Spring Fever

1:19 And welcome back to the Boundary Corner podcast, a part of the College Total Network along with my partners, Brian Siegler, Jonathan Talley tonight with our special guest managing editor of Tech Sideline, David Cunningham. I am Curtis Wilson and we are brought to you by a Moments on the Morning. Looking for a weekend getaway this spring or summer? Check out Moments on the Morning might be exactly what you're looking for. Owned by a proud Hokie located just outside Lexington, VA, Place gives you fishing, kayaking or just relaxing by the river with a nice cold brewski right out the back door. Check out the links in the comments or visit them on their Instagram page.

2:01 Moments on the Mori David Cunningham Long time no talk man. How you been? Doing well guys, Great to see all you guys. You know, it's, it's funny, I, I travel all over the place during basketball season and it's nice to be back at my desk in my house. Honestly, getting ready to chop up some spring football. It's been a while since we chatted and basketball season's taken a little bit of a toll on me, but I am, I am. I'm ready for football, man. Can I ask a question? How many miles have you logged this January? Because you you went to just about every away game run. Yeah, I mean, well, it's funny, the winter storm kind of threw everything out of out of whack a little bit because I didn't, I was supposed to go to Louisville again and didn't go. I know in in the first two weeks of in in the final week of February, in like the first two weeks of March, I think I drove around 2000 miles.

3:01 And that's not, I mean, and that doesn't even factor in flying to Austin for the NCA tournament. So busy, man, going a lot of places. What helped this year was I did not travel over Thanksgiving because both teams were out of the country. Usually, you know, past couple years I've gone down to Florida. So that was actually kind of nice. I got to got to spend Thanksgiving with family for the first time in a in a couple years. But but yeah, basketball season's done and in the books. And we got spring football on the horizon, man. And James Franklin's got those boys working. There, there's definitely some juice. We're we're starting to see some things start to trickle back onto the to the X timeline a little bit. It was a little quiet in in January and February there at least relative kind of what we've seen the last few years. But it's nice to get things cranking up again. Yeah, it looks like get getting some every time a practice is out.

3:57 We're getting some some cut UPS. They're getting to see a little bit of action. So that's been nice. Yeah, when I think, yeah, the the really cool thing was and I, I, I did not get to see it because I was trout. But the really cool thing is last Thursday, Tex, I think second full practice, James Franklin opened the entire thing to the media. So the media got to watch a whole practice a whole. A whole like beginning to. End like beginning to end talking like 2/2 and 1/2 hour practice. So I mean, that's something that haven't, we haven't had to happen in a real really, really long time, probably going back to Beamer, so.

4:38 That was a bitter call to the Unicorn, I think, when he was. I don't know that I would expect it. I wouldn't know that I would expect it often. But you know, and I wish I was there. Of course I was in Texas, but I think it is it, it's been an interesting, you know, getting to know Coach Franklin obviously and, and building up that media relationship with him and the Virginia Tech media contingent is a bit different from Penn State and, and kind of starting from Ground Zero in that regard. But yeah, I mean, him opening up an entire practice, like I know talking to Chris and Andy, they they really appreciated just getting a chance to yeah, to, to watch guys work and and get a real sense more than just like 5 to 10 minutes at, you know, at, at practice once a week. So yeah, pretty, pretty cool.

5:26 And of course, we'll have the spring game coming up. That's going to be exciting. I know like like you were just alluding to, they're usually like that'll meet that media availability is more like one or two practice sessions, not necessarily a full, a full length practice. So that's that's pretty exciting stuff. So let me ask you something, David. First of all, Brian, if you'd have put some glasses on the avatar when it first started, that could have been David. Like, I mean, it looked it was Sheldon, but it could have been David. So you needed to change that up a little bit. But just a quick question, because you are in the media from a scale of, you know, we're cool to a scale. I want to slash somebody's tires. How mad does media members get about the no access? Not saying you or your kind of Co workers that you work with, but just overall, like, is it a thorn in the side of like media guys that can't get access to programs? And not just saying like Virginia Tech in general, but just overall, because that's what your job is right to, you know, cover a sport.

6:31 But when you have a lot of coaches that are more closed off, how does that feel in your in in your from what you've seen? Yeah, it, it, it honestly is very, it can be very frustrating because the difficult part is it's not like I, I think a lot of people by my colleagues in my position, you just want to kind of tell what's going on, right? You got to, you have a job to do to the fans. Hey, man, like you're investing money into this program, you're paying for season tickets. Here's what's going on in your football program on a day-to-day basis. That's my job to to say, hey, here's what's going on.

7:14 And when coaches, I saw a lot of them, you know, now in this era, it's not like Frank Beamer, who, you know, who ran his own website and and posted stuff about what was going on all the time. Every day. Coaches have become more secure and more closed off about a lot of that stuff. And the most frustrating part becomes when there's not a lot going on like this past season when they're when the team is interim head coach and it's just losing game after game after game. And you're not, you know, they, they cut off practice access and kind of just shut things down. It just becomes very dull and repetitive where you're not getting anything.

8:00 And it's really difficult because it's like we have no really no idea what's going on outside of games. You know, I think a lot of my colleagues, even across the country and even across the, it's, you're just looking to kind of say, Hey, here's what's going on. You're not necessarily looking to take take shots or find the, the, the good or the bad. You're just kind of like, hey, here's here's this guy, he's playing well, you know, here's, oh, this guy's a guy to watch at practice. And I I think the, the Penn State media, yeah, James Franklin was there for a dozen years and I think that kind of that relationship wears after a little bit.

8:40 And I think it was got a little frustrating for him because they're Penn State. The Penn State media contingent is large. The Virginia Tech media contingent is not that big. You know, normal practice, there's 5 to 10 people for us at Penn State practices, probably 20 to 30 people. So it's much different. And I think the opportunity for him to kind of start fresh and say, hey, you know, the, the press conference we had last week, he handed us, he handed us a sheet of player availability. Hey, you're all the guys that are out for spring practice and asked us if it's helpful. It's like, yeah, that's very helpful because we don't have to spend our time asking silly questions about injuries, but at the same time, we kind of want to know what's going on with with guys, right?

9:30 Like. What what, what David is saying is he doesn't have to be over there on the sideline, is that? 60, yeah. Who's got the blue on today? Who's got the blue all on? Oh my God, yeah. I get how helpful that can be because if you know, a guy's out and again, in that in press conference, there were a couple guys missing that he that forthright came beyond and said, oh, no, they're not practicing or they're out for a while. They may come back. Well, that that that helps with the story, right? Because y'all are looking to say like, you know, we know Logan Howard, he's recovering immediately. OK Johnny Garrett started last year. Aiden's played two games. Are any of these other transfers going to step up now? You know, you get to walk in and say who's over at left?

10:14 Who's at right, whether it's the full session of the past or the half session or which are the ones are going against the bags together. Oh, now I know who that is. And that gives us information as fans out here. And and that's what you're there to do. I always liked what what you just said and what you're saying is you're just trying to report it because you have a vested fan base. People want to know what's going on. You made even better point. There are some people that are stroking checks. Some of those people have big enough checks where they'll know what's going on. Others who aren't stroking big enough checks, we'll know what's going on. Like I gave $2000 last year. You know, it's not a lot, but it's what I can afford. Can I get something?

11:01 And if they aren't letting y'all in there or you know, Damon from Roanoke Times or other people, then nobody knows. And, and, and occasionally fans can check out. They can just check out and say, you know what, I don't know what's going on. I'm not going to watch the presser. You know what, maybe I'll turn the game on Saturday, so. Well, this is my thing. If you're not a good enough fan that you can't call D Kuna and say hey man, what's going on? That's your fault. I mean, I've never checked out because I have access to my guy right here. I want to know something that y'all don't need to know. I just called David.

11:43 I haven't seen man so. Oh my God. If you are not a good enough fan when you're not friends with David, shame on you. Oh my. God, hey, I appreciate it. The the, the, the and tally's not wrong either. I mean, and that is the thing, like there are times where like, like Curtis or Brian will message me. He's like, hey, like especially Curtis. Curtis will be like, what, yo, what's going on with this guy? And I'm like, I'm honest. I'm like, hey, here's what I'm hearing like and, and but, but yeah, I mean, it's you got, you got season ticket holders, man. Like they need to, they deserve to know what's going on in the program. And I think some coaches look at the media as an adversary. I think James Franklin's been doing this long enough that he understands the relationship and understands that he can build from Ground Zero and go, hey, we can set the kind of the foundation of what we want this to look like, what we want the relationship to look like at Virginia Tech. Now I'm, I'm doing this here for the first time and things I like that we did at Penn State, things I didn't like, hey, here's how we're laying it out.

12:48 You know, if we give the media a full practice to just get a sense of watching guys run around and how they stack up against each other and, and really see them on the field, that's helpful. And as long as everybody's on the same page, I think it's beneficial for everyone. So it's been really cool to build a relationship with him so far and, you know, heading in the right direction. And I, and really I'm, I'm excited to to now that basketball season's done, kind of focused fully on football for for the rest of the spring. And I know that spring game, you know, he wants that stadium full. I'm interested to see what that crowd is going to be like. Yeah, it'd be. Interesting. I remember the Fuente year me and Brian went and that was like 40% that was like that was jam packed.

13:35 But, you know, we're only a few years off of a Sugar Bowl at that point in time. Now we're a few years off of a yeah, but we're going to get back to football in a little while. Basketball season's over. As David said, he logged like 8000 miles between airplane travel, car travel and all that stuff. But we want to talk about both teams and we're going to start with the better of those two teams. How about that? I'll I'll be nice in that phrase and let's talk with the lady Gokey because I think for a lot of us, you pay attention to it a few years ago when they were a top ten team. I mean, all eyes were on. I don't think the eyes were on them as much this year because it was it was Megan's second season, Megan Duffy's second season. And it was just kind of like, you know, they did OK last year, but then they had that huge in the middle of the season beat some good teams.

14:27 It's like, well, wait a second, they got a chance to make the tournament and then they count winning, pick off some more wins near the end of the season. And then the next thing you know is they're in to me, just from my knowledge of it, I feel like a year ahead of schedule. So David, you know, before we get into the, the, the your trip and everything, do you think they were a year ahead of schedule when it comes to making the turn? A little bit. I, I think, I think they, I would say they probably overachieved a little bit. I think they did more with with less as far as this roster goes. I think I, if, if you know, Megan Duffy kind of squeezed everything out of this team.

15:09 And I, I, I look at this team on paper and go, man, there are, there are a lot of holes and, you know, there. And, and by that I mean that some of the depth I had questions about they, they relied on a lot of role players that had not played big moments before. And sometimes it works, sometimes it didn't. But you're talking about a program that and, and what people, but it's hard for people to forget is, you know, before Virginia Tech made the NCAA tournament in 2021, the Hokies went 15 seasons without making the NCAA tournament.

15:50 And we're 59 and 159 in the ACC. We're talking 125% of it's games. You're finishing bottom of the league every year. And Kenny Brooks came in and stabilized. It obviously took him to the ACC championship game and one one titles took him to the final floor. But when the 2 greatest players in program history walk out the door and you have to rebuild and you're in this era with the portal and NIL, it's difficult. And I think Megan Duffy has done a great job of stabilizing. They went 12 and six in the league and tied Notre Dame for fifth. Like, that is a great accomplishment. They maybe could have been a little bit of a higher seed in the NCAA tournament, but but just getting back there I think is a great accomplishment in itself. And I, I, I, I wrote about this the other day on techsideline.com.

16:46 It shows that the program is moving in the right direction. And I think they overachieved a little bit compared to how good their roster actually is. And it shows that they've really, they really maximized. They obviously have two really good players and Carly Wenzel and carries Baker, but they maximized everyone else around them. And I think they were really fun. Watch, they lost two games in January back-to-back to Louisville, Miami and Louisville. And it kind of felt a little bit like, oh, man, like we, how is this going to go? Like, they've got an interesting stretch coming up where they could string together some games, but they really need to show it. They haven't really found consistency yet.

17:26 And to their credit, they stepped up. They won seven games in a row and they really went from being towards the bottom of the league in terms of this actual standings to up towards the top. And yeah, they dropped a couple games here or there against Notre Dame, NC State, North Carolina, but they ended the season on a high, secured their spot in the NCAA tournament. They were way off the bubble and step in the right direction. And the biggest thing for me is you got to keep building on it like, like I think recruiting to an NCAA tournament, like, hey man, we just went to the NCAA tournament. We're going to have most of our pieces back. You want to come be be a part of this. I, I think that's a great recruiting pitch and credit to the staff and the players and everyone involved because they did a really good job of, I think surprising a lot of people in terms of expectations.

18:16 And I think a lot of people looked at this team on paper and said, yeah, they'll, they'll probably be, you know, WBIT or WNIT team, you know, maybe if, if, if, if they're on the bubble, that'd be good. And they were way off the bubble. They did better than that and job well done by them and I think this this program has a bright future under under Megan Duffy. Yeah, I I'm with you on that. And, you know, when we look at what they were able to do, I mean, it's really kind of impressive to Curtis's point up, you know, definitely feel like they were, you know, ahead of schedule. You know, I probably had them like flirting with the bubble this year. Maybe not quite, you know, not quite getting in, you know, kind of right there on the bubble.

18:58 But you know, they were able to you're really string some good games there in that one stretch you talked about with that seven game turn around finished off off the season strong. Let's talk about your your trip out to Austin. I know you kind of alluded to the the seating may may wasn't as as favorable to the Hokies as as we would have wanted. What was that trip out there like? How did that match up kind of your work against work against them a little bit in that game? Well, I, I think the, the difficult part is, you know, anytime in the women's game, anytime you end up in an 8-9 game, it's going to be very difficult because in the women's game, top 4 seeds in every region host. So unlike the man where you go to neutral sites like Florida played in Tampa, Duke played in Greenville in the women's game, you know, Virginia Tech's going to Texas. That arena's gorgeous.

19:53 I'd never been to Austin. Really cool city, lot of really good food. Had a great trip, would highly recommend they get matched up with Oregon. Only ever played them once and I think that's the unique part of the NCAA tournament. You're seeing teams that you've never played before. I thought the difference was Tech's. Oregon's role players honestly were a little bit more consistent than Tech's. And Hokies got in foul trouble early in the game with Carly Winslow, Kerris Baker, they fell behind. And when your top two players are on the bench in foul trouble, it's. How how do you handle it? And took Tech's credit, it pulled out of the hole it it allowed A12O run, bounced back with a 12/2 run was in within 4 at halftime. And then in that third quarter, Tyler Freeland got in foul trouble and Tech really struggled a little bit in the interior and organ dominated in paint. They they have a, a couple pretty good post players that they kind of fed through and you know, Tech, Tech struggled offensively.

20:54 I thought the Oregon defense, they took away a lot of what the Hokies wanted to do and just wasn't a really good shooting game from Tech until the fourth quarter when, you know, Kerris Baker went off for 17 points and a little bit too late. But it just it's difficult. This is a team that at times this year, you've seen it, North Carolina, NC State, Notre Dame, you know, they, they've had lows for maybe not an entire quarter, but a couple minutes at a time where they've either struggled really, really poorly on the offense or defensive side of the ball where they can't get a bucket or they can't get a stop.

21:36 And that's what happens when there's a little bit of inconsistency, you know, it just pops up for 5 minutes maybe. And that's why I felt like you saw it in the first half and then to Tex credited battled back, and then you saw it again in the second-half and it was just a little too much to overcome. But like I said before, making the NCAA tournament in itself, I think it's a huge accomplishment for this staff and much better feeling for them last year then last year, you know, when they were the first team out of the tournament, a lot of disappointment going around and they they were the fact they were securely in that they didn't have to flirt with the bubble that they were a solid 9 seed. Now the question is, OK, can next year, can you be 567? Can you, can you, it's not easy, but can you move up a couple seed lines and potentially be in that realm where you avoid a dominant #1 seed and can you win a game in the tournament Now? You know, I think they have positioned themselves well to do that in the future.

22:40 It's just difficult. I think Oregon is is a is a pretty good good team and honestly just got better of that match up if that makes sense. They, they came out to get, I mean that first quarter was what was it 20 or 18? It was a it was a big. Yeah, I mean, they had a 12O run and it's like you get, you get put on your heels like that and just makes it. You can't allow big runs like that. And, and there have been a couple different times this year that that tech has allowed it something like that. And and it just makes it really, really difficult to recover. Yeah. Let me let me ask this because it it is you know where we got to look forward now to it because you just kind of mentioned it saying can they steal one next year etcetera, etcetera. There are only two players effectively graduating. Now, I'm not going to talk portal because it's tough to keep up with men's basketball portal. I can't imagine the women's basketball portal being even crazier.

23:40 But you got Mel Daly with just a backup guard, a nice piece, and they replace if I'm butcher in the name, Kyla Freelon. Yeah, Kyla. Kyla Freelon because basically a double double right at 10 points, close to 10 rebounds a game, Definitely kind of a force in the middle or the force in the middle, I should say, for the Hokies on that aspect. And they replace her production And I and I, and I like to pose this to you because you've been keeping up with them all year. You obviously saw some of the freshman play. Is there someone to slip into her spot? Because what you feel is if someone comes into her spot, maybe higher regarded, maybe a better overall player, that is that bouncing point to say, you know, you already mentioned carries Baker coming back. We already know Carly Wenzel lean score coming back next year.

24:33 They'll both be, I think, seniors. But can you get that replacement in the middle? And can that person, you know, can they go 13 and 10 a game and add that little bit extra? And if they are, who is? Well, that that's a great question. I I like the the two freshmen they have on the roster this year in the post, Anaya Trent, who who played a good bit in in kind of a backup role and and Imani Jenkins, who didn't play as much. I think they're really good pieces. They are both highly touted freshman. The the thing about Freelon is she she was really, really athletic, a little bit undersized at six one, but ran the floor extremely well and and was very like exactly what you want from an athleticism, ability to jump up and grab rebounds.

25:23 The the part that was missing is they didn't really have any back to the there was no back to the basket outlet there. Tech had that a little bit last season with Rose Meesha playing the five. I think if in my opinion, Curtis, they they need two things in the transfer portal. They need a post player, a back to the basket post player, somebody you can kind of throw the ball into. They can go one-on-one on the block a little bit. They're a good rebounder and a good score and they need, they need a three-point shooter because they've got a lot of good role players, but not a lot of them are consistent 3 point shooters. They're really two good ones are Carly Wenzel and Karis Baker. And as a result, when your two leading scorers are not shooting it well or being limited or just aren't having a good day from 3:00, you need to have another outlet. And you saw it last year with Matilde Eck and Lonnie White. They were able to make threes.

26:25 They were able to kind of face it a little bit. Now, Tech was better, much better defensively this year, Tech rose about 75 spots in adjusted defense from last year to this year. Tech was a top 25, top 30 defensive team. This year. The offense took a little bit of a dip, though. And I think if you can it it, it'll probably the defense might might dip slightly with Freeland gone because she was such an integral piece. But but I think if you can go out and get a big in the portal and get a three-point shooter and then, you know, see, I don't know who who might leave. I would expect probably one to two players to portal out just because that's kind of the norm. But they've got a good core to build around. And I think that's the exciting thing. You, you can kind of identify the exact roles that you need. Hey, we need a, we need a starting center to come in and get us 12 and 10A game, right?

27:28 And, and our freshman bigs who are going to come in, they're going to take the next step and they're going to play a little bit more and they're going to take some of that pressure off. Like Anaya Trent was really good defensively, but she was limited offensively as a true freshman. And and they've got two really good highly touted recruits coming in, two McDonald's All American Game nominees. They've got they got a a guard from Washington state, like way out West, Kaleo Anderson coming in and she's at ESPN like top 70 recruit. And then they have Ariana Harris Mont, who is 64 post player from Maryland Abu Williams product that's coming in.

28:08 So they continue to add good pieces. I think they're probably one or two piece pieces away. Like I said in the portal, you add those, those players and, and everyone else, the role players continue to get better. And I think you've got a really good team on your hands and you probably do maybe you're a next year, you're a six or a seven seed. And I think that's that's kind of the next, the next step for for this program. And I really like where they stand. And it'll be very interesting to see who they go after in the portal who's available. And again, it's so much about money now that that it just, it makes stuff a little bit more difficult than it would before. But if you can keep everybody together, you're in your bot. Yeah.

28:56 Let me ask this one last thing before we move over to men's and we'll let Tally ride on that a little bit. And and this is kind of a segue question because because this is like kind of a little bit of a comparison. When we look at the NIL challenges that basketball has, is it significantly more difficult in the women's game with NIL versus the men's or, or what are the challenges in women's that you know, we we may not see in the men's and vice versa? Well, I think the, the big, that's a great question. I think the, the in the women's game, the the ceiling. Like if you say that Yukon's a good example, right? If you say Yukon is making Yukon's payroll is X Yukon is Yukon was an overall number one seed in this year's NCAA tournament.

29:47 You say that team has the most payroll of anyone in the country. What is it the gap from that to the final at large team that made the NCAA tournament? I would say is like this. It's pretty small. Like the teams at the top obviously have are really, really, really well resourced, but it's kind of scrunched a little bit because in the men's game, it's like the Dukes and the Carolinas are writing blank checks and the teams kind of in that next tier, like the Virginias, the Louisville's, you know, they're like double what Virginia Tech's roster was this year. And and Virginia Tech's competing for an at large spot. You you saw Virginia was a three seed. So like that there's just a giant gulf in in in the men's where the the amount of money it takes to fund an NCAA tournament team in the men's continues to skyrocket and it continues to to take crazy jumps up on the women's side. It's not that steep.

31:03 Like I would say 1,000,000 in the women's game is a ton like that is, you know, but a million in the men's game that might not even get you a starter. And I think that is that is the difference, Curtis. Let's see one player. Could you get one player for 1,000,001? Starter for a million. One in the men's game. Maybe. I mean that and that's people were talking about this on on Twitter earlier. If you guys remember my Nigel Pack from Miami, he transferred from Kansas State to Miami a couple years ago. First era of the portal was when when the Canes went on their final Four run and it was like a two year $800,000 deal.

31:46 And he was like, that was like one of the biggest deals at the time, man. You've got guys moving places for like 2 to $3,000,000 for one year now. And, and it's just, it's very, very difficult because there are some teams in the ACC, but they're, I mean, like when you, you're a school at Virginia, like Virginia Tech, where you also got a football program and the football program is getting the majority of your Rev share and the majority of your IL, which it should. It's a little bit different from a place like VCU where VCU doesn't have football.

32:31 So VCU can invest all at once essentially into men's basketball. And there are some mid majors that have really been able to take advantage of it. And there are some power conference schools like Wake Forest and Notre Dame that simply do not have the resources for their men's basketball programs. And it's a really tough spot to be in because if you want to make coaching changes, you got to show that you have the money and resources to get an attractive coach. But the reason you're in the position you are, unless you just have a flat out terrible coach, is because you don't have resources. It's a cycle. And you don't see that as much on the women's side because your your typical NCAA tournament roster in terms of payroll is is lower. So it's easy.

33:18 You know, again, $1 million in women's basketball that can get you 234 starters maybe. You got a much flatter curve. Yes. On on those those payrolls. Yeah, it's a lot of numbers, man. And it's, it's so interesting. And, and that's why I think what, what the women are doing is very exciting because if, if they get a bit more investment, they can, they can go from being a, a nine seed in the tournament to being a six or a five seed. Like you're not. The gap is is much smaller than than it is on the men's side. So real quick, who's this Another. Tech W Hold this one right here.

34:06 On the one, the one above that one where he says the NIL challenge is the same, Brian Franklin wants it all. So I've heard a lot of people have taken this stance and the only thing that I say about it is Mike Young has been here. How many years? Seven years. James Franklin, he just got here. So what is the caveat of what happened before now? Like, I don't think it's a James Franklin problem. And I'm not saying that people are blaming James Franklin because of Tech basketball not performing well, but I think that some people use that as a lazy argument.

34:53 You can't sustain a good basketball program year in and year out without having a budget, without having the money to keep players, pay players. I understand that we had a roster this year that could have made the tournament. Some of the games that we lost, we were out coached. Some of the games that we won, Mike out coached the other coach. So I'm not saying that he's a bad coach. I just haven't been hearing a lot about, well, you know, Tech's going all in on football and it doesn't leave anything for the other programs. The other programs have to sell themselves to get a share of the money. And I'm not saying that Mike Young isn't doing that. But anyway, that just segues us into talking about basketball on the men's side.

35:42 So, David, I'm going to be quiet and let you kind of jump in on this rant that I've kind of went on and set me straight. Well, I think it's AI. Think it's a great point. Think think back to last men's basketball season. Virginia Tech won 13 games and at after the season, the the Virginia Tech administration essentially admitted that it did not. It underestimated how much it took to compete and under severely underfunded the program. It's like, yeah, you won 13. You only won 13 games because you didn't have money to retain guys. That Tech was in a much better position this year. Like the jump Tech took from last year to this year when it went from, you know, somehow finishing with 888 ACC wins with that bad of a roster but only winning thirteen overall to being on the NCAA Tournament bubble this year. Huge jump.

36:43 And Tech did really well in the offseason last year in terms of getting the funding right to give Tech a chance. But your point is exactly right. Hokies should have made the NCAA tournament this year. They had an end. They had the roster capabilities of making the NCAA tournament. But they dealt with injuries, of course, but they also did not necessarily, they didn't close games, to be frank. And that that falls back on everybody, everybody involved. So another question too, David, I don't want to cut you off, but another question just of me watching Neo got a lot of, I don't want to use the word hate, but he got a lot of people that was on this case through the year.

37:30 I understand it, you know what I'm saying? If you're supposed to be the star, you know these, they bring you in to be the star and you, you know, fail at certain or certain times of the year, you're going to, you're going to catch that flag. You may know a little bit more than us. How hurt was he? Because I, to me, it seemed that he was a much different player before he started getting a couple of injuries than he was toward the end of the year. How much of that do you think was confidence to compare it to injury? Well, he, he got banged up with his ankle like November, I think if you remember, he took a spill and Chuck was playing in the Bahamas and it was like, Oh my gosh, is he going to come back in the game? And, and he did.

38:19 But Mike Young told us in January that for basically a month or two that Neo had kind of been being he, he had he hadn't been do like practicing like extra because they were trying to basically save him. Like he was banged up to the point where he could play and he could do the normal practice, but it wasn't like he was necessarily doing one-on-one individual drills, right? So he's not necessarily working on his craft. And the other thing is, I think he overcompensated a little bit just by nature, by by human nature with the injury, because if, if your ankles hurt, well, you might put a little bit pressure on your other ankle, but that throws off your shooting motion.

39:10 And it's like then then you're you're overcompensating with your shot. And he went on that cold spell in January. And that really hurt because when Tyler Johnson's out and Toby Luau is out and you're dealing with all these other, it's just at, at the same time though, man, they, the, the, the number of games that they had. I mean, trust me, man, I'm sitting there in the Moody Center in Dallas. I was, I was front and center. I was the only Virginia Tech media member there when, when Booby Miller had that buzzer beater on Virginia Tech. I mean, I, I, I, I, I literally was even with him where he shot that on the court, my vantage point behind the basket.

39:57 I mean, that changes where you don't, you make free throws and don't turn the ball over in the final seconds. You win that name at Miami if you don't foul when it's a tie game and they're in the bonus. Why did he? Why are you taking me through all of these games? Why? Did he? Why? Did he told him in a while go foul him and he wasn't even Like he just ran to the three-point line and fired the man, the hottest guy on the court? Yeah, I hate, I hate to bring all of it up, but my, my point is that like, despite all that, there were chances for wins, man, like. Oh. For real. And it's and it's part players got to go out and make plays, but also in those key moments down the stretch, you got to close out you, you've got to coach better. Like those guys have to be prepared. And I think the Stanford game is a great example. You don't you don't lose a 13 point lead in the final three minutes by one thing.

40:57 It's a it's a perfect storm. And and the difficult part is I thought Virginia Tech to circle back around tally to what you originally asked. I thought Virginia Tech did a good enough job giving Mike Young and this coaching staff the resources to compete this year. They had a good enough roster and they just didn't go out there and win enough games. It's as simple as that. And the tough part is you talk about marketing yourself if you're a Virginia Tech fan, knowing that that a little money goes a longer way in the women's game than the men's game.

41:39 The women are coming off an NCA tournament. The men declined an NIT bid, which is a whole nother story. Which you've. Got and you've got a football program that is turning things around with one of the best head coaches in the sport. What program are you going to to to give money to you? You said it yourself, you have to prove that that you deserve the right resources. So it's not like, Oh my gosh, all these resources are being diverted football necessarily, because from my understanding, Tech will at least have what it had last season as far as resources go. But it's like, if you want more, I mean, you got to prove that you deserve more.

42:29 Yeah, I don't know, man. And another thing with me, again, I'm not a coach, I'm not a recruiter. I look, I'm a salesperson. So I always look at things from a sales perspective. Again, this is just me looking at it. Isaiah Vick is a decent basketball player, on the verge of being a good basketball player. 2 years removed from high school, went to prep school. I'm not saying Tech isn't on him. I don't know how the NIL works on players, how much you give to a certain player. But I do know he's from Virginia and I do know that the Victoria family is Virginia Tech. I don't think that you have to sell Virginia Tech to a kid like that, and I don't think that you have to sell as a Victoria to Virginia Tech.

43:20 I just don't understand why he's not there. I just think that low hanging fruit like that is the thing that makes me feel like has the game passed the coaching staff by at Virginia Tech? I would be getting legacy kids like that just for nostalgia, just for. I mean, Carmelo Anthony's son can play, but did he really do anything this year? You know, they didn't really have a good coach, but there was no there was no way that they were letting him like, not be highlighted to go to Syracuse. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm. Just saying that's a. Great point.

44:00 We don't want to rehash the Steph Curry conversation. So, so, yeah, so I don't want to go into all that, but I'm just saying it's not the same, you know, with the vigs being football players, I understand it's a different sport, but I'm just saying it's little things like that, the game within the game where you can sell tickets, where you can sell the program a little bit more. Hey, it's going to be Victoria night. I don't know. And we talk about Michael Vick so much, put his fucking nephew on the team and let's see if we can sell some more tickets and raise some more money. Maybe. I don't know. But that's just me on on little things that I see that I think we can improve on.

44:41 But David really kind of hit the nail on the head with what he came into taking a run and actually put him into some decent words so everybody can kind of follow. We had a good enough team to win to be a a tournament team again. Another tech W, he said. Very low team IQ, very low IQ team as a which is which is right, but as a coach, you have to know that team. You have to know who needs to be on the floor at certain times so we can close the game out. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. That was my.

45:21 Biggest issue with those 3 or 4 losses? Giving up sizable leads in the last three minutes. If it happens one time, OK, we'll coach them up. If it happens a second time, it's like somebody needs to come off the floor during this period. We need to make in those three games, it didn't happen. It almost happened to 4th. I don't know if you were in Syracuse that night, Syracuse was that close and I would have lost my shit that night. Because it's like, why are you keep running at the last three minutes with 7 plus point leads? You're running the same five guys, you're running the same place and it has failed three times. Because we go back and look at those three games, all buzzer beaters, all late game chokes, I'll say it chokes players, staff, whatever, whoever you want to blame, you win those three games. They're playing last weekend.

46:14 Because at that point in time, what's the record 24249 you're in? Heck, you might even be a seven seed. All right, Ron, what do you have? I'm sorry, I had a you started saying. I'm like, oh, Tally Rehash. We, we, we put it to a good point now because we got it to a point. We've assessed what's going on with this year. We've, we've assessed how, how things are looking from a, from a talent standpoint, from an output standpoint. It, it, it wasn't exactly what, what they wanted it in, you know, the, the, the, the root of the 'cause there, there's probably a lot of things in there. I mean, we mentioned injuries, we mentioned, you know, not being able to close out games.

46:54 We mentioned, you know, some of those struggles that NEO had. But let's focus on Mike Young a little bit from a future perspective because, you know, we're looking at him kind of heading into this kind of lame duck year. But David, as you pointed out earlier, you're not necessarily getting more money into the NIL this year, more than likely, but you're also at a point with a lame duck coach. It's going to be harder to build a roster that it was this past year, even with the same money, even if everyone else stands pat because of that situation. What's Tech's strategy kind of moving forward? Are they are they going to look look towards like having a coach in waiting? And to your point in until that investment comes in, I don't know if landing a big splash outside of that is, is a possibility in the near term. It's, it's a complicated situation, man. And that's like, imagine if they had, imagine if they were pitched this offseason was we made the NCA tournament and we've got guys from an NCA tournament team coming back or even or even, or even we we made we went to the NIT. I mean, I saw I was.

48:05 Going to ask like what you thought. About this, I saw the comment about Ace Custis man, can you? I mean, this is a program with, yes, this is a program with NIT history. Like Hoagies have won it twice. Ace Custis and David Jackson. We're on staff now. We're on that team and like. So Ace Custis is not dead, Jim. FYI. He's literally on the stand. Yeah, but. Metaphorical grave, yes. Yes, no, I but I mean you're you're in a weird you're in a weird spot because you can't and and and Wake Forest and Notre Dame and Pitt. You know, Pitt has Pitt has Jeff Cable coming back for another year, man God.

48:51 But like, there are a lot of programs that are in this exact same spot where you don't really have the kind of money to go out and, you know, A, get rid of the current code, but then B, go out and shell out resources for a new coach to get a, a better roster. You don't really have that if you run it back with the same amount of money. It kind of depends on what you can get at value at value, but your chances to win are are more difficult and it's it's it's a it's a it's a damned if you do named if you don't situation.

49:35 I believe you said that earlier, Brian, and it's it's really difficult and I'm not I'm interested, you know, when the portal opens in about two weeks. Interested to see how the Hokies attack it. What I will say is losing, you know, I, I am expecting of dollars to leave, whether or not he's going to seek professional opportunities or or portal somewhere else. That frees up a good, a good chunk of, of space in terms of payroll that that should help a little bit. And maybe if you get a slight, A slight bump, it would help too. But you're just in this weird middle ground where you look over to Charlottesville and they had about double your payroll this year.

50:26 And it if you don't do anything, they're going to have like triple your payroll next year. But to Tally's point earlier, like, why if, if there are questions about the staff, about the administration, if I'm a big donor, why would I? They have not proven that I should give them my money? Like I'm thinking about this from a fans perspective. So exactly, so my thing is, I, I, I'm tired of having a conversation. So most of the time in the chats, even on on X Twitter, whatever you want to call it, like I'm fatigued at having a conversation about money. Again, coming at it from a sales perspective, you, you're never going to get where you want to go unless you don't, unless you ask for it. You got to have something to show and you got to ask. A year ago we talked about football. Well, we can't compete because of this. And then, you know, we get rid of a culture where we can't get this coach because we don't have enough money. Lo and behold, James Franklin walks through the door. So it can happen that you can get certain things to happen. I'm not saying you get there overnight. I'm not saying you get there in a year, but if you're showing improvement, steady improvement or you're showing a plan, sometimes it's not even improvement because some coaches are just out here low in the the freaking AD to sleep and they're just giving them what they want.

51:51 So if you have a plan, you can get to a certain position. I just think Mike's happy to be there. That's been my that's been my my stick on Mike. I just think that he's a great guy, and sometimes great guys finish last. We don't need a great guy. We need a good guy and a little bit of an asshole. All right. Can I, can I close out basketball with this? Dave Well, I was going. To I was going to say something. Well, I was going to say that you, you also have to have the right people in place to to get stuff accomplished. I mean, part of the reason that that Virginia Tech has James Franklin is because the board of visitors said we are appointing this search group search committee to go find the next coach.

52:40 And in part because with Babcock went to the board of visitors and outlined this plan with Jay Pearson and Ryan McCarthy and a couple others worked on this funding plan. Virginia Tech now all of a sudden over the next couple years is going to invest $229,000,000 into athletics. James Franklin's not here if that does not happen. But that does not happen if a guy like Jay Pearson, a guy like Ryan McCarthy are not in the current positions they're in and they're not the ones that are pushing stuff along. You have to have the right people in place and and they have to want to do something about it. Yeah. Like I would think about it from like a a business perspective or a project management perspective. You got to have like that project champion that's kind of moving things in the right direction, even if they're not the ones that are touching the day-to-day operations of the program.

53:35 You got to have somebody that's ringing that bell consistently, whether it's and that I can't always be your coach like it. It's at some, at some point you've got to have advocates in the front office as well and in the in the AD office that are ringing the bell on your behalf to kind of move things in the way that you need to do them from a from a financing standpoint. And I feel like basketball doesn't necessarily have that. And some of that is the output we've seen on the court. And I think some of that is just basketball hasn't always been the bell cow at Virginia Tech. So there isn't that like natural voice to say we need to get this thing where we're consistently competitive in the ACC, you know, competing for an ACC Championship, making the tournament, you know, once every four years at minimum.

54:25 Like we don't have that kind of voice, I think in that in that group that's really ringing that bell on a consistent basis. So, David, real, real quick. Curious to hear what you have to say about this. Oh. No, no, no. This is. This is. More I didn't know if I didn't know if you were going to go go on another on another rant. I'm not going on another tangent with basketball. I'm I'm, I got mine out. But here's my question. If Mike Young pulls things together, makes the tournament next year, it's all hunky Dory. He's going to get extended three years. He'll get a solid contract. He'll take a hometown discount. What happens if he can't pull things together? It's a I'm looking at the records here from the last few years.

55:07 It's a 16 and 16 season. What happens? Because the contract is up at that point, right? Let let me ask you this if Virginia Tech needed to hire a new men's basketball coach, who's hiring him? No search committee. The search committee to actually get shit done. Probably, but. And and at that point like so so I guess that's another thing like David, I've got an AD where in in the two biggest the the the two sports that actually make money for your school, the AD. Can't.

55:47 The AD is is now not trusted to hire that coach that. That mean that's the that's the difficult, that's the difficult part. Like, like seriously, there are just so many moving, moving parts in terms of the administration. And yeah, I mean, the Virginia Tech did not let wit Babcock hire the football coach and he was home blown. He was involved. Well, maybe Buzz Williams will get fired from Maryland and it's a layup for. You do not, Curtis. You're kidding yourself. You don't want buzz back here. All I can remember is that team should have been. You're just all, all you're remembering is this is going to a Sweet 16. You're damn right.

56:30 You're. Not I mean. All you If all you remember is Hunter Couture blasting Duke in the ACC Tournament championship game, you'll be you'll be great. Hey, just remember he made 3 consecutive tournaments. Oh yeah. So. Get the fuck out of here. But. Hold on, that is Wit's best higher as AD, right? Buzz. Buzz. Yeah, man, it would be. It would either be. I mean, no. No, Bill Martelli is not coming to Virginia. Martelli, you signed a contract extension. He just found an extension and his next step is probably going to be to go up north to Villanova. And and the way the way VCU is able to put money into into that, like I don't know if we can necessarily offer him more than than what VCU is doing.

57:27 We'll do that. Behind paywalls, right? Here, I mean, I would, I would here's the thing. I would say that that VCU not to get off on a on a big tangent, but VCU just VCU Villanova, like being a mid major with no football program. Those are great positions to be in. And the VCU men's basketball program, man, it basically runs itself. It does like they have. They have not missed on a coaching hire in 20 years. My neighbor's a BCU alum and we were talking about it. Go back to when they hired Jeff Cable. Jeff Cable and every single guy they had hired in the last 22 years has gone to the tournament, won some games and got a bigger job.

58:12 Yeah. But Curtis, to to your point about what happens, it is a it's a very interesting discussion because the Virginia Tech Board of visitors did not let the current athletic director hire the football coach like there would not have been if if that group trusted him to do so, there wouldn't have been a search committee. Well, the search committee, thankfully for Virginia Tech, the search committee was involved and as, as has been discussed, Jay Pearson, Ryan McCarthy, Bud Foster pulling the right strings and getting James Franklin to Blacksburg.

58:53 Do you want to assemble a search committee to hire a new basketball coach? That might be what you have to do, but the but but the fact that you can't just go have your AD hire a guy, it makes it a little bit difficult. And, and yeah, to to since Phil Martelli, Phil Martelli stuff keeps coming up. I think he's a great coach and I think he fits VCU perfectly. And that, I mean, it's always like I have, I have friends that live in Richmond that are die hard VCU fans And they, I mean that that program, that program's fun, man. And, and, and you could argue, you could argue that that the only reason Virginia Tech and, and VCU are even close to to being comparable jobs is because the Hokies are in the ACC and the Rams are in the A10, which is only really a one or two bid league most of the time.

59:53 But if VCU is putting as much into the program as Virginia Tech and is in the A10, that kind of tells you all you need to know, man 100. Percent all. Right. Let's move. Great basketball, Paul, we just did an hour on basketball. That's how impressive you are, Mr. Cunningham. But let's get over to spring football. A lot of different stuff going on until we just want to hit more than a few here. Give me, give me some from what you've seen and what you heard, not just quarterback observation, because it, I mean it just it, it seems like Ethan Grunkemeyer is just like you. You were doing the little thing earlier. It seems like it's like that, like Ethan Grunkemeyer's here. Everybody else is well below.

1:00:40 Do you get that feel in person? Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I feel like Grunkemeyer is the guy they they wouldn't have brought him in otherwise. And, and, and it's interesting getting to know James Franklin and how he portrays himself to me and how he builds a relationship with us, Something that has come across which makes sense. And, and all coaches go through this, but James Franklin and the coaching staff don't want to say, hey, Ethan Gronkemeyer is going to be our starting quarterback in practice 5 of Spring Law. Because when you are preaching open competition to every single player on the roster and then you pencil a guy in and said, tell the media, hey, this guy's going to be our starting quarterback.

1:01:33 You're, you're just going, you're, you're giving mixed messages to the team. I can see. That, yeah. But Curtis, to your question, yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't think there's a a way that Gronka Meyer is not the starting quarterback and that's why you bring him in. And he's got a great relationship with Danny O'Brien, the quarterbacks coach. And from my understanding the the Virginia Tech wide receivers are have been excited about just having a quarterback that is as pass friendly. If that's the right way to phrase it as as as drunk a Meyer.

1:02:14 I mean, he's a, he's a pass first guy that's. What we do well, Dee, we know. We know one person who is not going to be the quarterback, AJ Bryan. Yeah. Because he is moving to receive them from what we've seen. Yeah, he and he weren't. You the first to report that. It was. It was Andy. It was Andy. Well, but, but I think I mean Andy and of course Colby Crawford and, and all, and Damien sort of let all the people that were in practice and, and that interviews the other day got that. But OK, you, you move AJ Brand, who, who's a really good athlete out of South Carolina, you move him from quarterback, a wide receiver. You pare down your quarterback room a little bit. Now you got four guys in there. You got a red shirt sophomore and and like 2 red shirt freshmen and A2 freshmen.

1:03:01 That's a really young room. But I think they really like what they have in Gronk and Iron Man and he's your quarterback of the future. And you you go from having a run first quarterback in Kyra and drones to a pass first quarterback and and Ethan Gronkemeyer. That is a big difference as far as players, you know, just the working relationship behind the scenes. And Curtis, to your point, I, I cannot, I mean, I'm interested to see how Bryce Baker continues to progress. Obviously, he's kind of a local guy from like the Winston Salem area, Greensboro area, you know, he was highly recruited.

1:03:44 But it kind of seems like Cronk Mayer's job lose. And I it'd be hard to imagine a world where, considering how well he played at Penn State last year, he's not, he's not a starter. But I, I can't fault the coaching staff for not coming out and being like, Yep, he's our starter. Because the one thing you don't want to do is is say there's no competition. Right, Yeah, Yeah. And especially when you're coming in and you're preaching like nobody's job is safe. I'm evaluating everybody across the board, you know, as a new head coach, you, you, you're doing that regardless. And, you know, I think it's also one of those things where it doesn't want to seem like he's, yeah, potentially playing your favorites with Penn State guys either.

1:04:28 So you got that dynamic that's thrown in there as well. But to that point, I think the one thing that I've seen consistently when I'm, you know, following on social media and things like that, you've got Penn State accounts that have obviously been in our mentions across the board, but they have not said one bad thing about Grunk and are very fucking disappointed that he didn't stick around even with them getting Rocco coming over. So that that alone and obviously the output that he had, you know, the back half of last season, that they kind of speaks for itself on that front. So it's yeah, I mean, it's it's exciting that, you know, feel like you got a quarterback that knows how to get the ball out, knows how to, you know, throw back your balls can get the ball to guys in different places on the field.

1:05:14 I think that's one of the things we struggled with really going back a number of years, not just, you know, with Kyron Jones at the at the helm there. Those kind of intermediate the same routes. I mean, think things that require precise location. You know, those, those are starting to, you know, probably come back into play in the offense a little more consistently with somebody with that type of accuracy and and and poison the pocket. So excited about that. I know we've seen some some word come out with some, you know, position shuffles along the offensive line. You know, we, we heard some conversations with Johnny Garrett slide inside a guard, some kind of being that swing player from what you've heard, from what you've you've seen read all that.

1:05:59 What are they doing? And it does any of this have to do with the fact that Howlin's kind of out for for the spring at this point? I, I think so I, I mean, obviously that hurts your tackle depth. You know, I think he's, I don't know that I would pencil him in as a, as a starter at one of the tackle spots, but he's Logan Allen, Oklahoma transfer. He's played a lot of ball man. He's he's one of your most experienced guys. And Justin Terry, the Ohio State transfer who's with Matt Moore at West Virginia, he's also been a little bit banged up. But I, I think right now it's been interesting. Montavious Cunningham's at right tackle, Johnny Garrett's at right guard. Part of it is Matt Moore, I think has a good feeling for what some of these guys can do at their normal positions. And and something that James Franklin talked about is we got we just got to put the best five guys on the field. So you got to test stuff.

1:06:54 And that's the perfect time in spring ball. Just kind of mess around a little bit and go, all right, let's let's throw Johnny Garrett in here at right guard and and see how he holds up and if he's playing pretty well. All right, cool. You know that that gives us another option. You know, like from Franklin gave a good example of last week, he said, you know, sometimes say your right tackle gets hurt, sometimes your next best player is not your backup right tackle. Your next best player is your backup right guard and then you slide your right guard over to right tackle. So I think it's just it's continuing.

1:07:34 Hey, that's what I do. That's what I do on the game all the time. It's continuing game all the time. It worked. It's continuing to develop depth and I think, honestly, I think bringing Matt Moore back is huge. Like just from a continuity standpoint man. I think what is it? Has it been four coaches in four years or. We had Crook for like a year and a half. Like 4 coaches in like it's like 4 coaches in six years, man. That's crazy. Like that's nuts. I mean Vice, Vice, Rudolph, Crook and more dating back to 2021. Yeah, yeah. 54 coaches, five years, I mean, and so like just having a a guy, yeah. But the, the big thing is your your offensive line coach and your offensive coordinator have to be on the same page. And it was interesting when we talked to Matt Moore back in February.

1:08:30 Seems like he and Ty Howell really understand each other. You know, just that relationship of how the offensive line is, is panning out and being, I mean, offensive line, I would say is one of the hardest spots to recruit just because you've got to develop guys over time and being able to map, keep map more, which means keeping all these guys and then adding a bunch of Penn State guys, adding a couple other portal guys. It's like, all right, that group is much different from from where it was last year. But but we all agree you actually have to recruit and attempt to get off at zip line and end the door. Why would you think otherwise?

1:09:12 Like what, 5 / 3 years? It seemed like you just wanted to kill yourself. Tell it what you got. It's it's why we ran into a situation last year where we had. A Lynch. The the next guy up at tackle and and that's not, I'm not trying to knock aid Lynch when I say that, but I. I don't think he would he. Was not. He was not ready to have to play the number of snaps he played last year, but you didn't have any tackle depth. And so all of a sudden you've got a guy that you know, is probably at least a year away from, you know, you being comfortable with him playing that number of snaps ended up getting kind of thrown to the fire. And I don't think it it helped him or his development or his perception. I think with, with the fan base that, you know, throughout that process and you know, getting guys in the door that, you know, with a guy like Terry and a guy like Howlin that have, you know, are either highly touted or have played a significant number of, of, of snaps at this point.

1:10:06 I think that that that bodes well. And that gives you that, you know, position versatility to be able to see what Johnny Garrett can do at guard. And obviously we've seen Cunningham play guard and tackle, you know, alternatively throughout his time here as well. So having guys with that position versatility where you can go a man or two down at guard or tackle and still feel like you've got a, a decent 5 that you can put out there. I think another thing too is just with the recruiting of offensive lineman. A lot of times, like I think David just said, like offensive lineman, you have to develop at that position. And it's so hard to like go into a high school and know who's going to be a good offensive lineman and how long it's going to take them to be ready because most high school offensive lineman are either much bigger than everybody else they're playing, or they're just more athletic.

1:11:00 So depending on who they're playing, they just look so much better. But when you get to college, everybody's big. What I like about what they've done is they've brought a lot of lineman in and a lot of them are already at plain size. So even if they're not on the field to contribute in the two or 3D, they're going to give some of those defensive players a good look because it's at least a body that is the right size to be playing in the ACC. Because you can go back to some of our defensive lineman. It's like, Oh my God, Burgos just killed Clemens. He's going to have a good year. And then he can't fucking tackle nobody on South Carolina when he's in the backfield.

1:11:43 So yeah, I mean, getting a good look at practice probably helps. So I'm glad that we at least have some depth there so some of these guys can develop, can get some practice run and they went and got a lot of them. I think we may have like 910 lineman. They're coming in out of those. It's like somebody's got to be ready to step up and do something, you know? So when I say do something, hey, he just rolled his ankle, we're going to wrap him up, put him back in. I need you to go give me a series. Last couple of years we didn't even have that like we didn't, we just had nobody that could step up and go play or we didn't trust anybody enough to be able to go do that. So I'm, I'm definitely, you know, excited about getting just a little bit deeper on that offensive line so we can determine who the best five are.

1:12:32 Or 7 and you say that tally you, you start from where and where you were last year, this year, truly guys who were offered somewhat rated or coming from it's 1717 offensive lineman. And I know a lot of freshmen, right Cunningham, a lot of freshmen. But that's what you have to do. You have to just stack and you have to pray. We will come out of this place. You don't have to pray, you just have to develop. You have to pray. I mean like what you have to do. What you I was going to say, hey, yeah, we ain't going to go into the Bible study here because I'm going to tell y'all right now You can you think that you're just going to be a millionaire by sitting at home and praying? You ain't. You better get that Bible. No, but Curtis, what you have to do is you got to get a lot of them and not all of them are going to pan out. True.

1:13:21 But that's why you go get you. You get 5 or 6 lineman in a class and hope that two or three of them hit. 111 high level one OK one. And I was going to say even with that too, in the years past, that's kind of how it's been. You had this one guy that you were like, we got to get him on the field right now because that's what we need. Well, they wouldn't got about four that have the same about the same talent level. You know what I'm saying? When you look at like Tommy Wilder, Tommy Wilder is not on campus yet, you know what I'm saying? So of course his development is going to be behind some of the guys that are there. But you look at like a Marlin bright. These are high level football players. These are high level guards, I mean high level offensive lineman.

1:14:10 So you went out and get three to four of those guys and you say, like you said, if we develop them in two hit and we're bringing in five one next year, you know, like it's what we got to do. That's what you have, That's what you have to do. You have to build in the trenches. There's no other way to win football games. Yeah. And one of the things we weren't doing is that we weren't recruiting, but we also really weren't attacking the portal at that position either. And I know that position is very hard to to bring in high caliber players in the portal anyway, but when you're when you weren't doing both, it's like we're not, we're not backfilling, but we're also not getting better on the front end either. And so you get situations like we've had the last two or three years where the offensive line is really, you know, even with some of the problems that we had at quarterback, like a lot of those were offensive line related to some degree. So you get this trickle down effect where you're not good up front and it affects every other position group on the team. Let's move over to wide receiver. I mean, we, we, we, we know that James Franklin is a Aiden Green disciple at this point.

1:15:23 He's, he's been, he's been hyping him up a lot and, and talking about him and really, you know, highlighting his leadership and his ability to, to come in there and not be afraid to say what he's thinking. I think that's, you know, that's been a big thing that that Franklin has complimented him on. But let's go back beyond him a little bit. Who else is standing out in that room that you've seen so far? Well, I think the it's funny, Franklin, you, you can tell how Franklin feels very easily about a position group because like wide receiver, like last week he was asked about the wide receivers and he was like, there are a lot of guys who are unproven and I, they, they have not done enough for me to talk about them. Like it's like, hey, you got a lot of chance, Wiggins, Keelan Adams, like how's that room coming along? And he's like, we got a lot of guys that need to step up. We got Aiden Green, Keyshawn Brown from Duke. I mean, he's the big one.

1:16:29 And Franklin touched on him the other day and he's he's, I think he's going to be an instant impact guy. He was very, very productive at Duke last year. Yeah. I, you know, Fontelle Mines raved about him. Actually. I thought this was very interesting. I mentioned this on our podcast. We spoke with Fontelle Mines back in February, and he's, he told me that he recruited Brown's from Winston Salem. He recruited Brown and Brown had Brown visited Virginia Tech for a camp and Fontelle did not offer him. And this time around in the portal, Fontelle said the first thing he did was he reached out and apologized for not offering him.

1:17:21 He was like, that's my bad, man. Like I missed like, I feel like you don't really see that kind of honesty, you know, just in that process like that. But I mean, he he could not stop raving about about Brown and he's he he kind of he's very reliable in terms of I think he catch, he catches everything. He's maybe a little bit undersized, but I think it's kind of exactly what you want in terms of bringing another experienced guy to pair with Green after that, Brian, it's pretty open-ended, man. Like one of the reasons I think sliding AJ Brand over to wide receiver is so interesting is because it's kind of an open competition.

1:18:03 You scroll through the list, you know, Marlene Jackson, he's got it. He's got his arm in it sling. He was the Louisiana Tech transfer that they brought in. But this is also an offensive coordinator, Ty Howell, who had in the past at Penn State, he and James Franklin, I know he wasn't the OC, but he's been a tight ends coach and they love using tight ends. So the nice thing is you've got a really good tight end room to kind of maybe balance it out a little bit, But they need wide receiver is a room I look at and they'll go they need guys to step up, man. Like there's there's kind of an open competition, you know, outside of green and brown. It's like everything else is open, man. You got to go prove it.

1:18:47 And and this is a great opportunity for Wiggins. Adams highly touted guys like that to to kind of prove that, hey, like we belong. Like, you know, it's our turn to to play. Yeah, that room is a bunch of talented guys who they're saying exactly what you're saying. They have to prove it. They all mostly were pretty high end guys coming out of high school, played well in high school, have shown flashes at times, some in games, some at practices, some at spring games and stuff. But it's who's going to take the who's going to take the crown? Who's going to take to me? You, you want 5 like who wants 3-4 and five? Because if you take it this year, you're likely going to have it for the next two years.

1:19:34 It's going to be yours. It's it's going to be your show to run tally. What do you want to talk on next, man? Well, I mean, we kind of brought them up already when you talk about the tight end room and the tight end room being pretty, I mean pretty looking like it's going to be pretty good. I don't want to jump the gun. But I mean, when I look at Luke Reynolds, I just think that he's a can't miss tight end. And when I say can't miss, I don't know how far he goes. I'm not saying he's a NFL tight end, but I've seen him play a couple of games of college football and I've seen him into practices with the limited access that we've got and he looks like he is head and shoulders better than. What we're normally having in our tidying room, no disrespect to any of the other tight ends that we had, but what have you got to take a look at Luke Reynolds and when we talk about that tight end room and what do you think about him, David? I mean, I and anytime I think of Luke Reynolds, I just go back to the Pinstripe Bowl.

1:20:37 If you recall, he, he put a spin move on one of those Clemson defenders. You're, you're talking like a, a tight end who looks like he's playing like running back. Just the way he moves. Very agile guy. He's he's big. The the biggest thing for me Tally is I I think he is a pretty proven blocker. And the. Virginia Tech tight doesn't struggle with blocking man over the last few years. Yeah, let's, let's get Sheldon on that one. I, I think, I think Reynolds, I mean, he's, he's a tremendous upgrade. He just makes that room better. It's kind of one of those like rising tides lifts all boats then. Like.

1:21:19 Your tight end room was fine. I can really use the tight ends a lot under that last coaching staff. It it'll be different now. And I think the interesting thing is I think Benji Gosnell is a little bit underutilized. Again, not great as a blocker, but he's been pretty reliable as a as a pass catching tight end If if you compare him with Luke Reynolds and you brought in Matt Henderson, who I believe is a Richmond guy. And and I mean, he he's a really good athlete. And Harrison is saying Jermaine is back. I mean the tight end room might be one of the. Harrison.

1:22:00 Don't forget Harrison. Yeah. Oh, and sorry, Jerrikas Harrison. I knew I was. Yeah, I knew I was leaving somebody out. You know, Jerrikas Harrison, I was talking to Andy and Chris about this the other day. You know, they said they went out to they went out to practice and they were doing tight end blocking drills and the guy who was standing out more than anybody was Hairston and just how he was just flat out blocking dudes. Yeah, I think it was one of the videos that they posted where Franklin got all over him in a good way, like just giving him props on his on his blocking. And I mean, as a, as a, as a tight end, that that it's you got to be able to catch passes, but you got to be able to block and you got to be able to block in space. We can go into a whole, I'm I'm sure Brian can write up a whole show for pulling, ripping, reaching, different things like that.

1:22:53 But again, big man, usually tight end being in space, trying to block little shifty guys sometimes doesn't work. So when you're bending that corner and you're coming out and you got a block of safety or a cornerback, a lot of times they're not going to come and meet you head up. They're going to find a way to, you know, Juke you get around you, you know, slide under you, different things like that. So when I just watched that clip again, we ever had a lot to watch. But I'm a tight end guy. So when I seen that, I got pretty excited as well because I've seen US run plays or us run screens and somebody goes, why do we keep running that? I'm like, we're really only one block away. Miami running the fake field goal. I mean, form a play call, but we were one block away from scoring a touchdown on that fake field goal and that and that block would have came from a tight end. So I think I'm pretty sure it was a tight end. Yeah, I, I look at, I look at the tight end room and I think that is probably one of the best position rooms on the team from and I like the variety of skill sets you have because you've got you know, I mean, and you talk about Doricas, I mean, he's a former walk on man.

1:24:08 Like he has worked his way up and he caught some touchdowns last year. He paved the way for Kyron for a couple touchdown runs. I mean, he's a guy who has earned his keep and, and you've got him and Saint Germain and Gosnell along with Henderson and and Reynolds and that's a pretty stacked room. That's the kind of problem you will have. You won't have 100. There's depth there and everything. And, and, and to Tally's point, I mean, you know, Titan is such an interesting position with, with the type of blocks that, you know, you got to execute. I mean, you got to be able to stalk block like a wide receiver. You got to be able to, to block in the alley. And then you also have to do pretty much anything that a tackle would do in those, you know, tight formation run situations. So I mean, it's a, it's a very, very skill set that you have to have on top of, you know, also being a, a reliable receiver. And, and it sounds like there, there's going to be a whole lot more receiving that we saw with Monty last year coming from that tight end group.

1:25:06 So I'm excited. I I think, like you said, I think this is probably, you know, top to bottom, probably the the deepest position, at least on offense. I would say, you know, when you combine experience with ability and then some of that, you know, guys like Hairston that have really earned their keep and, and, and have shown, you know, flashes in, in, in various capacities over the last couple years. Let's flip it over to defense and I'm going to focus on the safety room to start out here. Yeah, we did. You know, we were some delay in kind of finalizing the coaching staff who was going to coach safeties, who's going to coach cornerbacks didn't really go out and get anybody in the portal to to shore up that room.

1:25:52 What's your feeling on that room and and is there any new faces that are kind of mixing in there that we didn't see last year? Well, I think I think it's good that Ted got Quentin Reddish back. I think that's that's important. But he's also coming off an injury. That's a little bit that's difficult, man. I will group the safeties and corners together because I think they're in kind of different situations. I look at the cornerback room and I go, I see a lot of guys with experience and a lot of guys that can play right now. And there might be a point where it's like, man, we've got more corners that we want. Like we, I wish we could play, you know, we got to sit one or two of these guys because they all can't be on the field at the same time with corners.

1:26:42 I look at safeties and I go there. There is a there a lot. Don't you? There's, I mean, there are, there are questions, man, Like I'm, I'm just interested, I'm interested to see how that dynamic plays out. You, you bring back some guys at like Tyson Flowers, I think Franklin spoke, Franklin spoke about his leadership ability and I think that's great. But Flowers was a little bit hit or miss at times last year. David said. David said we we glad you're a leader, but. We That's being kind. Of some ways people that get tackled. Well, you need you. Need either you need.

1:27:23 Leaders and he's a guy that that last year after losses stood in front of the media and and spoke. That takes a lot of guts, man. Yeah, with the season going the way it did, what can under a under a different coaching staff, can he kind of take that next step a little bit and be a little bit more consistent? And I think you look at that room as a whole and that's kind of a theme. It's a lot of unproven guys who it's like, can they all kind of vibe? And I don't want to like get off topic and go look at cornerbacks, but like there's so much experience there. And, and, and also I really like a lot of the young, young guys that are kind of coming off up the ranks. It's like, OK, you know, acknowledge Herald, right? Like seems like he's chomping at the bit a little bit ready, ready to play.

1:28:14 It just seems a bit of a different situation. And I'm curious to see how the coaching staff kind of manages it because it seems like the safeties and corners are in two different spots. Yeah. Definitely always doing with that safest position just to be honest. Let me ask this real quick on Curtis. I'll let you go ahead. Sorry. Well, Woody, honest truth, I think it's like, I'm not trying to downplay the position, but don't spend money on safeties. Like don't like the NFL doesn't spend money on safeties. The teams that normally spend money on safeties, they're usually ADS teams that just like they figure out the safety room, you figure out what they can do.

1:28:55 And my thought is kind of what you said, David, it's but with the exception of Reddish, because you feel like Reddish is young. He took a step last year, he got hurt, but he he took a legit step from first year to 2nd year. I think they're figuring out each of these guys can do something OK. If the front 7 can be OK and the outside guys can cover, we can figure out what each can do. And when we get to that particular point of the game, y'all to go in because y'all are good at playing cover too high. Y'all good at playing cover 1. You can play somewhat man on a tight end matchups across the boards. I would love David in nine months because that'll be Christmas to get snap counts on safeties. I guarantee it.

1:29:42 With the exception of Reddish, the other ones are going to be level unless someone like a Sheldon Robinson steps out because if a young guy jumps. In. Huh. Robinson looks like a grown man. He doesn't like a grown man and I'm saying if he takes a step then those guys are done to him because it's going to be radish it strong, it's going to be him at free and those other guys are just going to be hoping to get on the field for punt block. Go ahead, Brian. Sorry. I was just going to say, you know, I think the, you know, the the dark horse of the unknown quantity and all this thing is, you know, where does Sherrod Koval maybe maybe fit into this conversation? Is he at a point now where he's going to be a heavy contributor or is, or is he still kind of floating in that four or five area in the in the in the depth chart? You know, we saw Jordan Bass, you know, go out there and he'll hit somebody, but there's there's some other areas where where he struggled.

1:30:39 I mean, I think, you know, on the whole, to Curtis's point with, you know, not really overpaying in that position, you know, if we can get guys that can, that can play Cover 3 match and you know, fill the alley and hang and fit properly and and do all those things that you need to do, from a basic standpoint, maybe that doesn't matter as much. I mean, I got a lot of confidence and not to get us off topic, but I got a lot of confidence in the the cornerback that came from Troy, not because I watched so much of his game, but of course, being in Alabama, I've seen a lot of Troy team, a lot of Detroit team play. And we've had some local kids that have went there and I've kind of talked with, you know, some coaches, high school coaches and Troy alums and things like that. And they really, he was a really good player for them. He just has a lot of ability and I'm hoping that that translate to him getting, you know, significant snaps with us and, and, and contributing there because I think we have a lot of talent in that room.

1:31:45 When you talk about, you know, the cornerback room and it's a mix of a little bit of experience along with talent. Indiana showed us that you're going to need experience to win it, you know what I'm saying? So having experience is good, but they also had talent too. You can't just be old, you know what I'm saying? Like they had. Experienced. Talented guys. So I'm hoping that we have a good balance of that enough in like the cornerback room that it helps with the safety because you do see sometimes those get kind of interchanged and things like that. But I'm excited about, you know, that room. But the next thing is what I wouldn't be excited about is being a young offensive lineman and having to block Kamari Copeland on the defensive line.

1:32:35 Kuna, have you seen anything out of our defensive lineman? I know we've had a lot of transfers to come in and it may be a lot of unknown things there, but as far as the defensive line, what are you kind of seeing and knowing and thinking? Kamari Copeland's a big dude, man. He is big. Strong big strong dude too. I mean, Frank Franklin basically said it that that Kamari Copeland was like the the number one guy. Hey, we need to bring, we need to make sure he's back on this team next year. And. And I'm curious to see maybe Sean Spencer kind of said that too. All the interviews kind of run together.

1:33:15 But but when we had a chance to talk to Sean Spencer, he raved about Copeland. Just man, this he he's a hard working guy and obviously he's got a lot of talent, but I I'm curious to see what other guys come up around him like. I think Elaj Fall is a guy who who quietly had a good year last year. I agree. Can, can, can he be a pretty good duo with with with Copeland? And then outside of that, it's kind of a bunch of unproven guys at at tackle. A guy I, I'm really curious to to see where he ends up, is T Ron Richardson. He's a big dude, man. He is a monster. He's from the Richmond area.

1:33:59 He got rave reviews from from Spencer and the coaching staff and I think they've got a lot of guys with with good work ethics in that room and Laws. I think this is his redshirts sophomore season. Maybe maybe like this is his opportunity, I think to kind of be a a big piece as like that's maybe the second or third guy behind Kamari Copeland, you know, and they brought in, I'm looking at my roster here. They brought in Aterica from from Penn State and they brought in Eric Mensa from Ohio State. It's like, OK, you got some some guys with experience a a little bit. The guys have been in programs before. Can can that translate over? But I'm kind of curious to see how that that rest of the depth chart shakes out kind of behind those three guys at the top, you know, you what you have in them.

1:34:51 Yeah. And, and and that kind of where so many of the positions are, it feels like, right. But I think we all feel like this the talent levels raised. I think I don't, I mean, everybody goes back to 16 and 17, right? And that's a decade ago, first of all, that's a decade ago. And that's the last time we felt like we had we looked at, hey, I'm just being real. But in 16 and 17, you start looking at the roster, it's like it was a lot of talent on those teams. It was a lot of talent. And I know, you know, schemes are great, you know, coaches are great.

1:35:32 And James Franklin understands, I think better than anyone. And he's said it numerous times, all this stuff's great, but if you don't have the players, if you don't have the players to compete, if you don't have the depth, you're not, you're not going to compete. And that's simple as it is. And to me, he's taking us just from my vantage point, he's taking us like somewhere between 4050. You feel like it's somewhere in the 20s. Just talent watch, just talent. I know you get the blue chip ratios, but you start looking and it's like, well, the quarterback has experience and not this guy has experience. Well, that guy has experience. And that's that piece you talked about the rising tide. Well, if you have a quarterback who can play, you don't need to lean on everything.

1:36:20 We need to talk running backs tonight. And we're going to lay off that for a little while because that room again, I think it's when we feel like it is what it is. But David, in any, any last words before we close her out tonight, man? Well, I want to, I think linebacker, linebackers will just be like, like how they, how they balance. We, we, you know, tally mentioned Jacquez White, the Troy kid. You know, how they balance the corners and safeties and also the strengths. The linebackers, like, I think they, you know, they bring in Keon Wiley from, from Penn State and I think they really like Caleb Spencer and and Curtis Jones from West Virginia. But like obviously Noah Chambers had a phenomenal freshman year. But like, what does that look like like? And I think that's the beauty of spring ball with the new coaching staff.

1:37:12 It's like you have all this time to figure all this stuff out. You can look and go, all right, well, we're working this guy here and this guy played really well today. All right, maybe we can give him another look. And I, I think for Virginia Tech fans who, who, who are are excited to go to the spring game, like I think that's the going to be the beauty of like this year's spring game is like there are a lot of young guys the, the talent level, as Curtis has just talked about in this program, the talent level is much better. There's more talent in this program and as a result, there's going to be more competition. And as a result, it's going to be hard for guys to get on the field. And that's exactly what you want. And I think you're going to see that and it's not just one position, it's across the board.

1:37:59 And I'm curious to kind of continue to, you know, got a couple weeks before his spring game. Curious to see like what kind of young guys or, or transverse newcomers kind of crack these rotations and, and maybe do a little bit more than just like flash at this spot or flash at that spot like, oh, hey, this guy like, you know, are we going to see I'm making this up? But like Akeel on Wiley, Oh, he's he he's won the spot at he's he's the kind of the leader at at the will right now, right. Like do we see a kind of a any of these transfers or any of these freshmen kind of come in and make an instant impact? But it's going to be more difficult now because you have raised again the talent level in this program. So they're just in a much better spot and spring ball is fun because they can get all hands on. They don't have to worry about all the, Oh my, the constant game planning for, for different opponents and whatnot. It's just ball, man.

1:39:02 And you, you, I think more than anything, every single time you, you see a clip, every single time you watch them, the the program has started to exude toughness again. And that's what Virginia Tech football was built on. There we go. Let me ask you one more question. But, and this is going to be directed at at Tally's drinking buddy here because because you brought up the linebacker room and and not even approaching it from the well, that's a good point. We have that. But Phil.

1:39:42 Phil's had a couple beers tonight. Bill's had a couple beers. Phil's also not prized biggest fan either so we get that. But thinking about it from just the position group standpoint, you know, we, you know, we look at the opposite side of the ball, you retain 2 coaches on the defensive side of the ball. Obviously prize is the guy back here. So he has familiarity with the guys that are remaining on the roster from last year. And obviously he's got a, you know, close confidant and Franklin there to kind of assess some of the guys, especially the the Penn State guys that are coming in there. Does he have that kind of? A unique lens to look at his position group relative to kind of where everybody else is on the defensive side of the ball. Absolutely.

1:40:27 And he's the guy. I mean, there's no one that should know the defensive personnel for Virginia Tech better than Brett Prye, considering these are all guys he's recruited. I mean, even even the guys who Tech got this offseason, he had a hand in recruiting them. And I think you've seen he's refreshed, man, Like he's, he's different. I think there is a giant weight that's been lifted off his shoulders as far as like he didn't have to do with the deal with the day-to-day, all the pressure that comes with being the head guy. You've got so much on your plate. You can just go coach X's and O's and, and, and push your kids and be in team meeting rooms again.

1:41:14 I mean, at the end of the day, I think that's what most, most coaches like to do. They like to, to recruit and develop kids and, and build relationships with them and, and push them and, and put them in the right positions to succeed and scheme up stuff. And that's what you're seeing from Pride. And it'll be interesting him being the defensive coordinator it if if the Hokies don't play well defensively mean. It could be rough on him. It could be rough on him, but Oh my gosh, David, the content that I hope we don't have it. I hope the content is I sit here and pray the content is that guy was never a hoe coach, but damn it, look at that defense. Just look at he knows what he's doing. He's in his vibe.

1:42:01 Let's just hope it's that way. Yeah, I mean. Because I don't feel like sitting here having drinks every Tuesday night feeling miserable. I'm such a. Good dude too, He. Is yeah, might be his problem. This is what I'll say, though. I mean, just everybody knows how I felt about it when it first happened. When it went down, I was like, what are we doing? I've never seen this happen. We we just fired a coach and hired him back. Whatever, we all what we are now, right? So when I look at things from a holistic standpoint, you're either giving, I mean, just say we were building a house with Legos.

1:42:43 At least now they're going to give him bricks to build a house with. If you look at the if you look at the linebacker room compared to kind of what we had, again, the talent levels raised, Like if I had to see Jaden Keller go out and not make a tackle one more time, I may have drank myself to death. Like, you know, if I had to go see Sam Brumfiel not be big enough to bring ACC running backs down, it just you got tired of it And it's not, you know, I get it. All of that falls on the head coach. Brett Pryor was the head coach. He's not the head coach now. So I feel like, again, this is me looking at it, you know, sober mind, months after this happened. I think that James Franklin knows what is expected. And I think he stepped up to say, OK, if you give me this, I can produce this.

1:43:39 And he knows what's on the line. More than just Virginia Tech, His name's been ran through the mud for the most part by Penn State people, you know, a couple of other fan bases, but mainly them. So I think he's really out to prove something. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he's still one of the best head coaches in college football. They don't want to admit it, but he is. So I think that I mean, this is his stop. This is where he goes out and proves like y'all don't realize that I've been doing this for everywhere I went. I built the program. I was at Vanderbilt, I built the program when I was at Penn State. I built that program. So now I'm here and if you're not going to be here and do this with me, you're not going to be here.

1:44:20 So I think Brett pride knows that he he wouldn't have stuck around and and risked because he's in a he's in a weird spot, man, you know what I'm saying? Coming off of him loving, he, he legit loves Blacksburg and loves Virginia Tech, but he did a shitty job of being a head coach. He knows that. So he's got to look all of the same people in the face everywhere he goes. And I, I don't think that he's taking that lightly. So that's what's in my mind. That's what I'm thinking. Phil, I'm with you. I understand where you coming from, but let's give him just maybe a little bit of grace after the first drive of the season.

1:45:04 Then we can start in and kind of figure out what we. Want I got one drive one drive. You got. One drive you got? Yeah, I mean. It's going to be going to be interesting once we get to like ACC play. I mean, he's just going to be judged by by such a unique light. But I think Franklin made the point that wherever he went, pride was going to be his top option as defensive coordinator, right? You know, say for example, he took the Franklin took the Arkansas job. He was going. There he like he's probably taking pride there. Nobody bests not. So what? Yeah. So why not Virginia Tech? It's just weird because he's the former head coach, but it says a lot about him and his family that they're able to kind of weather this and and wear it and own it and go we're going to. And and I think he truly is like, I want to get this program back.

1:46:01 And I know I did a poor job, but I want to help fix it. And I think he's in a good spot too. And again, I think he feels more free now. He feels more like himself. He can, you know, instead of having to deal with with with with donors and money and and managing a roster, he can just go, yeah, I like that blitz. Like. Yeah, I know I don't got 2 zeros on the field. Hey, well, also, I mean it, it's, it's something to say, you know, he's, he's now in a position where he knows he's good at what he's doing. Yeah. And, and so he's, he's going into game day with that confidence.

1:46:42 Like, I don't think he was going into a ton of games where as a head coach where he felt like he was 100% confident in, in, in what was going to happen in that game. Now matchup dependent, obviously, but I, I don't, I don't think he you'd always felt 100% confident in what, in what was going on there. I think it's a defensive coordinator. I mean, this is something that he's done, you know, for over a decade at a very high level and, and done it very well. And, you know, that gives you some confidence and, and, and you've done it at a, at a program like Penn State. So it's not like he's, he's done it well at some, you know, middle tier big 10 school. He's, he's done it in a top four, top five program in the Big 10. So, you know, I, I think that's, that's something that, you know, he's going into each game on Saturday or Friday or Thursday or whatever the fuck night we're playing on. And he's he's in a position where he feels confident before the whistle's blown and and not dependent on the game flow going the way he wants it to.

1:47:42 He's. Back. In the field. Oh, go ahead, David. I'm sorry. Sorry, Tammy, go ahead. No, I was just going to say I know Curtis is getting ready to wrap us up. Are you going to the spring game? I mean, I'll be working, but yeah, I'll be I. Figured I will I will be there. Yeah, I'll, no, I'll be there and I'm I'm excited to first spring game under James Franklin. I hope the weather's great, excited to to see what's hopefully a great crowd. And I'm sure we'll be a very, very lively couple days in blacks for for the Boundary Corner crew. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I'll be there with bells on towel. I got to talk Tally into getting up there with me, man. Yeah, I'm trying to get that, man. I'm, I'm, I don't know, I'm about 5050 on it for my bid to make it.

1:48:24 But Curtis keeps getting. Talked into assistant coaching? Yeah. We're going to have to work on Curtis, man. He got he he he doing too much for that baseball team right now. Man, I just hope the weather's better than last year. That was that was some of the worst spring game weather that we've had and without rain, like normally like rain can be a factor obviously like but like that was some of the worst spring game weather we've had where. Rain was ever talked to me about Blacksburg and rain in. Your no no no after the game in 20. 20 that Purdue game and I thought we was going to die. I legit thought that that was the last day I was going to be on earth for about an hour because I remember us sitting up in the stands and we were like, man, this ain't maybe it's just going to pass us over.

1:49:06 And then I was like, no, this ain't passing over, Curtis. Like we probably need to. We need to get out of. This somebody's like, hey, it's a tornado over there. And I'm like. Curtis had some intuition like y'all, we need to like get over here. It's kind of you all the way to die. That was that's what was in my mind. And then we waited like 10 hours and we had the best seats I'm ever sitting in Atlanta Stadium. Ever, ever. Well, listen David, almost 2 hours in, we, we knew it was going to be this way. Anytime you join us, you're, you're so much fun to talk with. Man, I hope these boys, because in all likelihood, I'm not making it.

1:49:47 And if I'm making it, I'm coming in sideways and I probably got a kid on my side. So I can't go too crazy. But hopefully y'all can catch up with them. Everybody go follow David D Real D Connor out on Twitter. Yes, it's still Twitter. Go to tech sideline, watch him on their pod, watch his writings. He's an awesome individual when it comes to just Virginia Tech in general. So we appreciate you taking your time with us tonight, man. I appreciate it. This is this is awesome. I always enjoy it. Sorry I couldn't do it last week because I was traveling for basketball, but I appreciate you you fitting me in and man anytime I talk with you guys it's always a blast and two hours man it went by quick we but guess what man, there's a lot to talk about and and I. Well, David, when you spend an hour and 30 minutes talking about how much you love basketball, that's what happened.

1:50:41 What it is? It was. Like 45 minutes. It was an hour. It was an hour on that. We did talk 15 minutes to open up other stuff. Though it was. Asking the questions. Man, I was going to say it was, it was a good talk about basketball. I needed some of that man because I was coming from a negative. Place you and Curtis got your rants off so I hope you guys feel much better. After I do feel better after talking to you, Andrei, we see you, man. Andrei's sitting going to the spring game, Brian. So if I'm not there, you find Andrei you. Got to find you. See me? You come holler at me, man. We're going to be the game, we're going to have a little little live stream on Chicken Hill before the before the game kicks off too, so. That's where it's like, we'll, we'll, we'll tell you. And ready and ready since it's going to be your first time trying to message us, trying to message Brian or Tally or myself on Twitter at the Boundary Corner. Well, so we can get you where Chicken Hill is and where folks are going, man.

1:51:34 But with that being said, this wraps up the this episode of the Boundary Corner podcast brought to you by moments on the more with our very special guest managing editor of Tech sideline, David Cunningham. I'm Curtis Wilson. I'm. Brian Siegler. Jonathan Tally. As always, visit our website boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, subscribe to the YouTube or your favorite podcast source. We're on them all. As always, we are played in and out by our buddy down in Roanoke, Jason Long. Check out his website jasonlongmusic.com. Also check out he is going to be doing some live shows on the weekend of April 10th at Pollard One O 7 S and at Crooked Shoreline on the 11th. Go check him out doing some acoustic sets down there. We appreciate y'all for listening. We appreciate y'all in the chat.

1:52:30 Phil, have another beer and let's go.