2024 Hokies Preview Panel

0:23 Music. And welcome back to the Boundary Corner Podcast. Along with my partners Brian Siegler, Jonathan Tally and Shelton Moss, I am Curtis Wilson and this episode is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts down at the Main Street pharmacy, your friendly neighborhood pharmacy, three O 1 S Main St., Blacksburg, VA Gentlemen, tonight I think, as the kids say, I think we got a banger absolute. Banger I, I put it out there in the X sphere, the Twittersphere earlier.

1:18 Definitely one of my favorite episodes that we do every year at this point. This is now the third year in a row that we put this one together. The 2024 preview panel. It's right up there. We stated the program in the lexicon of our episodes. It's something I get excited about. We always have a drink. So cheers, cheers, cheers. Look how far we done come. I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even own the first one. I know. I don't even think I watched it. I think I I I watched it afterwards, but I don't think I watched it live. I wasn't on it. Hey, we were shooting bad. What was that, 2022? That was a rough year, man. Yeah, Hey, that was a rough year, man. But guess what?

2:01 We here now, baby 2024 preview panel. We got Young Sheldon in the building, Curtis in the building, Brian in the building along with a heap of guests coming on. I think everybody should be feeling good right now. Yeah, man, we got a, we got a crew that's deep again. We're rolling 10 deep with panelists this year. We got 3 segments. We're going to kind of break them down into kind of their own little, little themes here. So me and Tally got the first segment coming up here in just a moment. It's the fun Bunch 2024. It's going to be a blast. Can't wait to introduce those guests. Panel 2, we got Hokie's height by the numbers.

2:44 We're going to take a statistical dive into kind of what the height for this 2024 season's all about. And then last but not least, segment 3, What does being back look like? And that we're just going to take a look when we see something at some point in the future, What's what's that going to look like? How what's it going to feel like when the Hokies are finally back into that national relevance? I feel like we're kind of climbing into that segment right now. So fellas, how we feeling I. Feel great, Feeling good. I feel great. All right, all right. So what we're going to do, I'm going to go ahead and Curtis Sheldon, we'll see you later. We got there, we got there.

3:30 All right, so without further ado, let's introduce the panelists for the Fun Bunch 24 segment one. And we got to start with the guy that helps us out here. He pays the bills. He fills your pills. Your friendly neighborhood pharmacist, Lord Doctor Jeremy counts. Oh hey, hey everybody. It's good to be live. I love it when we do this. He's back, he's ready. He's got a drinking hand, he's got a absurd photo of himself in the background. He is in his hall. He is ready to accept the the court at his leisure. Pay your fucking fealty.

4:20 I'm a simple man, Brian. Simple man. I just demand fealty. And bows. Hey man, we'll see what we can do. I got no problem on anything that that he has to say, just let you know. Next tonight, this man is the OG of Hokey Twitter. He's the host of Virginia Tech is for Legends, and he is the legend himself. VT4L. Yes Sir, yes Sir. Give it up for Don V Vito. How we doing? Good evening. Good evening. Thanks for having me full gang in the building. Jeremy, could they check my boy? Every time you have money again, I will. Every time I see shit, you know, every time I see you, man, I have to take a double take.

5:08 I'm used to the locks, man. I'm used to the locks. And now what? It's been like a year since you, since you had them, had them cut. No, like five months. Five months. So I'm still getting used to it. Spring game on it like just before that. Yeah, like a month before the spring game, Yeah. I love it. Love it. How you been living, Chief? Man bless Black and highly favored my boy, you already know me. There it is. Next up, this man needs no introduction. He comes correct with great video content. He gives even better takes. He is the man, the myth, the legend, Grace and Wimbish. Gentlemen, how we doing?

5:53 It's great to be back for another one. I appreciate you guys having me very, very. Fired up having you on man. Love having you on again. Had to had to bring you on for the fun bunch because that's what you bring to the table. You got fun energy, but you tell it like it is, and that's what we like about you. Appreciate that. Thank you. And last but certainly not least, it's the big man on campus, Dan Pulse. He hosts the Tales from the Terrordome podcast. Give it Up for my Man Dan. So y'all how we living? Living good man, living the dream. I know you. Happy to be here. What's everybody drinking on? Everybody got some some alcohol in hand or we sipping on something different. Oh yeah, I got a Parkway Get Been IPA because I'm vowing this time for, you know, this is what #5 and every single time I get completely blacked out drunk and this time I am going to go the distance.

6:52 Going the distance, he is not going to distance you. Going to make it always time to never. Go to the hell no, he ain't making the distance. Hey, you might make it. I got a corona over here till. Till we till we hit the end stream thing tonight. Oh yeah, that's true. Normally we go for like 3 hours straight on state of the program and I'm just like pounding them the entire time. Even when I moved to beer, I'm just blasted by the end of it. Yeah, you either you either sucking back to J MO's or you're, you're hitting some Ipas with a regular stream. So. I can't. Help myself. You can't, man. You got to do it. We got we got some folks out there in the the listing world, YouTube out there on Instagram Twitter a little bit everywhere.

7:36 So if y'all want to hit us up ask some questions for the panel throw them in there We'll we'll put them on the screen. We'll see what they got to say, but you know let's start with something a little fun here. We every year, you know what we haven't gotten it yet, but every year we get these depth charts right we get these depth charts for the first week of the season and everybody has a fucking conniption right. So they they, they see a depth chart, they're like, why is this person still starting? Why, why is this person ahead of this person? And, and, and like everybody has a freak out. So, you know, we got a bunch of positions where there's some battles, there's some guys that we kind of think you're kind of taking the next step. They're trying to get into that, that next realm.

8:18 All right, what players are going to be week 1 starters in names on that first depth chart where that or designation is doing a ton, a ton, a ton of heavy lifting. And Dan, let's start with you. Man, and I mean this with no disrespect, but Josh Fuga would probably be the first name that comes to mind only because Kamari Copeland, The hype is there this offseason. He's putting up the numbers in the weight room. He looks good out there on the field. The way you know, JC likes to rotate players in and out. We saw it last year. Will feel Darius pain. He didn't start, but by the end of the season he was getting significant reps.

9:05 So if I had to guess, I would say that Josh Wiggler would probably be the first person that came out of my mouth on that. Yeah. That was definitely one of the names that popped into my mind too. The hype behind Copeland is is so strong. I mean, going out there, breaking the squat record, coming in highly, you know, highly touted. He had a interception in the spring game out there running like a a linebacker playing defensive tackle. So I mean, this guy kind of does a little bit of everything. Grayson, what you got for us? I'm just more so curious. I mean, I think offensively from a skill perspective, you kind of know who's going to be out there. But I, I think the obvious and again, no disrespect, the obvious concern is the offensive line. So I, I think it's going to be a matter of where guys are lining up where on the offensive line.

10:05 So you know, how much movement are we going to see based on kind of performance against Vanderbilt? Will the coaches move, move the guys around? So I don't have any anyone particular name, but it's maybe Caden Moore where we're going to see him, Parker Clemens, where we going to see him? Yeah, I, I think that's probably my biggest question mark, if you will all. Right, Grayson focusing on the offensive line. I always love that. Yep. Veto. Hold on, Hold on before we go to veto because yeah, yeah, these two, these two guys right here was real diplomatic and I appreciate that.

10:45 But I want to throw something in before we go to the next two guys because I feel like they going to be a little bit more real. Grayson, it ain't no I want to see the only all we need to see by some of them offensive lineman names is you fucking block somebody or you're going to work at Dick's Sporting Goods. That's all we need to see. Yes. Indeed. My bad now, Vito, I'm sorry. You can ask Vito the question you was asking Vito. How are you feeling about it? Ask the question. Ask the question again. Please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we got week 1 starters in name only. Who's going to have that more designation that's doing a whole lot of heavy lifting? OK the OR designation. OK I just had to make sure I heard the thing right. That's Benji guys nil.

11:33 Benji guys nil. I seen Nick Gallo on like pre season list. No disrespect bro, I don't want to smoke Benji guys nil is my answer. I don't want to smoke bro. I ain't no mass. I ain't going to disrespect. I'm all yours Benji guys, Nil is my answer. Whoa, whoa, whoa. So what Vito's saying he thinks Benji going to play, Nick's the one that's going to be on the other side of the OR is going to be Benji playing. Benji should be playing about that. He's he's saying Nick's going to get that starting designation, but that or going to really be, it's really Benji. Shit if he's playing like he does in college football 25 he going to win the Heisman.

12:14 Don't let that college football get you fucked up. Get your bets. I'm just going to go ahead and tell y'all. Ali Jennings already won the Heisman twice for me so and and he only played one year. Man, I had I had David Balfour out there throwing that thing like and running like Lamar Jackson. So don't let that don't let that college football get you messed up. So no, the show man, I see, I see Will just hopped in shout out to the people, man that's out there. I know the hurricane been coming through. My boy will he he he's on tonight. Hurricane has been tan. I think it's in South Carolina. So a lot of people have been dealing with that. So, you know, prayers to them, people houses getting flooded and cars floating away and stuff like that. So y'all are praying people say a prayer for the people that's been affected by the hurricane.

13:06 Absolutely. It feels like the the summer decided to give us all the rain at one damn time and and did not spread it out at all this year. So it's hitting a lot of people tough. So yeah, keep them in your thoughts out there before we move on. Jeremy, what do you, what do you got on this? Who's who's got that or designation that really should be that starter? Man y'all want a real answer and none of us know fucking shit like. This is just. Fucking started. We don't know who's going to show out. We don't know who's going to be a fucking gamer out there. We don't know what's that? Well, you know, we're talking about Copeland. There's a ton of hype. You know, he did those fucking squats. I what's it fucking matter if it doesn't translate the God damn field? Like what's it fucking matter?

13:48 Like the offensive line is my biggest concern as a unit, but you never know if they took a step forward. You don't know what's going on in the weight room. We're sitting around like, who's going to overtake this? We don't fucking know. So that's my answer. None of us fucking know. That's a pretty good answer. But most of the time I was about to say, when you see somebody play for six years and they ain't blocked nobody for six years, and then they go to the spring game and somebody puts them in a blender every play and then they get punched in the face in the first practice, they might not need to be the starter. I'm just saying that's just my opinion. We got the.

14:30 Footage. We got the footage bro. There is documentation for some of these folks now. It's a new year a. New year and steps get taken, but. I hope you, I hope you got room for stalkers over there at the at the pharmacy, because some of them, some of them lineman, if they don't fucking block, they going to be overnight stocking for you. I'm telling you. You need some new pharmacy tax. It's common. I could use a few. Well, depends on how they play. I mean, who says that Jeremy will hire them? That's good. That's true too. Go. Get a job. I'm a. Spiteful fucking creature. I'm a very spiteful creature.

15:11 Yep, we know. Yeah, I would hire you, but you missed that block against Miami, so. Fuck it up. Yeah. No. Yeah. You remember what happened. You remember whenever you that Kyron got hit that hard? Yeah. No, I don't think so. No, I, I I could see a few things with the offensive line. That's my biggest concern. But also, it's hard to say in a lot of ways with offensive line because it's it's a unit that needs to be cohesive and if there's one breakdown, everyone can look bad. It's hard with swapping in and out on the offensive line. But of course there are some people who very obviously miss blocks and you've got to take care of it. But that unit more than any other unit, I think is hard to gauge whenever you're just swapping in and out.

15:56 But we'll see. That's my biggest concern, though, is the offensive line. Yeah, when we look at the offensive side of the ball, that's definitely going to be the biggest concern. You know, when we look at the the depth that's returning, I mean, you, you we pretty much returning the entire skill position players less, you know, maybe Daquan, right? It it, it's going to be something of can. Does the offensive line look demonstrably better than they did last year? Do they do anything different? Are they, are they nastier? That's what that's kind of what I'm looking for. Do we have a little bit more dog in us on the offensive line? We started seeing some of that come to fruition as the season went on. Last year is the the start of the year. It was rough.

16:39 Kyron came in. I think that he brought a little bit more mentality to that room, a little bit more leadership in terms of being a leader on the field, in terms of leading by example. And I think they fed off that energy a little bit. And we'll see if that kind of carried over into the offseason. We'll see if the coaches coached him up on that aspect of it as well. He's also really fucking hard to tackle, so that makes their job a little easier. So he's going to make any offensive lines job just a little bit easier. But yeah, they they've got to step up this year because we could have all these great skill positions. We have Kyron out there just bombing it and just running like trucking people. But what's it fucking matter if we can't block? You can't. You can't be running drones the way you ran him last year.

17:22 No, it's not sustainable. And definitely not the way you ran it against Tulane in the bowl game, because that was well. The the weather. I know, I know, I know. The conditions impacted that a bunch. You couldn't, you couldn't really sling it around very much. But he carried that load. But he ended up pulling it out for us. But Sally, what you got? So yeah, I was just going to kind of go to veto and ask him. I know last time he was on, which like I said, it was 2022, they took y'all asked him a couple questions and he talked about, you know what, what game would he gauge the team by? And I think he he went with ODU first and a lot of people kind of, you know, shook their heads so didn't understand what he said. He had a couple of other ones in there but ODU, which was really good answer.

18:09 I think Dwight was the only one who kind of agreed. And maybe Jay Glock was like, yeah, you know, I can kind of see that. But you were real high on that veto when you talked about what team you would look at or what game you would look at and be like, OK, that lets me know what kind of team we got. So I'm going to go ahead and ask you again, kind of, you know, what game in the first half of the season this year are you looking at? What you going to be like? Hey, this set the expectation for the rest of the season. Yeah, when I was on 20/22, I think the question was what's the biggest game of the year? That's probably what led to the laughing because everybody was saying whoever they thought was our biggest opponent. And my logic was none of them games matter if we look like how we look versus ODU, which turned out to be true.

18:57 So that that's what that was. That's pretty much what the question was. What were the biggest games? I think I said Liberty. We won that one. I said like Liberty, ODU and somebody else. You said North Carolina State as well. I. Probably did. So yeah, that's my logic at the time was the Fuente era at the end even versus the Richmonds and them game was a toss up. They lost even lost some of them. So I know the beginning of the Brent Pryor era was the Fuente. It was a lot of Fuente people and stuff involved. So now we prove treat the whole like a hoe like we we whooped ODU last year. So it ain't no ODU this year.

19:41 It's Rutgers. I don't helmet watch like I don't look at Rutgers and say Virginia Tech should beat Rutgers as it went. No, hell no. Rutgers smacked the shit out of this last year. So I would say Rutgers. Most Virginia Tech fans that's not tapped in probably think another dud, but hell no. Rutgers is well coached, physical discipline don't do nothing to lose games and that'll be the guy. I think it's September the 21st or the 27th. You will know everything you need to know if if. At home we get punched in the face and you see them fold. It'll be a long season, so. Rutgers, Yeah, yeah.

20:21 Then even go with that, you know what I'm saying? I mean, real good answer because not only that, even if you go out and you play a team like a Rutgers and you go out there and you have a physical game because they going to give you a physical game, you know what I'm saying? So that means your depth is going to have to come into play, you know what I'm saying? That means that people that's second and third in line is going to have to be ready to play because when you play a team like Rutgers, that's something you can feel the next week and guess who you got the next week after you play Rutgers, Whether you win or lose that game, you got to go and you got to go play Miami. You know what I'm saying? So perfect answer. You know what I'm saying? There ain't no wrong answer, but that's a real good answer because Rutgers is one of those teams. Again, if you just helmet watcher, you just, you know, take a look at the schedule and say I know we going to win all these games.

21:07 Like, Nah, man, Rutgers, A-Team, like Rutgers, knowing they coached his background, knowing what they gave, like I think they had 35 passing yards last year and beat us handily like 35 to 16 or something. So. Their quarterback and running back ran all over our. Ass Last year, I just remember whatever his name is, Kyle Menungi Menungi, whatever his name is, it was like a third and one and he ran for like 52 yards. Like you're not supposed to be like you're not supposed to be doing that. You know what I'm saying on the third and one like you supposed to get that 2 yards and then y'all run the next play. Now they they they they out for blood. So the same way that people.

21:48 Are. Yeah, but the same, in the same way that, you know, some of us fans are looking at stuff and saying all these people are putting us as you know, sleepers for ACC Championship or, or sleepers for, you know, playoffs and stuff. I don't look at a lot of stuff. And they got Rutgers on that too. They're like, oh, this is my sleepless team. So yeah, Rutgers is going to be a team to watch out for. Yeah, I, I know a guy who I, he's a, he's a pharmacist. He went to Rutgers and big name in the pharmacy industry and he has already been texting me talking shit about it. So they're feeling pretty fucking confident. Rutgers, I think Vito's right. I think that is going to be the biggest one. If we go and we handle that and we're undefeated, rolling into Miami and Miami still good.

22:38 If we can be the team that knocks Miami off their peg, then I will think we're legit. If Miami's got a good season rolling, they've got all that talent and it's actually clicking for them and we're the team that comes down and smacks them in the mouth and shuts them the fuck up. That's when I know we're legit. You got to handle business at Rutgers. But then, yeah, then go to, I mean, that, that three-game stretch, right there's, I mean, that's kind of coffin corner early in the season because then after Miami, you're flying across the country to California. And I mean, Stanford, you know, everyone wants to talk about they're not going to be a great team and who cares? It's a three hour time difference. This is our first regular season game. We're playing in California.

23:19 You don't know what that's going to do to us. So Rutgers, Miami, Stanford. That's Coffin Corner. Yes, Stanford's going to be the interesting one because I mean, on paper that's a dub, but there's so many like factors that play into how that game can go down because of the travel. You never really played this opponent before, not recently. The only other matchup that I can recall is the against Andrew Luck in the bowl game. So I mean, it's it's basically a brand new opponent. You're coming off a physical Rutgers team and probably at least on the front half of the schedule, the best, most talented team that you'll play in Miami taking that trip. So even if you come out good on those two, it's a prime setup for a let down game, right?

24:06 So. You know well, listen. Those are going to be the interesting ones there. Now listen, this is not a question that is on anything. I just want to throw this out because I got you fine gentleman on here. We've mentioned a couple of schools, we mentioned Rutgers, Miami, Stanford. I know a lot of y'all go to games and have seen games or you know, even look at games on TV. So I'm going to ask this question out of the people that we play, who has the best looking fan base? Whether you like men or women? I'm not no judge. I'm just saying who do we play that has the best looking fan base? Dan, you got to go, man. Of course it's going to be Dan.

24:47 Come on, Dan, don't be scared. Wholesome Dan lead off bitch. Yeah, who got the out of the opponents? Marshall. Right. Who we play, man, I said. Men or women? Hey, no, Marshall got. Some sneaky. Marshall got some sneaky ones, but I mean, people probably want you to say Miami, but I don't know if it's really Miami, you know, like who could? I don't know. I'm sure Stanford's got some really nice girls. Dang, you got to pick one, man, I said. One. We kind of move quick, pick one team. You want us to come back to you?

25:28 Yeah, I mean, that's fine. He's you can't do that Grayson. Grayson, who got the. You know what, I I like that answer. Selfishly it's it's I would say Clemson Southern girls, man, they're beautiful. Shout out to the Clemson Tigers. Great you. Have a You have a a conflicting relationship with that Clemson fan base. Hey man, we'll get into that fuck. Clemson. Hey, listen, let Jeremy not it's. Going to be SMU Well. We're playing Clemson, have never done one thing wrong to me. They. They wouldn't have dancing. Tech girls are different. We'll talk about that, all right. You know what you got to say, man? Stanford made an All American linebacker crash out for an invisible chick.

26:10 He could have. He could have smashed anything in the country. It's easily standard. I wasn't expecting that, but that's actually pretty a pretty good go ahead. And shut it down. Go ahead and shut it down. Well, I mean, we got to ask. We got to ask Jeremy just because he hears Jeremy. Come on, give us an answer. What you got to say? All of them. Fucks are ugly. Are you seriously we're playing them? What do I fucking care what they look like? Fuck all. Them. Man, I give a shit about US winning. I don't give a shit what their fan base looks like. They're all shitty to me. Fuck, I want to win. Hey. That's a happily married man right there. Hey, that's a.

26:55 That's a that's a good answer, Emily. 'S hot as shit. I am fuck about these like girls that are going to these games don't know shit about fuck, fuck them. Well, well, Jeremy, listen, that's, that's good, man. I'm glad we got you riled up because I got one that I got to ask you. This is specific to you. So you, you came right in on time. We know that you right in the middle of Blacksburg. Thank you for your service. You over there at the at the pharmacy doing your thing. Don't pop another one just yet. Slow down. But anyway, we know that you're in there every day. We know you're getting the vibes in Blacksburg every day. Us as fans, you know, we get the preseason hype or hopium every year. Every year we say this is it, this is it. You know, we we going to be good this year or you know, so if this person take this step.

27:41 So my question to you is we getting some hype this year and what do you feel like the do you feel it's true hype vibes around Blacksburg or do you feel like it's we gaslight, how's it been in Blacksburg? I will tell you why. It's real hot vibes because people are scared that the hype is this much. Normally during this time we I've got people coming in, they're buying in so much that all the the talk, the preseason talk, all the hype, they're really high on the opium and they're coming in and they're talking about it and they're really up now. I get that. But there's like this level of seriousness to it. Like, are we seriously going to do this? Like I, I think it makes sense in my brain, but I've been hurt before.

28:30 There's like this level of seriousness to the conversation that hasn't been there for a while. So people are hyped and they are legitimately hyped. Like it's making sense to them logically. It's not just all emotional. And they're kind of reconciling that and bringing it out and they don't know how to feel about it because we've been hurt so many times. That's how I know it's real. Well, I kind of came up with that. Yeah. That's why where I kind of came up with that from is because I can remember like one of the things that sticks out to me is like when we had David Wilson and, you know, ESPN came and they was following him around, you know, showing his car and kind of what he was doing on his day-to-day. Like that's not manufactured. That's not fake hype, you know what I'm saying? Like that was real national hype. You know, I've been seeing Kyron out with with with Sanders and and, and Ward and they've been, you know, working out all offseason.

29:23 And then you see the receivers working out with them as well. And then you see these people that starting to come in and, you know, want to interview and want to see kind of what our stars look like and, you know, what they have outside of just playing. So I feel like that hype was real too. But again, I'm not there in Blacksburg. So I did kind of want to ask you, you know what I'm saying, how you felt about it. Anybody else got anything added on that? It's it's full on that and then it's a follow up with do you think the offensive line will hold up? So yes, there are. There are. Concerns and it's normally the offensive line. Yep. That checks that checks. Let's let's throw one out since we're talking about kind of the players and and the process. I think the big thing that we've seen with this staff since they came in, when we talk about the vibes, just the feeling around is that, you know, we got a renewed commitment to focusing on recruiting the state of Virginia, the footprint in general with the state of state of Virginia in particular. And most of you guys that are on the panel have Virginia roots, right?

30:26 So has this renewed focus on the state of Virginia made y'all more invested in the recruiting process? And Vito, let's lead out with you on this one. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely I was. I'm always invested in the recruiting process. I always say it. I always, I always say recruiting got to make sense. You can't just throw darts at a map and just say hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm not even the stars person. A lot of people think I'm a stars person because I'm a 757 person. I'm not just talent is talent. Like you can look, you can. You don't need to watch hours of film to know if somebody can play or not. So if the recruitment makes sense and it's within the footprint, it all makes sense to me. Nice, Jeremy, what you got?

31:18 See, I'm kind of conflicted on this because I want us to have those great relationships in state. I want us to go to these high schools and I want to bring our kids in and I want us to, if there is a quality player in this state, I want them to go to Vt because that is the school that you go to if you're a football player in Virginia. That being said, I don't give 2 fucking fucks where we get our players from. I just want to win, you know? I don't give a shit if Texas to Vt worked and it was actually a fucking thing. I wouldn't care as long as we were winning. But yes, on another level, I think it's really good that we make these in roads because I want us to get good players and I don't want them to have to leave because we should have that pipeline and that pipeline's fucking important. That's why I care.

32:05 In the grand scheme of things. On like a emotional level, I don't give a shit. On intellectual level, I don't give a shit except for the fact that we need those pipelines. Hey, Grace. You do, Grace. Before you go, are you, are you counting the, the, the bucks that are that are going on At this point you got a little tally. Sheet counting them. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to designate you. We got about 20 right now, anywhere between 20 and 25. If we don't get to 50 by the end of segment one, we're doing something wrong. I'm going to get another postcard again. I'm going to get another postcard telling me to not sponsor this podcast because it curses too much because I was the one cursing on the podcast and that person didn't realize. That's what it's about.

32:49 All right, Lean in, lean in, Germ. The answer to this question is 1,000,000%. Yes. I've started caring more because listen, y'all, I don't know if you heard recently Coach Pride came out and he was talking about how when he was at Penn State, that staff under James Franklin when he was DC, they knew that any kid from the Commonwealth of Virginia, they could pick handpick and they would get him because the previous regime they just they just how do I say this nicely didn't. Do a good job, didn't give a fuck. Pardon my French, I don't cuss on podcasts a lot, but they didn't give a fuck. So now you have three of the top 15 kids in the Commonwealth of Virginia and Fontel Mines is out here cooking with Jim Kavanaugh's grill seasoning. Yeah, you bet your ass I care.

33:42 That means something to me. Sorry that. Was beautifully put. That was beautifully put. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you got? I mean, if we're being honest, the fact that we even have to think about this shit is crazy. Like we should just recruit Virginia. Like it should have always just been like, hey, you catch Virginia Tech, you fucking recruit Virginia. Like that's it. Like we shouldn't even be like, man, really glad we're back in Virginia now. Like we should have just always been here. Yeah, obviously. The school resides in we're we're recruiting the fuck out of it now. Yeah, like I like, I like the fact that we're like, we're doing it. I definitely my, I think the fact that we recruit Virginia also coincides with the fact that I have my own goddamn podcast. And I, it mean content is content. So if you keep up with recruiting, you should talk about when there's nothing going on. So I think like, hey, it goes hand in hand. But yeah, I'm definitely way more invested probably than it should be, to be honest.

34:43 But yeah. All right, so I think we've held our load in long enough. We're going to get to this question. And I know, I know everyone here is excited about it. We don't want to get our head ahead of ourselves with predictions yet. But looking at that Clemson game in November, what's the over under on how many times Jeremy yells at Dabo to fuck himself with the new Spring hymnal on November 9th? Whatever it is, Amber, the over, whatever. It is. I don't know what y'all talking about I am a sweet innocent Jeremy and in the stands now I shout very nice very nice insults to the refs now because I offended a lot of old people in the West stands.

35:28 So I moved to the east stands because I offended so many old people in the West stands and it's just a better environment for me but I still watch it now. Now I yell that the the referee's wife has overcooked chicken and people are snickering about it behind her her back. Now I yell that the referee's mother is actually not all that pretty. I don't scream obscenities at ball games anymore. Has a child. I am doing better. I am doing better because I've embarrassed him. Before father Good screaming.

36:09 Suck my Dick, I'll murder your family over and. Over do we genuinely like? Elderly people around me. So do we genuinely not like Clemson or do we just not like them because they win? Like, why don't we like? Fucking hate Clemson. No, no, no you don't. You got to understand what it was like during that ball game where they came to fucking Blacksburg and it's like everything shifted. Everything shifted. They were suddenly the team to beat and it stayed that way. They rolled into Blacksburg and they fucking had our number. And ever since then it's been that way. Just because they're winning, I don't give a fuck. They could not have national champions. They could not have this or that. They could not have a terrible God damn entrance that everyone hops up. They could not have stupid fucking fans and half of them are just fucking bandwagon ass fucking fans. They could not have some of the dumbest fucking God damn people on earth.

37:00 They could not have a charlatan head coach that uses pseudo religion as a fucking recruitment model. They could have not have all those things and I'd still fucking hate them because they were the the team that beat us at that point where everything felt like it shifted. So fuck them. I will fucking hate them. And I don't have to put fucking words on it, labels on it. I don't have to do anything. I can just fucking feel my emotions. I have something to talk about. Clemson, I have something to do. You know it. I know what. If you ask me on Twitter. News, how I feel about the Tigers. Let me just say this really quickly in the off chance that this man is listening right now, the ACC Network and Eric McClain were in Blacksburg this week. Eric, I got nothing but respect for you. I think you're you're the man.

37:47 The way you kind of put on from Virginia Tech. I think you like what we got going on. So respect to Eric. Eric makes Clemson kind of hard to hate his head ball coach on the other hand, to Jeremy's point, makes it very easy. I will never me personally, I will never be able to prove the new spring money laundering and I know that I drive hokey fans crazy with that. You can't. You can't audit a church. That's why it's so fucking genius and that's why he's so mad that he doesn't have the best game anymore because we got in IL. He can't do that anymore. Jeremy, what? What does God's NIL stand for? New Spring isn't liable, is that?

38:27 Is that what that stands for? Because like before NIL was in place, God's NIL. You know, how did Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne show up in 2020 with Louis Vuitton bags and $1000 top coats? Hey, listen, you don't make that money working at the campus bookstore. Where does it come from? Maybe an offering plate. And the pastor loves to shake hands with the congregation when those guys are are there on Sundays. So my problem with Dabo is he preaches his gospel and it. But if that was really actually going on under the table, I hate you like I you're not the guy you say you are.

39:10 So he's the worst kind of con man. He's a con man that uses fucking religion to get money out of people's pockets. He's the worst kind of fucking person. And Dabo, if you ever hear this, fuck you. To finish my point, finish real quick in summation, gentlemen, I also share the sentiment with Jeremy. We ruled the roost, the roads, the ACC went through Blacksburg for so long. And then finally there was that shift where they took over and they ruled the roost for way too long to the point where it became annoying. And now I'm like, dude, we're done with you. Well, Hokies are back up, let's go. And that's how everyone else should feel. So I'm done, I'm done.

39:52 End of that round. All right, tally what you got for him. I was just going, hey man, they just gave me a lot. I just was going to ask Vito that he have anybody that he hate like that. I mean, because I ain't got that much hatred for nobody. So I'll go ask Vito that he have anybody he hate like this. I don't hate Clemson, bro. I don't get mad bro. I get money. We won't what they got. So why would I hate like you become what you hate? So why would I hate Clemson? We want to be Clemson. Nobody on the Clemson podcast is doing a segment about Virginia Tech right now. Fair. Is there any? Is there any fan base? They put it out. They were like, oh, Virginia Tech might upset us. So I mean.

40:34 They actually talk about our shit all the time. They get so fucking worked up over it because there before they were, yes we were there before they were there. They hate any mention of us being even close to legitimate. Again, they can't fucking stand it. On top of that, if you start talking entrances, they get their fucking pants and he's in such a wad they cannot handle it. It is incredible. Yeah, they talk about us a lot. Fuck them people. Hey, so. We get to settle it on the field. So yeah. So we won't like we got to. Plan. I was going to say, man, we going to see them.

41:15 They come into the house this year. So that's going to be, you know what I'm saying, all hands on deck. We need to go out there and do what we got to do and and show them that we back if that's what it is. Speaking of that, I'll just ask this question because we was kind of tipping around what number or if Blank improves, the Hoagies will win 10 games. So what room, what room needs to improve for us to win 10 games? The offensive line, our skill positions could be just flat this next year and if the offensive line improves, we win 10. Games.

41:55 Yeah, that's that's the answer to the question. We have depth at every position on the team except offensive line. And as the season progresses, y'all, it's only going to get more difficult as you get into the meat and potatoes of our schedule. And all things considered, we have an easy schedule. We play Clemson that we just talked about on November 9th. If you don't go in that into that game in Lane Stadium with a healthy, cohesive offensive line, their defensive line is going to eat our lunch. And and so you like, it's just what it is. They get great defensive lineman and it's not just them, dude. Even Rutgers, like you have to build that chemistry and they have to stay healthy.

42:37 You got it. That receiver, running back, QB, you got it. That linebacker, defensive back, everywhere. Defensive line. You got it everywhere except the offensive. Line, Dan, what you say? Defensive line can't stop the run. I don't give a shit about weightlifting records. You got to stop the run. RDBS are good. Make them pass the ball, get some picks, pick sixes, short field, can't stop the run. Doesn't really matter, you're playing from behind the whole time. Dan, are you saying that you're concerned with the defensive line? Because that's one of the units I was the least concerned about. No, I'm saying like it looks good right now, but it's got to show up. Yeah, that's true.

43:18 We don't know shit. And that's what we said, just that the question was what, what room needed to improve for us to get to the 10 like so Vito again, right, A lot on the field. Yeah. Yeah, squad 680 lbs. But we need to stop the run. You see what I'm saying? Got to happen. I, I, I, I go away from everybody else and I just say quarterbacks, OK. At this point, everybody knows Karen Jones is a dual threat quarterback. Everybody knows that. Our OPS know it. We know it. So at this point, if Karen Jones can up his game to another level, then we'll win the 10 even with offensive line problems.

44:02 Yeah, true. Well, that's The thing is, even if they know him, he's a dual threat quarterback. That's a great thing about Kyron. He's a fucking tank and we shouldn't rely on that too much. I don't want what happened to Draw to happen to him that where he's just getting beat up so much. I don't want that to happen. But the great thing is, is if something breaks down we can at least rely on him to get something done because he's just so hard to bring down. And they can game plan for it as much as you can, but good luck fucking stopping it when he's got a good like a full head of steam coming at him. This. Season makes me think y'all of like the 2009, 2010 team with Tyrod Taylor where that those offensive lines, all things considered were not that good, but the superior talent around Tyrod Taylor and on that on those defenses at that point it didn't really matter. You know, we we were still winning games because of just Jarrett Boykin and Danny Cole and Ryan Williams and Darren, well, Darren Evans in 2009.

45:06 But yeah, like you didn't really have to think about it. Yeah, since we're talking. About dudes we're. Plays that broke down, that's what like if you remember during that time period, it wasn't like these awesome design plays where Tyrod showed up. It were they were plays that just full on broke down and we won with our straight up fucking athleticism. Tyrod would pull some shit and just fling it and things would happen. He would have made so many people. It wasn't like this great design we were for the longest time. I feel like coasting on having superior athletes and things like tie rod and I. I think we're really coming a long way as far as putting a good game design together, getting the right people into a system, because I loved what we were doing under under Frank. But there was always talk on what we were doing offensively because a lot of times we didn't have the greatest game plan. And of course back then it was a little more, you know, you're on the edge of the unknown at that point with what you do with dual threat quarterbacks.

46:09 We didn't have a lot of proof of concept even in the tie rod days. We definitely didn't have it in the big days. He revolutionized the entire game. But now you can game plan for him and you can actually put this offenses around, especially with the RPO system. But it's hard with someone like Drones to stop that when it's coming down, and it's good to have that again. But we can't have that wear and tear on them. We can't have it. That's why the offensive line's so important, because we can't have them get beat up. And as much as I loved back then, whenever Tyrod make all these awesome plays by evading everyone, Drones isn't going to be able to do that.

46:51 He's going to be taking hits whenever those plays breakdown. That's why it's different and we can have a ton of great athletes, but he's still going to be taking these hits and we need to limit those hits because it's it's not like back then because of that. He's big, he's elusive, but he doesn't have that quickness that. Like Tyrod had. Well, that's why I think what Vito said, yeah, I think that's why what Vito said makes so much sense because even when you do have a bad offensive line and they just like he had a bad offensive line last year, he was still making the throws. He was still evading people who still scoring. So yeah, we don't want him to take those hits because we want him to be healthy and we want him to up his stock so he can go to the NFL.

47:39 So if he UPS his game like Vito, like Vito's here, he can speak for himself. But. What I mean by up his game, I don't mean by doing more the same shit I mean by making more Reeves, getting the ball out better, getting the ball out accurately, regressing as a passer, not running more or running over people. Yeah, hit his windows. He hit his Windows, man. He hit a couple of the passes that we missed. Got a little bit better options out there. Not options, but a little bit more experience. Ali coming back, man, you, you just never know what will happen. So I was thinking more like linebacker for that answer, but that's actually a pretty good answer. What Vito came. I mean, everybody's answer was good. No wrong answer there. What I'm hearing though is we got some good stuff going. We just need everybody to stay healthy and keep keep moving forward.

48:28 Brian, what you got for us? Yeah. I think we're going to kind of wrap up this segment with this one. So we had a lot, lots of positive things happening this offseason. Yeah, you got new uniform release. You got, you know, fan appreciation day just went down. We got to play as the Hokies in college football. 25, something we haven't done in over a decade. And of course, you know, there's been a lot of cool content coming out of Hokie Nation. Interviews, interviews with coaches, interviews with players, all that fun stuff. You know, recruiting's on a nice little trend up, even though we hit a little roadblock here the last, you know, couple weeks. I'm gonna pitch this to Dan first. I'm gonna let everybody get in on this. What's been the thing that's got you the most hyped for the 2024 season? Probably the expectation, see how they handle it. Normally when we get hyped, we're hyped up. The hokey way is to lose a really dumb game, whether it's like Boise.

49:26 Well, not Boise State necessarily. JMU, ECU, Syracuse and the Dome, which we're going there this year, so that'd be nice to stop that. Matt Ryan at home in the rain cost us probably a potential chance to go to the national championship hype to see on the depth at multiple positions. And I guess what I'm looking forward to is to see how they all handle expectation because last year there wasn't any. We were terrible coming off three and eight. Like it was kind of whatever. And then we started out bad and then something happened and we caught fire. We didn't win a bowl game.

50:11 So. But this year, especially with the, you know, edition of College Football 25, everybody using the Hokies, Josh Pate beating the drum, all these people like him, like media people beating the drum. Herb St. Fowler hyped about Virginia Tech again to see how they focus in and drown out the noise. I'm interested to see how that goes. Yeah, I'm pumped about that because I think it's funny, a lot of these national guys, they, they like to see when Virginia Tech's doing well. Like it it you see that a lot like you, you people talk about college football is better when Virginia Tech's doing well. So I'm excited to see what that's about. Grayson, what do you got?

51:01 Yeah, I mean, outside of the palpable excitement, I would say the most in 14 years for Virginia Tech football team returning off of an offseason, you know, everyone's talking about drones and whatnot on the new uniforms. That's that's huge. But then the duo of Dorian Strong and Mansour d'alene and seeing how those two play this season, just, you know, Virginia Tech is always in the DBU question. But I've talked to multiple people about this, Brian. We've chatted about it. Those two, I firmly believe, and this might be a hot take. It might not by the time this season is done, I think have the potential to be as good or if not better of a duo than Brandon Flowers and Macho Harris. You know, in that, yeah, up up there. That's that's saying a lot.

51:54 That's rarefied. In 2007, Macho and Brandon both had five interceptions each. Let's see if the lane and strong can outdo that. I would love to see that. And and Brandon Flowers and Macho Harris. Those are my guys, two of my favorite Virginia Tech players of all time. But I I want to see those two guys eat this year. Couple of pick sixes too. Vito, what you got? As far as my excitement for the season upcoming, it's just what I do. I've been covering this team, I've been covering Virginia Tech. I've been a content creator since 2009, so it's just what I do.

52:35 I cover the hoagies. I talk shit whether we win or lose. I'm going to be on Twitter talking shit. I'm going to be part in talking shit. That's what I do. It's in me, not on me. There we go, Jeremy, what about you? What you got? Proof of concept. It's it's the same reason we were all trying to get ourselves all fucking jacked up and circle jerking the living shit out of each other till we're raw and bleeding all over our underwear back in the food days because we're just like, Oh no, he's got his own guys. We're going to like prove exactly what he was trying to do. Oh great. And then it fell straight on its fucking face.

53:16 So right now it to me like I love everyone being excited. I love all the hop we're getting. I love all of it. I love the position groups mostly. I love all of it, but it's proof of fucking concept. And if we can come out and we smack people in the mouth that we need to, and if we can come out and we can show that the systems that we're putting together are clicking and we have a cohesive fucking game plan and we come out and we fucking execute and we've got a God damn program again, you show me that and I'm on fucking bored. I don't even care if we lose a few games over something that happened. Shit happens in football. It's fucking football.

53:57 But you show me you've got an actual plan. You show me that you're putting this program back on the map and we're on the right path. You show me that I'm going to be fucking happy. That's why I'm excited about. That's what I'm socked for. I, I mean, you can't, you can't get no better than that, I guess. But what I'll throw in and to end this segment with, with what I have to say is I guess my height for 2014 is draft expectations. Because if we get, I don't know what the number is, but we'll say seven, we get seven people drafted. That means we had a pretty good year. That means some people took a step and you know what I'm saying?

54:41 We, we did what we were supposed to do and we got six 7-8 people going to the league to represent Virginia Tech. You know what I'm saying? I don't want to see people leaving and transferring and going somewhere else and walking across the stage and saying such and such a quarterback from Tennessee. I don't want that to happen no more. I want them to say from Virginia Tech and call some names. So that's what I'm going to be looking for. That's what I'm excited for because we got the talent there. I just, you know, and, and hoping these young men and praying these young men can, you know, go out, have a healthy year and, and, and play to their capability so we can see them walk across that stage, because I know that's a lifelong dream for them. And it also, you know, like I said, it, it makes our program better. So that's what I'll add to it.

55:26 Way to put a bow on it, Tally. I appreciate that. And that's going to wrap up this first segment of the 2024 Hoagies preview panel. Want to thank Dan Grayson, Vito, Jeremy, taking the time with us tonight, having a little fun saying fuck a lot. You know, I think, I think we did. We hit our quota. We'll see if the other guys in the back have two segments try to match you. It's a it's a high bar, Jeremy. It's a high bar. Yeah. I'm just definitely a high bar. Jeremy. Definitely a high bar man. We appreciate all y'all jumping on everybody who watching. Please check these gentlemen out. They put a lot of work into the different things they do on Twitter but also their content creations. Don V formerly Don V Fridays Vt foil now y'all go give a listen. One of my favorite listings throughout the week. Jeremy just started him a new podcast is Blacksburg's on the Rocks.

56:24 On the rocks. He's not talking about rocks outside. He's talking about alcohol being poured over ice. You don't got to tell us about it right now, Grayson. We going to pull him back in, let him start podcasting with us as well. One day we're going to get him back. Dan still doing this thing over there, Terra Dome interviewing every day, getting people from 10 years ago, 30 years ago. Keep doing what you're doing. We appreciate all you guys. Like I said, everybody lock you in, check each other out, follow everybody and all that good stuff, man. So we can go to Nashville and do what we got to do. Yep. And. Thanks guys. Appreciate it guys.

57:04 And we're going to go ahead and take a little pause from our our sponsor here and he's in the top right here. So check this out. I can probably save you a lot of money and I can take a lot better care of you. That's pretty much it. My name is Jeremy Counts and I'm a pharmacist. I want to operate Main Street pharmacy here in downtown Blacksburg. My brother's a pharmacist, I'm a pharmacist, my uncle's a pharmacist, my dad's a pharmacist. I remember he would give me M&M's to count in little pill counters. This is something I've always done, and I'm just lucky that what I know so well is something that I can do and feel good about it and get back to people. Pharmacies are your frontline defense. Pharmacy's job is to make sure you're getting optimal care. For the lowest price possible. Also, we take the pressure off of emergency rooms. I'll tell people immediately when they need to go to the doctor, or I'll tell them if they just need a cream over the counter.

57:53 If there's something that isn't commercially available, if it's something that's not available in a certain strength or a certain form or anything like that, we'll make it. Tailor made medications. Some of those options save people a lot of money. What motivates me, I get to take care of people and limit Blacksburg. That's all neat. All righty, and we are back. Well, me and Shelton are back and Brian and Tally have got into the green room Chill for a little while here, but we're going to get segment 2 popped up here and we're telling this hokey hype by the numbers and we've got some great guests. We got some more stuff to talk about. How long? Just go ahead and say it.

58:33 We're going to be under on the F bombs this segment, not even a doubt about it. What do you think, Sheldon? Yeah, it's going to be hard to top that previous segment, I know. So we got some, I'd say enigmatic personalities, some some exuberant faces and voices in that, in that, in that Group One. But hopefully we can keep the ball rolling, have a good segment too. Absolutely, we're going to keep it rolling with four guests who have been on with us before and we are enjoying having them back tonight. Going to start out here, man in Blacksburg himself from tech sideline David Cunningham. Hey David, how you doing tonight? I'm all right, man Thanks. Yeah, I don't I don't think I will be able to meet the Jeremy F bomb quota, unfortunately. But I technically I will write this off as work. This is what I do for.

59:21 I mean, this is what I do for a living and I've got AI got some professionalism to keep. Luckily, you know, Jeremy is not Jeremy and Main Street Pharmacy are two separate entities. So that's that's good. Me, I basically tech sideline all the time, so it's going to be hard for me to separate. Very nice. All right, next here he is a host with Dwight Victoria at the Vt for Life. Also, Danny, I don't know if you're still doing this or not because I haven't talked to you in a while. Are you still hosting up in DC? Whenever they gave me the call, Curtis, you know, it's great to be here. I'm wondering if this is now the most anticipated event of the hokey offseason the the Hokies preview panel with with everyone that comes in here every single year.

1:00:07 You guys do a great job and I'm I'm honored to be a part of it. Well, Danny and we enjoy having you back this year, man. Always good to see you. Always good to talk with you. Next, our buddy from over at T Too Deep, Pete B Pete, we said, what do you say tonight man? What's going on fellas? How you doing? How'd you like the first segment? Oh, I know, I know. And you know what, it's funny, like after watching that and then seeing the Main Street Pharmacy commercial and the dichotomy between the two, that was really, it just made me crack up. And I just want to say FUF U2. And to each and everyone of you on the panel here with me now, it's cool because I never got a chance to really talk to to DC or Danny before, so this is awesome.

1:00:52 Love it, love it. All righty. So lastly who we've got coming back with us. If you watch this show, y'all know the next guy we have on basically our lifelong friends of Brian and Irish. He is also a high school football coach down in the state of North Carolina. He is fresh in out from camp today our buddy coach Robbie Compton. Robbie, what's going on, brother? Watch out Jeremy. Here I come, buddy. Oh, that's awesome. Robbie, how's Cam going? Man, I'm a teacher too, I keep this on my desk and I just throw it at people every now and then because I can't use the word. Love. It these are good man got brand new turf field. We're trying to get used to the heat of of practicing on and just trying to push through some things, try to get better every day.

1:01:41 Love to hear it, man, love to hear it. So y'all, I want to kind of start it this way because I need everybody to close their eyes for a second and picture this. It's roughly 320 days ago, it's night time, it's Lane Stadium, and we're about to kick off against Pitt. If I threw a Franklin on each of y'all's desks wherever you're sitting, handed to you and said 100 bucks 2024 pre season, the Hokies are going to be considered a top 25 team. Tyron Jones is a dark horse for the Heisman. People are talking about winning the ACC, going to the playoff. A would you have taken that bet? And now how do you justify it, David? Yeah, I was.

1:02:28 I didn't think about the spot they were in. No, I mean, I like it would have been none of those. I don't think anybody really thought those things were possible. I think a lot of people in the program didn't really see it, right. It's also one of those things where it does you don't you don't really think it can maybe be accomplished until it it happens. But I mean, at that point, Virginia Tech is sitting at 1:00 and 3:00, right? Virginia Tech is just coming off a loss at Marshall. Like that's a team that Virginia Tech beat on the ground early in the game and just decided to stop running the ball. Like you get to a point where I think everybody kind of just threw their hands up and said what is going on? And Curtis, if you had told me that, if you had said, yeah, I'll give you $100. But I'm, I'm no way, no way.

1:03:14 I don't think anybody's taking that just because at that point we had not seen how dynamic for a long period of time Kyron drones was. We saw Bashel Tooten's ability in spurts. I don't think the defensive really played up to par. The run fits were terrible. Like there were a lot of things that went wrong. And credit to the staff, they turn things around and it's kind of crazy. We're sitting here, you know, middle of August, and this is a team that has high expectations. Danny, what about you, man? Would you? Would you have taken the bet with me? Absolutely not, Absolutely not. And and it's real simple for me guys, because I, I remember talking about the state of this team at that moment in time with, with Dwight and Mike Vick on our podcast last year. And at that point in the season, we hadn't seen the coaching staff figure out how to make adjustments, not even from game to game, but within the game.

1:04:07 What whatever it came down to, we we hadn't really seen them put together a full performance from the top with the coaching staff down to the players going out and executing. Now Kyron Jones ends up coming in and, and really starts to, you know, cement himself not just as a starter, but as a star pretty, pretty early on. And and that pit game was, was definitely one of those early showings of that. But would I have taken the bet at 1:00 and 3:00 going into that pit game that they they'd be sitting in this position right now? Absolutely not. Even though I did have a good bit of confidence that they were going to go out and be pit that night. It it just hadn't it. We hadn't had any tangible proof that they could put everything together at that point.

1:04:47 All righty, Pete. Yeah, getting to six and six after those first four games felt impossible. And I remember listening to David and the TSL guys talk about it and and how many more games would we win last year? And I would say that I was a little bit less panicked than most. But nevertheless, I was thinking, OK, maybe three again, maybe we'll get to three wins. Like it just we were playing so unhokey, like in terms of a historic sense. And that pit game did turn things around. And Pitt is a team that has given us problems over the years. And so if you lose that game and then you lose to Florida State, like it could have really unraveled, but it didn't.

1:05:31 And I'm I'm so grateful we're in the position we are now because it makes this preview a lot more fun. Absolutely, Robbie. What about you, man? You had seen the team that spring, you'd seen drones, and then they're one and three. What did you think? Would you have taken the money from me? If any of you know my gambling, my online gambling habits, you would say this idiot's going to take this. I can't. It's a parlay to me. You just listed off too many things for me to take. And I was like, yeah, surely I'm going to take that bet and I'm going to lose on one by a point. Damn. LeBron James. No, there's, you know, I have, I have some, some pretty good professional relationships with some of those coaches there. I've I've been in, I've been in some meeting rooms and some things with several of those coaches before they got to Blacksburg, things like that.

1:06:27 I knew where they were headed and what they were going to try to do. I just wasn't sure how long it was going to take. So in my mind to to say a year from now, it would have been hard to say that to see them build to what they have in this quick of a time. I think it's pretty impressive If you to give me 2025, I probably leaned a little more, but 2024 seemed a little little crazy at that point in time. But I, I, I'm excited about what they put together and where they're headed. And All in all, no, I don't, I don't think I would have taken that 320 days ago tell. Them.

1:07:07 What about you, man? I know we've talked about this a little bit, but. Yeah, it was man. It just, it seemed like it turned on a dime. I mean, you're coming off that loss to Marshall. I think everyone collectively is kind of questioning, you know, the process and and where the where the program is headed, at least externally. I don't think internally it seemed like they, they kind of had their heads on straight, but I think it's a, it's a testament to Brent Pryor that he kind of kept things going and, you know, kept everyone focused. There was no, you know, finger pointing or infighting or internal division. And I think that's a, that's a testament to the culture that he built that they could just, you know, they went through some adversity, they came back from it and they got better week by week. We saw Karen droves progress throughout the course of the season and they ended up going 7:00 and 6:00.

1:07:50 So I think it's just a remarkable, remarkable progression there. So continuing on, Speaking of Brent Pry, he has been mining the transfer portal this offseason as he has done a lot and he Pry said before that he wants to build this program on the backs of high school recruiting and sort of use the portal to supplements. So us this qualify by excluding Aeneas Peebles because I think he was sort of the consensus big time get out of the portal this this past year. Who do you guys see being the biggest transfer impact, the biggest impact player? I'm going to transfer class this year.

1:08:31 We'll start with Pete. I think it's going to be Bromfield if you ask me. I mean, yes, peoples is is a would be a great choice, but with the depth across the D line, who knows how much of an impact that he might have relative to what Brumfield could do. If you think about the problems we had at middle linebacker last year and the tackling issues in general and the fact that, you know, he had 81 tackles for Middle Tennessee State that would have led us last year. I know it's different teams, whatever. Two years ago, our leading tackler had 82 tackles. So this is the kind of impact, the guy who in Brumfield, who was still coming into his own last year on AG5, he's at another seasoning, better coaching now, playing for a power school.

1:09:15 And I just feel like if he can study that middle linebacking core and we can even get a Dax level when Dax was in playing his senior year, like that could be a monumental change. So I'm going to go with Bromfield. Yeah, definitely doing a lot for the linebacker core there. Danny biggest impact transfer. I love what Pete said because I think Brumfield needs to have the biggest year of the guys that that are coming in from the transfer portal because that is is the weakest position on the defense and and where they're gonna need the most help. Who I think it'll actually end up being, though, is Peebles, and I know that that's. Really. But most of what all of us probably think to to some degree, but I've been hype on him since since the word got out.

1:09:58 I I think he's a great player. I think he's got all the physical tools to be dominant and the reality is if he plays well, he's going to help Brumfield and the inside linebackers out. Your interior defensive line plays well. It just makes everybody's life behind them easier. Not just not just the PAT, you know, the passing coverage, which Virginia Tech's obviously got strong pass defense, but being able to defend the run. They, they can really be a well-rounded unit and it all starts up front. You kind of, you feel the love for Sam Brunfield. I mean, here's the thing. There aren't too many guys to choose from because Virginia Tech returns so many that it's, it's a, it's a tough question. Those are the top 2 answers. And I think both of those guys will have the two biggest impacts.

1:10:40 I think I would probably, I, I, it's tough. I think Peebles will probably have the biggest impact. I think Brumfield is the most needed. But just for sake of this argument, I think Montavius Cunningham is, is going to be an, he's going to play an interesting role. He, he might not win the job. And right now he is not playing with the ones in practice at right guard. It's Bob Schick, but he's somebody who had gotten consistent reps at his previous institution. He's somebody who has experience and what wrong Crook has slowly done with that room. He's. Transformed it into a room that last year could barely go 6 deep, now can go way, way deeper. And I think Cunningham is a big piece of that. Injuries are part of football.

1:11:29 At some point some of those guys are are going to have to play Montavious. Cunningham is going to have to have an impact. And the fact that Virginia Tech is a guy like that with that kind of experience, even if it was at Georgia State, having somebody with that experience over, say, a freshman or a retro freshman or a sophomore in that role is crucial, I think. And so Brumfield and Peebles, I think they're top two options. But I think you can't really overlook Cunningham because, again, he might not start, but he will have an impact in some capacity. All right, Robbie, we got a vote for Montavas Cunningham, a couple for Brumfield, one for Peebles. Who do you think is kind of the biggest impact on the transfer class this year? In my opinion, I think a lot of it's going to come. We sat at the end of last season looking at what are we going to do with the defensive line, where are we going to get depth? And there's three added right there on the defensive line, I think from the transfer portal in in Perry, Gilliam and Copeland who came in and they provide a future at that position.

1:12:39 And I think that's a big thing. We people's coming in is going to be amazing. I think he's going to be the star of that defensive front. I think he's going to really give a lot of things. I mean, he's shown it several years of Duke, he's going to help tremendously. But just the fact that that we've got the depth and those three guys coming in, it's hard for me to pick just one, but that room getting better that much quicker. I think it's going to add a lot to the future of the thing. They're going to help now by having depth, but they're just going to be that much better later because of those three. I think 1, there's what, 3 red shirt sophomores. They're all relatively young and they're going to be there at least at least two seasons. I would think So.

1:13:25 I mean you're, you're looking at, I think that was a big thing now. I think Brumfield right behind them. And if you didn't know, I'm a defensive coordinator, so I I look more at that defensive stuff, but that that front is going to help Brumfield even more, going to keep pressure off those linebackers, let them play with the speed and the aggressiveness that they do and they can rotate guys in. I know as a coach, offensive line coaches don't like to rotate guys outside of that five. They like to get that continuity. And when we can put four guys out there and then two plays later put four more guys in front of them and move them around, it gets tough for four quarters. And I mean, I think that's going to be a big thing with with those three big guys coming in there. In the first segment, if if you don't mind if I jump in here or something, they talked about like, oh, we don't really know what these guys are going to be Copeland, whatever people, we are hearing practice reports, right? We do hear positive things about the coaches and not every piece of hype that a coach says his gospel, right? We heard it about Lofton.

1:14:28 We heard it about Keller for a couple years. We're hearing it again about Keller. But think about the hit rate out of the portal last year, just like drones, Jennings, Tooten, Felton, APR Lane canteen and and then like that's a pretty good hit rate. That's I mean, Freddy and Stone Snyder were the only two that didn't really hit right. So this year you got Peebles only hearing good things, Brumfield good things, Copeland good things, Spencer Perry also good things, maybe even a Gilliam in there a couple times, maybe not so much. Either way, think about that hit rate that our coaches, they don't just go and grab from the portal. They are evaluating and pulling guys that we think are going to make a big impact. So it's very exciting.

1:15:12 They, they know what they're getting out of those guys. They're pulling them in. I can tell you from personal experience coaching against peoples that that that he's a man they're going to have, they're going to get they're going to get good quality plays out of him, even if it's just for this year. He's a real deal. And and I saw Kamari Copeland play in high school. He's not just a fancy squat number that's showing up there. He he's going to be ready to play and he's going to want to play every snap they'll give him and he's going to be ready to go. I mean, I like you said, it's, it's a big thing to hit like they did in the Portal last year, but this, this crowd's definitely going to give them all they want and make them compare them to them, in my opinion. Yeah, I'm, I'm going to say this and then I'm going to pivot over to David because he mentioned it a little bit already. As much as I love the defensive line, I trust JC Price. A lot of people doubted JC Price. JC Price definitely knows how to coach and what you said Davis a few minutes ago talking about Montavious Cunningham, because last year I felt we had six guys that could actually play the offensive line.

1:16:23 David, you're seeing in practice more and more, what's that number this year? Is it 8? Is it nine? Could we see ten guys potentially rotating in or? I wouldn't say rotating, but are we seeing a point where we're going to have eight definite rotations and there's going to be some younger guys getting reps at certain spots? Yeah, well, I think, I think one of the most interesting things is what was just said, which is some of a lot of offensive line coaches don't rotate a ton. But it is important to have depth when you get into situations where you need it, right. Guys are are going to have to play. From what I've seen, Curtis 8-9 is kind of where Tech is right now. Now granted we haven't had a chance to see scrimmages yet. It's what I've gathered from chatting with Ron Crooked Media days last week or two weeks ago.

1:17:14 If he wants to have ten, I think he he has about 8 right now. I think bring bringing in a guy like Montavious Cunningham helps guys like Leif Ganem and Johnny Garrett. They're pushing for for those spots. So that gives you kind of eight right there. There is probably a 9th or 10th guy around. So I think it it'll be interesting to see how how it it really shakes out. But I would agree with you, Curtis, when you say Virginia Tech only really had six guys and that's that's that I'm. Giving you six? You're giving me six? Yeah. You're being nice about 6. I mean, this, this was a unit that at times did, did not necessarily play super well.

1:17:56 But I think as the season went on, Ron Crook and Tyler Bowen and Brent Davis, who has a big role with that group, former Army offensive coordinator, they scheme stuff up so well that they hid a lot of deficiencies. And I'm curious, another year under everybody's belt. Ron Crook had an entire offseason to work with these guys. Instead of just getting there right before spring. Ball, what does this group look like in Ron Crook's second year? Everybody now has, I mean, they bring everybody back. Like every single player from that group is back. So you would think everybody takes a step forward and you bring in some young guys like I've got I've got my eye on somebody like Lathe Ganem. Can he push for one of those tackle spots? He's somebody that Brent Pride has spoken pretty highly on and like Pete said, don't take everything as gospel. But overall, that room has been elevated and I think it will only continue to be elevated.

1:18:58 And a guy like Montavius Cunningham, who I mentioned before, he, he kind of plays an interesting role in that because he is somebody, if that doesn't have him, that that's one fewer guy and you need all of the the big guys up front that you can get. I I think I think Cunningham is going to play a big part in being able to move a lot of places because he's got experience to guard, he's got experience to tackle. He's somebody that can really step up and fill a lot of needs. And I think that's one of the big things they're looking at is he's such a utility for whatever they need. You have guys that are challenging for spots in different places, but you've got a guy that I know I can plug in and play multiple places.

1:19:44 I think that's big for them as well. Yes, let's let's keep getting some thoughts from from Robbie here because I know he's a ball mower of sorts. So we want to manage the hype a little bit and had a question about safeties. So safety play was a problem for Tech last year. You know, run fits were a big problem and part of it was injuries, part of it was inexperienced, part of it was targeting, you know, guys just not being on the field when they you'd like them to be. Last year we kind of saw the the trio of Jalen Stroman, Moss Phillips and and Jalen Jones get a lot of reps there. How do you see that safety unit shaking out this season and just what does Tech need to do to kind of get better at that spot? Because I think it's kind of the one of the one of the few weak spots I can see on this team. My honest opinion, I think a lot of the like we you talked about targeting, part of that is aggressiveness. I like that part.

1:20:37 I like the aggressiveness part. You just have to learn how to tailor it back and use it properly. I think a lot of it was was inexperience in the game not being consistent with certain things that they had last year. And I think that aggressiveness is going to be the the thing that separates several of them. I know in, in the spring, first spring practice I was at this year, I went to their coaches clinic. We saw a spring practice, I think it was Phillips come through. And I mean, he laid a shot on one of the receivers early in practice. And I mean, the official that was there threw a, threw a flag for targeting in that.

1:21:19 I mean, they've got to learn how to harness that aggression and use those things. Now the fact that they're all playing together once again, that consistency, playing together longer, working together, I think it's going to help that room. Overall. You're getting more of a feel from the coaches. More experience will be better, should translate to better play on the field. And the, the fact that you have two corners out there that are, that are funneling things in, shutting things down on the edge really gives you and ability to be a lot more aggressive with one of those safeties, if not both of them to, to help in the run. So I don't think you, you try to step too far away from that.

1:22:02 You keep that aggressiveness. Just learn how to, to put it in the right places. And I think you'll see a lot of that. If we remember correctly, the guy that that's coaching the safeties was always good about being very, very aggressive in his own right. And that's a, that's a thing Virginia Tech's been known for with their safeties. I mean, you look at them, they've, they've always been aggressive. So this targeting things kind of it, it's an ever changing thing and it takes a lot to get used to. And just when you get used to the aspects of what you should be doing, they kind of change it up again. So I think that's going to be part of it. And just understanding how they're going to play together and finding the right rotation for four or five guys there that can really help. I think the big part about you say aggressiveness, because safeties have to be aggressive.

1:22:53 You coach them. I'm sure you don't tell them to play with kids gloves with the guys. It's like you've got to hit people because your space hit them. But I think maybe what could really help this team a lot is having those calls last year because now you get the video right? And I'm sure Pearson's pulling them up. I'm sure Marvin's pulling them saying guys look, love the aggressiveness. Look where your head placement is. Get the shoulder first. Get this, get that. These are the things we can fix. Because what you, you can talk about aggressiveness and if a guy isn't aggressive back there, you can't teach that because by all means, Cam Chancellor used to lay people out, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. Everybody can remember his name escapes me right now, but the guy, the safety, yeah.

1:23:40 Why was that escaping? That was when he went to the Skins. He had the whole medical deal. The pit hit the. Pit hit. Thank you, Pete. The pit hit. Great moment. Great moment. Clean shoulder, just laid the kid out. So I like, I like you. I like hearing that, Robbie. I also like the little cover behind practice that unfortunately most Phillips laid the crap out of one of our receivers. But that's all good and well. All right, I'm going to move over to Danny next. Danny, it is very clear that Tooten is the number one back. There is no doubt about it. There is no argument from the four guys we had on the 1st, from our two Co host to anybody on this panel to the two gentlemen will bring on Labor.

1:24:22 He's he's already won. But we got to look deeper. Last year, Malachi Thomas, he carried the ball 83 times. From what you're seeing, what you're reading, what you're hearing, your overall feel, what you saw in the spring game, is he going to get that much run this year? Are we going to see some younger guys steal his share? We know it's funny because it's a good thing I'm not sitting here as the head coach of Pitt right now, Pat and Arduzi, because I asked a very similar question to that man maybe 8:00 or so years ago with the ACC kickoff. One of his first years guy by the name of James Conner was, was coming back off of cancer, right? But they also had another running back by the name of Khadri Olson who ran for north of 1000 yards. And when I asked him about getting both of those guys involved, he kind of condescendingly put me down and said why would I give the ball to anybody other than James Conner? And I thought, well, you got two useful backs there Coach. I feel like you could probably use both of those guys. And I think here at Tech this year, you've got two very capable backs in in Tooten and Malachi Thomas. I I also remember back in 2021, one of the first glimpses that we got of Malachi Thomas in that Syracuse game, one of Fuentes final games goes for north of 150 yards, 3 touchdowns. No one had done that since David Wilson. That's an incredible game.

1:25:36 Syracuse wasn't very good, but that was still pretty impressive. And the guys had some some injury issues. He did that last season, but but was a a contributor in every game last year. Ideally you're you're hanging with Tooten for for most of the game and the guy is so dynamic. How could you not, right? I mean, he could catch the ball out of the backfield. Obviously he's he's great on the edge and between the tackles. The offensive line will have a lot to do with the success of Tooten. Their health, Tooten's own health will will play into that as well. But you also have to factor obviously in Chiron drones and and his dual threat ability and and how much harder that is for for a defense to prepare for. It only helps tooten. It only helps Malachi Thomas. That and and I think the last thing that I would add to to the running back conversation here is, you know, for the spring game, it was the PJ prelo show for for at least early on, right.

1:26:26 He had a couple of touchdowns. He had a lot of production. They were giving him the ball a lot. And I, I'm, I'm a little bit biased because Pearson's my guy. He was my Co host on the on the tailgate show for for a couple of years. I I love him to death, but PJ really showed, I think what he can do there and it and it's a very capable third option, although you know, they've got a couple of other guys in Kony and Mason with Kony being the only of the three that I just mentioned that have seen game action other than Malachi and and Bashal Tooten. So I think there's there's just an just an absolute overflow of talent in the running backroom this year, which is a great problem to have. But I think it's it's going to be the Tootin show, man, as it should be.

1:27:06 What do you got, Nick Shelton? Yes, so let's go Pete here. Last year, Jalen Lane led the team in catches with 41 and Dequan Feldon had 38. Obviously the Hokies get Allie Jennings back this year. I've sort of referred to that group as a big three because, well, they're the big three between Lane, Jennings and Felton. Outside of those three guys, anyone in the wide receiver room you expect to maybe pop off or give, you know, take a take a leap forward and maybe provide some some depth in that room as like a four or five option? Well, I think it's a little too easy to say Aiden Green. I feel like that's the guy that we were talking about him in the spring, he had the cool catch in the bowl game and he's got the right frame for it and all that kind of stuff. So I will, as far as a pop goes, I'll leave Aiden Green off because I expect him to be battling with Steven Gosnell for that 4th receiver spot, especially with Gosnell maybe being a little iffy early on.

1:28:09 Although the practice reports indicates that the man has worked his butt off this summer to get back. Think about an XTB, right? Like that's someone that we thought, oh man, he made a lot of plays last year. He could, he could potentially pop this year. He had one catch last year. One, I know he ran the ball, had some cool plays. He had one catch. He's also, he put on a little bit of weight, but he's not that big. Same thing for Takahi, the guy who was injured but got a lot of hype before the season as a young guy that players were watching out for. So let's move all the way down. If you want to go a little exciting, a little bit of pop, let's go with a Brody Adams. I know we are loaded at receiver. It seems inconceivable that we'd want to even burn a red shirt on a Transwiggin or a Brody Adams. But this kid set so many records. He's doing well in camp.

1:28:57 From everything I know you guys are on the boards. I know you were seeing this stuff. He's looking like the part of what he was coming out of high school being our our highest ranked recruit, depending on the service you look at. And so I think he's going to play and it might not be a ton, but if you're looking for a pop, if you're looking for more than one catch as a freshman, I think it's Brody. And he, I'm not even sure he's going to get that richer. Maybe he does because we do have this wealth of depth. But if injuries come, if he outperforms some of those guys, that's who I'm looking for to pop is is a Brody. I mean, you could say Chance too, because Chance had an excellent spring. And then there's Chance Fitzgerald that has a year on both of those guys, but maybe not as as highly touted as as those two younger guys. 100% And from all sounds of it is those guys are going through and with Wiggins and Adams, they showed up in, they showed up in the winter.

1:29:53 They're they've gone through, they've gone through winter camp, they've gone through spring ball, they've gone through summer training. They're not really they're they're not defectively behind. I got one more thing, Sheldon, before you ask your next question for the whole group. This is coming from, this is coming from Tally, David. David, are we making a bowl this year? Because if I can recall, 365 days ago you said we weren't well. Yeah, I saw Tally's comment. What I said, I said tech was five and seven, and tech finished six and six. I mean. What? You guys started the show with the question, Curtis, you asked about taking a bet. Virginia Tech was one in three, man.

1:30:34 I'm with Tally, was the guy on here talking about eight win team last year? That was me, that was me and we finished with seven and we started the wrong quarterback for at the beginning of the season. So I mean. I'm gonna stick by that. Yeah, yes, Virginia Tech is going to make a, a, a bogey. I mean, I'm sure we'll get the predictions later. Curtis, do you mind if I chime in on one thing that you said about the wide receiver room? It's funny. So I practice on what's today, Today's Tuesday. I practice on Friday. Last week, Brent Pryor walked up to me. I wouldn't. I was looking at 1 field. He walked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder and was like, dude, I tell you who's going to be a really great story this year is Steven Gosnell.

1:31:16 He's like that guy. Steven's wearing blue right now, but he is he basically after tearing his ACL in the military, Bowl said. He. He's going to rehab almost faster than anybody else has ever had ever rehab from an ACL. He's basically full go. He's just wearing blue. Brent Pryor was like, I've never, he told me he's like, I've never seen a guy wear blue dive as much and be as physical as much in practice as Steven Gosnell. I think he is maybe the most crucial guy to that wide receiver room. He didn't have as many catches, but almost every single one of those were third down catches last year.

1:31:59 But he was a go to guy in key spots. Now. I think the biggest question is what is the the run pass split look like? I think that will answer a lot of these questions. Danny, you talked about the running backs. Pete, you talked about the wide receivers. There's talent all all over the board. It doesn't really matter who gets the ball. You know, they're probably going to do good things with it. You even look at the tight end room. You saw Benji Gosnell and Harrison St. Germain both catch passes in the in the military bowl. And you've got a guy back in Nick Gallo who's a reliable option, albeit he is not, you know, the the a guy who catches, you know, mobile touchdowns season. But you've got options all over the field. How Tyler Bowen kind of balances this thing, you know, mixing up the runs versus mixing up the passes.

1:32:45 Virginia Tech has weapons all across the board. And I I think credit to Bowen and all the position coaches and to Brent Pryor for kind of revamping this entire offense. Curtis, you, you open the show talking about last year, Virginia Tech was one in three. And I think there were a lot of people questioning what in the world Tyler Bowen was doing through the first four games. Part of that is probably starting the wrong quarterback, but now that you know, got Kyron drones in place, you got everybody back. What does this offense look like? A lot of expectations. But when you have everybody back and you've Got Talent across the border, man, it's all systems go. And I think that is the most exciting part this year. It's like this could go one of many ways, but it's not like there's a situation when when Virginia Tech is playing, it's not like, oh man, you know, they're you know, Virginia Tech doesn't have wide receiver depth there. Oh man, Virginia Tech doesn't have running back depth or tight end depth, right?

1:33:41 It it's there across the board. And I think that is something we have not seen for a really long time. And David, it is unbelievable. All this stuff you laid out in terms of the depth and just think about two years ago when Caleb Smith is our leading wide receiver, probably our four through 6 wide receiver would be the number 2 on this team. I mean, and, and maybe even farther down. That's how the depth has been built out in such a short period of time. And including the past catchers, the tight end, it's unbelievable. And this is going to be a problem for Tyler Bone in terms of how do you balance it? It's a good problem, but it's it's the Team USA basketball problem of like, I don't know who to play because all these guys are pretty good.

1:34:24 Yeah, it'll it'll definitely be interesting to see how that go ahead. Go ahead, Robbie. That's what I was going to say. I mean, when we've all followed this long enough, when was the last time you could name 6 wide receivers at Virginia Tech that you could say, I feel fine with any of them playing at any point in time? That's true. That's true. It's been, I mean, we're talking, we might be getting closer to 1900s, as my kids say. I mean, we're getting, we're getting back to a point at the end of the 90s towards the early 2000s before you can talk about 5 or 6 receivers that can do that. And then we were in college, Robbie. That was a. Clowny. Yeah, we were in college doing stupid. Things, yeah, there's probably why my memory is bad, but you've got the the running backs to back it up. You've got the tight ends to help there. I mean, it's just like you say, it's, it's a problem to see if you can spread out all of the balls and and all of the carries and everything.

1:35:24 But it's a great problem to have as a coach. It's a great problem to have. And if the if the players buy into the fact that we're successful because of how the group works together and not just I got to catch my balls to get to the next one, man, the Sky's going to be the limit. That's why when Shelton brought up the 41 catches As for the leader last year, is that is that the ceiling like for the leader? Like what's the most that any player on this team could even have like 50? Like Allie Jennings had five in the first game. And that was before we kind of knew who Felton and Lane and all those guys were. But if you extrapolate that out, that would be 60 catches. He's not going to probably get 60 catches this year. If he gets 50, that'd be excellent. But but Pete, but hold on.

1:36:12 I want to go back to some Don B said in segment one y'all were listening. If Kyron drone takes that step, there's no telling what the leading receiver is going to end up with because he he threw 285 were here his temps last year. If you tell me he improves and and y'all heard it process it directly to us. I'm sure David he said it to you, Danny. You've probably heard him say it. The windows have please put it in the right spot. He's getting it better into the windows. If that happens, we, we, we might be sitting here in December and saying, holy crap, the leading receiver did have 65 catches. That's in like in, that's on. That's on Kyron. And it's based on completion percentage and, and how many snaps they get, right? Because if the defense plays better, we're going to get more offensive snaps.

1:37:00 And if Chiron completes more passes, there's going to be more catches. So it will all kind of work in harmony. But that's an interesting thought, Curtis. Yeah. And I think the the other thing is you've got to balance Bashel Tooten too. Like my biggest impression from those first four games last year is they didn't use enough. I mean, think about the think about the Purdue game. Grant Wells was the starting quarterback at the time. Virginia Tech I don't think had five rushing yards like it was. It just did not work like against Marshall. Bashel Tooten ran the ball well. And then Tech just stop running the ball. But he's a potential. 1000 yard rusher sitting in that room. So you've got all these wide receivers and it's like you've got a guy in Bashel Tooten and Kyron drones who could be 1000 yard rusher in himself, right.

1:37:44 It's and that's what that when you guys talk about, man, this is a big problem for Tyler Bowen. You bet you'd rather have this than have what you know, it happened in 2021 and 2022. Where is your only option? Yeah. By the way, I pulled up Andy Bitter's story from a couple weeks ago on the wide receiver room. My colleague and he about. I wanted to get the Gosnell fact right. Gosnell had 22 catches last year. 16 of them were first downs. So that kind of just shows you his ability, right. And, and Pete, you mentioned the freshman. I think Chan's is the one that has really stood out the most to me. I, I, I think he and, and Keelan Adams are, are, are two really good talents. But I mean, like you said, Robbie, if, if you guys have eight to 10 wide receivers that you can name that you feel confident about, man, like, you know, it's, it's going to be really, really interesting to see how Fontell mines, you know, and Elijah Brooks.

1:38:43 These guys kind of just manage their rotation at their specific position because there are only so many catches to go around. Think, think about the possibility we could be looking four months from now. We can have, you could be looking at 4 wide receivers with 30 to 40 catches or more, five or six touchdowns. You've got two rushers 800 yards apiece, one being a quarterback, and you've got Malachi Thomas who could run for 5-6 hundred. Where where does that put you at the end? Offensively, it puts a lot of points on the board is what it does. A lot of yards, a lot of points. And I mean, that's, that's a big thing. If you get a lot of yards and not a lot of points out of it, then we'll find a problem.

1:39:26 But. We got a big problem, Sheldon. It's going to be hard for those those kind of yards not to turn into points. Yeah, by the way, to answer your question, Robbie, when was the last time we had this many receivers we could depend on? I'd go in 1971, Don Strzok led the country in passing yards, Air Raid offense, very prolific through to Mike Burnett, by the way, a lot of people forget that, but he did. He was a, he was a Mike Burnett merchant, They would say so. But looking forward to seeing how the passing game evolves this year. So let's talk about everyone's favorite topic, the schedule. I would like to dive into the opponents this year. I am a big believer that you should never, ever overlook a single opponent, take nothing for granted and comfortable this unpredictable sport that we all watch and love.

1:40:08 Now, we saw Virginia Tech have a lot of trouble with Rutgers last year with a physical team. I think we could see a lot of the same this year. Even though that game's gonna be out lane, I think that's an opponent that I look at on the schedule that's, you know, gives me a little bit of concern. So I will pose a question to you guys. Let's start with Danny, who is in opponents on this schedule for Virginia Tech that you think might be a little bit underrated and could give this team a little bit of trouble that maybe fans aren't taking seriously enough? Well, I think the obvious answer there is, is definitely Rutgers, you know, because Rutgers hasn't really been an established consistent winning football program in in quite some time. And they've, they've had some interesting things happen to that program over there. You know, I would say I would as, as I look up and down the schedule, though, I think going to Stanford is a game that is, is probably going to be a pretty big headache. You're going to the other side of the country. You're, you're going almost as far away from Blacksburg as you can go.

1:41:04 And it's a team that you're not particularly familiar with at the stadium that, that no one in this program is particularly familiar with. So I, I look at that, I look at that Stanford game and, and with them coming in, being members of the ACC, now the pressure's going to be ratcheted because that's going to be a conference game. You need to go and win that. But you know, like you guys are talking about it. I think each and every one of these games is, is going to take a unique mental prep preparedness to, to go and win these games. You know, you're talking about the, the, the talent at both wide receiver and, and, and running back and how it's going to be difficult for Tyler Bowen to figure out where he ends up, you know, giving most of the, the looks to.

1:41:45 But it's going to change from week to week depending on who they're playing, depending on what your opponent's strengths are. Because the reality is their passing game's going to need to be better some days and the running game's going to be going to be need to be better some days, right? Like against Rutgers, you mentioned Shelton, physical football team might be a little bit harder to run the ball. You're going to probably need to hit some things over the top to to and not turn the football over right. That's that's always the the first key thing that that any team needs to do to go and win football games. But if we're talking about schedule games that give me a little bit of heartburn outside of the obvious ones like Miami and Clemson and and since you already mentioned it in Rutgers, Shelton, I'm I'll say Stanford. OK, Stanford. It is Deaconna, an opponent this year that Hokies cannot afford to overlook.

1:42:29 I think Georgia Tech is you know, I don't I don't wanna. Sorry. De Curtis, did I take your I? Took my answer. I'm with you, Deaconna. It's it. No, no, I, I. Think you know, I think Rutgers is the obvious one in in my opinion Rutgers is the biggest game on Virginia Tech schedule because it's the first good test against a good team. Virginia Tech has not beaten a good team in the brunt priority yet. That's why Rutgers is up there but nobody's over. I don't think anybody really under looking Rutgers. I think those people who I mean those people who know football understand that that Rutgers is a really good testing trenches. I I think Georgia Tech is just interesting though. I mean, this is the the battle of the Techs. This is the battle of the brands and Georgia Tech is a team that Jamal Haynes last year ran for almost 1100 yards as Georgia Tech's running back.

1:43:20 Haynes King had almost 800 yards on the ground as Georgia Tech's quarterback. That is maybe the only other duo in the in the ACC returning that has a potential thousand yard rusher at running back and at quarterback like Virginia Tech. And I think that is that is one. Where? Georgia Tech. In under, under Brett Key, it is just this very unique team. Now this schedule, if you've seen the Yellowjacket schedule, it's all over the place, maybe the toughest in the ACC. So how they come in mentally will be very, very interesting. But I think that is a game that Virginia Tech should win. It's at home. It's the better team, but it will have to stop the run.

1:44:05 And if you watched Virginia Tech play last year, you know that stopping the run was a struggle at time. So I think that is a game we will know, I think by then whether or not the Hokies can stop the run well, whether they can fit the run well, something they did not do well in 2023. But that that Georgia Tech game is is quiet, you know, kind of comes after that Thursday night Boston College game. And depending on where Virginia Tech is, you got Clemson looking down the road not too far after Syracuse. It falls in a peculiar window in in October where it'll be a little bit chillier in Blacksburg and if the Hokies are on a high, that's a team that that could scare you PP besides obvious Miami and Clemson, who is the team that is keeping you up in the IT? You know that Stanford was a good answer by Danny because Troy Taylor in year two.

1:44:58 I thought like there could be a little bit of a leap there, something that people aren't prepared for. And just the fact that it's after Miami, it concerns me because it's back-to-back roadies on corners of the country that are very far away. But the Dome, I I think TSL talked about the Dome a little bit. That's terrifying. I'll just I'll go with an with with an easy. We're not overlooking it because it's game one, but we overlook it because of the opponent. And that's Vandy and you got Diego pissin Pavia coming over from New Mexico State. You got Jerry kill, a guy who was in our building and improved our run game and our team on their side as the assistant to the head coach. Clark Lee, their head coach has now taken over the DC duties, which is probably an act of desperation, but nevertheless a little bit more of a focus on the defensive side of the ball.

1:45:48 And they got Tim back as the offensive coordinator. So you have a completely new system, new scheme, new quarterback and I don't know if you guys been paying attention to Vandy on on online or whatever. They feel confident. I don't I'm not sure exactly why because they lost like the last 10 games of their season, but they feel confident and I don't want to go down to Nashville just thinking that's a walk over. Like this is a game we absolutely need to be ready and focused for. I know pry we'll have them ready and focused. It's just it is a game that I'm going to the game. I I don't want to be in Nashville after a loss. And so it is keeping me up at night just just a little, just a little.

1:46:28 All right, Robbie, underrated opponent. Who does Vt need to take seriously? I don't know if it's so much the opponent as it could be the mindset. As a coach, we look at, OK, you're going to have a huge rivalry game and I'm pretty sure it's a night game against Miami. But early next. Week you have Stanford, who you're going to, if I'm correct, you're going to travel to you're going cross country. So you come off of a huge game with a lot of emotion. You're traveling across country knowing that you're going to play a team that's not very good technically and you've got a week off afterwards. I, I think to me that's, that scares me as a coach. Where's the mindset for that game sitting in between us with a most emotional game to start off with and then a bye week afterwards?

1:47:28 That that that one concerns me not because so much of the opponent, but just the dynamic of the entire situation. It bothers me a little bit. We always look at opponents as coaches right before a bye week as OK, we got to get through this to get to a spot where we can rest a little bit. And when that opponent is not the spectacular hard fought people that you got to earn that bye week, you already start to think about that. And the coaches have to have to work through that and say, well we can't overlook these guys. We're going cross country to play them after after a. Brawl. In Blacksburg with Miami.

1:48:08 South Beach. Still, yeah, you got to travel down there and go through that emotion and then travel across country. I think that's a big thing that they're going to have to overcome, and I think that's where they win. But, you know, yeah, one of those close ones that makes us all drop some little Jeremy's here, you know what I mean? I just. Kind of problems me a little bit all. Right. All right, so Connor, you did take mine. Georgia Tech scares me. And Pete, you mentioned it, the Carrier Dome. It's almost like what Robbie said, get there and there's a certain number of wins next to your name.

1:48:50 And Clemson's on the horizon in Blacksburg. The build is coming up. That game scares me. I hate that place. I hate that place. That's all you got to think that that place sucks. The players hate it. Too that I hate it. I've had two former players, one at NC State and one at Clemson, that have played multiple games in that Dome and they said it is the absolute worst place in the world to play because you can't hear a damn thing. Even when they're. Terrible. You can't hear a damn thing. All right, so we're going to wrap up this segment real quick here, and I'm going to take what we took from the first one. Don't give me an illicit response.

1:49:32 If Blank improves, the Hokies will win 10 games. Raleigh. Consistency, if they're consistent with what the run fields we talked about, the rotations, the the offensive line consistency, that's what we didn't see a lot of times until the very end last year. At the beginning, consistency hurt us. If the consistency gets better throughout the team they're going to, they're going to get there. Pete. I was run, Fitz and Robbie kind of said in his answer. But that's, that's the thing for me. I was it's going to go with tackling, but more specific run fits. We saw it against Purdue, saw it a couple other times last year.

1:50:14 If that gets better, this defense will take a giant step forward. And it was a good defense last year, it was a top 25 defense, which we all, how do we wrap our heads around as bad as the run feels were early, still a top 25 defense, Danny. Impressiveness. I'm going to stick with my theme of the running game and and I'm just going to say the running game, right, the running game, if that improves, they'll win 10 games because someone at some point here. Over the last. 45 minutes have mentioned Tootin has the potential to be a 1000 yard rusher. Tootin should be a 1000 yard rusher. There's no doubt in my mind. He was at what, 850 or something last year and and they really didn't figure out how to use him. They didn't really figure out how to use anybody on their offense until the fifth game of the season. So if if Tooten, it has a good season and the running game overall is effective. I think obviously Tooten himself is having a Goodyear. Malachi Thomas is probably subbing out in or subbing in and and providing some support for that. Also run the ball well.

1:51:09 That also means you're blocking well. And, and for Virginia Tech, I heard the guys in the first segment talking about this. They don't have a ton of depth on the offensive line. So they need health to to make it through a a physical ACC season. If you're talking about running the ball effectively and doing it consistently like Robbie was saying, so I'll I'll I'll say the running game if they're able to do that and and the one guy didn't mention there is Kyron drones. He can also be the the absolute nightmare for defensive coordinators to try and stop in the run game. David. If Virginia Tech's play in the trenches improves, the Hokies will win 10 games, I think. I mean, Chris Coleman, Mike, all your Tech sideline wrote about this today. This is the JC Price we've heard through the Grapevine has said that this is a better defensive line unit than last year. And that's saying a lot because last year's defensive line was pretty good.

1:52:05 You've got the transfers we already talked about. You've got Antoine Powell, Ryland Cole Nelson, Keyshawn Burgos, CJ McRae. That is a loaded defensive line. But there were some games last year, NC State, Louisville, Florida State, those guys got pushed off the ball. Rutgers, the hokey Rutgers. If the Hokies can be better in on both sides of the ball, in the trenches, and I already talked about the offensive line, if the Hokies are better in those trenches where the battles are won, they're going to win. They will have the good opportunity to win 10 games because if you go into that Rutgers game and you are pushing Rutgers around, not like what happened last year, you have control of that football game. I think everybody in here would agree that that is one of the biggest keys to football and I think we saw it at times. Virginia Tech defensively, that defensive line just eight teams up last year, the teams that weren't very good. Taking that next step is to do it against good. Teams, Yes, Sheldon, I'm going to let you cap it off here. I'll go safeties, man.

1:53:13 I mean, I think they they got the linebacker. You improved. You know, the online is going to get better with experience. I'm just kind of concerned about that safety room because they they had some struggles last year. You still got a little bit of experience there and you know, they they their their poor run fits kind of led to a lot of big plays in the secondary. So they get that safety room a little bit fixed up. I think the defense will take a big step and the offense kind of you expect them to be pretty good. That that'd be the best recipe I think for ten wins. All righty. Well listen guys we have talked just under an hour here. David, Danny, Pete, Robbie, thank you all for joining us Robbie. Robbie is going to stay on with this. Robbie was supposed to be in our third segment. Shout out Mike McDaniel. Mike Mcdaniel's got sick kid at home. Mike was going to join us he couldn't. We love you Mike.

1:53:58 I hope the kid feels better tomorrow. David, Pete, Danny, I hope to see y'all sometime this season. Cheers boys and go Hokies, we got a little something something for y'all now created by our man at BCP, Jack Day. Transfer from Coastal Carolina who has not played in three years. From. 38 The snap gets away. Oh boy, this is a whole mess. Whole Dominion is going to pick it up. It's going to be a scoop and score touchdown. Monarchs, Robert Kennedy. The Safety. One of the greatest and most intimidating venues in all in college football.

1:54:53 Keeps the legs. Churning. And he has spun around and dropped, and that is Norell. He dies. The temperament, the attitude, the way we set our God. To play the game here. This time intercepted. He's near the Brotherhood.

1:55:34 That's when. Virginia attacks the muscle. That videos got me ready to play. Damn right. By the way, shout out to Jack Day, all that stuff all the content y'all see on Instagram, Twitter with those reels and stuff his Jack he is he is kind of the man effectually behind the scenes doing stuff for us in Lego there you go Jack all day day, absolutely absolutely fellas. We got to segment three, hey.

1:56:28 We're under two hours starting segment 3. That's an improvement. We wanted it to be with 90 minutes. We made it. We wanted it to, barely, but we made it because Brian ain't here yet. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet the quota that that Jeremy sent in the first one. No, no, not even. Only think we have one. Hey you. Threw a couple there, Robbie. We got to take the alcohol from there just. Show it. I just show it. Just the we're. Getting ready to go back to school. I got to get in school mode. I got to cut those down a little bit. I can't be throwing those out in the middle of class. There we go, all righty. Well we have finally got to segment 3. Robbie's going to stay with us.

1:57:08 He was supposed to be here in segment 3. Again, Mike McDaniel will hope the kids OK man. But fellas, we got to that. Have been on with us before. Always a fun time. First man I want to introduce, he is one of the sons of Saturday, former Virginia Tech offensive lineman Mr. Billy Ray Mitchell. What's going on? Good to see everybody. This is one of my favorite nights every single year. I have to say just hats off to you all for putting this together. I know this is not easy. I get a little I tell Pete all the time. I get a little squirrely when there's more than two people in here and you guys are running with the with the what is it the NFL box that they run? But you're talking to him.

1:57:53 So you guys do a great job. I appreciate y'all putting this together. So Billy, we, we always got to know you're always somewhere different. Where are you tonight? Cross country bill. So I did just sign, I did just sign a lease in Charlotte, NC, but I'm spending this month in, but I'm spending this month in San Diego. So I've been in San Diego since since July 26th. I leave August 25th or 26th. So I'm out here in Crown Point enjoying some time with a bunch of buddies that I met out here during during my cross country trip. And then then I'm going to chill. I need to stop traveling around is a lot of fun, but I I need to be able to go to a restaurant and get the get the regular and have people know what I'm talking about. So excited so.

1:58:38 Charlotte's going to be the roots for at least the foreseeable future, then. Charlotte, I signed a 16 month lease. It's my first lease since 2019. So excited to excited to be there. I'm excited, excited to to lay some roots down. It's going to be nice. I'm about an hour and 20 minutes north of Charlotte. We'll have to catch up one day. Coach, we will do that. We will do that, Coach, Looking forward to it. I just got a question. You said a sixteen month lease. Yeah, because I'm spending two out here in California. If I'm trying to actually evaluate, you know, Charlotte is this, am I long for Charlotte? We can't just do 10 months. So, you know, I say, hey, look, I need your price match. Give me 16 months.

1:59:19 You got the pool, you got some nice amenities here. I'm going to sign for a little longer, but you're going to give me a price break. You're already giving me the two months for free. So technically it's a 14 month lease. I'll only be there for 15. The math makes sense in my in my head, so. Sons of negotiating. That's right. That's right. You got it. You got to, you got to make it shake somehow. So it ended up working out. I will answer Pat because I did want to talk about it. This was a cop from one of the coffee shops in Blacksburg. It is a Hokies pep band Jean long sleeve shirt. Shout out to all of the the thrift stores in Blacksburg. They do a great job. But one of my favorite favorite cops as of recently.

2:00:00 So thank you Pat for teeing me up to brag about my shirt. Well, this next guy needs no introduction. He is the the OG the the the founder of I think honestly everything from content creation and and things on Twitter because he's been doing it pretty much since he hung up the cleats. Dwight Vick Dwight, How we living, man. I'm good, I'm good. You got a lot of you got a lot of headroom there. You're making yourself look shorter than you really are. I don't know why it's looking like there. We go there. We. Go. Yeah, I don't know, man.

2:00:40 Am I, you know, my Wi-Fi here is am I am I glitching? Am I good? No, you're good. OK, Loud and. Clear you. Look, good, good, good. Yeah, y'all got me on this TNT Lakers versus Memphis time, man, 1030 football man. I'm like bro, like I'm sitting here like, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, ads. But now it's been great, man. It's great to be back on. You know, I'm like Billy, man, this time of year it kind of sluck up on me the season. You know, I've been following it and see all the stuff, the sons of post and you guys Curtis always doing great work. Like I said, the sons and everybody, man, just you know, tech's got a great podcast family, so I appreciate y'all having me on man.

2:01:21 So I'm going to say to share my insight. I'm not the guru. I just speak on what I know this. If this podcast was about electrical engineering, I wouldn't be on here. You know what I'm saying? I speak on. I speak on what I know. Let. Me, let me let me say one thing on that note. I think, I think we have been so spoiled these last few years with an ACC championship in men's basketball, ACC championship in women's basketball, Final Four. And I'm kind of I'm fired up for basketball. I'm fired up for football season. And then we got it. We got to figure it out. Coach Duffy, I'm hoping that you that you continue the success with women's basketball. I hope that men's basketball has a good year this year because the off seasons have been a lot easier than they have been in Virginia Tech history when football kind of was struggling to keep it together.

2:02:08 So let's squeeze all of the juice out of this football season and let's find a way to keep it rolling when when we do get into the offseason. We've been very, very lucky these past few years. So. Yes, Wilson. Yeah, it it's it's nice having having those winter sports, those spring sports kind of carry that that path through the offseason, give you something to talk about. And it's it's nice winning a little bit and and being able to celebrate that, celebrate that in Blacksburg, celebrate the community and celebrate what Virginia Tech's all about. A. 100%. So let's kick it off here. You know, we've got, I want to throw this one to Billy because you know, we've, we've been talking a lot on Twitter. We talked off off camera, we talked on the phone, You know, let's talk scholarship limits in NIL. So we're going to, we're going to get right into the to the grease here real quick because we had the, you know, the, the new rule out there, scholarship limits are up. You can use NIO money, you can commingle that with athletic department money.

2:03:11 Now everything is kind of treated the same. You got coaches wearing we pay players shirts at practice. Damn. Sell me on this being a net benefit for the Hokies under Brent Fry. So first and foremost, for those that don't know, I do work in the NIL space. I work for a company called Student Athlete NIL on the scholarship limits situation. I'm going to have a hard time selling you on this being a positive for Virginia Tech or really anybody that is in a blue blood program. And the reason that I say that is you look back 40 years ago, 30 years ago, and why Alabama was so dominant, why Army was so dominant, why Oklahoma was so dominant is they could take everybody.

2:03:54 They could take 30 kids in a class, they could take 40 kids in a class and it really didn't matter. Now we're at a point where you have this scholarship limit that is up to what, 100 and 10105 different players? You're having all those players on scholarship, so these blue blood teams can take more players and put them on scholarship than they could previously. I'm not sure that that helps a ton for the Virginia Techs of the world, the NC States of the World, kind of that tier. I do think that it's good for baseball who is operating with 11.7 scholarships and that's now up to 34. Softball had 12, they're now up to 25. So that's great. That specifically, I'm not sure how that helps. I do think that it kind of resets the deck with, I feel bad for a lot of the kids that were in high school these last couple of cycles because schools had to retroactively handle keeping kids that had these COVID years, these red shirt years on their books and not being able to extend scholarships to some of these really talented high school players. So I think it's a day late and a dollar short on that change. This probably would have made more sense to do three or four years ago.

2:05:00 Now, switching over to the same pot. Look, I think it's really interesting and I have no inside information on how Tech is going to do this. I can speak to what maybe some schools are considering doing or some schools are doing based upon what the state laws are. Basically, with this money being the same pot, you are going to be able to offer benefits to people like priority points. Let's say if Virginia Tech wanted to say, hey, if you donate to the NIL fund of Virginia Tech, we'll give you priority points because for right now, you're not really able to offer university benefits. Back to giving to NIL. So you know, the crazy situation about NIL is in its name, Name, image, and likeness is just paying players. It's not name, image and likeness. If I ask all of you to name every single person that you see on a commercial or has a brand deal in the MLB or the NFL or the NBA, it's not every single player on the team. But we're led to believe that every single Power 5 program in America has four to $12 million worth of name, image and likeness players on their roster. They don't, newsflash, but they do have players that are worth that amount to the school based upon their skill level. So I think that this gets us closer to tapping into some of that TV money, tapping into some

2:06:31 of those MMR deals with the Learfields and the Playflies of the world. And I don't want to. I don't want to bog this down in a conversation that is way bigger. And I won't be able to give an awesome answer in 5 minutes. But I highly encourage you all to check out the episode that we did with Olivia Nuss. I did just retweet that on our feed. She's the head of legal affairs at Student Athlete NIL. She used to work for NILSU in Baton Rouge. She's fantastic, very, very educated on the matter. But I do think that opening this up to where universities can participate and offer their donors some benefits back for helping put the team on the field, that's going to help level the playing field a little bit. We still need to figure out how we stop the bidding war every single year that is completely out of control.

2:07:18 And you're almost in a situation where, well, I hope our quarterback, every school, I hope our quarterback plays really well, but not too well because then he won't be on, he won't be on our team the year after. So it's a little bit of an interesting conundrum, but crazy, crazy world. Yeah, I mean, we, we are in a situation now where it's like you want you want players to do well. But I think as where Virginia Tech has kind of put itself in the totem pole, they're not a blue blood where like as soon as you get that good season, you've got a bidding war. They've got more money, they've got more coffers. They can go in and pay proportionally more players to to join their roster, right? So we're kind of at that point where we do pretty well.

2:08:02 We, we do well enough, but we can't, we can't pay 22 guys what they could get at places like Alabama or even places like a, a Boston College in some cases or Maryland. Like sometimes we're going to have to make that business decision of, you know, do do we match that offer? Do we try to do something else? And I know Price talked about, you know, when when guys come to him and say, Hey, I, I was offered this. The first thing he says is, Hey, do you like playing here? Do you like being here? Do you like being in blacks or do you like being a Hokie? And I think that has that culture piece has really went a long way in helping us kind of maintain the roster that we have coming into this season and and helped us have that that roster that is, you know, from a returning production standpoint right at the top of the country. And I have to say too, I'm not in any way against players are receiving compensation.

2:08:57 They've been missing out for years on the compensation that they deserve. I have a problem with the way that it is it was handled by the NCAA, which is they threw their hands up in the air on NIL and the transfer portal at the exact same time. And it created chaos. And I do want to extend a a tip of my cap to triumph in that team Collectives are trying to solve for an impossible problem at every one of these schools. Again, it is trying to find a way to generate advertising dollars and fundraising for numbers that are exorbitantly higher than what a normal company would pay to work with some of these athletes.

2:09:39 That's just the reality of the situation. Not all of them, but some of them. So I do have to tip my cap and say fantastic job by Triumph and the coaching staff to keep this team together Because you know, you you zoomed back ten years ago and you looked at this roster midway through the season, you say, hey, we're going to be pretty good next year. Midway through last season, we're like, if we could keep like half of this team, we'll be pretty good next year. And they were able to do that. And that's why we're being talked about so much this offseason. Appreciate it Billy all. Right, Kelly, What you got, man? Just hit on that on on, on a little bit of of that. What Billy's talking about the I don't want to get into it too deep, but I with, with what they're doing with NIL, which is sometimes kind of crazy and transfer portal, which is crazy as well. It pushes some kids to JUCO and things like that. But I think it's kind of a adverse effect for us. I think it helps us a little bit more than it hurts us because from where I sit down here in SEC country, they've been doing that.

2:10:42 They've just been doing it behind closed doors. That's why they had so many stockpiles of kids sitting and waiting two and three years because these somebody who owns a horse for them would be like, oh, I'll pay that kids. You know, I'll pay for him and his family and his mom to move to Alabaster AL to get a job and all of this stuff for three years until he can get on the field, as long as he don't leave. So it's been happening at school, so why not make it to be fair as equal as you can to be fair? Sally, it hasn't just been happening at SEC schools. I mean, going, going, I wasn't this caliber of recruit, but I went to high school with these calibers of recruits and it wasn't just like these three schools who came in and said, hey, we can, we can take care of some things. A ton of schools were doing this. It's just not.

2:11:32 Behind of course, of course and. I, I do agree with you that this puts that this puts it in a really good position. And you know, my seat from working with, with Liz and Georgia, which was incredible over the last two years. Like that was one of the truest examples of NIL because the businesses that were working with them and how seriously they took their podcast and working with these businesses, they saw actual ROI in that investment. They didn't just say, hey, Liz and George are good at basketball. So we're just going to, you know, work with them to make something happen. You know, there was a real embracing from the fan base's perspective and the business's perspective. And even though Georgia couldn't participate in NIL in the same capacity that that Liz did, they had a huge impact on the Blacksburg community on and off the court through NIL. And opportunities like that are what make it so special. So I have to tip my cap to the both of them as well. Definitely, definitely.

2:12:29 Well, yeah, man, we appreciate your. First of all, I'm going to go on this too. Then we'll we'll get back to the the normal scheduled broadcast. I'm glad you said that you got a job because I've got a lot of messages about does Billy work? Is his family the mafia? How is he? Able to travel all over these places. So the man said that he works. Y'all heard it here first. He may be rich, but his family is not. Tally, tally, my I'm from New Jersey, but my parents are not in the waste management business. OK, I'm not a I'm not a Cartarello, I'm not a Philippelli.

2:13:15 But no, I mean, I will say when I, when I was laid off from the technology job a couple years ago, Sons of Saturday was, and you guys know this, this is, I'm not going to say it's a full time job, but you know, you're working with advertising, you're getting on, you're recording them. And here we are at it's 750 here, but it's 1050 over there. We're burning some midnight oil. It's work. We enjoy talking about Virginia Tech. I will say there are times that it's more fun to talk about Virginia Tech going through 66 football seasons and three and 10 football seasons. You're you're getting ready to press record and you know, Pat and I might look at each other and be like, all right, we got to do 45 minutes on this. But you know, it is, it is a ton of fun to be part of the conversation. But yes, do you have a job?

2:13:57 Do you have health insurance there? To my knowledge, there is no, there is no Billy Ray fund. It'd be nice if there was though. Right, right. Well, I'll ask this question. Just talking about, you know, Dwight getting you involved a little bit as well as you Billy talking about the both of you guys having, you know, being a part of teams from the past. They've had some pre season hype. You know, Dwight, the 98 team and then you know Billy, the 17 team that was loaded with NFL talent all across it. And you guys, you know, seen the the pre season hype and, and the talent that was on the team. Now I'm seeing what we have now with the hype and the talent on the team. How do you, you know, how did y'all handle those expectations and kind of how do you think Coach Pryor and his staff are handling those expectations of getting that hype but also still going out this year and performing?

2:14:52 Well, I mean, I, you know, I've been asked this question before. I think it, you know, I was watching the other two segments you guys did with everybody on Danny and those guys about all the players and which room. But I've always said, and I say it every year, if you look at the great Virginia Tech teams over the last 2527 years, the teams that win the conference will get to the conference championship game and win 9 to 10 games are teams that have leaders. You know when you have leadership, regardless of how many stars you return, that always helps. But if they are not, if they're unselfish and they locked in and then an extension of Pride and Pearson and JC and Marvin, those guys, then your locker room's going to be fine. Like your locker room has to be right. I've seen I always talk about the 2003 Hokies right before they went into the ACC in 2004. I, I stand on this as a case.

2:15:39 I stand on business on this one. That 2003 Hokies team was loaded. You had Keith Willis at tight end, you had Kevin Jones, you had Brian Randall, You had Jay Grove at center, You had Ernest Wilford. You had a loaded squad. They won games at Texas A&M. They they were picked to battle Miami. They even beat Miami that year, broke their 31 game-winning streak. This is when Miami was loaded, right? But they underachieved. They lost to Boston College that year at home. They lost to UVA. It was the UV as first time since beating us since 1998. That team underachieved because you know, they had Vegas Robinson and Vince Hall at linebacker, but they weren't a unit.

2:16:22 So in a lot of ways, people ask me how great will tech do? I always say I feel great because if the guys are the not just starters, because you can be a backer, but be a leader. If the guys understand what pride his staff want, what JC and those guys want, then your team will be unified. If if it's look at me and you know, we're not locked in, but you know, I'm going to get my paper or I got to get my numbers or I'm trying to improve my draft status, the team is going to underachieve and that and not to pick on Miami or other teams, but that's what you've seen sometimes. And you say, wow, that team is loaded. How did they not win 8 or more games? Well, they had a bunch of selfless guys. One thing about being around the locker room, being around Tech at the spring game and just knowing some of those guys in the locker room, they're locked in, they seem very unselfish.

2:17:06 So I think with Kyron as his leader and the rest of those guys, you know, keeping those guys, a big factor a lot of guys returning was Kyron, Kyron. So they wanted to come back and run it back. Tooting could have left, a lot of guys could have left. So you kind of see what you saw at Clemson that one year for about 5-6 years where Dabo was able to get a lot of future NFL players to return and win 11 or 12 or more games. I'm not saying we're going to do that, but I do feel good because I feel like the leadership is there. This is why I said on your your podcast about a year ago that the biggest issue I saw with Virginia Tech the last few years, the end of the Fuente era as well as the first years with pride is that they had no idea how to win. When you have guys that know how to lead, you know how to go on the road.

2:17:51 You know, when I was at Tech and when I played or even the guys that came after me that one, those guys know how to win on the road. And if they didn't win the game, like I remember when Billy was at Tech, they went toe to toe with Alabama for 3/4 and that was a future national championship team because they had a great leadership. They had a day. It wasn't like they were going to win 11 games that year. But I just feel like it always starts in the locker room and I feel like if our guys that are on the field and doing what needs to be doing. Like I don't know if it was Suns or Saturday that shared it or Tech Triumph, but it was a video I shared in my Instagram story of Kyron, Kyron and the receivers. It was 945 at night and they were in the indoor practice facility getting throws in and they were just drenched in sweat and they were locked in. To me, that's a small things that you saw back when I played or even after I played with Tyrod and those guys. That's the leadership that won't be. It's not measurable until you see them play on the field. On that, on that note, I wanted to say a couple of things. Number one, it's not always about having leadership on a team that is potentially competing for a conference championship or potentially competing for a spot in the playoff.

2:19:01 It is just leadership period. Like I remember that six and six team that had to get bowl eligible and one of Coach Beamer's last seasons. And I'll never forget when we were staring in the face. I can't remember how many games we had to we had to win to get bowl eligible, but they had a players only meeting and Kyshawn Jarrett got up, Dietrich Bonner got up. A bunch of those dudes got up there and just talked about how important it was, how much it meant to them to send out Coach Beamer the right way. And having people that are willing to step up and step into that role where coaches can inspire you only so much and coaches can only say so much. But when you have somebody in that locker room that is going through exactly what you're going through and it's talking about how it how much it means to them, especially to some of those young guys, that's pivotal and that makes a huge difference.

2:19:44 I also think the difference between what really separated that 2016 team was two things #1 when that team started to get some buy in after the first two games of the year, when people realized, OK, Gerardo is a dude, this wide receiver room is awesome. We got punched in the face by Tennessee and it brought everybody right back down to earth and everybody had to go back to fundamentals and understand, OK, if we're going to be who we can be. We're going to have to tighten some things up and that team did that and then that team went to the ACC Championship and had a the best year we've had since 20/12/2011. On the flip side, that team had so many players who had played for so many years together. John McLaughlin was one of those players who as a freshman was going out there against Alabama.

2:20:31 You look at a Wyatt Teller who had been through multiple offensive line coaches, had been through the ringer. Sam Rogers walk on, all these guys who had so much respect and had been through it and could take those younger players that had to contribute or those players that came in and get everybody reading from the same set of notes made such a big difference. And we have that continuity now. And Coach Fry, I think one of the things that he said that is so pivotal was it was a difficult decision to pick who went to ACC media day. Like that was an actual conversation of I wonder who's going to go and somebody's going to get left out. Because can't remember the last time we had a team where you can identify somebody in every room who has the leadership qualities that you're looking for on a team. Every single room on this team has a leader that she would feel comfortable going into Saturday, Thursday or Friday with. And we haven't had that in a few years across every single room. And I think that is a huge difference between this year going into going into it.

2:21:32 Just don't have to have that Tennessee conversation. Don't have to have that early season. Everybody loves you and then you underperform. Now, I'm not saying that Tennessee team wasn't good. That was a really good Tennessee team who didn't know how to use Alvin Kamara, but we didn't have to our potential in that game. Yeah. Those turnovers definitely didn't help either though. No, I. Didn't. No, I didn't. They did ball security for three hours on on that Monday or Tuesday after that. Well, Billy, but Billy, just to your point, that team I watched, I remember that was on my birthday, September 14th. So I watched it. I was up in DC at a bar with a bunch of people. Man, I was looking at that game and everyone was mad at me because I went on Twitter and I said This is why I didn't go because it was at that racetrack, right?

2:22:17 And I said until until Virginia Tech can handle hype and expectations, I'm not taking the bait. And and then people like, oh, how you going? I'm not turning my back on those guys. Cam Phillips and those guys are my brothers. I'm talking about the fact that the 2007, was it 2007, 2008, 2007 game against Miami when we had Percy Harvard and 68 recruits on the sideline, maybe 200 and Miami beat as they beat the brakes off us. That's the hit with Daryl Tapp slam the quarterback or the Tennessee game, which I feel like if we don't turn the ball over, we win that game. So what you're talking about, Billy, is being able to handle hyping expectations. Coaches pretty much say the same things. Everybody puts their spin on it.

2:22:59 You know, some guys show videos, some guys will, you know, have another guest speaker come in. Everybody right now across the nation feels like they can have a chance to win games and win their conference. The difference is not just the talent, but the players that anoint themselves as leaders that make sure that nobody's skipping a rap in the weight room. Billy, you know this and you know, conditioning, you know, making sure the third stringers are giving us a good look on Scout, all that stuff. I saw it, I saw Antonio Freeman do that. I saw guys challenge back up. So there's a culture. And you mentioned continuity. I think that's the biggest thing I feel good about this season. It's like that hopefulness with the continuity. On that point too, and again, I'm I'm, I'm just, I'm just speaking from this year specifically. One of the things that was pointed out after that Tennessee game was going into the game, the entire staff was saying, guys, we have a great game plan.

2:23:51 We match up fantastic with them. And it shouldn't be a surprise when we come out and we punch Tennessee in the mouth. And if you look at the broadcast of that game and if you look at the body language, if I could recall the body language correctly on the sideline, there were some people who were like shocked we were beating Tennessee because we're just coming off a six and six year. We were six and six the year before. And people were like, Oh my God, we're playing in front of 160,000 people and we're taking it to Tennessee, this SEC team with all of this talent. And that's where it caught up to us. And that was the message all week after that game was it was like, until you guys believe how good you actually are, you will continue to have these let downs in situations like this.

2:24:31 And that's why I always push back on the notion from and it's not just Virginia Tech fan base, it's every fan base. I don't like that we're ranked or I don't like that people are talking about us. If you don't want the noise of expectations and you don't want the excitement of being in the game of being talked about, you should go cheer for Duke. You should go cheer for State. Seriously. Like that whole mindset, That whole mindset of I don't want expectations, I want to just surprise people. No, I want the target on our back. That is what makes it special. That is what makes it getting up and watching every single Saturday and then also going into work on Monday and seeing your buddy who sits across from you who into Arkansas or your buddy who sits across from you who doesn't even watch college football.

2:25:19 And they said, man, I was tuned into Virginia Tech. Y'all got a good football team this year. And everybody's having those conversations right now more than they have in the last 10 years. And that's the type of expectation that Virginia Tech should have and you should want as a fan for the team that you're rooting. For 100%, absolutely. What was my man's name to play for West Virginia? The quarterback wound, I think it was 2017 year going into 2017. What's? My last name to play for it will grill. So yeah. So kind of thinking about that you know kind of going back to something like that. What Billy's saying you know going from that 16 year to that 17 year. That was a big game. You know, playing at FedEx Field, us going to play West Virginia old rivalry like Oz was on that game, like everybody got so as as much as we, you know, as much as we jump on fool and and and that for and that regime them first games, man, he would get deep in that bag man, and them expectations that was on the team was met a lot of to like going into that game.

2:26:24 It was a lot of hype around that game and and they came in and they kind of did the damn thing. Honestly, you know what I'm saying watching that. I remember watching that on TV like damn, and people like you say it going into work and it was like, man, I was watching y'all last night at shoot Virginia Tech. They look good like that looked like what what our Virginia Tech team looks like. Robbie, what you thinking about all this hype and stuff we talking about we. From a coaching perspective, we talk about the hype and the things all the time. Now I'm dealing, I'm dealing with with much different athlete and, and high school athletes and things like that and what we're talking about here. But I mean, we had I I've coached some teams that, you know, year in, year out that targets on their back. That hype is, is built and it's like, it's like walking a tightrope.

2:27:13 And we got you got to, we always talked about height will fit you up to be humbled. If you fall too far into that height and listen to the people telling you about how good you are as a player. If you don't have the leader that they can humble everybody and be able to tell them, Hey, we, we got that height because of what we've done. And we've got to continue to do that to keep that height. You're going to get humbled real quick. I'm going to tell you what, I've been humbled. I've been humbled a few times as a coach. I've seen teams get humbled because they believed in that height. But like you, like it was said before, you have to buy into that height too, because you have to have that kind of raw aggression, that raw emotion of yeah, we're. Going to We're going to live.

2:28:04 To that height and you've got to have the people to steer it the right way, just like you got to have that pole to to walk that tightrope. You got to keep that balance and it's a thin line, but you have to find it and use both your advantage. A good comparison that I have not to not to leverage it all the way back to high school, but my senior year, I mean, coming in, Paramus Catholic was ranked #8 in the country. We had Jabril Peppers was returning kicks. He's playing running back. He was quarterback. Sometimes we had, you know, I think we sent eight or ten kids to Division One schools. And that whole year running through the season, everybody's telling you how good we are. And then we go and we play Don Bosco, Terrell Smith School in the middle of the season, ESP NS there we get alternate uniforms from Adidas.

2:28:48 It was pretty crazy. And they came out and they kicked our ass up and down the field all game. And if we didn't have that reset moment where you have those conversations with your team and then you're trying to say, hey, look, we're going to piss away this incredible opportunity because you think that it's just owed to you to to be good and beat all of these teams and just and just run roughshod throughout the rest of the the rest of the season. And then that set us up for an opportunity. We've played Brandon Wimbush and Brandon Wimbush and and Minka Fitzpatrick in the state championship and if we didn't have that moment in the season because we weren't mature enough to handle it in the pre season, probably don't win that game the last year, the last game of the season.

2:29:30 So just hoping that we can avoid that. And Coach Pry has preached this all season. How important it is to not get invested in the hype, how important it is not to get invested into how good people are telling you you are. You need to believe that you're that good and you need to put in the work to live up to the opportunity that you have based upon the talent and the seniority and the continuity that you have on your team. Yeah, Billy, he, he definitely gave y'all a hell of a sound bite talking about expectations. And. And all that, so that, that was, that was a great sound bite. And it's, it's definitely been something that sounds like that's been been preached top down. But let's talk about that coaching continuity and, and, and how, how they impact that roster.

2:30:11 You know, when we look at this coaching staff, you know, this time last year they'd only been together about five months total as far as a, a, a whole staff with the the swapped outs in last spring and all that. Yeah, now it seems like they're, they're running like a well oiled machine. Robbie, I'll let you start with this one. What effect does this type of staff continuity have on a team and particularly a veteran and and leader heavy team like this one? It's it's going to be immeasurable. I mean, to, to be able to see the, the schemes that are put in the consistent coaching points day in day out over a longer period of time.

2:30:53 I mean, I, I talked to coach Crook last year at, at the coaches clinic that we went to. He had been in Blacksburg for like 9 days at that point. He was sleeping on a couch in an apartment that him and the, the new running backs coach had come in and kind of were written week to week until they could get everything settled. That's how quick everything turned around and got in there and to see the improvement in so many areas, especially with the online just in in the quick period of time through the spring into the fall. Just the fact that that's continuing for a whole year now, getting that the same verbiage, the same teaching that can that continuity, that consistency all the way through is going to make, I mean things immeasurable.

2:31:43 And with the the the carryover of every coach being back, every coach being back in the same place as they were. I mean, I, I think that's, that's going to pay huge dividends in the end. And, and putting things together and the players continuing to hear the same thing. They're not getting a different coach every season, things like that, that I mean that that'll drive a thing in the ground. And I think that I think that's going to be big for them. Just kidding. Continuing to hear the same teaching and buy into those things, Dwight. What do you got on this one? Sorry, I, I, you know, I, I agree. I think, you know, I've been recruited 20 plus years, but I work with kids.

2:32:28 You know, I have a son that's, you know, that's in that situation. I work with a lot of kids, a lot of kids who are going to UVA and Virginia Tech, you know, I mentor them. And I do think continuity amongst your coaching staff and that brotherhood, you feel it like Virginia Tech, it's a unique school because of its location and where it's at and the fact that they have the, you know, hashtag or whatever this is home, you know, mantra that they push. I think when you see coaches that really enjoy being Hokies, I think I tried to warn people. When Prague, you know, came back, it was kind of like when Joe Gibbs came back to the Washington Redskins, now commanders, everybody thought he was going to hire everybody from the good old days. And I was like, you know, he can't do that. That would be really wack.

2:33:09 You know, you can't get everybody from that day. It's a different time. So, you know, as much as I would love to see all my, my, you know, I call him The Avengers of those superhero coaches, the truth of the matter is he got some guys, he retained the right guys and he got some guys that also knew him from other places. So, you know, having Marv, a guy he can trust and he's mentoring a guy that really took a big step forward last year, you know, having JC, who bleeds Virginia Tech, you know, punched his hand in a locker or wall against Maryland the ball game and broke it. You saw him getting emotional and that big win to become bowl elligible at UVA. Pearson Prelo, who Greg wins when he was a defensive coordinator with Washington and the New Orleans Saints, said Pearson was the smartest football coach he ever coached. And I played with Pearson for four years and he is like a little Torian Grey.

2:33:55 Like he's just a great mind and a great recruiter. We're seeing that. I think having guys that you know, you know, coach DJ AKH cheater and then you know, just all those guys, Jerry Ferguson, who was the great fullback who's working in the strength and conditioning room, you know, respectfully, I said this. I said, you know, Beamer left with blueprint, some of the stuff that need to be upgraded and modified and evolved into the modern day. But as far as the importance of relationships, I've always said that when I've been on different podcasts like too deep or Suns of Saturday or even this one, I've always said it's the relationships that will help. You know, the relationships will get you players because parents and kids can see like if you've been recruited obviously like Billy touched on, which is crazy right now, this NIL stuff. I'm mad because I was on the NC 2A games and I ain't getting no paper.

2:34:43 I was on, I was on three of them, bro. All I got was just a rating. I think they rated me at 79. I was in my fields. But now he's got, he's got to. File a lawsuit. Yeah, you know, you know, it is what it is. I'm not a hater. I'm happy for these young guys, but it's a different game now. But to have coaches that want to stay, that aren't trying to get the bag and want to be there, it's a good feeling. I think it makes sense. I don't want to get all corny and make it more than what it is. I just think those relationships matter when it comes to just having coaches that understand prize vision and, and what he wants, you know, Because the last thing I'll say about this is when a head coach, and Billy talked about this a few years ago in the Twitter space, a head coach is so much more than a coach. He's Aceo.

2:35:25 He's got to do tech tech talk live. He's got to go down to Tidewater and Richmond and Northern Virginia, do coaches clinics and speak or you know, fundraising. You got to have guys from your administration, you know, main office staff to your assistant coaches to the janitorial staff, your trainers, everybody's got to have your back. You got to have people in that office and in that meeting room and those meeting room over in Castle that really know what pride wants you when his back is turned and he has to be able to trust those guys. And I think when you have people around you who trust, it's just the energy is right. You know, it's just a great thing he's got going on right now. It'll you know, it'll be interesting if we keep having success, if we can retain all these guys, because I think that would be very nostalgic on how it used to be. But you know, I love the energy around the program when it comes to the coaching staff and having the right guys that used to be there.

2:36:17 Like, you know, you got Cam Phillips back, Xavier DB, but they're not in positions. They're they're in positions where they're going to grow as coaches. You're not. Unfortunately, we all love Justin Hamilton, but he was put in the unfair situation where I think pride knows these guys need this, they need that. So he's he's doing it where they can grow and learn and eventually get a promotion, whether at Tech or somewhere else. Yeah, I really like Dwight's point about Pride kind of sticking to the Beamer blueprint, but modernizing it in the way that needs to be modernized. I think he's done a really good job bouncing those two things, so let's keep the combo going, one. Second, I wanted to add, I wanted to add one thing on this, on the coaching continuity, couple things. Cam Phillips and Isaiah Ford had two different coaches. They had Morehead and they had Wiggins. You look at Wyatt Teller, he had three different offensive line coaches, Coach Grimes, Coach Searles, Coach Vice. And just look at how coaching turnover effects a guy like Dabo Sweeney, effects a guy like Nick Saban. It affects everybody.

2:37:17 And the one thing that I think is lost on this staff that, you know, we're very quick to criticize, we're not very quick to realize how things have improved. Two years ago, the verbiage around Coach Bowen was this guy's trash. He doesn't know how to call an offense. He doesn't know how to adjust. He doesn't know how to make end game adjustments. I don't know how much clearer I could be on this. Coaches are just like you and me. They're just like players. They learn, they adjust and they get better over time. It's not as simple as we bring somebody in and they're good or bad and they're going to be the same person every single year. Coach Compton, I'm sure you are a much better coach today than you were ten years ago, right?

2:37:59 Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed from Coach Bowen the person. It has just changed as he has grown with the game. So I think these guys being together, having trust, having the ability to adjust and learn along the way and grow with their team, we're going to continue to see that. And I think that we need to give props to a situation like that because I'm sure people were very, very critical of a Coach Beamer early in his career, but also a Coach Wiles early on in his career and also a Coach Foster very early on in his career. Coaches grow just like players grow. That's a that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Before I let Sheldon go, but I do want to say this, Billy, me and Dwight Victoria said.

2:38:46 I think we were on the show together, maybe on a space. I'm not going to judge the coach until he gets talent. I don't care about the XS and OS right now. I need to know who he gets. I can't judge Coach Bowen until he gets a player. He we need talent. So when he brought talent in, I said OK, now we get to seek any coach. If you can't get the talent, it don't matter how XS and OS you are, you're not going to win as many games as somebody who goes out and gets Kyron drunk. So it was on the Twitter. Space. It was on the Twitter Space when me, you and Laura Johnson had like over 350 people in there after the ODU loss. We won that joint until like 2:45 in the morning.

2:39:26 That's when you saw your mercy. I can't do no more of them too old man. Tally, if you and me show up to a Thanksgiving party, right? And they're, they're broadcasting, hey, Tally's going to put down some food. Billy Ray's going to put down some food. And we show up and grandma at this Thanksgiving dinner, her food is trash. You can't judge if I'm going to show up and I'm going to eat a lot of food. So when we show up to a Thanksgiving dinner that has been prepared, they got the good Mac and cheese, they got the good mashed potatoes, they got the good Turkey, then we can actually show how we could put down some food that is a crazy reference to use. But I, I completely agree with you, Don't judge, don't judge somebody's ability to coach or do anything if they're not given the tools to do it correctly.

2:40:08 So. Well, prime company have a lot of food to work with coming. In this season. They've got the, they've got the, they've got the full buffet, the full full house. Hope is our 4th in returning production this year according to Bill Collin of ESPN, and 2nd in returning production on offense. And I think we look at some of the position groups to focus on the offense. You look at offensive line, I look at two guys in particular on the left side, Xavier Chaplin and Braylon Moore, who were retro freshman last year, but you know, had a full year of experience under their belt. They come back as sophomores this season and they're surrounded by some old guys like Hayden Moore and Parker Clements and Cunningham from Georgia State.

2:40:49 So opening the question, I guess, you know, I wanted to start with Robbie just to kind of get get his thoughts on this. You know, we keep talking about continuity. How integral do you see the offensive line being to kind of the overall operation of the offense this year? And just what value do you think, you know, having having the guys who, you know, come back from last year and kind of take their bumps and bruises as they did in 2023, How, how valuable can that experience be for, for their growth this season? Oh, the experience is going to be just having those guys playing together more under the same, the same verbiage, the same systems, the same teachings day in and day out over that time.

2:41:30 I mean, they're just going to grow closer together. I talked about it in that last segment. Offensive Lines from my experience, don't do a lot of rotating. Now you have might have to mix and match when you have to fill somebody in some things like that. But there's not a lot of rotating because you build that chemistry knowing exactly how the guy besides you is going to move and attack and, and, and take on different things. And I think that's going to be the, the fact that you had two young guys come in there learning a lot from some of the older guys. You have a coach now that's in his second year going through this. They're going to continue to build with the it's going to build confidence in what they're doing. They understand things more.

2:42:15 They feel better with each other. They're building that chemistry. And I think that's going to be a big thing for them pushing forward. And I think it's just going to make them better in the long run. And the guys behind them are going to see the same things and continue to push it up. Dwight, I want to ask you a question and this is kind of how I'm thinking about this. All season, every one of those offensive lineman header have heard everybody talking trash about that unit. All offseason they've heard non-stop about how bad this unit is, how horrible they are. How if I saw Parker Clements in an alley, it's on site. First of all, none of you are fighting Parker Clements. Zero of you are fighting Parker Clements and you would lose.

2:42:58 But we, when we interviewed Kyron, he's I brought this up and he was like, look, they all hear what you're saying, like they all hear you guys. At the end of the day, you look back at guys like I'll say it again, Jay Glock, Wyatt Teller, Christian Darasaw, these are all guys who got better year after year after year after year. And this time they're coming back with a quarterback who is a playmaker, dynamic running backs. We talk about Tooting a lot. Malachi Thomas is going to be fantastic because he's healthy. Finally, I'm so excited to watch this unit play because I feel like Virginia Tech fans could not have honestly a lower expectation for this unit. And I think, I think they're going to come out and I think they're going to, they're going to improve dramatically this upcoming year just based upon the continuity, based upon the amount of talent that they have behind them. I am so, so excited to watch this unit play. And, and on that note, too, losing Daquon Wright, incredible talent.

2:43:53 Daquon Wright is an incredible talent. You are replacing Daquan Wright with Gallo, Saint Germain and Gosnell, who are all difference makers in the run game. If you have a defensive end who's giving you problems, you're going to stick Nick Gallo over there and you're going to have him, you're going to have him double team. You're going to have him help out and help out where he needs to help out. So I think that you have three tight ends who all can contribute in the run game are going to make a huge difference. It'll be interesting to see if we do any type of H back situation or have them in the backfield, how we're going to utilize them specifically manipulate the pocket. But I got my eyes on this offensive line and I'm I'm very, very bullish on them. And I don't think it was as bad as it, as everybody says it was towards the end of last year like.

2:44:37 Everybody called historical. We. Like everybody was talking about how it was awful. Look, they had their problems and they had their issues, but we also had multiple games where we rushed for over 100 yards towards the end of the season when they finally understood the scheme, which changed three or four times throughout the year. We talk about how important it is from a chemistry standpoint. What about knowing where you need to go If we're changing our scheme week to week because we're trying to figure out A, who's going to be our starting quarterback and B, what type of offense we're going to run to match the starting quarterback that we have, That's a huge challenge not just for the quarterback, but the offensive line because you're not doing the same thing week to week. So I can't wait to watch these guys get out there and do their thing.

2:45:18 The one thing that I the one thing that I've seen from from last shit that I'd give the the offensive line credit on, but also the guys that's back there running the ball, it's like once they seen that Tooten Tooten's not going down with, it's hard to get him down with one person. You know, it's hard to get Karen down with one person. But what I hate to see is that somebody that's running the ball in those early games, Tooten was getting killed. It was two and three people hitting him in the backfield. Later in the season you start seeing even if the lineman messed up, they were going to the ball, they were going to get somebody. Even if they hit the wrong person, we're going to hit somebody. So because they knew that their runners were staying up. So I seen I think a Brody Meadows the most like downfield still blocking, going and find somebody to hit. You know, seeing stuff like that does give you, I don't want to say hope because I think that the line will be fine. I think they have enough leaders to be like, Hey, you got to get your ass in gear.

2:46:17 So I don't want to say hope, but it it does give me like, and they have people pushing them. When you have some depth and you have people behind you that say, hey, if you mess up, I'm going to take you out. That does change a little bit of what you do as well. You know what I'm saying? Because I mean, I see it all the time, like when my son's playing, he he's the only center field on his team. When they bring another kid in and he plays center field too, he UPS his game a little bit. So that's kind of what I want to see because of the depth piece and you know, having a little bit more people that can go in and rotate into places and figure out who's the best five week in, week out on the offensive line. Well, also too, I, I just think, you know, Billy touched on it. I think if you have an offensive line coach you're familiar with, you know, I talked to Tyler Bowen back in April at the spring game and Tyler Bowen was telling me on the sideline during the Friday walkthrough he was like, yeah, Victoria man, we feeling real good around here because everybody kind of knows what they're supposed to be doing versus last year. We're all trying to figure it out. You know, I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he was saying, which you can see.

2:47:17 I just think when I look back at my career and I'm looking back, you know, and UNC and other teams, you know, Billy made a fantastic point about, you know, Dabo losing Venables and the other guy. Like when you lose great coaches and you can't replace them with guys that fit your culture and that did not, there's no continuity. The players suffer. You know when I had Coach Grimes, not the Grimes y'all know that was with Fuente, but another Grimes. Really, really great coach. He was there my red shirt year, my red shirt freshman, sophomore and junior year. He was tough as nails. This is a guy that had a heart attack during the game. He had a heart attack during the Boston College game and still called us all before he drove himself to the hospital. He end up leaving to go coach at Arkansas because he was an FCC guy. But then Stein Spring who was a tight ends coach to go over him as a online coach and we kept the same verbiage. Ricky Bussell was AOC, so the same offense that drunken Miller ran, Maurice Josejo, Al Clark ran in as well. Same offense Mike ran.

2:48:09 So when you're in office alignment, if you're a backup and you, you know, you're getting time and blowouts, you're getting in to give me 5 plays rest and you step up and you know you're going to be good. And then on top of it, like Billy said, you know, that's one thing I'm not jealous of. I'm jealous of the NIL, but I'm not jealous of social media. I'm so glad we did not have X AKA Twitter when I played, man, because there's so many guys that think they know. Like for example, I remember last year we ran, we ran 4th and 1:00 and we didn't get it. Everybody was like this line, this play calling sucks. And I was like actually the tight end and the backside tackle missed their block. They did a run blitz and they did, they whiffed on it. That's why he got tackled in the backfield. I'm one of those guys that watches the offensive line every play on all levels.

2:48:57 So it's one of those things where you have to pay attention. But I, I, I think a lot of stuff, man, we're going to learn first week, man, against Vanderbilt, which is good. That's a good, that's a good game to start off with. I know, I know talking from conversations with with Coach Crook, he he's a man that's built on the mentality and, and that's one thing that's it's taken some time for him to, to push into that online room. I by no means have have doubted them. I know they've had rough times. But he pushes a mentality like he he sets those guys up to understand, regardless of what anybody says and what anybody believes, we've got to be the hardest workers on this field.

2:49:38 And you talk Billy talking about getting downfield and, and these guys being the people that you see running downfield. That's a mentality that crooks putting in there. I guarantee you that it's a culture he likes to build and and push in. And when he get the more they buy into that mentality and push into that culture, the better they're going to get. And then they're going to bring those younger guys, bring the new guys that come in, they start to take in that mentality. And I know I'm coming here because of this. And this is the way that we play and it's just going to continue to breed that success. I think it's going to push it, I mean, even further in the years to come, as long as they can keep that that group together.

2:50:21 One final point 2 on the old line is that, you know I've said this before, back when I used to work for Rivals and 247, it is the hardest position to recruit and it's the hardest position to transition to the next level. D1D2 or D3. Like I was a monster in high school, but I only faced a couple of guys that were on my level. Some guys I look like the, you know, the kid from the blind side when he was driving that redhead D line all the way into the parking lot. You know what I'm saying? Because I was going against the guy that came to my belly button because, you know, you might go against the Phoebus or Oscar Smith, but then there's a couple of weeks where you're going against a team that's just terrible. Like, you know, playing, playing Gloucester. Gloucester was horrible. Like I knew I wasn't going to play like into the first half because I was like, man, these guys are terrible. And they weren't bad kids.

2:51:03 They were just not on our level. So, you know, just because you're really dominant in high school, what whatever states you play in, it's the verbiage and understanding the fronts and knowing how you might see one front before the the the ball is stepped and they may switch. So like that transition is hard. And then if you don't know the offense, the offense and the verbiage, like, you know, identifying the mic and there are very few high schools. And I mean, of course schools like IMG and I'm sure Billy played or seen some schools like that up in Jersey, but not every school in high school. Virginia, DC, Maryland are like, oh, okay, I need you Mike to identify the Mike linebacker. I need you tell me, where's the wheel? Like, you know, it's like block the guy in front of you, you know, like bro, like you know, then you get the tech or whatever.

2:51:50 Maryland, you hear whatever you like. Hey, son, where's the wheel? You know what I'm saying? Like head up, like even blocking with your head up. It's small things like, and that's why I love like we got a kid I love up here. Coming to check he's at Forest Park. I just interviewed him on Princeton County media day. He looks, he's a great looking lineman. He's good. But I told him, I said, hey, you got to get in the habit of studying film. You got to get in the habit of conditioning because Billy knows this, especially when Mike Gentry was there. We conditioned like receivers. We did condition. You think I'm tripping? We we, we conditioned bro. And that's another thing. But anyway, I don't want to take up too much. I just know that the old line is always one of those spots where you know, everyone's not going to have a Georgia or an Alabama.

2:52:34 I always tweet, you know, look at the line like Georgia has. They make everything look good. But if you can get some guys that play as one in their physical, you're going to have you're going to have a lot more wins and losses. 100% let me go into this because so much of what y'all three are talking about is culture and announced very early and it probably was in the motion months ago. Was the on field roles now for guys like Adibi, for Brent Davis going to be able to effectively now work with the offensive line and have a voice? How big is that? Because we're making the point about the continuity, right? Everybody who got named to effectively associates with the exception of Cam Phillips had been in there. How big is that?

2:53:18 Is the culture is going to continue to get preached? Billy, I'll let you go with this one because, because, because it's your former teammates on there, right? Yeah, I mean, not Winslow, but Cam, I mean Cam, Cam, Cam is one of the is, is one of the best wide receivers to ever play at Tech. And his ability and his age to connect with these kids. Like when I've talked to Tucker or some of these other guys about his impact, it's not just his knowledge of the game, it's his knowledge of being in their shoes and going through what they're going through. And I think that that plays a huge role. At the end of the day, if you have AI don't mean to be Aegis here, but if you have a staff that is compiled of, you know, 4050 sixty year old men, there's not a whole lot they're going to be able to talk to and relate to with players on their team.

2:54:07 And the fact that you have a a Winslow and a Cam Phillips and guys who have gone through this and been there before, that makes a huge difference. And then on the flip side, you know, I'm not, I'm not advocating for too many cooks in the kitchen here, but you know, like, there's no way other way to slice it. Coach Kill had an effect on Virginia Tech's offense in 2019. That was another brain that was able to sit in the meeting rooms, breakdown what was going on on offense and be able to bring a different recipe to the table, a different opinion to the table and kind of look at things for what they are. So I think, look, it's huge. And I love that coach prize leading into having former players on this staff. I love that former players want to come back and be a part of this staff as well.

2:54:51 It makes a huge difference. And speaking specifically to guys like Cam and Adibi, having somebody that you can go and not ask necessarily, hey, where do I go on, you know, 49 wing, snap, whatever. Having a guy that you can go and ask him about his experience and his time at tech and how he handled different things in his day-to-day, I think that makes a huge difference. And I love like this isn't broadcast because he's not that kind of guy at all. Isaiah Ford's been back to tech a bunch of times mentoring the guys, talking to him, helping him out. He's prioritized getting back and they've prioritized asking him to come back and work with these wide receivers. And I think that that's fantastic that his opinion is being sought after and he's interested in coming back and and doing that. So shout out to Isaiah.

2:55:41 Yeah, I think the staff has done a really good job of leaning on their alumni, like leaning on the football alumni a lot more than I think we are used to. And and that's not just a knock on on Fuente, because I feel like even going back to the latter days of Bieber's time, there wasn't quite as much of that as you would have liked. And I love seeing that aspect kind of coming back into the Blacksburg culture and the hokey culture. It's probably easier. It's probably easier to to do that when it's not. I'm trying to think of what it would be like if, you know, a camera Isaiah were to come back with the same staff that was here, right? Like the fact that there's a disconnect and there's a new group that you're getting familiar with and it's not Isaiah going back.

2:56:27 And then the coaching staff has familiarity with Isaiah from when he was a 16 year old boy growing up in Florida. They're coming out and they're looking at this as an opportunity to grow in coaching and grow in that field. And it's not just going back to where you started with the same faces and the same familiarity and the same situation. You're joining a new staff, bringing your opinions from your time and your experience with a different staff and a completely different setup, and then applying that to what they're building now. So I think there's a stark difference there too. Yeah, that's a great point. I think that's a great point. B, When you talk about even in the Beamer ladder years, you know, I remember when I was there, you know, you could tell it was time for Coach Kavanaugh and a lot of those guys to to retire.

2:57:12 But I think when I look at some of the struggles bringing in guys like Leffler, Leffler is a good OC, but you got to think about the backs we had with JC Coleman, Sean McKenzie, and Marshawn Williams from Phoebus. And there's another guy I'm forgetting. We had a lot of backs, right? But I felt like, because I used to do the pregame show with Kyle Belly during that time. So I was there and we went on before Bill Roth and MM Burnup. And then we did the postgame and then we went in the depressor. And I could tell at that time that I used to tell Kyle, I said we got to get some young blood up in here, man, because it was like basically a lot of older gentlemen that really can, you know, even though Beamer was dancing and had his hat to the back and was doing, you know, the surf and all of that, the rest of the coaching staff, a lot of our methods became antiquated and outdated.

2:58:03 You heard but Foster talk about that when Fuente got hired, when Fuente came in and was like, we got to change our recruiting pitch with the letters because Foster had said we were using the same graphics from the 90s, you know what I'm saying? So having guys like Cam and them in the locker room and you know, guys that recently did it in the NFL or XYFL, also being able to speak their language, understand the music they're listening to, it's huge. That's why I feel it's a good balance because the coaching staff is not also, they're not they're older, but they're still not out of touch. Like it's just, it's a good balance. And culture is one of those things I've been saying, you know, you heard how probably between me and Brendan Hill, we probably said that word 1000 times on X because that's what I saw in the later years of Beamer.

2:58:49 And then when Fuente, after his first three years, they were real successful. I felt like the brand took a major hit. I was listening to Suns this Saturday one time and I'm glad Billy said that because if they had a call and I would have called in and say it, Billy said listen guys, he told him. He said, I'm sorry to inform you guys, but Virginia Tech is not the school y'all think it is anymore. Our brand is trash. And I kept trying to tell people that because if you remember, we missed out on Desean Han, who had us number one. I I took him. He's not even take him. He's following me At Virginia Tech on his first visit, he met Tyrod Taylor and Cam Chancellor. We were number one. We dropped the five. He went to Alabama. Josh Sweat went to Alabama. I mean, Florida State, all right, Florida State, we were his number one.

2:59:32 Stein Spring had them. We finished number two behind Florida State. Kevin Ford, Ricky Slade, junior, top five players in the nation, top five backs chose Penn State, both of them, even though one of them was already there. We kept finishing the second. This Derek Noddy, who plays in the NFL was a big time because of lineman in the 757 chose what you call it Florida State as well. So we lost that edge. Our brand was so bad because the coach red tech was outdated and antiquated. The Beamer ball thing was great. That lunch pail was still impactful, but it was almost like, yeah, you guys have the history, but you're going 6 and six and and kids.

3:00:12 Kids are not kids these days, probably. They know who Michael Vick is. They didn't grow up watching Michael Vick. Like you can only retweet these videos for so long and it's almost like today you're not going up to people in Chicago and saying, man, you're a Bulls fan like Michael Jordan. Like they don't know they did. They didn't live through Michael Jordan. They don't know what Michael Jordan is. They know Lonzo Ball and finishing as a lottery team for the last 20 years and having no playoff success outside of the blip of Derek Derrick Rose. The coaches that are able to keep up with the times. And I said coaches. I really just mean coach Nick Saban is the only guy in my opinion, who did this perfectly. He at the exact right time, realized defense is not going, defense alone is not going to win the national championships. And he went out and he got the best offensive coordinator that was available every single cycle, prioritize the fast-paced offense and prioritized new offensive schemes. And that is why he had his first dynasty. And he had his second dynasty because he wasn't headstrong and was able to adjust as the game adjusted. Nick Saban back in 2006 probably wasn't taking pictures and Lamborghinis and driving guys down to what whatever version of in and out they have in Tuscaloosa. But he played the game a little bit and we're going to see if Dabo Sweeney did.

3:01:36 Spotlight on him. Right now, is he going to crystals, is he going to be able or jack-in-the-box, is he going to be able to make those adjustments the same way that a Nick Saban did before? So jury's out on that. Nick Saban, he was a Nick Saban was yeah, he he he was, he was different along with that offense. I mean, yeah, along with him changing that offense. You was used to him having those big old defensive lineman like Terence Cody. And he realized I can't win like that no more. I'm going to change that up. And he started getting lineman. He started getting lineman that were big, but they ran fast as well. So Nick was just a little bit ahead of his time most of the time. But Dwight was hitting on a couple of things. We've hit on a lot of stuff tonight. I do want to hit this question, though, to kind of go along with like Dwight was saying about our brand and like Billy, I said, so this statement, the Hokies are back. You know a lot of people have been throwing it around thinking it when will when will you see an example or blank? What happens when you know the Hokies are back? Oh, man, who started that?

3:02:48 Who started that statement, man? Who everybody, everybody started. Let me tell you. Let me tell you, let me tell you when I when I will say the Hokies are back despite the winnings and things like that. This is when I would think the Hokies are back. When our social media team takes a look and goes Michael Vick, you could pick five quarterbacks or you can pick 10 quarterbacks and you can do it during Black Black History Month. You can go Michael Vick all the way up to Kyron drones and you just do 2 clips of them and say this is Virginia Tech. That's how I know we back. That's what Virginia Tech is. Even when you think I don't care if they're black or white.

3:03:28 But when you think about quarterbacks and mobile quarterbacks across the nation, you think about Virginia Tech and the way that they play football, when they start tapping into that and when we see that Virginia takes back, I'm so. Glad. I'm so glad you brought this up because I wasn't going to bring it up. But my good friend John Robinson from New Jersey grew up in Englewood. He called me up and he goes, hey, I'm watching. John Robinson is an African American from Englewood, and he says, hey, I'm looking at all this hokey hype and I think I'm buying in. And I said, well, what's the difference now? I mean, Miami's got a bunch of hype and all these other teams got a bunch of hype.

3:04:10 And he says, I mean, to be honest, I looked at your roster and behind quarterback, you don't have a Colton, you don't have a Todd, you don't have a Henry. You have a tyrant lined up behind behind center. You know who has those? You know who has those names now? Clemson. Clemson has the K and the Chads and the the offensive lineman names. I don't see the Tajas in the in the in, the in, the in the Kwan's and in in in. In, in, in all seriousness, like the I, I think, I think to answer your question and tie this back into it, I think it's a couple things for me. It's playing meaningful football in November. We talk about this on our show all the time. Playing meaningful football in November is something that Virginia Tech prided itself on doing for over a decade. I think that's huge #2 home field and Virginia Tech is more than just an entrance.

3:05:07 Like I say this a ton. I got a ton of Flack after the West Virginia game where my dad texted me after the West Virginia game and he said you guys should stop doing Enter Sandman. Now, obviously, he was being a little facetious here, but he said it's just got to get old watching you guys do this incredible thing and then come out and it doesn't live up to that expectation when when that is not the first thing And the only thing that people associate with Virginia Tech is you better TuneIn for the 1st 90 seconds. That's going to be huge. It's going to be awesome. And then lastly, and I want to credit this to Kyron, it's playing with the swagger. It's playing with I'm not the nail, I'm the hammer. And Virginia Tech was not doing that in the first half of last season.

3:05:53 And the most pivotal moment in Virginia Tech under this era was when Kyron threw that first touchdown against Pittsburgh and he went down the field. And you don't typically love this. He talked to every single DB line. He called that shit. And it and it wasn't necessarily about him, him doing that. And and it was just necessarily he was putting, he was exuding the confidence that Virginia Tech has not had for a long time. Because I remember when I went into that game and I scanned my ticket and I'm talking about that game going into it, this Pittsburgh game, I'm like, this has an opportunity to be a devastating night in Lane Stadium. If we go out here and we lose to Pittsburgh and we're one in three, one and four, like everybody's in trouble. That week of Twitter, that week of in the athletic department everywhere would have been a disaster. And his ability to come in as a starter in that position and exude so much confidence.

3:06:53 And we've all seen the video of the Oklahoma State quarterback when he got in the game and his hands were shaking and he wasn't ready for the moment. He didn't have that at all. And he was ready for that moment. He met that moment, he grew. And he even had that moment where he had the he had the fumble sack situation where they turned over and plus territory. But he he didn't blink at all. And I think, I think when Virginia Tech exudes that confidence, they are the team that this backward is stupid. My opinion, I think it's kind of silly because you're never back. You have to live up to it every single week and every single year it goes back to the there's no, there's no earned expectations and there's no earned results.

3:07:34 So you're never back. You are in it and Virginia Tech is in it. When they had damn, that was pretty good. I'll actually get myself on the back. You're never. Back and. When you got, when you're, when you're in it, it's you're exuding confidence. You're playing meaningful football in November. That's that's my opinion on it. Man, I'm I'm going to say this Billy took a little bit of my answer, but I'm just I'm going to take a little bit further. We will be back when we take care of business and win games we're supposed to, especially on the road. Virginia Tech's first three years in the ACC they were Rd. warriors. David Till did a big article. They were very reminiscing the Florida State where they came in ACC and O four. They won every rogue in the first three years in the ACC. They were 16 and one on the road.

3:08:14 They won a critical game against Miami and O 4 to win the ACC outrage. They beat UNC that year at UNC, Mike Emo ran for 204 yards. They also won other games on the road, including into a solid Wake Forest team like they were wrote. They had another game that following year in O 5, the inaugural ACC Championship game, when they played in front of a sold out NC State crowd. My cousin Marcus and those guys went crazy. If you remember, he threw the touchdown and they went in the end zone. They posed and took the pictures. They had attitude. People don't realize. Again, just a historical perspective. The ACC did not want Tech in there because we were known as goons. We were assholes. Roniel Whitaker, Jimmy Williams. We had an attitude. We were very physical.

3:08:56 Pop in the Wake Forest game. When Wake Forest won the ACC that year, we were ranked and they were ranked. We went down there and beat them 27 to six. That's the hit. When Aaron Ralph's pop dude, DV picked up the ball, didn't realize it was still alive, and he kept running. We scored. We we smacked everybody. We had a tough loss that year. So subsequently Georgia Tech and wait for us play for the ACC that year. But we had an attitude when we were Rd. Warriors, like we can't say we back and then go to Vanderbilt and we're going to the fourth quarter. Vanderbilt's up 20, Virginia Tech 9. If that shit's happening, I don't want to hear that back shit because I mean, at the end of the day, the same people saying we're back, we'll be in a Twitter space with all of us talking about man, probably got to go, man, he got to go. He got to that's what's going to happen. So Virginia Tech, that whole we're back. If we're if we're back, it's because the brand is matching the expectations.

3:09:49 One thing about us, we got the nickname, which I hate, but I get it, the chokies, because we had expectations and we would be in these big games or we would be ranked top five, top ten and we couldn't finish it. That tough loss to Boston College, the Matt Ryan, Matt Ryan game. I told people I did a radio show every Thursday morning in my morning segment. I told Big Dog sports radio Rick, I said Rick Watson, the next step for me is I sent this to tally on his Twitter space is when pro starts getting those Mount Rushmore recruits like Beamer did, the Kevin Jones is the Michael Vicks when you start. And I don't really want to use Mount Rushmore because it's not enough heads, but you know what I mean, a game changer. And I said in that Twitter space, Yep, I'm going to call it. I said Kyron Jones looks like that first recruit, right? That's going to take the game to the next level. So you're you know, one thing I've realized that over the decades that Virginia Tech was relevant is that, like Billy said, we were playing meaningful ball in November. We also had players that were very physical, that had attitudes.

3:10:49 They're all tapped, those guys, you know, Whyatella, you know, just taking people down field and, you know, even though sometimes he's a bit extra, I loved it. We had an attitude. Virginia Tech just used to be very tough and we won games on the road because we came in your house and we took it to you. Our fans always showed up and we used to match that energy. So like Vanderbilt and Rutgers in those games. I personally think Rutgers. I was watching the segment before I jumped on everybody, like Rutgers this, Rutgers that. If Virginia Tech plays that game, they should beat Rutgers by three scores. I don't know why this height. Did y'all see what Rutgers did? Rutgers beat us for throwing only 35 yards last year. You know what happened against Rutgers? We did not match. Their energy on the O line and D line. We didn't match.

3:11:32 It wasn't like they did anything special. If we start them on 4th and one, we get the ball back, but our linebackers got they got crushed and that's the part about making the play. I don't want to name every household lineback in Virginia Tech football history, but when you hear about Virginia Tech being back and the attitude, the chip, it was a mindset they had. It didn't matter when you lost these three players. The next three players came in that Gator Bowl. When I mentioned Jimmy Williams, he got suspended because he pushed the referee. What people don't realize is Brandon Flowers and Eric Green held it down that game. They, you know, 'cause you didn't miss a beat when Jimmy Williams went out. And that's the part about depth and attitude and the chip on your shoulders. I, I, I, I think like the statement I said about Rutgers. That sounds crazy.

3:12:13 It's not in the, I'm not thinking it's the Rutgers of old. I'm just saying, like, to me, it's the same thing with OD. If we go down and play them on my birthday and we're in a dogfight in the third quarter, I got a lot of questions. I got a lot of questions. I'm going to have some serious concerns. I might not even get into Twitter Space if we struggling with them because it's it's not about disrespecting them. It's just where we should be. The, the one thing I'll say about Rutgers is the area that I don't want to say it concerns me, but the area that I'm most interested in is two things. Greg Schiano is a ball coach. He is a fantastic ball coach. He's going to have a great scheme. When you come into come into that game and #2 we're going to learn so much about our team because what I can hang my hat on with Rutgers is they're going to compete up front.

3:12:59 If you go back and you turn the film on, when they played Ohio State, I believe this game was at Rutgers, but they played Ohio State. They were in that ball game up until the fourth quarter. So I agree with you, Dwight, if we play our game and play up to our potential, we should win almost if not every single game on our schedule. Like that is just that is just the truth. That is not how college football usually pans out. But I, I agree with everything that you said. It is that it is that attitude and that expectation that we're not just coming to show up to win the game. We're coming here to wear your ass out for four quarters. A physical brand of football that nobody wants to play against with you and is rare, extremely rare in the twenty 20s and 20 tens. Not a lot of teams do that anymore. No, and I'll say this with the ruckus thing. The reason I'm more confident against Rutgers is we have them at home.

3:13:45 The one thing and and Curtis and Brian and Tally talk about this last year on their part. We finally got back to taking care minus the NC State loss and the Purdue loss where we played six hours later. We finally look like Virginia Tech of the old at home in Lane State. We we, we, we know what to do at Lane. So Rutgers is coming to Lane where I feel really good. If we had to go up there again because they, they were like, I believe it was a sold out crowd. They had the the the Red Rocket, Rutgers has had has a talent. You're right about coach Craig. But I just feel like when you are a ball control offense and you know they're going to run it on 3rd and five and you know, if you have the D line and linebackers that JC talked about, we got to be able to take those teams and get a block, punt or get a turnover fumble and get up.

3:14:29 You know, it's it's not always going to be on the offense. But I feel like like with Shelton talked about the weapons we have on offense, we didn't use that. We didn't use them against Rutgers last year. We were out there just kind of running Chiron all over the place anyway. We'll see. That's the beauty of this, right? We'll see in about what, a few more weeks? More weeks we'll. Get to see what they do. I'm excited. I'm excited that that's what's when I kind of circled because to Billy's point, you're going to get four quarters with Rutgers. They're they're, they're not going to back down. They're they're going to be well coached. They're going to be prepared and you're going to have to go out there and earn it. Now, I think if you if you just look at the guys, I think we got the guys and to Dwight's point, you got the lane, lane advantage and and prize shown that he can take care of home. So it's that's going to be an interesting game. And I think he kind of sets up that nightmare run that we have with Miami on the road and then going out West of Stanford. So it's going to be interesting to see how we play in that game and how that sets the tone for those next two as well. I think, I think Rutgers is.

3:15:37 The is the same. Sorry, Billy. I was going to say I looked it up. Last year, Rutgers was seven to six like us. They were one in four on the road. That's why I said that. One in four on the road. That's why I said that. Yeah, I think, I think Rutgers also is a has a little bit of a problem with an unfortunate name because if if you're not nobody on this call, but a lot of people are like we're playing Rutgers Week 3 at home. Is Rutgers has that name that kind of rolls off for your tongue where you're like Rutgers, who is Rutgers. I'm just telling you, Rutgers coach Puck Greg Schiano, they have a good defensive line, a good offensive line. I'll be honest, I would feel a lot worse about this game if Winset was still the quarterback. You're damn right if Winset was still their quarterback would not feel as good. Would we? I mean, he couldn't, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he. Was.

3:16:20 Running all over. Him and that him and. I'll, I'll take and I'll take Dorian out there covering those those wide receivers against whatever wimps that could do on 3rd down and long and just run for scrambling for first downs. He kept running. He kept running on us, that's what I'm saying. They went they went 27 for 220 those two last year, they both broke 100 in that game, in that game. And the one the big back was the 4th and one Dwight that you basically said we got wiped out. But I'm I'm, I'm we're going to wrap it up here. But you know, we kept saying when are we back? When are we back? We're going to be back. If it's a year from now is it's the expectation.

3:17:02 It's that expectation we want every year we want. You said it, You gave a great monologue earlier. We want to be good. We want that expectation. We want to win every year. And if that's when it's going to become, that's what it was. I'm a fan of 29 years now. Jesus Christ. I'm old. Not as old as Dwight, but still not as old as Dwight. You got to get it. But for but for the better part of my life for 20 years, it was we're a top ten team. We can go make a national title run. We can win the ACC, we can win the biggies. We can do these things. When you start saying that again, every time you think of Virginia Tech football, that's when you're back. Because it's no wonder what, what can we do this year? Snow?

3:17:46 This is what we're going to do this year. That's, that's what I was going to say with Virginia Tech's back when the six of us have to sit here and shut up about, all right, which game on his schedule is going to cause us a problem? Six of us are sitting here going, all right, who the hell is after that? Because we really don't care. We don't care who we're going to go after. Yep. Who's next? Well, Dwight, Billy, Robbie, we really appreciate y'all joining us and that. Is thank you guys, man. Thank you. This is this is a great production every year. You guys do a great job, seriously. And to everybody here, to Dwight, Billy Ray, Robbie, Pete B, Danny notes Mike McDaniels. Even he couldn't be with us tonight. David Cunningham, Jeremy, Dan Grayson, Don V, my fellow compadres here, Brian Talley, y'all we, we put Sheldon the bed, he says, y'all, I'm done, I'm done. Check out if you're listening right now, check out all of their content.

3:18:50 Check Vt, check Victory Lifeout, check Sun's a Saturday out. Robbie's coaching. If you're down in the North, if you're down in North Carolina and you see North Wilkesboro Vikings playing, go check him out on the sidelines this year. It may not be real pretty. Well, yeah, that's we'll give. It all we got baby. But I'm going to say this. We are brought to you by the Main Street Pharmacy in Blacksburg. I'm Curtis Wilson. Brian Siegler. Jonathan Tally. Check us out boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes while you're there. Follow us wherever you can. Follow us. Follow all of these guys who came on here tonight, all of their podcasts. Subscribe to them, go to their YouTube channels, go to their websites, visit them.

3:19:33 Coach Pride has said numerous times to us, he always shouts out the content that we put out. He always shouts out, he shouts out y'all as well. I know we do it. We have a lot of fun. We love this program y'all. Our buddy Jason Long, he plays us and he plays us out. Check him out as always. 3 hours, 22 minutes, 8 seconds. Let's go. The.