Recruiting Realities: Virginia Tech's Quest for Talent in a Competitive Landscape
Recruiting strategy is dictated by available talent, which varies by position and region
Blue collar, 3-star recruits, along with a smattering of elite quarterbacks, built Virginia’s Tech’s identity as a football program.
The myth and the lore around those great Frank Beamer teams is such that one could be forgiven for thinking it was all by design. But it wasn’t. Beamer worked with what, or rather who, was available.
It is common knowledge among college football fans that the three states with the most and the best talent are: California, Florida, and Texas. My understanding had long been that those three states were more or less equal.
I was wrong. California is a distant third, not far ahead of Georgia.
It’s no wonder the Bulldogs are so good these days. Georgia is the fourth best state for upper echelon high school talent, and it is located just north of Florida, which ranks second. The University of Georgia is also the only school in the state that plays big boy football (apologies to the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech).
But in-state talent is not solely determinative of a program’s ability to recruit at a high level. Regional talent is an equal, if not greater, factor.
Alabama vs. Virginia
To illustrate my point, let’s compare the Commonwealth of Virginia with the state of Alabama.
Nick Saban won six National Championships at the University of Alabama from 2009 through 2023 and Auburn played for the title in 2013, while both Virginia and Virginia Tech saw only limited, fleeting success during the same time period.
In terms of top 500 high school players, as per the 247 composite rankings each year dating back to the 2009 recruiting class, the state of Alabama is eighth with 246 such recruits, just ahead of Virginia with 208.
So, if Alabama and Virginia have comparable levels of in-state talent and two P4 teams each, why are the Alabama schools traditionally better than the Virginia schools?
Consider the talent in Alabama’s neighboring states in terms of ranking of top 500 players:
#2 Florida
#4 Georgia
#6 Louisiana
#10 Tennessee
Under Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide recruited nationally, securing commitments from Da’Shawn Hand of Virginia and Bryce Young of California, among many others, but that was a luxury, not a necessity. The Tide can win National Championships with homegrown and regional talent, even with all the other programs recruiting those same areas.
Now, let’s compare Alabama’s border states to Virginia Tech’s footprint, which extends beyond neighboring states to encompass the six-hour radius:
#7 North Carolina
#10 Tennessee
#12 Pennsylvania
#14 Maryland
#17 South Carolina
#30 Kentucky
#36 Washington, DC
#43 West Virginia
The discrepancy shows that, all else held constant, regional high school talent alone explains much of the difference in on-field success between Virginia Tech and Alabama.
Talent acquisition vs. available talent
As I highlighted on the podcast this week, the Hokies do not recruit at consistent levels across all positions. Let’s consider three particular examples from the podcast: quarterback, offensive line, and defensive back.
Quarterback
Despite inconsistent play in recent years from its non-transfer quarterbacks, the Hokies have fared well in quarterback recruiting, with a higher average player rank since 2009 than any other position.
Part of Tech’s success in recruiting quarterbacks comes from the fact that Virginia (#8) and North Carolina (#6, tie) are among the top 10 states for top 500 ranked high school quarterback recruits since 2009. Combined, the two states have produced an average of two such quarterbacks each year for the last 16 years.
There are six ACC schools in those two states, which means if the talent were distributed evenly, and no outside schools poached players, each team would get one such quarterback every three years. Of course, talent is not distributed evenly, so given the available talent, it is easy to see how some programs (ahem, ahem, UVA) are often left standing when the music stops.
Offensive line
At the other end of the spectrum is offensive line recruiting, where the Hokies have brought in players with the lowest average national ranking of any position on their roster.
While neighboring Tennessee (#6) and North Carolina (#9) are in the top 10 states for top 500 ranked offensive lineman, Virginia is not. Virginia is 17th, behind Maryland (#12) and Pennsylvania (#13).
With a comparative shortage of highly ranked in-state linemen, is it any wonder that the o-line is often the Hokies’ weakest link on the field? Conversely, it makes sense that Ron Crook's regional recruiting ties were prioritized over experience inside the Commonwealth.
Of the five regular starters on offensive line in 2023, only right tackle Parker Clements is from Virginia. Xavier Chaplin is from South Carolina, the Moore brothers Pennsylvania, and Bob Schick is from Utah.
Defensive Back
For the first decade of the 21st century, Virginia Tech could and did lay claim to the moniker DBU. Those claims dropped off significantly in recent years, but the position is still one of relative strength for the team.
So, it was surprising to find that among position groups, it was middle of the pack at Virginia Tech in terms of average national player ranking.
Virginia (#9) and Maryland (#10) are among the top 10 stages nationally in defensive backs in the top 500 over the last 16 recruiting classes, but combined, the 57 such recruits from those two states is only 26% of the total that came out of Florida alone.
In the peak Beamer years, defensive backs mostly hailed from Virginia (Jimmy Williams, DeAngelo Hall, and many others) or Florida (Brandon Flowers, Torrian Gray, etc.).
In the last decade or so, the Hokies have done less recruiting in Florida, resulting in more defensive backs coming from Maryland (among them the Fuller brothers and Mansoor Delane).
Takeaways
The key takeaway is that Virginia Tech’s recruiting is limited by the available talent in the region, which is good, but pales in comparison to the Southeast and California.
Winning at a high level requires elite player development and selective national recruitment in the transfer portal.
Tech has recently begun acquiring out of the transfer portal high level regional prospects that originally went to blue blood programs, such as Antwaun Powell-Ryland (Florida) and Kelvin Gilliam (Oklahoma). That is an important trend that needs to continue in the future.
After all, while it would be nice to fill the roster with blue chip recruits, what matters most is that they are on the roster by the time they are ready to play, which is often after two or three years in college.