Latest / Boundary Corner Podcast / Spring Game Reactions

Transcript

Spring Game Reactions · Boundary Corner Podcast

• 0:45
  Welcome back to the boundary Corner podcast.
• 0:49
  I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Cielo buddy.
• 0:52
  We're live on a Wednesday night how you feeling?
• 0:54
  Buddy back-to-back Wednesdays in the offseason?
• 0:58
  Yeah, we could let the let the spring game Shenanigans simmer
• 1:04
  for too long so we had to get one going this week.
• 1:07
  Oh no, we couldn't. I mean plus I mean you already
• 1:10
  watched you were at the spring game.
• 1:13
  You watched it Sunday he watched.
• 1:15
  Monday, you brown would likely be on his ninth to Tenth
• 1:20
  watching of the spring game. Trying to analyze everything
• 1:24
  that happened if we if we didn't do that man.
• 1:28
  So so let me just ask this. I know you took your son down,
• 1:33
  how was the trip up and back? Trip up and back was great.
• 1:38
  Actually made it in like three hours and 10 minutes and no
• 1:42
  traffic really either in or out, you know.
• 1:45
  Just it was a good trip, good times.
• 1:49
  My son got there, he was hanging out with kids at the tailgate we
• 1:52
  read. He was hanging out with kids at
• 1:53
  the tailgate next to us. So he was having a good time
• 1:57
  until he went into the stadium, and it was just a good time all
• 1:59
  around. He got to jump to Sandman for
• 2:01
  the first time. So, He got the he got the full
• 2:04
  experience. At least from a spring game
• 2:06
  perspective, right out. The gate full experience of a
• 2:10
  real game to just not as much as the chaos is going up in the
• 2:14
  fall when it's 66,000 in the stadium and about 100,000 in the
• 2:20
  town when it's craziness. Yeah, I think we probably
• 2:24
  clipped a bug just above 30,000 somewhere in there.
• 2:26
  It looks like with, you know what the attendance was?
• 2:29
  I'm not sure what the exact number was.
• 2:31
  I haven't seen anyone put that out there.
• 2:34
  It was a, it was a good showing West was pretty much filled
• 2:38
  North is pretty much filled South was about 3/4.
• 2:41
  Then he had about, you know, about a quarter to a third of
• 2:44
  East, pretty pretty stacked. On that side.
• 2:46
  So it was a good crowd and just good atmosphere all around.
• 2:51
  Yeah, but I'm thinking going back to when we went in 16.
• 2:55
  If you can, remember we said an East and remember, they had like
• 2:59
  a, they had like caution tape up.
• 3:01
  And he's like, you couldn't go but so far up on me so maybe I
• 3:06
  don't know if it's a liability thing or it's just there always
• 3:09
  are constantly, you know, those updating those seats and stuff
• 3:13
  but maybe that's the reason East did not look as field as well as
• 3:17
  because you shouldn't me a picture of West man.
• 3:18
  I mean West was packed West look like a game day with the
• 3:21
  exception of the upper right corner, like no one was there.
• 3:26
  And that looked very awkward because you kind of look around,
• 3:29
  like, that's a great view spot. That's a spot we set before.
• 3:33
  So you know, but I'm glad you got to go or one of us.
• 3:39
  Got to go down there, I'm killed talking because I'm keeping an
• 3:44
  eye on the net Celtics game. Mike McDaniel is going to join
• 3:47
  us just in a second here. Big Celtics fan, Mike was
• 3:51
  chatting us up while watching the game right before we came
• 3:54
  on. So, you know, just went final
• 3:59
  here. When the softball top 15 victory
• 4:03
  at Tennessee tonight, I can't was on, ESPN, do yeah, yeah.
• 4:08
  Yeah, I pulled up the apparatus like, oh, that's all there
• 4:11
  tonight. Let me go.
• 4:12
  Well, I thought I'd turn it over for a couple Innings.
• 4:15
  I just. Oh, cool.
• 4:16
  Let's see how they're doing their up. 31 in like I look
• 4:19
  them, like that's not a cc Network, that's not the do swear
• 4:22
  to you. That's full-bore.
• 4:23
  ESPN, so definitely big night for the ladies.
• 4:28
  Giving a getting a A big win. I mean they're marching closer
• 4:35
  and closer not to only getting a regional hosting, but potential
• 4:39
  getting a Super Regional in Blacksburg when the tournament
• 4:42
  starts. So that will be awesome.
• 4:45
  Ron. I'm looking for.
• 4:47
  Yeah, it's 114 105 were under 25 seconds.
• 4:52
  Is it safe to bring him on? I think we're good, man.
• 4:55
  I think I think he feels pretty comfortable about the about the
• 4:57
  cushion now. Alright, Reggie Miller side.
• 5:00
  Out there. So I think we're going to be all
• 5:01
  right. Oh man, oh, man, Reggie Miller
• 5:04
  is not out there, so we are going to bring on I guess
• 5:09
  tonight. From Si from hokey hangover
• 5:12
  front sons of Saturday. The one and only hardest
• 5:15
  working, man in hokey podcast laying Mike, McDaniels Sup boys
• 5:25
  stole my. I know I'm making it once, and I
• 5:28
  know I'm making my annual appearance on this podcast when
• 5:31
  I have a Boston team in the playoffs and you guys are
• 5:34
  stalling for me and the internet.
• 5:35
  So I do appreciate it. Last year was the Bruins.
• 5:38
  It wasn't really, it was so I appreciate it.
• 5:43
  I was, I was locked in so awesome.
• 5:47
  Awesome. They're, uh, I see, it's not.
• 5:49
  Are we in a TV timeout or something?
• 5:51
  Yeah, yeah, they're upstairs. Seven was about 35 seconds left,
• 5:54
  so safety crew. Uh, okay.
• 5:57
  Excellent, excellent. The blood pressure is a little
• 5:59
  bit lower than it was when we first met.
• 6:01
  I was well, I mean I told him I go back and look and it's like a
• 6:15
  12:41 run. The South takes like yeah.
• 6:22
  In with four minutes to go in the first half and then get a
• 6:26
  couple shots, cut it to 10 and then it was all Celtics in the
• 6:31
  2nd half 4th quarter was great. So pretty fired up to be up to
• 6:35
  them and that the Nets are tough.
• 6:37
  Yeah, I read Grant tough. Yeah, very good.
• 6:40
  That's a tough first round. Yeah, I mean, it's a Eastern
• 6:43
  Conference Finals, matchup forget it.
• 6:44
  First round matchups. Crazy, it is.
• 6:47
  But hey, you guys pulled the both W's at home.
• 6:49
  What a play by Tatum on what someday.
• 6:52
  The layup. Literally I'm sure your heart
• 6:55
  was coming out of your chest there that night.
• 6:58
  Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what made me more nervous, the
• 7:00
  fact that the Nets were up three, I think like 45 seconds
• 7:03
  left in game one or the fact that Southward down 17 here in
• 7:07
  game two. And it was pretty somehow game
• 7:10
  to was an easier, watch down the stretch and I thought the
• 7:12
  Celtics played worse tonight. So hey man, I'll take it.
• 7:16
  I will take it. Awesome all, well, my we brought
• 7:20
  you on tonight. We're going to discuss a ton of
• 7:22
  Stuff the spring game in il, some draft stuff, but let's
• 7:28
  start right before the spring game weekend.
• 7:31
  You know, kicks off the big announcement from the athletic
• 7:35
  department about the ni L deals and essentially, there are three
• 7:38
  big partners with Virginia Tech. You've got Commonwealth in il
• 7:42
  founded by Nick rush and Forest rush you got hot route marketing
• 7:49
  Kelly wool on taking care of that, and then Nothing else and
• 7:53
  IL, the one we definitely all are hearing a lot about by James
• 7:57
  Callan, and by none other than Tech, Legend, Kevin Jones, what
• 8:06
  are you hearing about each? You know, I know one is going to
• 8:09
  be really kind of geared towards the academic success, right?
• 8:13
  Yeah, I mean, what else say about all three of these, you
• 8:17
  know, these n IL, you know, companies is that Brent pry.
• 8:22
  One of his priorities when he came in, as head coach at
• 8:25
  Virginia Tech was to make sure that this was built out, right?
• 8:28
  Because, you know, I think Virginia Tech was a little bit
• 8:31
  behind the eight ball on the ni L stuff.
• 8:33
  I mean, last year, it was kind of a weird year.
• 8:36
  You're coming off of covid, right?
• 8:37
  It's your kind of the first year, everybody is trying to get
• 8:40
  their feedback under them. Anyway, right, from a The covid
• 8:44
  standpoint found top of it, you have this new n IL legislation,
• 8:48
  that passes and now players can make money off the name image or
• 8:51
  likeness. And I feel like a lot of schools
• 8:53
  are ready from the get-go, right?
• 8:54
  It's almost like they were anticipating and I feel like,
• 8:56
  Virginia Tech was behind the eight ball a little bit and
• 8:58
  they're they're not alone, right?
• 9:01
  A, you know, a lot of schools were kind of caught a little bit
• 9:04
  flat-footed by it because I think everybody knew and I
• 9:06
  always coming but didn't know when you know and to make
• 9:10
  matters even more complicated. I mean, just Infante was a lame.
• 9:14
  Duck head coach last year. I mean, that's, that's what he
• 9:17
  was, right. I mean, it was a tough schedule,
• 9:20
  you know, Burmeister a quarterback that we talked about
• 9:22
  last year, when I was on, like, to go into the fall with having
• 9:26
  only one real option at quarterback, and he hasn't
• 9:29
  really been healthy his entire career leading up to that.
• 9:31
  It's like that is a strategy that gets you fired, right.
• 9:35
  So he was a lame. Duck head coach and it's really
• 9:39
  really hard to get players excited about ni l.
• 9:43
  And everything that comes along with it.
• 9:45
  When you know you're coached on the way out, you're not sure if
• 9:49
  you're going to be a Virginia Tech, long-term, that's
• 9:50
  something you have to think about photography and text main
• 9:52
  players, and it's kind of played out that way, right?
• 9:55
  Like a lot of Virginia Tech's guys, who were major
• 9:59
  contributors last year and have been major contributors over the
• 10:02
  last few years are gone, right? And we'll get into the NFL draft
• 10:05
  guys later. But a lot of guys transferred,
• 10:07
  you know, a lot of guys left haveon leaving for Kentucky as a
• 10:10
  huge loss, right? And Trey Turner going to the NFL
• 10:13
  We kind of knew last year was going to be his last year.
• 10:15
  He Blackshear choosing to instead of sticking around.
• 10:18
  He goes to Italy, James Mitchell, you know, blows his
• 10:21
  knee out. He's like, you know what, I'm
• 10:22
  sticking around, her new coaching staff.
• 10:24
  I'm on my way out to. So a lot of guys, you know, kind
• 10:27
  of saw the writing on the wall to begin with and then I just
• 10:32
  think Virginia Tech has a much better spot now from an ni L
• 10:35
  standpoint even before you get into the specifics of each,
• 10:38
  they're a much better spot. Now with NI L with Brent prize
• 10:41
  the head coach because there's all this energy around the
• 10:43
  Anyway now you've introduced the the N IL firms that are going to
• 10:47
  be kind of working with Virginia Tech is like a partner.
• 10:51
  You know, even though the school can facilitate deals per se, we
• 10:54
  all know how college football works at.
• 10:56
  They'll find a way every school does.
• 10:59
  Let's call it what it is. But yeah, I mean it's going to
• 11:03
  be really interesting to see kind of how all this plays out,
• 11:05
  because I know on the basketball side, you know, we saw a dress
• 11:08
  from us, was able to do with text Sidelines and that's just
• 11:11
  scratching the surface, right. So if you Really interesting to
• 11:14
  see kind of what happens from here on out with within I help.
• 11:17
  Yeah, it seems like Virginia Tech.
• 11:18
  I know you talked about being behind the 8-ball, they did a
• 11:20
  decent job of kind of setting up things to help players build
• 11:24
  their own brand, but there wasn't a whole lot of push with
• 11:28
  with outside entities, to get the ball, moving to help
• 11:32
  facilitate some of those deals and and really use it as a
• 11:36
  recruiting tool for Virginia, Tech agree.
• 11:38
  Yeah. For sure.
• 11:39
  I mean they that was one thing. I will give Justin Fuente and
• 11:42
  his staff credit. I'm in the athletic department
• 11:44
  to, they were like, alright, you know, we're making sure these
• 11:47
  guys come to understand what the samael legislation means.
• 11:49
  You know, how do I build my brand as a player?
• 11:52
  You know, the coaching staff to their credit last year.
• 11:55
  When this and I also kind of went into effect, they're like
• 11:58
  alright we're going to try to get these players, you know,
• 12:00
  thinking the right way about ni L.
• 12:02
  But as far as like outside influences marketing firm stuff
• 12:06
  like that, there wasn't really much of that.
• 12:08
  Now, you can, you can't really put too much of it on Say
• 12:13
  himself, like everybody wants to blame Fontaine old coaching
• 12:15
  staff and all that, but like that's kind of like a hard thing
• 12:18
  to pin on them. But from a lame duck head coach
• 12:22
  standpoint and from a player's being like I don't know if I'm
• 12:24
  going to be here or not. It's really hard to get things
• 12:27
  really rolling with your star players.
• 12:29
  When They're really, you're really not sure if they're gonna
• 12:32
  stick around, right? So that that's the way I've been
• 12:35
  thinking about this. Anyway, so I think now moving
• 12:37
  forward technos, who's going to be in the building, you know,
• 12:40
  coming out of spring, there's going to be more transfers.
• 12:42
  But coming out spring, you kind of who's going to be around for
• 12:44
  the fall and I think you really get the ball rolling on that.
• 12:47
  Yeah. And you also got to think about
• 12:49
  the ni L companies, not assured of who's the head coach and then
• 12:52
  obviously you know, it's going to happen because we're gonna
• 12:57
  talk about him. No one just influenced his
• 12:59
  personality. How many wanted to buy.
• 13:00
  In to that, as you know, being, you know, the head coach like
• 13:05
  he's the face of the program from a coaching side.
• 13:08
  How are we supposed to craft these deals?
• 13:10
  When, you know, if he won't, kind of maybe go to bat for his
• 13:14
  players and help them. So why are we going to go ahead
• 13:17
  and invest, you know, potentially millions of dollars
• 13:20
  in giving deals out. When like, you guys have already
• 13:24
  mentioned, we don't know where who's going to be here.
• 13:27
  Let's just wait, if he has a great season, awesome.
• 13:31
  He's going to be here but they're going to come off a
• 13:33
  winning season if he gets fired. Hopefully, we get somebody we
• 13:36
  can work with, right? Like, how excited is Kevin Jones
• 13:39
  to launch? An ni L Venture with Justin
• 13:42
  Fuente as the head coach. I mean only only Kevin Jones
• 13:45
  does the answer that right? But we could guess we have a
• 13:48
  good guess but we have a pretty good guess.
• 13:51
  I mean, look at how many players were in Blacksburg former
• 13:53
  players right here in Blacksburg for the spring game, versus how
• 13:56
  many former players came around with went, I was the coach and,
• 13:58
  you know, that we can all do the math here.
• 14:00
  So yeah, I mean, I think that's definitely something to take
• 14:04
  into consideration, just like the Persona of the two coaches
• 14:08
  and kind of where Virginia Tech is from the public facing
• 14:11
  standpoint with their football program.
• 14:13
  Now, with Brent pry versus where they were with Fuente and you
• 14:17
  know what, to see what the product is going to be on the
• 14:19
  field year-over-year and whether or not probably enough games to
• 14:22
  stick around long term but as far as like a PR standpoint and
• 14:26
  you know facing with alumni and improving alumni relations.
• 14:29
  I mean this is Is this has been a home run higher from that
• 14:32
  standpoint so far. Absolutely.
• 14:35
  And I mean while we're on that point, let's go ahead and talk
• 14:37
  about some of the the player and the alumni stuff that was kind
• 14:41
  of going on over the weekend. Let's lead off with the monogram
• 14:45
  Club golf tournament in Roanoke. Some some pretty big star power
• 14:51
  turned out for that one. It was crazy man.
• 14:54
  It was crazy. See all the all the former
• 14:56
  players he shame G decked out in his like old-school, like Payne
• 15:00
  Stewart all the time. Snickers, it's crazy.
• 15:04
  It was cool seeing all the pictures come out of that to
• 15:06
  write like getting all these guys back in the Blacksburg, you
• 15:09
  know, Shadow Davon Morgan. I know he had a big hand in all
• 15:12
  the events this weekend in Blacksburg, but again, like
• 15:15
  perfect. Perfect example, like how much
• 15:18
  of this was going on during past spring games, right?
• 15:21
  And the last couple of years have been Awash obviously with
• 15:24
  covid, but even prior to that, we did not see this type of
• 15:26
  excitement around the football program even when the winds were
• 15:29
  plenty right in the first couple years that front a regime.
• 15:32
  So really, really Ali cool to see the monogram Club golf,
• 15:36
  tournament. By the way, really nice
• 15:39
  Coursera, Roanoke had the pleasure of playing that in the
• 15:42
  past. Very, very nice course.
• 15:45
  So a cool venue to get guys excited about getting back to
• 15:48
  Blacksburg and they'll alarms all together, you know, on
• 15:51
  Friday, you know, before spring game and you know, get them back
• 15:55
  in the building. I think is really important and
• 15:57
  making them feel like they're wanted around the program and
• 16:01
  you know, for the players for players or Denies that to write
• 16:05
  and longs to, by the way, like, like alums who are coaching
• 16:09
  elsewhere, you know, I mean, and they're, they're all coming into
• 16:13
  town and there, you know, like, they got NFL offseason program
• 16:17
  starting right, like current players.
• 16:19
  Yep. Like we got, we got Camp
• 16:21
  starting. You know, I mean, he can't start
• 16:23
  next week. Now we're good.
• 16:24
  We're going to Blacksburg this weekend.
• 16:26
  I mean, that's right. If you can time it says a lot,
• 16:29
  right? About kind of the, the attitude
• 16:31
  that these players have towards the Graham and the energy that's
• 16:36
  around Blacksburg right now. It's very cool.
• 16:38
  Absolutely good and putting this together while he's, you know
• 16:43
  he's coached over it Henry. Yeah, yeah yeah he's doing that.
• 16:48
  You got tie rod coming down on the heels of Camp started.
• 16:52
  I mean it's insane. The the coordination and just
• 16:56
  the enthusiasm that. Yep.
• 16:58
  The former players are having since this regime is change it
• 17:02
  seems just like night and day. Know whether it's is I think
• 17:06
  there's a difference between saying we want you here and then
• 17:11
  actively doing things to set to try to get people here and I
• 17:15
  feel like that that's the difference.
• 17:16
  Like I don't you know being Iced Out is one thing but when you
• 17:21
  feel like actively wanted like we're trying to get you here, we
• 17:26
  want you here and we're expressing that actively that's
• 17:30
  what seems the difference to me. It's not just like oh well if
• 17:33
  you come you come Um now we're trying to get these guys here
• 17:36
  because it helps our brand and helps them.
• 17:38
  It gives them a good time and it gives us a way to show what
• 17:42
  Blacksburg is all about. Absolutely.
• 17:44
  In the other pieces, the activity on social media, with
• 17:46
  that golf tournament. You had VT football.
• 17:49
  Some of the, you know, some of y'all's is, obviously, the
• 17:51
  videographer went out there with them.
• 17:54
  The players were posting pictures of each other and, you
• 17:57
  know, also in, and it's like, well, what does that do?
• 18:00
  Well, these guys, you know, someone like tire rod has Easy
• 18:04
  amount of followers and the kids out there are seeing this and
• 18:08
  start like, oh, I didn't know. Kam Chancellor went to Virginia
• 18:11
  Tech, Revenant floors went to Virginia Tech.
• 18:15
  It's like brand building is like it might, you know, is it going
• 18:19
  to be a decision? You know, the decision of why
• 18:21
  kid comes to techno, but it starts making kids, realize that
• 18:26
  a lot of good NFL. Players have come through here
• 18:29
  and now you're having this new regime who's really pushing like
• 18:32
  being active on social media. You and speaking of being active
• 18:36
  on social media, the spring Jam Friday night.
• 18:39
  I mean, that looked like a lot of fun and once again, same way
• 18:45
  videographer is there pictures going shout out?
• 18:49
  Jordan long shot out here. Yeah, but it was like, it was
• 18:55
  like the everybody just got back together, didn't miss a beat and
• 18:59
  it was, you know, all arrows, right?
• 19:03
  It was There's a poke football even guys who are from the last
• 19:07
  inning. Were there the Beamer guys?
• 19:10
  The dually guys on back to the 70s in the 60s in that tells you
• 19:16
  something of the importance. It is to those guys when they're
• 19:19
  not iced out and they're invited, they're going to come
• 19:22
  and they're going to give a hand.
• 19:25
  Yeah, I mean again shout out to former players right?
• 19:27
  Xiao to Billy Ray pad. Grayson for, you know,
• 19:31
  connecting with those guys and you know, help.
• 19:33
  And sponsor that event. It looked unbelievable.
• 19:37
  I was not in Blacksburg last weekend, but from all the
• 19:40
  pictures and videos coming out of everything, right.
• 19:42
  It just seemed incredible, you know, and to have the form, all
• 19:46
  these former players. And the enthusiasm around the
• 19:48
  program, I mean, you thought there were a lot of former
• 19:50
  players at the golf tournament, there were even more at the
• 19:53
  spring Jam, right. A lot of guys were getting into
• 19:55
  town Friday afternoon didn't make it to the golf tournament
• 19:57
  ended up at Spring Jam. Friday night.
• 19:59
  You had people partying in Blacksburg until really late and
• 20:02
  taking pictures with fans. Ends and you know, all the
• 20:05
  players being so hospitable with their time to I mean you got
• 20:09
  Legends right? People who are who have had
• 20:11
  really impressive careers or having really impressive careers
• 20:14
  at the next level and you know guys you know and Dave on
• 20:18
  Morgan's case, right guys, you coach elsewhere that you know,
• 20:21
  just want to be in Blacksburg around, Virginia Tech.
• 20:25
  It's it's really cool. And then, you know, to kind of
• 20:28
  go into to go into Saturday and see the players taking picture
• 20:33
  to the recruits. It's and yep, it goes to your
• 20:35
  point Curtis where it's like all these former players don't
• 20:38
  really necessarily. Remember that, you know, rock
• 20:41
  Carmi going to Virginia Tech and you got all these guys, Kam
• 20:46
  Chancellor. And you know, everybody knows
• 20:48
  tie rod. But yeah, just go down the list
• 20:50
  of all these guys who had really, really solid NFL
• 20:53
  careers. And they're like, man, I didn't
• 20:55
  realize he went there, exactly. You got all these, all these 17,
• 20:59
  18 year, olds who are in town, over the weekend, taking
• 21:01
  pictures with these NFL, Legends.
• 21:03
  And You know, if you think about the time frame when they were
• 21:06
  growing up, like that's who these guys were, that's who
• 21:09
  these guys were watching on TV, at the professional level, they
• 21:11
  need to realize, I went to Virginia Tech so exactly at that
• 21:14
  part of it is definitely a big deal for sure.
• 21:16
  And yeah, that's bring jam and monogram called with the golf
• 21:19
  tournament. All that it's crucial in the big
• 21:22
  deal of having with the players committee was what Wyatt teller.
• 21:26
  Shane on Chuck and the Fuller's talking to the recruits.
• 21:32
  Yeah, you look at that. Change.
• 21:34
  The oldest change retired. Why?
• 21:37
  It's one of the best guards in the league.
• 21:38
  Kindles is a legitimate him and his brother, both really good
• 21:41
  cornerbacks Chuck's one of the better safeties in the league.
• 21:45
  And again, it's that it's the good ideas.
• 21:47
  Like, let the people who played here sell the program.
• 21:52
  Yeah, I mean, you're just someone saying, why aren't these
• 21:57
  guys talking to these kids? We're taking the layups.
• 21:59
  Finally, like, these are layup. These are things that are should
• 22:02
  have always been there. That's why I'm saying like why
• 22:06
  make things more difficult than you have to write, like, like
• 22:10
  want a, why aren't you saying what's up to the 99 team?
• 22:13
  And they're in Blacksburg, you know, when you're playing.
• 22:15
  Duke. Like I understand what the I
• 22:17
  know what the outcome of the game was we all need to get in
• 22:19
  bed but like again like take the layups, right?
• 22:23
  Like you got this team in town, the best team in Virginia Tech
• 22:27
  History could be art. It could be argued with what
• 22:31
  some of those late 2000s games. I know.
• 22:33
  But the team to me, it's a national championship game,
• 22:35
  right? And had Vic, and all these guys
• 22:38
  and they're in town and they're celebrating the 20th
• 22:41
  anniversary. It's a layout, right?
• 22:43
  Like Nick, the way up to have your players.
• 22:45
  Your former players speak to what this program is because
• 22:49
  it's one thing to have a coach writer coaching staff recruited
• 22:53
  kit and be like hey come to my school, they're getting that
• 22:56
  pitch from 20. If they're good, they're getting
• 22:58
  that pitch from 20 or 30 different schools, right?
• 23:00
  And they're sifting through all these scholarship offers and at
• 23:03
  some point all the coaches, I feel like blend in unless you're
• 23:07
  like Saving, right? All the coaches are Blended in
• 23:09
  the all these coaches but it's especially with some of the
• 23:11
  school's Virginia Tech is competing against for.
• 23:13
  You know, a lot of these kids you're going up.
• 23:15
  Against, you know, you're still getting force for our kids, but
• 23:17
  you're on a pencil Penn State. You're going up against UNC,
• 23:20
  right? You're not necessarily going up
• 23:21
  against dama Clemson, Georgia. Like it's not necessarily those
• 23:25
  types of recruiting battles for Virginia Tech.
• 23:28
  So you get a lot of these coaches that blend in man and
• 23:32
  why not just have these former players that can probably relate
• 23:35
  to these kids a bit more, if they've been in their shoes
• 23:37
  before. Great versus the coaching staff
• 23:40
  is saying come to my school, come to my school, come to my
• 23:41
  school, they're here and that all over the place.
• 23:44
  They're hearing that all over the Really.
• 23:46
  So have your former players speak to what a special place
• 23:49
  Virginia Tech is and the fact that Fuente and his staff didn't
• 23:54
  take better advantage of that. It's baffling to me because it's
• 23:58
  so easy to bring kids in and then have them stick around when
• 24:03
  they are speaking to people, they can relate to.
• 24:06
  And it's not even just like the coaching staff.
• 24:08
  And I've heard the argument with like, oh, 41 days from, you
• 24:10
  know, Oklahoma and Texas. He can't relate to Virginia
• 24:13
  kids. Yeah, that's that's true.
• 24:15
  True. But even beyond that.
• 24:16
  Like he's not bringing people in, who can relate to the kids.
• 24:19
  He's recruiting guys who have been there and done that with
• 24:22
  the program that can not only relate to what it's like to
• 24:25
  playing in Blacksburg, but are maybe from Virginia, or from the
• 24:28
  nearby area and you talk about oh yeah, I went to Virginia Tech
• 24:31
  this, what my experience was like what they didn't have
• 24:33
  former players, do some of the recruiting forum and they're not
• 24:37
  on payroll. Like that's it's easy.
• 24:39
  Just bring them into town and have have the recruits in and
• 24:42
  have them. Have this experience where they
• 24:45
  Kind of see themselves in the shoes of these former players,
• 24:49
  where it's like, oh, maybe my experience will be like that
• 24:52
  too. And you just didn't take
• 24:52
  advantage of that price point. On campus, 20 minutes, I get
• 24:55
  Virginia Tech, has one guy committed right in the 2023
• 24:58
  class. I get that right now and that's
• 25:00
  a concern that some fans have that, you know, more people
• 25:02
  haven't jumped into the boat yet, but if you look at just
• 25:05
  kind of the outside momentum, that's around the program.
• 25:08
  The energy around the program right now.
• 25:09
  It's palpably different than what the genotype am Justin
• 25:13
  Fuente. It's it just is and we won't see
• 25:16
  the fruits of that. I don't think for a couple years
• 25:19
  because they kind of came in. Like he got to re-establish
• 25:21
  relationships and all that but like you can feel the energy
• 25:25
  around the program right now it's different and it hasn't had
• 25:29
  this in a long, long time, even going back to be more, they did
• 25:32
  not have this for a while and so that's what's cool about, kind
• 25:37
  of where things are at right now, even though we can all
• 25:39
  acknowledge, like, at least in 2022, like this fall, is going
• 25:42
  to be a bit of a rebuild. Yep.
• 25:44
  Oh, yeah. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a
• 25:46
  struggle in the fall off. I mean, I think favorably we
• 25:49
  have, as more schedule schedule as a first-year head coach,
• 25:56
  based on the overall caliber of opponent and the amount of
• 26:01
  travel they have to do October still going to be a bitch
• 26:04
  because the way things are stacked, the way those teams are
• 26:07
  stacked in October that's going to be a bitch.
• 26:09
  But if you know, if you can come out of that stretch You know,
• 26:13
  500 or close to it. You feel pretty good that
• 26:16
  they're at least make a bowl in your one.
• 26:19
  Yeah. So, you know, we'll see what
• 26:22
  happens in the fall obviously, but that's going to be
• 26:24
  interesting. But you talked about The Vibes
• 26:26
  in the, in the different feeling that we have, you were there far
• 26:31
  since protecting, but let's talk.
• 26:32
  Let's talk about Saturday. So I'll talk a little bit about
• 26:35
  The Vibes. Yeah man.
• 26:38
  Tailgating it kind of felt like a like, an early-season like
• 26:44
  non-conference FCS tight game atmosphere.
• 26:47
  Like it was, it was almost like a fall atmosphere in the spring
• 26:51
  and that was something that I haven't really experienced at a
• 26:55
  spring game. The ones I've ever been to.
• 26:59
  It was just a different vibe. It was kind of those early
• 27:03
  season, you know, you have the Hope still in the season, you
• 27:06
  haven't had a loss yet. Yet, you know, you got an
• 27:08
  opponent, you feel like you're going to beat up on a little bit
• 27:12
  and there really wasn't the negativity.
• 27:16
  I feel like he's been around the pregame atmosphere that we felt
• 27:22
  before. You know, we went downtown a
• 27:24
  little bit, you know, downtown is always fun but it just
• 27:30
  there's, there's just something different about the energy right
• 27:33
  now. I know I put it on, put it on.
• 27:37
  It feels like most of the fan base is finally rowing in the
• 27:41
  same direction. Yeah.
• 27:43
  Yeah, I mean, well, I wasn't in Blacksburg last weekend but it's
• 27:49
  not hard to go on social media anyway.
• 27:51
  Get like the small sample size and fan, and just see that
• 27:55
  finally, it feels like a lot of people are rowing in the same
• 27:58
  direction and the foreign Terror was very polarizing because you
• 28:03
  know, when Tech wasn't playing well, it was like yeah, let's
• 28:07
  fire this guy. Bye.
• 28:07
  And I've written, you know, you guys know, I wrote several
• 28:10
  articles now that I'm like, you guys got a fire, gotta fire but
• 28:14
  every early part of the Fall, you know, Tech rattles off a big
• 28:17
  wind, they beat in North Carolina.
• 28:19
  And now, all of a sudden, I'm like, I, you guys are sucking me
• 28:22
  back in, right? It was just like this polarizing
• 28:24
  things, like every week, I'm like, oh my God, here we go.
• 28:26
  Again, like you're sucking me back.
• 28:28
  And I were beaten Carolina Caroline's, a 6-1 team.
• 28:31
  We didn't know that at the jump. No, they were going to be angry
• 28:38
  at being any other team, right? I mean, when people are saying
• 28:43
  there are 11 or 12, when team, their playoff good.
• 28:45
  I'm like what what are we what did we watch in 20 and then 2020
• 28:50
  great liking. What were we were we doing?
• 28:53
  I mean, this was they went eight and four and, you know, losing a
• 28:56
  Virginia to UVA and they're losing a flawed at Florida.
• 28:59
  State team. Like, are we watching the same
• 29:01
  thing like how are they a top five team in the country?
• 29:04
  And that's what they were lost, pretty much all their offensive
• 29:07
  production of Other than their quarterback and made no sense
• 29:09
  and it don't play games. You don't know who fell players
• 29:13
  and are ten spots better than you are the previous year.
• 29:18
  It was it didn't make any. It made no sense to me.
• 29:22
  Like you have a return Howell, but you gotta know.
• 29:24
  Scope position down, come back. Anyway, the the thing about is
• 29:29
  the fuck you in sees section. Yeah, we got it, we got slide
• 29:34
  that in there, right? But I mean you can just see the
• 29:39
  Vibes are different with the fan base now, right?
• 29:42
  Like everybody's like, all right, not sure if we want
• 29:45
  friend pry or not, right? This is like initially, the day
• 29:47
  it happens, right? Everybody's like print pry.
• 29:50
  I thought we were getting Charles Huff.
• 29:51
  I thought, you know, I thought we were getting Matt.
• 29:53
  Campbell I thought, would like, every 20 minutes, I heard
• 29:56
  something different and then bring Pride kind of comes out of
• 29:59
  nowhere. And, you know, early on Brent
• 30:03
  price. I was like a rumored candidate,
• 30:05
  right? Like very early on You'd like to
• 30:08
  have your list of like 10 or 15. Guys are like yeah, Penn State's
• 30:11
  defensive coordinator he's on there somewhere towards the
• 30:13
  bottom, right? And then you hear all these
• 30:16
  other guys, all these other guys, and then lo and behold
• 30:21
  like out, nowhere. Okay, Brett prize going to be
• 30:23
  the guy like Pete paymo from Yahoo now.
• 30:26
  ESPN he breaks it right or like a big gamble.
• 30:28
  Once he says it's happening, right?
• 30:31
  And he breaks it and the reaction from the fanbase, much
• 30:35
  like the hire of Mike young for basketball.
• 30:37
  It was Next, it was like first year head coach but you know,
• 30:41
  he's done some good things as the coordinator.
• 30:44
  So then you've got Virginia Tech connections and oh we're getting
• 30:48
  back to Our Roots a little bit, right?
• 30:50
  And that's what I felt like for me, well this this podcast will
• 30:53
  always stand up and say we called him a dark horse when we
• 30:56
  have the episode, we called him a dark horse in when you start
• 31:01
  reading more and more and knowing he was here during the
• 31:05
  foundation in mid nineties. It like that makes sense and you
• 31:10
  got the ties to Beamer. He's recruited the state of.
• 31:13
  He almost understands the footprint because of being at
• 31:16
  Penn State, they're very footprint oriented recruiting
• 31:19
  territory. Yeah.
• 31:20
  Who do you? Like everything started stacking
• 31:23
  up. And it was just like this makes
• 31:26
  a, this makes a lot more sense now.
• 31:29
  But I think a lot of people thought because he had been a DC
• 31:32
  for so long with James. It was just kind of like he's
• 31:37
  Here it was. It was, it's the it's the Brent
• 31:40
  venables argument. It's the Bud Foster argument.
• 31:42
  What, what's like that are these guys ever going to be a head
• 31:44
  coach anywhere? And then here he comes right
• 31:47
  here, he comes to Blacksburg and you knew like at the press
• 31:50
  conference that this was the right, the right higher for
• 31:53
  watching attack right now, right?
• 31:55
  Regardless of whatever happens, right?
• 31:58
  Wins losses, whatever we needed a program reset.
• 32:02
  Yeah. And regardless of how the
• 32:04
  10-year goes from like the ones in losses standpoint.
• 32:07
  I think we can all acknowledge that.
• 32:09
  The culture, the prize going to instill at Virginia Tech is kind
• 32:12
  of back to Our Roots, right? Because we just kind of lost our
• 32:19
  way that with one day, certainly G, that's putting it lightly.
• 32:23
  But I think we're kind of back to our roots and kind of what
• 32:25
  made 40 and have successful for the last.
• 32:26
  Like 25 years, you know, leading up to fante.
• 32:30
  It's like this is a higher that really kind of makes sense,
• 32:34
  understands Blacksburg understands Virginia.
• 32:37
  It just feels like a more logical higher.
• 32:41
  Yeah, I feel like the latter years of Beamers in some ways,
• 32:45
  the culture that was built kind of got stale or neglected and
• 32:48
  then when Flint a came in, nothing was ever established to
• 32:51
  really replace that the hard job man.
• 32:55
  It's not like, I mean, people like you say, oh yeah, you can't
• 32:58
  be stepping you a perfect situation.
• 32:59
  I mean, 20, I let you know. I know some some fans, you know,
• 33:04
  people have fought. They think I'm a Fuente
• 33:05
  apologist, but like he did not come into a perfect situation,
• 33:09
  he made it look really good. Your one, and even your to quite
• 33:13
  frankly, but it was not a perfect situation and, you know,
• 33:19
  I know Fuente had the dalliance with Baylor, but I've had
• 33:22
  dalliance with Baylor ideas. Yeah, we talked to Baylor and
• 33:25
  golly and what they had that press conference later on he was
• 33:30
  like Like, yeah, you hired me. You didn't I refer first few
• 33:33
  years, you hire me for like right now, right?
• 33:35
  And he's talking about the actual rebuild that need to take
• 33:37
  place and it never turned out well, because he had no real
• 33:41
  plan. It seems like, but he was right.
• 33:45
  I mean, it was right? Yeah, his assessment was
• 33:48
  correct. He just did not have the
• 33:49
  prescription. Yeah, right.
• 33:51
  Like he's he's not, he's not a doctor.
• 33:55
  He's not a dumb guy. Like, I think people will be
• 33:57
  like, yeah, fun fun days an idiot.
• 34:00
  I think he's thrown into a situation with Virginia Tech
• 34:04
  that he was not ready for know, and he was a fat Heroes fast,
• 34:09
  right? And yeah, really good success in
• 34:11
  offense, coordinator strong, couple of years of bed.
• 34:14
  Memphis, and then he steps in and everybody's like, yeah, he's
• 34:17
  ready for brave her. P5 roll.
• 34:19
  It's like mint, we knew pretty quickly with the recruiting.
• 34:23
  It was like, man, this is not, this is not Memphis, but you got
• 34:27
  to recruit differently here. What would the big Issue with
• 34:30
  him was it's like he came into a he did come into a good
• 34:33
  situation roster wise. We did think bills.
• 34:36
  Yes. But it felt like what he could
• 34:39
  not do in what separates P5. From G5 is usually, when you
• 34:44
  start seeing guys bleep up, grab P4 P5 coaches.
• 34:48
  They don't last long, they're like gone, you're gone, you're
• 34:52
  gone, you're gone. I mean, that's normally what
• 34:55
  happens. In the things we didn't see
• 34:57
  that. We didn't see the turnover, we
• 34:58
  needed to see because Normally there's a slight flaw P5.
• 35:03
  Coaches are narcissistic control egomaniacs you're fired and
• 35:08
  you're fired and they don't care.
• 35:11
  But I also think for him was he had a Playbook laid in front of
• 35:16
  him and instead of sitting there really reviewing that Playbook
• 35:20
  of what had happened the 20 years before, he's kind of
• 35:23
  glanced at it and threw it to the side.
• 35:25
  I'm doing things my way I'm doing things.
• 35:27
  I would so far last piece. Compared this, I'm going to get
• 35:31
  into one more piece and we're going to get you a spring game.
• 35:34
  Is I've seen the set over and over.
• 35:38
  It seems like to that staff, maybe not to all of them to a
• 35:42
  lot of members of that staff. This was just a job with this
• 35:48
  new staff. How they're recruiting, how
• 35:51
  they're getting out in the community, how they're showing
• 35:54
  and how they're going down, the cheetah Wings down at PK's, how
• 35:58
  they're hitting, you know, different localities and how
• 36:00
  they're doing and making sure it's known.
• 36:04
  It's like you said, with the culture, these guys say, this is
• 36:07
  the culture. This is what we have to show.
• 36:10
  And that's why it's working. And they also just instead, I
• 36:13
  think something that should never change the three-point to
• 36:15
  run regularly before the spring game.
• 36:18
  Getting all the players too. Line up and basically give high
• 36:22
  fives to the piano on out of the they get a man's brilliant
• 36:27
  because you're going to have people who would never run, that
• 36:31
  3.2 Miler next year. Say, I want to do that.
• 36:34
  That looks really cool. Great right now.
• 36:37
  I agree. It's and yeah, I mean, the
• 36:40
  roster was really good for the roster is great for fun today,
• 36:44
  right? You can't step into a better
• 36:45
  situation, roster eyes, but every quarterback away from a
• 36:47
  great roster, right? He brought me brother.
• 36:50
  One player in exactly and like everything everything else.
• 36:53
  It was like man. We know those facilities need to
• 36:56
  be upgraded but it's almost like fun today.
• 37:00
  Took him a few years writings like, man.
• 37:03
  Maybe we don't have the best facilities on the planet.
• 37:05
  And, you know, i-i've kind of maintain this, this take that I
• 37:11
  have that Fuente. Fans are going to look back at
• 37:14
  the 28th of Baylor thing, and a lot of fans like in hindsight
• 37:17
  were like, yeah, I wish he'd left.
• 37:20
  But in hindsight I think a lot of fans are going to look at it
• 37:22
  and say, you know what point a interviewing with Baylor and
• 37:25
  then going back to what Babcock and saying.
• 37:27
  This is what I need is going to be one of the greatest things
• 37:30
  that's ever happened in. Virginia Tech football, I am, I
• 37:33
  am, you can't talk me off of that, take like because
• 37:37
  immediately, they're like, oh fundraising we got the funds.
• 37:41
  Okay, now new locker room nutrition right there, doing all
• 37:45
  this. All these upgrades new meeting
• 37:47
  rooms everything and now they're not high.
• 37:50
  The meeting rooms anymore. Billy Ray's talk about that
• 37:52
  right on Saturday podcast. They're not hiding meeting rooms
• 37:54
  anymore for recruits. Great great.
• 37:57
  We're not, we're not embarrassed about our facilities a more.
• 38:00
  Not the Virginia Tech at the worst facilities on the planet.
• 38:02
  They did their way worse, facilities and Virginia.
• 38:05
  Yeah, for the upgrades but now everything's great.
• 38:09
  Right? Everything looks really good.
• 38:11
  And the locker room, the weight room, all that stuff's getting
• 38:13
  upgraded. And you just see the you see,
• 38:17
  the energy now right now because I got a new coach and you got
• 38:20
  All these facilities show off, you see the momentum and how
• 38:22
  much the coaches care, right? Curtis to your point they case
• 38:26
  it's a big deal and it's a huge deal for sure.
• 38:29
  Yeah, I'll say this, what do you talk about the recruiting?
• 38:33
  You know, used to be on the others recruiting trips, you
• 38:35
  know, a lot of things stayed behind a curtain and then there
• 38:38
  was like well show you here, show you here but we're not
• 38:41
  going to go over here. That's that's that's not exactly
• 38:44
  putting us in the best light so now it's like, you know, more or
• 38:48
  less you can you can take the recruits.
• 38:50
  Where you shown the meeting rooms you can show them.
• 38:51
  Yeah, Players Lounge. I mean, the locker room isn't so
• 38:55
  the probably the locker was, it's not that it's bad.
• 38:58
  It's just that compared to pretty much every other ACC and
• 39:04
  especially if you know they CC, no, no, don't go ACC.
• 39:07
  They're like, we're like nine. There's some pretty bad locker
• 39:11
  and there are bad one, but I'm saying is, is Back Nine where we
• 39:15
  want to be in the ACC team in the country.
• 39:20
  I take about 35 teams in the country and what's going to
• 39:22
  happen is we're about to get into the top 15 in the locker
• 39:25
  room business read very soon again.
• 39:28
  Well, I'll save you. It's waterslide money.
• 39:30
  Not that Cabana money. But what and bloods good enough
• 39:33
  that is how many settle for the water slide.
• 39:38
  Let's get to the spring game. We have dogged 30 minutes on the
• 39:42
  Vibes and so, what happens when I get on here and run my mouth,
• 39:45
  that's what that is. Let's take a look at the team's.
• 39:52
  The white team was definitely missing some players.
• 39:54
  I don't doubt that one bit, but, I mean the routine definitely
• 39:58
  have an advantage. I mean, they had the Sam, the
• 40:01
  mic in, the will starting line, backers, Armani and Dorian along
• 40:08
  with what fuga fucking garbage. Yeah, we're good.
• 40:18
  He didn't stack the team's, he stacked.
• 40:19
  The team's, I mean, I'll tell you I'll tell you what, I'll
• 40:27
  tell you what Pride it feels good about a lot of positions on
• 40:31
  this roster and those positions were playing for the maroon team
• 40:37
  played, its as its as simple as that to me.
• 40:40
  And you have some outliers right with Pollard for example, right?
• 40:43
  But like there are guys that he feels really, really good.
• 40:47
  About players that he feels really, really good about
• 40:49
  certain positions. He's like, you know what, I want
• 40:51
  to see what they look like. I want to have 70% of my
• 40:53
  starters here, Sofia, starters there, that's what was apparent
• 40:58
  to me. Great is, that was kind of, you
• 41:00
  know, watching the game on Saturday and just kind of taking
• 41:03
  a look at the rosters and trying to get myself up to speed as
• 41:06
  quickly as possible with who was playing where, and for who and
• 41:09
  all, you know, because it's hard on TV, you know, I like you,
• 41:15
  right. Before the games because we're
• 41:21
  basically. All right, confirmed.
• 41:30
  All right, I got that down. So you're just trying trying to
• 41:33
  figure things out, you know, on the fly.
• 41:35
  But yeah, that was my date. That was my major takeaway.
• 41:38
  It's like I think Pride feels good about a handful of
• 41:40
  positions on the roster. I think, obviously a line
• 41:42
  backing core is one of them. I think, you know, the corn is
• 41:45
  starting Corners. I think he knows we're So what
• 41:47
  he says about quarterback, I think it's clear walls, is the
• 41:49
  guy, right? We'll get into that.
• 41:51
  But yeah, I think it was pretty pretty good about where he's at
• 41:54
  with certain positions on the roster and then I think there
• 41:56
  are other positions that you probably feel pretty good about
• 41:58
  that. Maybe I don't feel so good
• 41:59
  about. So talk about that too.
• 42:02
  But yeah we're going to hit all the positions here to you
• 42:06
  already mentioned it. Let's start quarterback because
• 42:09
  we didn't name a starter but I think from the look of it, Wells
• 42:12
  has firmly in control. Brown has a rough day but it
• 42:16
  looked like with Wells. He felt comfortable out there
• 42:20
  making the passes. He did almost threw a couple
• 42:24
  pics. But to me, Jason Brown is going
• 42:27
  to have to have a heroic fall Camp to overtake Grant Wells.
• 42:32
  Do y'all agree or disagree? Yeah, I mean, I'll say I was
• 42:36
  there. I felt the same way I think
• 42:39
  Brown was a little bit hamstrung, the offensive line
• 42:43
  draw that he had, but sometimes, even when he had time, I don't
• 42:47
  know if it was just, you know, being an see because of how
• 42:51
  little time he had on other place but he was a couple of the
• 42:54
  overthrows here and there even when he had had a little bit of
• 42:56
  time there. Yeah.
• 42:58
  Unfortunately blue had one one drop of a good scramble throw.
• 43:01
  He had I think was midway through the through the Quarter
• 43:05
  there. I could have extended to drive
• 43:07
  on a third down, but I mean, overall, just not not a great
• 43:11
  day for brown and I'd say a pretty pretty, darn.
• 43:13
  Good day for Wells. He had one throw to.
• 43:17
  I forget who it was. It was a little bit behind
• 43:20
  almost got picked off another one in blue.
• 43:22
  Maybe no, no blue is on white of the was on white.
• 43:26
  No. Maybe it was might have been
• 43:28
  might have been Lofton. That was awesome.
• 43:31
  The way first coordinating behind him.
• 43:32
  I think Marie almost pick. It off.
• 43:35
  Yeah. But I mean other than that I
• 43:38
  mean he did a good job of being in Rhythm thrown on time.
• 43:43
  Yeah. A couple good deep balls to
• 43:45
  Caleb Smith. So not a whole lot to critique
• 43:50
  you know bad other than like I said being a little bit more
• 43:53
  accurate on that that's square into off to Me.
• 43:58
  Maybe maybe a little more touch on some of his throws, right?
• 44:01
  I mean he did complete those two deep balls to Caleb Smith.
• 44:04
  I've watched Grand Throw and I'm like, man, this guy loves to
• 44:06
  throw 90 miles per hour is like the vibe I got but you know,
• 44:11
  Tech has had a quarterback with live arm like that in a while,
• 44:14
  right? I mean, Hooker Hooker, I guess
• 44:16
  but, you know, he kept getting banged up and then the offensive
• 44:20
  line was was up and down and, you know, he had some struggles
• 44:23
  are but yet Grant Wells was really, really impressive.
• 44:27
  And you can just tell he's got he's got more natural talent.
• 44:31
  That Jason Brown me, Jason Browns, had a really nice
• 44:33
  college career, kind of where he's from.
• 44:35
  Around, had a nice career at Saint Frances and then transfers
• 44:38
  down in South Carolina and plays well, and then, you know, ends
• 44:41
  up here back in Blacksburg and his dream school, right?
• 44:44
  This is kind of where he's always wanted to be and kind of
• 44:47
  going to be able to wrap up his career, whether he plays a lot
• 44:49
  or not you know he's going to end up in a place where he's
• 44:51
  always want to be. It's a really cool story but you
• 44:54
  look at G Wells and what he was able to do at Marshall and now
• 44:58
  you know transferring into Tech and man he's got he's got the
• 45:02
  skill right. I mean you see it.
• 45:05
  The ball jumps out of his hand. It doesn't jump out Jason Browns
• 45:09
  hand, right? It's just different, you know?
• 45:11
  And I agree. Brian like definitely did not
• 45:15
  stop. Its why did not do Jason Brown,
• 45:17
  any favors great definitely didn't, I think he was seeing
• 45:21
  ghosts a bit there in parts of the second quarter.
• 45:24
  Especially you look really really uncomfortable back there
• 45:28
  and and like you said, you know, got Happy Feet missed a couple
• 45:31
  throws a probably could have made or should have made if he's
• 45:34
  standing behind him or Cop in offensive line, but he was never
• 45:37
  really comfortable back there and I put some of that on Jason
• 45:41
  Brown. I put a lot of it on the
• 45:42
  offensive line. I'm trying to be cautious
• 45:44
  regarding kind of what we saw their last Saturday because you
• 45:50
  can only take so much of it with a grain of salt.
• 45:52
  You know, the fact that it's a scrimmage and the fact that you
• 45:54
  know you're playing with a bunch of second and third string
• 45:57
  offensive lineman for most of the game you know that does play
• 46:00
  a factor certainly for any quarterback but Grant Wellesley
• 46:05
  Really, really good. You mentioned the two throws to
• 46:07
  killed Smith and I will get in the receiving Corps here in a
• 46:09
  minute. But you know Caleb Smith just
• 46:12
  physically, looks like a different football player which
• 46:18
  a welcome sight to Virginia, Tech fans who, you know, text
• 46:21
  looking for a true. Number one, receiver now but
• 46:23
  Avion gone and train. Moving on.
• 46:26
  No James Mitchell. You know, they're looking for a
• 46:27
  number one Target and Kayla says, a good, can it man?
• 46:30
  If he if he looks like that this fall and he can stay healthy.
• 46:33
  It's true. I'll tell you One else I noticed
• 46:37
  in her two things, first of all, both Brown and well, showed some
• 46:41
  athletic ability, when they pulled the run the ball, I know
• 46:44
  they weren't live, right? But if anything, they look
• 46:48
  decisive, like, when they re to read they pulled and they took
• 46:51
  that step in with which if you're not a 45 guy and you're
• 46:55
  46, 47 being decisive is going to help you get the extra yards.
• 46:59
  The other pieces in this was for both of them.
• 47:02
  Where they missed when they missed throws.
• 47:06
  They missed correctly. Brian me.
• 47:08
  And Brian talked about this a couple days ago.
• 47:11
  The it was a slight over throat, it was to the right side of the
• 47:14
  shoulder where the other where the it could not be picked.
• 47:17
  I give Brad a ton of credit because we hadn't seen that in
• 47:24
  the last few years we hadn't seen.
• 47:26
  No, you need to throw the ball, here's the angle.
• 47:28
  You have to throw it out, your guy can get it, they can And
• 47:32
  that's huge. Hey, Curtis giving giving a guy
• 47:37
  named Brad, a bunch of credit, something we have not been doing
• 47:39
  in Blacksburg last year so so that will get ready to play name
• 47:46
  that Brad, right. Exactly.
• 47:49
  Now the other piece is let's talk a little bit about ties in
• 47:51
  Devon, you know, they both showed they are super athletic
• 47:55
  guys, both with some big runs Devin 0 for 1 in passes ties.
• 48:01
  I think 14. For or something like that.
• 48:06
  I mean are we just going to be these guys are probably going to
• 48:08
  be battling in the fall and whoever's not the practice squad
• 48:11
  quarterback is probably going to transfer out.
• 48:14
  Come the yeah I mean if we maybe Farrell hangs around and lose
• 48:17
  the receiver or something. Yeah, I mean, I think if we're
• 48:20
  being honest with ourselves, I think I think Tom's bollocks in
• 48:23
  a spot where he could be looking elsewhere.
• 48:28
  I came from a really good program in Jersey, right?
• 48:31
  Like a Really good, high school football program.
• 48:34
  I mean, I want to throw shade towards bullets have let it kid,
• 48:38
  but he was raw coming as a passer.
• 48:40
  He was most athletic guy on the field.
• 48:42
  In high school. His tape showed that he was not
• 48:45
  the most proficient passer, you know, on the field, they played
• 48:48
  a really good football program. So, you know, taking a chance on
• 48:52
  him, you know, especially in a class where, you know, you're
• 48:56
  hoping to have a guy like two major is Davis, right?
• 48:59
  And you're like, all right, we're moving on to Taj Bullock.
• 49:01
  It's like, all right, That's, that's not the major is Davis,
• 49:04
  but you know, now he's playing what UTSA?
• 49:07
  Thank you God. No, no, no, no, no South
• 49:10
  Alabama, he's an FCS now. Just I saw some on Twitter.
• 49:17
  I saw someone on Twitter yesterday about how we got like,
• 49:19
  a UTSA crystal ball. I was like, uh, what that was it
• 49:23
  and then he committed to South Alabama.
• 49:25
  That's why he somehow outdid himself there.
• 49:29
  But I mean going from point being you're going from Davis to
• 49:32
  Bullock, right? And you know, bollocks in the
• 49:35
  spot where you're like, all right?
• 49:37
  Tech needs to develop a Young quarterback behind whoever ends
• 49:41
  up being the quarterback. After all these transfers
• 49:42
  happen, just Where we were at the time and you know, he comes
• 49:47
  in last year and when he didn't get playing time under Fuente in
• 49:51
  a lame-duck year, when all your quarterbacks were bad, that's
• 49:54
  when I knew I was like, man, Bullock really must not be
• 49:57
  ready. You know, that was the kind of
• 49:58
  the indication for me and a lot of people were talking about
• 50:01
  bringing throw them in the game. Let's see what he's got, man,
• 50:06
  text quarterbacks that Fuente and Company thought were
• 50:09
  capable, we're not playing very well.
• 50:12
  And now you think a true freshman Shman getting thrown
• 50:14
  into the fire when he's a raw passer.
• 50:17
  You think that's going to work too.
• 50:19
  And look, we weren't crazy, right?
• 50:22
  Because now, Brent pride comes in and he said right away, it's
• 50:26
  going to be a wide-open quarterback competition and
• 50:28
  before you know it Bullock is buried on the depth chart and
• 50:31
  it's like all right well maybe this isn't going to work out
• 50:35
  here so yeah what will see right?
• 50:38
  We'll we'll obviously see what happens.
• 50:39
  But I mean it's pretty clear who the one and two are going to be
• 50:42
  this year and Whatever order they end up in, I think we think
• 50:46
  it's gonna be Wells and then brown, but I mean, I think
• 50:50
  Bullock is likely a transfer candidate bollocks got a lot of
• 50:54
  time. He has less position flexibility
• 50:56
  act. He's gonna at least be sitting
• 50:59
  behind the presumptive starter for three years.
• 51:02
  The the less flexibility is a huge thing, right?
• 51:05
  Because Farrell Farrell I think is more of an athlete you kind
• 51:09
  of slide all over the place. Like if bollocks off playing
• 51:12
  quarterback on the way he's playing.
• 51:14
  So what kind of beer with Malachi and tell him what
• 51:58
  to tell Mike what you feel like you saw from just being around
• 52:02
  him just for a couple minutes. I mean he looks bigger than you
• 52:05
  did last year. I mean I know when he got in the
• 52:07
  games a lot last year we like node okay.
• 52:10
  Here he looks good running the ball but he needs to give the
• 52:12
  gym like you know, skinny legs a little bit, little bit, skinny
• 52:16
  arm, looks like it's got a little bit more definition a
• 52:18
  little bit more size on on him now, hopefully, he can take a
• 52:21
  little bit more of those, you know, carries in a game because
• 52:26
  he's probably going to be that guy.
• 52:27
  That's going to get get you about 15 carries a game, this
• 52:30
  year. Looking at what they've done
• 52:33
  historically, with, with games that bone is called, you know,
• 52:37
  he likes to get guys, guys, touches you Usually two to three
• 52:40
  guys are going to get over 10 carries, but we can get Malachi,
• 52:43
  that 15 carrier range. Every game that have Holston or
• 52:48
  somebody else getting 10 or 12 a game.
• 52:51
  That's probably going to be the way to go.
• 52:52
  But if you can get that 15 carry a game for us, that's going to
• 52:55
  be huge. Yeah, I mean, I Malachi was so
• 53:00
  good last year, second half year.
• 53:01
  When the season spiraling out of control, it was like, alright
• 53:04
  man, this is the one bright spot rights like this Rich really
• 53:07
  cool to see him kind of develop. See a Get in and play
• 53:10
  significant snaps and be able to, you know, play as well as he
• 53:14
  did. But that was always a concern.
• 53:16
  It was like, man, he's got to put some weight on and
• 53:18
  realistically he wasn't ready to play from like a build
• 53:21
  standpoint, right? And that's really good to hear.
• 53:24
  He's put on weight I mean I'm not surprised when looking at
• 53:26
  Kayla Smith and pads and like all right it these guys been hit
• 53:29
  but later on they look a little bit there.
• 53:32
  But yeah, I mean attack in the running back room.
• 53:36
  They got to figure things out here.
• 53:38
  I mean, I know, Oh, Bronson transferred out yesterday.
• 53:41
  Yeah, yeah. I guess yesterday.
• 53:43
  Already at a mime. Oh, hi.
• 53:44
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah, announces.
• 53:47
  He's transferring it like nine and then has this new school at
• 53:50
  11. So I think that's been planned
• 53:52
  out for a little bit. Yeah, that's been in the work.
• 53:55
  There's a reason he didn't give me carries leading, it carries
• 54:01
  Lee was on the field. He just didn't get in touch.
• 54:03
  Yeah, I mean, Kristen got minimal.
• 54:06
  I mean, it's kind of the writing's on the wall with
• 54:09
  What's going on the running back room?
• 54:10
  You know, Hampton got a couple good runs.
• 54:13
  Yeah. That one good run where he kind
• 54:14
  of broke it outside, got him. Yeah, 15 yards.
• 54:18
  Yep. In the but the way it's looking
• 54:20
  on in the fall with Malachi you mentioned Holston you know black
• 54:24
  and King have their roles right? They both can catch the ball
• 54:26
  back. Don't ever turn bility?
• 54:29
  I mean in you it's kind of the writing on the wall, right?
• 54:34
  Who got carries ones, already out the door ones looks like
• 54:38
  he's in the doghouse. Ace.
• 54:39
  I mean the question is when did they go into the portal?
• 54:44
  Because yeah, let's take this want to stay here unless they
• 54:48
  love the culture, which, you know I think what you're going
• 54:54
  to see two is and we're already started.
• 54:57
  We've already started to see it with you know, guys switching
• 55:00
  positions and and Prime movements guys around and you
• 55:04
  know I think there's a decent chance.
• 55:05
  You see, no pun intended, decent chance to see chance.
• 55:09
  Like in the slot, you know, playing some receiver, which I
• 55:12
  mean they were talking about that with want a right there
• 55:15
  saying, okay, but you know, just looking as high school film, it
• 55:18
  was like this guy can wind up everywhere.
• 55:20
  And I think prize acknowledge that, and I think they're going
• 55:24
  to try to get transplant and some different opportunities,
• 55:28
  you know, both the receiver running back because I mean I
• 55:33
  see what I see with want a was doing, you know, getting 12 or
• 55:35
  13 running backs, you know, step ahead of everybody else.
• 55:39
  You know, just get as many guys as you can and then figure out
• 55:45
  no idea what he was doing. But now you're in a spot where
• 55:47
  you got to get the roster back down to, you know, a manner that
• 55:50
  makes sense. And yeah, I do think the
• 55:52
  writing's on the wall, right? And I was really excited about
• 55:54
  Kenji. Christian as a prospect, but I'm
• 55:57
  not sure he's going to be playing football in Blacksburg,
• 56:00
  you know. Yeah, yeah.
• 56:02
  And I do think the writing's on the wall, I mean, I think
• 56:04
  Holston sticking around, you know, throws a wrench into
• 56:07
  Kenji, Christians snaps, I think a little bit.
• 56:10
  See now you don't have like a big body back that, you know,
• 56:14
  can step in right? And you're like, alright, that
• 56:17
  may be a natural fit for Kenji Christian.
• 56:19
  Now holsters back and Keshawn King everybody thought was going
• 56:23
  to transfer out when you know, all the roster attrition when
• 56:27
  Pride came in and King stuck around.
• 56:29
  Okay, so now it's like all right, we know.
• 56:30
  King has talent. If the coaching staff likes and
• 56:33
  he'll figure it out, and then you got Malachi Thomas.
• 56:36
  We saw what he did in limited snaps and then you have chance
• 56:39
  black, you have Bryce Juke, obviously, that the coaching
• 56:42
  staffs really, really excited about, you know, they've been
• 56:44
  talking about him at length in the offseason.
• 56:47
  So there are certainly some guys that are going to have some
• 56:51
  opportunities here. And I think, the guys who got
• 56:54
  carries on Saturday and the guys who stuck around in the
• 56:58
  recruiting class with Brent, pry and stayed in the boat like
• 57:00
  those are the guys in the running.
• 57:02
  Back room who are going to have, you know, maybe a little bit
• 57:06
  higher priority, you know for the staff.
• 57:08
  And some of these other guys that maybe we were excited about
• 57:11
  like Kenji, Christian or Marco Ali, right?
• 57:14
  Or Bronson or Hampton like I think that's kind of where we're
• 57:17
  going to be out here. Yeah, I mean, we look at the the
• 57:20
  combination of Thomas Christian and black.
• 57:25
  I mean you saw the thought process at least in bringing
• 57:29
  those three guys in one class because they really Out of your
• 57:32
  Thomas, the more All Around, Back Kenji, kind of the the
• 57:36
  between the tackles specialist and then you had chance life and
• 57:40
  kind of do a little bit of everything especially help you
• 57:43
  in the passing game. There was at least a thought
• 57:45
  process there with these. These three can be kind of that
• 57:48
  three headed monster in two to three years.
• 57:50
  But yeah with where we are. I think in the process and as
• 57:54
  you said with Holston coming back, I think that kind of threw
• 57:57
  a wrench in. We're Christian is, you know, on
• 57:59
  top of whatever else you may be behind?
• 58:02
  And him not getting as many as many touches and kind of falling
• 58:06
  behind in the depth chart there. It's going to be interesting
• 58:09
  because we have, I think Hampton might be the, the one that
• 58:13
  sticks around of the that 20 and 21 class group of running backs.
• 58:20
  He seemed like he was comfortable in what the offense
• 58:24
  is doing and if he's willing to to bide his time a little bit,
• 58:28
  you know, there might be a role for him in a year or two.
• 58:32
  Yeah, I mean I think when, you know, you see a Holston, you
• 58:36
  know, leave you see, you know, maybe a chance black move to
• 58:40
  receiver. You know, then all the sudden
• 58:42
  your before, you know, it, you're on like, a two or three
• 58:44
  deep. And if you're on the three deep,
• 58:46
  like you mentioned, Brian earlier, if you're on a 3D, the
• 58:49
  running back for Tyler bones offense, you're getting snaps.
• 58:52
  Your plan. So really, I mean I don't think
• 58:56
  any of these guys realistic they were looking at is like, oh, I'm
• 58:59
  the starting running back because felons going to use all
• 59:01
  of them and if you're, if you're into two or three deep, you
• 59:05
  know, you're going to have a real opportunity gum.
• 59:07
  Feel abso-freakin'-lutely. Now is many questions as we have
• 59:12
  about the running back room and, you know, people not playing
• 59:15
  who's leaving, who's not? I think Saturday the wide
• 59:20
  receiver room kind of Came to light.
• 59:24
  We saw, you know, Caleb Smith obviously have a great game like
• 59:29
  you said he's looks physically more impressive.
• 59:31
  Jane blue had a drop again. Little hindered, probably by,
• 59:35
  you know, the offensive line but I know Brian mentioned just
• 59:38
  watching him. Run route, his route for solid
• 59:41
  there. Chris.
• 59:43
  He was open a few times, just there wasn't time to get wasn't
• 59:45
  there. He still made a couple couple of
• 59:48
  patches in the game. So I mean.
• 59:50
  Yeah. Played.
• 59:50
  Well just, you know, not As many opportunities.
• 59:53
  I think we wanted to give him. Obviously, the Wayne Lofton that
• 59:56
  shocked me and Brian that catch him.
• 59:59
  A was out of why that was not a slot catch that.
• 1:00:01
  He made that big one which, you know, they've been mentioned.
• 1:00:05
  They've been moving them around. Seeing him play that he's going
• 1:00:07
  to get on the field more. And then the last two, Jalen
• 1:00:12
  Jones had a Richmond here with the big catch, and then Brian
• 1:00:16
  again, prime loves downright bronze, love downright.
• 1:00:19
  Since the first time, you looked at his tape, you focused on him
• 1:00:21
  sad. Add a similar to Blue, right?
• 1:00:24
  Similar to Blue looked good in his routes, was Miss a few
• 1:00:28
  times. He was Opie was wide, open a
• 1:00:30
  couple times, just the Rover throughs.
• 1:00:32
  He did have I think what? One, or two catches on the day.
• 1:00:35
  So yeah, one right down writes, a damn white?
• 1:00:39
  Well, well, he's on the roster, but as he really exists, right?
• 1:00:44
  He's around there somewhere. Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  I mean, I agree with the assessment to be honest with you
• 1:00:49
  guys, like I was so, To see Lofton and Jalen Jones down the
• 1:00:54
  field last year. And then all of a sudden like
• 1:00:57
  your comes walk and get a little bit more playing time then
• 1:00:59
  towards the end of year was like, oh Jones we're really
• 1:01:01
  excited about Jalen Jones. That's all, you know, the staff
• 1:01:04
  talk about and Jones, pulled a hamstring or whatever it was, he
• 1:01:07
  was at a little while and then they really on the field to
• 1:01:10
  later in the year but not obviously has made meaningful.
• 1:01:14
  Snaps is Lofton. But I think now you look at you
• 1:01:17
  know those two in particular and that's the future of the wide
• 1:01:20
  receiver position at Virginia Tech.
• 1:01:22
  And they're going to be playing significant snaps as fall and
• 1:01:24
  that's really exciting. I think for Virginia Tech fans
• 1:01:26
  because, you know, we talked about Caleb Smith and how he,
• 1:01:29
  how good he's like physically. And I think, you know, obviously
• 1:01:32
  he's going to have a major role, you know, we can talk about
• 1:01:34
  Jaden blue but he's a grad transfer, right?
• 1:01:37
  But when you're talking about the true, like future of the
• 1:01:38
  position it's Lofton and Jones and it's been locked in and
• 1:01:42
  Jones and I think you see them, you know, have an opportunity,
• 1:01:46
  this fall to blossom into a bigger role as Virginia Tech,
• 1:01:48
  kind of moves forward, and the roster continues to improve.
• 1:01:52
  I think a few years from now these guys are seniors.
• 1:01:54
  You know, there's going to be a real opportunity for them to be
• 1:01:57
  part of a really, really good offense or Virginia Tech and for
• 1:02:00
  them to be a kind of the focal points out that.
• 1:02:02
  So we're going to have an opportunity here, you know, both
• 1:02:05
  last year and kind of Slam Dunk here.
• 1:02:07
  And then like during this rebuild here, where we're going
• 1:02:09
  to see, you know, some young guys really start to Blossom and
• 1:02:13
  turn into like really, really good for your players or
• 1:02:16
  Virginia Tech as long as they stick around.
• 1:02:19
  Yeah, I was really excited to see Joan show out.
• 1:02:21
  He had that big Jew, con Connor where he was able to take that
• 1:02:25
  quick hitter and get about 15 yards out of it.
• 1:02:28
  Had one other good catch. I mean, there was a lot of
• 1:02:31
  promise from the young guys and that definitely bodes.
• 1:02:34
  Well for the like as you said for the future, not just looking
• 1:02:36
  to 2022. So yeah.
• 1:02:38
  That was big seeing what? At least a little bit of what
• 1:02:43
  Connor Blum Works. Role might be in this offense.
• 1:02:47
  Very vanilla on Turday, very vanilla, they're hiding him,
• 1:02:51
  they're like just a couple quick hitters, just giving the ball to
• 1:02:55
  him out of the backfield. Nothing really to show yet but I
• 1:02:59
  am so excited to see what language they line them up
• 1:03:02
  everywhere though. So I think we actually became a
• 1:03:05
  focal point. I think that'll you'll see what
• 1:03:08
  what he can do in that. What do you think about the
• 1:03:11
  tight ends? We didn't really see a lot of
• 1:03:16
  different looks with them in terms of getting them the ball.
• 1:03:19
  But yeah, I mean it's really hard to go from like the
• 1:03:23
  excitement of having James Mitchell being you're starting
• 1:03:25
  tight end and being like Nick, Al's always been that guy who
• 1:03:29
  it's like, oh yeah, I remember he's on the team.
• 1:03:31
  He makes like one big catcher like yeah.
• 1:03:33
  Hell yeah, Nick Gallo. We got we got into really good
• 1:03:35
  tight ends. Yeah, you're just like trying to
• 1:03:36
  talk yourself into it and it's cool though, right?
• 1:03:40
  Because you see, you know, you see gallop.
• 1:03:43
  And like significant snaps. You see him like getting these
• 1:03:46
  awards from the coaches and talk about how good of a spring.
• 1:03:49
  He's had text going to need somebody in that tight end her
• 1:03:53
  to step up like Gallows, the most logical guy, right?
• 1:03:56
  And because everybody talks about all what's called our
• 1:04:00
  plumber, Exposition going to be its kind of plumbers can be
• 1:04:03
  Connor blumrich because W reg a puppy, he was an offensive
• 1:04:07
  weapon. That is like Brian said
• 1:04:10
  everywhere. He's gonna be everywhere on the
• 1:04:12
  field and back. That's that's good for, it's
• 1:04:15
  good for Gallo Redskins while the wide receivers good for the
• 1:04:18
  running backs that every week with blumrich, going out there
• 1:04:23
  teams are going to have to find it because if you put the wrong
• 1:04:26
  guy on Blown wrecking, get him the ball quick.
• 1:04:28
  Like if you put the wrong linebacker he can make him Miss
• 1:04:31
  and get down the field. If you put a corner on him and
• 1:04:34
  that corner came a cashier tackle, he's going to put them
• 1:04:36
  in the dirt because of having the size advantage.
• 1:04:39
  Yeah so he's going to help everybody in the lon.
• 1:04:43
  Yeah I know David Cunningham first of all he did a great job
• 1:04:47
  with you guys a couple weeks back that podcast was incredible
• 1:04:50
  but he was he was tweeting out some some news and notes and was
• 1:04:55
  taking some pictures and video from a few attacks practices and
• 1:04:58
  talk about how good honorable America looked at receiver.
• 1:05:01
  It's like, you know, you got these guys who were like,
• 1:05:04
  seasoned receivers who have, you know, like Caleb Smith who yeah,
• 1:05:08
  doesn't drop anything really? In Australia catches everything.
• 1:05:12
  And you know, you're watching these guys in line and for these
• 1:05:16
  reporters to be talking about Connor, blumrich and saying he
• 1:05:18
  looks like any of the other receivers.
• 1:05:20
  When in reality, he was just playing quarterback all last
• 1:05:23
  year and was playing like HVAC essentially at a.m. after Colin
• 1:05:28
  mod beat him out. Yep.
• 1:05:30
  Like that's that's encouraging. And the way I look at one,
• 1:05:36
  that's another offensive weapon that we didn't have last year.
• 1:05:40
  I mean that's that's that's the way I look at it.
• 1:05:43
  I mean we saw in the bowl game, you know, one of the few bright
• 1:05:45
  spots of Connor, bomber candy bowl game is like, we at least
• 1:05:48
  saw his athletic ability a little bit.
• 1:05:50
  Yeah, nothing's really going well.
• 1:05:52
  But, you know, he's athletic. He tries hard.
• 1:05:55
  Yeah, and I see him as more of like utility guy in baseball
• 1:06:00
  where he's playing like five or six days a week and you know
• 1:06:03
  he's kind of just giving everybody else a break.
• 1:06:06
  Like that's kind of how I see Connor polemics roll, like he's
• 1:06:08
  going to be on the field of ton. And one staff is going to be
• 1:06:12
  lined up at outside receiver and you know, Caleb says going to be
• 1:06:15
  off the field and then another staff.
• 1:06:17
  He's going to be in the slot and like walk is going to be off the
• 1:06:19
  field and like I can see him jumping around.
• 1:06:21
  Maybe he's lined up in the backfield like bones.
• 1:06:23
  Got a line them up all over the place so you're gonna he's gonna
• 1:06:25
  give everybody a break, we're gonna lose.
• 1:06:27
  Well, it's going to be so good because it's going to give us
• 1:06:30
  that formation flexibility and like the hurry-up.
• 1:06:33
  No-huddle situations. He's right.
• 1:06:35
  You can do a lot of different things with kind of blood work
• 1:06:37
  on the field because you can slide Can split about, you can
• 1:06:40
  be the middle guy and trips. He can be in line, he can be
• 1:06:43
  tight in Wing. He can he can really do all
• 1:06:46
  those things and even line up outside and you don't have sub,
• 1:06:50
  you can just keep going, keep going.
• 1:06:51
  If you got to be vents on the ropes, just keep pushing it and
• 1:06:54
  still give them a lot of different looks.
• 1:06:55
  And like I think in theory like want a staff, wanted James
• 1:06:58
  Mitchell who that guy and they wanted like Dalton came to be
• 1:07:01
  that guy and they'd be like, one of these guys kind of line up
• 1:07:03
  everywhere they wanted to really, really wander him.
• 1:07:06
  Like, to be that guy. And then, you know, either he
• 1:07:09
  didn't say how Ethier, they just don't utilize them.
• 1:07:10
  Like I should write. And I think one more clearly has
• 1:07:13
  an opportunity because of his unique size and speed and
• 1:07:16
  athleticism. I just think it's kind of like a
• 1:07:18
  different mold or he really can lot of anywhere we can.
• 1:07:23
  All right somewhere, he can't line up is the offensive line
• 1:07:26
  and Brian, this is your baby. We are an offensive mom dad.
• 1:07:31
  Can I let you tell me what you saw out there Saturday actually
• 1:07:36
  in person which I know Is we know being that close to the
• 1:07:40
  field as you were, you get to see certain things you can't see
• 1:07:43
  on TV. Yeah, I mean, being an offensive
• 1:07:45
  lineman when I was watching the game live, I was mostly paying
• 1:07:48
  attention to the offensive line when I was watching it live the
• 1:07:51
  first time. So that's just, that's just who
• 1:07:54
  I am. I thought the for starters like
• 1:07:57
  the presumptive starters that presumptive first team, that
• 1:08:00
  actually played since Clements wasn't out there, he was banged
• 1:08:03
  up. I thought they looked fine.
• 1:08:07
  I think probably the weakest would have been Jesse Hansen.
• 1:08:12
  I mean he had some some good place and bad place but I think
• 1:08:15
  overall the guys that we think are going to be that Frontline,
• 1:08:19
  had a pretty good spring game. I think the problem is that we
• 1:08:25
  have seen that based on the performance, especially on the
• 1:08:29
  white side that, you know, we don't I'm not sure we've got
• 1:08:34
  more than five or six guys that we can count on at this point.
• 1:08:38
  And I think that's where we're going to run into some problems.
• 1:08:40
  I will say, of the non presumptive starters.
• 1:08:43
  I thought Jack hollifield, look pretty good, Dan, encouraging
• 1:08:49
  sign, Meg, that's encouraging, that was a position switch,
• 1:08:54
  right? At least coming out of high
• 1:08:56
  school were like where's he actually it wasn't like formerly
• 1:08:58
  a prime position switch but I come out High School.
• 1:09:00
  We're like alright Jack where are you playing?
• 1:09:03
  Keep it lean tight end you playing off its lower you doing.
• 1:09:07
  Offensive lines of huge concern for me guys.
• 1:09:09
  Huge concern and we'll talk about the offensive line in a
• 1:09:14
  bit, but I'm worried about us in the trenches and I'm not talking
• 1:09:17
  about the starters talking about the talking about the kind of
• 1:09:21
  the rotation and, you know, you get three or four games into
• 1:09:24
  into the season you got guys banged up and who you turn into.
• 1:09:27
  Like, that's my, that's my concern.
• 1:09:29
  And there's there's there's mostly at tackle.
• 1:09:33
  Yeah. I mean and Brian, I know you
• 1:09:37
  talk. About this at length on this
• 1:09:38
  podcast, but you know, you think you can cover up some stuff on
• 1:09:42
  the interior offensive line. You can't cover up, offensive
• 1:09:46
  tackle, when they're out on island, it's just really
• 1:09:48
  especially left tackle with with the quarterbacks we have in this
• 1:09:51
  offense and it's going to be a concern.
• 1:09:54
  Yeah you can help out a right tackle from time to time with
• 1:09:57
  scheme and things like that. Right left tackle casual gonna
• 1:10:00
  be hard to cover and right now we have two that I feel okay
• 1:10:04
  about? Yeah.
• 1:10:06
  And It's gonna be rough, it's concerned.
• 1:10:10
  Yeah, it's definitely a concern. I mean, it was offensive line
• 1:10:13
  was concerned going to last year to of it and I mean the way I
• 1:10:17
  look at this is that, you know, there is a portal out there.
• 1:10:21
  There is we can maybe we can find a guy or two, you know, to
• 1:10:25
  come in that we know is played, you know, meaningful snaps
• 1:10:28
  elsewhere. Like last year, Johnny Jordan
• 1:10:30
  was that guy who you know, we knew it broke off and went down.
• 1:10:33
  Maybe Johnny Jordan could step in and play because he was The
• 1:10:37
  all-big ten honorable mention at Maryland, and we're like,
• 1:10:40
  alright, you can step in and play.
• 1:10:42
  I thought he would get more snaps than he did last year, but
• 1:10:45
  maybe we can go find a guy like that in the portal, you know,
• 1:10:48
  this summer. I think that's especially a
• 1:10:51
  tackle like that somewhere where I think Brent prying his staff
• 1:10:54
  really need to hit hard because there's nothing.
• 1:10:56
  I really saw out of the white team on the offensive line that
• 1:11:00
  really gave me a whole lot of confidence.
• 1:11:03
  Grabbing a decent spot on. The only thing is Brian,
• 1:11:06
  mentioned to me the other Day. He thought she could probably
• 1:11:08
  kick in and be solid guard, but we are definitely going to be.
• 1:11:14
  We have to go after the portal with the tackle.
• 1:11:17
  I mean, they have to attack it, they have to.
• 1:11:21
  Hopefully, the hope is you find someone that's a sophomore or
• 1:11:24
  Redshirt sophomore, and come in to get multiple years of
• 1:11:28
  Eligibility. So, I mean, I think the things
• 1:11:33
  you really want you either, get you want to get a guy that you
• 1:11:36
  can either plug and play in. the starting lineup or you want to
• 1:11:38
  get a guy that Can at least be that solid backup, whether it's
• 1:11:44
  on the left side or the right side.
• 1:11:45
  Or like I said, if you ever get a Frontline guy, you can do one
• 1:11:48
  of two things you can either have Clements be kind of groom
• 1:11:52
  him to be the left tackle and waiting for next year or you can
• 1:11:55
  go ahead and plug whoever that addition is at left tackle and
• 1:11:58
  so in slide Silas down to guard, which gives you a little bit of
• 1:12:03
  a stronger light across the board.
• 1:12:05
  Well, I think I think a lot of us thought last year like that's
• 1:12:08
  where the giant Journey example comes in, right?
• 1:12:10
  I think a lot of us thought last year, okay?
• 1:12:12
  We're bringing in an all Big Ten.
• 1:12:14
  Honorable mention offensive, lineman naturally, he's going to
• 1:12:17
  come in because Chris and aerosol Left, Right?
• 1:12:19
  Went to the NFL. We all thought, okay, naturally.
• 1:12:22
  Johnny, Jordan's going to come in and Brock office, get bumped
• 1:12:25
  to guard. And now all of a sudden, we feel
• 1:12:27
  pretty good about where things are at on the offensive line
• 1:12:29
  will try to cover up right tackle.
• 1:12:31
  You know, that was kind of what we were talking about after
• 1:12:33
  flipping to new to the left and it didn't really pan out that
• 1:12:37
  way, right? This Kayden more developed into
• 1:12:39
  a really nice player, which I We're all happy about that now
• 1:12:42
  because he's got a full year of experience and he's gonna step
• 1:12:44
  in and I think we all have pretty high expectations for
• 1:12:47
  him, you know, going into going into this here, but I agree.
• 1:12:51
  Like finding a guy like that. Who could step into your starter
• 1:12:54
  right away. You know you pull you can plug
• 1:12:56
  plug and play, right? Who comes in from another
• 1:12:58
  program where doesn't necessarily need to be, you
• 1:13:01
  know, a P5. It could be a G5 program, that's
• 1:13:03
  fine. But just find somebody with
• 1:13:05
  meaningful who's had meaningful snaps is played you know good
• 1:13:08
  football somewhere I think that's really Important for this
• 1:13:11
  roster, it would be great if it was a tackle because I am
• 1:13:14
  concerned that offensive tackle. But that's my that's my biggest
• 1:13:18
  area concern. Is this offensive line without a
• 1:13:20
  doubt on the entire roster? Yeah I'm do I put it as the
• 1:13:24
  number one concern? Yeah.
• 1:13:26
  All right, before we get into the defensive side of the ball
• 1:13:29
  guys, we are going to take a quick pause for a message from
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  our digital partners. As we take a quick break, we'd
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  Dash report now back to the episode, all right, back to the
• 1:14:01
  defensive side of the ball here and let's start with the
• 1:14:03
  linebacker unit and I told Brian this.
• 1:14:07
  I think I texted you. Sunday.
• 1:14:09
  Brian. Fat unit, looks the best across
• 1:14:12
  the board. I mean, starters to deep, even
• 1:14:16
  some of the 3D guys, look legit. And we all thought about saying
• 1:14:22
  all men were all worried about Sam Kion to Jenkins is going to
• 1:14:27
  be a hell of a Sam this year. Yeah, I'll be out the gate, he
• 1:14:31
  looked pretty good, he was making some plays.
• 1:14:34
  We saw Kelly Lawson get in there and play.
• 1:14:37
  Well, as at that position, as well as in jail.
• 1:14:40
  Yeah. And as you said the unit look
• 1:14:42
  good across the board, I think we have, you know, legitimately
• 1:14:49
  a solid two teeth are when you have you know, Dad accent is
• 1:14:53
  coming off the field, you not as worried as you were maybe last
• 1:14:56
  year at this time, especially at the back.
• 1:14:59
  Position and artist looked well again, you know hopefully you
• 1:15:05
  know coach prize talked about his becoming more of a focal
• 1:15:09
  leader on that defense if that comes along and you've got, you
• 1:15:12
  know, to legitimate leaders like Dax and and Keyshawn on that
• 1:15:17
  defense, that's going to be big for that unit and they look
• 1:15:21
  better. Like the coaching is obvious
• 1:15:25
  like there wasn't At times last year, and even the year before
• 1:15:30
  that, sometimes our linebackers looked lost.
• 1:15:32
  And I know they were going against the vanilla game plan
• 1:15:35
  and all that. But I didn't see a time where
• 1:15:38
  our linebackers looked lost in this one.
• 1:15:43
  I mean, this is what happens when you get a defensive
• 1:15:46
  coordinator, and we all love Justin Hamilton, right almost
• 1:15:49
  later. Justin Hamilton, great guy.
• 1:15:51
  Always really nice to me. Those slander for Justin
• 1:15:54
  Hamilton allowed here. With that being said, this is
• 1:15:57
  what happens. When you have a defensively
• 1:15:59
  minded head coach, who's going to a major P5 defensive
• 1:16:02
  coordinator somewhere else and knows what it's supposed to look
• 1:16:04
  like. Justin Hamilton did an article
• 1:16:08
  with Mike Barber with Richmond Times-Dispatch and great
• 1:16:12
  article. Go check it out.
• 1:16:13
  One of the things he said was that when he came into Virginia
• 1:16:15
  Tech, he started descending into his role.
• 1:16:18
  The one thing he knew was that he didn't know how other p5's
• 1:16:20
  were being run. He said that in that article
• 1:16:22
  with Mike Barber in that are view, right?
• 1:16:24
  So this is what we're seeing on the field now in the spring.
• 1:16:27
  We're seeing guys being utilized the positions.
• 1:16:29
  They were not necessarily being utilized in a year ago.
• 1:16:32
  You're seeing guys more comfortable in their role and
• 1:16:34
  it's only the spring. That's the biggest takeaway for
• 1:16:37
  me. Like they're moving guys around
• 1:16:40
  position changes. You got guys moving on the
• 1:16:42
  interior defense and line you have Gunner Givens, playing
• 1:16:45
  defensive tackle, you got all these linebackers.
• 1:16:47
  Now we got two or three deep at positions that we were a little
• 1:16:50
  bit concerned about maybe before and like you mentioned Brian,
• 1:16:54
  Virginia Tech's a position. Now we're not feeling quite as
• 1:16:56
  bad if That's all I feel comes off the field, right?
• 1:17:00
  Or announce his do comes off the field, like all of a sudden were
• 1:17:02
  like, you know, I think we're okay with the guys we have in
• 1:17:05
  there right now. We didn't feel that way last
• 1:17:07
  year, all right? And you're in a spot now where I
• 1:17:10
  think guys and their talents and their skill sets are going to be
• 1:17:13
  better utilized and that's just the beauty of having a guy who's
• 1:17:17
  kind of been there and done that and major P5 program because
• 1:17:21
  Chris Martin to come in, right? And he's the defensive
• 1:17:24
  coordinator, this is Brent prize defense reversed years.
• 1:17:27
  Like we all have Kind of what that is and that's why I really
• 1:17:30
  like the first modifier because you bring him in half and
• 1:17:33
  recruit have them, get comfortable.
• 1:17:36
  He's played for Pride, just coached under /.
• 1:17:38
  I he knows the scheme and now we get to be groomed with pride as
• 1:17:42
  a head coach. Like this is a perfect scenario
• 1:17:44
  for all involved. I think the defensive players
• 1:17:46
  and kind of their new positions I think they're really going to
• 1:17:48
  benefit from that. What about to be?
• 1:17:52
  Like you said, they get to bring bring Marvel long and in the
• 1:17:56
  meantime, you know, by all accounts, one of the better
• 1:18:00
  position coaches in terms of just technique.
• 1:18:03
  Yeah, and coaching the position. So I also think we're gonna go
• 1:18:08
  ahead what you mentioned about P5.
• 1:18:11
  I mean Marvis. See now, Vanderbilt getting
• 1:18:15
  sippy State. Any senior, if that's you And
• 1:18:18
  he's about 6 or 7 years younger than Justin Hamilton.
• 1:18:21
  So when you say ham mentioned, I've never seen a P5 program.
• 1:18:24
  This is a guy that seen multiple and he's only been a coach about
• 1:18:28
  six years. So, yeah.
• 1:18:30
  That room, I think if you asked me, I think I feel best the
• 1:18:35
  room. I would say, I have no worries
• 1:18:36
  about anywhere. Yeah, and I'll tell you another
• 1:18:40
  room. I feel pretty good about, even
• 1:18:42
  with the guy transitioning is the safety room, you know,
• 1:18:46
  Temari there are some girl in pain Saturday right I don't
• 1:18:51
  think any of us would disagree with that but just looking I
• 1:18:56
  feel like he looked more natural That's my opinion.
• 1:19:00
  I feel like he looked more natural, playing back at the
• 1:19:03
  free, safety field, safety, whatever you want to call it
• 1:19:05
  spot, then he ever did it. You're not on an island as much.
• 1:19:13
  Yeah, it's as simple as that, which amerikaner I mean Jamari.
• 1:19:19
  Connors got a lot of Dietrich Bonner in them where it's like
• 1:19:22
  man, I love when he comes down hill and he's in the bodies
• 1:19:26
  playing in the box. And, you know, I love the way he
• 1:19:30
  attacks running backs and receivers like in the open field
• 1:19:33
  after the catch. I don't love him and coverage,
• 1:19:36
  great, and you feel now. You feel a little bit better.
• 1:19:39
  About him in coverage when he's playing free safety versus the
• 1:19:42
  nickel, where he's on island all the time.
• 1:19:44
  We're all worried about his patent.
• 1:19:45
  You know, is its ability and coverage, which was You know,
• 1:19:50
  the real concern I think going into last year and he ended up
• 1:19:53
  actually playing, I think a lot better than a lot of us thought
• 1:19:56
  a year ago. But you know like we talked
• 1:19:59
  about before the concern which Maria Connor has always been how
• 1:20:02
  good is this guy going to be in pass coverage?
• 1:20:04
  And I think he's in a position now where, you know, yes he's
• 1:20:08
  still going to have to continue to improve in that category.
• 1:20:11
  It doesn't have to be perfect anymore.
• 1:20:14
  Yeah, I think, I mean, he still has struggled here and there
• 1:20:17
  with this tackles, and that's probably going to be something
• 1:20:19
  that he struggles with, probably the rest of his career and maybe
• 1:20:23
  at this point, if, if that hasn't been cleaned up, you
• 1:20:27
  know, I don't know if it will, but I think that from the safety
• 1:20:32
  position, it's it fits his skillset better and he's not
• 1:20:36
  going to have those as many of those times where he has to be
• 1:20:43
  wide open to them. Open field against a die Ami
• 1:20:47
  brown, or someone like that where, you know, he's trying to
• 1:20:50
  try to make that type of play, like I said, but I'm hoping that
• 1:20:56
  some of those, those tackling issues get cleaned up.
• 1:20:58
  We'll see if there comes to fruition.
• 1:21:00
  But Curtis what you gonna say you look like you got something
• 1:21:03
  you want to say on this one. I'm just laughing, hear about
• 1:21:07
  the Dietrich Bonner thing. Let me know.
• 1:21:29
  Paul Kerr. People's Bryan, Hawker peoples.
• 1:21:33
  I'm going to stick with people's.
• 1:21:34
  I'm gonna go with the consider. I'm gonna go with consistency
• 1:21:39
  that's now I mean that's my answer to you.
• 1:21:41
  It's people's man. It look people's has been on the
• 1:21:43
  field more for a reason, right? And it's been the consistency
• 1:21:47
  that he brings whether he's, you know, a spot starter or into 2D
• 1:21:52
  which is he's bad to do player pretty much solo career.
• 1:21:54
  It's a consistency and I think with Hawkins, I think you're
• 1:21:58
  going to get more of like the Boomer bus like oh my God, like
• 1:22:02
  that was great. Not your peoples makes that play
• 1:22:04
  great. But at the same time your be
• 1:22:06
  like, oh my God, I know for a fact people's makes that play.
• 1:22:09
  How did you know? So I think the answer is
• 1:22:12
  people's. I think prize going to go with
• 1:22:14
  like The Proven guy and you're one I just that's my feeling I
• 1:22:17
  have on you or is it one of these where people's is the
• 1:22:22
  starter? But there's going to be times
• 1:22:24
  Hawk. Just give some a breather where
• 1:22:25
  maybe Hawks getting 15 a game. Out there.
• 1:22:31
  Yeah, I mean, I think there's it's going to still be a.
• 1:22:33
  I'm not saying there to you, go 50/50 on Iran reps here.
• 1:22:38
  But I think in terms of staff's, I think we'll probably see, you
• 1:22:44
  know, Hawk still probably pull about 30% of the steps in the
• 1:22:47
  game. Okay, yeah, I think they're both
• 1:22:50
  going to play. I agree.
• 1:22:53
  I mean I think push comes to shove like if you need one guy
• 1:22:56
  on the field, I think is going to be people's but you know, I
• 1:22:59
  think they're broken. Get some snaps.
• 1:23:01
  I mean I think it'll be a camp battle for sure.
• 1:23:04
  My pick would be peoples and then I think Hawkins will get
• 1:23:07
  some snaps for sure. I think I'll play again.
• 1:23:11
  I think we probably feel pretty good about the safety or 90
• 1:23:13
  Jalen strowman, you know, won the special team award.
• 1:23:16
  So he's obviously making strides and becoming part of the too
• 1:23:20
  deep there. But I think I look next year, I
• 1:23:26
  think it this is just this is projecting a year from now.
• 1:23:28
  We're talking. I think it people shows enough
• 1:23:31
  consistency. I think they're going to
• 1:23:32
  probably just simply move people back.
• 1:23:36
  If you can, if he continues to build and shows consistency that
• 1:23:38
  he can do it, they are they trust him to what they do it
• 1:23:41
  boundary they're just going to say we're going to send you
• 1:23:42
  back. We know Hawk can play here.
• 1:23:45
  We know we have to clean it up but playing boundary Little you
• 1:23:51
  make a mistake, it boundary, it's not a big, a deal because
• 1:23:54
  there are more guys around you, I think that's what they're
• 1:23:58
  aiming towards. All right, let's flip the
• 1:24:00
  corners. We hadn't heard Armani Chapman's
• 1:24:04
  name, a lot until last week but I think Saturday him and Dorian
• 1:24:09
  strong, put their stamps that they are the top two corners at
• 1:24:15
  Virginia Tech this fall. Yeah.
• 1:24:20
  I mean no question. I think Dorian strong needs to
• 1:24:22
  come out that sophomore. Slump though, righto boys.
• 1:24:26
  But I mean those are the guys. Those are those guys.
• 1:24:29
  I mean I think that was kind of etched in stone when we realized
• 1:24:33
  while I wasn't coming back. You know, I think that was it
• 1:24:36
  was pretty much said that it was going to be Chapman and strong.
• 1:24:38
  It was a natural fit. I mean Dorian strong made so
• 1:24:43
  many great plays as a freshman and then you saw him take some
• 1:24:47
  more chances last year and I think that that bit him a little
• 1:24:50
  bit, really good player. You feel comfortable with
• 1:24:54
  Chapman. He's been around forever, right?
• 1:24:58
  I mean you want to talk about, you know, consistency of peoples
• 1:25:02
  and being like yeah, he's been on the field more, he's got more
• 1:25:04
  experience. I mean you're not going to find
• 1:25:06
  it at shorter-term re-contour Dax hollifield like you're not
• 1:25:09
  going to find many guys with the an anti gar but I guess.
• 1:25:12
  Guess you're not going to find many guys with the experience
• 1:25:14
  Chapman. Like he's just he's been around
• 1:25:16
  forever. So this is kind of his moment to
• 1:25:19
  step into a more permanent role, be less of a rotational piece of
• 1:25:22
  corner and get in and kind of kind of prove that he can be
• 1:25:27
  that guy, right? He can be a number one or number
• 1:25:30
  two however 11a to whatever like he can be one of the top corners
• 1:25:34
  on the roster and we've seen him as a guy with potential for
• 1:25:38
  years. And when he's played, he's been
• 1:25:40
  pretty decent and And now he's got a really big role.
• 1:25:44
  So that let's see what, let's see, what that looks like, more
• 1:25:46
  snaps. Yeah, I mean it's going to be
• 1:25:48
  interesting to see if he steps in its kind of that that Alpha
• 1:25:50
  Dog in the corner back room. Because yeah, I feel like
• 1:25:54
  there's kind of a void there with Waller gone.
• 1:25:56
  I mean, our money's definitely the the Elder Statesman in terms
• 1:26:00
  of, you know, being on the roster for this long and you
• 1:26:04
  know, just on top of the number of reps he's had and snaps.
• 1:26:08
  He's played in games so yeah. I was a little disappointed in
• 1:26:14
  re on Marie's performance in the spring game.
• 1:26:16
  I think nobody is very, very up and down, made a couple good
• 1:26:20
  plays on balls but he, you know, he got beat both on both of the
• 1:26:24
  deep balls to Smith one. I think was looked like was man
• 1:26:29
  the first one and then the second was a cover six and he
• 1:26:34
  had the Hatfield and just gave up too much depth to early and
• 1:26:37
  Caleb meet him over the top and I will props to to Smith and two
• 1:26:41
  Wells on. At the, because it was a skinny
• 1:26:44
  post Smith, kind of been it back made.
• 1:26:46
  Sure he stayed to the right of the right, hash Wells, put it
• 1:26:48
  right where it needed to be. So Connor can come over.
• 1:26:50
  So that was a good play overall, but Marie, definitely the most
• 1:26:55
  inconsistent of the kind of the big three that we're expecting
• 1:26:58
  for that rotation. It's a bummer with married to
• 1:27:01
  you want to talk about guys who have stepped anything about the
• 1:27:04
  bowl game a few years ago and how well he played.
• 1:27:06
  And like it felt like every time he stepped in when, you know,
• 1:27:09
  somebody was hurt or you know somebody Was out a few snaps or
• 1:27:13
  whatever it felt like every time Marie Stephanie was making a
• 1:27:15
  play. And yeah, last year, didn't play
• 1:27:19
  a ton and 020 was all screwed up because a because of covid, you
• 1:27:23
  know, but man and Mer, he's another guy who's been around
• 1:27:26
  forever and I expected a better prefer.
• 1:27:29
  It's one day. It's I don't want to take too
• 1:27:32
  much out of a scrimmage that I think away was exactly the same
• 1:27:35
  bride like, Marie's been around forever.
• 1:27:39
  Now like you got it, you got to make start making.
• 1:27:42
  Start making some plays or at least you know like you like you
• 1:27:45
  mentioned that cover six play, they got burned by Caleb Smith
• 1:27:49
  like a veteran. Should not be making that type
• 1:27:51
  of mistake against Caleb Smith who's who's fast, but not a
• 1:27:54
  burner, right? But you can't be making those
• 1:27:57
  types of mistakes even in the scrimmage.
• 1:27:59
  So, it's killer. It's consistency.
• 1:28:01
  It's being here three years and still making the same mistakes
• 1:28:05
  you did. When you step foot on campus,
• 1:28:07
  where Armani Chapman. Give that guy credit, bron bron
• 1:28:11
  praised of how consistent he was.
• 1:28:13
  He like consistent every single play on Saturday rattling and
• 1:28:18
  that's what you looking for in the quarterback position.
• 1:28:20
  If you're consistent you're going to get beat, you're going
• 1:28:23
  to have guys catch balls, but if you're consistent you know six
• 1:28:28
  out of ten times, they're not going to be thinking about
• 1:28:31
  coming to you because they're know you're he's in good
• 1:28:33
  technique. He's on the right side of the
• 1:28:35
  shoulder it's going to be tough to get the pass and There we hit
• 1:28:41
  DJ Harvey. He got praised about how he's
• 1:28:43
  looked at the nickel. You know, we've been mentioning,
• 1:28:46
  is he big enough to go play the outsides and maybe that's why
• 1:28:51
  they're just talking about him, being at nickel.
• 1:28:55
  I think between this our safety, I think this is a room in Prime
• 1:28:59
  mention that this is a room. We go after.
• 1:29:03
  I think having Briana being older is definitely a good.
• 1:29:07
  Sell to someone with two to three years of Eligibility left
• 1:29:11
  but he's saying our three is gone.
• 1:29:15
  If you come here, you have that potential.
• 1:29:17
  Heck if you might have that potential this year, if you can
• 1:29:20
  go beat him out. Yeah like rr3 is gone and then
• 1:29:25
  like even you know projecting for like you mentioned a guys
• 1:29:28
  guys with a couple years eligibility left like Chapman's
• 1:29:31
  not going to be here too much longer, right?
• 1:29:33
  So you don't start looking kind of across the room.
• 1:29:36
  You know, Dorian strong has a has a really good year and you
• 1:29:39
  just say yeah, two out of three years.
• 1:29:40
  I was really good had like 11 year.
• 1:29:42
  I took a step back, I mean, you're basically like running
• 1:29:45
  opposite of Caleb Farley, right? We're Farley had a really get a
• 1:29:49
  one really good game when he was a freshman.
• 1:29:51
  That's like that. It wasn't.
• 1:29:52
  Very good. And then, you know, is a really
• 1:29:54
  good sophomore year and he's like, I'm sitting out the covid
• 1:29:57
  year and then he just dropped really.
• 1:29:58
  I, you know, strong is a kid with a good, you know, good size
• 1:30:04
  and he can really run and we've seen his ability and coverage if
• 1:30:08
  you put together a good year, does he make a job?
• 1:30:12
  You know, the answer is probably not but I mean I think you could
• 1:30:16
  sell it certainly if you're if you're out there, recruiting the
• 1:30:18
  portal. Yeah, no doubt I think you know,
• 1:30:23
  as you said I think there's definitely some potential to get
• 1:30:26
  one at least one. Maybe two in the, in the
• 1:30:29
  secondary altogether. I don't know if you want to get
• 1:30:31
  a fifth safety that you, you know, feel like can be counted
• 1:30:36
  on for significant snaps, you know, behind the 4p mention.
• 1:30:42
  But I think Corners definitely the more likely spot because you
• 1:30:44
  really do need a fourth that you can trust playing outside.
• 1:30:48
  And again, you talk about the cell.
• 1:30:50
  It's Yourself because, you know, Marie's probably not going to be
• 1:30:52
  here after this year potentially Chavis, not going to be after
• 1:30:55
  this year. And then even the potential with
• 1:30:57
  strong, depending on, you know, what output he puts this year.
• 1:31:01
  So, it's going to be interesting to see who we Target, and, and
• 1:31:06
  how many we end up grabbing? Absolutely.
• 1:31:09
  All right guys, let's hit the last position group and probably
• 1:31:12
  the number two position group. We're all worried about, that's
• 1:31:15
  defensive line. The guys we know did they did
• 1:31:20
  fine but I tell you after that, after like McCray Pollard,
• 1:31:26
  garbett fuga. I mean it was ugly.
• 1:31:34
  I'm patiently waiting for more cool, more coal, Nelson and
• 1:31:39
  patiently waiting for more stretch Carol, right?
• 1:31:42
  I'm pulling these coals, right, right?
• 1:31:48
  But this fall though, like projecting forward to the fall,
• 1:31:52
  like that's what I'm, that's what I'm patiently waiting for,
• 1:31:55
  right? It's like those guys to emerge
• 1:31:58
  and I know Cole was hurt. Staffs been talking, really
• 1:32:02
  highly of I'm right. Talk about, you know what kind
• 1:32:04
  of player you can be and want a staff was high on him to?
• 1:32:07
  I thought that was a really big get when they recruited him.
• 1:32:09
  I thought he was under, you know, I thought he was a bit
• 1:32:11
  under recruited. I thought he was a bit
• 1:32:13
  underrated on the recruiting Trail.
• 1:32:16
  Really good size, really athletic.
• 1:32:18
  Player has potential to be really good, I think.
• 1:32:21
  But yeah text going to need some production at defensive end in
• 1:32:25
  particular, right? You talk about you talk about
• 1:32:29
  offensive tackle, right in the outside, the offense of line.
• 1:32:31
  Like I think Virginia Tech's Yes.
• 1:32:33
  And the questions are a defense event.
• 1:32:36
  Yeah, who's going to be that other starter opposite garbage?
• 1:32:40
  That's going to make some noise who's going to be somebody in
• 1:32:44
  the 2D that you can really rely on to go out there and give you,
• 1:32:48
  you know, three or four quality series and really beyond that, I
• 1:32:53
  mean you want to have a solid 3D at the defensive line, you know,
• 1:32:59
  who were those, you know, five and six guys going to be across
• 1:33:02
  that that defensive line that can come in and defensive end in
• 1:33:06
  Still get pressure on the quarterback and slow down the
• 1:33:09
  Run. For those who are wondering,
• 1:33:12
  where the hell might just went Mike's.
• 1:33:14
  Dog is fell asleep in his kitchen.
• 1:33:17
  Hey, can I try to get him to storing only snoring?
• 1:33:22
  It's, we can go like walk out a shot.
• 1:33:31
  He's been, he's been a little under the weather.
• 1:33:34
  The last few days had a infection on his leg and
• 1:33:38
  walking's, been an issue in several.
• 1:33:40
  He's He's a four-year-old golden retriever.
• 1:33:42
  He's fine. Yeah, just got to give me some
• 1:33:43
  medicine. Will pop right back up, but now
• 1:33:46
  I the medicine makes him sleep real heavy.
• 1:33:48
  So there we go, great with this group as well.
• 1:33:57
  Is I don't even think possibility, I think it's a
• 1:34:00
  guarantee in to me, I don't think it matters where we go
• 1:34:04
  whether it's inside or outside, or both.
• 1:34:07
  And we we got to get stronger there.
• 1:34:10
  Think what? This goes back to and this is
• 1:34:12
  where I will completely bus. The old staff, we've talked
• 1:34:16
  about it complete roster mismanagement over the last two
• 1:34:20
  years, complete roster mismanagement.
• 1:34:23
  It's why we're had nine running backs but not enough you know
• 1:34:27
  not enough linemen or we had two tackles and nine guards.
• 1:34:32
  No Brian, how many times would you be?
• 1:34:33
  Like but it's another guard like we wipe out.
• 1:34:37
  You stop getting guys that were high school.
• 1:34:39
  Tackles that That are, you know, you're going to move them to
• 1:34:43
  guard. Like, what the hell are you
• 1:34:44
  doing, right? I mean, you see him at one
• 1:34:47
  position at the high school level and you're clearly
• 1:34:49
  recruiting him to another one to college level like stop
• 1:34:51
  recruiting the same guy over and over.
• 1:34:54
  It's always solved. It's true.
• 1:34:56
  Well guys, that kind of wraps up the spring game, what we're
• 1:34:59
  seeing obviously between now and really about four months from
• 1:35:05
  now about actually about three months from now.
• 1:35:07
  You know, we expect to see movement in all that.
• 1:35:10
  Because, you know, there are pieces missing on this team.
• 1:35:14
  But I also think with this coaching staff, a lot of these
• 1:35:18
  guys, potentially they recruited two and three years ago might be
• 1:35:23
  looking for a new home in. Luckily, that is where Brent pry
• 1:35:27
  has relationships. That is where like, Derrick
• 1:35:29
  Jones has relationships, where it could be a kid, they
• 1:35:32
  recruited in 2018. Still have the good relationship
• 1:35:37
  with let's make a call. Let's see if we can get this kid
• 1:35:39
  to come. All right, I'm going to flip
• 1:35:41
  over. Let's talk about the draft real
• 1:35:44
  quick. Obviously the Hokies have
• 1:35:47
  essentially 80. Maybe 90 a Parker only if you
• 1:35:50
  count the kicker will see the Smith.
• 1:35:52
  Amari bar know, James Mitchell, Loop, tenuta Jermaine Waller I
• 1:35:56
  guess last week, Jordan Williams Trey Turner and Blackshear.
• 1:36:01
  Let me get y'all's opinions, who is the first poke?
• 1:36:05
  Taken in the 2022, NFL draft. This would have been a layup.
• 1:36:13
  If James Mitchell didn't blow out is me.
• 1:36:15
  Oh yeah, the way up. I'm gonna I'm gonna go with
• 1:36:25
  Waller. Okay.
• 1:36:27
  Okay. So if barno had a really good
• 1:36:31
  year it would have been like I bar now.
• 1:36:33
  Physical freak. Right.
• 1:36:34
  Like can do a little bit everything and look that the pro
• 1:36:38
  Scouts can still look at them that way, right?
• 1:36:40
  Because physical specimen really athletic but we've seen what
• 1:36:45
  Waller can be when he's healthy. Like we know he's capable of
• 1:36:50
  being one of the best corners and yeah.
• 1:36:52
  DC, which is like, no slouch of a football ground rules, right?
• 1:36:56
  And yeah, really good receivers. End up playing in the NFL out
• 1:36:59
  the ACC and wall or strap at him up, you know, when he's at his
• 1:37:03
  best. So my pick is Waller, although
• 1:37:08
  if James Mitchell didn't blow the me out, I think we all know
• 1:37:11
  where this was heading right. I mean oh yeah looking for a
• 1:37:14
  pass rusher right. You'll have her pass rusher or
• 1:37:16
  you're looking for a dynamic playmaker on the outside and
• 1:37:20
  Mitchell can be that and borrowed.
• 1:37:22
  Be the pass rusher but Waller is a lockdown Corner that, you
• 1:37:26
  know, I think at his best, you know, you can, you can still get
• 1:37:29
  them like round three round four, potentially, because he's
• 1:37:32
  had this kind of up and down injury history but his upsides
• 1:37:35
  really, really good. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go
• 1:37:38
  with walk. All right, Curtis gotta hedge.
• 1:37:42
  No no. Okay, so with that being said,
• 1:37:47
  if I can't hedge, I'm gonna go, let's see this Smith.
• 1:37:52
  I think he's probably the Most consistent less volatile
• 1:38:00
  selection here because there, he's pretty much going to go
• 1:38:03
  where he's going to go. He there's not that like okay
• 1:38:06
  well he could go as early as early day two.
• 1:38:09
  When he could also go as late as in 27 middle to late of day
• 1:38:14
  three. He doesn't have that big window.
• 1:38:17
  I feel like he's kind of pretty much locked in to a much smaller
• 1:38:20
  window so that's why I'll go with him.
• 1:38:23
  But I'll say that to say this number one, I think.
• 1:38:27
  I know has the potential to go the highest just on his physical
• 1:38:31
  ability. All right.
• 1:38:32
  I'm this horrible person. By the way bra Kaufman, my bad.
• 1:38:37
  Yeah, brought so but continued just, yeah.
• 1:38:40
  So I think Barney has the potential to go.
• 1:38:42
  The highest just based on his physical traits.
• 1:38:45
  We've seen NFL teams in the past, take a flyer on a physical
• 1:38:51
  freak. Think of Bruce Irvin with
• 1:38:54
  Seattle, when that thing happened.
• 1:38:57
  Fire but nobody was killing them for it to remember everybody.
• 1:39:01
  Yeah, going in for it and he ended up being a pretty pretty
• 1:39:04
  damn good player for him. Thanks.
• 1:39:08
  Yeah. And so yeah, I think there's
• 1:39:10
  some potential there, not necessarily as high as Bruce
• 1:39:13
  went but I think you can see, you know, potentially early day,
• 1:39:17
  24 bar, no. But you could see as late as you
• 1:39:20
  know, late day to early day three.
• 1:39:22
  There's a pretty big window I think 44 where he goes.
• 1:39:27
  And then you said, Waller and while I agree with you at his
• 1:39:31
  best, I don't know if at this point, if they're if he's going
• 1:39:34
  to get some of the Caleb Fairley, stigma of the injured
• 1:39:37
  Virginia Tech quarterback. Yeah, I'm going into a draft.
• 1:39:40
  I think that's fair. All right, that's fair.
• 1:39:45
  I like you're sticking with your guys but it's going to be Barna
• 1:39:48
  in the reason is oh yeah, he's gonna be the first.
• 1:39:53
  For the reason is You can't teach the speed and bring him to
• 1:39:58
  the NFL, they're going to somebody's just going to like a
• 1:40:01
  wide. Not me.
• 1:40:02
  And Brian talked about our team's run a wide and I'm very
• 1:40:04
  similar. I forgot who's your teammate,
• 1:40:07
  Pats fan. Your pets fan, okay, here's what
• 1:40:10
  you love. All around defensive end.
• 1:40:27
  But you know what, we can do this first year, get out on the
• 1:40:30
  nine, put your helmet directly at the quarterback and run as
• 1:40:34
  fast as you can to him. And you know with the guy like
• 1:40:39
  him having that speed, I don't think a team of care.
• 1:40:43
  They'll just say he's our path from Specialists.
• 1:40:45
  We also see him put him on special teams.
• 1:40:47
  You can go track somebody down. I will say this.
• 1:40:52
  I think James Mitchell you talked about him in the lock, I
• 1:40:56
  think Mitchell is going to go higher because I think he tore
• 1:40:59
  his ACL at the perfect time. He tore his ACL at the perfect
• 1:41:04
  time where he's going to be getting right back into being
• 1:41:08
  able to participate in some of those camps.
• 1:41:11
  There's going to be someone around round for that's going to
• 1:41:14
  say this guy's a skillful guy. He's probably really a top 50
• 1:41:19
  player. We're going to get him about
• 1:41:21
  150. Or 120.
• 1:41:24
  We're going to take the risk because when we get to the mini
• 1:41:27
  camps in June, he's probably going to be just about ready to
• 1:41:31
  go. Yeah, I think they Virginia Tech
• 1:41:34
  did poorly for him, is that we didn't necessarily give Mitchell
• 1:41:37
  as much opportunity to show his skill.
• 1:41:41
  Set doing the same thing at the same time, you know, he did,
• 1:41:45
  show it in some areas. So and I think the NFL scout
• 1:41:48
  see, see the abilities so that the question is they going to
• 1:41:51
  say? Well, I don't care what the tape
• 1:41:53
  says that they didn't get him involved in the offense as much
• 1:41:55
  as they should have. We're taking a flyer.
• 1:41:58
  This is just what we do in tight end.
• 1:42:04
  On guys out there, I think I think six have a legitimate shot
• 1:42:08
  to get drafted. And I think all wind up on the
• 1:42:10
  roster somewhere. I think six because some of them
• 1:42:14
  have position versatility and things like that.
• 1:42:17
  I think six on, we're going to get drafted later rounds.
• 1:42:21
  Obviously, you know, best of luck to all of them, even though
• 1:42:25
  I'm sure we could probably sit here and two weeks and have a,
• 1:42:28
  an episode entitled, you should have stayed in school.
• 1:42:34
  I mean, I'll tell you what man, trade.
• 1:42:35
  Turn around a 443 or whatever the hell he ran.
• 1:42:38
  The combine is going to help. Yeah.
• 1:42:41
  Yeah, I have, I have questions about what Trey Turner was as a
• 1:42:47
  freshman versus what he could have turned into and didn't, but
• 1:42:50
  I don't know if that says more about Trey Turner more about the
• 1:42:53
  Departed coaching staff. So just felt like he was the
• 1:42:58
  same receiver, his entire career and I feel like what we saw when
• 1:43:01
  he was a freshman, we all thought he was going to be
• 1:43:03
  Isaiah Ford can't Phillips at receiver as we all called him,
• 1:43:06
  big play tray, but he never really turned into that guy.
• 1:43:10
  And, you know, him running a really fast, 40 at the combine.
• 1:43:14
  The fact that he catches everything, you know, he's not
• 1:43:18
  going to drop a lot of balls, right?
• 1:43:20
  And you know, I think he's got an opportunity to get drafted,
• 1:43:24
  whereas like, Going into the combine I'm like, I don't know
• 1:43:28
  if Trey Turner is going to be a guy.
• 1:43:31
  Who's going to realistically, be drafted.
• 1:43:34
  I felt like six or seventh round.
• 1:43:36
  Maybe now, I would be surprised speeding.
• 1:43:39
  Go just given kind of how he's how he's tested.
• 1:43:43
  Yeah, I agree. I think he's kind of in that, in
• 1:43:46
  that Fringe area. Now especially with his with his
• 1:43:49
  combine and I think he did pretty good as per day as well.
• 1:43:53
  So yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:54
  I think he was at to produce the same day.
• 1:43:59
  Yeah, yeah. To the same day.
• 1:44:01
  So yeah. What do you know, since we
• 1:44:12
  started And 45 minutes ago. I'm not seeing anything man.
• 1:44:17
  I think I think we're good to go get to call it.
• 1:44:20
  All right. Well we are going to wrap up
• 1:44:21
  this episode of The Boundary Corner podcast with our guest.
• 1:44:24
  Mike McDaniel, I'm Curtis Wilson.
• 1:44:26
  I'm Brian Sigler. Visit our website at boundary
• 1:44:28
  Corner V t.com. Listen to all of our episodes.
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  always we thank you for listening and let's go Hokies