Virginia Tech Football Fall Camp is Underway: TSL Podcast 247

[Music] welcome in hokies fans to this edition of the tech sideline podcast we record on thursday august 4th and on today's episode we got a little bit of everything after a couple interview podcasts we'll finally sit down and talk some football and recruiting news and begin looking ahead as we kick off the season in just under one month it's all coming up on the tech sideline podcast which starts right now [Music] [Music] we welcome you in whether you're listening on apple podcast spotify amazon music or a variety of other platforms or watching live or archived on youtube if you are on youtube make sure to like and subscribe while you're there and leave any comments in the chat for chris and david while you're there here's a fun one we've got a new presenting sponsor of tech sideline first bank and trust company one of the nation's leading community banks first bank and trust is a nationally ranked community focused bank with over 30 locations throughout virginia and northeast tennessee with additional presence in north carolina they offer free checking with industry bank industry leading mobile banking financing solutions for personal agriculture business commercial and mortgage needs and more visit www.firstbank.com to learn more well it's certainly good to be back joined alongside managing editor of techsideline.com david cunningham and lead analyst and columnist of tech sideline chris coleman katie adams with you here in the host chair it's officially august finally football will be played this month tonight actually right there's an nfl game i think there's a pre-season job raiders okay so nfl i'm not gonna college coming later i know some people will be watching yeah no virginia tech football this month it's more of a florida state duquesne if that's your cup of tea but it's exciting nonetheless i feel like i was just watching georgia win the national championship and here we are again preparing for another season our last season of coastal chaos david how are you holding up um i'm excited and i think i think i was actually chatting with a friend earlier um who uh who writes for a betting uh organization and he was just getting my thoughts on on the acc as a whole and i said you know what there are so many co new coaches in the acc there are four in the coastal and there are so many good quarterbacks like this is going to be it might not be the highest quality of football but it's going to be a fun quality of football yeah actually you know just quarterbacks are so important man that the acc could be a better league than that would think this year that's a very important position but yeah like you said like getting back it's kind of weird football is a unique sport like you and i are soccer fans and that season lasts 9 or 10 months and baseball season lasts six months plus another month for the playoffs and then you know basketball and hockey that you know they last over half the year football lasts like three months plus the balls and that's it yeah and uh it's so it's kind of tough being a football player because you actually only get to really play your sport for about a third of the year yeah and they spend what the entire month of august is going through fall camp which is horrible yeah so it's good to be back yeah i feel like this off season was a little bit different too because usually in the past virginia tech hasn't been so good at basketball and baseball and it's just been like when is football season coming next but now we had a treat this past all season with good basketball and baseball season so that's always expensive yes and softball all around we love it um but before we get into the meaty episode i wanted to acknowledge the new set decor we've got some tech sideline helmets one behind david and one behind myself if you're watching on youtube um so graciously given to us by clark rulin so shout out to him thank you so much for those we got everything with the helmets and the new red shirt license plate the tsl headquarters it's the best set yet we've had a lot of iterations of this set we have yeah i mean it's sad i wouldn't i wouldn't change this one very much i'll i think it would yeah well we besides the flashing light we had uh for so long we had the uh the little basketball and the uh the acc championship confetti on there but uh when we had brent pryon we had to put the uh one of the tsl football helmets on which rightfully so it's football season that's right well before i take up any more of the time let's jump into it fall camp started this week players reported monday august 1st and they've now had two days of practice with a third coming later today but following the practice yesterday both of you had good things to say about the dynamic linebacker position this year and you would hope that giving coach price background coaching linebackers and being a defensive coordinator what can you share about some of the guys in that room and their involvement you know uh david actually got to watch this and he put a great video of it on twitter as far as the linebackers versus the running backs and you know i think there's really four linebackers that i think are really athletic guys who i think could do a really good job running with with running backs and coverage and we saw that yesterday tisdale um you know you had uh jayden jenkins jayden keller and q you keeley kelly lawson uh i i think keller is probably my favorite young linebacker in the program i think he can do so much he's gonna play some this year at will and i wonder if he actually won't move to mike next year when dax leads yeah when dax leaves because i like pry would prefer more athleticism at mike than he currently has so i i do like some of the young linebackers in the program you know you've got you've got a sophomore there and jenkins and then a couple of redshirt freshmen that i think have excellent athleticism uh lawson actually had an interception later in practice yeah i think hockey said he tweeted it they did yeah they did so i think there's some solid young players there uh it will and sam i i would not say that mike has a solid young player yeah because it's three kind of it's kind of three veterans it's dax hollyfield keyshawn artists and dean ferguson who missed last season with an injury dean did most of it yeah yeah but but so doc's holly field is back for his fifth or sixth season sixth year i believe and keyshawn artist i believe has a coveteer next year if he wants it but like just in general three much older guys where the sam is a new position and you're dragging a couple young guys in there and and keonta jenkins keith lawson and j.r walker's there too from different positions from different positions yeah and then alan tisdale he's got a cove to your next year if he if he wants it but jaden keller is behind him and he's kind of i would say like you said the rising star of this linebacker group so it's going to be really interesting um i know it's something we you've written about the the recruiting this year recruiting linebackers you've got ace and stevens and a couple other linebackers coming in um because there are a lot of older guys that are going to be departing the program and and soon it'll kind of be like jayden keller will probably be like the face of the linebacker room come next year or two years from not just that but you know pry wants a distinct type of linebacker i think and he wants to fill that room with his type of linebacker sooner rather than later and i think he's doing that it will with asian stevens and you know he's targeted and got commitments from from a couple of guys who i would project as a sam right now also um don't know about mike yet which is uh why i kind of think maybe next year keller if he shows that he's physical enough this year we know he can run we know he can cover um now when you're at the will spot on the short side of the field on the boundary you have to play in a phone phone booth a little bit to a certain extent you got to be really really physical is he going to be able to be that physical that early in his career but you know bright future there coach pry was honest in saying that he wasn't entirely pleased with the way that the first practice went and i think that you can appreciate that coming from a coach he said in the past that he's not going to sugarcoat anything and he hasn't right off the bat he mentioned that he wanted them to be more competitive but what can you all think of as something else that needs to be improved in the practices to come leading into the season i'd say depth at certain positions yeah i think it's at some spots tech has solid depth but they don't at offensive tackle like they were playing walk owns and and natural offensive guards back in the spring at offensive exactly yeah i think they've worked on some of that this summer yeah got xavier chaplin is a massive human being i mean he makes uh silas jansey look small to a certain extent he's probably six six or six seven and about 350 pounds and he's getting he's playing left tackle right right now and i would be surprised if he didn't factor into the 2d i believe he was that he was a third straight they're going to start him off with the third third group of courses true freshman but they have to improve that depth at offensive tackle because you know if the season started tomorrow and either janzi or parker parker clements got hurt like i don't know how much the offense could actually function if they had to bring in one of their current backups it would probably be bob schick that that's scary and because he's a guard yeah so yeah it's like he i believe he was getting reps at with the twos at least yesterday and it was right but that's a problem i think i think the offensive line is kind of one of those areas where um where tech has so many guards and it's helpful when you need guys to play center but they've got johnny jordan at center so i don't need another center necessarily right now they got like three guys that could play center yeah and then they've got all these guards and they've got so few guys that are experienced playing tackle i think i think depth as a whole you know and we see it like on the defensive line too defensive end and tackle you know we kind of know okay josh fuga noral pollard mario kendricks those are kind of going to be the three up front i'm interested to see how how much progress some of the young guys um like gunner givens makes you know throughout the fall camp and so far this summer but like we know wilfred penae is going to be up there but i think as a whole like taiwan garbage locked down one end spot the other end spots kind of open you assume maybe jalen griffin but um but that that depth as i've told many people tech i think as a whole the starting 22 it's a pretty good team once you get into that too deep it's becomes a little bit risky and i think just building up the depth more getting the young guys more um acclimated to college i think that is going to be crucial throughout fall camp you mentioned earlier those practice videos that you posted on the emotion and coach prize voice it was certainly good to hear were there any players that you heard like stepping up as vocal leaders i don't you know they put us they put us over on the sideline so we're not close enough to the players to really hear what they're saying yeah but it's also if i feel like that's that part of fall camp like what we observed it's so i don't want to say close up but they're drills it's not like like that i think was a a special occurrence where you're seeing at the same time there were wide receivers going up against dbs in the indoor yeah i was watching um and he was watching that while i was watching the running backs and linebackers but in the end it's all drills it's not you know it's kind of like this the the staff saying okay hey do this and it's not like they're they're energetic about it but it's besides a little bit of chirping back and forth you know they're not it's not like they have to dictate what or step up as a leader and say hey you guys need to be doing this because they got coaches there to tell them that make sense yeah there's plenty of older players on this team yeah i mean dax is obviously going to be a vocal guy mark connor offense you've got some older guys too you've got your jansies you've got your johnny jordan's caleb smith is a guy who yeah who i think i mean they took him down to charlotte for a reason and he was well spoken yeah he did a great job and so you know and i think he's a hard worker who came here as a walk-on and earned a scholarship so people in that locker room will respect him so i think he's a candidate for that too okay lots of new faces on the team whether it's freshmen or transfers someone that fits into a category of his own is colbeck chris i know you were covering the team when he initially committed to virginia tech out of high school then he was a running back now he's a wide receiver thoughts on him yeah he came in and redshirted and i believe he broke his collarbone his very first semester that sounds right yeah because he came in in class of 2018 and then he read cherted and then he was on the roster in 2019 i don't know if he was actually on the roster in 2019 but he broke his collar bone at some point basically all right so you have to keep your expectations in check for for colbeck all right so he uh he has not played football and he's not played in a football game in five years and now you're asking him to play a position that he's never played before okay like uh that's very very difficult to do uh he's got a true he's got a lot of speed no question um i don't think he catches it naturally as far as like turning his body and then making a catch or catching it in traffic i would not be comfortable throwing a slant to him over in the middle where he's got to put his hands up in the air and catch it with a lot of defenders around him i feel like passes to the flat and on the outside when nobody's around him getting him space uh try to find some ways to maybe get him open deep where he's not in traffic i feel like those are the ways like you can use call back because speed is an asset but he's not going to be somebody who's going to come in here and be in the two deep at wide receiver and and have the knowledge of the passing tree where he's able to go out there and you know when you're a wide receiver you could be running one of four different routes on a play depending on how you read the defense and beck's not gonna be able to do that after playing after one preseason when he's never played receiver and he hasn't played football hadn't played in the football game in five years to begin with but i do think he'll he'll be a good tool to you he can be yeah absolutely and you can use him as a kickoff uh returner too and and let me say this like he's really he's done a great job i think in the weight room preparing for football season because it's a big being in track shape and being in football shape having a track body and having a football body or two different things i personally think he's made more progress in the weight room the last three or four months than a few of our past players you know who i'm talking about made in four years at virginia uh so i i think he's done a great job getting himself ready but i do think because of all those other factors like you have to limit your expectations i do think he's going to be play a specialized role for virginia tech but he's not going to be out there for 30 40 50 snaps in a game so lots of new additions but unfortunately attrition is also inevitable in football there valdarius payne the defensive end transfer from nebraska likely out for the season you hate to lose anyone but i think that we can still be excited about the defensive end room with guys like you said taiwan garbett eli adams jaylen griffin among others yeah i think so and uh i think payne was going to come in and certainly compete for a starting job and if he wasn't the second defensive end he would have been the third defensive end he's an experienced guy they were also probably going to slide him down to defensive tackle on third and long in obvious passing situations to get some more quickness uh on the field as far as a pass rush goes um to me that that's cole nelson's is now the starter i was gonna say cole nelson you got cj mcrae in there those are probably the four or five there's some young guys in there um cole nelson was the starter in the spring before he got hurt and missed the last four or five practices in the spring game he was the odd he was a starter opposite garbage and i think that will continue you know when i went down to charlotte i asked some of the players to name some young players in the program that are standing out to them more than anybody else that have really good futures and i always like asking players that question rather than saying what do you think about this guy what are you thinking about that guy because they're always going to give you positive answers they're not if they don't think somebody's good they're not going to tell you yeah that guy stinks right they're gonna start they're gonna be positive so but when you ask them hey name some guys that you think are gonna be really good um silas janzi named cj mccrae and he named cole nelson he's gotta go up against those guys on a daily basis and you know dax also named uh mccray yeah silas janzi who you know offensive tackle he's used to blocking cole nelson he said nelson is exceptionally strong and he's tough as nails that's what that came from veteran sixth year player silas janzi who probably ought to know what he knows what he's talking about by now so i feel good about some young defensive ends in the program and yes you're right even with the loss of pain i i don't i don't think tech has like a true sack master at that position we'll say and you know tech fans are used to you know in the 90s coming up where every year somebody had 10 or 12 or sometimes even like 18 sacks like corey moore but i don't think tech has had a defensive end get double-digit sacks since it's probably daryl tap yeah yeah so that doesn't happen anymore but uh so i don't think like somebody's gonna come out there and and and be like first team all acc and get double-digit sacks but i do think it'll be a solid group though yeah and i think it's a it's a group that considering i think the most talented players the most physically gifted players of that group are a couple of or a couple of the youngest younger so i think that group's going to get better steadily over the next few years that's what i was going to add so you've got taiwan garbage jalen griffin and eli adams those are kind of the oldest guys in the room then you've got kind of the rest and there there's kind of a little bit of a gap because it's cj mcrae cole nelson matthias carroll jordan mcdonald um and then the two freshmen um burgos and moyston so there's a clear gap between the three oldest guys in the room that have kind of stuck around for a really long time and then the rest and you're gonna see probably carol nelson and mcrae kind of separate themself and obviously nelson will get get a lot of playing time and the other two probably will too but um but for the future it'll kind of give those other two two or three young guys that have you know mcdonald transferred or moved over from the position recently i guess in the spring so um you don't have to play guys before they're ready yeah they'll have time to develop and stuff so i think as a whole very young leaning room but i think it's a it's a pretty solid room payne would have added a lot of depth but uh you know that's football those are injuries we've talked a lot about the defense i don't think that's criminal to say that the defense is going to be the shining the shining spot of this team and compared to the offense but like you said you guys both went down to charlotte and got to hear from guys like caleb smith and silas janzi who are part of the offense what other guys on offense should we look for in this year i really like malachi thomas and what he did last year i think he's a natural runner and i think he's a good fit for the inside zone which virginia tech will run a lot a lot of this year and you remember the two long runs he had against syracuse last year they were both those inside plays and i just think he's got good vision he doesn't have like elite speed like lee soggs but his body build and his vision kind of remind me a bit of lee suggs and i'm not saying he's going to be the next lee suggs but i i mean for what he did as a true freshman was was impressive uh he's filled out a little bit more this year and he'll continue to do so as uh as his career progresses but uh so to me he's a guy that i think could surpr he's he could be a sneaky pick for like 1 000 yard rusher this year i think he's a good player yeah i would say so we we talked to caleb smith a lot and uh you know the the same duo or trio of of dwayne dwayne lofton jalen jones and down right that's kind of been the trio that um has gotten a lot of praise praised by fuente staff and and now praised by this staff and caleb smith mentioned those those guys and i'm interested to see brent pride did mention yesterday after practice that the wide receiver room has taken has made some strides he didn't say how you know what the strides were but but he did say they have taken strides and he didn't say fontell mines a wide receiver coach has been doing a good job of them so i'm interested to see we know that caleb smith and temple transfer jaden blue we know those are going to be the two options whether they're one or two but tech is going to need dwayne lofton dallin wright jaylen jones those guys christian moss to step up you know tucker holloway benji gosnell you know some of the there are a lot of young guys in that room but there are a couple guys that have been in the program for two-ish three years now those are the guys that you should be seeing i would think some development in now and with a new offensive coordinator new system new wide receiver coach you would think and from what it sounds like those guys are making strides and i'm interested to see how much of an impact they can have this year because it cannot just be smith and blue besides strength conditioning and things like that my biggest pet peeve about this program has been wide receiver development and i have seen them develop since the spring i didn't think they were very good at all at the beginning of the spring and i thought they were better at the end of the spring and i thought they were better yesterday than they were at the end of the spring so i'm not saying that they're going to go out there and dominate the league but it's what i've always said you you sometimes people think there's no talent but a lot of the times it's just because your talent isn't being properly developed and i think you've seen that the case with with some players at virginia tech that they were receivers and they didn't get better over the course of their careers and uh you know when i asked caleb smith down in charlotte you know well first of all all three players down in charlotte the first name they mentioned when i asked about young players was lofton yeah so first guy they mentioned but and then they said but i think most tech fans know who he is because he did have a couple big games like he had a couple big catches in the miami game right last year right but uh caleb smith mission christian moss yeah so that he's tall he's fast and he's got good strength he's just got to you know learn how to play and everything like that and sure enough i saw him catch a deep ball for a touchdown yesterday and i saw darling wright catch a deep ball for a touchdown and i saw tucker holloway get behind dj harvey and burn him for a touchdown and the quarterbacks were putting the ball with the money yeah i will say the quarterback said we're throwing the ball really well yesterday well yeah like and i've said that since i thought since since brown jason brown transferred in and grant wells transferred in like if we can't make any plays down the field this year it's not going to be the quarterback's fault because they've got plenty of arm yeah um so yeah i think i i'm i'm encouraged by what i've seen as far as their development goes and i'm not again i'm not saying we're gonna have a first team or even a second team all acc player in there but but that group has gotten better collectively since the start of the spring so that's 17 practices total and i think they've made a lot of strides from practice one to practice 17. yeah and i think i think the biggest thing in year one for brent pry offensively when you're still trying to build it and you're still trying to develop the young guys so they can be your future because you know right now the the building block is all of the old veterans that have stuck around you know that stuck around to help build up the culture for this season caleb smith silas janzi you know some of those older guys jaylen holston right well you've got really good talent in the running back room like maokai thomas okay but if the def if defenses you're facing know you're going to run the ball every single time it's not going to work right it needs to be a balance and if and if you can get some balance out of lofton wright moss jones that help caleb smith and jayden blue so it's you know and you've also got a really strong tight end room if it can be a balanced offense i'm not necessarily saying they're going to be really good but if it can just be a non-one-dimensional where you don't have to run the ball every single time i think that's going to go a long way especially when it comes to development and being able to get guys on the field that kind of leads me to my next question obviously lots more to come as fall camp continues in football media day is next week david and chris i'm sure he'll both be there but the acc preseason poll and preseason team selections were announced last week virginia tech picked to finish fifth in the coastal their lowest ranking since joining the conference also didn't have anyone selected on the all acc preseason team obviously it is preseason so you don't read into it too much but does virginia tech have a chance to kind of flip the script and make a name for themselves or is that just the reality with the new coach oh you know i i think they can be a good team this year i think depending on turnovers injuries uh whether they convert their red zone trips into touchdowns or fuel goals things like that like little things i think they can go anywhere between four and eight and eight and four you know based on those i mean you look look at last look at last year's team they were two plays away from going four and eight they were three plays away from going nine and three and so if everything had gone right for virginia tech football last year and all those close games they would have gone nine and three if everything had gone wrong they would have gone four and eight and i think you can say that for a lot of teams i mean the way the talent is stacked at the top of college football these days you know we complain about parity because only a few teams have a chance to compete for a national title and that's true enough but i i do think that makes things a little more even in the middle for everybody else i think there are more teams like virginia tech that are so that are close to being good and also close to being not so good so that's why it's important to be good at the little things that's why player development is is so important if our player development was just a little bit better we could have gone 8-4 last year i think just a little bit better um so i and i but i think you can i think you can make an argument a strong argument for virginia tech finishing anywhere between third and fifth in the coastal division uh i think miami's the clear cut number one i can definitely see why people would pick pitt number two but i even could take some some issues with that because they lost their best quarterback since dan marino they lost their best wide receiver since larry fitzgerald yeah and and you're gonna put them in the top 20. it just doesn't seem like pitt is the type of program that reloads year by year after that and their recruiting isn't good either right so to speak they're now where they're playing better their development their player development's awesome like people always like our fans complain about tech recruiting and we almost always have a higher ranked recruiting class than pitt yet they were both in this right yeah exactly and completely developed players reminder virginia tech guys do go to formerly heinz field this at least that's not heinz fuel yeah what is it i don't know i don't know it's some long name and we're going to call it hindsville but no i think i think i think the good thing is and this kind of plays into virginia tech's hands you know there are three programs that did not turn over head coaches in the coastal north carolina pitt and georgia tech somehow um after this year a different story yes [Music] but so it's four first-year head coaches right tony elliot's kind of in the same situation as brent bry he's still you know trying to learn the ropes and get his program where he wants it let me hijack so they had their big barbecue this past weekend at uva for their recruiting cav cookout yeah you will yeah guess how many players show how many recruits showed up i'm scared to ask one they organized a whole barbecue for one recruit but he felt special interesting that's funny so there was this huge thread that there's this message board geniuses the twitter account yeah so they found a bunch of uva posts from from one of their boards and and fans they're really like they're i'm not gonna say the fan base is turning on tony elliot but the people who play pay close attention to recruiting are really mad at tony elliot right well anyway anyway anyway you guys mike elko at duke mario crystal ball at miami all these head coaches are in the same spot chris ball has the advantage one it's miami but two he's been a head coach many other places before but i do think it's kind of an open coastal division like always like that's the last coastal craziness yeah last year coastal chaos i mean it usually is an open division but like i picked pitt just because they have the most guys returning and they didn't have a coaching turnover and you don't trust miami and i don't trust my aunt they're not falling for the trap this year but i am but but i do think that like i think it'll come down to injuries yeah number one turnovers and all the other little things will be right behind it but like you know virginia tech can stay healthy like the hokies had so many guys injured last year yeah left and right and then like it you know you think about it james mitchell had never gotten hurt we probably would have won the last virginia game that's the thing james mitchell got hurt in the second game of the season braxton burmeister was hurt most of the seasons yeah half the offensive line was hurt half the year so like you know even trey turner you know got hurt multiple times i mean there were you could go down the list and it's injury injury injury that's just part of the game you know like he said earlier if parker clements or silas janzi gets hurt we're going to be it's going a long season but if tech can stay primarily healthy and i'm curious to see you know how that holds up i think tech can be pretty good i i think you know tech's not going to go out and and steamroll anybody and they're not going to go out i really didn't surprise anybody i don't think but but i do think that brent pride wants to just get back to hard-nosed football and i do think it's possible but like if you got you know if you don't have much depth behind your starters and your starters get injured there's only so many places you can go and you asked about preseason players the only preseason player i held on my ballot from tech was parker or parker peter moore i was gonna say parker romo uh peter moore yeah the punter and uh you know i don't really think anybody else i don't wanna say didn't deserve it but i think there's not necessarily any all acc caliber players that are better than the other players up for vote at other schools and that's just kind of what is left in the program that brent price working with yeah no you project improvement that's true yeah like uh who has the highest ceilings i think the right side of virginia tech's offensive line park uh parker clements this guy started every game as true freshman last year for what turned out to be a good offensive line yeah and they played well and you know assuming they progress which yeah that's been an issue with certain positions for virginia tech the last few years uh if players not developing but that hasn't been in a case with the offensive line and you know joe rudolph is going to be developing those guys and he's got a great history at wisconsin so i think either one of those guys is a candidate to be on some all acc team at the end of the year um i think malachi thomas is a candidate i i think dorian strong is is a good player yeah i think chapman's a good player i'm really interested to see the safeties because virginia tech safeties have a habit over the last few years of starting their careers off strong and then either not progressing or flat-out getting worse and i i think there's more talent than that um so if those guys start going in the in the right direction like you know you saw nasir peoples go out and dominate north carolina last year and then it was just a steady decline for him the rest of the season um i know he's more talented than that though because if he can if he can play that well against those unc receivers then he can play well against anybody um so i i want to see those guys start moving in the right direction like tech went six and six last year and that was with player development at approximately 50 percent of the positions not being good yeah let's see where player development is now at least decent at every position i mean they could get considerably better yeah and i think i think by the end of the season when we're sitting down talking about i think tech will probably have two or three at least all acc guys because i think they will reap the benefits of this new player development and how good it is i mean i wrote an entire feature on just dwight galt in the weight room and the culture and everything and i know wrote another one on the sports science and tech is investing so much into player development and that side of it that they're going to get better but of course when everybody does these ballots everybody's looking at last season and what you've done in the past and you know it's not a projection based thing when it comes to players it's more of a okay what have you done for me lately and you know i'm not surprised that no tech players got picked just because that you know no tech player really stood out last year now at the same time you know we're paying close to the attention of this and taking those lists seriously but at the same time georgia zach got a first place vote yeah it's also true i mean who's voting that's the same person that's probably the same person i don't know if they're even gonna win a game this year that's probably the same person that got into sec media days and gave a sec title vote for vanderbilt yeah so it's it's just i don't know see so you look at some of those voting habits and you're like i don't know so what did like nine different teams got to pick to win the acc this year yeah um which i don't quite we know you genuinely don't think that i could generally vote for clemson i could genuinely vote for nc state i could generally vote for miami maybe pitt wake forest maybe wake but four to five teams nine nine teams do not know i mean like i think virginia got involved yeah so like i don't even know who's doing these voting anymore and whether we should even take it seriously i know you vote but yeah i voted for nc state your votes were acceptable your votes could make you make sense yeah georgia tech i think i'd really have to come up i'm pretty sure i had georgia tech deadlines like i would love i would yeah i mean i probably would too either duke i would love to hear the reasoning beside picking jordan yeah georgia tech first place i just i don't make sense yeah well it's going to be a shorter episode so we're going to keep going and not take a break but i want to take a look at the schedule because it's not an easy schedule the fact that the crossover this year is nc state at nc state that doesn't help west virginia coming after losing up there that doesn't help and then odu and liberty are certainly not cupcake games um so this is a two-part question first question is which game does virginia tech have the best chance to get a signature win in uh you know i guess it depends on what you consider fine signature win anytime you win in pittsburgh i think it's a signature win for virginia tech maybe probably not a signature win for like as far as national media and things like that goes um i think people would pay attention if we beat nc state on the road on a thursday night i also consider that the least likely win of the year because i think nc state is really good um i don't think people are going to be fooled by by north carolina again this year so i don't if virginia tech wins that game i don't think that'll fool anybody into thinking that's a signature win so i don't i don't know like nc state would be a signature win i just don't think it's likely um pit i don't know like let's look at west virginia and miami those are yeah i was gonna say i think well miami so miami miami do you think they're more likely to beat miami than west virginia no it's it's just that i don't consider west virginia's signature way like their coach is on the hot seat like like did they even finish 500 last year uh they probably finished at five hundred yeah i mean yeah so my whole thing is i can't like if you go down the schedule and say signature wins it's nc state and that's like like maybe you could maybe convince me pit and miami if they don't come to their end of this okay yeah but but so like right now like i think that could beat miami at home i don't think that's too far-fetched i think tech could beat west virginia i i think nc state's the game tech probably won't win i think i a tech beating pit at pitt would be huge just because it's so never do it rare yeah but but i think just it's like i remember exactly where i was the last time tech won in pittsburgh uh that was like 2015 or 16 right it was first it was the it was the lobster it was the lob all three receivers had over 100 yards yeah i think i think just in general it's like marquee wins with this schedule are going to be so tough to come by but i do think there are a lot of chances for a lot of good like quality wins because like you know assuming boss assuming phil drakovic doesn't get hurt again i think boston college will be a seven a seven or eight win team right they have star power because like like i think quarterback and a wide receiver that's what i mean experience i think some i think some of these teams will be i think the acc will like assuming you know if boston college doesn't get plagued with injury i think boston college would be an alright team that'd be a good win for virginia tech brent price first ever winning in lane stadium oh heck that'd be a great great first win at night you know i think some of these teams like north carolina i'm not really sure how how well to judge north carolina because they've had so much talent in recent years they're capable and haven't been able to do anything but when's the last time a mac brown coach team whether at north carolina or texas actually lived up to the hype i will say i will say getting a win in chapel hill would be big you know so i think i feel like it's not hard to win at chapel hill it's the only thing well what life tech fans love to beat north korea nonetheless last time tech went to chapel hill was the last game i remember was the one in the hurricane game no no 2018. it was the one in 2018 the rott ronaldo's fourth downscreen ryan will well when north carolina was about to score and they got down to the goal line and then yeah i forget who it was punched punched the ball straight up in the air and tech grabbed it and then went went down the field and it was like ryan willis roll out like little back screen to dalton keene in the end zone for the 90-yard 14-point swing somehow i was there yeah i just remember being mind-blowing but i do think like this is a solid first schedule for brent pry and there are a lot of winnable games you know you're not necessarily it's not like you're going you got to go to miami it's a very travel easy schedule you know you get uva at home like the nc state game that's the big one just because nc state should be a top 10 top 15 team you would think it's a thursday night game and it's a thursday night game in raleigh but um but i think in general there are a lot of good opportunities where if you if you went down the list and said virginia tech wins this game i'd be like that's like that's not a bad win you know now speaking of unc katy lived in chapel hill this summer yeah you know the saying you know keep your friends close and your enemies closer katie was the spy next summer we're going to send david to morgantown probably to spend the summer we're just kidding i'm just kidding david but no how how was how was chapel hill i loved it a lot as much as i hate to say i had a really great time in chapel hill going in i thought that it was kind of like the same size as blacksburg town wise but chapel hills downtown scene versus blacksburg's main street i think chapel hill is like three times it's much bigger yeah they have a lot more dining and restaurants and bars and shopping and things like that so i loved it the plan is to hopefully go there for grad school and sports administration that is if i get in so that was kind of a test run this summer to see if i enjoyed it um but on the on the other end of the stick you would say that the game that you're least confident in winning is at nc state i think so just because i mean i think they're going to be the best team in the in the conference i think so yeah i mean they might be like well i think i think if they're not one they're if they're not one they're probably two yeah they're very good i mean they're well coached yeah like i think it's mostly just because i have questions about clemson that's fair i mean when you lose both coordinators that's and you don't know how good your quarterback's gonna be exactly yeah i think that's fair yeah so what does this team need to do for it to be a successful season under year one brent pry i i just want to see player development like uh and i don't if i see player development i i think we'll we'll feel good about the number of wins tec tex gets this year uh i just want to get to the end of the season and say okay these players are better now than they were when brent pry took over um that's what we lost the last few years like justin fuente's last staff at memphis was better than his last staff at virginia tech because when he lost holman wiggins he couldn't replace him um when he lost uh gayle and scott he he he didn't replace him um you just go down the list yeah yeah guys right when he lost of course he was of course he wasn't going to be able to replace that foster to a certain extent yeah and just i think justin hamilton did follow through right but like i think hamilton did fine as a defensive coordinator per se i just don't know about the safety development and uh and the linebacker development for for to that point but you know his running backs coach at uh memphis is the offensive coordinator at texas a m yeah right uh daryl dickey um he had oh obviously uh odom is a defensive coordinator he's been a head coach in the sec in missouri so justin fuente's last staff at memphis was better than his last staff at virginia tech so as he started losing those key pieces throughout his tenure our player development which was pretty good at first in his tenure just dropped off a cliff so i that's i want i want to see it start start going in the right direction i think virginia tech has all the tools i mean again we've written about it we've talked about it the sports science the nutrition the weight room the new student student athlete performance center all the tools are there they just kind of have to put it all together and i i think that that's a good point um i think on the field a successful season is going to a bowl game i i honestly i genuinely think and it was interesting because i asked caleb smith um you know kind of what what goals like for the team he had this year he's like i want to win a bowl game he's like virginia tech hasn't won a bowl game since the belk bowl against arkansas oh wow that is yeah like he's like i want to win a bowl game and you know i do think that would get the program off on on the right track i think winning six at least six games and getting to a bowl game is is a good start considering where how empty the the cupboard was when brent probably got here you know and how there's not that much depth if if we can tell improvement uh in depth like depth built up both throughout fall camp and once we get into the season that guy's like you know you just go down the list of younger guys that will will have an impact in the next couple years but are showing signs of it now i i think that will be good um but i think just in general you know if you can show on the field if you can get six or so wins if you can go to a bowl game if you can show kind of the trajectory on the field that your program is heading because everybody just looks at wins and losses you know i i think that will help in terms of recruiting and making the program more attractive and i think that goes a long way we'll talk a little recruiting do some fan questions and then we'll get out of here the richmond pipeline has been running strong right now fontel mines is doing a great job recruiting that area it's kind of been a little bit of a hotbed for the hokies as of late versus the 757 which you would hoped it would be all those years in the past um picked up two commits um this past july from that area christian williams a wide receiver out of collegiate and cameron cameron fleming a cornerback out of trinity thoughts on those guys huge fan of fleming personally i think he's got the physical strength already to play right away um from a build standpoint he reminds me of armani chapman he could end up playing safety or corner in college but uh you know i i think you could make a stronger argument that virginia tech will end up signing the best two corners in the state between him and braelyn johnson and they're both from richmond um williams i think he could play wide receive reward db uh he's got to add strength that that's his main thing but but he's a quality athlete from from a good school in richmond i'm i'm happy to see virginia tech doing well in richmond richmond is is of the three main areas in virginia richmond is the area that i always see more virginia tech stickers in richmond than i do the 757 or nova like nova yes i understand that there's hokies in nova but it's so many people from the other part of the country living in northern virginia right it's it's really too i did it's tough to identify with with northern virginia because half over half the people that live there aren't actually from there they just moved there they just moved there for work yeah richmond's different like if you're from richmond you're from richmond for the most part i'm from richmond you're from richmond and uh you know the 757 is its own animal but you know i've always felt like virginia tech's best chance in the state of virginia where i feel like virginia tech can be sold the best in the state of virginia is with richmond people so i'm really happy to see the focus going there yeah um can we talk should we talk about brent pry on stage announcing cameras oh yeah that's right because that was hilarious oh yeah were you were you in the room i had the article written up in advance right because this always happens to you we knew we knew fleming was going to commit the tech but we we knew his press conference started like two at a school but we didn't price started at 2 15. well i mean fleming was gonna commit at two fleming's yeah but his ceremonies oh yeah his ceremony so we didn't know whether the commitment was was going to take place at 202 or 225 or depending on how the ceremony how long the ceremony took so after like 15 minutes i'm like you know well i'm just waiting for the announcement to be made so i can click submit on my order yeah never happened finally i leave and i'm like i'm just going to go listen to pride talk and of course as soon basically as soon as i sit down and and probably starts talking that's what fleming commits yeah and brent price up on stage oh we just got another commit and it's like probably 220 like five minutes into his press conference and this is fine because it all it's gonna work out for virginia tech now i'll tell you a similar story about one that i spent an hour on on a friday night one day i know it was a saturday you know yeah it was a saturday actually it was his defensive tackle and i don't even remember remember his name he was he was committed on a radio show at a certain time so i i get online get on the radio station i think it was like six or seven o'clock on a saturday night in the summer i'm like i haven't got much better things to do than listen to what this 17 year old thinks he's going to school but anyway uh so i do it anyway and for the first 15 minutes the radio host talks to his high school coach about the player and then they take a break and they come back and they interview the player for like 30 minutes about recruiting so here we are it's like 7 45 and he still hasn't made an announcement after there's like two or three commercial breaks finally they come back like after like an hour or a little more he makes his announcement so i'm sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting and finally he announces he didn't even oh and in early december he got a florida offer and decommitted in sign of florida and i'm like what a waste of a perfectly good saturday summer night you always like yeah yeah no that one worked out and it was it was funny because it got you know all of the the national media that was there yeah got aroused from national media that wasn't planned by the way but bruno what was he asked he kind of had a smirk on his face i think it's tough from from fleming's perspective to to know my my guess is when he walked up on stage he hadn't gotten the commitment yet and he said all right text me and then i will make then then i'll make a scene yeah because because uh yeah because he he definitely knew you know they knew that they knew times were going to coincide to a certain extent but anyway it was it was a show and to your point to your original question no virginia tech has done a pretty good job on the recruiting trail so far um does that what 16 commitments now 17 16 or 17 17 and i think about half of them are from virginia so it's a it's a good balance all right we'll get into a couple fan questions and then we'll get out of here two-part question from wayne kent first is taj bullet going to be used this season you know that's a good question and i've always been against in the past like virginia tech's had similar quarterbacks in the past for the most part it's like people are like are we gonna play quincy patterson and i'm like well i mean hendon hooker can run the exact same play and he's faster it's not as big but he's even faster so there's no point really in bringing in quincy patterson for one play when hidden hooker can probably do the same thing except do it better um when you have different style quarterbacks like like bullock is is a better runner than the two guys that are ahead of him he's certainly a better runner than brown um so i i could see a situation this year where he could potentially be used in in some sort of a package because he's he's so different from the two guys that are ahead of him so i don't think it's impossible but i probably doesn't seem like the type the he seems like a more straightforward yeah i don't think he's going to be a guy that's going to sit there and rotate quarterbacks i think he's just like i got my guy we'll we'll work with it yeah maybe we'll see cold back at quarterback who knows you didn't do it at all in high school that i'm aware of all those games that i spent watching him at blacksburg high school but um wayne kent also says will we get another iconic david cunningham picture i owe to you this year oh god oh yeah no that was a great i'll be there especially because i can go i can go home on like wednesday and spend the night at my house so and see my my parents and everything for those wondering there is a picture of david it's a television picture from the game it's the uh it's an unsportsmanlike conduct photo david case he went to blackburn high school um he uh he took the photo and like of course it's probably like fourth quarter i'm not paying because you're down on the sidelines i was down on the sideline because they don't because odu's field is so small or was before they renovated it that they did not have enough room so they put me on the sideline and so like i'm i'm what a sophomore or junior sophomore i think and uh and my guess is it was the trayvon hill in sports and like conduct but i don't remember you don't remember what i don't oh i don't know i don't remember because i didn't know it happened until like i got a couple texts and people like people were like tweeting at me like you know like unsportsmanlike conduct and i'm just like okay whatever like i didn't i didn't i didn't even know it happened um like that i was on camera my guess is they were panning to the sideline yeah probably but yes hopefully i don't know where i'll be but we'll try to recreate it we'll see hopefully i don't sport somebody contact on od yeah michael moore says what areas on offense and defense do you see improving the most this year well i would say wide response just like because they were going down it was like the development was like such a flat line yes maybe even down to a certain extent with a few guys here and there but like development had flatlined so even like even marginal improvement is in comparison a big improvement in my opinion yeah so so to me my answer on on offense is a wide receiver defense i would actually say uh probably safety because it's kind of a similar thing at safety i think it's uh like players were actually in some cases regressing yeah it's safety and so even if they're again there's just marginal improvement that's actually a big improvement when you compare it to yeah i think i might i might go linebacker defensively that would have been my bro i mean brent pry is a linebacker guy yeah um and it was funny because in the in the if you go back and watch the video i tweeted yesterday brent price is getting animated and somebody asked him afterwards you know was that you being a linebacker's coach again and he was like you know a little bit i kind of slipped back into that but i i think you got to remember he's going to be calling the plays for the most part this year you know he's going to be kind of showing chris marv the ropes a little bit um but i also think that you know chris marve knows what he's doing in terms of developing linebackers um i'm really curious to see especially with the sam linebacker and uh with sean quinn you know keonta jenkins j.r walker keith lawson those are three guys that can make a ton of strides but they've never played the position before so it's not like they've i guess have prior knowledge of it so they're kind of going and blind or at least they were when they made the transition um positionally in the spring so i'm i think they i think that position will develop a lot um especially you might see with young guys like jaden keller you know who knows there will certainly be lots more to talk about next week as practices continue but that's going to do it here on episode 247 of the tech sideline podcast thanks as always to the crew chris coleman lead analyst anne columnist you can follow him on twitter at chris coleman tsl david cunningham managing editor of techsideline.com he's at the real decana on twitter myself i'm katy six adams on twitter nick brown in his new role producing behind the scenes thank you nick signing off on episode 247 of the tech sideline podcast i'm katie adams we'll see you next time [Music] so [Music]