Starting with the newest VT member of the coaching (not support) staff, Adam Lechtenberg. This is an interesting hire - more of a promotion from within - for the staff. Without any positional coaching responsibility, this appears to be strictly a recruiting move.
"That's wasteful," a national recruiting contact tells HokieHaven. "Yes, the tenth assistant is going to be mostly for recruiting purposes at schools around the country, but you have the opportunity to add a guy with positional coaching responsibilities, and take a little off the plate of another assistant.
"Now he can be on the field all game, and can get on the road recruiting, and focus on that, but it seems like you could have done more with the ability to hire the tenth assistant. If they were going to bring in a guy just to recruit, a young one who can connect with the kids - sort of like Zohn [Burden] is supposed to be would have been a better move."
Lechtenberg was a position coach (wide receivers and passing game coordinator) at UT-Martin during the 2016 season, so there's a chance he steps more into a role on-field as needed - he's not just a career personnel guy. Still, that 757-oriented assistant could already be on the staff (grad assistant Tommy Reamon, for example), and a guy with those connections would have made sense, especially if the on-field coaching duties aren't going to be a major factor in the promotion.
The jury will naturally be out until there's evidence of how this move works out, but at least in some circles, the expectations are low (or the disappointment is high, depending on how you view it).
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Moving into more explicitly recruiting-related items, and one that we've talked about almost incessantly for a year-plus: Shelby (N.C.) 2018 linebacker Dax Hollifield.
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The four-star continues to look like a VT-Stanford battle, with Clemson and UNC on the periphery. Depending on whom you ask, either the Hokies or Cardinal are considered the favorite. Folks in Blacksburg maintain optimism, and it's the nature of that optimism (which has an air of almost-smug "I know something you don't" defiance) that gives me pause, because the Stanford buzz is the most palpable.
"At the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas [in December], he was as positive about Stanford as he'd ever been about Virginia Tech - even when he was close to committing back in 2016," one source close to the situation says of Hollifield's discussions. "In fact, unless something changed on his official visit, it would be a surprise if it wasn't a done deal."
Meanwhile, those close to the Virginia Tech coaching staff continue to point out primarily that the staff's confidence is based on the level of effort they've put in - almost a "if we don't get him, there was nothing more we could have done" than anything the kid has actually told them. Maybe there's a little bit of intel staying behind the scenes from the VT end, but there would have to be for my estimation of a slight Stanford lead to change.
Even if the Hokies don't get him, I agree with the vibe around the program: there's nothing more they could have done, and there's not
shame in missing on him - it just wasn't going to work out when Stanford got as serious about him as they did.
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In other 2018 news, Rivals100 offensive lineman looks poised to make a decision between Ohio State and Penn State, but that still doesn't mean the Hokies are giving up. (And as I've mentioned in the past, that alone is a positive step even if they don't get him, because if you jump as hard into as many battles as you can, eventually the wins will come).
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Coaches are in the four-star's school right now. If they were to land him, it would be considered a major coup. Again though, the level of effort they're putting into these recruitments is a refreshing improvement on the late years of the Beamer era, and will eventually pay off.
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Moving on to 2019, just a couple notes (unfortunately, most of them negative):
- The Hokies' difficulty in drawing serious interest from in-state defensive end Brandon Smith has long been a topic of discussion (and at times he's staved t off by visiting unexpectedly), but it continues to sound like the traction needed to actually land him just isn't going to come.
- There's also work to be done with five-star running back Devyn Ford, another in-stater. He seems to be drawn to the Ohio State/Clemson vibe of program, and VT has yet to build that level of buzz. A good relationship between his family and lead recruiter Bud Foster could remain an "in" if the Hokies are to claw back into it, though.
- A source phoned to ask a simple question, "you know [in-state offensive lineman Jesse] Hanson is a lock, right?" The answer on my end had a "yes-but" attached to it, thanks to the commitment date being set on the heels of a visit to North Carolina (no pun intended), but it sounds like all systems are go for Hanson.
Stay tuned for much more on the close to the 2018 class and the beginning of 2019 going forward.
), SCe, of course the Good Guys, and Georgia.