New Beginnings

1:20 And welcome back to the Boundary Corner Podcast. Along with my partners, Brian Siegler and Jonathan Hannibans, I am Curtis Wilson and we are brought to you by Moments on the Mari. Looking for a weekend getaway this summer or fall? Then Moments on the Mari might be exactly what you are looking for. Owned by a very proud Hokie and located just outside Lexington, VA, this place gives you everything you can think of for a great mountain experience. Fishing, kayaking, just relaxing by or in the river right outside the back door. Check it out in our links or visit moments on the memorial on their Instagram page. Gentlemen.

2:07 Gentlemen. What's happening, man? How are you all tonight? Tell me you on mute. Like telling people, telling me on calls all the time. You're on mute. You want me to get off mute? You got to talk you off mute. Can you hear us? I think I'm off. I think I'm off now. He is off. Mute. We got you. What's been up, guys? We have been running around in circles this spring since the spring game. It felt like. How was life? We we had a little false start last week. We, we, we, we got the same same structure this week. But, you know, it's fun because, you know, we had a couple more commits come through since then.

2:51 So we got a little little bit more to kind of, you know, pad the, the end of this episode a little bit. But yeah, we had a, you know, a couple couple snafus here or there last week that caused us to punt. But hey, we're back here. We're we're doing it live as we normally do. And we got a a fun special guest we're going to introduce here shortly. Tally what you want. We punt it, man. We didn't have two zeros. Yeah, we punt it. We didn't have two zeros on the field. So we, I, we made it. We didn't get called for a penalty, we just punted the ball. This is. This is what I'm going to say a little bit off off topic before we get our guest on here because I think most of our chat is probably right around the same age we are. You know you get into those golden ages. I understand.

3:46 I want to know man y'all put in the chat what is the best bio pic that you've seen the best you know movie about somebody's life? The reason I'm asking that is because I watch Michael. I mean, everybody got to see Michael, right? You know what I'm saying? Like you got to watch it. Go ahead, Curtis. What you going to say I'm. Going to say but what I'm going to say is 2 weekends ago my mother came into town gave me a wife date night and we went into a local steakhouse and I said we should go we should go see Michael and she's like I just I just don't feel like going She's like it's it's a 730 start it's like a 2 1/2 hour movie, right She's like I'm gonna fall asleep and now she's looking at me mad everybody's.

4:31 Saying it's so. Good. We should have went. I'm like. I'm just saying. Laid it out there. I literally said we should go. I think everybody, our age at least, should watch it, you know what I'm saying? But me being a huge Michael Jackson fan and knowing a lot about him and watching a lot of movies about him, they made a movie way back when. I think it's called The American Dream. Oh yeah. It just had more in that movie than this one had. If you really want to know about his life, you know what I'm saying. But not not a bad movie. So I did come here to advocate everybody go see it or do like I did and just be able to watch it, if you know what I mean.

5:14 Got you. Because I didn't go to the theater. Yeah, I feel like American Dream had like it had so much of the Jackson 5 stuff and like. Off the wall. And it was everything else was kind of rushed through. Yeah, it was like a, it was like a origin story or a villain or something, you know what I'm saying? And then it was just at the end anyway. I mean, I just feel like it was a lot left lacking. Yes, Jason, that is a good biopic. Lincoln, if y'all haven't seen that, is a good biopic. That's not my favorite. My favorite biopic is probably The Temptations. But again, I didn't want to throw a whole segment about movies, but I did have to shout out my boy Michael Jackson, the greatest of all times. Man, I'm I'm gonna throw Ray out there. Ray is probably my.

6:04 Favorite Ray is a that's that's a close second. Ali. That's another one like I'll throw. One, and this is old and I, I mean well before, I mean a couple years before we were born. You ever watch Raging Bull? Oh yeah. Boxing about Jake. Lemada Yeah, Yeah. That's fine. Bryan Song with with James Caan. Bryan Song with James Caan. Oh yeah. Oh man. Lot of good ones, lot of good ones. Well, you know what? We got a lot of fun to talk about and believe it or not, now he's in the backroom like thinking, oh man, I know what's going to happen the second I get on. But tonight we have a very special guest, another one of our good friends from 247.

6:45 Long time writer, contributor to 247 Sports. Tonight we have Doug Bowman joining us and we'll get him on stage, make sure he's off mute and Doug Tally let it off. What is your favorite biopic? I was thinking about this while you guys were talking and thanks for stalling because I had to pull up a list of like, all right, I need some like something to trigger my memory. It's walk the line. I was going to say Walk the Line. Walk the Line's a good movie too. I was hoping somebody said that, Chad. Hey, we got some. We got some good ones coming in. Doug just came with a another banger. I need to know what's y'all's best biopic? Doug, keep going, buddy. I was going to say walk the line with Johnny Cash. It's it's on the list of movies that you whenever it's on, you know, you're flipping through.

7:33 Not that many people flip through the channels anymore, but you see it and you just watch it no matter where you are in the movie, pick it up right where it left off. So I probably, I don't know how many times I've seen it, but it's good. Nice. Well, it's it's always funny because you talk about like the biopics and some people don't think of certain movies as biopics because like American gangster people wouldn't think that. But that's basically Frank Lucas's life. Like not it, not his whole life, but a good portion of his life. And then there's so many other ones like like Catch Me if you can again, that's that. Like you don't think of them as biopics, but they are. Is Walt Wolf of all straight? Line, then yes, absolutely.

8:15 Wolf of Wall Street, I. Didn't even think about that, but yeah. I mean. We just go ahead and call, I mean, Goodfellas. Yes, yes. Scorsese like half his half his repertoire is is technically biopic. So well did y'all see the tweet yesterday? It was like the the March 11th was in like 5:00 AM was the day he got busted. Like that whole scene in the movie The day like. Doing all the crazy. Stuff it was 5/11/1980 is when it happened. Like started at 5:00 AM because he was off like the cocaine Bender. Yeah, and he was like paranoid as hell, like. We've been got down a road that we could be. Be like 12:00.

9:03 Hokey football and hokey sports. Everybody was Doug Moment after 14 hours of talking about biopics. I bad Curtis, I didn't mean I didn't mean to get you started today, man. I was just trying to get the creative juices flowing. And we got we got an idea for for a spin off podcast now. So yeah, the. Biopic Well Doug, first of all, how you been doing man? This is your first time with us. Obviously we followed you for years with your writings and stuff on 247. So how you doing? And then how did you stumble upon 247? Because like you have a day job like us three, dude. Like how did that happen? How did your relationship start with 247 back about I guess a decade ago? God, it's been, I think it's been, it was definitely before COVID, which is now like suddenly six years ago. So we're close to a decade.

9:53 I started writing about Virginia Tech actually back in O7 Tyron's first year. I was at Hoagie Haven with Brian Moore and that kind of during that era, there's been so many like kind of like eras of the regime tech recruiting sites. And then Jason Stam came on, came on and took him over there, took over there and then went to the Vt Scout site at the time. So I was over there for a little bit and I think I jumped on the Vt Scoop. Must have been 2018 ish somewhere around there. Yeah. But just knowing I had done it for a while, I'm at Hoagie Haven and Scout and and kind of taken a couple years off and wanted to get back into it. So I reached out and happened to be the right time. Nice man, What's what what was that journey like? I know you said you were writing for for Hoagie Haven and doing all that.

10:49 Have you, Is that just been like a passion project for you or just being in the, in the Virginia Tech sports realm and just loving that so much That's kind of been, you know, what's kind of kept that that drive for. You yeah, a little bit of both, I'd say probably I was the, I started right in there when I was in 8th grade. Probably nobody reading knew that at the time, but when I was 2007 tie rods first year. So I was always the the kid that wanted to be on ESPN growing up and all that stuff. Got to got to college, got to sit in the press box and, and do that during school and realized I didn't want to do that for my job. I enjoy, I enjoy the fandom, I enjoy being in the stands. I enjoy all that stuff that you don't get to do when you're covering the games and stuff.

11:39 So that was a great lesson. But I I, like you said, kind of like a passion project of just something I enjoy doing on the side. That's very nice. So I've been so many people that it's part of it. And obviously, what year did you graduate from tech? 2015. 2015 OK. That sounds like a one good year with Logan Thomas when he was good and then after that it went, you know, to six. What was it? No it. Was no Never sixes, 6 never losing during Frank's time. 7 and 6-8 and five, seven and six. Yep. After So your first year was Sugar Bowl youth, correct? You caught the ball.

12:22 Yep. Exactly. Did you go to New Orleans? Did not got tickets, couldn't couldn't figure out how to get there if it was broke all that stuff. So, but I mean, the peak was definitely beating Ohio State and Columbus and 14 that was that was, I guess that was technically this fall of senior year. So I mean, that was that was the peak of of the football experience during my time there. We were all seniors went up, you know, there's probably 100 of us there. Just a classic like college experience of being up there with all of your college buddies and then you actually win the game.

13:04 Stopped at the casino, and where's the casino in West Virginia? Charleston. Charleston. Yeah, the, the Mardi Gras stopped there on the way. I mean, it was just, you know, 22 with nothing else to worry about. Tally, you've been to that one. You've. Been to any Charleston casino? I never want to go to West Virginia. I don't care what kind of casino to have. I don't, I just, I don't want to be there. So anything in West Virginia, there's definitely don't need me in it. But no, I haven't, I haven't been there. I went to, I went to the one in Bristol, but I haven't been to the one in West Virginia. Nice. Well, I was going to ask you what was like your game. Clearly you, you, you laid it right out there with the visit to the Horseshoe with the win back in 2014 Miami.

13:49 The Logan Thomas Miami game was my freshman year and it was probably the best home game, yeah. Dave Wilson lost two games that year to the same team. Yep. Clemson. Twice Clemson. Twice, unfortunately. All right, well, let's get into it. We got a lot of stuff to unload and talk with Doug about. We are going to get kind of the biggest topics we're going to talk with Doug as we get later into the program is the retiring of Tim Sands, retiring with Babcock and how that's kind of all going to shake out. If y'all never followed Doug, first of all, give him a follow at Doug Bowman 247. Doug somehow knows how to navigate certain things in the stratosphere of governments and contracts.

14:32 And the next thing you know, Doug puts it out, here's what's going to happen. And you're like, Oh my God, that that that three days later it happens. So give him a follow if you don't do anything tonight. Also if you are a 247 or check out his writings. Obviously a lot of good stuff, but we're going to start non football 1st. And when this popped up just a few days ago, I was a little bit of. In. A little bit of disbelief because you don't hear about Non Rev Sports getting this kind of donation. At Virginia Tech. And what the Jester family from Virginia Beach did by giving a million dollars, $1 million to the wrestling program.

15:15 And now it's left open as $1,000,000 match out there now that what's they're asking for is wild. So Doug, I'll start with you being a a tech alum, knowing how good the wrestling program it was, was that did that color you shocked or had there been buzzings that like this was going to happen soon? Yeah, I hadn't heard anything about about that kind of donation to wrestling, as you said, like a non revenue sport. That's I mean it's been the sport that Virginia Tech's probably closest to winning a national championship in for several years now. They have a really loyal following and donor base and all that stuff, which has allowed them to be really successful for a really long time. So you know, it's not all that surprising to get kind of a unique donation to a sport with that kind of support and community and kind of long time success that they've had. But like, like you kind of said, like $1,000,000 in in that kind of sport is especially in today's kind of Rev share. I don't know how much or if, what the plans are for that kind of money, but I'm sure they'll they'll put it to good use to try and get over the hump.

16:26 And I don't, I don't, I don't really understand wrestling, college wrestling, to be honest. The whole like watch, I watch them when there's a big match on or something and like try and understand what's happening, but I just can't, I can't figure it out. But like, it's it's definitely the sport where it seems like they're gearing up to make that push next year. And Tony Roby's done a great job of, like, building probably the most sustainable program at Virginia Tech for the last 15 years. Yeah. A. Lot. Brian. I mean, what did? You think about, yeah, it's just you keep starting stacking these, these wins.

17:07 I mean, you had a bunch of recruiting wins, you know, behind this and all of a sudden you've got this influx. And I don't know if one began the other or, or what was going on there, but this really puts you in a really good spot heading into a season where you feel, I think really good about your roster top to bottom and kind of how you match up across the board. I don't know if it's enough to to get us into the the national championship conversation, but you know, you're certainly going to be at least in the probably the top of the heap of that, that that next group there kind of puts you firmly in in a in a top five category and you get that close. So you can, you know, have a couple things go your way. You might put yourself in a really good spot as you as you kind of move through the the season coming up here. It's just going to be exciting because, you know, I think you're going to see, you know, this is the team that's already, you know, consistently, you know, tops of the ACC. You know, there's really only a handful of other schools that have similar caliber or better caliber programs of Virginia Tech at this point.

18:12 So if if this is the the thing that gets them over the hump, it could be really huge. Tally anything on this when you read the news and saw those things. Yeah, no, I'm kind of like, like Doug said, when it comes to wrestling. Like I know when they say somebody wins or somebody loses, but I never know what's going on. Like all I know is when NWO comes out with steam and Hulk Hogan and The Rock, stuff like that. Like, I know that kind of wrestling, but I don't know nothing about the rules and stuff. But I do know I will say this, we need football to be good. We need football to be good. And I think James Franklin being at Virginia Tech definitely plays a part in what some of the other sports are able to do.

18:59 Again, wrestling, this is the own thing and they've been doing a great job. But I do feel like when you do have a lot of buzz around your program that it creates excitement. So I'm not saying that that $1,000,000 gift wasn't already in the works, but I think getting a serious, you know, football coach and then all of the changes that are coming from up top probably had somebody said, oh, they're looking at being serious about it. Yeah, I want to. I'd like to get in on that. So keep doing that, everybody. We need everybody to be good. We do, but I get what you're saying, Tally. Sometimes that stuff is the springboard, right? Like everything from last August with the the focus back pointing a lot of money back towards football.

19:46 Hired a big name coach, making some serious moves. Maybe there is that donor out there that loads the wrestling program that says, you know what, if I write $1,000,000, some of the other money can funnel back into football. By the way, Doug, you, you just need to sign somebody who likes wrestling and wrestled in college. We, we've had, we've had, obviously we've had Joe Rogers on here, believe it or not. As as much shenanigans as Joe causes, Joe knows wrestling. Really. Knows wrestling. He knows. Wrestling. The other guy is one of my fraternity brothers from Longwood named David Fuqua. He wrestled in college. I text him all the time and he can tell me what happened in this guy right here, who's our music man, Wrestled in high school, coached middle school.

20:28 Like if you somebody who understands wrestling and you sit with them, they can tell you what's happening and then it makes sense. Now what's? The issue is the next time there's a match you're launching. I forgot everything he told me while we were sitting. It's gone. I just I just sit there when it you know, it'll be on ACC network or one of those big one of those big matches they have and like people start screaming and saying too, too, too. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening. I don't know why that, but good job. Good job, Rogers, if you're out there listening, make it AI chat agent Joe Rogers that we can just, you know, queue up anytime a match is on so we'll know what's up matches. On. Please. Explain to us do a do a live stream of what's going on with wrestling. It's like when the NFL does like a Nickelodeon cat cast down a little bit.

21:16 We need the simpler version. I need the overlay give me the. Overlay. What's happening here I. Need type of video for this wrestling match. One more non Rev talk discussion. Yeah, I know you said we should talk about it, but I am going to talk about it. First of all, big kudos to women's softball. Again, what, seven straight regionals, seven straight NCAA terms appearance. That's that's you. I don't care what your program is, where you are making seven times to the NCAA tournament is huge. They get basically the 17 seed and basically a lot of chaos that happened because there was well, it was because you're having graduation.

21:58 You can't you can't host. There's not enough, there's not enough. People say, first of all, that stadium is only like what, 2300? It's not a massive 10,000 seat stadium. So that's the first thing. Then it's like, well, your record kind of hurts you. You know, LSU is better. Like we played like some of the same teams that LSU did and we beat them six. You know, I don't think they had a six and a record. So you got mutual competition. I just and then and you know, Doug, you made such a fairpoint on Twitter. How? Are we going to host some of these games in the fall with football? I mean, are are we going to be able to have enough hotels?

22:38 Yeah, I I put out a snarky tweet, you know, and and I got to give credit to Sam Mostel hope I said that right at tech sideline who did actual reporting to figure out what the deal was. I mean, it makes sense on like it makes sense once you here at like it's a quick turn graduation weekend. All the hotels are booked up for for the Georgia Tech football game in the fall. Virginia Tech will have secured that hotel for Georgia Tech well in advance and there's nothing no problem with that. Like it all the reasoning makes sense. What didn't make sense was why they even why the selection committee chair even like LED with that like if if they're not a top 16, see then it doesn't there's no reason to mention the hotels or anything like it's that's the reason they didn't they're not hosting is because they're not a top six team.

23:30 But to even like bring that into the conversation was felt like an own goal and they kind of asked for that reaction. So I could there be could that really be the real reason? Perhaps, But you know, you look at it on the kind of, if you just look at the facts of trying to turn around in a week and host four teams in Blacksburg, Sure, it makes sense with graduation going on and having all the all the hotels booked up. I guess there's you could argue like can we extend the radius a little bit to to fit some more hotels in there? But I guess the rules are the rules. Yeah.

24:14 And I guess that radius only included like I guess like most of Salem and kind of that area didn't like quite extend all the way through the better part of Roanoke and all that stuff. So like a good a good portion of the the hotels in Roanoke were kind of out of play and all this other stuff with that. Which is interesting because, like, for years, I know they stopped doing it in the last couple years, but like, Tech would stay in Roanoke before football games. Yeah, no problem. Just get a police escort. You're in Blacksburg pretty quickly. Like there was never a concern about or too far. I know there was stuff about like recruiting that made it inconvenient, but it wasn't a problem when you have some resources to help, right, To help you figure it out.

24:57 Yeah, yeah. And I know they like having, you know, guys on campus so you can do stuff with the hosting and recruiting and that that makes more sense from a being in in Blacksburg versus in Roanoke. But yeah, I know what's what's the rule like 30 mile, 50 minute drive? Or may or it might have been the other way, 30 minutes or 45 miles or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And. I know that based on what they were saying, it put like a a good majority of the Roanoke area area out of play from a hotel standpoint. So like I get, I get that part of it. But like to your point, why even go down that road if you're saying they're not a top 16 seed anyway?

25:40 If. It weren't in play then why we. Were I think that's I. Think we were. I think we were. And then it was just like, well, we can't really make this happen, So what can we do? We'll put them at 17. And, and if you want to say that was the, you know, we can't decide between these two teams, but they can accommodate everybody. So that's where we're going. You know that I'm fine if that, if that's the the qualifying factor there, but like just to come out and say, well, they weren't a 16 anyway. Well, they went down that road that far. They probably worked. They probably worked. Tally, I know you lost softball, so I mean what you got. I ain't got nothing, man. I I got nothing to I I you know what? I do have something to say.

26:22 Oh, he. Got something? I see. He got to give him a second here. He's got to wind the money. Every time I I I looked at hotels in Blacksburg to come up for I just looked at hotels for the VMI game. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why is it so high? Why does every boy around this cost so much? I looked at Airbnb. I looked at Airbnb's. Somebody was charging $1400 for I think they said you could walk to the stadium from this Airbnb. I was like, no, I don't think I want to walk big. I have $1400 for a night.

27:03 It may have been two nights, but whatever the case is and I'm not doing it, man. So hey, y'all got to get that hotel stuff taken care of. Cause see, anytime I've come up for a game, we've stayed. I think we stayed in like what's called Withville, Christiansburg. Where's Radford? Radford sometimes. Radford Yeah. So I was driven. In the nose. Before, yeah, so that's what I'm saying. There's been plenty of times that we've come up and we just had to stay. Like I've never stayed in Blacksburg when I went up there. So yeah, it's, it's state fault, man. Y'all got them, y'all no hotels too, too high and you got them booked up and stuff, man. They wanted to let, they wanted to let Virginia Tech host it, but the hotels is the problem.

27:52 You know what, we got a friend. Can you get some money together? I bet you he would build a hotel up there if he knew it was going to be a problem. You get to well. The well, the, the probability is not the, the the problem, it's it's getting all the permits and the land and everything by the the Blacksburg Council and all that stuff that I think is hindering some of some of that, that front. And I don't know a shortcut around that. You know, we, we know Blacksburg local politics is what it is so. We'll we'll give you his name later, Tally, we'll let you give him a call. I thought we can, I thought.

28:33 Jerry on here and talk a little bit about the the black man. On here, Yeah. I thought. I thought y'all was going to say Phil. That's the only reason. I asked who it was. No, not Phil. It's another one of our buddies. But he's also actually, you know what, Brian, I might actually talk to Robbie about his new purchase if he wants to sponsor it on here. Yeah, that that's a good idea. Seriously, I think that'd be a good idea. We'll let y'all know about it after the show. The guy too. All right, let's get to what we really want to talk about. Let's talk some football. Let's start with the recruiting aspect first, because since we last came on here, the recruiting has been absolutely on fire. It is something that I can say I don't remember every. I can't recall.

29:20 I can't personally recall the last time we sat in the teens. Yes, I know it's. Made. I don't remember. The last time we were in the teens and right now per the site that Doug writes 4247, we are 17th in the country. And this isn't with like 3 or 4 recruits. This is with 11 recruits. And if you look around, nobody around us has like 5 or 6. Everybody's in that same boat. 10111213 And so Doug, I want to start there and just you know, I know you do different writings, but obviously it's the site you're right for. But what are what is your just initial thoughts of this wave right out of the gate with James Franklin and and just the amount of the commits and the quality of the commits?

30:12 Yeah, I think the latter part is the big piece of it, the quality of the commence. I feel like every year around this time you get a run on commits in May and June. People have taken their official visits in this decision time spots. You know, you start to see the puzzle pieces play out of the spots getting taken out, taken up and stuff. But I think the big difference this year is, is really why you hired James Franklin. It's his recruiting ability you look at. I think there's been a noticeable difference in the competition that Virginia Tech is winning these battles against compared to previous years. I started just jotting these down. This was last week, but so I've only got a handful of them. But like Alex Taylor, they just going based off the 247 article that says he chose Virginia Tech over these these schools, you know, A&M, Tennessee, Auburn, Xavier Perkins, Miami, Louisville, Joseph Buchanan, NC State, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kelvin Morrison, Penn State, Miami, Braxton Solster, the tight end from Ole Miss, Auburn, Baylor. Like it just feels like a different level of competition that Virginia Tech is recruiting and winning recruiting battles against.

31:31 And that's solely because of James Franklin and his recruiting ability, how his track record sells itself, which helps when you're recruiting to a new place like Virginia Tech. But you see them just like it's definitely feels different immediately in terms of just the quality of prospect they're getting in terms of like the the other schools also recruiting these players. Yeah. And you talk about the quality of the thing that I'd like to look at. You know, I love the overall ranking, you see it in the teams, but when you start looking at that average recruit rank, that that's that's where I always look as far as a class in terms of, you know, how good is this class and, and making those comparisons to kind of other schools in that same area. And you know, that checks out just as well, if not better than than just looking at that overall range, just because you know, volume a lot of times plays a factor in that and things like that.

32:28 Where is that average recruit rank? You know, that's that's going to be there, you know, regardless of the the the size of the class that you're taking in. And and that's continued to trick trickle up and up and up. And now we're, you know, looking at kind of the mid 80 eights, you know, pretty consistently looking at how Franklin wrapped up last class and kind of where this class is standing right now. And and you got some some heavy hitters, you know, on the clock here coming up. So you know that that could that could go way up here, you know, potentially in a couple days. So excited for the quality, excited to see us flip DeMarcus Brown.

33:08 I think that was, you know, it's always good when you can eat off of little brother's plate a little bit in the process of getting a quality prospect. And then, you know, Chase Johnson sneaking in there. And you hadn't really heard a whole lot about, you know, Virginia Tech being, you know, super in play there. And then, you know, he he commits. And I thought that was a big one, you know, beating out Florida State for that one. So I mean, there's just so many good things that are happening with this class so far. That's got to be excited. The recruiting, the average recruiting ranking is notable. I think for what where we are kind of in the, the cycle of like you want that to be pretty high at this point, because that means you're, you're hitting at the top of your board or close to the top of the board versus having to kind of go down further the you miss on your top targets.

33:56 And then you're you're kind of going down the board for a lower, lower ranked guy. So that's exactly what you want to see. I think the other thing that's notable, you talked about Chase Johnson, you can throw Salster in there from, from Alabama, but Stanley's smart from Georgia. They're they're, they're stretching the footprint down into the Southeast. Right off the bat, you knew James Franklin was going to recruit Pennsylvania, Maryland and Northern Virginia. Like it's the back of his hand. You knew he was going to go, he's going to be able to go into Charlotte and around the state of Virginia and kind of within that like 3 hour radius of Virginia Tech is probably going to sell itself with James Franklin where he didn't have as much experience as going further South into Georgia specifically.

34:42 I think Norval McKenzie probably was a strategic hire for that. But when you can kind of everyone talks about the six hour radius and when you can start to really push those boundaries and take full advantage of the of that of the of the radius or footprint or whatever you want to call it. I think that's, it's especially notable right off the bat. You know, we're only five months into this tenure, basically. Yeah, yeah, Stretching into that more, more of a 10 hour radius, you know, reaching down into, you know, parts of Florida, getting into Georgia, getting, you know, all those states where, you know, the, the depth of, of the classes coming out of those states is so much greater than what you see in Virginia.

35:26 And, you know, there's a lot of factors that play into that. And you still have to, you know, I think you still have to Virginia still needs to be a focus. But at the same time, once you're out of the, you know, top 15, top 20 of the state, you can probably reach in some of those other States and get a comparable, you know, comparable talent. Chase Johnson. You know, much, much further down, much further down there in state list. But as far as their overall ranking is concerned, would be would you know, they'd be a a top ten player if they were, you know, simply ranked in Virginia, So 100. Percent talent, you've been quiet. What do you what do you want to say on this matter? No, man, I'm just listening.

36:06 I mean, I kind of hit on what I was going to say. I'm glad of course they're putting a, you know, emphasis on trying to recruit the state and the footprint. But the footprint is you got to get talent as well now, not no stupid ass shit like Texas, the Vt and let's forget about Virginia. You know, of course we're not thinking that. But just like you were saying, I think Curtis was saying, or maybe Brian, when you look at some of the caliber of recruits, just the depth that some of the some of the recruits or states have for the recruits, you might, you may be looking at a 50th in the state, but he's ranked at 89. You know, it's just different.

36:52 Sometimes at the end, listening to what some of the recruits say, I can't remember which was I think it was the running back from Georgia when Kobe did an interview with him and he just talked about, you know, why now what, what was the time? Why was it the time to to commit? And he's saying, you know, I got to get in. I don't want to lose my spot. You know what I'm saying? Like who it is me, you know what I'm saying? And you got you got kids already saying that about Virginia Tech when we were begging people to to come in at some points, not all the time, but you know, sometimes in our recruiting Fuente Aras, we had people that we was just trying to get a kid in, you know, just trying to get anybody to. And and now you got kids saying, you know, I'm just I got to get in early so I don't lose my spot because I would hate for somebody to take my spot and I not have that spot.

37:41 I know that building something up there. So kudos to the to the staff and James Franklin, you know, like you said, stretching that that footprint. I don't know did we I I looked at the I was look, when you asked me what I was doing. I was looking at the the rundown. Curtis, did we talk about the big recruit on Thursday in the rundown in it we're. Going to get. There, we don't get there. Hold. On We're going to get there. I was trying to see it. I didn't know if we, I didn't know if it was on there, so I didn't want to that was. I was not on there, I missed it, but Brian brought. It up. I'll say this, I'll say this, I'll say this. What? Because Doug brought him up. The kid from Alabama is good.

38:21 The kid from Alabama is good. He's a phenomenal athlete at a very, he's a big fish in a small pond right now. He goes to one of the smaller schools in Alabama. I think it's a two way school and he is dominating people in that until they get to the playoffs, there's nobody who can do what he's doing that he plays against. All of the schools are going to be similar to to him or to his school. I think they may have went like 10 and two last year. You know, they may have been not one lost one game in the regular season. But just thinking about like that is a usually that's a Auburn type of player. I wouldn't say Alabama caliber for how Alabama recruits, but most of the time Auburn comes in and didn't even you know, schools like you know, South Alabama, but even when we stay in the SEC like Ole Miss was hard on this kid. So for them to sneak in, you know, down in Pleasant Valley, Alabama, which is Jacksonville.

39:26 I went to Jacksonville State his his his school is in Jacksonville, AL for them to sneak in and be like, hey, we need you to come here for a athlete like that. 65 he plays basketball. It just lets me know like the recruiting, you know, prowess that they have that they're they're going after it man. And I, I, it's interesting to see it makes it fun again. You know what I'm saying? Like now I got to put Doug on. I got to turn my notices on for Doug and Kobe and Evan so I can know what's going on because for years I was just like, man, it don't matter. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? That you going to give me what, 858482? No disrespect to the kids, man, you know, but I'm just being real now. I got a now I'm getting excited about it a little bit more because I mean, when you start saying, I know sometimes when people write the articles, they may say, oh, he chose Virginia take over this school, right?

40:23 But if you really look at it and you go back, because I go follow visits and things like that and I'm like, oh, this coach was in to see this kid. Oh, this he's got pictures. He just went there. OK, we doing something, Curtis, I ain't mean I ain't mean to step in front of you, man. What you had to say you. Didn't step in front of me, but obviously I was going to kind of let us go around and talk about the recent wave of commits, and I expected you to talk about Braxton. He's from Alabama, you know about him. But I'm going to flip it to our guest, Doug, of all these recent commits of this big groundswell that's been happening in the last about 3 weeks here. Is there a certain 1 you point out just like that kid right there, whether it's Tate, his offer list, maybe things you read about him. Is there one that just pops out to you? That's like, that's my guy, That's who? I'm glad we got them in the boat. I I'm going to go with Brian's guy, but DeMarcus Brown, I think a wide receiver, I think Virginia Tech has recruited with Fontel Mines has recruited the wide receiver position extremely well on paper for the last several years. It hasn't quite yet paid off on the field. So like continuing to stock that position is a big one for me. I know they got Roberts too of that's at that spot, but taking up he's a composite 4 star from your in state rival at this point of the process, like pretty pretty solid job. You know, not like a late in the cycle type flip. So they did a really good job recruiting him and he's he's one of those that's one of those

41:56 premium positions. One of James Franklin's like go to quotes these days. Is that like, what does he say? He says running backs have to make like 3 people or four people miss before they're gone, whereas receivers like they make one guy miss and they're gone. So he's trying to put a a big premium on on the wide receiver position, maybe more so than he did at Penn State. But I think Brown in particular at, you know, the 247 has him at six, 3 1/2 is a four-star wide receiver. That's the kind of like high level talent that you just need to stock at that position. So you have like 3 really good ones at the top of your depth chart. Brian is George.

42:37 DeMarcus, is that your guy right now? Do you have another one? It it's between him and Chase Johnson and I mean, just look at looking at both of those. Yeah, those are areas that you need to get some bodies in there, you know, outside of the trenches, you know, you want to get as many cornerbacks and and wide receivers in the room. It it's a position that, you know, if, if things go well, they can play quickly and I think that that's important as we're trying to level up the talent in this roster is, is getting those, you know, high caliber, high, high profile players in the building and, and see what they can do right away. Probably cornerback, even more so than wide receiver, you know, if, if, if a cornerback has a skill set, you know, you can get them out there pretty quick. So you get more bodies in the building like a, like a Chase Johnson.

43:27 I think it's going to be be real important to continue to keep the, the trajectory of that room moving forward because you know, when we look back, just, you know, just to last year, man, that room was in complete shambles. And, and, and what Franklin has been able to do with wrapping up the 26th cycle in the transfer portal and now what he's starting to do in the 27th cycle. I mean, this is really turning something that was an absolute negative in 2025 into, you know, you're looking at A at a pretty good plus room heading into this year and it's only going to get better as this class grows up all. Right. I'm, I'm going to throw mine out there before we hit that topic that's happening on Thursday that Tally wants to talk about, but I want to go Kelvin Morrison. Well, first of all, we've been talking about James Franklin starting to create a further footprint down South. Doug, I'm with you.

44:24 The reason Norville was, the reason Norville was hired was for that. Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, The reason Fontell was kept on because of that. The reason Matt Moore was kept on was because of the Ohio, New Jersey type connections that he's always made. So he made a very conscientious effort to make sure we've got to go further South because to what Tally said, what we're all agreeing to here is some of those states, the 50th ranked player is as good as the top ten, top 15 in other states. And when you snatch one of them, that's how you start building depth. But the Morrison pick, for me, it's more of he is that borderline 4 star running back out of Pennsylvania. But it shows that he is not going to forget that area. Doug, you said he should have a problem recruiting, but he's proven I'm not going to forget about y'all. Yes, I moved down to Virginia.

45:11 Virginia's still our home base, but I'm going to keep coming back up north. I'm going to keep looking for players in this area to come in. We lost Brian. That's very strange. I don't know what's going on there. So hopefully we'll jump back on in a second. Here my Internet. He stole your Internet, You stole his Internet. That's when it went on there. But when you see that, I think that's what happened last week. But when you see that, when you see him continuously pulling a four-star out of there and then like the Saint Francis Academy guys out of Maryland, it's like he's not forgetting about what he built Penn State into. But now he's winding that base and he's getting into the Deep South. And obviously we expect probably Florida kids to start hopping on. And I think that's the piece because if you tell Doug we're a little bit older than you, like what made Virginia Tech, Virginia Tech back in the day it was Pennsylvania, Maryland, Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and then some Florida kids, those eight states Duvall in the Fort. Lauderdale area in Fort Lauderdale area and if you say. He's getting that back and it's not just he's just going in there getting a player.

46:17 He is getting, you know, in the world's of Chase Johnson, a top 50 player of the state. And he's. Topped like 400 in the country. It's like way zone. That's where it changes so. I think another thing. Too, Curtis, just to kind of piggyback on what you're saying, it's like, you know, of course when you're talking recruiting this, the next recruit, the next class, the current class, we still have people from the 26th class that hadn't come in yet. And the reason I'm saying that is because they're going to be very pivotal parts of what we're looking at doing. Pierce, what Peterson, I think his name is very because I'm talking about the tight end from Alabama, you know, that that they, they that they've got to commit.

47:02 But this kid is supposed to be there, you know, here in just a little bit. He's he's a very talented tight end. You know what I'm saying? Did you think about some of the recruiting that we've done in the past? We would, you know, maybe get a four-star here or, you know, get a four-star here and then we forget the position for two or three years. Tommy Wilder. Tommy Wilder is not even on campus yet. He's a four-star, you know, lineman that that we're still wearing the fat rat Brown. You know, when you talk about those kids coming in and then you already are stacking other kids behind them. That's how you build the depth. You know what I'm saying? Every it seems like it's just been, you know, that last recruiting cycle. Now we're moving into this one and you can see the depth starting to build with some of the positions that they're doing.

47:51 So we talk about like DeMarcus Brown and then Fat Rat Brown both getting in there and being in that wide receiver room. Because how many times at Tech have we been like, oh man, we're going to have a great year and this one player gets injured and it's like it throws everything in disarray, You know what I'm saying? And I get it, star players are star players for a reason. But how many times does that happen at other schools? Somebody gets injured and being a star is born. You know what I'm saying? This person gets injured and somebody else steps up and you know, they have a great year for that team. I don't wish for anybody to get injured by no means. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm just saying you got to have depth in football. And I think that's one of the big things that we have lacked in the past.

48:34 And I can see with the recruiting and the people that they brought in through the transport portal that it's it's getting a lot better. So yeah, that's the big thing with. The blue chip ratio is something I follow pretty closely the the ratio of four stars and five stars you get compared to everyone else. Indiana finally broke it from the national championship perspective, but I but it's still like a good metric in terms of do you have enough talent on the roster to survive the injury, to survive the portal guide, to survive that. Like it's a measure of kind of the margin for error you've given yourself for all the roster shenanigans that happened these days in college football. If you're like it's a you see that the NFL draft now all the time, but like if you recruit 4 stars and five stars more often, like you're going to be fine the vast majority of the time. 1% Tex at 11.

49:31 Go ahead, you. Go ahead. Finish off. I didn't. I was. Just going to say Tex at 11. Blue chips since Franklin took over, which is class and a half, I guess class and a quarter, that's the most in a two class period or that's the third most in a two class period. 2526 and then going back that 2017, 2018-2019 run that Fuente was on before it went sour. And that's basically it for the last 25 years of machine tech football. So like he's already, he's already approaching like the most talent that has ever been brought in in such a short period of time. Yeah.

50:14 And and. The problem with you. When you look at the the Fuente situation is that talent came in the building, but it most of it quickly went out of the building. And I think that that's that's where someone like James Franklin, who has even in the transfer portal in NIL time frame, has done a really good job of retaining the talent that he recruits. So that that's where that comes into play as well. And we've you talk about the pillars that he has for the program, you know, recruiting your current roster and keeping those guys in the building, making sure that they're they're locked in. They understand what their role in the team is and taking care of those guys. That's been a priority for him. It was a priority at Penn State.

50:56 And he's doubled down on that commitment, it sounds like at Virginia Tech so far. So that's going to be important moving forward as well. And you know, it's good to have someone like Franklin that has a history of navigating not only getting talent in the building, but keeping that talent in the building. I think I think it's history is. Probably what drives a lot of that, it's like, yeah, you can leave, but you're not like you're not guaranteed to find somebody better. You're taking a pretty. Sizable risk. To leave a James Franklin coach program, maybe that maybe that ends up being more true at a Penn State type program than Virginia Tech, but it's still that kind of like trust and track record that sells itself of like, I'm already here and I'm close if you're not close.

51:44 You're probably going to leave. Anyway, but for those guys that are close and could go either way, it feels like with a little bit more track record, a little bit more winning, it becomes harder and harder to leave. Yeah, and to Tally's point, I. Mean, you know. You talk about the injuries, you know, when we looked at that last year, I mean, we had really three position groups that were, you know, an injury or an opt out from being OK. We we can, we can live with, with the talent that we have to all right, this room is a problem and that, you know, with this cornerback, it's offensive line. It was defensive line, particularly defensive end. We couldn't rush the passer. We already had a cornerback room in shambles and that's that's a recipe to to not have a very good defense.

52:29 And if you can't protect your quarterback, then you've got all sorts of other problems on the other side of the football. So that that's that's how you that's how a season that wasn't going to be good to begin with went off the runs pretty quick last year and and then. To your point. Doug with like, Franklin and his track record, well, when literally after the NFL draft, they start popping up, oh, what schools have the most NFL talent? And it's like Penn State is 6. And it's just like we get to raise our hand and be like, hey, that head coach is here now that head coach is here. He's not up there anymore. He's down here. It's like they're literally doing a sales pitch for the new coach to a new program, which is unbelievable, All right? Speaking.

53:13 Of blue. Chips. Speaking of blue chips, that. Ratio. Has a potential chance to get even better on Thursday with Peter Fort if y'all. I have a feeling everybody snows, but if y'all have not looked up Peter Bork. This is 247. This is Doug's site. He is the 7th ranked quarterback in the country. He is the 80th ranked player in the country. He is the top player in Massachusetts. He is 6 foot 4. He is 220 lbs. His offer list is long and it seems like it's down to Georgia. His offer list is insanely long with a lot of really good teams.

53:54 It seems like it's down to Georgia and us. Doug, whatever you can tell us how you're feeling about this, let us know because we are right at 36 hours or so the way you think he's announcing in the morning I. Do not, I do not know when he's. Announcing exactly. I think last I saw it was still TBD. It's Thursday sometime right? Thursday. Sometime I'm not sure what when. Exactly. Thursday, 12:00 PM. They got it up, Yeah. All right. So we are right at 36 hours. This this is. Really a fascinating kind of when you think about where, where, where Virgin Tech was in the fall and now they're recruiting one of the top quarterbacks in the country against Georgia and Penn State.

54:37 Pretty ridiculous, but it's just a fascinating, like, this level of recruiting is something Virginia Tech has not done and like, has not competed for this level of recruiting. Who knows how long maybe. Josh. Josh Wet was the last one way back when. But like today, they just you know, the story just came out of his high school or I think hosted a camp of sorts of showcase and Georgia, Penn State, Virginia, this guy's deciding less than 48 hours and all three Staffs are right there on the sideline watching them. So it's just like this is the level of this is the recruiting that you do at the top of the SEC and the top of the Big 10 and for for his level of quarterback at the most important position on the field.

55:27 But it's it's a big one. I have no idea where it's going to go. I think, I think you get down as tight as this has been and with all the dominoes, you know, you start following the wood kid that Penn State is supposedly like, I don't know whether he's their number one choice or he's their fall back option. Apparently George's been recruiting other quarterbacks. So you start to try and follow the musical chairs of what's happening. So we'll see. The other thing that is that I'll say at the like, at this level of recruit, it's been crazy things happen at the last second programs.

56:07 Decide to go for it. When they decide to spend that extra resource to make it happen if that's what they need to get it across the finish line. So I think the next 48 hours or less than 48 hours at this point will probably generate one of those great post signing day stories of like what it was like going back and forth, especially in today's age with all the agents and stuff. But it like getting him on the heels of getting, you know, Troy Hoon last year, another four-star quarterback really sets up Tech's quarterback room with a lot of high level talent. And I mean, that's what you need to do at the quarterback position is laying one of those guys every year. Eventually you hit a home run on them and you you'll you'll have a higher hit rate when you're recruiting at the Bork level than Keldon Ryan.

56:59 No disrect, disrect to him, but Knox Kadem, all the all the guys that tech was trying to do that with Pop Watson, like good strategy. It's just going to take a while to find the diamond in the rough kind of thing at that level of quarterback recruiting. But Hoon and followed by Bork like would be quite impressive and like kind of set up the the next probably phase two of the Franklin era if you think about Grunk Meyer being phase one. Yeah, I mean, I think. You know, if you're able. To land Bork, I think that would be the highest composite quarterback commit since Logan Thomas. So it wasn't really a quarterback. For. Commit at the time. All right, I saw. Somebody was discussing. It today on our board about like Brian Randall was probably the late like he's the best since Brian Randall, which was O2 O three yeah in terms of quarterback prospect. Yeah, I mean.

57:57 It's wild, man. It's it's going to be interesting to see how the next 30 to 6 hours shake out because you know that that's something that can you know that, that. Has a ripple effect. Across the rest of the class, you know, getting somebody like that in the building, so excited to see how that shakes out for the Hokies and what sort of ripples it causes for the rest of the class. And, you know, whether it has that that coattails effect that you you sometimes see with a recruit like that. Yeah, so. Tally anything y'all want to. Put a cap on it. Scared to death, scared to. Death, I ain't going to lie to you. Scared to death. He going to be Tally.

58:37 Ain't getting nothing done at work on on on Thursday until that commitment. So he going to be refreshed, refreshed going on the boards, following Doug, following Evan, following the take because I've been I've been on the. Boards too much. There's been all kind of stuff going on. You know, that's a paywall. So I ain't going to tell y'all if y'all want it, they give good deals. Go on there, get your subscription. But I can say, man, it is still is exciting just to see. But I don't know man. It's just usually me being a Virginia Tech fan. This doesn't end well for us speaking. It don't end well for us. Why did the office of lineman had to throw our hat? Oh yeah.

59:20 Yeah. Why did he have to? Throw our hat. Like what did we do to it? What did we do to it? We didn't. Do anything to it? I don't know. He said that kid, he said that kid if he ever, if he fails at life. He got to come back to rolling up. I need a job. No. You ain't getting a job here. No one else would, don't you? Don't you have nothing on? You head on back to Janesville, brother. Head back to the ain't ain't going in Gainesville. All right, so. We're going to kind of put a wrap on recruiting. Again, great spots. Thanks Doug for all the info there, the insights and just your thoughts on that because we do respect them significantly.

1:00:02 Let's flip up to where we said we were going to talk about initially because you know we want to bring these things up because we have not talked about them and obviously over the last few weeks couple things have happened. Within the realm of Virginia Tech, that may not directly affect the football program, but the, the, the, the strategies and all that stuff are going to be affected significantly. And that is Tim Sands announces his retirement. So Doug, you know, obviously you were there as an undergrad when Sands first came on, correct? And obviously you've seen the last decade plus of, you know, everything that's happened. But what's just your two? Thoughts.

1:00:44 Thoughts on him in general? For what he did at the school and then the thought on how this retirement and when this retirement happened. I think. It's hard to not being in tune with what makes a truly successful president of university on the academic side. It's a little hard to, for me to like pass a grade on on him overall. I think, you know, I, I know the Amazon thing up in Northern Virginia is going to be a long term like, like great, great long term play for Virginia Tech. He, I know he also hired Charlie Fleeger, who's Virginia Tech's advancement director of advanced advancement. I guess who if you look at their like university side fundraising numbers over the last 10 years.

1:01:34 He retired last summer. I guess end of last summer Fleeger did. But like that was a smashing success as well. So like you, you, you can point to some stuff that sounds good. I'm sure other people who are way more in tune with University Rankings and all that stuff. I know AAU membership has been a big goal. That's been something that was like frequently in board of visitors meetings, discussions in terms of like where, where, where's Virginia? Tech in terms of. Its peers that are a member of the AU so that you can you can tell they want to get in there and it didn't happen under his watch. So maybe that's something that you Ding him for, but I don't know.

1:02:19 I think I think overall then you. Then you bring in the athletics. Discussion which was just a fail, but just there's no other way to the to look at that. He was the president. Virginia Tech was not successful in football except you can give him 2016 and 2019. The athletic director who was in charge of athletics was still the athletic director until the very end. Like it's just that that that will be a big part of his legacy, just like it's a big part of Stevens legacy in terms of like what Virginia Tech was able to do in athletics during his tenure. So that's that's notable as far as the departure going back. To athletics, it definitely speed. It up you know the rumors for for a long time were that he was going to wrap up in 27 and and ride off in the sunset retire then was probably going to give Virginia Tech a nice patient presidential presidential search on that timeline. But like the just lack of success on the football side eventually led this board of visitors to take the action that they have taken over the last you know since that August August presentation and speed all of this up. You know Sands is writing editorials and like inside higher Ed about the future of college sports like a month before his announcement.

1:03:49 So, you know, I think I think he still probably wanted to retire in 27 as planned, but when like the timeline just got out of whack when Tech was not successful in athletics and they they could not wait to to replace him and try and hire a new. Athletic. Director and all that stuff like that. It had to flow in that sense. So they had to, they had to push him, push him out a little earlier than I think the intended plan would have been. I'm, I'm going to say this, Brian, I know. You're going to kind of jump into the next thing. His statement still, I think it was 18. Eventually this. College Sports. Bubble is going to burst eight years later, Timmy. It ain't burst buddy.

1:04:35 It's just gotten bigger. In your thought, his thought process on it has been completely incorrect. It's gotten bigger. It's got even stronger with some of the TV deals and to me, again, not from a higher education because I think from an education point of view and what he did for that wonderful. But when he said that that irritated a lot of people. We we didn't get there. Me, me and Brian. Tyler didn't go there. Like, you know, me and Brian got in. Tyler played football down at Jacksonville State, but it's like. We didn't go here. But this is our team. This is our team from when we were, you know, ten, 11-12 years old and then you say that like it it kind. Of irks you because.

1:05:17 It's kind of like there the reason why this? University. Built so big was the late 1990s in the in the boom of football and when Michael Vick played and how much the enrollments. Our friend Robbie, who was in the chat earlier, he was like, basically, I'm going to get into tech and then Michael Vick happened and then it was I'm not going to get into tech anymore. So I just, I want to say that because I will never forget him saying that and that coming out because it was like, dude, you don't know how crazy college football fans are. We spend lots of money. We're stupid. I think, well, that was an. 18 you said, right, I think it was 18 it was well. Well then, like I mentioned, the.

1:05:58 Inside Higher Ed editorial rights. And then he signed on. This all happened in the last like four months, but he signed on to another letter with three other university presidents, his last two big like public leadership. Attempts were. A let the letter that signed where they basically said please, please follow the rules guys. And then the set and then the the the inside higher Ed one, which he said where he tried to like tried to pitch the reality that athletic department should be, should take. I forget what the exact wordage wordage was, but it was like, you should be OK with having less, less success.

1:06:40 So so that we can figure this out, Like winning is you should you should be OK with winning less competing less. Like it's like LSU literally just spent $150 million to lure Lane Kiffin away and now you're telling them that they should like care a little less about their athletic program. Those were the two moments where I was just like, it's it's coming to an end soon. And I and I'd love to know if if those him signing off of that and doing that like speed up, speed up the process a little bit, because at that point, like it just was like that kind of. And I, I think we'll get into what Virginia Tech needs in the next president from an athletic standpoint. But it's just like that, that that can't be the opinion of the president of Virginia Tech, especially after you just put $230 million in the athletic department. 2 words that. James Franklin likes institutional alignment and, and the other thing that that I'll talk about a little bit before we get to the next thing is that the the problem that I had with Sands from an athletic department standpoint and just an athletics and general standpoint is that you can either be proactive or reactive.

1:07:55 And at our best, we were always reactive, meaning that we had to show that it wasn't working before we made any changes. And I think. That that's where you. Know Virginia Tech for a long time coasted on the fact that Frank Beamer was able to do a lot with what he was given. And we never modernized from an operational standpoint, from a funding standpoint to still maintain a competitive program with our peers. And I'm not just talking about competing for a national championship or winning the AC.

1:08:37 I'm talking about just to be competitive in the ACC and we were not. Doing. That. And part of that comes from leadership, like if you're if you're not recognizing that that's a problem, you've got to have a solution for that. And you've got to look at where things are going and take some risk on there in the process. And I feel like we were so risk averse and chasing our tail for the majority of his tenure that, you know, you get to a point where you finally get the BOV that recognizes the issue and makes this investment. But you've got to have leadership that are bought in. So you got to have a president that's bought into that vision.

1:09:18 You got to have an athletic director, which we'll talk about a little bit that's bought into that vision. So it's an exciting time from an athletic standpoint because you you get to get some some new blood in here. And hopefully someone that sees how athletics drives everything else that happens at Virginia Tech Athletics is such a big part of what makes Virginia Tech a great place to go to school, a great place to go to a game, a great place to go visit. If you're not putting that as a big piece of the overall university experience, then you're missing the point. Let's. Let's pivot a little bit though.

1:09:59 Let's talk about like what with the new president, what do you know about kind of the process of of what's happening next on that front and what that timeline looks like timeline? 'S going to be. Interesting because most of these searches take a long time. I think that was the plan. Like if Sands was able to retire in 27 to give a nice long drawn out search. You know, it's one of those, like I was saying on the academia side, like candidates who knows who's interested in this job, all that stuff. They had a board of visitors meeting yesterday where the search for search firm they hired, Isaacson Miller, gave a little presentation. They had a meeting earlier in the week, I think for like faculty and students to weigh in, which I'm not sure how much that is just a required thing or whether they're actually taking the opinions of those people into the search. So I, I think the first thing has been done. They've, they've hired the search firm Isaacson Miller to, to run it and to start kind of vetting pros, vetting potential candidates.

1:11:19 I don't know where they'll go. It's pretty similar. It's kind of similar in terms of like where they're going with the athletic director search of do you do you take somebody who's come up, come up in the traditional administration of universities or do you go outside and kind of hire an outsider from the. Business, world or politics? Or something like that. Who's not just like kind of like Sans was the Provost of Purdue before he became the president of Virginia Tech. So like that's going to be an interesting decision on where where they want to go in that direction. But I think, I think it's going to, it's going to take months because these searches, even if you wanted to do them in in a hurry, like if that takes months and, and then, you know, you get into all the political appointee stuff and the board of visitors stuff and like getting all those, all that lined up and improved and all that.

1:12:21 I think you, I think you're looking into the summer at the very earliest, like in the even that feels fast to me. So, and, and I think I don't, I don't know, like the leaks of names and how frequent that'll be and like how, how, how you can really kind of grasp who the true candidates are because I don't, I don't know how you would have identified Tim Sands, the Provost of Purdue, as the top candidate almost. We'll almost say this, but I think. With like how you research, I do think if if you're not. If you're wondering who the next. Virginia Tech president is you better be following Doug and you better be out the 247 because like the BOV, you've been so good at getting those minutes and getting them out there quickly to folks and saying this is what was being said.

1:13:11 You've done a great job of analyzing it. I mean, no, kudos to you, man. Because a lot of those like when that stuff was going on in August, like I'm trying to read and I'm like, OK, I understand some of this. And some of it's like, where's Doug? Like where Doug's going to do something good. I'm going to be able to like consume it. So again, I, I, I'll give you your props, but let me ask this. And we talk about sports, but like, if you had to choose like like a perfect candidate, like like I want them from like this type of school, this type background. Do you have like 3 or 4 things? Like if they check a couple of those boxes where as you're reading like about a candidate like this guy, please pick this guy like University of Georgia deeper S like what's your what's your reality on that?

1:13:58 I mean, I think, I think he kind of. Went in that direction of it's got to be somebody who is from a football school that understands the importance of football too at school. I think it. Also needs to be somebody. That the school has been at the forefront towards the forefront of the the changes in college college athletics over the last 10 to 15 years or even the last five years since COVID. Like if you haven't been, if your school hasn't been and you were in a leadership, assuming you were in a leadership position there, like hasn't been successful in navigating the new world.

1:14:39 I don't think you're going to be a candidate for this role, especially with this current board of visitors and $230 million that they want to invest in the right way and successfully turn that into wins and a sustainable business model. Like there's got to be some re not only like understanding of the importance of football to the university, but also some like recent track record of this is what that university did to, to achieve success there. So I think those are the two biggest things. I think if you wanted to go outside and like like I said earlier, you could have the same discussions about the athletic director role. But if you wanted to go outside of the traditional athletics role, it's like do you have success? Have you had success kind of innovating in a business model and building something essentially from scratch in a in a new environment?

1:15:33 No, that's perfect it kind. Of leads into the next thing that we talked about when you said you know the AD because we're going to talk about Mr. Mr. Wit Babcock here but I'll start by saying I'm working doing my thing today and I get a ESPN little tidbit that comes. Through and I'm. Thinking for sure it's going to say LeBron is coming back to the Lakers next year, something like that. But instead I get I get a story that says James Franklin says Virginia Tech's next AD must be aggressive with football. So that is what that is what James Franklin had to say.

1:16:14 Doug, what say you about with Babcock and kind of what his status is and where Virginia Tech is moving forward with with? Babcock I think the writing. Was on the wall for him. Right from the time the football search got taken from him, you know, when you're the athletic at the university and you don't have control over who the next head football coach is going to be. It's I think the clock is ticking at that point. It was just a matter of time. They, they, they did a great job of alignment of saying, you know, James Franklin credited with during the search and his work with the agents and all that stuff. But I, I don't, I think this was, was, was pretty, pretty planned right around the time that they decided they needed a committee instead of the athletic director to find the next head coach.

1:17:11 I think in general. Babcock was just not going back to what Brian was talking about, proactive versus reactive, which is not proactive enough, and in improving the athletic department. I think I know John. I know John Boleyn takes a lot of heat for how long he stuck around, but there's a lot of that in the athletic department. No disrespect to them. That has been there a long time. And if you look at over the last 5-10 years of college athletics, like there's been so much change and not much change at Virginia Tech. And, and I think you saw a lot of that play out on the field. I know maybe that presentation ends up being Babcock's defining legacy.

1:17:57 I think the board members, Peterson and McCarthy were influential in even getting that on the agenda. But like though I guess the you could see if that investment pays off, the Babcock's legacy becomes that essentially, because I don't know that there's much else there. He hired Buzz Williams worked out for the five years there, but they they haven't made an NCAA tournament in men's basketball in the last Four Seasons. They've only had two good football years during his tenure. Like the on field success just wasn't there to to warrant how long he was the athletic director. Well, I think then to.

1:18:38 With where if sometimes he he couldn't hit a layup, he couldn't read the room and that that goes back. Everybody in Hokie nation can remember 2020 when there is a you probably got notification. We start hearing, oh, Wit's doing a press conference today and it literally is everybody's reading the tea leaves, oh, this is the day Justin Puente's buyout is like $1,000,000. And it's like, oh, he's firing him. Good for what? You know, make that strong move in that interview and doing it that day it it's like you got to have a sense of what's going on inside your community, inside the walls of the athletic department. And in my opinion, just from what I saw was 12 years, right, because he was 2014 that right.

1:19:28 Like in the beginning it was. OK, because football was still OK. And then he made the Fuente higher where it looked like oh wow, he got one of the hottest main coaches, he knew what he's doing. And then after like 2019, it was just like fallacy after. Fallacy. After falling on your face after doing something dumb over and over again. And it was just like, Oh my God, I, I, this is terrible. In in. 2020 is just the cap. That's just the cap. No one will ever forget that because most people, most universities, most athletic directors would see, yeah, if we're going to keep them, I definitely shouldn't do it that day because every single person in the world are going to think of fine. Yeah, I I was thinking about that when. Brian was talking about Sands, but like that that decision and you can and I think Sands and Babcock both have the same amount of blame for that decision of at that point of Fuente's tenure.

1:20:31 And I know it was right after COVID, so everything was wonky. I think at that point of Fuente's tenure, it should have been pretty clear that he was not as interested in recruiting as you were going to need to be to be successful. That was what, 2016171819? So five seasons in, if you're as, if you're as proactive and like engaged in the program as you need to be, I think as an athletic director these days, that or a president that should have been a lot clearer that giving him another year isn't probably not going to change much. And so that just ended up being essentially a wasted year there in 2021 at at during a time when Tech's roster was pretty well stocked too, like those two seasons were. The 2020 roster was fantastic.

1:21:22 It just got wrecked by COVID. And then the 2021 was projected to be. Pretty good. If they could, could have gotten the quarterback position right, yeah. And and you know when we look at. Win and you know, to Curtis to your point that that presser was like a double whammy because it's like you, you expect to get fired and instead, you know wit comes. Out there and it's. Like double down, baby. Doubling down. On the choice and then like pointing the fingers when you started pointing the fingers at at fans of like, OK, well, what? We're we're not going to pay. Attention to fans.

1:22:04 They're probably not giving that much anyway to the program and we're like what we're going to we're. Going to we're going to go there. We're. Going to hit there at the end of the day and I know like you can't make all. Of your decisions. Based on fan sentiment and I get that like but the writing was on the wall. Fuente was at best going to be a lame duck coach heading into the 2021 season, barring A9 plus win season. And when you when you aren't able to recruit, you don't do a good job of recruiting where you need to be recruiting, it was just a recipe for disaster. And, you know, you ended up in the same place that you were going to be anyway one year later and. I think you know when you talk about the. You know this like parting.

1:22:58 Shot being kind. Of part of that legacy for me, it, it, it's, it's great that it's happening, but it's absolutely too little too late in a lot of ways. Because, you know, if you had been this proactive incrementally, you wouldn't have to have this huge influx of cash into the athletic department all at once and have to completely restructure what you're doing. And this goes back to his leadership starting in 2014. I mean, this is something where, you know, Fuente comes in and recruiting wise was kind of just handed the playbook that that Beamer had and, you know, had had had some decent success with that.

1:23:42 But instead of incrementally working more staffers into that recruiting program, more money into the ability to to recruit more money into the into the staff and to the the the coaching staff itself, we just didn't. Do the the little. Things incrementally along the way to set ourselves up for success and a lot of that falls back on wit you know the. The the coach. Can only work with what he's been given and that's not to say that Fuente or Pride maximize that necessarily, but at the same time you. Were kind of playing with 11.

1:24:27 Hand behind your back from jump street because of the way the athletic department was structured in in the amount of investment and overall. Plan. That that wit had for the program, Sally, what you got, I mean, when you think. About a DS, I mean, it's kind of like 4 key factors that you're going to look at like their adaptability, So what they're going to do in the landscape of sports facility upgrades, coaching hires and generating revenue. Like when we just look at.

1:25:08 It what did. Wit do did he do any of that good? How did he, how did he grade on that stuff? And he didn't do a good job. You know what I'm saying? Like, no disrespect to him. He didn't look like he had a good time. He always looked like somebody pissed in his oatmeal, you know, and I would probably too with Joe Rogers and the crew on my head every every day on Twitter. But he just, you know, he didn't he didn't do a lot of those things good. So and then the things that he may have tried to do was a little bit too late. And some people said, well, it starts at the top. It starts with, you know, saying so it starts with Valentina, whoever, all of them.

1:25:48 So perfect, let's just start fresh because to think about some of the things that some of the leaders would have to navigate now, like who would ever thought that? You know, you got to know about AI, you know, you got to do social media stuff with recruits, you got to be able to talk to the people about video games. This is all things that are important. You know what I'm saying? What was the year 2 years ago the, the leaking of the Virginia Tech uniforms on college football, the, the video game, just little stuff like that that probably don't make the biggest difference on if you're a good AD or not. But those little details can definitely be, you know, play a part in you being good to great or average to good. So, so long Whit go and find you something else to do, Man. I I hope you go and well, no, he he's hanging around. He's he going to hang around and go ahead and go. I want him to go ahead and get all right. Doug, we we kind of got to this.

1:26:59 Spot and back if y'all check out April 25th. Doug, you wrote again a great article about the nine Names to know. Go read it. He's not going to give all nine names right now, but give me a couple of your like who do you like? You've been doing the research, you've been reviewing what they've been doing elsewhere. Give me 2-3 guys that you like. And then if you had to say right now, and I know it's not going to be next month or the month after we got to get the president in flight square. So it's going to be even longer than waiting for the president. Who would you who would be your choice? I'll be curious to see if they actually. Do wait for the president and if the timeline has still, because it's I don't know if the president's going to, I feel like you could hire AAD or whatever they want to call this role that much faster than you can hire a university president. So that's one of the big questions of can you like, can you truly do it?

1:27:58 It's kind of the same question that we had back when they first fired fired pry of like, all right, well, if you're going to if you're going to fire a wit, can you can you hire an AD in time to hire the football coach or so it's the same kind of timeline like nonsense that Virginia Tech's been dealing with for the last several months. I read that article. It's a mix of names I've definitely heard and names that I kind of like. I think they will be involved with any major opening at this point of their careers in college athletics. And then I tried to identify some of the people in college athletics that fit that kind of. Outsider business. Experience I I wrote in that article.

1:28:40 Like trying to identify an actual business outsider who's interested in becoming an athletic director in college athletics. Right now I don't know how to do that, but like I, I would love to be able to tell you that the, the vice president of brand strategy for fanatics wants to get into college athletics or, you know, something like that, but who knows? So, you know, you look at the, the trend that people identify with that is like North North Carolina hired a NASCAR person, Stanford hired a former Nike executive. So you get those like adjacent. Sports. Executive type positions, so I was trying to identify because some people have hired them as like deputies in their athletic department.

1:29:26 So I was trying to identify some of those types of people. Jared Dinko at Auburn, Julie Cromer at LSU, those two are on my list. I think they're those those would be more of the traditional hire. They're up and comers in the industry that are probably interested in just about like I said, every major job. I think the notable thing and one of the things on my criteria list is that they so Banco was the athletic director at Georgia Southern for four years and Cromer was the athletic director at Ohio University. So not before experience, but you were the top dog, you were the person calling the shots much in the same way that like I think that pays off for James Franklin with all his experience.

1:30:14 I think having experience in the number one role of a huge enterprise is prerequisite must have. So like they left those jobs to take deputy roles at Auburn and LSU to advance their careers. So I think they make sense if they're going to go to the traditional route. I had another guy on the list, Joe Lebieu, who's at Maryland fit what I was looking for from like a yes, he's in college athletics right now, but he's got plenty of outside experience. He was the president of Charlotte FC, the MLS franchise down in Charlotte. Before that, he worked at Monumental Sports, the parent company for the Wizards and Capitals.

1:30:59 So I was like, I was like, that's outside business experience. Still in the sports world, Running, which is essentially what Virginia Tech's athletics is becoming, is a mini pro sports franchise with with what I assume to be plenty of business connections in the DMV and Charlotte, which are two of Virginia Tech's biggest metro, most important metro areas. So like when I when I saw his resume, I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. So I put him on the list. Those are the three I think probably stand out the most from that list I wrote. I was glad to see David Thiel came out with an article shortly thereafter or maybe before. I don't I, I didn't see it till after if he was first on it, but that that had some of the same names, which I was like, all right, that's a good sign that we're on the right track here. So we'll see what happens.

1:31:51 I know that there is interest in the completely outside candidate from, from business or from not college athletics, basically to, to become ACEO of athletics or general manager athletics, whatever they want to call it. Given that, given that being the trend, I just don't know that that's the direction they end up going once they start interviewing these people. Like one of these more traditional candidates could crush the interview and be like, actually, they could do the job that we're looking for completely. You know, I, I remember back when they were trying to hire a head football coach that they thought they were going to hire a general manager 1st. And then they backed off that plan when they realized that it wasn't feasible.

1:32:38 So we'll see what happens overall. But you know, I think, I think, I think those are the three buckets that you can look at of like up and Comer traditional somebody that was like recently hired at a flagged athletic department that fits that outside model, outsider model or somebody completely out of left field. But like I said, I don't know how you identify those people because I, I, I don't know how to project people's interest in becoming an athletic director in, in college sports today. That was one. That's one of the kind of storylines I'm watching. Like Babcock gave some interviews to to media this week and and they asked him if he was ever going to work in college athletics again.

1:33:19 And he was like, absolutely not like, I'm done. Like this is old. Essentially, this is terrible and not that fun. And it's like, all right, so how am I can, how can I project somebody from some very successful company who's already a high up executive there that they're going to want to move to Blacksburg and, and get get involved in this? I, I, I think that'll be an, that'll be an interesting question to ask whoever does end up getting the job. Who was the guy at Marilyn, you said? Joe Lebou. Gentle of you. Because that that seems like it's. Like like that's. The kind of experience that. Fits whether it's him or somebody with that same kind of experience where they can send out the press release and we can say, yeah, that makes that makes sense. Are you are you looking?

1:34:07 Primarily for if if you go the traditional route, someone that's coming from kind of AP4 football focused university must have yeah, like. But it's got to. Be. It's a completely different world than than the G5 or I would even say you're looking at the P2 like like. I've seen people float like Matt Rohn out there, and I'm like Roan, Roan would be somebody. Yeah, I don't think you can win the PR battle if you hire the JMU athletic director. But also like, he's the guy that I think would make a like would kind of do what Banco did at Auburn or Kromer did the LSU where they had to leave the G5 job to, to go take a deputy job at AP4P2 school to kind of work to, to, to take, to truly take the next step.

1:35:05 Because I think without without experience and he doesn't have any experience at the P4, much less the P2 without that experience. It's just you're, you're not, you're not, you're not going. To be hirable. Because of how different it is, and especially with Virginia Tech's going to be a two, well, like a $200 million enterprise, like it's just different. It is. Who's your guy? You, you, you wrote nine. You probably got. There's probably. There's probably. Somewhere in your computer. There's like 30 other people that you have names on. Yeah, I think there was a lot more on the list. And I was. Like I can't write. All these people, if I had to pick. Somebody off my? List it would be Banco at Auburn like. That's the kind of school.

1:35:51 That cares about football a lot runs his own ran his own athletic department according to his bio had a ton of success raising money like all like and is now the number 2 at a a you know a high high P2 institution in terms of how much they are investing in athletics, which you can see by. Their. Coaching decisions over the last several years. So if I had to pick one off the list, I'd probably go with him. I I, like I said, I don't know where to start with like, all right, pick somebody from from the outside. Yeah, I know. That's probably a much harder ask. The the traditional route is probably a little bit easier to quantify. Yeah, it's the same thing is like. Looking for a head coaching candidate where you can see the experience.

1:36:38 There's so many people that probably the experience lines up. You know, I know Syracuse he just retired, but like you hire an ESPN guy like a media exec would fit to in in today's world, but like the the possibilities are endless on that side all. Right. Tally Braun. Anything. Else floating out there like I'm going to say what I've been doing the like all the names. I have literally like started reading biographies of 80s for the last few minutes here. Le Beau's thing is interesting. I'm going to put Le Beau out there because that gives you what you're talking about. Heavily involved not only with FC, but with Pepper's stuff with the Panthers, the professional football level. And then he's dipped his toe into the collegiate world. So there's like he has that experience both ways. So I'm like, I mean, again, I don't know everything it takes, but I'm like, but but you're kind of selling me on having like that be outside of college sports, but in sports in some way could get some experience in or to your point, go run your own.

1:37:49 And if somebody was at Ohio, Ohio has been a pretty successful Mac program the last decade. It has. They've always they're always one of the teams in the Mac Championship. And if you're putting that kind of emphasis on football at a smaller program where they're staying good, you're getting those people to invest within the program, then you know that they have some sort of sales pitch that works great. Yeah. The the. The, the executive experience, whatever you won't call it, having run your own department huge. I think, I think we're seeing that with James Franklin, the difference of how he runs the program versus like Brent Pride. I mean, Brent Pride was right next to James Franklin as a dire career and couldn't, couldn't replicate it as a head coach because he'd never done it before.

1:38:35 But like you bring in a guy that has done it for 12 years, you bring in an athletic department that has experience running their own, running their own shop, so to speak. Like I think that's, that's the big thing. Or if it's outside, like I guess you got to be AC suite type type person that that has, has that responsibility, has that decision making experience and kind of that leadership ability that you need to, to, to do what Virginia Tech wants to do with the $230 million that they're investing into the athletic department, 100%. Valley, Bryan, y'all had anything else y'all want to ask though, before we get ready to wrap this up? Yeah, just the only thing I.

1:39:18 Would say I've been reading the chat for the last, I don't know, maybe 5-10 minutes and VPI under score 13 said he's just giving with his props and that's fine, you know, giving him his flowers. But hey, man, no moral victories. He didn't do a good job. I don't care if he's a good guy. I don't care that he came and shook hands. You know, I like James Franklin, but if he don't win no football games, he need to go. He didn't coach yet. Like the moral victory thing is over. You know, I again, I'm just, I'm just speaking my truth. He said it's true. He presented when he presented James Franklin at the press conference, I saw a man that had been putting himself through the ringer to set VTL for success. No, he is put himself through the ringer to get paid. He is a millionaire because he didn't do a good job. Not only did he not do a good job at Virginia Tech, what was he at Cincinnati before?

1:40:19 Didn't. Do. A good job there either. So I I can't say that. And then Bassmaster, my guy, he said Wit gave us James Franklin kinda. So his legacy. It's still it's still unwritten. So I'm thinking that he got some sarcasm in there, but Wit didn't have nothing. I mean, he might have had a little bit to do with him, but he Doug. You kind of said it a little earlier. He might have been able to call the agents and make some moves. Jake Peterson, Blood Foster and some of those guys on BMV Director. Why can't I think of his name? Rakovich, Rakovich. Rakovich. Rakovich. Is maybe? The. Best director, Director of the BOV for athletics in Virginia Tech history. He was there in the early part of the 2000s, and he made those moves to get into the ACC.

1:41:07 That's a game. Again this. Is funny, we're talking about Rector's, a board of visitors, but every time that guy has been Rector, something really good happens for Virginia Tech athletics. So he said he don't. Do moral victories. Perfect we we won him the same then. Let's go. I'm tired of more. Victories I want. To win, we want wins. We want to be. Hooping and hollering and screaming on Saturday nights about wins, not about moral victories. But Doug, man, listen, the last 90 minutes plus has been a blast. Thank you for bringing your insight, your knowledge on all this stuff. We really appreciate you joining us tonight. And with that being said, I'm going to wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner Podcast brought to you my moments on the Maury in Lexington along with our Special Decks guest, Doug Bowman.

1:41:59 Check him out at Doug Bowman 247. Sign up at 247 to read all of Doug's awesome articles and the stuff he's going to be coming out with as this president search happens, as this AD search happens, he's going to be the man on the mission there. My name is Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler. Jonathan Talley visit. Boundary Corner BT. Dot com to listen to all of our episodes. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel, your favorite podcast source. Please go there as well. We are on them all. As always, we let our buddy Jason Long play us in play us out. Check him out at jasonlongmusic.com to let all of his music on all of his formats.

1:42:44 Also check out that little live page. He is doing a lot of events down from the Roanoke area this summer, so check him out when you can. I appreciate y'all for listening. We appreciate the chat. Thank y'all for being so active tonight. And as always, let's go Hokies.