Virginia Tech is a couple scholarships below the NCAA-mandated maximum of 85 right now (I believe at last count, it was 82 occupied, meaning three available. Though a situation like Cole Beck switching from track to football scholarship - even though he doesn't need to, since he went multiple years without contributing in a football game, so he can technically walk-on to the football team while retaining a track scholarship - could take up one of them). With around 21 players exhausting their eligibility after this season and the number of realistic prospects on the recruiting trail dwindling, filling space with transfer players makes sense.
That brings us to a recent report...
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The source is a little iffy (though former Rivals colleague Mike Farrell is involved, so not as iffy as others out there), and you should always take situations with a grain of salt in that situation. For starters, I'm told that there has been no contact between the Hokies and former USC offensive lineman Maximus Gibbs. There are some personal connections - he's close friends with CB DJ Harvey - but not a lot doing (at least no yet) in terms of a potential transfer.
The Talley situation, on the other hand, could be one to keep an eye on. The former Virginia Tech staff recruited him hard (though not very effectively) before he narrowed his list and ultimately committed to Penn State. There's familiarity with the Hokies because of that. Of course, it's no insignificant factor that one of his primary recruiters for the Nittany Lions was Brent Pry, either.
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Talley arrived in State College this Summer, went through some workouts, and opted to leave the team for the Transfer Portal not long thereafter. The issue? In checking with sources close to Penn State, academics played a role in his departure from PSU. In fact, making up a course or two caused him to arrive on-campus later than his classmates, so it's been a situation that he's been trying to make up ground with for a while. the fact that he's leaving Penn State (while being very open about the fact that he still loves the Nittany Lions) is a pretty significant tea leaf that he wouldn't be eligible to play FBS ball this Fall anyway. Is junior college the most likely destination, then? It could be (some believe it
will be), with Lackawanna CC in Scranton, Pa. a program that has plenty of connections with Penn State, and the Hokies are hoping to get in on that soon enough).
If he ends up at a D-1 program other than Penn State this year, Talley will have to redshirt anyway (and given the unique circumstances, it sounds like an academic redshirt, the status that replaced partial qualifiers, would be likely no matter where he ends up, anyway), and it's not clear if he could immediately be on scholarship. Those sorts of questions are hovering, but if they get cleared up for the positive, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Hokies pursue. From there, it depends what other programs decide to get involved to see how competitive a re-recruitment it will be. And even with
that in mind, if the kid is set on going to Penn State, Lackawanna may very well end up landing him over other Power-5 options.
So with all that in mind: there are some barriers here. Each and every one of them has to be cleared to see Virginia Tech as a realistic landing spot. So picking up Talley is a possibility, but until a couple of those barriers are in the rearview, it's a longshot.
