Phase Two

1:47 And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast. Along with my partner, Brian Siegler, I am Curtis Wilson. We are part of the college shuttle network. In this episode, as always is brought to you by Doctor Jeremy Counts down at Counts Family Pharmacy Three O 1 S Main St., Blacksburg, VA Counts Family Pharmacy your friendly neighborhood pharmacy buddy. What's up, man? Man, I'm tired dude. I'm just going just straight up saying I'm tired right now. You got the grind before the cruise you. Hit the hit before the cruise works and doing doing a training at work this week man like right up to the last second before the cruise getting everything ready for the cruise. Birthday parties, kid, my kids birthday party, neighbors kids birthday party, baseball.

2:39 I know you got stuff going on too. Yeah, man, it's, it's been a busy week. Been a bit busy last few weeks trying to get some, some stuff checked off at work, trying to get some, you know, busy with the sun's got, you know, sports going on now. We're we're kind of ramping up for, you know, spring ball now. So it's, you know, we, we've had some other side discussions and stuff like that on, on that topic. So I mean, it's been a, it's been a busy time. Excited to finally get back together here on Air. Air it out a little bit. Air it out back, back to the back to the dynamic. Duo yeah, we are.

3:22 We are missing Tally tonight. He's got a lot going on in on his plate too, so. Baseball kids. Work we, we, we couldn't get a night where all of us could get on. So we, we're like, if we don't pull the trigger now, we're might not, might not get another one in before before the spring game. So 100. Percent. Here we are. Yeah, Shelton on hiatus. Hiatus. Our our buddy coach Robbie Compton heading to Chalk Talk in less than 48 hours. We might have to convince him to come on when we get back. I think so. Josh, what am I sipping on tonight? Tonight I am sipping on Scotch.

4:04 You know what Scotch it is, right Ron? In the bar downstairs. Is it the blended? No. No, no, it's the Kirkland. It is Costco Scotch, all right. For those who may live in South Carolina or Maryland, go to Costco, get you a bottle, the black Label Kirkland Scotch. My, my neighbor Andrew down the street recommended it years ago. Basically it's a Johnnie Walker Black and it's like 50 bucks for a handle. We drink it. Brian's had it. He knows it's good. Oh yeah. You know we're. Hey, it's it's it's cheap, but it's. Not cheap. It's it's it's. Cheap for what it is.

4:47 There you go. It's cheap for what it is exactly and by the way, Brian, the vodka we had last summer. Yep, what 12 bucks for a handle and it was legitimately a hyper in yes, we'd love for Scotts go to sponsor our show Josh. I would, I would love that they could come right along with Jeremy, you know? That's right. I mean, you know, give me a free membership and a hot dog anytime I want it. Even though it's only $1.50, I'll, I'll save that buck 50 and we'll. Call them, they could. They could get probably everybody in this program, they gave us all one definitely. We can definitely pull the trigger. Yeah. Is there is there like a like a Costco black card or something that I can get?

5:31 Exactly. Yeah, but like Brian said, we're doing this tonight because we needed to punch it before we we are not here next week. We likely are going to be able to do a spring show. Literally. We're going to be hanging out on a cruise all week together. We're probably going to be writing the show line by line. And the the GoPro is coming with me, so I might, I might sprinkle in some some some live footage next week next. Time we watch. I don't know if we need that. Man depends, depends on what it's going to be and, and, and what we say and what we do. We'll see if we'll see if it's quality. We'll see if it's, you know, I mean, we're not, we're not necessarily safe for work here. But you know, it's a cruise. So I mean, she can get wild.

6:15 Yeah, 50 is cheap for a handle, Robbie, but let's break it down. What are we doing tonight? Well, we had not truly talked about the complete makeup of the staff. We had French on just the just a couple weeks ago to go through kind of the new scheme, what we were expecting. But we never had that chance to talk about what does new, new staff look like. We talked about some of the hires here and there, but what are our takes on it? And we wanted to break into that tonight. Then we wanted to break into obviously what came out a little earlier this week with basically the new roster, the new height weight measurements, seeing all that. We've also seen some tapes shout out Kobe, Andy, David put them out there, some takes from what's going on inside practice.

7:01 Couple things that piqued our interest. But we're going to unload just quite a few things tonight. And Brian, let's let's just start over all with the staff changes. I want to start on defense because that's the first one we did. Everybody knows we've hired Sam Cephas as the defensive coordinator. As of right now, what is it March 25th? March 26th. 2025 year of our Lord, this is how the staff shakes out and stance. Keithus does not have a position pilot. He is defensive coordinator. What we expect to be a walking around defensive coordinator. Now let's go real quick and just hit the rest of the staff and talk about some things.

7:42 JC Price still here, associate head coach, defensive line coach. Derek Jones, Cheetah still at corners. Pearson Prelude, still the safeties coach. Sean Quinn is now the outside linebackers coach. Xavier ADBX to the Z Call him X, however you refer. He is now the inside linebacker coach with the two new hires. Jerry Wilson, who came up from Georgia Southern, I believe he was Georgia Southern. I have to pull my notes on him real quick. Who played under Sam Cifcas as a defensive lineman down at Wofford is the edges coach. Brian Whitehead, a coach defense with Steve Kiss down at Wofford is the Nichols coach.

8:26 And obviously if you look at the chart there are a plethora of just defensive assistants laying all around. You know JGW safeties you're looking at the vault Smith cornerbacks, Jensen Johnson junior D line. So a plethora of assistant coaches on here. Brian, I want to ask you this first. When everything finally came down, I think me and you've been speculating, were you shocked that there were no additional movement on the defensive staff? Everybody who was here, with the exception of Chris Marv, is still here.

9:10 I think so if I'm, if I'm circling a spot on the field that I'm surprised that this person still is coaching that unit given what we know about Cephas, given what we know about what he's bringing to a table from a role that the safeties play in the defense. I was expecting someone different at that spot. And that's not to say that Pearson can't get it done, but I think a combination of, you know, having less prior experience, not being the best unit last year, doing something different with the safety unit this year. I thought that was going to be a prime time to him transition back into more of a not necessarily off the field roll, but a more behind the scenes role in this in the staff. And we didn't see it.

10:04 And and that's not to say it's something to be, you know, to Josh's point here, something to be concerned about. I'm interested to see, you know, Sam is going to be a walk around DC, but is he going to spend a, a, a healthy majority of that time working with the safeties? And I know he's a guy that he's coached linebackers, he's coached safeties. I mean, he's got the he's got the understanding, I think to, you know, inform those position groups to to a healthy degree. But that's definitely the probably the most interesting position because I think it's the one we expected to see movement in. And when you look at a guy like Jerry Wilson, who is coming in to coach edges, played edge, but also was a primarily a, a safeties coach during his his coaching tenure. I think that's where we saw is he, is he the guy or is he going to be kind of another guy in that room? And, and ultimately that's that's not where it went. It's really interesting because The thing is a lot of people are saying, well, you feel perceived because it's not his staff, but then you start looking around and well, AI don't think he would have let JC Price go.

11:27 I'm I'm just going to be for real. In my opinion, there are three guys he would not have let go on the staff. JC Price is one of them, Xavier's one of them, and Quinn's one of them. If you had told me Cheetah was let go or Pearson moved to a different role, I would not have been shot. But I kind of sit here back and think about it. We're at a day and age where this can be done. Because let's think about it. We now can do unlimited coaches, right? You have unlimited amount of coaches. So if you're going to be transitioning, why go ahead and RIP everything out when likely what you could do is make it a one to two year transition?

12:08 Think. Think about that. What's up Will? What's going on, Will? But think about that, Brian. You're trying to make everything smooth. Guys like Bam trying to learn the team if you get everybody in place. And again, X being with the linebackers last year, getting to know the players quicker, getting to know their attributes, getting to know their weaknesses, their strengths. He's not relying on all new eyes, even in the safeties room, right, even the corner room. So I think that's why this was done. I'm going to have a question in a little while concerning recruiting. Let's see is edge not really outside linebacker now? And well, that's the question, Robbie that we're going to probably be asking up to the spring game is like, for example, is there going to be a could there be, Brian, you go back to what we talked about with French and just kind of looking at it yourself, could edges be guys playing the five tech not playing outside that and that's more outside linebacker responsibility if we go to a three man front. I mean, I know we're going to get to it, but the stuff we've we've seen, I'm I'm seeing a whole lot of kind of 24 fronts, 2 down, 4 linebacker.

13:36 You know, you got you got an edge. It's that that stand up that's really almost like a you play in a lot of ways, like a three man front outside linebacker. It's it's going to be interesting to see, I mean, Prize said. It's going to be a multiple defense. I expect to be a multiple defense. You know, you've got you got a lot of positional, I think fluidity there because you're going to have guys that are playing the edge that are going to you kind of be lining up in different positions depending on what the what the front call is, whether it's more of a, you know, odd front for in those nickel packages.

14:20 But I think remains to be seen and how that impacts, you know, who's coming off the field more than likely a defensive lineman in that case, But you know, maybe not. We'll, I guess we'll see as as things progress and we start to get some more tape on what. Yeah. What what, what defense is there in alignment in outside of base, which seems to be a a 245 alignment if from everything we've seen so far. Yeah. The other thing, and I don't know if this was a shot, but. I, I I. I think it's a big vote of confidence that Xavier is moved to an inside linebacker role.

15:03 That is his position. That is the position he played in College in the NFL as the position he's coached. I, I, I think in a lot of people say, well, that could be pride pushing it. I do believe that if Seekest did not believe he could coach position, I think he would have said he needs to say assistant and we would have seen Quinn move over. I, I think that might have been my biggest shock was he is the inside linebacker coach. He is going to be coaching. Woodson is going to be Woodson Keller platter ball and I know I'm missing a couple guys names right now at the top of my head, but he is going to be those primary guys coaches and I like that because it's it's basically two guys and sometimes one if we go to a three high look.

15:46 Yeah, let me ask this. So we got and I mean, I know I think the even in in the new like meeting rooms, like they've got the positions on there, but now we got these like different position groups, right. So we got Quinn is outside linebacker, X is inside linebacker. Are they running a linebacker media session together? Are they splitting that up? I'm, I'm trying to think about when, when you're having a, a film session with your group, are we looking at, at, at splitting that out into a smaller group? Or are we looking at Quinn and X are going to be in that room pretty much running the linebacker group as a combination.

16:32 They've got these titles attached to them, but they for for better or worse, are the linebacker and Co linebacker or assistant linebacker coach or whatever the hell you want to call it here. Those two are the are coaching the linebackers and then you know, you've got jury with edges. I'm guessing he's going to be in there with JC, but maybe not. Is he going to be in there with Quinn and XII? Think that's that's where my head goes when I'm looking at this. Like I think it's pretty safe to say, you know, you're going to put Whitehead in there with with Pearson.

17:16 I think there's a there's a good amount of overlap there in terms of what you're looking at on tape. Obviously, you know, Nichols going to have some, you know, some cornerback responsibilities as well and you know, a lot, a lot of coverage related aspects, but it's, it's really going to be like having an extra safety and and that's really where you know, where where it makes sense for me. But I, I'm interested from a just, you know, schematically how this is going to be handled because I'm not sure exactly what I feel like the roles have been defined well here, but I just don't know because because of how much positional flexibility there is. I, I, I'm not sure exactly how, how they're planning on, you know, dividing up those, those smaller group off the field coaching sessions.

18:08 Well, yeah, because like you said, edges could be in the loud JC, but or could outside linebacker edges in defensive line be all in the same room together? And if Zach's going to have his group together and then you're going to have Quinn and Jerry Wilson, you know, with their groups together. And is it going to be a mix and match depending on what the the specific install is for that week? Exactly. But then think about this. You go to this. Whatever it is. Well, you go to the three high safety look, and I know you're going to you, you, you correct me on this, but there are times the a certain position, the certain safety that is the closer to the box and you and you seen the alignment. It's almost like they're an outside linebacker, right? They're almost playing that the old star position, the old whip position.

18:56 Could they be going in the linebacker room doing cross training because of where they're aligned? It's like they're not really doing safety stuff. It's they're doing, it's the combination of doing linebacker and safety responsibility, right? Are they going to go in there? Could we have rooms overlapping a ton? Yeah. And I mean, we had some of that in the system last year, but I think the the lines have been blurred a lot more, not only with the way they're handling the staff, the way that we have recruited, especially in the portal this last year as well. There's a lot of a lot of position fluidity.

19:37 I know, you know, Coach Prize always preached having positional fluidity and being able to play at multiple positions and, and things of that nature. And I think it, it's not so much that this guy can be this and this. I think we we have a lot of guys that it works in our favor for them to be kind of hybrids because there's certain positions that at least if not historically, certainly recently that we've had trouble recruiting. Yes. And I think this gives us a little bit of an advantage from that standpoint because we can bring in highly rated tweeners all fucking day. Yes, we can.

20:22 We've struggled at bringing in the true Mike. We, we, we've struggled at bringing in that true nose that can be dominant. Yeah. We've struggled at bringing in a a safety that can really bring the damn hammer. Yeah. While still being able to cover and, and this gives us, you know, some of that flexibility I think to to kind of fit fill in those gaps a little bit. So that that is kind of what got to happen. And I mean, we're going to talk about that in a few minutes, but let's get back to what you were mentioning in a few minutes ago from the alignments videos we've seen. And again, these are short clips. It's not everything.

21:07 And it's what effectively the coaching staff wants the media and the public to see in your head right now what we're going to see not only spring game, but about six months from now. If I actually take that back five months from now, because it's basically April, are we looking at A24 front? Yeah, I mean it, I think that's going to be your base package is going to be a 24. Where could could you tell in that one clip? I think Colby had it. Where are the defensive lineman? What techniques are they?

21:48 From what you could see, and I know it was that weird side angle, but what technique were they at? I mean, it looked like a three and probably, probably A1 or A2I, more than likely A2I. I'd have to look at the clip again to confirm. But I don't think a ton is going to change at least in the base alignment from what we were doing last year On the inside. I think, I think everything is going to get interesting is how are those, how are those 22 edges are going? How are they going to be deployed? And then when you, when you switch up the the front to an odd front, what does that look like? Curtis, are you talking because you're on mute? I'm running my mouth like crazy over here. What I was going to say is what I was saying is with the interior defensive line, you know, we've always had that one attacking, usually quick twitch.

23:13 That's the neatest people's last year acting upfield. Do you think we see a difference this year or do you think it's more of we're going to see the same with there may be times where it's not attacking because from what French told us, from what we've seen, is that defensive line is to eat up blockers to stop guys getting to the second level so the linebackers and safeties can pounce. I'm interested to see what it's going to look like, you know, based based on what he was saying in the tape he watched and, and on most of the tape he was watching was odd front as the base. So we're we're kind of in uncharted territory where I don't know if it's going to be kind of a blend of kind of what Seifkis has done in other spots and what JC and others on this line have taught historically and kind of a a blend of that. Or if there's going to be, yeah, very much Seifka's footprint across the whole thing out the gate here. From what Seifkas has said it, it sounds like he's going to be very adaptable not only to the strengths of the roster, but also the strengths of the staff.

24:33 Yes, he he did say that with the Damon down with the Roanoke time. So the only thing we can do is we can now sit and watch. Obviously, you know, having someone going to these clinics, you know, we'll be definitely picking his brain and then, you know, we're we're right around the corner from the spring game and seeing it in person. So it will be interesting. Right. Let's look to the offensive side of the ball. We're going, we're going. We're going to touch on that here in a little bit, Josh. Yeah, we will be touching on that when it comes to looking at some gains. But let's talk about the offense. Obviously Philip Montgomery offensive coordinator currently as of today March 26th, not titled with a specific specific room. Matt Moore obviously offensive line fine tale minds the assistant head coach, wide receivers. Brooks still the running back.

25:25 Brian Crist is now the Co quarterback coach. I think it was the assistant quarterback coach. Brent Davis getting moved to tight end. Stu Holt, now officially the special teams coordinator as an offensive assistant. Again, boatload of assistants, including Montgomery's son Cannon, who's going to be an assistant running backs coach. And let's talk about the staff for a second. First, I think this is what we expected. Probably. Maybe even if Tyler Bowen had stayed. Yeah, I think this this is kind of where things were moving regardless of who the ultimate offensive coordinator was going to be. I think you've set yourself up in a better spot with Montgomery because So I'll say two things here. When you look at Chris title, he's still Co quarterback coach. So while Phillip Montgomery does not have a official position attached to his name, he is the de facto quarterback coach here. Because, I mean, otherwise you would call Chris the quarterback coach just like they called X the inside linebacker coach or, you know what, whatever.

26:48 On the other side of the ball, he would have been given some sort of full, full range of that title. Yes. So that's denoting that Montgomery is if, if not going to be exclusively in the quarterback room, is going to be primarily in the quarterback room. Yeah, 100% on that. And what what about the Stu Holt move do you like now, huh? We I mean I was calling for it all last. Year, so we we call it last year, but they did it. Yeah, they did. It they did it. They did it and now effectively Virginia Tech in some essence has a pseudo NFL model. Yeah.

27:30 And I think, you know, when you look at, when you look at Montgomery's scheme, Brent Davis at tight end makes a lot of sense here because there's not going to be a ton of tight end usage in the passing game. It's going to be a lot more blocking focused. So Chris, Chris having that title, I think is going to be I think a good thing for the tight end production standpoint from A at least from a run game perspective. And I think that's that's, you know, potentially good news for wide receivers as well, because there's going to be more opportunities for them to get involved in the passing game. All right.

28:11 No, let me flip to that. What do you think this offense is going to look like right now? Like is this going to be I? I don't think this is full Baylor 2011. Let's just go with that. But where do you think it's landing? Because and everybody keeps screaming Auburn, Auburn, Auburn. But as Tally told us, he won't run in his offense at all. Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be a version of what we saw at Baylor. I think it's going to be there's going to be some tweaks to that. I think the thing that stood out to me and I mean it was reflected some at least let let let's talk about this. When we when we talk about Auburn, I don't think I think that the fingerprints of I think the fingerprints were not his on the offense from a scheme standpoint.

29:08 But when we look at the pace of play and I think he's talked about this, he's like, you know, I know that sometimes you got to have a first and a second gear. You can't go, you know, you can't be in fourth and 5th the whole game. Sometimes you got to have you got to be in first and second. You got to throttle it down. You got to be able to understand the situation of the game and, and react to that. And if you look at the splits on the number of plays at Auburn, he's still above, way above the NFL average, but it was his lowest, you know, per play average of his career.

29:50 I think that is indicative of probably what we're going to see here. Again, you're you're still talking about someone else's fingerprints being on the offense from a scheme standpoint. And that probably hindered the output. But I think from a pace of play standpoint, you can expect something similar from Auburn's side of the coin there, but a lot more from a schematic standpoint of what we saw at Baylor. I got you, got you, got you. Let's put this guy up here because it has done a while Jason, since SWVA has checked in. Hope you guys are doing well down there and I don't know, put this up for Robbie. I do.

30:33 You aren't correct in that sense, but could I know God's nails? Not your perfect split out wide tight end, but he does have a decent set of hands, so maybe he's still involved in other aspects. Let me ask this, Brian, I think I mentioned this maybe six weeks ago, but you've been watching more tape. What excites you most about like the concepts of what you, I mean, you've, you've you've looked at Baylor, you've looked at Tulsa. I'm not sure if you've got Josh mentioning, talking about looking at the Birmingham UFL stuff. But when you see this and know some of the players we have, you know, you got, you know, guys like Donovan Green, Aiden Green, you've got Cam Selden coming and we'll talk about him a little bit later as well.

31:20 He was mentioned in one of prize pressors pressors this week. What excites you most? About Like when you see that and you start picking like, man, that, that's this, that's this. You start connecting all the dots. What excites you most? I mean honestly, you just mentioned his name. Cam Selden excites me and I think looking at what what he could be in this offense excites me. Having that gadget style player got in the slot that much like Jay Lane plays it like a running back because I mean, Selden was a fucking running back and and Lane had that mentality of a running back mentality from the slot receiver position. And this is this is a scheme that I think is going to get the slot a lot more involved than I think we saw last year. When we look back to, to kind of 2023 compared to 2024, you know, we saw Jay Lane line up outside a whole lot more in 2023 and that's where he made his hay.

32:26 And I think some of the, just the scheme and the, and the, and the calls kind of limited, you know what we were looking at. So I think Lane's production was limited. I think in Monty's system, the the slot receiver is going to have a big opportunity to eat and do a lot of things in space and and have that running back mentality, but still less of that stuff that is behind the line of scrimmage, which we saw a ton of in Tyler Bowen system. So you're not going to see the jet sweeps, you're not going to see those as many screens to the slot, but you will see the ball quickly in the slots, hands three to five yards, 3 to 8 yards down, down field and let him do what he does best. Perfect, Brian.

33:14 And again, we look more forward to just seeing the tape as we start getting it. All right, let's kind of get ready to close this segment out and and all y'all listening out there putting on the comments in the chat. We appreciate that as always. So you tell me because the way it looks, we've got an NFL style system, coordinators likely not going to recruit Brett Pry and which 10 assistants are you putting on the road? And if y'all want to put in the chat your 10, go for it. So, Brian, I'll give you the floor first. All right, so you got Pry, you got JC, you got Cheetah. I think Quinn, obviously, he's the road dog man. He's the road dog breaking bread, hokey style. He's got it.

33:58 He's got to be on the road and you know that. Then it comes down to are you sending Pearson, you send an XI think I think I'm sending X on the on the off, on the defensive side of the ball, you know, flipping it over to offense, obviously Fontelle, Matt Moore, Elijah Brooks. And so it kind of comes down to. You you you only name 4 on defense Brian you technically get. Plus pry plus pry. No, no, no, Pratt, you get. It's 11 total. 11 total. 11 total.

34:42 Yeah. Yeah, it makes yeah. Do I want to send Gimme Wilson? OK. And other side of the ball, I think that that makes it pretty easy. I mean Fontelle, Matt, Elijah, Crist and and and Brent. All right, I am on board with you completely on the offense. I think Stew Holt will get to just hang out, scheme special teams up all week, help out Montgomery as the assistant defense. I'm one different. I think Prelude's going to stay one more year because I think it's going to be the transition year. And again, prize always talking about let's build the relationship.

35:29 I don't think they'll just pull Pearson off for this class, maybe not even next class, but they're going to start working in maybe Wilson, maybe Wyatt. I don't know their backgrounds well enough. I know the ages. Wilson is a significantly younger guy, so that usually always transitions to you feel like more relatability to the players on the road. But I think Pearson's going to stay there this year. And The funny thing is that question has not been asked, and I thought someone would have asked it at least once. We hired Monty.

36:09 Now, by all means, could Montgomery be a road recruiter? Yeah, he could. And they leave Brian, Chris at home. But I think the focus this year is we've got to get the scheme right. We've got to get the players right on campus. Why not keep your coordinators off the road during the weekdays? Not worrying about the recruiting trail, just focusing on that. So. And I know that that's been a model that a lot of big schools have kind of moved towards is kind of moving away from a full time recruiting coordinator and more to I'm the scheme guru. I'm the closer because I'm the guy that can best illustrate how players will fit into a scheme and where they could shine, where you can highlight their talents, things of that nature. But that's not necessarily the guy that you need in the living room.

37:01 That's a guy that, you know, once you get a guy, he's on campus, you know, he, he, you know, you go see him at a camp, you know, whatever it may be, you can kind of close the deal there. But I'm excited about to just to see how. And, and I'm with you, Curtis, because I'm, I'm, I'm shocked that the question hadn't been asked yet because I feel like that's a, a big piece of the puzzle that, you know, we just don't know yet. And I mean, and it took a while for the staff to shake out. So I don't know if it's something that's going to come in due time or, or what. But again, I'm shocked it hasn't really been a question that was at the forefront of folks mind when they were talking to Pride. Yeah, and again, I think some people look at it just so much, like right on top of what are they going to do while they're here?

37:49 And it's like, well, there's a bigger game and I don't know, high school is not what it was, you know, even five years ago with the portal. But you still, even with the portal visits, there is still a chance to go in home or go to other schools. Effectively, if you're not one of the staff members that are been assigned to the road recruiting, the only place you can recruit is an on campus in Blacksburg. You cannot recruit elsewhere. So throw this up here, Robbie, right, kind of in line with us, with me, I should say. But it's going to be interesting to see how that goes and and do you, do you like to structure overall it seems like you do. Yeah, I mean, there, there's, there's a little bit of nebulous there between like Quinn and Wilson as far as and, and maybe even Whitehead as far as who's coaching what like, you know, and, and we've kind of talked about that a little bit already tonight.

38:49 But I think from an overall structure standpoint, I think, I think it's a good staff. I think they, they tweaked what they needed to tweak. I, I, I'm the only thing I'm, you know, concerned about, I think is going to be do we have the guys on staff now that can get the safeties where they need to be in those three high looks? Yep, 100% right. So there that is kind of taking a we have been 10,000 feet kind of getting more on what this staff looks like for this upcoming season. Again, so many things to shake out between now and August and that first came down in Atlanta.

39:30 So it is going to be interesting to see. So let's keep moving and let's get to the roster updates where I mean, it's it's that time of year, right, Brian, height, weight, height, weight. Look, what's the New Jersey numbers whose body looks different when you see them in pictures? So we're going to go through that. We're going to do it just a little bit different and we're going to kind of go through the guys who were here before and we're going to then talk about the transfers in general coming in and kind of what they're looking like. But Brian, let's talk about the guys who were here before. Let's start with the cornerback room. As you kind of look through the big list there of the guys returning, who jumps off the page to you. Seeing Dante Lovett hit that two bill Mark definitely had jumped out at me pretty quick.

40:18 Yeah, he was 190 last year. So a full 10 LB gain. And what do you think that just says about his body type now and what you saw in the field and now him within extra pounds? I mean, I think it's identifying, you know, a weakness that may he may have had in addressing that. I think, you know, he's a guy that I think needed a little bit of extra, extra muscle, especially in those, you know, press situations. I think he's going to be asked to do a little bit more tackling and seek this system versus MARV system. So I think there it's a combination of those things. Knowing he had to get his body right for that, and knowing that just from a pure coverage standpoint, yeah, he he could probably use a little bit more strength, you know, handling guys up front.

41:12 Yeah, it's true. Then again, he was 190 last year. You know who jumped out of me? Besides, I love it. Who's that? Thomas Williams went from 180 to 190 or 189, but again, 10 lbs up, he saw significant action last year out there. So I, I like the look of that. Josh Clark, I'd I'd like to see him get a little bit more. 185 is not bad. But again, as we talked before we join tonight. And Brian, how much weight did you lose during the season, give or take? Usually about 8 to 10 lbs so.

41:53 That's one reason when you look about where a guy's starting from, why is it important? Well, in in your and you're not losing just weight, you're losing muscle because of how hard you're working, how hard you're playing, how much you're practicing. So I wish I would have seen Josh Clark up to 190, but that is what it is. I will say this, I don't know if this jumped out at me, but it was just kind of like Deloach, Deloach give in the words of Tally, get that man some food, get him steak, get him some chicken, give him give him anything you can get some weight on DeMar Jamario Deloach because I mean, he has talent in.

42:38 Yeah. 165 you ain't you ain't playing much. Yeah. I mean, I think he's going to need, he's going to need to see about another 10 lbs before you start working him into the rotation there. He needs at least be up there in in in Christian Williams range there. I know it probably is it isn't much difference with with Williams there at six one versus Deloach at 5-10. But as far as frame is concerned. But yeah, you'd like to see him at least be up there in that one 175 range before you start trying to work him in pretty, pretty heavily there. And I mean, looking at this, this unit, I mean, we went from a very senior and junior laden unit to, you know, a lot, a lot, a lot of red shirts, sophomores, freshmen, a couple juniors, you know, no, no senior leadership in that room.

43:34 I think that's going to be, that's going to be a big, a big role that I think Dante Lovett is going to have to step into as being the leader of that unit from a both a experience standpoint and just a, a, a seniority standpoint as well. Yeah, 100%. So there's the cornerback room. I, this is always the fun room. There are two fun rooms to do when you're doing 3 technically, because I consider linebacker. But let's look at defensive line room. Brian, let's let's go down there. And you know, this came out a few days ago. You looked at it, you digested it, but of the guys on the defensive line, whether inside or out, when you started looking, where did you go? Whoa, whoa.

44:22 You know, I mean, I went a couple different places. Emmett Laws is the one that jumped out to me in the most. Thank you. And you know, I, I, I, I feel, you know, we've, we've had two position groups. I've got 2 Damatha kids in my list. I'm, I'm not, I'm not just like, you know, going after all the Damatha kids here. But hey, sometimes in the brakes. No doubt man, he he came in like 280 last year. He was too. It's more impressive that when he ended high school when he was like 260-5270 and he's damn near 295 now.

45:04 A he eats and I think I saw one of the videos from it. It ain't all fat. Oh no. It ain't all fat. So that was really good to see with him. I'm I'm, I'm going to stay inside. Christian Evans coming in six to 290 already as a true freshman, as a he should be, in the words of Tally, he should be going to his senior prom and he is practicing on a football field at Virginia Tech. And he's got a chip. Because if you all remember, we kept talking about it, remember he, he basically won the Under Armour games up in Maryland, did not get any love from anybody.

45:46 And he comes in as an absolute unit already. I I don't know if he'll play this year, but he ain't far from it. Let's talk about a couple other guys real quick too, Curtis. Let's start with James Jankum. So two things came out of this. Everybody hates his number and he is firmly in the defensive line group, meaning, you know, he's likely going to be playing edge in this system, right. So I think we've learned, we've learned those two things from from this roster is seeing his number, hating it and understanding he's going to be that edge position and not not that not some sort of linebacker role that he played at his previous stop. So.

46:32 No, no, no, definitely, definitely edge with that. Speaking of edges, I I love seeing burgers put on good weight. I love seeing Abby put on the good weight because they're going to need it this year. Ace and Stevens as well. Let's talk about your boy, Jasari Priester. So, you know, everybody questioned why did they go get this kid from down at Hampton? And it was like, because there were rumors, what, 65 to 6-8? Basically nobody had him over 300 lbs. It was like, oh he's like 27280. And I first thought we heard, you know, that's OK he's young, get him in the weight room. 6 to high 312 lbs. That's a big boy.

47:24 That is a that that may be maybe maybe height wise to weight wise. I'm trying to go back and I'm going to look at the mole ones here that might be one of the bigger and and y'all out there that can shake my memory. That might be one of the biggest. He might be one. It's. Certainly the tallest to girth ratio defensive lineman we've had. Ever. Now, And, and it's funny, like you see him at that weight, you got a guy like Andrew Hanchuck coming over playing offensive line, same height and 30 lbs lighter.

48:08 That's that's, that's to be, that's wild. And I mean, it sounds like the guy can move pretty well too. I don't know if he's still moving at 312, like he was moving at, you know, the two 8290 range that they had him at coming over. But yeah, I mean, that's that's about 20 lbs heavier than I was expecting him to come in at so. So it's, it's kind of wild and I'm, I'm like, I'm, I'm trying to go to the archives here. And I mean, we'll, we'll take the grain of salt that, you know, these are the official heights and weights. I'm, I'm sure this is not a 1000% accurate height and weight.

48:49 Listen, but I mean, this, this is what's being put out there. This is what's being put in the program. So. All right, you know who it was. Who's that? Settle was pretty close to that. Settle's like 63, like 3-15 and we know what Tim did. Tim was for the three years he was here, he was unbelievable. But that is a lot of man. And if we're talking about we need A1 or A0, if he can get the right leverage you, you might have your nose to go true with the true three man front. Let's hit a couple other guys here on the defensive line 1 and I don't know if I'm underwhelmed, but Arias Nash under 280 lbs. I know he's a three tech.

49:37 I know that's not his game, but did you want to see a little more from him or do you feel like you know what that he played that at D2. He played against Alabama at that with Mercer. He he cut through those guys or is or do you feel like he's got his role? He's not. He doesn't need to gain weight. This is his role. So I, I, I want to see how we're deploying him, you know, is, is he going to be a frontline player in every formation that we have? If he if he's going to be that four eye and kind of move, you know, potentially a little bit wider when we go into an odd front, then you know, I think that's going to be plenty sufficient in most cases. Yeah, there might be a couple a couple teams that are, you know, power run focus that might have a little something to say about that.

50:35 But for most, most of our roster is is more spread oriented and and less smashed mouth. I don't think he's going to have a problem playing the four eye at that. Got it, got it. All right, Anybody else on the defensive line, I mean, you got bail like 61235, but I mean we've seen undersized defensive lineman and edge guys before. So that's not a like. Yeah, that's still not, that's still not super undersized. Obviously John comes probably a little bit a little bit heavier there. He's at 258 playing it, you know, a little bit taller there. But I think those probably are going to be your, your, your two primary edge guys with. Stevens Abbey and Burgos.

51:25 Exactly. Those guys are going to be mixing in there. I'm sure. I'm sure Burgos is going to get kind of that first, you know, first run along with with Bell and Jonka as far as like who's going to be first guys out there and then the other guys are going to going to kind of be fighting for the for the second unit. 100% So again, again, I think overall in a good spot, defensive line was there is nothing like jumping up that scares me. That says, OK, we are significantly undersized here. This is going to be a problem for power run teams. So we'll roll on linebacker room. Linebacker room is always a weird one. We're skipping kickers.

52:08 You mean go kickers? Let's see. No, I don't. Kallo lost a pound. All right. There. We go He went from 200 to 199. He had a he had a goal, got more toned. That's right, That's right. It was cut season. Yeah, linebacker room, obviously the way it's looking, Woodson, Keller's probably going to be given the jobs. Woodson up a little bit from last year, Keller about the same. But to me, let's look. So fast, my friend. What's that? I like Woodson blocked in there. We'll we'll see about Keller. Hey, where is it? Hold on, wait a second. There was a good one in the chat a little while ago. Got to find it.

52:52 Got to find it. That's a good one, Josh. That's a good one. Well, let's be realistic. I don't think they're going to be putting Jordan Bay with what? What happened? He's obviously, he's obviously in the doghouse right now, But Jordan Bass, I mean, dude, he's 205. I don't think he can play him at the linebacker position this year. Now, luckily, he's a true junior, so you have a red shirt to burn. So that's the question is do do you, do you end up throwing a red shirt on him?

53:36 Is a guy like Caleb Spencer going to work in there? Yeah. There, there's talk of him moving to Mike. There's talk of him, you know, kind of playing both of the linebacker positions there. It you know, it sounds like he's moving fully away from. *. A star safety type role. This is going to very much be a linebacker position for him. So I'm curious to see how that shakes out. Obviously we know Gabe Williams working back from injury. You know, numbers there don't shock me too much because he wasn't able to do anything this offseason. No, not, no chance to gain. So Clatterbaugh coming in at 62243 is, is is nice and what you like to see? Well, as long as it ain't fat, but you know 243, you can trim 10 lbs of that.

54:26 Nice. Brian, you, you said something else. McDonald Brothers man. Tough to believe, right? Yeah, we got the McDonnell brothers are now red shirt juniors, sorry, red shirt seniors. And it seems like like just so when we when we started this, this whole this whole shebang, you know, they they that was their that was their class, that that was their recruiting class coming out. So it's kind of it's wild that in in the ride so far, we've, you know, we, we've lived through the McDonald cycle and we're, we're about to, you know, fully cycle through the McDonald twins. So shout out to them, shout out to them. Not really seeing the field that much last year. I don't know.

55:11 You know, that was a, that was a big shift from from 23 to 24 with, you know, them kind of being very, very heavy in the rotation, you know, especially, you know, looking at which one is it. Jayden. Jayden's a linebacker. Jayden. Yeah. Jayden. Jayden had the heavy rotation at linebacker, yeah. So it was funny seeing him kind of really fall out of favor in that. Rotation, yeah. So, you know, linebacker room, some good games. I mean, I think over the last few years we had not seen anything. Nobody deficient.

55:52 And I mean, I think with Jordan Bass right now with everything going on, hold on, you can't say that Josh until he plays depends on what he is. And you know what, there were times the last two years defense would have been a hell of a lot better with a Dax type who would have been getting to the right spot, would have prevented a lot of big ass touchdowns. Even if it would have been maybe a second late, at least something would have happened. I always say that. All right, Brian, anything on the long snappers as we move down here? No. OK, the big one offensive line, I know.

56:38 You know, again, do you take them with a grain of salt? Yes. But you know, when they put somebody like Brody at 67332, I don't think he's 285 at all. And just looking at some pictures, he ain't 285. What? So what are the what are the gains for Brody? What was he last year? Brody Gaines would have been. Got to find the name. Got to find the name. Only 5 lbs. He was 327 last year. OK, All right. So I mean progress. Progress getting bigger, getting stronger, hopefully. I like, I like seeing Tomas Remat come in at 66317. I, I think if not initially, maybe eventually he's going to be, you know, your, your, your, your left tackle. Yeah, he could, he could end up slide into guard. He played guard a lot at West Virginia. He's a swing guy that can play both positions. You know, when I when I look at the tape, I like Johnny Garrett a whole lot more right tackle than I do left tackle. Oh, 100%.

57:55 So if, if that's, if that's what we're operating under, then I'm hoping that Remack can pull out a yeah, a, a starting role there at left tackle, but. Well, that's that's. Good. You know, in in you're looking at this group. I still feel better even losing 2 guys that we thought would would be starters on this. I still feel better about with what we got in the portal, better about this unit overall than I felt about last. Year's unit 100%. We did lose. There's not a glaring hole. The The glaring hole is not there anymore. We know who the glaring hole is.

58:42 We don't need to say his name. The glaring hole is not there anymore. No. But the question is can someone fill that glaring hole and not become the glaring hole? And I think overall would just again with the majority of these guys would not. I'm sure we're saying glaring, not glory, glaring coal. Who put glory? I said. Glare, I said. Glory. All right. But I think overall, you just look at the the room in general, it's it's built. It's you're not sitting out here. Again. There were just, I felt like for years it was just like, we are so fucking undersized. Yeah, this isn't even funny. But I don't feel that way anymore. And I think when we come back in a couple weeks, Brian, definitely we want to hammer what we think the best and the most optimal line is going to be. Yeah, Staller, it's huge.

59:39 Now, how quick can he take a step? Because physical wise, he is a monster with decent feet, right? Brian Carter Staller had decent feet. He's not. He's not tripping over himself yet, but I. Mean so he looked a lot. So thinking about big guys that are coming out, he looked a whole lot better than Brody did coming out. Yeah, yeah, and there was a reason he was a little bit higher rated. All righty, let's go to the quarterback room because you you like you, you texted me this like right off the bat. You like look at that, Curtis, and I'm like pulling it up. What was it, Brian? What did you text me that day? I. Mean we got we we got pop over 2 bills.

1:00:23 At 5:11. At 2:00. 11-2 Bills, baby. You know, if if the concern is about his his frame, he's starting to fill that out a little bit. He is doing what we said he needed to do. He had to do that. He had to fill out. He could not stick in that 185 to 190 range with how any of these offenses are going to go in with what he has to do. And, and you love seeing it because it tells you from my aspect is he knew it. He knew he needed to get gains. He needed to get strong in the weight room. You need to put on those pounds and he did it, which to me says there's that work ethic there. He wants it.

1:01:06 He effectively is the backup quarterback. There is no if ands or buts about it. So we'll see how it goes. We'll see how he looks in spring. Other than the quarterback room, I think brand coming in really big, really big. I I if you get to go to the spring game, see if you can get 12 and 18 near each other and try to snap a picture of it. Brian between OK, here's base guys being classified as 6211951210 probably be a little difference up in here. Yeah. And I mean, you know, when when we talked about it, we were comparing Ryan and Brand.

1:01:46 I mean, we kind of said, OK, well, Ryan is definitely like a bigger, taller pop coming out, right. Yeah, like that. That's kind of just looking at the way they played, looking at everything a little bit more polished, maybe throwing the ball than than Pop was initially coming out. But you know, very similar style and, and overall frame. If not, you know, looking at the the the weight itself. But yeah, Ajaj is a big dude coming in 62210. I mean, you can see him very much in the same mold of of Kyron as far as how if, if, if he fills out some more being in that 220-5230, you know, Kyron up at at 2:35 on his own right there.

1:02:34 So you can see him definitely filling out to that level as he kind of progresses through his career. Yep, 100 percent, 100%. All right, let's go down to running backs, a room that is absolutely banged up right now. We know Overton's out for the spring. We know the kid from Bowling Green won't be down until summer. I think actually, I think that's as silly as it sounds like I'm OK with that because the his style and how he ran last year. Like I don't think he needs spring. Just just get him into fall camp and then turn him loose during the season. But. Well, the thing that sucks is not getting him in the I think the the weight program with the team is the bigger loss than necessarily the spring practice.

1:03:19 True, but I mean, let me let me do a little something here. Let let me let me pivot back that in a second. But take a look there, Brian, and just look at the running backroom. I mean, does anything worry you? Like it seems like everybody's at a good weight. You got Coney, Mason, Bennett, Hawkins along with the kid from Bowling Green coming out. Does anything anything stand out to you? I wasn't expecting to see Hawkins at 2:19. Yeah, 10 LB gain from where he was at D2 last year. Yeah.

1:04:00 So I, I think that's, you know, that bodes well for his transition to this level, you know, playing at 511, still being more of a, you know, pass catching threat than I think we'll see from Terry and Stewart when he comes in. So I'm excited to see what he's doing. He's apparently probably going to get a a decent amount of run in the in the spring I would imagine with everyone banged up. Well, well, Coney, well, you know, you heard the thing about Coney being out there grinding through and I'm assuming if he's practiced what he's practicing, I'm assuming Nick's for Coney, but he will be important. By the way, Stewart 5 down to 20 last year Bowling Green. So I, I think, I think again, I think he's fine. I mean, you know, why isn't he here? I think the, the story is he's got a class, he's got a complete.

1:04:57 But again, I nothing has jumped out. And I think we've said that a couple times, right? And we've got a couple more rooms just to kind of overall look at. But nothing jumps out as saying, are we significantly worse than where we were last year. And in some areas like offensive line, probably better than we were last year. Linebacker room with the emergence of Caleb Woodson, probably a little bit better than we were last year. So. I mean, looking at offensive line, like we don't have anyone that I think is as good as chaplain, but I think no, in aggregate we're a lot better. The the the worst current and offensive lineman that's going to get playing time is better than what we had last year. Yep.

1:05:47 Robbie hit up about Mason. I was going to mention that before we rolled on, but Tyler Mason from down in Mount Airy, NC, both up 200, came in at 198. So he is down with that kind of the level. Like OK, you can play a full season if we need you. Your body is ready for it. Safety room I think is going to be, we can look at them. I think literally, Brian, if we look at everybody that's in the safety room, their heights, weights, it's all fine, fine. Safety is going to be more interesting to probably talk about in a couple weeks where we're going to try to throw darts at where people are going to play.

1:06:30 And then when we actually see the game, because as you look through that, I mean, you know, shortest guy's 511, lightest guy's 185 at safeties, heaviest guys two O 5. And the guy that's 185 is kind of a guy that played a lot of nickel in corner. So makes sense, right? Yeah. Again, I think that room, once we see probably Brian, as you're sitting live at Lane, you know, writing your numbers out, figuring out where Koval is, where's Flowers is, where's Ellis, where's Cash, that's kind of going to be the interesting piece because of those four guys that came in. Flowers does have one year of eligibility left. Is that going to go as a, is that going to be a deterrent factor of who plays where?

1:07:24 We don't know. We feel very confident about Reddish. We'll talk about that in a few weeks. Tight end room? Yeah, Yep, they're there. Everybody stayed healthy. Everybody stayed healthy. You know, we're not really adding anyone to the room in theory. So this room kind of is mostly stagnant. You know, I think you feel really good about Benji. You feel pretty good about HSG and Zeke.

1:08:05 I think everybody else is a big question mark and I don't think they need to be anything more than that this year. I think that's going to be the guys that you're leaning on in this offense this year. 100% All right, last position group here before we wrap up the night. That's the wide receiver group. And and let's just you talked about what he can be used in man, if he ain't built like Devo Samuel was when he was down in South Carolina. Give me some. Give me some stats on Cam Selden. Brian, All right, Cam Selden. Let's find Cam Selden. He is 6/1, 2:11, 61211. Again, we talked about the running back bills. We just kind of came from that area and you and you hear that and you're like, all right, yeah. That that that's a running back and that's a wide receiver that's going to be playing like a running back. And I'm interested to see see him in action because he's the guy that I think excited me the most. Even though he's a guy that I think there's still a lot of question marks on because of the position change that you know, it's it's going to it's going to be it's going to be interesting to see how we deploy him.

1:09:21 Is he going to be a guy that's going to do some stuff out of the backfield occasionally? Probably. But I think he's really going to be that guy that you want to get the ball in their hands in that you know that like I said earlier, that 3 to 8 yard range and just let them be a be a guy in space. Well, first of all, Devo Samuel senior year 6 foot 210. That's, and if you look at him it the, the build is there. I think Brian, what excites me about Selden so much again and looking at some of Montgomery's game film, it's those 3 yard drags, it's those flat routes. Because his build you're if, if you were going to say, you know, we're going to put a corner back on him, it will have to be your best tackling corner. It will have to be your most physical corner, but there are going to be some corners, in my opinion, that are not going to tackle him.

1:10:19 I just believe that they're not going to be able to tackle him. And then it becomes there's your nightmare mismatch. You know what, we're going to throw the safety on. We're going to put a linebacker on. And OK, we know he was where he came out in high school. He was an athlete. He was an elite athlete. It's why he got so highly recruited. It's why he got there because he does have that explosion. It just it just pops. And if they deploy him right, especially having Donovan Green, you know, kind of that elder statesman who is kind of the route technician. And then the way Aiden Green is explained with his explosion. If not, not even counting some of the other guys on here like Chan's, you know, Brooke Keelan. Excuse me?

1:11:03 Don't get in trouble with anybody. Keelan Adams. Yeah, I ain't crazy. There is a chance I meet his Mama one day. I don't want to get popped up. That's right. That's right. You got, you got to keep it, right. Yeah. And and it's going to be I'm I'm excited to see what how Keelan and Chan's work into this rotation. I mean, obviously know Aiden is kind of the established guy here. From a just experience with this group perspective, we know Donovan Green is bringing probably the most overall experience to the room, you know, new, new due to this team. But we we have kind of the law firm of Green and green out there.

1:11:44 Wide receiver. I'm going to be I'm I'm going to have to make a poster or something like that at some point when we when we go to a game this year for that one. I'm I'm interested. I I think that this wide receiver room, I think I think this is we're we're kind of looking at the same thing that we were talking about in the offensive line room. You know, once everybody gets healthy is that, you know, in aggregate, I think this wide receiver room could be better than the group we had last year, even if you don't have the highest of highs that you had with the Jalen Lane. Yeah, so.

1:12:29 It's a it's interesting. I think overall from that game perspective, nothing stands out. You don't feel like we're undersized anywhere. You don't feel like we're going to give up physicality anywhere. So not only shout out to what's going on with Ferg, but also with the prior staff getting us back on track. So again, these Galt who went to Marshall, he may not have had everything locked down, but as far as getting guys to optimal weights, getting them to optimal strength, I think he got us there.

1:13:09 I think it's the other piece, the. Conditioning piece was where things kind of fell off the. Exactly, exactly. And and to me, you think about Jared Ferguson playing fullback. He was the prototypical fullback build and he had the endurance. So yeah, Brian, let's hit these real quick. Basketball seasons effectively over for the Hokies with the women losing earlier this week. Men obviously didn't even make a tournament portal going crazy. And then I didn't read all going. Legit crazy like three times the entries compared to last year. Sane insanity and obviously the Hokies on a better footing or NIL this year. The Whit Babcock statement that I read from Andy Bitter just made me go.

1:13:56 Which one? Which one? The the one about we didn't really anticipate the basketball market to be like that. What did you think it was going to be? Everybody's going to spend $100,000 a player. They took took a shot at the at the folks on on Twitter as well. Like are you get your news from Twitter If you think that we stole money from basketball to give it to football, I, I heard that places that weren't Twitter, I'll just say that much and we'll move along. I don't think we stole. I think funds were allocated differently. Because you misread the room. Yeah, look at Jim. Jim, we had heard from you all night. And Jim, it's a banger at the end. 70% fire. So I mean it sounds like of of the due allocation 75% is going to football.

1:14:48 Yep. So it's it's basically mirroring the percentages that the settlement were in terms of the yearly allocation from the the general fund. So. Yeah, 75% to football, was it. 15% to men's basketball is it? Am I right? That sounds right. I'd I'd have to pull it up again. I was looking at the bidder tweet earlier. Well, that, that's, that's over 3 million just for basketball, not counting probably some other things, not counting house settlement stuff. I'm assuming basketball's probably going to be what, five and a half, 6 1/2 donate. I'm and I'm talking guys who are going to be giving money towards NIL specifically for foot for basketball. Some a direct, yeah.

1:15:32 Direct, yeah. Direct and you should be able to put a decent Ross together and, and if some are going to go crazy, absolutely some are going to go absolutely crazy and, and that is what it is. But with $6 million to fund a basketball team of 12, you should be able to get a couple really good players. Just don't go after guys that you know, could potentially be fully suspended for, you know. Betting on games that's better vetting, please. Better betting, please. I think we've. Had what, three years in a row where we've had a player, a guard, a, a, a probably starting guard that played minimal or none for this basketball team, that's three years in a row.

1:16:26 And I mean, you can say what you want to say is that the difference between a 13 and 19 team and a 19 and 13 team? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But you you never know. One last piece before we close it up. Wrestling finishes 11th at the nationals. I only saw the I I never saw they never replayed it and I never a chance to see it. But from everyone that I've seen Twitter speaking with a couple other people, Caleb Pinson got completely robbed because his takedown was a takedown. And even though the brick was thrown, it should have never been overturned to begin with. It should have been 31 and he should be a two time national champion.

1:17:11 So but wrestling was younger this year. You know, Caleb's back next year, Eddie Ventriska's back next year, Mcdougal's back next year. He got like a Jimmy Mullen who's going to be back next year. I'll be interested to see wrestling next year because where they finished this year, it was supposed to be a down year. It was, you know, you don't use it. You don't lose a guy like Michael Lewis and a few of the other guys from the last few years and have a lot of young guys come on. But I, I, I think the potential's there. And I'm not saying national championship, I'm not crazy, but I think to get individual national championships is the possibility is there. And I think to get back in the top five is definitely a possibility.

1:17:57 I mean, I could go through the points, but I, I do think, and if anybody knows the exact way, I think if Caleb had won, we probably would have been like 7th, not 11th in the final standings just because of the difference between that for the 1st and 2nd. Quote me if I'm wrong, but anything else you need to unload man before we hop off here. No, I'm glad we got that, that, that bitter stuff in there. Well, on, on, on wit because that, that's something that I saw pop through just before we, we, we punched it and we hadn't really talked about really diving into that, but I'm glad we got there because. I'm glad we got a shot in just. Yeah. Yeah.

1:18:38 Because I haven't had a chance to read it all. I've been busy as hell this afternoon. I know you. You were sitting at a tennis match for 3 1/2 hours. He did 3 1/2 hours. He did. Well he did. It was about three. It was about 3 hours. Yeah, just sitting there, sitting there. So it's all good supporting our kids. All right. Anything breaking on the Twittersphere? Not much, man. I think, I think we're we're good and there's a lot of a lot of discussion around the 70% below Clemson thing. I know, I know, Jim threw that that in there that I think that was the thing that is stood out to folks the most is that we were that fucking far behind Clemson in NIL for basketball.

1:19:25 Just shows you this, this is what I'll say. And if you can agree or disagree, there are certain people that are in athletic departments in this era, they're never going to be a DS. And then there are certain people that are. And you at Virginia Tech, you've got to find the person who understands that concept better than anybody when the next hire is made, because in my opinion, the next hire is probably going to be made within the next 24 months. And I think, I think it's two fronts too, because I think you got to you got to have somebody that is not only well attuned with what NIL is, but I think you need to have somebody that's a little bit more that does a better job with engaging the alumni and the donor base.

1:20:20 Better than Wit in the sports that count, I think. I think Wit does a pretty good job in in some areas, but I think his personality doesn't always inspire confidence and I think that can trickle down into other areas. Not just OK fans. Fans don't like him because he's bristly or he, he, he doesn't not the most personal person when you, when you have a, an interview style with him. I think he's a lot. He seems to be more relaxed in a conversational tone, but he doesn't do well in kind of a, if the format is, is, is more formal.

1:21:05 He, his personality gets lost somewhere in the shuffle there. And I, I think, you know, that that can turn some folks off a lot of times too. So, yeah, there's, there's a lot of things that I think we could point to and say, you know, some, some of this was already endemic here at Virginia Tech before that. And then some of that is Wit has his fingers all over it. Yep, and you can't do that. You cannot do that. So with that being said, let's wrap up this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought to you by Counts Family Pharmacy. I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm Brian Siegler.

1:21:45 We are part of the College Huddle Network. Visit the website boundarycornerbc.com to listen to all of our episodes. While you're there, follow us Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, your favorite podcast source. We are on all of them. As always. We got our buddy Jason Long who is currently in the wonderful city of Denver watching the Joker play. The guy been sending us pics all night. He was so hyped to be out there. And he was at Red Rock Amphitheatre this morning watching the sunrise. That was that was a gorgeous photo since this morning. Pretty awesome man. He plays us in he plays us out. Check his website outjasonlawmusic.com. You can link to his lot where he's going to be live down in the New River Valley to his music on Apple, Spotify, his YouTube and his Facebook pages.

1:22:29 We really appreciate you all for listening tonight, whether you are here with us live on YouTube or on our podcast. And as always, let's go. The.