If you'd told yourself from just a couple year ago that TCU head coach Gary Patterson would be fired as Head Frog within a couple years, rather than finishing out his career on his terms and retiring from the post when he was good and ready, the past version of yourself may not have believed it. That's the stakes of college football nowadays. TCU has just two second-place finishes in a decade in the Big 12 (how rough has that conference been, even if it's not among the best in the country? Texas has the same number over that timespan), and the bloom is off Patterson's rose to the extent that he "mutually parted ways" with athletic administration yesterday.
First a couple lessons on what that means about college football nowadays: 1) Success is fleeting (and so is failure). What you are today is only what you are next year if you make it so. There's no easier sport in which to sustain success, or build sustainable success quickly... and the downside of that applies, as well. 2) Recruiting is king. This is probably the operative portion of the former bullet point, and what was ultimately the undoing of Patterson's tenure. While TCU regularly bounced up to third in the Big 12 recruiting rankings, the Frogs certainly weren't beating Oklahoma or Texas, and too often were in the Kansas State range. They develop that talent well, but if you have a few too many misses in evaluation or development, the results fall off.
So how does that apply to VT? For starters, you can look at the end of the Frank Beamer era, which had some of the same issues. Beamer was even more of a VT institution than Patterson is at TCU, so he was never going to be fired, but too many cracks showed. The current coaching staff took too long to catch up in roster management and recruiting, and even if they've taken major steps forward in those departments in the past 18 months or so, timing has conspired to make a lot of that difficult to turn into results on the field - and because success is fleeting, they may not have the chance to see the fruits of those labors.
Now a look at the Frogs' recruiting, and whether there are any players the Hokies could poach. The only player that remains committed to the Frogs and holds a VT offer isRB/athlete Major Everhart. He had planned to take a visit to Blacksburg at some point in the process, but ended it early in favor of the home-state school.
The Hokies have expanded the net at WR just a little bit recently, with potential slots the particular position of interest (see outside-the-box offer Ja'Kobi Gillespie for an indication of the staff's wants there). It wouldn't surprise me if they kicked the tires on Everhart just a bit. I don't think much comes of it, because the staff's focus on recruiting Texas has waned just a bit. The only other player who was committed to TCU while holding a VT offer has already decommitted, but it there aren't plans to give too much second-time attention to Alabama DL Trevon McAlpine (at least not yet).
There's a lesson there, and it's one the VT coaching staff has fortunately internalized over the course of the 2022 recruiting class especially: TCU has lost only two commitments (McAlpine and local WR Matthew Golden), in spite of a coaching change. There's plenty of time before even the December Signing Period for that to change... but it's worth noting that recruiting from the right areas can be a major boost to your effort. If players commit to a program, school, and area and not just to a coaching staff (I'm not naïve here - relationships are always important, but they don't have to be only interpersonal relationships), you're more likely to 1) gain commits, 2) prevent decommitments, and 3) see guys stick it out, rather than jump to the transfer portal if the early stages of their career don't work out. TCU builds from close to home (with picking and choosing in a few pipeline areas, like upstate Louisiana, that players want to head to Fort Worth from anyway), and probably will be able to put together a decent class no matter who the coaching staff is.
The Hokies threw good money after bad in Texas (losing a commitment from Dematrius Davis, among plenty of recruiting misses, and then having two promising defensive ends transfer last offseason) and California (putting in a ton of effort to net only DJ Harvey - who to be fair is a very nice prospect for the future) in recent classes. They missed on players closer to home due to lack of effort - whether real or just perceived in the eyes of players, coaches, and parents in the 804 and 757 - in the process. I've long been a proponent of the "it doesn't matter where the talent comes from, it matters how good that talent is" philosophy. But the simple matter is that it's taken too long for the Hokies to focus places where they can maximize the caliber of player they land. Certainly they've been involved in recruiting Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, and, yes, Virginia in recent years. But it does look like things are on the right track in terms of allocating resources adequately to those places to land guys better than the majority that they'd land out of Texas of California. Yes, you can still pick-and-choose from targets around the country, but at a school like Virginia Tech (or TCU) finding productive pipelines is the key.
Even if there's ultimately a coaching change this offseason - and I'm still skeptical we see one, barring further collapse of the 2021 edition of the team - some of that ability to find players who want to head to VT not just because of the staff, but also because of what the Flying VT, and Blacksburg, and everything that Virginia Tech entails... well, TCU shows us that in all likelihood, this is a class that would largely remain in class either way.
First a couple lessons on what that means about college football nowadays: 1) Success is fleeting (and so is failure). What you are today is only what you are next year if you make it so. There's no easier sport in which to sustain success, or build sustainable success quickly... and the downside of that applies, as well. 2) Recruiting is king. This is probably the operative portion of the former bullet point, and what was ultimately the undoing of Patterson's tenure. While TCU regularly bounced up to third in the Big 12 recruiting rankings, the Frogs certainly weren't beating Oklahoma or Texas, and too often were in the Kansas State range. They develop that talent well, but if you have a few too many misses in evaluation or development, the results fall off.
So how does that apply to VT? For starters, you can look at the end of the Frank Beamer era, which had some of the same issues. Beamer was even more of a VT institution than Patterson is at TCU, so he was never going to be fired, but too many cracks showed. The current coaching staff took too long to catch up in roster management and recruiting, and even if they've taken major steps forward in those departments in the past 18 months or so, timing has conspired to make a lot of that difficult to turn into results on the field - and because success is fleeting, they may not have the chance to see the fruits of those labors.
Now a look at the Frogs' recruiting, and whether there are any players the Hokies could poach. The only player that remains committed to the Frogs and holds a VT offer isRB/athlete Major Everhart. He had planned to take a visit to Blacksburg at some point in the process, but ended it early in favor of the home-state school.
The Hokies have expanded the net at WR just a little bit recently, with potential slots the particular position of interest (see outside-the-box offer Ja'Kobi Gillespie for an indication of the staff's wants there). It wouldn't surprise me if they kicked the tires on Everhart just a bit. I don't think much comes of it, because the staff's focus on recruiting Texas has waned just a bit. The only other player who was committed to TCU while holding a VT offer has already decommitted, but it there aren't plans to give too much second-time attention to Alabama DL Trevon McAlpine (at least not yet).
There's a lesson there, and it's one the VT coaching staff has fortunately internalized over the course of the 2022 recruiting class especially: TCU has lost only two commitments (McAlpine and local WR Matthew Golden), in spite of a coaching change. There's plenty of time before even the December Signing Period for that to change... but it's worth noting that recruiting from the right areas can be a major boost to your effort. If players commit to a program, school, and area and not just to a coaching staff (I'm not naïve here - relationships are always important, but they don't have to be only interpersonal relationships), you're more likely to 1) gain commits, 2) prevent decommitments, and 3) see guys stick it out, rather than jump to the transfer portal if the early stages of their career don't work out. TCU builds from close to home (with picking and choosing in a few pipeline areas, like upstate Louisiana, that players want to head to Fort Worth from anyway), and probably will be able to put together a decent class no matter who the coaching staff is.
The Hokies threw good money after bad in Texas (losing a commitment from Dematrius Davis, among plenty of recruiting misses, and then having two promising defensive ends transfer last offseason) and California (putting in a ton of effort to net only DJ Harvey - who to be fair is a very nice prospect for the future) in recent classes. They missed on players closer to home due to lack of effort - whether real or just perceived in the eyes of players, coaches, and parents in the 804 and 757 - in the process. I've long been a proponent of the "it doesn't matter where the talent comes from, it matters how good that talent is" philosophy. But the simple matter is that it's taken too long for the Hokies to focus places where they can maximize the caliber of player they land. Certainly they've been involved in recruiting Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, and, yes, Virginia in recent years. But it does look like things are on the right track in terms of allocating resources adequately to those places to land guys better than the majority that they'd land out of Texas of California. Yes, you can still pick-and-choose from targets around the country, but at a school like Virginia Tech (or TCU) finding productive pipelines is the key.
Even if there's ultimately a coaching change this offseason - and I'm still skeptical we see one, barring further collapse of the 2021 edition of the team - some of that ability to find players who want to head to VT not just because of the staff, but also because of what the Flying VT, and Blacksburg, and everything that Virginia Tech entails... well, TCU shows us that in all likelihood, this is a class that would largely remain in class either way.
