
  really good on defense, and this is how going to attack your mesh
• 43:58
  point. This is how they're going to
• 43:59
  attack scene. So as you start thinking about
• 44:01
  the structure is their job is to Brian, go ahead.
• 44:05
  You had it much more out of when we talked about scout teams and
• 44:07
  all this stuff. So why is it structured this
• 44:10
  way? Brian, get into a little bit
• 44:12
  what we talked about earlier. And yeah, I mean thinking about
• 44:15
  it from a from a structure and standpoint like you, you've got
• 44:18
  a senior defensive analyst for the offense.
• 44:21
  So you've got basically someone that is breaking down how they
• 44:27
  would approach attacking the scheme that you employ week to
• 44:32
  week relative to the game plan and and scheme of the opponent,
• 44:41
  working out scout team scripts to be used in practice.
• 44:44
  Like there, there's so many different things that this type
• 44:47
  of role could bring to the table that takes some of that off of
• 44:52
  the coaches that are on the field and lets them do what they
• 44:54
  do best, which is get the players better and more prepared
• 44:57
  for the for the game that's coming up.
• 44:59
  So having a guy like this, being able to as a coordinator, you
• 45:05
  know, bounce ideas off of a guy that has is an offensive mind
• 45:09
  live on the practice field or in, in the meeting room without,
• 45:14
  you know, having to cross the streams of, of offense and
• 45:17
  defense there. There's so many benefits that
• 45:20
  you can get from having this type of role on your team.
• 45:23
  I'm excited to see how much fruit it bears.
• 45:28
  So, yeah, I mean, again, it's it's we, we we're we're now in
• 45:33
  like this era with Virginia Tech football is we can or they are
• 45:37
  making it where we can afford to do these things that so many
• 45:41
  other programs have been doing for so long.
• 45:43
  And they're doing it to me. What you said, Brian, you know,
• 45:47
  a couple of the the the coaching hires were like, oh, you know,
• 45:50
  that that's a solid coach. I wish it was better, but then
• 45:53
  you start seeing the behind the scenes and where the money was
• 45:56
  being sent and how big the support staff is and bringing in
• 45:59
  guys who were head coaches or were offensive coordinators to
• 46:03
  be your analysts and you start seeing, I think, I think Rocco
• 46:07
  and Ruggiero are both getting paid 250,000 a year, which they
• 46:12
  deserve it. They're good football coaches
• 46:14
  and they've been good football coaches for a long, long time.
• 46:17
  So again, take a look, you you look through up and down the
• 46:21
  guys who are like the assistant linebacker coach, assistant DL
• 46:25
  coach. You know, these are guys
• 46:28
  basically starting out in their careers.
• 46:30
  And I think what's going to start happening, and this is
• 46:33
  just in general from a look of college football at 10,000 feet
• 46:37
  is you're going to get into those assistant roles and
• 46:40
  there's going to be a lot more analytical jobs out there.
• 46:43
  There's going to be a lot more jobs like that versus where it
• 46:46
  used to be. What oh, you, you want to be a
• 46:49
  coach? Oh, you're going to be just a
• 46:51
  coach. There weren't a lot or analysts
• 46:55
  out there weren't a lot of stuff like that.
• 46:57
  And now that's growing more and more as the Sheldon, your
• 47:01
  favorite thing, the metrics get deeper and deeper.
• 47:04
  The stories get told by the numbers.
• 47:06
  The stories get told about what's going on in the field and
• 47:09
  you need someone to analyze that.
• 47:10
  So if anything, like these guys who were getting those first
• 47:15
  shots like a Derek Tangelo, who's coming down from Penn
• 47:17
  State, who's who played defensive line for Sean Spencer
• 47:21
  and then help had been the assistant coach of the Penn
• 47:24
  State. Well, he he gets to come in and
• 47:28
  say, do I really want to be an on field coach or do I want to
• 47:31
  get off and do something else? And so that's a good piece.
• 47:34
  All right, any anything else on this coaching staff or were we?
• 47:38
  Oh, I got one thing. Terrell Smith is back.
• 47:41
  The man who spent nine years at Tech.
• 47:43
  I think he crossed over with you, right, Sheldon?
• 47:45
  For a couple of those years, finally.
• 47:47
  Years. Yeah, he was an eighth year guy
• 47:49
  before it was cool. He is back by the way.
• 47:55
  He is putting his master's degrees to work.
• 47:57
  You look at his master's degrees, he's director, player
• 48:00
  personnel or player development. He'd been doing it at Rutgers,
• 48:05
  one of the like, one of the more entertaining interviews,
• 48:07
  entertaining guys. Glad he's back home.
• 48:11
  Definitely helping the players out.
• 48:13
  Probably going. He's probably got case studies
• 48:15
  too of how he got all those medical red shirts.
• 48:18
  Probably goes into Franklin's office.
• 48:20
  We won't get this guy another year.
• 48:21
  We won't get this guy another year.
• 48:23
  So I I joke on that, by the way, right, let's let's get into it
• 48:28
  and let's talk about where the boundary corner podcast
• 48:32
  effectively for every position room too deep is for this
• 48:38
  spring. Now, some of them are easier,
• 48:40
  right? Right quarterback seat.
• 48:44
  I'd I'd say the first two that we're going to talk about it are
• 48:46
  pretty easy. Well, I mean, is there any
• 48:50
  question, anything, anything Grunker might have won?
• 48:53
  Yeah. I mean and we all agree Bryce
• 48:57
  Brown was too. There is a reason that he was
• 48:59
  went out and got, if they like what they had already, we
• 49:02
  wouldn't have went out and got another bag of quarterback.
• 49:07
  Yeah, right. That, that that's where I'm at.
• 49:09
  Would you? Agree with that, yeah.
• 49:14
  Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's a much debate here.
• 49:16
  I mean, I'm sure there will be, you know, some degree of battles
• 49:22
  for the backup spot in spring practice, but I think #1
• 49:29
  quarterback is Ethan Grunkemyer's and #2 is Bryce
• 49:34
  Brown's to lose. And I don't think that's that's
• 49:38
  going off the deep end at all. 100% All right, quarterbacks
• 49:43
  done running back we it was easily it was Hawkins and
• 49:48
  Overton, but there was some discussion about who the number
• 49:51
  one is and I'll tally and Brian y'all were a lot more on that
• 49:56
  than me, but just say you peace on that.
• 50:02
  Tally, I'll let you lead on this one.
• 50:08
  So I mean, it's just interesting because Jeff has not had a full
• 50:15
  offseason, right? He's hurt.
• 50:18
  And if you tell your ACL, thank you to his ACL something in his
• 50:24
  knee leg, he. Messed his knee up.
• 50:26
  How much benching could he do? Yeah, How much benching could he
• 50:29
  do? How much lower body work could
• 50:31
  he really do on that leg in the offseason to get himself back
• 50:37
  ready to play? And he did get back and he was
• 50:39
  ready to play. So I just think with a full
• 50:42
  offseason of him working, we'll see all of the things that he
• 50:46
  can do. And then you got, you know,
• 50:48
  Hawkins, that was very, very productive.
• 50:55
  I think he may have, in most people's minds, started as the
• 50:58
  third or fourth running back last year and he ended up, he
• 51:01
  ends up being number one, you know, the most productive
• 51:04
  running back that we have. So I'm thinking it'll be a good
• 51:07
  1-2 punch, but I don't know where you go as far as who is
• 51:13
  number 1. I think that's going to be kind
• 51:16
  of a ongoing thing. Go ahead bro.
• 51:23
  I mean, if if you're saying what what is the roster designation
• 51:28
  going to be for these two? I think it's going to be Jeff
• 51:31
  Overton junior or Marcellus Hawkins.
• 51:35
  And I think Jeff is going to be the one AI think Marcellus is
• 51:41
  going to be the 1B. You know, as far as touch wise,
• 51:46
  I think it's going to be flow of the game.
• 51:47
  I think it's going to be how much are we throwing the
• 51:50
  football in that game? Because I think you probably
• 51:52
  want Hawkins on the field more if you're throwing because he's
• 51:56
  a good third down blocker and he's more effective out of the
• 51:59
  backfield. But in terms of just explosive
• 52:03
  playmaking, I mean, we saw that from Jeff out the gate without
• 52:09
  an offseason, without, you know, all the things that you would
• 52:12
  think you would want from a true freshman.
• 52:14
  So the Sky's kind of the limit for him at this point this year
• 52:20
  with the full offseason and everything else.
• 52:22
  So we might be hyping him up too much.
• 52:24
  We'll see. But I think he takes a pretty
• 52:27
  big step this year. And if he does, he's going to be
• 52:30
  definitely A1A in the backfield. Yes, I don't even doubt that I
• 52:36
  think they're 1A and one BI would I would Lynn Hawkins
• 52:38
  because of more experience in everything better pass blocker
• 52:43
  pass catcher as well called basically a pass a game which it
• 52:48
  doesn't sound like a lot, but one pass a game can definitely
• 52:51
  alter a game plan of a defense. Show them before I close this
• 52:54
  out. I know you've been busy, but
• 52:57
  anything about that feel of that room or is it it's it's them in
• 53:02
  some way, shape or form? Which room?
• 53:05
  Running back. Running back, I mean, honestly,
• 53:10
  not really. Like, I mean, obviously Hawkins
• 53:13
  being back is good. You know, like I, I, I think the
• 53:16
  production will be fine. It's just like super.
• 53:19
  I think running back is just super like situational
• 53:21
  dependent, you know, like what the, the blocking is, you know,
• 53:24
  what the quarterback situation is, what the, you know, OC wants
• 53:28
  to do. But I mean, I feel, I feel
• 53:30
  pretty good about it. Let's flip down to another room
• 53:35
  where it feels like the too deep is pretty set with Luke Reynolds
• 53:40
  being kind of an all world tight in is coming out of high school
• 53:44
  and proving that his first couple years, his first year in
• 53:47
  2024, obviously backing up Tyler Warren, who was an absolute stud
• 53:52
  and then last year having a significant role in the Penn
• 53:55
  State offense. And then you got Benji Gosnell,
• 53:58
  who wasn't used last year, but Tally.
• 54:03
  Tally got Tally with Shelton, I will say, because Tally started
• 54:06
  looking at numbers and things and Tally was whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 54:12
  Don't be saying both of these guys names because there's
• 54:15
  somebody else that he feels is creeping up and it might steal
• 54:18
  that number two slot away from Benji Gosnell.
• 54:21
  Yeah, because I mean, you had Harrison, you know, Benji had
• 54:27
  about the I guess he may have had about the same snaps as
• 54:30
  Hairston, which was, you know, Hairston got thrust in there on
• 54:34
  on some some playing time that he made, you know, wasn't
• 54:39
  expecting to get this year, but he produced, you know, I think
• 54:43
  he may have had three touchdowns.
• 54:46
  How 15 catches, 12 catches, you know, more yards to Benji, more
• 54:50
  touchdown to Benji. So I can't say that Benji's the
• 54:54
  you know, I know he's going to be the in the too deep.
• 54:58
  If you got another tight end that is as productive as him and
• 55:03
  me watching the tight ends, Benji's not a very, very
• 55:06
  reliable blocker. Watching a little bit of
• 55:09
  Reynolds. He's a little bit they said Penn
• 55:11
  State fans say Reynolds don't block.
• 55:13
  But from what I've seen, he's a, he's more of a blocker than what
• 55:18
  we had. He's a better blocker than Benji
• 55:20
  and I don't want to say better. A lot of times when you're a
• 55:24
  tight end, blocking is about effort.
• 55:28
  If you go back to the bowl game last year, Benji had the
• 55:33
  opportunity to spring Keelan on a on a run for a touchdown and
• 55:38
  he just didn't give the effort to get to the safety.
• 55:42
  That's just one play, but I've seen him do that multiple times.
• 55:45
  Not saying he's not a good player, not saying he can't
• 55:47
  improve on that, but I'm just saying if you got hungry people
• 55:51
  in that room, somebody's going to go and make that block so
• 55:54
  they can get on the field. Whether that's Harrison, whether
• 55:57
  that's the what is it Henderson kid that that we pulled in,
• 56:02
  somebody's going. Somebody with all of these
• 56:05
  different coaches that they have, all of these new regime
• 56:08
  that they bought in, somebody's going to impress somebody enough
• 56:11
  to get on the field. I think Harrison St.
• 56:13
  Germain is back too, right? Yep, Saint Germain is back for
• 56:17
  one. And so, I mean, somebody's going
• 56:21
  to, I don't want to say take a step because that sounds, you
• 56:25
  know, kind of, I don't know, you know, just something that people
• 56:29
  say. I don't know if we take a step,
• 56:31
  somebody's going to do better than they did last year to get
• 56:35
  on the field, whether they were at Penn State or they were at
• 56:38
  Virginia Tech. So I think it would be Harrison,
• 56:43
  you know what I'm saying? I think he'll be the one that'll
• 56:44
  give that second position a little bit more run.
• 56:49
  But I will say all that to say, you know what rhymes with Luke
• 56:54
  Reynolds? Luke Reynolds, yeah.
• 56:57
  Luke. Reynolds So if you got a Muke
• 57:00
  Reynolds, Luke Reynolds on the stat, I mean on the team kind of
• 57:04
  like what we going. Hey, I will say one thing and
• 57:10
  this isn't to like necessarily counter your assessments,
• 57:16
  Hallie, But when we look at if we're comparing output from
• 57:20
  Hairston and Bizzy Gosnell last year, I think because the sample
• 57:25
  size is so small, I don't know if, if that comparison really
• 57:29
  means anything. I mean, you're talking about,
• 57:32
  you know, just over 10 receptions for both of them, you
• 57:35
  know, right at 100 plus yards and some change for both of
• 57:39
  them. Like there wasn't targets, there
• 57:42
  wasn't opportunities. And when you shrink the sample
• 57:46
  size down like that, you know, one big player, you know, all
• 57:50
  this can really throw things in One Direction or another when
• 57:54
  you make those type of comparisons.
• 57:55
  So I don't really know what that means.
• 57:59
  I'll tell you one thing though. The blocking was a problem from
• 58:02
  from Gosnell's perspective. So that's going to have to
• 58:04
  improve. Yeah.
• 58:06
  I think Luke Reynolds locked in there.
• 58:09
  I, I think Luke Reynolds is locked in at 1.
• 58:11
  You know, when we talk about who's to, I think Benji has the
• 58:16
  ability there. To your point, I think we need
• 58:17
  to see the effort, better positioning.
• 58:20
  You know, you, you don't have to at tight end, you don't have to
• 58:24
  be driving defensive ends 5-6 yards up the field, but you do
• 58:29
  have to have proper positioning and you have to have effort and,
• 58:31
  and you got to stay on the block.
• 58:33
  Even if you're not dominating the block, you got to stay on
• 58:35
  the block. So I mean, that's, that's the
• 58:37
  big thing that they need to focus on.
• 58:39
  So we'll see what if, if they can improve?
• 58:41
  Obviously we got to a coach now for that position that knows
• 58:45
  what the fuck he's doing so. Ain't trying to run an option
• 58:49
  offense, Sheldon, what you got? Yeah.
• 58:53
  So looking at some of the numbers here, just confirm a
• 58:56
  couple of things. So on in terms of the stats, so
• 59:03
  Benji was actually the worst graded tight end the ACC last
• 59:06
  year, which is not not good. Now, I will say as to what Brian
• 59:12
  was talking about, pretty limited sample size in terms of
• 59:16
  pass catching. And when you compartmentalize
• 59:17
  some of those grades, it was actually the the pass catching
• 59:19
  that was the biggest, the biggest thing that that was
• 59:22
  dragging him down. They actually didn't dislike his
• 59:25
  his blocking that much. So it might be an area where
• 59:28
  maybe the stats differ from the eye test, but regardless, you
• 59:33
  know, that was where he struggled the most.
• 59:34
  And again, it was just small sample size.
• 59:36
  So how much of that is, you know, the the system, the
• 59:38
  scheme, the opportunities versus like his talent?
• 59:40
  I mean, we'll see percentage of pass block snaps.
• 59:47
  I was looking at that too. Yeah.
• 59:50
  So, so Benji had the highest percentage of pass block snaps
• 59:53
  in the ECC. So essentially just not a lot of
• 59:55
  pass catching opportunities. So like you said, Reynolds has
• 59:59
  some experience in that in that area.
• 1:00:01
  So I think they'll get, you know, they'll have some more
• 1:00:02
  versatility there. But I I do think that again.
• 1:00:06
  You know, kind of what I was talking about with running
• 1:00:08
  backs, like it is situational dependent, like, you know,
• 1:00:11
  different scheme, different coach, you know, different
• 1:00:13
  number of opportunities. I would say that, you know, last
• 1:00:18
  year might not necessarily be a reflection of Benji's true
• 1:00:20
  ability, even though you do want to make some upgrades.
• 1:00:23
  But I do think he he's capable of playing better football.
• 1:00:26
  Right. And to that point, I mean, in,
• 1:00:29
  in this system in particular, all three guys we talked about
• 1:00:33
  are going to play significant snaps.
• 1:00:35
  I mean, we, we said we wanted 2 because that's who's going to
• 1:00:37
  play the majority of the snaps. But all three of those guys are
• 1:00:40
  going to play significant snaps in this offense.
• 1:00:43
  Yeah. And could it be, could the third
• 1:00:45
  be Henderson, Harrison, St. Germain?
• 1:00:47
  There is the battle there. But like what you said, Brian,
• 1:00:50
  we kept it to two because they're going to be on the field
• 1:00:54
  70% of the time. The other guys are going to have
• 1:00:57
  various roles. We're rarely going to see all
• 1:00:58
  three of them on the field at the same time.
• 1:01:00
  You'll you will see Luke Reynolds and Benji guys now on
• 1:01:02
  the field at the same time at some.
• 1:01:03
  Point exactly all right, let's flip it over to the wide
• 1:01:07
  receiver room where we we did 6 so you've got the X, the Z and
• 1:01:12
  then the slot is the way I kind of think about it.
• 1:01:16
  You can't do you can't do 4 anymore on wide receivers.
• 1:01:19
  It's just we're not in that age. So we went through and we
• 1:01:24
  literally just here's who I think, here's who Brian thinks,
• 1:01:28
  here's who Callie thinks, here's Sheldon's input.
• 1:01:30
  And we landed on this is the 6th.
• 1:01:32
  We went Krishawn Brown, without a doubt, Aiden Green without a
• 1:01:36
  doubt to keep to to Cahit. I cannot say that name.
• 1:01:40
  Keelan Adams, Jans Wiggins and Jeff Exnor Junior.
• 1:01:44
  And I'm sitting here and just kind of looking.
• 1:01:46
  One of my guys did make the list and that was Marley and Jackson,
• 1:01:50
  who is the transfer from Lot Tech.
• 1:01:52
  And the way I look at this room in general is the reality is
• 1:01:57
  only four of these receivers on the roster this year have truly
• 1:02:02
  produced at a college level, and that's Brown.
• 1:02:06
  Obviously. He's the stud of the group,
• 1:02:08
  Aiden who's made some spectacular plays, Taki Heath on
• 1:02:11
  some gadget plays, and then Jackson Down playing kind of a
• 1:02:17
  role in latex offense. But the other thing that is you
• 1:02:22
  start looking in probably why these three younger guys come up
• 1:02:26
  is look at their pedigree, look at how young they are, look how
• 1:02:31
  highly thought of they were coming out of high school.
• 1:02:34
  All of them, all three of the ones we've got here.
• 1:02:37
  And that's kind of like where we landed because what we feel is
• 1:02:40
  they do have some really high potential.
• 1:02:43
  And the question is which of those guys?
• 1:02:46
  Because there's more out there. There's more guys out there who
• 1:02:50
  can break the ceiling and basically become, to me, the
• 1:02:56
  3rd. I'm going to say it as the third
• 1:02:58
  option because I'll, I got Taki, give all credit in the world.
• 1:03:02
  He is a gadget player. He's not going to go out there
• 1:03:06
  and get you 1510 catches in a game.
• 1:03:09
  He's going to be able to do a few things a game.
• 1:03:12
  So that's the way I feel about it.
• 1:03:14
  Who wants to go next? This is probably the room that I
• 1:03:21
  would say the most discussion we had on, but it certainly was
• 1:03:26
  who's the last guy. Like there was a lot of lot of
• 1:03:30
  who is the last guy. And I think a lot of that boiled
• 1:03:35
  down to outside of the like high end transfers that we brought
• 1:03:43
  in, in some cases, we kind of lean more on the devil that we
• 1:03:47
  know than the one we don't. You know, we we know what we're
• 1:03:52
  getting from Takei Heath. We know we're getting from Aiden
• 1:03:54
  Green. We know Keyshawn Brown is going
• 1:03:58
  to come in probably immediately slot right into a a a starting
• 1:04:03
  role this offense. So you got, you got Brown and
• 1:04:05
  green is one of the young guys like Adams or Wiggins going to
• 1:04:10
  line up opposite them. And then looking beyond that,
• 1:04:14
  you got Jeff Exner junior coming in.
• 1:04:18
  And then as we said to Kai Heath as a gadget player.
• 1:04:22
  Then he got Snoop Peterkin, who, who had some, some decent burn
• 1:04:28
  in 2025. That was my pick to be in there.
• 1:04:33
  In some ways, I, I, I think Heath could be the odd man out
• 1:04:36
  in terms of actual snaps in this offense just because of the fact
• 1:04:42
  that some of the other guys that are coming in do some of the
• 1:04:45
  things he does, but better. So I don't I don't know if he
• 1:04:49
  has as much of A role in this offense as he would otherwise.
• 1:04:57
  Yeah, I mean, the Peter Can thing was pretty, you know,
• 1:05:01
  talked about between us, but the only thing that kind of held me
• 1:05:04
  back on putting him with a top group is that he misses time
• 1:05:09
  with the team because he's a dual sport athlete.
• 1:05:12
  Like he's playing basketball, you know, a new new regimes
• 1:05:15
  coming in. They're working hard right now
• 1:05:18
  doing their hunger drills and competitions and things like
• 1:05:22
  that. And you're not a part of it
• 1:05:24
  because you're playing basketball unless you just come
• 1:05:28
  in, you know, in that summertime and then fall count and you
• 1:05:32
  absolutely go take a spot from somebody.
• 1:05:35
  Sometimes that puts you at, you know, getting sporadic plan time
• 1:05:41
  and doing what you can in that sporadic plan time.
• 1:05:47
  And the other piece, and this is something we also talked about
• 1:05:49
  and Shelton, if you if you've got something, I'll let you
• 1:05:51
  chime in here with any of these guys.
• 1:05:54
  The other piece is for a lot of these guys and several guys we
• 1:05:59
  mentioned this is this is kind of it, right?
• 1:06:03
  Like, if you don't breakthrough and become a contributor this
• 1:06:08
  year, in all likelihood you might be out of the door this
• 1:06:15
  time next year. And that's just the way of the
• 1:06:18
  world right now. I.
• 1:06:19
  Mean also, this is as wide open as the wide receiver room is
• 1:06:22
  going to get. Oh yeah.
• 1:06:24
  I mean, because you've got Aiden Green, a couple transfers and a
• 1:06:29
  bunch of yeah, the rest is youth movement.
• 1:06:31
  So like this is as open as this as this is going to be in this
• 1:06:35
  room. And that's.
• 1:06:37
  Happens yourself. Yeah, you're gone.
• 1:06:40
  And and that's why I say that, Brian, because if they can't
• 1:06:43
  establish, they're gone because Aiden's gone next year, the
• 1:06:46
  Jackson kids gone next year. Krayshawn Brown's a red shirt
• 1:06:49
  junior. If Keyshawn Brown has another
• 1:06:51
  good season and he stacks two seasons on top of each other,
• 1:06:54
  he's not going to be here next year unless we do something
• 1:06:58
  crazy and pay out of the wazoo for a wide receiver to stick
• 1:07:01
  around one more year. So Sheldon, anything on the wide
• 1:07:05
  receiver room or anything you like disliked about what we've
• 1:07:10
  set up here? Yeah, I'm really interested to
• 1:07:12
  see the impact that Grayshawn Brown can have.
• 1:07:15
  Again, I mentioned, you know, how how excited I am for his
• 1:07:18
  potential. Just the numbers that he put
• 1:07:20
  with Duke were really solid and some of the, you know, grades
• 1:07:22
  back that up, you know, but he's obviously a slot guy.
• 1:07:26
  And then Takei Heath, of course, also slot guy.
• 1:07:28
  He played just about every single snap last year at the
• 1:07:32
  slot highest percentage in ATC, around 99%.
• 1:07:35
  Brown's played a little bit out wide, but he's still primarily a
• 1:07:38
  slot guy. So I would say I'd be interested
• 1:07:40
  to see kind of that dynamic between those two, between Heath
• 1:07:43
  and Brown, because you know, again, I know it's, you know, a
• 1:07:45
  lot of it had to do with the the, the players around them.
• 1:07:48
  But you know, Brown put up much better numbers than Heath did in
• 1:07:52
  this time at Duke last year. So I think if you can come in
• 1:07:56
  and right away and kind of challenge that spot, it's a good
• 1:07:58
  problem to have depth there. But I think overall that room's
• 1:08:01
  looking pretty solid with the way that they've added some.
• 1:08:07
  Very nice. All righty.
• 1:08:09
  We moved all next and we started talking about the offensive line
• 1:08:12
  room and I think there wasn't much argument within this room
• 1:08:18
  that could have been what you could put him in, but it's like,
• 1:08:21
  well, should he have really been doing that last year?
• 1:08:23
  You don't know who we're talking about, but we went with
• 1:08:26
  obviously Howland, the transfers from Oklahoma, Curtis Terry
• 1:08:31
  transfers from Ohio State, Al Tuner who is a freshman plate,
• 1:08:35
  retro freshman plate. Unbelievable.
• 1:08:36
  At centre. You've got Ontavius Cunningham
• 1:08:39
  coming back, Lathe Kanam coming back, Brody Meadows, who might
• 1:08:45
  still be in a boot. We'll let Tally talk about that.
• 1:08:49
  Johnny Garrett. And then you got the true, a
• 1:08:51
  true, true backup center in where's where's Troutman
• 1:08:55
  Shelton? What do you want to say?
• 1:08:56
  No. No, no, I'm good.
• 1:09:00
  Are you sure? Yes, I don't know.
• 1:09:03
  I don't know. But that's and we went seven
• 1:09:06
  there because 8 would be wonderful, 10 is unbelievable,
• 1:09:10
  7's the more realistic number because Brian we've got your
• 1:09:15
  starting five your. 8's what you want you, you want 8 you want,
• 1:09:19
  you want a guy that can play both tackles behind your
• 1:09:23
  starters, you want a guy that can play both guards behind your
• 1:09:25
  starters and you want somebody that the quarterback is familiar
• 1:09:29
  with snapping the football to them.
• 1:09:31
  So, you know, with, with the, with the names we've thrown out
• 1:09:36
  there, we've got 8 and we got guys that can probably do all
• 1:09:39
  those things. So the, I think the biggest
• 1:09:43
  question is, you know, we've heard some rumblings about some,
• 1:09:48
  some injury things going on with Lucas Austin.
• 1:09:50
  So we didn't know where to slot him in in into this group.
• 1:09:55
  So there was some conversation there, but ultimately he was the
• 1:09:59
  the odd man out. But other than that, I think
• 1:10:03
  there wasn't a whole lot of debate about, you know, who's in
• 1:10:08
  those that that that first eight for the offensive line.
• 1:10:12
  Tyler, anything on top of that or?
• 1:10:15
  Yeah, we need to wrap Brody Meadows in a bubble and I would
• 1:10:22
  say you want your offensive lineman and just keep eating.
• 1:10:24
  But we keep eating and keep getting hurt.
• 1:10:28
  We need to do something else. I don't know what's going on,
• 1:10:31
  but Brody, whatever you eating that eat somewhat different.
• 1:10:35
  You keep getting hurt, man. We need you to.
• 1:10:37
  Every time I see him go out to eat, he's in a boot.
• 1:10:39
  He in a boot. Every time you say I see him go
• 1:10:41
  to these places to eat, eat in a damn boot.
• 1:10:43
  He ain't played none this year. He was hurt, you know, I see him
• 1:10:47
  out eating. He's in a boot.
• 1:10:48
  We need him to. Drink some milk, Brody Meadows.
• 1:10:53
  What now? Drink some milk.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah. Vitamin B.
• 1:10:57
  Get your bones strong, boy. Yeah.
• 1:11:00
  I mean he kind of grown now it's time to start taking vitamins.
• 1:11:03
  Like old people go to Walmart and take what is it Hidden
• 1:11:06
  Valley or hidden? That's branch dressing.
• 1:11:11
  It's some kind of valley vitamins.
• 1:11:14
  Go get your. He said Hidden Valley.
• 1:11:15
  He said his. Valley.
• 1:11:18
  Spring Valley baby baby. Buttermilk ranch, baby.
• 1:11:21
  Yeah. Buttermilk ranch get.
• 1:11:23
  That we got to start getting some vitamins, crushing vitamins
• 1:11:25
  up at Sniffer like Tony. Talley said.
• 1:11:28
  Put away the Hidden Valley. Pick up the Spring Valley.
• 1:11:31
  Hey, we got to get these boys healthy, man.
• 1:11:34
  They said. It.
• 1:11:35
  It like like howling. Is it howling?
• 1:11:37
  What's it? Called yeah, howling.
• 1:11:39
  Yeah, you know, again rumblings that he hurt.
• 1:11:43
  Y'all old enough to to to know better?
• 1:11:46
  It sounds like he's going to be ready for spring practice
• 1:11:48
  though, so he's not hurt hurt. OK, that's good.
• 1:11:51
  We need we need our help. We can get on the this is what I
• 1:11:54
  will say our off our offensive line coaches have been so bad at
• 1:12:00
  recruiting. I don't think we took the like 1
• 1:12:03
  lineman in the last before Matt Moore got there.
• 1:12:07
  Like I think we took like 1 lineman in the last three
• 1:12:11
  cycles. So in this cycle we took like 7,
• 1:12:16
  which is great because now you can at least get some real looks
• 1:12:21
  with some big humans, you know, whether they're running scout
• 1:12:23
  team or, you know, getting some some burn in practice to be
• 1:12:28
  ready when it's that time. Because as everybody knows,
• 1:12:32
  offensive line is probably the hardest place to go play.
• 1:12:35
  I mean, you got people like Jay Glock that would have done it,
• 1:12:37
  but that was that don't happen too often, you know what I'm
• 1:12:41
  saying? But if it gets down to it, we
• 1:12:44
  got some people that at least look the part now, you know what
• 1:12:47
  I'm saying? And the tummy Wilders and you
• 1:12:49
  know, Marlin Brights and stuff like that.
• 1:12:52
  These some big dudes already. They are huge offensive line.
• 1:12:56
  So it's good that we got that big surge in recruiting.
• 1:13:01
  I think it's going to continue. I think, you know, again, I,
• 1:13:05
  I've never met met Matt Moore, but looking at what he's doing,
• 1:13:10
  even before Franklin got there, I mean, he was bringing, he
• 1:13:13
  brought in some lime and then he brought some lime with himself
• 1:13:16
  and Al to them being a very young lineman, held his own,
• 1:13:22
  like did a good job. You didn't have to call his name
• 1:13:26
  much. We didn't see a lot of balls
• 1:13:28
  hitting the turf in in when he's snapping, things like that.
• 1:13:33
  So I do like some of the things that we got going on, but I just
• 1:13:38
  I will be interested to see how cohesive we can be with this
• 1:13:42
  line. We need to get some people
• 1:13:44
  healthy because we've never seen the same line roll out the game
• 1:13:49
  in and game out. 100% Sheldon, anything on the line, any of
• 1:13:54
  these transfers, anybody you like we have on here, hate we
• 1:13:58
  have on here. No, I wouldn't say, hey, I mean,
• 1:14:01
  I would say like, you know, we we'll obviously see how it all
• 1:14:04
  pans out. I would say online is a position
• 1:14:06
  where, you know, you really got to stack bodies into what Ty was
• 1:14:10
  saying. I would argue there was some
• 1:14:12
  leadership issues with regards to our online recruiting during
• 1:14:14
  the cry era. Just, you know, combination of
• 1:14:17
  not not prioritizing it enough, you know, not hiring coaches
• 1:14:21
  prioritize it enough or just, you know, couldn't.
• 1:14:23
  And guys, so I just think I think that the whole thing was
• 1:14:25
  just a disaster there. So Franklin's going to build it
• 1:14:28
  up a little bit. It's a position where you've got
• 1:14:30
  to, you know, you've got to build, I think from high school,
• 1:14:33
  develop guys, you know, as best you can and then try to plug
• 1:14:36
  holes when you when you have them.
• 1:14:38
  So I would just say, you know, you know, the good thing about
• 1:14:42
  Franklin is that, you know, he's he's brought them bodies.
• 1:14:44
  And I think with online, you know, it's just, it's more a
• 1:14:46
  number of quantity really just because you don't know it like
• 1:14:50
  it's so hard to project, you know, how these guys are going
• 1:14:51
  to, you know, you know, actually play.
• 1:14:54
  So it's essentially just, you know, a numbers game, like take
• 1:14:57
  as many as you can. If a couple pin out, that's
• 1:14:58
  fine. Remember, you've got, you know,
• 1:15:00
  way more scholarships than you used to have, so you can afford
• 1:15:03
  to count play, play a little bit with it.
• 1:15:05
  So I, I, I just think the, the, the, the, you know, philosophy
• 1:15:08
  of, you know, just take as many as you can get and try to, you
• 1:15:10
  know, hope, hope if you pin out will be pretty solid.
• 1:15:14
  Yep. And and I think, can I say one
• 1:15:16
  thing real quick, Rod, before you jump in?
• 1:15:18
  Yeah, the one thing I like about, with the exception of
• 1:15:21
  Troutman and even the guys who didn't make the list, it's the
• 1:15:27
  experience. There is not a lot of questions,
• 1:15:29
  right? It's not like I don't know if
• 1:15:32
  that person can even step on the field, right and play.
• 1:15:35
  And as much as we we've dogged Aiden lunch a couple times, he
• 1:15:39
  shouldn't have been playing. We all know that.
• 1:15:41
  But he got almost 700 snaps last year.
• 1:15:45
  Get what I'll do? Yeah, but all the stuff that he
• 1:15:48
  got last year, you know, if he did have to go play this year,
• 1:15:51
  he should be a step above where he was last year, you know?
• 1:15:57
  You don't. Want that position now where
• 1:15:59
  he's not going to be forced into playing 6 and 700 snaps in the
• 1:16:03
  season. He might be forced into play in
• 1:16:06
  100 or 150. The depth that we brought in
• 1:16:10
  with how we're backfilling the position, like he's not going to
• 1:16:13
  have to be the guy. Whether he gets to a point where
• 1:16:17
  he can be a starter in a year or two on this team, that that
• 1:16:21
  remains to be seen. But we know that last season he
• 1:16:23
  was thrown into a situation where he was not prepared to to
• 1:16:27
  be on the field that much. He was blocking Ruben Bain.
• 1:16:31
  And he had no business trying to block Ruben Bain.
• 1:16:34
  No business, no business. And again, it's the other guys
• 1:16:38
  too. I know Terry was more of a a
• 1:16:41
  situational guy with Ohio State kind of being their big tight
• 1:16:45
  end, but he also he had a couple play times.
• 1:16:48
  But you tell a guy like Logan Howland who played in his career
• 1:16:53
  before he got hurt last year, had played over 700 snaps of
• 1:16:56
  football. There's certain things from
• 1:16:59
  Brian and Tally. Y'all just playing for years.
• 1:17:04
  There's certain things. You get to a certain threshold
• 1:17:06
  with just number of snaps, right?
• 1:17:08
  You know what you have to do, you understand cadences, you
• 1:17:11
  know what you're going to do. And that is the one thing, with
• 1:17:15
  the exception of Troutman, but that's OK because finding guys
• 1:17:19
  who can snap the ball and block is always tough.
• 1:17:21
  There's your win right there. All right, we are going to roll
• 1:17:26
  on and we going to flip the defense.
• 1:17:27
  We got a few to hit here before we wrap it up tonight and we
• 1:17:30
  going to stay on. We're going to stay on Tally's
• 1:17:33
  drinking buddy's room. We're going to stay with the
• 1:17:35
  linebackers to jump off with, and this is a room.
• 1:17:39
  We were trying to get 5, but there was no consensus 5th pick.
• 1:17:43
  We got a consensus of four and then there are arguments.
• 1:17:46
  So Caleb Spencer, Noah Chambers, Keon Wiley, Curtis Jones,
• 1:17:50
  Junior. There are no questions about
• 1:17:53
  them. Where we differentiated, and
• 1:17:56
  Brian got stung today by this thanks to Sean Spencer's Twitter
• 1:18:00
  post was who's the 5th? Who's the 5th linebacker that is
• 1:18:05
  going to get maybe not all the playing time, but it's going to
• 1:18:09
  be in a conversation. And Brian, I'll go ahead.
• 1:18:14
  I'll let you go first because that that kind of kicked you in
• 1:18:17
  the Bingy when you saw that tweet, like, oh damn it.
• 1:18:21
  Yeah. So I I I thought that with the
• 1:18:25
  you're going back to the the price scheme.
• 1:18:29
  I thought we would see Brett clatter ball move back to
• 1:18:32
  linebacker. You know, it sounds like at
• 1:18:37
  least until the start of spring. That's he's he's not in Brent
• 1:18:41
  Fry's room. He's working at a coach chaos's
• 1:18:45
  room. He still has DN for at Hokies FB
• 1:18:52
  on his Instagram page. So we're going to treat him as a
• 1:18:55
  defensive end as it stands right now until we hear otherwise,
• 1:19:00
  even though the roster had been updated and had him as a as a
• 1:19:05
  linebacker in the in the program.
• 1:19:10
  You know, I'm, I'm, I'm of two minds of where to go next,
• 1:19:13
  right. So when I look at that kind of
• 1:19:17
  that next guy, I think, you know, if we're looking at it
• 1:19:22
  situationally, if we're playing a run heavy defense, I've been
• 1:19:27
  give run heavy offense, give me George balance every day of the
• 1:19:31
  week as far as downstream there. If we're talking about anybody
• 1:19:37
  else, I'd love to see a Gabe Williams success story this
• 1:19:41
  year. That would that would that would
• 1:19:43
  warm my heart. So I'm gonna go with my gut on
• 1:19:46
  that one and and throw Gabe in there.
• 1:19:48
  You go flip from clad about a Gabe what Brian mentioned it.
• 1:19:52
  I'm with the George balance thing to walk on who did get a
• 1:19:56
  got a scholarship because you know his role like you know, the
• 1:19:59
  games that you will depend on for him when you're playing a
• 1:20:03
  more run heavy team. So you know he has a carpet role
• 1:20:08
  as a fifth guy. He's not going to get 500 snaps,
• 1:20:12
  but you know, exactly like this week you're going to see him 15
• 1:20:17
  snaps, this week you're going to see him 2.
• 1:20:20
  This week you're going to see him 8.
• 1:20:23
  So that's what my line of thinking.
• 1:20:26
  But I, I think, I think Tally had the the best one as we were
• 1:20:29
  chatting about this a couple weeks ago.
• 1:20:31
  Tally Who's your 5th linebacker? I don't fucking know.
• 1:20:35
  I have no. Idea, you know.
• 1:20:38
  Brian Shelton, I don't. Know shit about?
• 1:20:43
  That but anybody in there for right now, yeah, it's just like
• 1:20:46
  it's so much difference in in change and you know, thinking
• 1:20:52
  clatter bomb is going to be a linebacker or defensively and is
• 1:20:57
  I don't know, you know, I'm interested.
• 1:20:59
  I want to know. I just at this point, I just, it
• 1:21:02
  was one of the groups that I was like, man, I don't know.
• 1:21:07
  How we feeling about some of those that 26 class making any
• 1:21:12
  noise in the rotation? None.
• 1:21:17
  Yeah, I, I mean, again, I just don't, I don't, I don't see it,
• 1:21:22
  man. But I didn't know Noah Chambers
• 1:21:25
  would get in and do what he did. And now we're talking about him
• 1:21:28
  how we did. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:21:31
  It's all every year somebody steps up and does something
• 1:21:34
  spectacular. As a freshman, you know, we
• 1:21:37
  haven't seen it a lot because maybe our players are more
• 1:21:40
  developmental players that we've seen in the past.
• 1:21:43
  But when you start pulling higher talent guys, some of them
• 1:21:49
  are a little bit more Rd. ready, you know.
• 1:21:51
  So I don't know, man, I don't know if there's somebody in that
• 1:21:55
  group. That's a good question.
• 1:21:56
  I didn't think about that. But usually just looking at it
• 1:22:00
  with my orange and maroon glasses, I would be like, you
• 1:22:02
  know, most of our guys got to develop, you know what I'm
• 1:22:05
  saying? It's going to take a while, but
• 1:22:07
  go back and look at Noah Chambers on the field this year.
• 1:22:12
  He looked the part, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:22:15
  He was as big as junior and senior linebackers.
• 1:22:18
  He was fast as junior and senior linebackers, and he was just
• 1:22:22
  about in the right place on most of the plays.
• 1:22:26
  Every now and then he's going to be, you know, a step off, maybe
• 1:22:31
  take a false step because he's a freshman.
• 1:22:34
  But I think a little bit different coaching and better
• 1:22:37
  coaching and more attention to detail.
• 1:22:39
  We may see one of those, one of those freshmen step up.
• 1:22:43
  Who's on campus now in that In that freshman linebacker, Rd.
• 1:22:48
  Brian. Wiggins and Llama llamas more
• 1:22:51
  physically ready, but obviously Wiggins is the higher caliber.
• 1:22:55
  He's the guy player. So.
• 1:22:57
  Does he go to defensive? Does he go to linebacker or
• 1:23:00
  defensive end more? Wiggins.
• 1:23:04
  Wiggins, that is. I know in high school he kind of
• 1:23:06
  put his hand in the dirt, so I'm right.
• 1:23:08
  He did a little bit of everything like he was, yeah,
• 1:23:13
  mostly, mostly lined up the off ball.
• 1:23:15
  But I mean, I think he would occasionally put his hand in the
• 1:23:17
  dirt. But I mean, he's he's coming in
• 1:23:18
  632 O1 Mama's coming in 63221. OK, so yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:28
  But I know some people around Virginia.
• 1:23:30
  It's some people around Virginia that says Llama.
• 1:23:33
  Is it? Is it Llama?
• 1:23:35
  How do you say his name? They say that that he is.
• 1:23:38
  I don't. Know if it's Lamar or or Llama?
• 1:23:42
  They say, you know how we felt. You know how we felt about Caleb
• 1:23:46
  Woodson when we first seen him. Curtis.
• 1:23:49
  Yeah. Dwight Victoria says the same
• 1:23:52
  thing about this kid Llama or llama.
• 1:23:57
  And I kind of listened to Dwight when he talks about local kids.
• 1:24:03
  It's true he is usually got a pulse on that unlike anyone
• 1:24:08
  else. So we shall see.
• 1:24:11
  All right, let's flip over next and let's talk about the
• 1:24:14
  defensive line room, a room being taken over by Sean
• 1:24:18
  Spencer, Coach chaos and and believe it or not, this one I
• 1:24:25
  felt like we were going to argue more, but then it was just like,
• 1:24:29
  no, this makes sense. And we went with obviously
• 1:24:32
  Kamari Copeland and Elijah Fall. Fall had a sneaky season last
• 1:24:37
  season. Glad he had a second year.
• 1:24:40
  Emmett Laws who played rotationally as he should have
• 1:24:44
  last year. And again, look, the part we put
• 1:24:48
  mints on here just because of coming from Ohio State having
• 1:24:51
  that pedigree. So there's your D tackles and
• 1:24:54
  then with the defensive ends a little bit harder, which we
• 1:24:58
  would had a little bit more on there, but you got Samo and
• 1:25:01
  Hilson just where he was rated. Usually guys who are that high
• 1:25:06
  usually make some noise in college and now he is getting
• 1:25:10
  the opportunity to basically go to the front of the line at
• 1:25:13
  Tech. And then there were two
• 1:25:15
  holdovers from last year who played, again, like Laws.
• 1:25:18
  They played their roles. They did OK in their roles, and
• 1:25:21
  Jason Abbey and Ayson Stevenson and Ayson Stevens.
• 1:25:26
  So like again, this was when I thought we'd argue more on when
• 1:25:31
  we were kind of debating it. But I mean, is there anybody
• 1:25:36
  else y'all feel Sheldon, anybody you feel just like now this guy
• 1:25:41
  could make noise and I know we got some freshmen coming in and
• 1:25:45
  you never know. But y'all tell me something
• 1:25:50
  because Brian, you did the whole listing things and it's like any
• 1:25:52
  of these guys and it's just like but we.
• 1:25:57
  Landed on this. Yeah, and I know Curtis wants
• 1:26:00
  Christian Evans to get in the mix.
• 1:26:03
  Oh yeah, you only but. I know Robbie, I know Robbie
• 1:26:06
  probably wants Derek Dandy to get in the mix.
• 1:26:08
  Yes, he does boy local there. There's a lot of guys you want,
• 1:26:13
  but I feel like they. I mean, do we now want Brett
• 1:26:16
  Klatterball to get in the mix? Yeah, sure, why not?
• 1:26:20
  Why not? I thought for sure he was going
• 1:26:22
  to be a linebacker. They say he tearing it up and at
• 1:26:25
  hunger drills at defensive end, defensive tackle or wherever
• 1:26:29
  he's at. One that we still haven't talked
• 1:26:32
  about. And he was the guy that I think
• 1:26:34
  a lot of us were high on when he was recruited.
• 1:26:37
  But you know, we still haven't really seen Gerard Johnson find
• 1:26:42
  his footing. He's, you know, we, we always
• 1:26:44
  talked about him as kind of being that tweener and he's
• 1:26:47
  still really kind of in that position.
• 1:26:49
  Now, if he's playing 64278, he's kind of right in that that that
• 1:26:58
  can't can't really line up outside anymore, but maybe a
• 1:27:01
  little undersized, especially if he's not, you know, playing with
• 1:27:05
  as much leverage as you like to see inside.
• 1:27:10
  You know, does he take a step? I think if he does, it's going
• 1:27:13
  to be kind of at that three technique position.
• 1:27:15
  I don't think we'll see him outside anymore.
• 1:27:18
  But I'm really, I'm really curious to see downstream what
• 1:27:23
  this line looks like just because I feel like, yeah, I
• 1:27:26
  think the first four, you know, the the the starters got there
• 1:27:29
  are pretty locked with the exception of, you know, those
• 1:27:33
  laws take a few more snaps inside than than he took last
• 1:27:40
  year. But yeah, everybody else is kind
• 1:27:42
  of locked in there. I mean, I, I do, I'm just
• 1:27:45
  looking at how many defensive lining we have and it's a good
• 1:27:49
  problem to have. It is.
• 1:27:51
  It's a good problem to have because it's stacked and you see
• 1:27:56
  it's one of those rooms, if you go look at the rocks and it's
• 1:27:58
  like senior, junior, junior, junior, red shirt, sophomore,
• 1:28:04
  red shirt, sophomore, red shirt, red shirt, freshman, red for
• 1:28:06
  chessman, senior, freshman, freshman.
• 1:28:10
  Like we talked about it about a month ago.
• 1:28:15
  This is one place where I think James Franklin did it perfect
• 1:28:20
  was what he did with the defensive line room.
• 1:28:22
  There's enough older guys in there where you don't feel like
• 1:28:28
  like you don't feel like we're going to lose everything this
• 1:28:32
  year and we're just going to fuck next year, but you don't
• 1:28:35
  feel like we're so young. It's like we've got that perfect
• 1:28:38
  blend of, well, Copeland's gone, falls are gone.
• 1:28:42
  Well, that's fine. Laws and mincer probably don't
• 1:28:44
  get to PT. There's guys in there is a
• 1:28:47
  lineage in a linear thing that that that that room should be OK
• 1:28:51
  for the next few years. One other guy we did not mention
• 1:28:57
  and and I don't think he'll and I and I hope he's a story is
• 1:29:01
  hand Chuck. Cause hand Chuck if that kid
• 1:29:03
  hadn't gotten hurt, his senior in high school would have been
• 1:29:06
  like high 4 star. But he's had so many injury
• 1:29:09
  issues. It sucks because he's a great
• 1:29:13
  big boy. You saw the tape.
• 1:29:15
  He was talented playing up in Ohio and it sucks.
• 1:29:18
  But if you can't get on the field, there's no help to us.
• 1:29:21
  Shelton has informed me he has nothing on this room.
• 1:29:24
  We did everything right in his eyes, we're perfect.
• 1:29:30
  Nailed it, nailed it. Tally anything else on the D
• 1:29:33
  liner before we wrap this one up.
• 1:29:39
  I'm pretty, pretty good to go on that.
• 1:29:42
  We just need Kamari Copeland to be healthy.
• 1:29:43
  Yep. Kamari Copeland to be healthy
• 1:29:46
  and I'm going to say this. If Kamari Copeland is healthy
• 1:29:50
  with how and what Sean Spencer does on the defensive line and
• 1:29:54
  his talent already showing the last couple years inside and out
• 1:29:58
  and playing numerous techniques and being good at all of them
• 1:30:02
  that that that kid could be a beast and make himself a lot of
• 1:30:05
  money this year. All right, we'll go.
• 1:30:09
  This was just Brian. Just just say something about
• 1:30:14
  Satrian. I don't know what to say.
• 1:30:15
  I I this is like the most just. Safeties, reddish bass, Robinson
• 1:30:22
  flowers. That's the list.
• 1:30:25
  And, you know, beyond that, there's not really a.
• 1:30:28
  That's not really a whole lot else to say, I mean.
• 1:30:31
  That's it. Is is Chirag Kova?
• 1:30:34
  Going to get kicked out of the first game, Yeah, Bass is going
• 1:30:38
  to get kicked out of the first game or targeting because he's
• 1:30:42
  don't do that and then I don't know where we go after that.
• 1:30:45
  Yeah, Like, does Chirac Covell make make any, any headway in
• 1:30:49
  this room this year? Is is Brennan Johnson going to
• 1:30:53
  make any impact? Probably not.
• 1:30:59
  And then you got Tyrell Grant Junior coming in as the 26th
• 1:31:03
  class. So this is the room that I said
• 1:31:07
  I would like to have had one more that's at least in that
• 1:31:09
  rotational level. We didn't get that.
• 1:31:13
  I think some of that was by design and some of that was the
• 1:31:16
  fact that we were having some closing issues on where we
• 1:31:21
  wanted to go from a cornerback safety coach perspective.
• 1:31:25
  But it is what it is at this point.
• 1:31:30
  I think the the four you have there are, yeah.
• 1:31:34
  Reddish is good. Reddish is good, everybody else
• 1:31:38
  is solid but. They all got their.
• 1:31:41
  Issues. I would have liked to seen the
• 1:31:44
  the talent level get raised. Yeah, obviously.
• 1:31:48
  This was a freshman. He was a.
• 1:31:50
  Freshman. Yeah.
• 1:31:51
  Yeah. So I I.
• 1:31:53
  Think. Yeah, I got some, but the other
• 1:31:55
  two, which I don't know I'm I'm going to keep my mouth shut like
• 1:31:59
  I'm going to say what Brian said.
• 1:32:01
  I was hoping that we would have grabbed, you know, another
• 1:32:04
  experienced person in that room. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:32:08
  This was this was just a tough one to do and overall, because
• 1:32:11
  it's like you didn't feel spectacular.
• 1:32:13
  Well, that was an. Easy 1 to do, but it was a tough
• 1:32:15
  one to come to terms with, yeah. It's an important position.
• 1:32:23
  Very important position this and you when you only feel like I
• 1:32:26
  feel good about Quinn Reddish. What about everybody else?
• 1:32:29
  Tally just made it perfect. Ass likes to do dumb shit.
• 1:32:34
  Flowers will occasionally just look lost, lost.
• 1:32:39
  And Robinson is a sophomore. And you're like, I don't want
• 1:32:45
  that. I wanted like another.
• 1:32:46
  That's a really good guy right there.
• 1:32:48
  Tell him you got anything on this room.
• 1:32:52
  No, no, I just don't know. Just don't think I haven't
• 1:32:57
  played those cinch enough, but I'm sure I'm sure I I, I say
• 1:33:00
  hashtag trust James Franklin, trust the.
• 1:33:07
  Trust James, you know. Who?
• 1:33:07
  The defense. You know who the deep, deep
• 1:33:09
  coordinator is for Sheldon? You know who your deepest
• 1:33:15
  coordinator is, don't you? Yeah.
• 1:33:16
  You better trust. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:33:19
  Don't. Ask my thoughts on that.
• 1:33:25
  And we are going to move on to the last room, another spirited
• 1:33:30
  debate room of the cornerback room, a room that we heavily,
• 1:33:35
  heavily went after guys with in that room.
• 1:33:40
  And we landed on the following. We don't start with.
• 1:33:45
  And this isn't in like the order we think they're going to play.
• 1:33:47
  This is just the way the name popped up.
• 1:33:49
  Josh Clark, IBM, JoJo KREM, Jacquez White, Cam Chadwick, and
• 1:33:57
  Knowledge Harold. Curtis, you lead on this one.
• 1:34:03
  You have some. Thought you have some fucking
• 1:34:05
  thoughts on? That well, I'll lead on this,
• 1:34:07
  I'll lead on this. Why Curtis thinks a little bit.
• 1:34:10
  Somebody, somebody, somebody messaged me by the last name of
• 1:34:15
  Lester and said y'all are crazy if y'all don't have the Loaches
• 1:34:19
  name in that group. And I'm like, and I don't know
• 1:34:24
  man, I'm sorry. Because he Chris seems to think
• 1:34:28
  that the Loach will outplay at least half of the guys in that
• 1:34:33
  group. I floated his name, but I don't
• 1:34:36
  think he's I, I didn't have him out playing.
• 1:34:39
  Half those guys I got, I got him out playing.
• 1:34:41
  Maybe, I don't know, maybe, maybe JoJo, I don't know.
• 1:34:46
  Maybe Chadwick, I don't know. Just saying friend of the
• 1:34:50
  program sent me that message. So I want the child to know.
• 1:34:54
  Go ahead, Curtis all. Right, so this is the only and
• 1:34:58
  again, the the more beef I had with was leaving Thomas Williams
• 1:35:04
  off. That was my guy I wanted he
• 1:35:07
  played solid, not spectacular. And, and there are names on this
• 1:35:11
  list that played 10 snaps and 20 snaps and then play last year
• 1:35:18
  and was saying, well, they're really good.
• 1:35:19
  They're really good. Once coming off an injury, a
• 1:35:21
  couple guys played 10 snaps, 10 snaps.
• 1:35:26
  And my issue with that is if you're saying it's a true depth
• 1:35:30
  chart, So what you're saying is this guy's going to do enough
• 1:35:33
  between now and the end of August that he is going to be in
• 1:35:37
  the 2D. That means you've got to prove
• 1:35:39
  it in in scenarios that some of these guys have already went
• 1:35:43
  through with this defensive coordinator.
• 1:35:47
  So that was my bigger issue. I'm fine with what we landed on.
• 1:35:52
  It is what it is. It's this is an exercise to hey,
• 1:35:56
  it gets us talking and get at each other and poking and
• 1:36:00
  talking about shit. But the the only one that I'm
• 1:36:04
  saying is I would, I would leave Josh Clark off this list.
• 1:36:08
  Yes, Brian, I know he was right there his first year, but he is
• 1:36:12
  coming off a serious knee injury where he did not play any last
• 1:36:16
  year any. And he he is he is supremely
• 1:36:19
  talented. But I want to see it before I
• 1:36:22
  throw him on the list. So I think if you're operating
• 1:36:28
  under the premise of he's not going to be the same player he
• 1:36:34
  was in the limited action, we saw him in 2024.
• 1:36:38
  I think that's valid. I think if if you say he comes
• 1:36:42
  back and he is the same player, if not improved, there's no way
• 1:36:47
  he's not in this list if not one of the starting cornerbacks of
• 1:36:51
  this football team. That being said, the other
• 1:36:56
  debate was should knowledge be in here?
• 1:36:58
  That that was that was the other debate.
• 1:37:00
  That was the other debate. And the the issue I had with the
• 1:37:04
  reason Knowledge is on here and Thomas Williams isn't, is
• 1:37:07
  because Knowledge plays nickel and Thomas Williams does not
• 1:37:11
  play nickel. IBM and Knowledge are going to
• 1:37:14
  be the nickels if we're doing a depth chart, that's how we're
• 1:37:17
  operating. That's why Thomas Williams isn't
• 1:37:20
  on here. That being said, Knowledge,
• 1:37:22
  Harold showed me a lot in the time I've seen him.
• 1:37:27
  If he takes any significant step, I'm going to be really
• 1:37:30
  excited to see what that kick and do.
• 1:37:34
  I'll let Tally have the floor now.
• 1:37:37
  Tally. You know what?
• 1:37:38
  I. Mean, I would say you kind of
• 1:37:40
  put it pretty eloquent there. So I mean, we've got some young
• 1:37:44
  talent, you know, I think we bring in the two experienced
• 1:37:48
  guys that we needed. The kid from Troy can play
• 1:37:52
  White's. Going to be legit.
• 1:37:54
  I can play, you know, the other kid, what Yukon, he can play
• 1:37:57
  too. But I I I've watched a little
• 1:37:59
  bit more white. So I think that we're OK there,
• 1:38:04
  like you said. And then if any of these
• 1:38:06
  youngsters take a step forward like knowledge herald or the
• 1:38:09
  Loach, you know, even JoJo cram, they just were thrust into some
• 1:38:14
  action playing against some grown men.
• 1:38:16
  You know, you start playing against some people.
• 1:38:18
  I say playing against grown men. And couldn't nobody guard
• 1:38:21
  Malachi Tony, but which was a a freshman kid himself.
• 1:38:26
  But you know, most of our guys were thrust in there and they
• 1:38:30
  just didn't have the physical statue that would get certain
• 1:38:35
  people down or to challenge them.
• 1:38:37
  So being in this strength and conditioning program with go
• 1:38:43
  back to the staff, the bigger staff, more attentive staff
• 1:38:48
  because you have more people. I think that we're going to see
• 1:38:51
  some, you know, a couple of those guys that were thrust in
• 1:38:54
  the fire take a step forward. Because I just think what I
• 1:38:58
  think what Brian is going is the talent level of somebody like
• 1:39:01
  Knowledge Harold supersedes Thomas Williams.
• 1:39:06
  No disrespect to Thomas Williams, you know, but
• 1:39:10
  Knowledge Harold just seems to have more tools.
• 1:39:14
  He does. Hey, Thomas Williams.
• 1:39:16
  And and so does John Clark. I, I agree with that 100%.
• 1:39:20
  But it's to me, it's more of you have a guy who played almost 500
• 1:39:25
  snaps last year. He was on the field a ton and he
• 1:39:29
  didn't look completely lost or overmatched.
• 1:39:33
  Did he look like Brandon Flowers?
• 1:39:36
  Hell no. Well, that's the reason.
• 1:39:38
  That these guys played a ton of. Snaps even even IBM too.
• 1:39:42
  It was the. Worst.
• 1:39:43
  Like, I'm not impressed. Worst room on the defense and
• 1:39:45
  that's that's adding to the fact that safety was kind of a mess
• 1:39:48
  too, but it. Was safety.
• 1:39:49
  Safety was the worst room. At least with this room, at
• 1:39:53
  least it was fun to talk about, right, Because we saw the young
• 1:39:56
  guys. Yeah, you saw young guys.
• 1:39:58
  And it's like, OK, these guys are talented in some way.
• 1:40:01
  They're younger and talented, and they have a chance to go up
• 1:40:03
  there. To me, JoJo KREM, of all the of
• 1:40:07
  all the young guys, to me, he's above everybody because of how
• 1:40:11
  he played. He got entrusted quicker than
• 1:40:13
  anyone last year to get on that field.
• 1:40:15
  Well, I mean, they were already, you know, even before we got
• 1:40:18
  into the season. Yeah, there was conversations
• 1:40:21
  that he was going to be, you know, potentially pushing for
• 1:40:25
  exactly spot opposite. Why am I blanking on his name?
• 1:40:31
  He transferred. Love it.
• 1:40:35
  Love it. Yeah, there we go.
• 1:40:37
  Potentially pushing the start opposite.
• 1:40:38
  Love it. But then you you lose love it.
• 1:40:41
  And now you got, you know, Thomas Williams being the only
• 1:40:43
  veteran in the room with like all these, you know, yeah, red
• 1:40:48
  shirt and true freshman. It was kind of a weird situation
• 1:40:51
  to to look at last year. But sometimes that is the best
• 1:40:55
  thing to happen. Shelton.
• 1:40:56
  Anything to put a final bow on this.
• 1:40:59
  I mean, not too specific other than just, you know, I think
• 1:41:04
  like you guys are saying the, the safety room was in the
• 1:41:07
  struggle bus last year. So I just think if they can get
• 1:41:10
  that spot solidified, you know, it'll help out the corners a lot
• 1:41:12
  'cause I think a lot of times like, and this is true in Pro
• 1:41:15
  Football too, like it's hard to distinguish, you know, poor
• 1:41:18
  corner play from poor safety play.
• 1:41:20
  Cause a lot of times, you know, corners are trying to cover up
• 1:41:24
  for safety is not being in the right spots.
• 1:41:27
  So again, I just think, you know, you know, they'll they'll
• 1:41:30
  be better there with some of those guys returning, you know,
• 1:41:34
  reddish bass wherever he plays cobble flowers.
• 1:41:39
  So it's a solid, it's a solid group.
• 1:41:42
  But yeah, I just think like in general, like, you know, good
• 1:41:44
  safety play will help the corners out a lot.
• 1:41:46
  So hopefully that'll make them look better by by extension so.
• 1:41:50
  And unlike the safety room, what I'll say is we get ready to wrap
• 1:41:53
  this up tonight. This is a room it it's similar
• 1:41:56
  to the defensive line room. It is broken out.
• 1:41:59
  You've got older guys who are ready to play, but you've got
• 1:42:02
  younger guys who are talented. Where you see the lineage like
• 1:42:05
  this is how it can go the next two or three years versus safety
• 1:42:09
  room. Coach Franklin, we're trusting
• 1:42:11
  you. Please fix that.
• 1:42:12
  All right, anything else boys, before we call in the night and
• 1:42:17
  get some sleeping so we can go to work tomorrow?
• 1:42:20
  I'm all good man, I think it was a good one.
• 1:42:23
  All right. Well, that does.
• 1:42:25
  That does wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast,
• 1:42:28
  brought to you by Moments on the Maury in Lexington.
• 1:42:32
  I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler.
• 1:42:35
  Going to tally. And I'm shot Moss.
• 1:42:39
  He is Shelton Moss and we are part of the College Huddle
• 1:42:43
  Network. You can visit our website
• 1:42:44
  boundarycornervt.com to listen to all of our episodes.
• 1:42:51
  Also, don't forget, just follows Twitter.
• 1:42:53
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• 1:42:56
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• 1:43:01
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• 1:43:03
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• 1:43:05
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  out. Check his website Jason
• 1:43:20
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  all formats. Also check out the lab where see
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  where he will be performing down in the Roanoke area.
• 1:43:31
  We appreciate y'all watching tonight and as always, let's go.
• 1:43:36
  Hokies.