Latest / Boundary Corner Podcast / We Got One

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We Got One · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 1:48
  And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast, a part of the
• 1:51
  College Huddle Network along my partners, Brian Siegler,
• 1:54
  Jonathan Talley and Shelton Moss.
• 1:57
  I am Curtis Wilson and as always, we are brought to you by
• 2:00
  Doctor Jeremy Counts down at the Counts Family pharmacy, your
• 2:03
  friendly neighborhood pharmacy located at three O 1 S Main St.
• 2:08
  in Blacksburg. Boys, the band is all back
• 2:11
  together one last time for a little while, potentially
• 2:15
  because Shelton's about to get into hell season for his.
• 2:19
  It's busy season. Busy season, hell season,
• 2:22
  however you want to say it. But it's good we got one last
• 2:25
  episode before he takes off. Maybe he'll sneak in from time
• 2:30
  to time. And luckily before he left, we
• 2:33
  got one. We got one, man.
• 2:37
  We got one. It only took seven weeks, but we
• 2:41
  got one. 47 days that it that the official count. 47 days. 46
• 2:47
  days until we got one, so obviously we'll be talking about
• 2:51
  the DC hiring. Got a few other things to hit on
• 2:55
  tonight. Talk a little bit about the
• 2:56
  schedule, but how's everybody been?
• 2:58
  How have you been? We hadn't talked to you since
• 3:01
  before Christmas. How's everything been in your
• 3:03
  life? It's been good, man.
• 3:05
  I've just, you know, enjoyed my break and, you know, kind of
• 3:07
  getting back into the work right now.
• 3:09
  So like I said, I'll be busy pretty soon.
• 3:11
  But yeah, just been, you know, I wasn't really super plugged into
• 3:15
  the, to the DC, you know, coordinator search.
• 3:19
  I just, you know, it got to a point where I was like, you know
• 3:21
  what, whoever they hire, they're going to hire.
• 3:23
  I'm not going to sit around, you know, twiddle my thumbs and read
• 3:25
  every single message board rants about how this, you know, the
• 3:30
  entire administration's a failure and we need to fire the
• 3:32
  entire staff and it's a lame duck staff and all that stuff.
• 3:34
  So I think they end up with a pretty solid hire as we'll
• 3:38
  discuss hopefully in this podcast.
• 3:40
  You want to know who did sit around and look at every message
• 3:42
  board rant? Me.
• 3:45
  You know who did put in a thumbs?
• 3:47
  Me like a dummy. Been mad as hell.
• 3:52
  Tally was bought in. Trying to figure it out, trying
• 3:55
  to read crumbs. It was a whole different cookie.
• 3:59
  I'm just saying. Tally figured at some point he
• 4:01
  was pot committed. He might as well stick with it.
• 4:03
  To the end, it's. Kind of, it's kind of like when
• 4:06
  you, it's kind of like when you watch like a bad movie series.
• 4:11
  I go back to like Twilight. I don't know if y'all ever watch
• 4:13
  Twilight. Like I watched the first one and
• 4:15
  I felt like I could not turn away, you know what I'm saying?
• 4:20
  Not in a good way. It was like this is so bad.
• 4:22
  Was it the shiny skin? It was just a whole bunch of
• 4:25
  stupid shit, you know what I'm saying?
• 4:27
  Like the one guy's a werewolf and then the other guy's a
• 4:30
  vampire, and he's watching his girlfriend lay with this guy to
• 4:33
  keep her warm. I don't know man, there was a
• 4:36
  lot going on. Hey, we just need Tally to like,
• 4:42
  give quick summaries of movies, man.
• 4:44
  Just like that's an entire series unto itself.
• 4:48
  Yeah, I watch a whole bunch of stupid movies, man.
• 4:50
  I'm telling you, I watch a lot of stupid movies.
• 4:52
  But one movie that is not stupid that I did watch again last
• 4:57
  night. It's been a thieves great movie.
• 5:00
  I had to refresh myself on Been a Thief so I can go or get ready
• 5:04
  to watch #2 that they just came out with.
• 5:06
  So I hope they do that justice. That's what I'm interested in.
• 5:11
  Good deal. Good deal, Brian.
• 5:13
  Everything been good with you man?
• 5:15
  Busy, good rocking and rolling, man.
• 5:19
  It's a I, I was getting a little frustrated with the process of
• 5:24
  the, of the DC higher. I think that was probably my
• 5:26
  biggest complaint of the whole thing was feeling like we did.
• 5:31
  We didn't get a whole lot of information throughout the
• 5:33
  process. And then when we finally got
• 5:36
  some leaks there at the end, they were all bullshit.
• 5:39
  So I think that kind of left a bad taste in, in everybody's
• 5:42
  mouths and kind of set us up for, you know, being a little
• 5:48
  bit underwhelmed initially until we learn more.
• 5:51
  And yeah, the the the more digging I've done, the the
• 5:54
  better I feel about this guy. Do we have two Matty BS in the
• 5:59
  chat or is it the same Matty B on a different platform?
• 6:02
  Whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on. I think it's same Matty B on a
• 6:05
  different platform, but I cannot confirm.
• 6:08
  I think it's the same if that's Matty B, is it the same Matty B
• 6:11
  this that's got, but it's a different Matty?
• 6:14
  Yeah, it's got to be two. That's the same Matty.
• 6:17
  That's the same Maddie. It's.
• 6:18
  The same Maddie, same Maddie B. Different platform.
• 6:21
  Maddie, come to Atlanta. Come to Atlanta.
• 6:24
  Come to Atlanta, he's going to both of them.
• 6:27
  He's going to. Both of them eat wings.
• 6:28
  I'm. Telling them strip club.
• 6:30
  Eat wings. Nobody knows strip club now.
• 6:32
  I already told all the good wings.
• 6:34
  That's where a lot of good wings are.
• 6:35
  There's some other stuff in the strip club that you might not
• 6:38
  want to get involved in. Go listen to the Go listen to
• 6:41
  the the space the other day. I don't want to get us cancelled
• 6:45
  on here, but I'm just saying. Have you seen Hangover when they
• 6:48
  went to Bangkok in Atlanta? Just letting y'all know.
• 6:54
  There you go. How about this guys?
• 6:57
  There you go. You watch you watch us on the
• 6:59
  big screen. But let's let's get into it and
• 7:03
  and I know people are putting out there who they thought it
• 7:05
  was. We won't we won't talk about
• 7:07
  that later, but let's do tonight.
• 7:09
  Let's talk about Sam Pronounce. Let's see how I do this.
• 7:13
  Let's see how many times I screw up Sam's name between now and
• 7:16
  the beginning of the season. It's not going to be the first
• 7:18
  night. Sam Cifkis nailed it.
• 7:21
  Nailed it. The first one for one.
• 7:23
  One for one, it ain't going to be like that for long.
• 7:25
  You all know that. Let's get a little background on
• 7:27
  him first of where he comes from.
• 7:28
  First of all, the guy's 33 years old.
• 7:31
  That is insanely young. So go to his background.
• 7:35
  He was a Division Three player defensive back, got hurt at
• 7:40
  University of Wisconsin lacrosse.
• 7:43
  Then he became a student assistant coach 2011 to 2013.
• 7:46
  So tells you right there, student assistant, you ain't
• 7:49
  getting paid anything. It's AD three level.
• 7:51
  Brian can tell you about the conditions at the D3 level.
• 7:54
  Exactly, exactly. Pomp and circumstance.
• 7:57
  Now, now, now, the way they do D3 up there in in Wisconsin, a
• 8:00
  little bit different than Virginia, a little.
• 8:02
  Bit but still D3 from there and also during that time he
• 8:07
  actually got to do like an internship at Air Force
• 8:11
  strengthening conditioning coaching during the summer with
• 8:13
  the football team back in 2013 before he rejoined as a student
• 8:15
  assistant. 2014 he goes down to FIU quality control coach. 2015
• 8:22
  he's Aga at Wisconsin. Couple big points here.
• 8:26
  That was under Dave Aranda. If anybody knows college
• 8:29
  football the last two decades, Dave Aranda has been one of the
• 8:31
  better defensive coordinators in college football.
• 8:34
  He was now the head coach of Baylor 2015 and probably made
• 8:38
  the point today, and it's true. 2015 Wisconsin had the top
• 8:41
  defense in the country statistically.
• 8:43
  So say that what you will. From there he goes down to D2,
• 8:48
  University of Wisconsin Platteville as a defensive
• 8:50
  coordinator. Shelton's going to share some
• 8:52
  info on that in a little while here.
• 8:54
  From there, 2018 to 2020, he was in the Southern Conference,
• 8:58
  which Shelton knows all about. Shelton's got some other info on
• 9:01
  that as well. He loves the soap on, so he's
• 9:03
  got info on him there. He was a defensive coordinator.
• 9:06
  First of all, I'm going to say something about this we can get
• 9:10
  into in a while. This guy at the age of 26, 26th,
• 9:19
  was the defensive coordinator in the FCS. 26 years old, OK,
• 9:24
  Doesn't matter what level it is. That's insane.
• 9:27
  He was there from 2018 to 2020. Defensive coordinator at
• 9:30
  Wofford. We'll get the data on that.
• 9:32
  Went to the Vikings in 2021 to 2022.
• 9:36
  His first year there. He was defensive quality control
• 9:38
  coach and then he became the assistance linebacker coach.
• 9:41
  We've got some info on that as well.
• 9:44
  And obviously, the last two years he has begin making his
• 9:46
  hay over at the Arizona Cardinals as the full time
• 9:50
  linebacker coach, as the head man in that room.
• 9:53
  So let's talk about that background.
• 9:56
  Shelton, you got a lot to unload, so I want you to hold
• 9:59
  tight. Brian Talley feelings on just
• 10:03
  reading through the stuff and all that.
• 10:05
  Chris Lester, what's going on? Tally, I'll let you lead you.
• 10:10
  You got a lot off your chest last night.
• 10:12
  I'm going to let you kind of piggyback on that.
• 10:14
  Man, I my, my problem is that I ain't going to say problem, but
• 10:20
  I guess it's a good thing is that I talk to people before I
• 10:22
  talk or listen to people before I talk.
• 10:25
  So I get a little bit more information.
• 10:27
  And on the surface, it definitely pissed me off, mainly
• 10:34
  because of the process more than the person because I don't I
• 10:37
  don't I knew nothing about him. The main thing, and I think a
• 10:41
  lot of people were just like, who, who is this?
• 10:44
  You know, it wasn't all he's going to suck or this is a bad
• 10:46
  hire. Some people's going to say that
• 10:49
  no matter who it was. I do know if Bateman, if, if we
• 10:53
  would have went after Bateman and got Bateman, that their fans
• 10:57
  were going to be happy. And some of our fans had already
• 11:02
  set their set their tweets up to to file off about how it was a
• 11:06
  horrible hire. So, yeah, the process was a
• 11:09
  little bit clumbersome to me, in my opinion.
• 11:13
  But I do feel like what you may talk a little bit later.
• 11:16
  I just feel like certain things what's going to happen, You
• 11:20
  know, this is prize for season or going into his fourth season,
• 11:26
  by all accounts, he's probably on the hot seat.
• 11:28
  He should be. You got to win games in
• 11:30
  football. I think he does a great job at
• 11:32
  some things. Off season.
• 11:35
  He's been doing a great job portal, He's been doing a great
• 11:38
  job. He hadn't really messed with the
• 11:39
  portal. We probably talked about a
• 11:41
  little later too, some of the Senior Bowl stuff that we've
• 11:45
  seen, which has been been great for us.
• 11:48
  But I just don't feel like it was going to be the people that
• 11:53
  names were thrown out, weren't going to attach their jobs to a
• 11:57
  coach that they don't know who's going to be here.
• 11:59
  They don't know where this program is going.
• 12:00
  You know what I'm saying? Everybody, look, I think the
• 12:03
  world loves Virginia Tech as far as they want us to be good.
• 12:06
  Because when Virginia teams like Virginia Tech's good, college
• 12:10
  football's better. But when you start throwing out
• 12:13
  those big defensive coordinator names, it's like, come on, man.
• 12:18
  Are they really going to attach their name to a coach that is
• 12:21
  pretty much unproven as a head coach?
• 12:23
  And we don't know how long that ship's going to sail.
• 12:27
  I don't know, man. I don't, I don't think that
• 12:30
  that's what it was. I just think that most people
• 12:32
  are going to use what they can for a paycheck.
• 12:37
  You know, they're going to boost their stock.
• 12:39
  I think Brian kind of talked about, which you probably will
• 12:41
  talk a little bit more. Agents do a great job as far as
• 12:45
  like with players as well, When they hear something or if
• 12:48
  they're offered something, they're going to let everybody
• 12:50
  know that, you know, no matter how big or small it is, so they
• 12:54
  can up to the next level because it's about money, you know, it's
• 12:59
  a job. So it's about money, it's about
• 13:02
  a job. And the main thing with me, once
• 13:05
  I sit back and talk to smarter people like Shelton, I was like,
• 13:08
  well, let me look at this hire and see what I think about it.
• 13:11
  But I did know that I was frustrated with the process.
• 13:14
  Brian, how was you feeling? Yeah, I mean, and we've talked
• 13:17
  about it a lot. The process sucked.
• 13:20
  I mean, there's, there's really no other way to to phrase it.
• 13:24
  And I think, I think the part of the process is when it drags on
• 13:28
  that long and there's so little information that's coming out,
• 13:33
  everybody creates their own narrative.
• 13:35
  And then you hire someone that was a part of nobody's
• 13:38
  narrative, right? And so immediately you get a
• 13:41
  knee jerk of, like you said, Tally, who the hell is this guy?
• 13:45
  I haven't heard anything about him by default.
• 13:47
  That's probably not good, right? That that's like the mindset
• 13:50
  immediately, right? You go, you go right to that.
• 13:53
  If I haven't heard of him, it's probably not a good hire.
• 13:55
  And then you start digging a little bit and you look at the
• 13:58
  resume, you look at what you know, what he's done, who he's
• 14:01
  done it with. Way more play calling experience
• 14:05
  than Marv coming in. And and you can say you know,
• 14:10
  UW, Platteville and Wofford all you want to, but call and plays
• 14:14
  Apples to Apples is called and plays you.
• 14:18
  Can do it or you can't. It, it matters, it, it's
• 14:20
  experience. I like it.
• 14:23
  And then to Tally's point as well, every place this guy has
• 14:28
  went and left fans, staff, everybody involved, you're
• 14:34
  hearing nothing but good things and, and disappointment that
• 14:38
  he's moving on to, to greener pastures.
• 14:42
  And that's, that's the kind of guy you want a guy that left it
• 14:45
  better than he found it and the guy that, you know, people are,
• 14:47
  are sad to see go. So, you know, I think initially
• 14:52
  I was like, all right, y'all know, I'm, I'm not a knee jerk
• 14:56
  guy. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to
• 14:58
  gather my information. But at first I was like, all
• 15:00
  right, I need to do some digging here because I don't really know
• 15:04
  what to feel because I hadn't really heard this guy's name
• 15:06
  floated out there. I hadn't, I hadn't done enough
• 15:08
  research. I hadn't seen enough
• 15:09
  information. So upon digging some more, I
• 15:13
  feel a lot better. That's not to say this isn't a
• 15:15
  risky hire, at least in terms of some of the other names that
• 15:20
  were floated out there. But I think it's it's a definite
• 15:25
  improvement from Marv. And I think the ceiling is
• 15:28
  insanely high of what his potential could be, especially
• 15:32
  we can get the right personnel in the building either this year
• 15:35
  or early next year. All right before I give it to
• 15:38
  Sheldon, you got a lot to unload.
• 15:40
  So I, I, I want to give you the full floor in a second here and
• 15:43
  I want to give my quick take because first of all, I was like
• 15:48
  tally me and tally got down the rabbit hole.
• 15:50
  I would send messages and be like Groundhogs day, like day
• 15:53
  43. Y'all saw me tweeted the other
• 15:55
  day, day 43, it's Groundhogs day.
• 15:57
  We ain't got a defensive coordinator yet.
• 15:59
  So there's I'm like a split personality on this.
• 16:03
  I'm two faced from from Batman because on one side I am not
• 16:08
  overly excited about like his recruiting prowess because he
• 16:11
  really has not done it at the highest of levels.
• 16:15
  And also college accolades. No knock on the Socon.
• 16:18
  And yes, calling plays is calling plays, but he has not
• 16:22
  been at the collegiate level. And you can say what was it the
• 16:25
  NFL? And it's like, well, it's a
• 16:26
  different ball game. It's professionals who are
• 16:28
  getting paid. They can get their asses cut at
• 16:30
  any time versus an NIL that you have to pay the kid regardless.
• 16:34
  So I was like, that's not the greatest piece.
• 16:37
  But then to Bronze point, I did a little further research.
• 16:41
  Shout out Dan Pulse, Me and Dan found some good stuff.
• 16:45
  Shout out our coach Robbie Compton, who had an interview
• 16:48
  from this guy back in 2000. I think it's either 19 or 20,
• 16:52
  talking about some philosophies and stuff.
• 16:54
  But when I started listening to that, started seeing those
• 16:58
  things, the first thing I can say is this, and I said it a few
• 17:02
  minutes ago, the age at which he got to the NFL is impressive.
• 17:06
  He got to the NFL at the age of 29.
• 17:09
  I don't care what you're doing. Before he was 30 years old, he
• 17:14
  was in an NFL building. By the time he was 31, he was a
• 17:17
  linebacker's coach. That doesn't happen usually.
• 17:21
  If that it's nepotism, it's a Brian Schottenheimer to Kyle
• 17:24
  Shanahan. Papa's in the business.
• 17:27
  I'm going to get put in regardless.
• 17:29
  You normally don't see guys in their late 20s, early 30s being
• 17:33
  put in that position that quick. Usually you got to work 10-15
• 17:36
  years, then you start getting there.
• 17:38
  The other thing was the scheme video.
• 17:42
  Y'all want to know what he's doing?
• 17:44
  Go look at my Twitter account today.
• 17:46
  I tweeted it out there 2 videos about this scheme.
• 17:49
  This scheme excites me. It truly does.
• 17:53
  It excites me not only from all the stuff you can do with it,
• 17:57
  but I've told these three guys sitting in here before we came
• 17:59
  on and I'll say it again, I think a scheme like this favors
• 18:02
  how we can recruit. How many times do we say, well,
• 18:05
  that guy's a tweener and that's not great.
• 18:08
  There are some things with this defense.
• 18:11
  A tweener will work better than a full blown safety or a full
• 18:14
  blown defensive tackle. You know what?
• 18:16
  We actually need a guy who's a tweener to play big in when we
• 18:19
  play four eyes or something like that.
• 18:22
  Or we need a guy who's got some twitch, but he's got to be able
• 18:26
  to do things in linebacker Kane Bronze, we'll get into that a
• 18:29
  little bit later. That's what I'm excited about.
• 18:32
  South Shelton did his research and he's got a bunch of stuff.
• 18:38
  So Shelton, I'm going to give you the floor.
• 18:41
  Go for it. Yeah, well, I was doing some
• 18:44
  digging on Mr. Sikis, looking at some some events.
• 18:50
  That's obviously, you know, the, the traditional metrics, I think
• 18:52
  kind of speak for themselves, you know, total defense, 3rd
• 18:55
  down conversion percentage. They were fourth in the country
• 18:57
  at Platteville in 2017. And you know, yards for rush,
• 19:00
  all that stuff, you know, is pretty good.
• 19:02
  But I got some SP plus rankings, advance stats for his teams when
• 19:07
  he coached, before he coached and after he coached at his
• 19:09
  respective schools. So let's start with Platteville.
• 19:12
  So it came on as DC in 2016. And just for the record, the
• 19:17
  conference that they play in the WIAC is a really competitive
• 19:21
  conference. Like it's probably close to the
• 19:23
  SEC of D3 at that level, just with how good Wisconsin and you
• 19:27
  know, the the the Midwest is a football at the at that level.
• 19:30
  So lots of really good teams. But the year he took over the
• 19:35
  first year, they were 19th and SU plus on defense at that
• 19:39
  level. And then next year they're 22nd
• 19:42
  he leaves 2018 they dropped to 125th.
• 19:46
  So that's a 100 spot drop in a single season directly after
• 19:50
  after he leaves. So the the head coach at
• 19:54
  Platteville was a guy named Mike Emmendorfer.
• 19:58
  So he retired in 20/21 after a pretty successful stint.
• 20:01
  Overall record was about 500 but.
• 20:04
  That 2016, the 2016 team of Platteville was the only one of
• 20:08
  two playoff appearances they've ever had in school history.
• 20:11
  So he played a big part of that apparently.
• 20:14
  You know, Emma Dorfer really just couldn't get the defense
• 20:16
  right after that 2017 season, and he eventually retired.
• 20:20
  They just weren't winning a ton of games.
• 20:22
  So I think it speaks positively about Seekhus that he was able
• 20:25
  to, you know, create a good defense and a situation where
• 20:29
  they really hadn't been all that good, you know, either after he
• 20:31
  was there or before he was there.
• 20:34
  So that's a big plus for him and he goes to Wofford.
• 20:38
  Now Wofford, as you guys know, historically was, you know,
• 20:40
  pretty good under Mike Ayers, who's sort of like the Mike
• 20:42
  Young of their football program LED them to a bunch of
• 20:44
  conference championships. He retired in 2017.
• 20:47
  So 2018 was the first year that Esikas was ADC there.
• 20:50
  So taking over a a first year staff, obviously some transition
• 20:53
  there. You know, that was right as the
• 20:55
  portal was starting. So they retained most of their
• 20:56
  teams of players and it was a pretty good defense that he
• 20:58
  inherited. But he's still able to keep it
• 21:01
  going for the most part. 13th in FC plus first year, then 20th
• 21:05
  and then 31st in that spring altered COVID season, which was,
• 21:10
  you know, obviously very difficult on those FCS teams
• 21:12
  that had to play in that season because they had lots of opt
• 21:14
  outs and, you know, some teams decided to quit, but, you know,
• 21:17
  kind of a chaotic situation. And then so 31st in 2020, next
• 21:23
  year he leaves. They dropped to 108th.
• 21:26
  So that's a I'm trying to jump out my head 7777 spot drop.
• 21:32
  Now, Wofford had some issues. Granted, you know, their head
• 21:35
  coach did not turn out to be good.
• 21:36
  They kind of screwed up the offense and he got fired
• 21:38
  eventually. So you know, how much of that
• 21:40
  was solely due to him? I mean, you know, we don't know
• 21:42
  exactly, but we do know that he was really good when he was
• 21:45
  there and they're really bad in both spots after he left at both
• 21:48
  schools. So I think that speaks to kind
• 21:51
  of his track record of, you know, getting the most out of
• 21:54
  the talent that he has. And a couple other things that I
• 21:59
  heard from some insider connections I had.
• 22:02
  You know, I'm very well connected in the the coaching
• 22:05
  scene these days. Not really.
• 22:06
  I just have a buddy who who worked on a on the staff of the
• 22:10
  Southern Conference rival when Cekis was at Wofford and he was
• 22:14
  at that school. And he said that the Vikings
• 22:18
  were really sad to lose him in 2022 when he left for the
• 22:21
  Cardinals. And they even tried to increase
• 22:24
  his pay, which is a very rare for an assistant linebacker's
• 22:27
  coach, does not happen often, usually.
• 22:28
  And they fail. They just, you know, they just
• 22:30
  let guys walk. And he also reportedly had a
• 22:33
  much higher degree of involvement with their defensive
• 22:36
  operations than you would typically expect for a coach of
• 22:39
  that stature. So on the whole, lots of really
• 22:43
  good things to think about Esikas I, I think as I, the more
• 22:46
  I learn about this hire, I think the more I, I feel good about
• 22:48
  it, I'd say. Yeah, I think, I think Sheldon
• 22:51
  right there the the, the two points you're making, especially
• 22:54
  it's the fall off right? Because, you know, we we all see
• 22:58
  that from time to time. Tally and Brian have played and
• 23:01
  seen it where good coach leaves shit sometimes ain't right.
• 23:06
  It's just not right whatever reason for whatever.
• 23:09
  So thanks for bringing that up, Shelton, about how those teams
• 23:11
  effectively fell off a Cliff defensively after he left.
• 23:16
  And to that Wofford point, I mean, I know there was a lot of
• 23:19
  offensive issues teams, but I mean, Conklin was still a
• 23:23
  defensive minded head coach. So he he should have had a good
• 23:27
  grasp of, of where to go next. And and and to see that steep of
• 23:32
  a fall off is is pretty pretty staggering.
• 23:35
  Pretty, yeah. And they and they, they really
• 23:37
  haven't recovered at all like I was looking at.
• 23:38
  I mean, even if you look at some of their numbers since 2021,
• 23:41
  they really have not fielded a good defense since that year.
• 23:44
  So he was really kind of the last, the last true good
• 23:47
  defensive guy they had. 100%. All right, so we play this year,
• 23:53
  Curtis. Wofford.
• 23:56
  Hopefully they still bad. Hopefully still bad.
• 23:59
  Hopefully he holds them to a goose egg on that Saturday in
• 24:02
  September. All right, something I mentioned
• 24:05
  in my little rant there and and it's probably been mentioned
• 24:08
  more than a few times and me and Brian talked about a little bit
• 24:11
  this afternoon is a likely a scheme change is going to come
• 24:16
  to Blacksburg. I think everybody saw the
• 24:18
  writing on the wall with some of the guys we got from the portal.
• 24:21
  But Brian, you, you, you looked at that video, you read a few
• 24:26
  things here and there. I know.
• 24:28
  And we're not going to get into the details because I think what
• 24:31
  we're going to probably have to do in a couple weeks here is
• 24:34
  look at our defensive roster and say who's going to play where in
• 24:36
  this scheme? But Brian, what can be expected
• 24:39
  or what do you expect him to bring in and how we going to
• 24:44
  look different next year? Yeah.
• 24:47
  I mean, you know, you're looking at most of the schemes that he's
• 24:50
  ran have been multiple typically odd fronts and there's going to
• 24:58
  be a lot of three high safety looks.
• 25:03
  So what we're looking at is going to be some version of a of
• 25:08
  a hybrid or multiple 3335 defense, but with the so-called
• 25:15
  Jack backer that for the most part is going to act like a
• 25:20
  stand up defensive end in in most of the schemes there.
• 25:23
  So it it allows us to to really be flexible, especially in a
• 25:31
  conference that has a lot of air raid and a lot of big spread
• 25:36
  concepts that we're playing against it.
• 25:39
  It lets us match up a whole lot better.
• 25:42
  I don't think we'll get RPO to death like we did in in a
• 25:46
  handful of games with with this type of scheme.
• 25:50
  It lets you get your best 11 on your best 11 without really
• 25:54
  having to do a ton of substitutions.
• 25:57
  It lets you do a whole lot of different things from pressure
• 26:01
  coverage, manipulating the box, and it's really hard to prepare
• 26:08
  for if you're an offense just because of how much, how many
• 26:13
  different alignments and assignments they have to account
• 26:16
  for. So I'm excited and I think the
• 26:20
  thing that stood out to me when talking about this, like I, I
• 26:22
  throw a lot of stuff out there and this is going to be a lot.
• 26:26
  But he emphasized simplifying the concepts.
• 26:30
  I'll still being hard to prepare for and thinking of it from the
• 26:35
  philosophy of if it's game prep week and I've got my players
• 26:41
  asking me about our scheme, that's a problem.
• 26:47
  If, if it's game week and they're asking me about the
• 26:49
  opponent's scheme, I've done the right thing.
• 26:53
  So I, I, I think that that's, that's the mindset that he's
• 26:55
  coming at. This is is keeping it simple
• 26:58
  while still being complex and hard to prepare for.
• 27:04
  Tally anything from Scheme. Not really man.
• 27:08
  I've just been kind of taken in. I was kind of thinking where we
• 27:12
  would add, you know, like the the ginger freak when we got
• 27:15
  him. I can't, I don't know the kids
• 27:17
  name, but just kind of him just kind of thinking about what we
• 27:23
  would add him on the defense once we got him, seeing how
• 27:26
  productive he was there to when he's coming here.
• 27:29
  But then when you start talking about a scheme similar to what
• 27:32
  Brian's talking about and Sheldon's talking about like it
• 27:35
  makes sense that you have a linebacker defensive end hybrid,
• 27:41
  because it's like, does that guy going to put his hand in the
• 27:43
  ground? Is he going to stand up?
• 27:44
  Well, you know, this scheme kind of changes things a little bit.
• 27:47
  So I don't know, I think it, I think it, I think it's exciting,
• 27:53
  at least you know what I'm saying.
• 27:55
  It gives us something to look forward to because what we what
• 27:59
  we seen last year was, I mean, there was some excitement there,
• 28:02
  but it wasn't exciting. So another thing, yeah.
• 28:06
  So another thing to to add on to that too, is the strength and
• 28:13
  conditioning piece. You know, we've got a new
• 28:15
  strength and conditioning coach here at Ferguson.
• 28:19
  So we've had, I think it's kind of been split, man.
• 28:22
  I just kind of read the room and see what other people have to
• 28:25
  say. Like I said, I mean, y'all know
• 28:27
  I'll talk. I do like to listen as well.
• 28:30
  And it's kind of been a split reaction.
• 28:33
  Some people say, you know, this was a lazy hire.
• 28:37
  I ain't going to call them names, Pete.
• 28:40
  Some people say that this is a really good hire.
• 28:44
  And, you know, from inside the building, I feel like the
• 28:48
  players have really respected him and really taken to this.
• 28:54
  And it's been some change, which is a good thing.
• 28:58
  You know, it's got to be changing the way you prepare.
• 29:01
  It's got to be changing the way that you you go at game day.
• 29:07
  If you continue losing by 1 score and the conditioning
• 29:10
  piece, you know, if we're getting to end the games, we
• 29:13
  can't get people on the ground. We got to figure out exactly
• 29:16
  what we need to do strengthen conditioning wise.
• 29:19
  It's going to help that. So I think that was a big hire.
• 29:22
  I think that was a big piece that needed to be filled, so I'm
• 29:28
  interested to see how this is going to all play out.
• 29:36
  Hold on, wait a second. Let me put this up real quick.
• 29:41
  Just. Saw I definitely read it all
• 29:43
  wrong A. Lot of people said that.
• 29:45
  When I when I looked over there I definitely read that wrong.
• 29:48
  I thought that said better than Batman.
• 29:52
  That, that might be a bridge too far, man.
• 29:54
  That might. You know, it's hard to be better
• 29:56
  than Batman. We'll we'll get back a little
• 29:59
  bit more on the first thing I want to get Shelton.
• 30:00
  Shelton, what about you in this scheme, you know, did you get a
• 30:04
  chance to look data points or anything like that with this
• 30:08
  sort of, I don't know what you call it.
• 30:10
  It's it's just a unique scheme. Yeah.
• 30:13
  I mean, I don't really know about the intricacies of the
• 30:16
  scheme. I do know they've typically been
• 30:18
  a pretty good third down defense under him and he talked about
• 30:20
  that in the podcast that Brian referenced.
• 30:23
  They were, they were fourth in the country and 3rd down defense
• 30:26
  in 2017. And, you know, generally pretty
• 30:28
  good most seasons. But I, I do think, you know,
• 30:32
  kind of what Brian was saying about the simplicity point, like
• 30:35
  he talked about just, you know, making it as black and white as
• 30:39
  possible, Meaning, you know, you're teaching players to kind
• 30:41
  of read and react based on what they see.
• 30:43
  So, you know, if a run goes one way, you react that way.
• 30:46
  If it goes this way, you do that just so that players aren't, you
• 30:49
  know, kind of getting their, their hands and their feet, you
• 30:51
  know, and their, and their brains tied up.
• 30:54
  I think that's, that's really good.
• 30:55
  I, I really like kind of just the stuff that you had to say
• 30:57
  about, you know, the principles that, you know, he, he operates
• 31:00
  by and just making sure that players focus on their
• 31:02
  technique. Because as we've seen, you know,
• 31:04
  it's very easy for linebackers to miss their assignments.
• 31:07
  If you're not teaching the concepts right, then players
• 31:10
  don't understand what they're supposed to do.
• 31:12
  You got to teach the concepts first, the fundamentals first,
• 31:14
  and then everything kind of filters down down through that.
• 31:17
  So it seems to me like he's got, he's got a really good grasp of
• 31:20
  how to be an effective teacher. Yeah, and something he said and
• 31:24
  I, I listen to that podcast as well.
• 31:26
  And again, Brian mentioned it, shout out Robbie, who is on here
• 31:28
  tonight with us. He, he, he found it for us and
• 31:31
  sent it over so we could listen to it.
• 31:34
  The the one thing from that that really caught my eye, it was 2
• 31:37
  pieces. The first one was the way he
• 31:39
  talked about every week you have ABCA hear the concept they do
• 31:45
  the most. This is the, this is what we're
• 31:47
  going to focus on. I think he said probably 60% of
• 31:50
  the time, I don't know if y'all remember, he's like, hey, this
• 31:53
  is what they do the most, This is what they run the most.
• 31:56
  Here's concept B like this. We are, we are going to know in
• 31:59
  and out because effectively Brian mentions it, Cali said it,
• 32:03
  Shelton has said it. That's their bread and butter.
• 32:05
  They're going to run this. It don't matter.
• 32:07
  Give a damn who they play, what looks we give, they're going to
• 32:10
  run this. Then he talks about B and he
• 32:12
  says we're going to look at this in like 30% of the time.
• 32:15
  He's like, we know they run this occasionally, but we can't be
• 32:18
  heavily focused on that. But he says we still have to pay
• 32:20
  attention to it. And then and he said something
• 32:24
  like maybe 1015 * a game, they'll run these plays.
• 32:27
  The last one. He says they might run these
• 32:29
  plays one to three times a game. And I love what he said.
• 32:33
  He says this last little piece. So he's building, right?
• 32:37
  I mean, graining what they're going to do a lot.
• 32:39
  I'm going to layer the next one. And he said the last one, these
• 32:41
  ones where they won one to three times, one they might pull out
• 32:44
  on you the trick, play something slick.
• 32:47
  He's like, I look at this last, this is a Friday night
• 32:51
  walkthrough. This is the last thing I look
• 32:54
  at. And when I think philosophy and
• 32:55
  skiing, it's like a building basically saying, if we know
• 32:58
  these plays, we can stop this and this.
• 33:01
  And I mentioned this to you at the last possible second.
• 33:05
  This is ingrained. This is ingrained.
• 33:07
  If they try to pull one of these slick plays, I just mentioned it
• 33:11
  to you less than 12 hours ago, it's probably going to be
• 33:14
  something you remember versus trying to tell you something to
• 33:17
  remember from the bread and butter, which should already be
• 33:19
  in ways. And I like the way this and it
• 33:22
  talks about, it's a common way that they break down the high
• 33:25
  school. It's simplifying things.
• 33:29
  Let the guys play right, simplify, make it easy.
• 33:32
  Let them go out there and play. Let's talk about this real
• 33:36
  quick. Go ahead.
• 33:41
  Inside linebacker? No.
• 33:42
  Big nickel? Probably.
• 33:46
  Who you talking about? Oh, this right here.
• 33:47
  Yeah, yeah. OK, you so you're talking about
• 33:50
  some of that. He's, he's essentially going to
• 33:52
  be one of those, one of those box safeties.
• 33:54
  The, the, the, the big nickel here.
• 33:56
  In my opinion, I think you need to, when you look at inside
• 34:03
  linebackers, I think you're going to be looking probably at
• 34:07
  Woodson at this point, Bass probably playing the other spot
• 34:15
  there. And then we, you know, we talked
• 34:18
  about Jonkum probably sliding in there at the Jack backer.
• 34:26
  It's going to be interesting to see where the other spots in the
• 34:31
  in the safety room shake out. But yeah, I, I peg Caleb Spencer
• 34:36
  for being a big nickel in this in this scheme.
• 34:40
  Well, that, that's some me and me and Brian.
• 34:42
  Actually I, I talked to him at lunchtime today.
• 34:45
  We were both doing our power walks and like, that's what
• 34:50
  we've got to figure out. And probably in a few weeks,
• 34:53
  probably through conversation. If we can get sheltered in here,
• 34:57
  great. If we can't, yes, probably not.
• 35:02
  That's what happens. I had to get some laundry done
• 35:04
  today and unfortunately I didn't throw them out of the picture.
• 35:06
  My wife is going to be horrified when she sees this.
• 35:09
  So everybody remember if I'm in trouble in the next few weeks,
• 35:13
  but that's him. Going to be on your ass
• 35:15
  tomorrow. She is.
• 35:16
  She really is. She's like 295 people saw your
• 35:19
  laundry I'm going to be getting. It more than that by the time
• 35:25
  it's all said and done, a whole lot more than that.
• 35:28
  But but either way, that's what we've got to look at as we get
• 35:31
  into the next few weeks is once he's in and once we also know
• 35:39
  who the other coaches is because it was said today and I'm going
• 35:43
  to get to the other piece that was said today as well.
• 35:46
  We're not quite done yet. We're not done with the shuffle.
• 35:50
  I know y'all all heard it and you know what I think is going
• 35:56
  to happen and y'all come back. I, I, I, I do believe that there
• 36:00
  is going to be a new safety coach.
• 36:01
  I do not think Pearson Fraley will leave the program, but
• 36:04
  again, he was in a player personnel role before they got
• 36:08
  put in a pinch. Pearson's a loyal guy.
• 36:11
  But I think we're going to have a safety coach hopefully by the
• 36:15
  end of this week. But, you know, maybe like 46
• 36:18
  days from now, spring ball starting.
• 36:22
  I, I, I think that's the most obvious move.
• 36:25
  I think the other thing you got to look at is.
• 36:28
  Who's on the road? Who's on the road, who's
• 36:31
  actually coaching linebackers day-to-day?
• 36:34
  Because we know that it sounds like Sam's not going to have his
• 36:38
  own room. He's obviously going to have a
• 36:40
  heavy influence in the linebacker room, but I don't.
• 36:43
  Obviously, he's not going to be assigned as the position coach
• 36:46
  to that room. Is, is, is Quinn sliding in?
• 36:50
  Is ADB taking over? Are we bringing in two guys on
• 36:54
  defense? What's this going to look like?
• 36:58
  We still have a little over what, $800,000 potentially to
• 37:01
  play around with it sounds like. More because what you got to
• 37:05
  think of Brian is if Prelo leaves, takes a less role in a
• 37:10
  cut. Yeah, I think he's making three
• 37:12
  and a quarter. So reality is you have about
• 37:14
  1.2, maybe more. I guess it depends on where that
• 37:19
  gets allocated, but yeah, I mean I will.
• 37:21
  Use all the money. Yeah, Yeah, you got it, you need
• 37:28
  it. Go ahead and spend it.
• 37:30
  So that that brings him to the question, you know is, is this
• 37:36
  going to be AI guess? I guess the question is going to
• 37:43
  be, do you still look at a John Scott junior and does he just
• 37:50
  work with outside linebackers? He's coached outside linebackers
• 37:57
  in the past. He's been primarily with
• 37:59
  defensive ends. I don't know.
• 38:04
  I I'm very intrigued to see what the other staff moves are going
• 38:08
  to be, even though I do think safety is probably the the one
• 38:13
  that we we're definitely going to get in this move.
• 38:17
  Tally Sheldon. Any feels on that?
• 38:20
  Yeah, I can't think about no more coaching moves.
• 38:22
  I just got to sit back and let them, let them do what they do.
• 38:25
  I can't even rack my brain about it.
• 38:28
  I just need them to make some good decisions and put put
• 38:32
  something good together so we can win.
• 38:34
  I need, I need to go to Atlanta and win.
• 38:36
  So. He needs to go to Atlanta and
• 38:38
  y'all remember that? Y'all remember that?
• 38:40
  Let's go back to the what you brought up before because it was
• 38:43
  not announced the last time we were here.
• 38:45
  But with FUR taking over the strength and conditioning
• 38:49
  program, I know some people were like, oh, well, that's just an
• 38:53
  inside move. And it's really not because Dege
• 39:00
  had his own philosophy on how to train and it was not from the
• 39:06
  school that FUR came from. So it is a different mentality.
• 39:11
  And Brian, which one of y'all said something was either Tally
• 39:15
  or Brian that mentioned some couple weeks ago about you can
• 39:20
  have your own philosophies and you can work with someone in
• 39:24
  that field, but you still have your own philosophies of how
• 39:27
  doing things. True.
• 39:30
  Was it you tally? Would you be?
• 39:33
  I don't know, I think, I think we just kind of brought it up.
• 39:36
  I can't remember who exactly brought it up, but yeah, no, I I
• 39:40
  agree. And sometimes like, I mean,
• 39:46
  there's ideas that I have, but if my boss don't bring them up,
• 39:50
  I can't just go in and implement them.
• 39:52
  You know what I'm saying? Like there's a pecking order.
• 39:55
  So I'm sure that it was things for him to, and I'm sure they
• 40:00
  had to do some interviewing, you know what I'm saying?
• 40:01
  Like there was some he didn't just say, OK, we're going to
• 40:04
  give you the job. Like I'm sure it was other
• 40:06
  people that they reached out to and interviewed and things like
• 40:10
  that. And they pretty much looked at,
• 40:12
  you know what, what do we need and who can be the one to help
• 40:18
  us get there as quickly as possible.
• 40:22
  And sometimes it's just love, and sometimes it's just the
• 40:25
  person who's willing to put in the most time.
• 40:29
  You know, and just get as deep into the job as they can before
• 40:34
  it's done. And somebody who's been there
• 40:37
  and understands what the culture needs to get back to.
• 40:41
  Sometimes it's because, again, we weren't far off on a lot of
• 40:44
  stuff, you know, not making excuses, but it's like if, if we
• 40:51
  can shore up those small things, the big things will happen on on
• 40:56
  Saturday nights and Sundays and Tuesdays or Thursdays, whatever
• 41:00
  nights they got us playing now. But yeah, I think I'm just from,
• 41:05
  from what I've heard and I, I'm again, I'm just a fan.
• 41:08
  He's came in and he's done some things that no other strength
• 41:13
  and conditioning culture has been doing.
• 41:15
  You know what I'm saying? Walking in, saying this ain't
• 41:19
  play time, Turn the radio off, let's get the lifting.
• 41:25
  We going to get stronger. We going to be serious about
• 41:27
  this. You know, little stuff like that
• 41:29
  sometimes is what a team needs, you know, to find those leaders.
• 41:33
  Sometimes you got to push people too close to the breaking point
• 41:37
  to figure out who's going to grab the people up and bring
• 41:40
  them along as well. And I think that's what we kind
• 41:42
  of missed last year, you know, some leaders on the field and
• 41:45
  some people that were able to finish.
• 41:47
  So I'm hoping that that's what Ferg brings to to the team as a
• 41:52
  whole. Bron.
• 41:56
  Yeah. I think just in general, like,
• 41:58
  like Tally's point there. Yeah, I think with Ferguson's
• 42:04
  toughness and the the he's been exposed to kind of two or three
• 42:11
  different ways of doing the job at this point.
• 42:13
  And I think he understands that one of those we saw a lot of
• 42:20
  success, especially with the way we prepared athletes for the
• 42:25
  field. And I think so he I think we're
• 42:27
  looking at more of a, a Gentry model.
• 42:30
  I feel like that that is what he's going to lean on when it
• 42:33
  comes to strength and conditioning with a little bit
• 42:38
  of modernization, right? It's it's still going to have
• 42:41
  some more more modern concepts, but I think at some point you
• 42:46
  still got to get back to the bread and butter of what made
• 42:49
  this program great and what what we saw success at.
• 42:54
  You know, I think he's going to give us that.
• 42:57
  I think I think the big thing is going to be the the conditioning
• 43:01
  piece, because this team definitely looked like they
• 43:03
  faded in fourth quarters pretty consistently, both on both sides
• 43:07
  of the ball, but particularly on defense.
• 43:11
  Yeah, I, I, I don't think we're going to be in a situation where
• 43:13
  that's going to be a problem with the Jarrett Ferguson in
• 43:16
  that position. And I'll say this too, just
• 43:20
  because it's been so long since I've really been into like a
• 43:23
  locker room where I had to do some stuff.
• 43:26
  You know, I'm old man. I don't, I don't care about
• 43:28
  doing that stuff. But going through the stuff with
• 43:30
  my son and watching what is said about their strength and
• 43:35
  conditioning coaches and how they feel about their coaches
• 43:39
  and things like that, it's a big deal.
• 43:41
  Because like his basketball team has a strength and conditioning
• 43:45
  coach and it's like everybody looks to him.
• 43:49
  Even during the game when things go a little bit awry, they like
• 43:52
  they look to Coach B to settle things down or to, is it OK for
• 43:58
  me to get amped up? You know what I'm saying?
• 44:00
  Just because they're with him so much and he's with them during
• 44:04
  those grueling times that the players kind of look at him as
• 44:09
  a, you know, a go to figure, you know, because he's not the head
• 44:12
  coach, but he's the strength and conditioning coach sets the
• 44:16
  tone. So a lot of times he's and he's
• 44:19
  at every game. He's, you know, he doesn't have
• 44:21
  any kids on the team. It's his job is just to to to
• 44:24
  coach them in the weight room. But he's at every basketball
• 44:28
  game and he's constantly talking to players and he's constantly
• 44:33
  telling them things that can help them get better from a
• 44:35
  strength and conditioning point. So sometimes it's not XS and OS
• 44:38
  that he's saying about the actual sport.
• 44:43
  He's talking to them about what he coaches them in.
• 44:45
  So if somebody's invested like that on the sidelines, like I
• 44:50
  think Fergie is, I think that it's definitely going to going
• 44:53
  to help a lot. So again, I think Chris put up
• 44:57
  something, said it's different than that.
• 44:58
  I mean, Chris has a a son on the team.
• 45:01
  So I'm sure he can attest a little bit better than we can of
• 45:03
  what goes on in there. But not just Chris, you know
• 45:06
  what I'm saying? That's other players and parents
• 45:08
  that I've talked to that have raved about some things that
• 45:12
  Fergus done. So I just want to get to a third
• 45:16
  quarter or fourth quarter and get the quarterback on the
• 45:19
  ground. Good play call, be strong
• 45:22
  enough, be disciplined enough to get the quarterback from Miami
• 45:27
  on the ground and let's go win the game.
• 45:29
  I want to be able to do that. I want to see the players do
• 45:31
  that all. Right, Shelton?
• 45:33
  Anything on Berg? Anything like that?
• 45:37
  I mean nothing specifically really.
• 45:38
  I would just say, you know, in my experience, you know,
• 45:42
  straining, initiating coach, like every other coach, it all
• 45:44
  starts with relationships. You have to show that you you
• 45:47
  care about the players as people to get the most out of them.
• 45:50
  And so I think that, you know, the bond that you have with them
• 45:53
  is the foundation for everything else that you can accomplish.
• 45:56
  So it's not just about, you know, what's what's my workout
• 45:58
  or what's my routine like you got to show that you care about
• 46:01
  them to get the most out of them.
• 46:03
  And that's, you know, obviously the most most important thing
• 46:06
  you got to, you know, find the balancing part between, you
• 46:08
  know, tough love, but also, you know, holding them accountable
• 46:11
  and, you know, showing appreciation for the same time.
• 46:14
  There's always a a balancing act there between not being too
• 46:16
  soft, but nothing too hard either.
• 46:19
  You know, what I I've read about, you know, the some of
• 46:21
  those SEC coaches under, under Nick Saban, the job that they
• 46:24
  did, you know, being, you know, so, so widely respected in the
• 46:27
  program. Just, you know, how much time
• 46:29
  that the athletes spend with those strength coaches is really
• 46:31
  critical. I mean, it's it's a critical
• 46:32
  part of the part of the program. So again, I can't speak to, you
• 46:35
  know, Farragut and his specific traits, but hopefully they can
• 46:38
  get someone in there. They're really just, you know,
• 46:40
  again, can you know, just hold them accountable.
• 46:43
  Yeah, you, you just said it and Brian put it up there with the,
• 46:46
  Robbie says the guys do spend a, a ton of time with the
• 46:50
  strengthening conditioning coach because it's, as we know, winter
• 46:53
  workouts start soon. They're with them more than
• 46:56
  anybody here. They're within their summer
• 46:58
  workouts. They're with them in the in the
• 47:00
  locker room getting treatments and all that stuff.
• 47:02
  So with that staff more and more.
• 47:04
  But I think going back to the Ferguson mentality, AI think a
• 47:07
  couple people have said if a guy don't look like Jerry Ferguson
• 47:12
  in your strengths in the conditioning room, then that
• 47:15
  ain't your strengths and conditioning coach.
• 47:17
  Because you look at him, he is a big SOB.
• 47:20
  He played mean, he played hard. He was a, he was the last of one
• 47:25
  of the full backs way back in the day in the early 2000s.
• 47:29
  But I also think Brian, you mentioned he's been through
• 47:33
  several strength and conditioning coaches.
• 47:35
  So obviously it's picking up extra things.
• 47:38
  But the thing that made getting gentrified was it was what Tally
• 47:43
  has mentioned it was. We got late deep in the games
• 47:49
  and guys still had the energy level to get to quarterback on
• 47:53
  the ground to make that run. I'll always go back, go back
• 47:57
  2009, close your eyes, go back to Alabama.
• 48:00
  When Brian, when Ryan Williams broke that big one like that was
• 48:04
  late third quarter and he exploded away from basically an
• 48:09
  NFL defense. Why?
• 48:11
  Because to tallies point, to Brian's point, to Shelton's
• 48:14
  point, he was conditioned, he was ready to explode like that
• 48:20
  late third quarter, not the early part of the game, late
• 48:23
  third quarter. So there, that is right there.
• 48:26
  All right, you mentioned Brian a few minutes ago.
• 48:30
  It's kind of a talking point. It looks like he's going to be
• 48:32
  ADC only. That will all to me.
• 48:35
  That's all going to fall out in the next few weeks with
• 48:37
  additional hires in the reshuffling of the staff.
• 48:40
  So we'll probably talk a little bit more about that at a later
• 48:43
  time, but I want to let's just be straight up on this and I
• 48:47
  don't know how many other people will talk about it, but I do
• 48:50
  want to talk about it. What option was saying, because
• 48:56
  I'll give pry credit and he didn't say it, but he said, hey,
• 49:01
  we had a guy catching in the national championship game that
• 49:04
  we had interest from. We know he want one.
• 49:08
  Was he 2? Was he 3?
• 49:09
  Was he 4? Was he one?
• 49:12
  What do y'all think? What do you think?
• 49:13
  I'll I'll pitch it back to you first.
• 49:14
  Where do you think he was? I mean, based on what I'm
• 49:18
  reading, I would say anywhere from 3:00 to 5:00.
• 49:20
  I mean, I know they went in Knowles.
• 49:23
  I know you know, they're looking at Bateman.
• 49:25
  And it seemed like Bateman was a guy for a little bit of time.
• 49:28
  I don't know where. I mean, look, Price in his press
• 49:31
  conference today, they initially had a list of about 20
• 49:33
  candidates. So they kind of they're down to
• 49:35
  10. And that's when they started
• 49:36
  doing the very Thor research. They started doing those, you
• 49:38
  know, 4 hour interviews with all those candidates.
• 49:41
  So out of the pool of 10, I'd say he's probably top five, but
• 49:45
  I I don't know where exactly in that pecking order he was
• 49:48
  specifically. Tally Brown Y'all got a feeling
• 49:52
  on this? No, I kind of, I kind of go
• 49:55
  with, Shelton said. I was thinking he probably was
• 49:57
  in that, you know, three to five range somewhere around there
• 50:01
  just because like I said, of course, I mean the big names is
• 50:04
  probably out there when some people say no, some people say
• 50:08
  banks. And again, I don't know these
• 50:10
  people. I just I mean, I know the
• 50:12
  defense when I watch football, but I don't know these people
• 50:15
  until people start telling me their names.
• 50:17
  Derek just put in the chat that Seth Wallace from Iowa, I don't
• 50:20
  know him, you know what I'm saying?
• 50:22
  I know I was defense, but I don't know none of these people.
• 50:25
  So I just know kind of what I've heard of people.
• 50:27
  And I feel like once we talked about it, once we looked at
• 50:31
  things, there's no way that Bateman was the choice on when,
• 50:37
  when did he announce this month? Yesterday.
• 50:39
  Yesterday. So there's no way that Bateman
• 50:41
  was the choice on Sunday night and then we hired Sam Monday.
• 50:49
  It just don't, it can't be, it don't make sense.
• 50:53
  Like when you're doing all the research and then you know, how
• 50:57
  did you get the stuff in place that quickly?
• 50:59
  I don't know. I just don't think that I think
• 51:01
  it was a little bit more thorough than us as fans know
• 51:04
  it. Just when you're not right, you
• 51:07
  probably get a little bit upset because you want to be the one
• 51:09
  to break the news or know a little bit more or just want to
• 51:13
  be in the know. Just wanted it to happen.
• 51:15
  So again, it is a very wait and see type hire.
• 51:20
  Some people thought that I probably would be a little upset
• 51:23
  on him, which I'm not. I mean, again, everybody kind of
• 51:28
  knows how I feel. I haven't heard this.
• 51:30
  I think it all goes back to the head coach.
• 51:32
  I don't think that, yes, you do have to make some good coaching
• 51:35
  hires, but I think that if Pry elevates his game this offseason
• 51:40
  as a coach, then the team will be fine.
• 51:43
  I think that we get some of those games that we lose if the
• 51:47
  head coach elevates his game, so that's kind of how I feel.
• 51:53
  I can agree with that. I think, you know, looking at
• 51:55
  options, I'd say 3 or 4. I don't think it's probably
• 51:59
  lower than that. I don't know where the Bateman
• 52:03
  smoke came from, if that was just a play by Bateman's agent
• 52:06
  to get some some smoke out there to help with everything that's
• 52:10
  going on with the A&M situation. I I don't know.
• 52:16
  But to Tally's point, I don't think it was Bateman Sunday
• 52:19
  night and then Sam Monday afternoon.
• 52:23
  So whether we think there was some other guys in that mix.
• 52:27
  I mean, I know Derek said, you know, Seth Wallace, we obviously
• 52:31
  think Jim Knowles at this point. You know, we heard we heard
• 52:35
  banks early that kind of, you know, if we talk about, you
• 52:40
  know, Allen was really the the the the first movement that kind
• 52:45
  of started the trickle down effect with everything else.
• 52:50
  So yeah, I mean, these like blue blood or borderline blue blood
• 52:53
  programs shuffling defensive coordinators in what I, you
• 52:57
  know, I think a lot of people felt were pretty comfortable
• 53:00
  positions. You know, you usually don't have
• 53:03
  a national championship defensive coordinator going to a
• 53:07
  in conference rival just for some more money.
• 53:11
  So that's that's an interesting look.
• 53:12
  But it apparently, you know, Knowles was going to be the fall
• 53:15
  guy after Michigan or so the the the story is going and all of a
• 53:19
  sudden they're going to run and the rest is history.
• 53:23
  So he ends up getting a a bigger payday instead of, you know,
• 53:27
  getting shown the door. So that's interesting And and
• 53:30
  I'm sure that played some of the roles in in kind of what we were
• 53:33
  dealing with there. But you know, again, I'm not
• 53:38
  disappointed that with the higher that we have, I think
• 53:42
  it's one of those where, you know, you see the potential
• 53:45
  maybe in other areas. When you look at Knowles
• 53:47
  defense, it's a it's a base for two, but they play a lot of that
• 53:51
  three high safety. There's there's a lot of lot of
• 53:54
  different, you know, similar schemes, even though, you know,
• 53:58
  the the base alignment is a little different, right.
• 54:01
  So I mean, it's, it's we, we definitely had a very
• 54:06
  intentional hiring process for this defensive coordinator with
• 54:11
  what we wanted to do from a personnel standpoint.
• 54:14
  So I like that. That that's the truth.
• 54:17
  And and I'm with Shelton, I want to probably put it 4:00 to 5:00
• 54:21
  because I do think, I mean, the rumors are flying out there that
• 54:25
  Ryan Day was going to axe Jim Knowles, even though that
• 54:28
  defense was really good this year.
• 54:30
  Apparently they had butted heads on shit.
• 54:32
  And you heard Knowles that if they had lost to Tennessee, the
• 54:37
  Knowles thing was going to be done.
• 54:39
  Maybe, maybe not, you don't know, but it's early in the
• 54:42
  process. And then you hear Banks.
• 54:45
  I personally, everybody says we had Banks.
• 54:48
  Like, no, we didn't tally you with me on this.
• 54:51
  Me and Tally talked about it. Banks came here because he knew
• 54:54
  they can offer me blah, blah, blah.
• 54:55
  And I'm going to go back to Tennessee and say they just
• 54:58
  offered me blah, blah, blah. Where do you go off me?
• 55:01
  And what did he get? Oh, wow, he got a $2.1 million
• 55:04
  brand new contract. I wonder how that happened.
• 55:07
  It's a game people just because you think somebody's coming,
• 55:10
  they playing games out there with the money, the Seth
• 55:13
  Wallace, the Tom Allen, but I think he was somewhere 4th to
• 55:16
  5th. Again, I think pride his head
• 55:20
  has this envision of doing the three high safety look because
• 55:25
  we probably can recruit better to it.
• 55:26
  And he laid out some guys where, hey, they're running something
• 55:29
  similar that might fit this. I can recruit to this and I can
• 55:33
  land one of these five or six guys.
• 55:36
  Yep, put yeah, put gems up there.
• 55:38
  Yeah, banks definitely used us as leverage 100%.
• 55:42
  So yeah, I mean, again, I don't think this was off the radar
• 55:46
  completely to us. It was because we know names.
• 55:51
  Right, that's we were looking conventional we were looking.
• 55:54
  Conventional. That's a great way to say it.
• 55:56
  Brown, we were looking conventional.
• 55:58
  All right, let's roll on and let's talk about the portal
• 56:03
  because y'all, we weren't done Tally.
• 56:06
  We went through like 19 guys last time we thought we were
• 56:09
  done with the portal Shelton, I won't bring you in on this
• 56:11
  combo. I know recruiting you don't
• 56:13
  follow anymore but. For the sake of my mental
• 56:16
  health, yes. He's got to take a break.
• 56:19
  On some part of. That let's talk about this.
• 56:25
  Let's talk about the two guys we got.
• 56:26
  I want to start with Ben Bell, the Texas State transfer, one of
• 56:32
  the higher recruited transfers that we got out of it.
• 56:37
  It looked like he was going to go to Ole Miss, but for somehow,
• 56:41
  some reason, some way, some shape from form, we pull him
• 56:45
  out. We got the ginger gang.
• 56:48
  Now all the redheads. He looks like Andrew Parent.
• 56:50
  I don't care what Andrew Parent tries to say.
• 56:53
  That might be his kid from an illegitimate relationship.
• 56:58
  He he was busting that one out early, then you.
• 57:00
  Damn right. And that is what it is.
• 57:02
  But any thoughts on this guy? I mean, he was pretty highly
• 57:07
  thought of at the beginning of the season.
• 57:10
  The Red Sea. The Red Sea.
• 57:12
  All right, if if they can get 30 sacks combined, we'll call them
• 57:15
  the Red Sea. But y'all, Brian Talley, whoever
• 57:19
  wants to go first, what do y'all do?
• 57:20
  Y'all look at Bell. What do y'all see from him?
• 57:23
  What do you like? Bill's just got a motor man.
• 57:26
  He's got a great motor. I don't think he didn't play
• 57:29
  much in this season. So looking looking last season
• 57:33
  because I know I think he didn't play so he could red shirt.
• 57:37
  So because he knew he wanted to get out.
• 57:39
  But again, high level player does have some production graded
• 57:48
  out really well in most people who watching him play.
• 57:53
  So I'm interested to see what he brings.
• 57:54
  Just bring some toughness too. You know what I'm saying?
• 57:57
  Anytime, like anytime you got a white dude with red hair that's
• 58:01
  playing on the defensive line or close around the line, then he's
• 58:04
  probably going to be good. So being Bill is if you go watch
• 58:09
  his tape, you can watch just a little bit of what he does and
• 58:13
  he's going to fly off the tape just of his motor and how he how
• 58:16
  he he's trying to get to the ball.
• 58:18
  Like he's not trying to take a double team just to to free
• 58:21
  somebody else up. He's trying to beat it.
• 58:23
  He's trying to get to the ball. So I'm excited to see what he
• 58:28
  can bring to the defense. He's he's got that those, those
• 58:32
  crazy eyes that you like to see in a defensive lineman, like
• 58:36
  when they when they kind of that, that, that almost like the
• 58:39
  shark eyes, like when they smell blood in the water.
• 58:42
  Like he's he's got those type of eyes in intensity about him when
• 58:47
  he plays. I'm excited.
• 58:51
  I think it's good skill set. I think it matches.
• 58:55
  It would have been, it would have been good in what we were
• 58:58
  doing. It's going to I think be great
• 59:00
  in what we're moving to. So I'm really excited.
• 59:04
  And tell you made the point about like, what did he do?
• 59:07
  He he only played four games this year in four games, 1313
• 59:14
  tackles, 6 for loss, 3 1/2 of those were sacks.
• 59:19
  Also forced to fumble in four games.
• 59:21
  And this is something we're going to see.
• 59:23
  There's going to be guys who were down at G5 that know I can
• 59:26
  get money somewhere else. I might not make it in the
• 59:28
  league, but I can make 6 figures for one year.
• 59:32
  What? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:37
  That was a good one tally. That was a good one.
• 59:39
  Jumping Guy in 2023 was an absolute monster. 57 tackles, 10
• 59:48
  sacks, 16 tackles are lost. A forced fumble.
• 59:51
  Like in play the crazy eyes 100%.
• 59:54
  All right, let's flip to the other guy that we got here
• 59:58
  coming out of Coastal Carolina with Braden Bennett.
• 1:00:04
  Braden's old. I feel, I think Brain's, I think
• 1:00:07
  Brain's a COVID guy, so he's been here a while.
• 1:00:10
  But anything you'll see like locks, all statistics and stuff
• 1:00:15
  like that because it's a good late pick up. 622262215 that
• 1:00:23
  that's enough as a running back, right?
• 1:00:26
  We I'll take it production. I think he had about 900 yards
• 1:00:31
  this past year and that's what we need, the last thing we need.
• 1:00:36
  And I know a lot of people were asking questions and again, I
• 1:00:40
  know that y'all watch the game. Nobody in the chat.
• 1:00:43
  Maybe I'm just talking to some people on Twitter that don't
• 1:00:46
  watch the games. But again, I know that all of us
• 1:00:51
  watch the games. You never want to be in a
• 1:00:53
  position where you cannot run the ball at all.
• 1:00:57
  When we played against Clemson, we we would, we didn't even
• 1:00:59
  attempt to run the ball. You just can't win.
• 1:01:03
  One reason was our running back was hurt, then RB, one was hurt,
• 1:01:08
  then RB2 was hurt, and then we had a young guy that I think
• 1:01:12
  fumble that the coaches were scared.
• 1:01:15
  So you got to be able to run the ball, man.
• 1:01:18
  And that's part of the reasons why the defense was put in bad
• 1:01:23
  positions is because we couldn't finish certain drives.
• 1:01:26
  It's what I get so pissed about with the offense going back to
• 1:01:29
  last year. But anyway, great pick up to
• 1:01:33
  have AI think what James said in here like a third down back, you
• 1:01:37
  know, and I think that I have to go look at the stats, but I
• 1:01:40
  think he was good at catching the ball out of the backfield as
• 1:01:43
  well. So you do want, I mean, you're
• 1:01:46
  bringing in two guys that have been there who's already had
• 1:01:49
  some production, who's played at a high level in Stewart and in
• 1:01:55
  in Bennett. And you want to be able to get
• 1:01:56
  them in games and let's see who gets hot.
• 1:02:00
  Because it's a slippery slope when you're dealing with stuff
• 1:02:04
  like the portal and recruiting and bringing people in.
• 1:02:08
  But then you go and look at Ohio State who had a beast of a
• 1:02:12
  running back in Trayvon Henderson.
• 1:02:15
  And then they go get a beast of a running back from Ole Miss and
• 1:02:18
  Junkman, like 1 running back just can't do it.
• 1:02:21
  You got to be able to have options and you got to account
• 1:02:25
  for injury. So I'm excited that they did go
• 1:02:30
  out and get him. I I don't understand, like I was
• 1:02:33
  thinking when we got him, like what, why like not why did we
• 1:02:36
  get it, but like why is he still there for us?
• 1:02:39
  You know, I thought that would have been a little bit, but you
• 1:02:41
  just it's part of recruiting, man.
• 1:02:43
  And it's still it's still players that want to play for
• 1:02:47
  Virginia Tech. You just got to find them and
• 1:02:49
  you got to have something to to draw them in and want to come
• 1:02:54
  here and I'm trying to read while I'm talking and Josh just
• 1:02:57
  put up some good, he said. Bennett had 25 catches for 188
• 1:03:00
  yards and two touchdowns. Thank you.
• 1:03:03
  At at six two, you know, 220, you know that that's that's what
• 1:03:07
  we want. And then also, you know, I know
• 1:03:09
  we've already talked about seldom coming in, who's played
• 1:03:12
  some running back, but probably going to be more of like a slot
• 1:03:16
  widely with some kind of like a Debo Samuel Samuel setup.
• 1:03:19
  But you can never have too much production.
• 1:03:23
  So I'm I'm all about it. I think Sheldon had something
• 1:03:27
  that he wanted to throw in. Sheldon, what you got, buddy?
• 1:03:31
  Yeah. So my understanding is Terry on
• 1:03:34
  Stewart isn't quite as well-rounded as facial tune was
• 1:03:37
  in terms of just, you know, pass blocking and pass catching.
• 1:03:40
  So I think what they wanted to do adding Bennett was get, you
• 1:03:44
  know, just just add some more bodies there and kind of have it
• 1:03:47
  be more of a bike committee approach, you know, because
• 1:03:50
  Bennett's got some decent numbers, not necessarily, you
• 1:03:52
  know, eye popping, but, you know, he's a pretty solid, you
• 1:03:55
  know, explosive guy. But they just want some more,
• 1:03:58
  some more options there for for their third down, you know,
• 1:04:02
  personnel selection in particular.
• 1:04:05
  Brian, anything on Braden Bennett as we wrap up the portal
• 1:04:08
  section here? Yeah, I think to to Sheldon's
• 1:04:10
  point, you know, getting that insurance policy and having a
• 1:04:13
  guy that you can trust on 3rd downs is always going to be
• 1:04:16
  important, whether you're using that person out of a backfield
• 1:04:19
  or whether you're you're keeping them in there to block.
• 1:04:21
  Having someone that you can count on the rely on on 3rd down
• 1:04:24
  is so important when it comes to pass protection.
• 1:04:26
  So that's going to be a big point.
• 1:04:27
  And I think that's where you'll see Bennett shine with that
• 1:04:30
  size, the ability to to to pass block, but still being a
• 1:04:34
  productive receiver out of the backfield.
• 1:04:39
  All righty, let's roll on just a few more notes before we look at
• 1:04:45
  the schedule for a few minutes here.
• 1:04:50
  Jordan Bass love it. Have mercy.
• 1:04:53
  Now, in some cases, some people are saying this is good.
• 1:04:59
  You need some stupid ones and crazy ones out there because you
• 1:05:02
  got to balance everybody. Can't be a choirboy football,
• 1:05:07
  but it was it was report. I think it was on January 5th
• 1:05:14
  because I went back and looked into some record.
• 1:05:15
  There was a DUI by the by Virginia Tech police on that
• 1:05:20
  day. Then just a few weeks later pops
• 1:05:22
  out. But Lord have mercy, could you
• 1:05:25
  have waited like this summer? Could you have waited till
• 1:05:31
  summer? He should have waited till just
• 1:05:36
  after the spring game like 420 right?
• 1:05:38
  No, he needed to go ahead and get it out of his system.
• 1:05:41
  Now, from my from my understanding, he's hurt anyway.
• 1:05:45
  So I think Bass is going to be real limited in the spring.
• 1:05:48
  Not that doesn't. I ain't saying that that makes a
• 1:05:50
  difference that he should go and get in trouble.
• 1:05:52
  But I don't think this is I mean, he wasn't going to be able
• 1:05:56
  to do much in the spring anyway. So sometimes you got to, you
• 1:06:01
  know, you got to start a a villain art, you got to have a
• 1:06:06
  villain origin story. So if this is what it takes for
• 1:06:09
  you to get serious, you know, you just transferred you coming
• 1:06:14
  back home and then you go and you get in trouble.
• 1:06:18
  So now you know it's serious. You know, these kids all want to
• 1:06:21
  get NIL. They want to be able to take
• 1:06:23
  care of the families and get money.
• 1:06:25
  But there is stipulation that comes along with that.
• 1:06:27
  There's some, you know, some some grown upness that comes
• 1:06:31
  along with having a job. This is treated as a job now
• 1:06:35
  because you're getting paid. So I'm not saying that I'm glad
• 1:06:38
  it happened, but if it's going to happen, I think now's the
• 1:06:43
  time so we can get on track to spin it into something positive.
• 1:06:48
  And again I'm going. To say this hold on so firkin
• 1:06:50
  work his ass and a little bit of extra for the stupidity.
• 1:06:53
  And then I'll say this, I don't smoke.
• 1:06:58
  It's weed, man, You know what I'm saying?
• 1:07:01
  It's weed. Nobody's ever nobody, nobody's
• 1:07:04
  ever got high and drove a car 100 miles an hour.
• 1:07:07
  You probably got high and drove a car 10 miles an hour.
• 1:07:10
  I'm just saying you're probably going under the speed limit
• 1:07:12
  instead of over it. So I'd rather you be smoking and
• 1:07:16
  driving than drinking and driving.
• 1:07:19
  Don't do neither one of them if it's any kids out there, but I'm
• 1:07:22
  just saying them Georgia players was getting behind the wheel of
• 1:07:26
  cars and they was getting all kinds of stuff from here and
• 1:07:29
  they were still playing. So let's just go ahead and let's
• 1:07:32
  get past this and and let's not let's not get in trouble no more
• 1:07:37
  everybody else. Let's let's let's keep it
• 1:07:39
  straight. Yeah, there we go.
• 1:07:41
  I real quick. It was announced spring game
• 1:07:45
  April 12th IMTBD tally. Haven't even thought about it
• 1:07:51
  yet. I don't know.
• 1:07:53
  Hopefully, hopefully I can make it.
• 1:07:55
  It's always fun to go to the spring name.
• 1:07:57
  My wife likes to go. We usually stay in Bristol, go
• 1:08:01
  to the casino a little bit, then drive up.
• 1:08:03
  So I don't know man. I'm going to try to, I'm going
• 1:08:05
  to try to. I'm going to try my best.
• 1:08:07
  Even better, Tal, it's a 3. It's a late pick this year so
• 1:08:10
  that gives you time to go gamble off Friday night, get a little
• 1:08:13
  nap, wake up by 9, be in town by 11 and you still can tailgate
• 1:08:18
  and everything. Shelton, I don't know what the
• 1:08:22
  schedule looks like or is there a potential you could be there
• 1:08:25
  the 12th or is it a no go? There's potential.
• 1:08:29
  OK, OK. There's potentially potential.
• 1:08:32
  There's potentially potential, Brian.
• 1:08:37
  I'm there. I'm already booked.
• 1:08:39
  I'm I booked before the announcement came out so.
• 1:08:43
  Was April 12th? Is that what you said, April?
• 1:08:46
  12th. Yeah.
• 1:08:47
  OK. We might be able to slide
• 1:08:49
  through that. We'll, we'll be coming back from
• 1:08:51
  the cruise. I'll have a week at work and
• 1:08:52
  then I'll head down to head down to Blacksburg baby.
• 1:08:57
  You'll hey you go Brian, you will have a week to convince my
• 1:09:00
  wife to let me go that weekend. Yeah, I'm.
• 1:09:03
  I'm going to be the pitch man. I'm.
• 1:09:04
  Going to be the pitch man all the.
• 1:09:05
  Way or you going to put Andrew you.
• 1:09:09
  Going to call Andrew, be like go go go pitch to Kim.
• 1:09:12
  Y'all going to be in that? Y'all going to be in that tiny
• 1:09:14
  room four weeks she going to be itching for you to get out of
• 1:09:17
  her hair I promise you. Cruise rooms.
• 1:09:20
  We got. Hold on.
• 1:09:21
  Real quick, get out. We got some friends of ours
• 1:09:24
  going that I kid you, they've got a teenage daughter and a son
• 1:09:28
  that's a little bit younger than me and Brian's kids.
• 1:09:31
  They just wouldn't get 2 separate rooms.
• 1:09:33
  Mom and dad, daddy, dad, dad and son staying in one Mom and dog
• 1:09:36
  staying in. I'll tell you, man, we went the
• 1:09:38
  last year we went on a cruise. It was my son's first cruise and
• 1:09:42
  we got 2 rooms, but my daughter and her friend went in one room
• 1:09:45
  and then my son stayed in the room with me and my wife and
• 1:09:49
  we'd never seen it. We'd never seen it.
• 1:09:52
  I wish he was that way while he was at home.
• 1:09:54
  He would get up, he would wake himself up and he would be out
• 1:09:57
  of the room at like 6:30 in the morning.
• 1:10:00
  He was going and eating lunch with people.
• 1:10:02
  I mean eating breakfast with, with little girls and their
• 1:10:05
  families. And I would just get random
• 1:10:07
  pictures of people, like snapping pictures and be like,
• 1:10:09
  Hey, did you know he was over here?
• 1:10:11
  He was going and playing basketball early in the
• 1:10:13
  mornings. And then he'd be like, Hey, how
• 1:10:15
  like, you know, stay out. We going, we all going to get
• 1:10:17
  pizza because they'll have on the cruise we was on.
• 1:10:20
  The big thing was pizza late at night, so.
• 1:10:22
  That's what we. Heard too.
• 1:10:23
  They were all yeah, they were all out eating pizza at 2:00 in
• 1:10:26
  the morning until they. So we never seen him, you know,
• 1:10:29
  not saying that you still don't need no space, but for for me, I
• 1:10:33
  was like, I kind of like this. He's here, but he ain't here, so
• 1:10:37
  I'm gonna let him do a thing. There we go, all righty.
• 1:10:41
  So as always, we are brought to you by the Count Family
• 1:10:44
  Pharmacy, Friendly Neighborhood Pharmacy, 301 S Main St. in
• 1:10:47
  Blacksburg. Go check Jeremy out, check
• 1:10:50
  Jeremy's podcast Blacksburg on the Rock with Paul Van Wagner,
• 1:10:53
  formerly of ESPN Blacksburg. But Tally, you hit me up today
• 1:10:59
  and told me a little something because if y'all did not see
• 1:11:02
  ESPN put out just a little earlier today the top 100 games
• 1:11:08
  of 2024 college football edition, Tally was teasing me
• 1:11:13
  and asking. So Tally, I'm going to put this
• 1:11:17
  on you. How many games did the Hokies
• 1:11:20
  have in the top 100 this year? I just looked at the one, they
• 1:11:23
  may have one more, but I know they had one and it was at 7 and
• 1:11:28
  it was the Miami game, the Miami Virginia Tech game.
• 1:11:32
  And I just thought, I wonder what Curtis, when I first seen
• 1:11:36
  that, I said, I wonder what Curtis thinks about us losing
• 1:11:40
  this game and them cheating us and it turning up to be the
• 1:11:45
  number 7 best game of the year. So Curtis, you was my first
• 1:11:50
  thought when I seen that. That was your first thought,
• 1:11:53
  because you know you're going to make me mad about that.
• 1:11:55
  It was my first thought it. It it it yeah, there we go.
• 1:11:58
  We got ho that's the honest to God truth.
• 1:12:00
  But it was a great game, That game on that Friday night AI
• 1:12:04
  think the numbers were like 4 million.
• 1:12:06
  It was like one of the highest rated Friday night games ever. 4
• 1:12:10
  million's a ton of people for a Friday night game and it was a
• 1:12:14
  great game. But whatever you want to say.
• 1:12:17
  I was pissed about the iPhones because we did get screwed
• 1:12:21
  calmer bit them in the ass against Syracuse later in the
• 1:12:24
  year if they deserved it, but it should have happened to us.
• 1:12:28
  But it was truly a great game. I mean from beginning to end,
• 1:12:32
  you know, it had all the drama, it had stops, it had go ahead
• 1:12:38
  scores, it had comeback and then the crazy shit at the end.
• 1:12:41
  It's some I don't know is if it's, you know, maybe it should
• 1:12:45
  have been top five, but I'd have to go through everything.
• 1:12:48
  Sheldon, do you Sheldon, I feel like you have that, don't you?
• 1:12:52
  Did we have any the the you had? And I think David Hale wrote it
• 1:12:57
  the top 100 games of the year. Let me find it because I think.
• 1:13:01
  We're no, I don't have it linked.
• 1:13:03
  You don't have it linked. Let me try to find it because I
• 1:13:05
  think someone said that the Syracuse game is on there.
• 1:13:13
  It might have been on that, too. I know, I know.
• 1:13:16
  The first thing that caught my eye was the Miami game.
• 1:13:19
  And what I remember about the Miami game is that this is even
• 1:13:24
  though we lost, this is what Virginia Tech looks like.
• 1:13:29
  Like we looked like a football team that was poised to take the
• 1:13:33
  next step. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:13:35
  Now you win that game, you definitely feel better about
• 1:13:39
  taking the next step. But just the from the way that
• 1:13:44
  we, you know, came out and was chirping at their players.
• 1:13:48
  I mean, it's the NFL players over there.
• 1:13:50
  We we chirping back at them. They're chirping.
• 1:13:53
  And it was a true rivalry. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:13:55
  Like even I told people when they said when they took the
• 1:13:58
  Miami game away, I was like, that's the that's the real
• 1:14:01
  rivalry. Like Miami was the first team
• 1:14:03
  I've seen Virginia Tech play against in person.
• 1:14:07
  And it's, it's electric, man. Like, not that the fans don't
• 1:14:12
  like each other, but they like, that's a real game where they
• 1:14:15
  really, they respect each other, but they want to beat each
• 1:14:18
  other, you know? Like it was Miami fans there
• 1:14:21
  that we talked to and it was just like they wanted to win.
• 1:14:24
  And it's always like that, you know, we talked about UVA.
• 1:14:27
  Yeah, it's a rivalry. But is it, is it really a
• 1:14:30
  rivalry? You know what I'm saying?
• 1:14:32
  It's like when you push the special kid down out of his
• 1:14:37
  wheelchair so many times, like come on, man, like are you going
• 1:14:41
  to keep doing that? Are you all right with that?
• 1:14:44
  Or you or you really, you know, you're going to you're going to
• 1:14:46
  stand up to somebody, just punch it back.
• 1:14:48
  You actually in a in a in a 12 round bout.
• 1:14:51
  That's what I like to see. But I would have really liked
• 1:14:54
  for us to win that game. I feel like if we catch that
• 1:14:58
  ball, that game goes a little bit.
• 1:14:59
  Higher, we did catch that ball. We did catch that ball.
• 1:15:04
  I don't know man. You like David Cole?
• 1:15:06
  We caught that ball, too. I don't even want to think about
• 1:15:08
  it, but. He he knows what to get me going
• 1:15:11
  about. Yeah.
• 1:15:12
  I'll just say this year, I'm hoping that we end up on the top
• 1:15:18
  100 games and we're coming on we we coming on, on, on the on the
• 1:15:23
  top end of it. Now I will tell you this,
• 1:15:25
  Curtis, I'll bring you this. It says the Vandy game was on
• 1:15:29
  that too. So the number one game of the
• 1:15:33
  season was Vandy versus Alabama. No.
• 1:15:37
  That's what they that's what they put, that's what.
• 1:15:39
  ESPN put I like Bill Collier stupid the game of the year.
• 1:15:43
  I like Bill. Collier, that's stupid.
• 1:15:45
  What's who? Georgia Tech, Georgia.
• 1:15:47
  I think that was probably like four.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah, I. Think that that should have been
• 1:15:51
  one. That game was unreal.
• 1:15:52
  I think I know the Vandy Alabama game was higher.
• 1:15:56
  That was 5. That was five, OK.
• 1:15:58
  And then the the scataboo coming out party in the playoffs was
• 1:16:04
  like 2. Yeah.
• 1:16:06
  So which that was a that was a freaking good game, man.
• 1:16:09
  Oh, that was three. OK, Yeah, that was 22.
• 1:16:13
  Was Bama Georgia one back in September?
• 1:16:19
  I don't even remember that game. That's.
• 1:16:21
  That was an iconic. Game, whatever, I get it.
• 1:16:28
  Vandy Vandy Vandy Bama was one I don't agree with that the the
• 1:16:35
  whole Bama Georgia game. The only thing that made that
• 1:16:37
  game like, hey, Bama went up early.
• 1:16:40
  Georgia gets all the way back. It was the Ryan Williams
• 1:16:42
  touchdown. Like, that was an iconic play.
• 1:16:44
  When they hit that touchdown on the sideline, it was just like,
• 1:16:47
  they should have lost. They should have lost the Orange
• 1:16:51
  Bowl. Orange Bowl.
• 1:16:53
  Orange Bowl. Wait a SEC.
• 1:16:55
  Orange Bowl was Penn State, Notre Dame, right?
• 1:16:59
  Yeah. Orange Bowl.
• 1:17:02
  Oh, yeah. There you go.
• 1:17:02
  Ohio State, Oregon. That was a great game.
• 1:17:06
  Yeah, the Orange Bowl was a me and Brian, we watched that
• 1:17:09
  playing poker. I lost some money that night
• 1:17:11
  because I was about halfway focused on it.
• 1:17:14
  That was a good like that was like the classic old school
• 1:17:16
  thing. It was back.
• 1:17:17
  It was forth that he knew he knew what to do to rile me up
• 1:17:22
  and the the Texas, Arizona State game, they they were just I sat
• 1:17:27
  here almost all day. Yeah, that was a that was a
• 1:17:30
  great game, man, that. Was a great game.
• 1:17:32
  I enjoy probably watching that game more than any other game
• 1:17:35
  this year, you know, besides Virginia Tech games, which I
• 1:17:38
  didn't enjoy watching some of them.
• 1:17:39
  But anyway, that was I, I, like you said New Year's, sitting
• 1:17:43
  around watching that with my brother-in-law.
• 1:17:45
  And that was that was just a that's what you want, man.
• 1:17:49
  That's what you want. That's what you expect A playoff
• 1:17:53
  game to feel like, You know what I'm saying?
• 1:17:55
  Like that was just a great game. So I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:17:58
  For all the people who say it, the playoffs was nothing when
• 1:18:04
  you see something like that and y'all got lucky too.
• 1:18:07
  Y'all got lucky because in the national championship they did
• 1:18:09
  make it a little bit closer than it should have been.
• 1:18:12
  So I couldn't come in here and really go off like I wanted to
• 1:18:14
  because so many people was talking about, you know, how it
• 1:18:17
  was just so messed up. And I was like, it's always been
• 1:18:21
  A1 sided national championship game for like the last seven
• 1:18:24
  years. You know, it's eight years,
• 1:18:27
  however long we got to go back. So essentially it was the same
• 1:18:30
  this year. They was about to get boat raced
• 1:18:32
  and then they calmed it down. Because somebody it was it was
• 1:18:35
  it was it was entertaining because you knew at the end
• 1:18:38
  there like if a house. Well, first of all, let's talk
• 1:18:41
  about this play this this is a Virginia Tech podcast.
• 1:18:44
  But again, I love college football.
• 1:18:45
  We all do. How the hell he put the hat on
• 1:18:49
  back with you? How the hell on 3rd and nine do
• 1:18:53
  you play Jeremiah Smith off 9 yards with third and nine?
• 1:18:58
  That boy is going to get the ball.
• 1:19:01
  I don't give a shit where he is. He was getting the ball that
• 1:19:05
  play and you play off man, against him and when he did that
• 1:19:08
  little hitch, he was dead. I sit here and I say, could you
• 1:19:11
  at least have played press? What if he beats press?
• 1:19:15
  At least you tried. Yeah.
• 1:19:19
  Yeah, I don't know. I think that was a head
• 1:19:20
  scratching move too. So I don't know.
• 1:19:25
  Curtis was texting me about that.
• 1:19:27
  I was like, what was so pissed about?
• 1:19:28
  He was hot man. See shit.
• 1:19:32
  And it's just like, how is Al Golden getting paid $1.8 million
• 1:19:36
  a year and it's the biggest play to you.
• 1:19:38
  You stop them, you get the ball and you had a chance to tie this
• 1:19:44
  football game. You already screwed up once at
• 1:19:46
  the from the 10. We're going to kick a field
• 1:19:48
  goal, we're going to be down to scores.
• 1:19:50
  Still talk about game management.
• 1:19:52
  And then it's like against that kid.
• 1:19:54
  Anybody else fine. Anybody else they beat you,
• 1:19:58
  fine. That kid?
• 1:19:59
  No. That kid is elite.
• 1:20:01
  And you let him do that? All righty.
• 1:20:05
  Where were we? Schedule.
• 1:20:08
  Schedule, schedule. The the full schedule release
• 1:20:11
  has happened and that's what we'll kind of close it down here
• 1:20:15
  with the night 2 trips to Atlanta.
• 1:20:19
  Everybody, just so you know your tally, we be there both times.
• 1:20:23
  Look for him, for those who want to get you.
• 1:20:26
  Meet him. Go there, meet him.
• 1:20:27
  He'll take him. Take.
• 1:20:28
  Six weeks apart, baby. I'll be there about 3 hours from
• 1:20:34
  my house. I got to go all.
• 1:20:36
  Righty, so look real quick over the schedule.
• 1:20:39
  I got it out there for y'all. What did I tell y'all last week
• 1:20:44
  about the schedule? I texted all three of y'all
• 1:20:48
  wherever what Florida State's our furthest trip this year,
• 1:20:51
  whatever week we play that I told y'all we're getting Miami
• 1:20:53
  right after it. They going to screw us in that
• 1:20:55
  way to make air travel. So they they did as my
• 1:20:58
  prediction to make sure Miami was after it.
• 1:21:00
  But anything on here y'all like you dislike you wish was
• 1:21:06
  different? I, I wish that we were at FSU on
• 1:21:16
  the open date and they had the open day between FSU and Miami.
• 1:21:21
  Everything else I'd be fine with.
• 1:21:22
  All right, I don't really like NN is going to be kind of a not
• 1:21:31
  the best month other than UVA. It would be great stop.
• 1:21:36
  Could be great, could be great, but I'm saying if, if, if we're
• 1:21:40
  trying to, if the goal is to spread out the difficult
• 1:21:43
  contest, we put a lot of them, at least from a talent
• 1:21:48
  perspective, at least from a talent perspective in November.
• 1:21:54
  Sheldon, anything you like, you hate.
• 1:21:58
  I wish the kickoff game was in Charlotte, but that's more of a
• 1:22:01
  personal complaint. I think we you.
• 1:22:07
  Don't want to. You don't want to come to
• 1:22:08
  Atlanta, man. Charlotte's my city.
• 1:22:11
  Like that's, you know, it's just, it's my city, so.
• 1:22:14
  I got to get to Charlotte, man. I've heard some good stuff about
• 1:22:17
  Charlotte. I've never been so I I need to
• 1:22:19
  go. Maybe one December we can just
• 1:22:22
  go there. You got to get to the clip.
• 1:22:24
  Yeah, I think that's what I'm waiting on.
• 1:22:26
  We got to get to the we got to get to the spot so I can so I
• 1:22:29
  can go to Charlotte. Can y'all make that happen for
• 1:22:31
  me, Pry? If you watch it please can you
• 1:22:34
  get to can you get to Charlotte so I can experience what
• 1:22:37
  Charlotte is. My boy Sheldon is telling me how
• 1:22:39
  great of a city it is. He tells me I can get all kind
• 1:22:42
  of food there. I'm fat, I like to eat and y'all
• 1:22:44
  are hindering me going and eating good food because you
• 1:22:47
  won't get to Charlotte. Please get to Charlotte please.
• 1:22:50
  That's all. There's one, there's one
• 1:22:53
  restaurant there that had the best cornbread I've ever tasted
• 1:22:55
  in my entire life. I don't know if you're a
• 1:22:57
  cornbread guy, but. I'm black.
• 1:22:59
  We love cornbread. You got it.
• 1:23:02
  You've got to try it, man. What's the place called?
• 1:23:04
  Sheldon? Do you know I'll?
• 1:23:06
  I'll talk to my friend and I'll I'll get the, I'll get the name.
• 1:23:09
  So there you go, Coach Pratt. You have to get us to Charlotte.
• 1:23:13
  So. We can go to the cornbread.
• 1:23:14
  Sally needs cornbread it. Was a, it was a, it was a
• 1:23:18
  transcend transcendental experience, like cornbread.
• 1:23:22
  That's great. Yeah, I know we got 7 home
• 1:23:24
  games. We do.
• 1:23:26
  That's a lot of home games. Maybe we may get the one this
• 1:23:29
  year. Maybe maybe we can actually, you
• 1:23:31
  know, take advantage of that. I hope so.
• 1:23:34
  You know, let's try 7 home games.
• 1:23:38
  I know every team is different, every year is different.
• 1:23:42
  But looking at that back half of the schedule, you know, you go
• 1:23:45
  Louisville at home, then you go Florida State, then you go
• 1:23:50
  Miami, then you go Virginia. It's like really, I get it.
• 1:23:56
  It's a, it's a for me not to sound like a Homer, I'll just
• 1:24:00
  say I'm more worried about our team than I do those teams.
• 1:24:04
  Florida State fucking won two games this year.
• 1:24:07
  I think I'm not too much worried about what Florida State has
• 1:24:12
  going on. Maybe, maybe they come back next
• 1:24:15
  year and they go to the playoffs.
• 1:24:16
  I don't know. Miami had a a very, very good
• 1:24:22
  quarterback this year and we took them to the brink of the
• 1:24:25
  end of the game. So Carson Beck.
• 1:24:28
  He's ugly. He ain't worth. $4 million.
• 1:24:31
  I don't know how he's going to play, but nobody ugly.
• 1:24:35
  They get. What is that?
• 1:24:36
  Does that sound right? Yes, I'm like, oh, you're
• 1:24:39
  talking about that place. A good place as as Pinky and
• 1:24:43
  Merits. It sound like it's good.
• 1:24:46
  I don't even know what it I don't know if that's the same
• 1:24:49
  place, but it sounds good. You're looking at I want to eat
• 1:24:51
  that. I'll close it down.
• 1:24:54
  We get a traditional Thursday with Cal great or Thursday or
• 1:24:59
  Friday. I'm sure when it comes out it's
• 1:25:02
  Friday, everybody will bitch and complain about it being on a
• 1:25:04
  Friday. But like, overall, it's it's
• 1:25:09
  like fairly balanced up until the last month of the season.
• 1:25:13
  Like, like, you know, you go through, it's like, well,
• 1:25:15
  Georgia Tech should probably be a tough game.
• 1:25:17
  NC State should probably be rebuilding the beginning with
• 1:25:19
  South Carolina and Vanderbilt. But like you asked me to key in
• 1:25:26
  on a date, I think what happens October 11th down back in
• 1:25:30
  Atlanta tells the story of the team middle of the season.
• 1:25:35
  Like I think that's the that's like the that's the pivot game,
• 1:25:38
  I think. And if it's a year to if if good
• 1:25:40
  things happen there, we're sitting here having good
• 1:25:43
  conversation. If not, we're talking about some
• 1:25:45
  new coaches, potentially more people being fired.
• 1:25:47
  So there we go. All right, anything that has
• 1:25:50
  happened in the last hour and 25 minutes, gentlemen, y'all want
• 1:25:53
  to share? I don't see anything else out
• 1:25:58
  here, man. I think we're good.
• 1:26:00
  All right. I did confirm it is Merch Soul
• 1:26:03
  Food in Charlotte. So thank you, Rob, for bringing
• 1:26:05
  that up. I totally forgot the name of the
• 1:26:06
  restaurant. So we'll have to get, we'll have
• 1:26:09
  to get Tally there sometime. We're gonna get Tally to merch
• 1:26:11
  because we're gonna go to Charlotte this year.
• 1:26:14
  One way show get. The merch baby.
• 1:26:15
  Get the merch. All right.
• 1:26:17
  With that, that wraps up this episode of the Boundary Corner
• 1:26:20
  podcast, brought to you by Counts Family Pharmacy in
• 1:26:23
  Blacksburg. I am Curtis Wilson.
• 1:26:25
  I'm Brian Siegler. Joe Katelli.
• 1:26:28
  And I'm Sean Moss. We are part of the College
• 1:26:30
  Shuttle Network. Visit our website
• 1:26:32
  boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes.
• 1:26:36
  Check the merchandise shop out while you're there.
• 1:26:40
  Follow us everywhere. Y'all know where we are?
• 1:26:42
  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, also
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  favorite podcasts or somebody asked me today are y'all just on
• 1:26:51
  Spotify And like no, we're on all of them.
• 1:26:53
  So whatever you like to listen to, we can get you.
• 1:26:57
  If it's one we're not on, let us know.
• 1:26:59
  I'll get us on there. Absolutely.
• 1:27:01
  If it is one we are not on, please let us know because that
• 1:27:09
  really is going to bother Brian for a while.
• 1:27:13
  If if he's missed a podcast source that we have, we could be
• 1:27:17
  on. He will definitely get it on
• 1:27:19
  there. As always, our buddy Jason Long,
• 1:27:22
  he plays us in. He plays us out every week.
• 1:27:25
  Chest his website jasonlongmusic.com out for all
• 1:27:33
  his latest stuff. Man got called back into
• 1:27:37
  emergency wrestling coaches over the last few weeks.
• 1:27:39
  So I don't think he's had a chance to listen in, but check
• 1:27:43
  out his Spotify, his YouTube pages.
• 1:27:46
  As always, we appreciate all y'all out there listening.
• 1:27:48
  Y'all have been very entertaining in the chat tonight
• 1:27:53
  and as always we appreciate y'all and let's go.
• 1:27:58
  Hokey.