Fork Union OL Jonathan McLaughlin ready to enroll in January; RB Drew Harris has to wait until June
One 2013 Virginia Tech commit from Fork Union is set to enroll in January while another will have to wait until June.
Offensive lineman Jonathan McLaughlin was cleared by the NCAA academically to enroll at Virginia Tech this semester. Running back Drew Harris, meanwhile, will have to wait until the summer. A source confirmed both situations.
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Both recruits, who prepped at Fork Union last semester, took to Twitter to announce their situations. McLaughlin, a 6-foot-4, 288-pound lineman from Mauldin, S.C., tweeted that he qualified early Tuesday. He switched his commitment from East Carolina to Virginia Tech last month.
“For all the hokie reporters/fans that follow me, I am cleared and ready to start school for this semester ! Thanking God! GO HOKIES !” he tweeted.
In the evening, Harris tweeted that there were complications with his status: “Due to an error in paperwork sent to admissions at Va Tech I have to enroll in June I can choose to open up recruitment or stay committed.”
Harris reaffirmed his commitment to Virginia Tech in a follow-up tweet: ”#BEATALABAMA #hokiesforlife #HOKIENATION”
The 6-foot-1, 210-pound running back from Exton, Pa., originally signed with the Hokies last February but didn’t qualify. He had hoped to get NCAA clearance to arrive this semester and participate in spring drills. Instead, the 6-foot-1, 210-pounder from Exton, Pa., will have to wait.
When he arrives, the four-star recruit could join the mix at running back immediately.
January 15, 2013 - 7:31 PM
Welcome to Hokie Nation!!!!
Drew Harris is certainly an exciting player and I hope we hold onto him. I am not familiar with McLaughlin but hope he will prove out to be great.
Go Hokies!
Welcome to the nation boys!
Nice to hear! Congrat’s and Welcome Jonathan to the Hokie Nation! We really can use some good lineman to come in and make an immediate impact!
Now we need Harris also, saw him play up here in HS.
Harris is coming in june! Only 3 months till we can see what loeffler is made of..
The Hokie Nation won’t have any more patience and respect for Loaffler than they did Stinespring. It is the quality of the players stupid, not the coaches. Any of us could have gotten VT into the championship game in 1999 with a Michael Vick. Tech doesn’t have that many great players, they do a lot with marginal players but even those players (unless a Wilson, Coale, Boykin or Hosely) can’t do much to compete past a mediocre level. I am telling the truth.
Andy: How in the world could Harris’s paperwork have been botched?? Who’s responsibility was it to make sure it was processed correctly…can u please look into this?
Big shame he won’t be in spring practice. We need all the weapons we can get up to full speed going down to play Alabama.
Harris will be a beast and in the mix this season hopefully. Some things take development, but raw talent that one has been blessed with can’t be taught. Welcome to you both! Go Hokies
Barry calling someone else stupid???
Pot, this is Kettle, over.
Go for Kettle.
Kettle, you are Black.
I say again, you are Black, over.
Is the new coaching hire a sure thing? It is time to make a decision for Beamer.
Trey Edmond is the real deal.
Sure hope the new OC knows how and where to use talent better than the old one. But his resume does not look too good we can only hope. I still don’t understand why we could not have found an OC with a great record in a small college just needing a break, that is where great new tallent is discovered.
Jeez Barry, ease up a bit man.
You are right that VT does not get top 10 talent, but they do an awful lot with average mid-twenties recruiting classes. Teams like VT don’t have the quality and depth to compete for a NC every year, they have to wait for a perfect storm – the right players, coaches and schedule. That’s the truth and I can handle it. I would add that UVA has had some incredible talent, many years out recruiting VT, and has rarely sniffed the top 25 at all. Look at all the UVA players that have drafted high and suceeded at the highest level, but their UVA teams were dreadful.
I’m not a UVA hater (I grew up there), but you have to ask what was the difference all these years.
I think you’re right many VT fans will not appreciate Loeffler – I don’t think we were looking to get MORE conservative. Unfortunately that’s who Frank is and with another top notch defense it can work. I think most fans were looking to go to a more exciting offense. I for one really liked the pistol this year, but it was executed so poorly that it really did not provide the difference. To drive home your point about VT and teams like them (Texas Tech, Boise, etc.) those teams are not going to compete with Alabama playing the same game they play. They compete mentally – with speed and misdirection, VT showed they can’t do that with the player they had this year.
It makes me sick when i hear hokie nation their is no such thing the only nation is the BOSTON REDSOX NATION,even HANK STEINBRENNER of the YANKEES would not call the YANKEES NATION it’s called the YANKEE UNIVERSE. One thing i can’t stand is a copycat. Even some of my hokie friends agree with me.
#6 – Barry from Ivy is right. It’s all players and nothing to do with coaching. That’s why Alabama has been winning 3 out of every 4 National Championships for the past 20 years. Oh wait, that only happened since Saban has been there.
You know Barry I don’t think anyone here really minds that you troll here pulling for your team. By why trash another team while doing so? Maturity, or a lack thereof, has much to do with it I know. But all your doing is hurting your team’s rep here. I’ve never given GT much of a second thought, unlike say Miami (Thug U) or our rival UVa. Now thanks to you, I relish each win against the”bee stingers”, even in BB! So keep at it Barry, you’ve managed to turn a bunch of bloggers here against a team we never gave a second thought about. There’s even a poster now who calls himself “VT owns Gt”.
Hey barry! What’s this “us” stuff? Look out you are getting soft… Welcome new Hokies,
To Pa based Hokie, tell us how drew looked in hs. Thanks
Jonathan needs to bulk up, and I am sure he will, drew just looks mean! We are in for a good year, everybody’s hungry.
Looking forward to the spring game, no thunderstorms please!
Still waiting for the coaching confirmations to complete the picture.
Lighten up Bill.
Andy, what’s the hold up with the OC?
Glad to see that Drew Harris will be joining the Hokies in June. He looks like a stud. Like others, I am confused as to how the paperwork could get mishandled at VT. Isn’t there a basic checklist to be completed? Also, does anyone have details on how Drew performed at FUMA? Did he dominate?
Barry from Ivy is best ignored. Eventually he will go away when people realize that he’s not a GT graduate/student…maybe HS but that’s may also be a stretch. May be a Jacket fan but gets a trill our of upsetting posters. He needs to go to the Atlanta paper and contribute his rambling on their sites. They have a GT and GA column where he can get credible info on recruiting, game info and even may learn why GT can’t handle GA. They would eat him alive…no facts just wasting time.
I just hope the new coaches get the offense to block the guy in front of them. The rest will take care of itself. Glad Thomas is coming back. I’m sure he wasn’t happy with last season and would like to leave on a better note.
After watching Alabama run multiple offenses without an ‘identity crisis’, I come to the conclusion that having an OL that does its job will take care of a lot of ills. Really don’t care what or how many offenses the new guys run; just hit somebody. Coaches? I like who we got. New guys with different backgrounds, new blood. Experienced.
Spring practice will tell us what kind of team we will be. About 15 years ago UVA coach George Welsh was interviewed before the UVA game (The great comeback year that Tech beat UVA at UVA), and he said what made Tech tough to play was that they lined up and tried to knock you off the ball, every down. So I don’t care if we run the pistol, spread, or power I, just hit somebody.
UVA is a quality academic university, but there is a rot there that infects their football program. They get to UVA as touted recruits, have a lackluster to decent college career, then go pro and show why they were touted recruits in the first place. The reason? Heart. A recruit at VT sits on the bench until he has bought into the system, done the Gentry program in the weight room and then earned his way onto the field. At UVA, if you were highly touted, you start…period. We don’t get the best, year in and year out, but we do a heck of a lot with what we have, and in a game like college football, heart can trump talent on a given day. The difference between the top and the middle in college is often as little as a couple of inches, a few pounds, a few tenths of a second. These things can be mitigated by…you guessed it… HEART!!! Go Hokies!!!
Wake up bloggers…Barry can not possibly be a GT fan. I know the work of a Wahoo when I see it. Barry often harps on why he hates Virginia Tech and everything about it so much. Why would a Georgia Tech fan hate on Virginia Tech so much? Because the Yellow Jacket offense is so boring to watch that he hates on the Hokies? Really, Georgia Tech runs the spread option and it is dreadful to defend but only throwing 3 or 4 passes a game? You think fans like that? Do you think receivers and QB’s just line up to go to GT to get a chance to make it to the NFL? (other than Calvin Johnson, the guy is a machine and probably could have went to the NFL after high school). Barry is not a GT fan, but a UVA fan in disguise because although Georgia Tech had a fair chance at the ACC title this year, UVA did not. To honestly call himself a UVA fan here on the blog would allow all of us to poke fun at him for a decade of losses at the hands of “stupid” (quoting Barry) people at Virginia Tech.
Anyone have any details on how Drew Harris did at FUMA this past season? Stats?