This will be a quiet weekend in Blacksburg, with a bye week giving the coaching staff a chance to recharge (while getting out on the trail) rather than host players on campus. But
next weekend will be a verty important one when it comes to showing off what this program is all about. When the Hokies take on Notre Dame Saturday evening, it should be a packed house.
I want to take a look at a few of the key visitors (rather than an exhaustive list, which we'll build next week).
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Gosnell is perhaps the most important player left on the VT board for the 2022 class. A commitment from him would allow the staff to try existing DT/DE tweeners on the inside first, while Gosnell and Kyree Moyston are locked in as the DEs in the class (and one or two of the tweeners could very well end up on the edge, anyway). With a number of potential future classmates - the guys who are already committed - on campus as well, this could be a chance to try to seal that commitment.
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Among the underclassmen (for whom this is a more important date, given how filled-out 2022 already is), Sanders somehow manages to fly under the radar despite being one of the more highly-regarded players seriously considering VT at this time. The Hokies landed 2018 offensive lineman Walker Culver out of Chattanooga's Baylor School, and while he had to medically retire from the game, Culver's been a positive ambassador to his
alma mater (one of the most consistent talent-producers in Tennessee). Many consider Sanders-to-Tennessee an inevitability, but the Hokies will be a real factor here.
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Sticking at the position and in the state, Alcoa (Tenn.) three-star offensive lineman Lance Williams will be making his second stop in Blacksburg this Fall (he was at the opener), and while teammate
Tyler Jeffries has not confirmed to me that he'll be along, the duo travels together, and the four-star may very well join. More East Tennessee kids, so there's an assumption among the public that they're Vols in the end, but VT has a shot with both of them, and Williams in particular seems extremely high on the Hokies.
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There is a lot to like about Sampson. First off, he's a true space-eating DT (though he still has to physically develop a bit), which would be a nice complement to the classes of tweeners the staff has loaded up on. He's also a North Carolina native, and while he comes from a very different area - the east coast of the state - than the Charlotte, Triangle, and Greensboro regions where the staff has had success in recent years, getting a win on UNC's home turf would help send a bit of a message to recruits around the region. (VT still has to continue doing better at home, as well, but a little bit of "we'll take yours if you take ours" would be an improvement on the past couple years nonetheless).
Stay tuned over the next few days for continued updates to the visitors list.
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