2021 PF Ashton Smith:

New Virginia Tech basketball offer: Ashton Smith

The 2020 class was obviously not up to snuff, but I was pretty surprised to see the other Fuente classes compare pretty favorably to much of the Beamer era:

Virginia Tech team recruiting rankings in the Rivals.com era

If the ability to keep those players on the team (which was the far, far greater problem after about 2010 - the staff could recruit talent, but too often overlooked issues with grades or behavior that prevent them from finding success in Blacksburg) pays off this year, the future at VT is still bright.

The top 16 players on the board from a combination of talent and likelihood of ending up Hokies:

The HokieHaven Sweet Sixteen: July edition

Welcome to Tunnel Talk, with all the latest on the Virginia Tech recruiting front.

Cole Nelson

Rivals.com Southeast Recruiting Analyst Chad Simmons shared on our board yesterday that Virginia Tech is the hot program for John's Creek (Ga.) DE Cole Nelson. That's been building for a few weeks now, but confirmation from boots-on-the-ground in the Peach State are certainly encouraging.

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Nelson has long been high on Virginia Tech, but the realities of the emergency Dead Period in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic seemed to be a wrench in the works. His mid-March visit to Blacksburg had to be shelved indefinitely, and with Wake Forest and Vanderbilt his other favorites - and Vandy the only of those three he managed to see in-person before the Dead Period - the chance to climb against them was always going to be a slog. Credit to the staff for grinding through that adversity, though: hosting Nelson on FaceTime-enabled "virtual visits" made huge progress.

As the other contenders didn't work as hard to stay right on top of his list (it's actually Indiana that seems to be the other top option right now), the Hokies stand to benefit from their hard work. Nelson had always planned to make his commitment at some point in July - the timeline that made things look rough for the Hokies since he couldn't visit - and now that looks extremely positive for the Orange and Maroon. I would expect it within the next few days.

The 6-3, 230-pound three-star is a player that the staff likes a lot more than the recruiting industry does. I'm somewhere down the middle on him: a nice prospect, one who can be a solid piece for a VT team that can really use them up front. Not positive it's the pass-rush punch that the staff really needs.

Malachi Thomas

In touching base with folks around both the Hokies and the Peach State in pursuit of information on Nelson, it was only natural to ask about another player from Georgia who plans to make a decision in the not-so-distant future (Aug. 9) and has Virginia Tech near the top of his list: Hartwell (Ga.) Hart County running back Malachi Thomas.

Everything I heard back indicated positive things about the Hokies' prospects to hold off the likes of Kansas State and a few mid-major programs. If VT continues to push, they should be the recipient of some positive news in just over a couple weeks.

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Where Thomas fits into the class is a different question for me. At 6-0, 182 pounds, he's no so physically different from commit Chance Black. He does have a more physical, between-the-tackles style to his running, but he'll have to build up physically to play that way in college. Your mileage may vary as to whether you think that's the right move with another player (New Jersey four-star Audric Estime, who has many more programs in pursuit) who is more game-ready but perhaps not as high-ceilinged also on the board.

OL movement?

It's been something of a surprise to me that offensive line - one of the few remaining positions of strong need - hasn't seen more recent movement. On the defensive line, you can observe the progress on the recruiting board and the development of the recruitments of players already on it, even if the Hokies have netted zero commitments (one commitment and one decommitment) since early April.

A relatively recent offer on the OL - Western Maryland two-way player Christopher Adams - seems like a solid bet to eventually end up in the class, but beyond that... there hasn't been a lot going on. The established targets are remaining quiet (Andrew Canelas) or fading away from Virginia Tech (Diego Pounds). In that regard, I do expect the staff to continue evaluating new targets, and potentially issue some new offers. A combination of true sleepers and/or guys who have mostly lower-level (i.e. upper-tier mid-major programs or lower-tier Power-5 programs) offers to date look likely.

Of course, if it gets closer to Signing Day and there's still strong need on the line, don't forget that a few "gettable" players were slow-played by the coaching staff to an extent (Thornton Gentry to NC State, Jaden Lindsay and Try Everett to Appalachian State, and you could possibly even throw recent Vandy commit Delfin Castillo into this pot). A late run with a serious amount of earnest interest could potentially shake one or more free.

The staff is currently counting on that not being necessary.

As always, thanks for visiting HokieHaven.com. Feel free to use this thread for discussion of the information herein.

Georgia DE Cole Nelson and Va Tech. Indiana was in this, and Vanderbilt has been on his radar too, but I am hearing a lot of Hokie chatter the last few days.

I have put in a FutureCast for Virginia Tech and I have heard it could happen within the next week or so.

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Touches on Tray Curry's commitment. From @MFarrell:

Three-point stance: Curry an impressive recent commit

Committing at 1:00 pm today

This should pretty easily be the best OL unit of the Fuente era. But that relies on a couple key questions being answered for the positive...

Biggest questions by position: Offensive line

There's really a laser focus on the top targets by this point:

Virginia Tech Hokies 2021 recruiting hotboard: Secondary

The latest in the world of Virginia Tech recruiting.

Donovan McMillon

Three-star Pittsburgh-area safety Donovan McMillon continues to keep a low profile as his commitment approaches this weekend.

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McMillon is nominally down to a top five of Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas A&M, and the Hokies, but it's widely expected to be a Florida/VT battle. Thanks to his staying quiet this week, picking between those two from an analyst's perspective... well, there's not a ton more to know today than there was a couple days ago.

Sources with VT continue to feel like they're right in it, though the level of confidence probably isn't what I'd expect if they knew they were going to get him (and this is generally a confident group). That confidence level also hasn't grown over the course of the week, and if anything, has diminished just a bit. Meanwhile, our sources in other places around the country - including experts in the region, as well as the boots on the ground in Gainesville - continue to believe he's a future Gator.

As I said in a recent Tunnel Talk, I doubt I'll have enough confidence in a pick to submit my FutureCast before McMillon's commitment. But if I were forced to put one in, I'd lean UF for now.

Wide receivers

A little bit of context on the recent commitment of Tennessee three-star (a guy I feel is underrated, as I've consistently said in the past couple days) wideout Tray Curry: he's a kid that everyone thought was bound for the University of Tennessee as recently as the weekend. That includes the UT staff, since... well, they'd been given indications that he'd be making a public commitment to the Vols sooner or later.

When a player with that type of close tie to a given school clarifies that he's not committed to anyone:

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... you may as well read that as a silent decommitment.

Things turned in favor of VT quickly (or at least the part that anyone outside of Curry's brain could observe turned quickly - you can assume he'd been privately feeling the Hokies for quite a bit longer). The staff did a good job with early identification, and with staying on a guy when it didn't look like they'd have a great chance to reel him in as his offer list expanded.

What does it mean for other receivers going forward? The staff is telling other outside receivers that there's room for at least one more of them, though I think it's fair to read that as knowing that "best-available" with one of those spots that doesn't need to be filled at a specific position... will probably end up going to a wide receiver prospect. (I hope that sentence makes sense? I can't figure out a better way to phrase it even though I feel like the point I'm trying to make shouldn't be that complicated, ha). If another outside receiver ends up in the class, the positional flexibility of others - Nyke Johnson can theoretically be a DB, Chance Black can be a pure running back rather than a slot hybrid, Jaylen Jones can be a bigger slot guy, etc. etc. - gives plenty of options as to how to arrange things.

In terms of pure outside guys, I would say there are two standing out in terms of a talent/attainability combination: legacy Jayden Thomas and Connecticut three-star Skyler Bell. VT should get a strong indication of its staying power in Thomas's recruitment when he releases his top five tomorrow. The grandson of former Hokies QB/RB Phil Rogers has been high on VT, and if they make the final five, there's a strong chance they end up the final one when the time comes. As for Bell... he's never visited Virginia Tech, and hopes to make a reasonably early decision. With programs like Iowa and Rutgers much more... long-term... in his recruitment, I have a hard time seeing VT win out unless he extends long enough to take his first trip to campus.

Of course, as stated above, I think another outside receiver is more a luxury given the extra scholarship slots that are for best-available players, so if the Hokies don't land one of those guys (or another prospect, either one that they value more than the industry does at this point, or someone that they make a late run at later), it's not worth sweating.

In the 804

After the 757 edition of the GAME Academy camp a couple weeks back didn't provide many warm fuzzies about the Hokies' ability to immediately turn around recruiting results in that region, I'll be very intrigued to get a feel for the vibe in the Richmond area this weekend.

VT has done a little better in the 804 (though I wouldn't say they've knocked it out of the park), despite some high-profile misses. Some top remaining 2021 targets - namely defensive lineman Kelvin Gilliam - hail from the capital region, and given VT's increased recent success in the Northern part of the state, a little more bleed down the I-95 corridor could follow logically.

Stay tuned to get updates and intel from some of that talent base this Saturday.

Includes the list of the 10 best out-of-state grabs:

https://virginiatech.rivals.com/new...second-chances-top-classes-out-of-state-grabs

None for the Hokies, but three come from areas (DC, 757, Baltimore) that have traditionally been VT pipelines. Obviously something this staff is working on getting back to, but you can see some of the "why" behind weaker recruiting classes in 2020 and (so far) 2021.

Now that folks are throwing out options for 3 geographic PODS that play each other twice I have an option that looks good for every school except N.C. State. There are 4 schools down south and N.C. State is the most geographically southern Carolina school. The others work out very well from a geographic and rivalry standpoint.

Pod 1 : Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse, B.C. and Pitt
Pod 2: Virginia, Virginia Tech, UNC, Wake and Duke
Pod 3: Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Georgia Tech and N.C. State.

Perhaps each team could have one additional ACC team that they pick as a rivalry that would allow N.C., State to pick up UNC for a game and one more game outside the conference like Florida for FSU for example.The idea behind the Pod business is to save a lot of money and reduce the players exposure to flights, hotels, etc. Admittedly Pod 3 is absolutely loaded. Anyone else want to take a shot?

A look across the conference:

https://n.rivals.com/news/acc-spotlight-how-has-pandemic-impacted-recruiting-

Commit Shawn Asbury leads the way:

Hokie targets named MaxPreps preseason all-state

Will VT get all of them accounted for in this class? What if they don’t? Just curious how that would work.

From @MFarrell and @Adam Gorney:

ACC Spotlight: How has pandemic impacted recruiting?

Just hopping back online after a little recharge this morning, and naturally a commitment came through while I was away:

Tray Curry is a Hokie!

Curry is exactly the type of player the Hokies needed: a guy with a similar playing style to Latrell Neville, but in my estimation, quite a bit better as a player.