Recruiting territories set for Hokies’ coaching staff
Virginia Tech managed to hold its 2013 class together despite a coaching staff shakeup only a few weeks before signing day, not losing a single recruit to a de-commitment through the process.
Now that the 2013 class is in the fold, the Hokies have assigned recruiting zones for their new coaches, giving some of the previous coaches new territories as well.
Recruiting coordinator Bryan Stinespring broke it down on National Signing Day for each coach. Here’s the new setup:
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– Shane Beamer: He’ll remain in Richmond but he’ll also add Charlotte, N.C., to his duties.
– Cornell Brown: He takes over in the Peninsula side in the 757, replacing Curt Newsome. Brown will work up to the Williamsburg area, where he and Shane will divide schools. He’ll continue to recruit Lynchburg and do spot recruiting in New Jersey.
– Bud Foster: His area in Northern Virginia remains the same.
– Torrian Gray: He’ll work Northern Virginia, but will also continue to do work in Georgia and Florida.
– Stinespring: He has the biggest area in the state to cover, taking the Tidewater, which will include all of Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk. He’ll work across 58 to Halifax County and into Martinsville and Roanoke.
– Charley Wiles: He’ll have Southwest Virginia and add the Greensboro/Raleigh areas to the places in North Carolina that he already recruited. He’ll also continue to do spot recruiting in Florida.
– Aaron Moorehead: He’ll start in the Maryland/Washington, D.C., area and work down the 66 corridor into Winchester. Since he’s from Chicago, he’ll work some of his Midwest ties as well.
– Jeff Grimes: His state area will be the 81 corridor, from Lexington up to Winchester, where he’ll meet up with Moorehead. He’ll also recruit Eastern Pennsylvania. Additionally, he’ll work prep school in and out of state. If there’s an offensive lineman, Grimes will be involved with his recruitment, regardless of where he’s from.
– Scot Loeffler: He’ll stay close to home in the New River Valley. “I think as a coordinator, as a guy who’s been in that spot, if you have that in-season recruiting area, it’s easy access to get back and forth on a Friday,” Stinespring said. Loeffler will also do work in Western Pennsylvania, close to where he’s from and a spot he’s recruited before. He’ll also spot recruit quarterbacks, something he’s already started doing, building relationships with a pair of 2014 pro-style prospects — Jacob Park of Goose Creek, S.C., (whom he recruited at Auburn) and David Cornwell of Norman, Okla.
Stinespring maintained that this isn’t much of a departure for the Hokies. Frank Beamer, in fact, reiterated during the press conference that Tech still will use the six-hour radius from Blacksburg as a guideline for its recruiting reach.
“We want to really centralize our efforts in the state of Virginia, Maryland, D.C., Pennsylvania, North Carolina. But not just strictly,” Stinespring said. “That’s going to be our primary focus, then we need to have the means to still expand recruiting without just getting all over the place. Use the familiarity that we have within our own staff and then let it become advantageous, but stay on a point-specific design of what spot recruiting is.”
He defined spot recruiting as going out of that six-hour zone for players worth pursuing because they are just that good, at a position of need or have some sort of tie (perhaps a legacy or a connection to a coach) that would give the Hokies a good chance.
“I think it’s an adjustment,” Stinespring said about Tech’s approach. “I don’t know how much of a change.”
February 10, 2013 - 12:14 AM
Losing O’Cain, Sherman, and Newsome was not going to lose recruits, in fact it will help gain recruits in the future.
Let’s go Hokies !!!
I will recruit Hawaii if they need me to!
Unlike some of the usual suspects among the posters, I don’t disagree with the 6-hour radius concept. Its much harder to lure kids any farther than that and they tend to be the ones who change their minds at the last minute. Spot recruiting makes the most sense outside the bubble. Maybe something was left unsaid in the public announcement, but I’d think that there would be some good players who’d give Tech a serious look in eastern KY and TN, both within 6 hours. Especially the 81 corridor all the way to UT’s Knoxville. Anyone who didn’t know any better would think that Tech and Tenn were huge rivals as the letters T and VT are all over the 81 corridor (Roanoke to east Tennessee) on buildings and bumpers. Playing UT would open up lots recruiting possibilities but UT seems totally uninterested.
They need to recruit OL and DL nationwide. That is probably the least available specialty group. Wherever there is a four or five star OL or DL, we should at least have a presence. Should never lose one in-state.
As Mr. Loco said, half of Tenn. is within the six hour bubble.
A lot of good kids come out of the Upper East Tennessee region.
Tech would do well to pay more attention to this area.
West Va. turns out some pretty tough players also.
Oh, and the WVA boys arent’t bad either, he he!
I agree that Tenn. and Kentucy should be on our radar. It seems like Shane would do some recruiting in the South Carolina/Georgia area. Beating a high profile SEC team in a BSC bowl game should help our cause in that area.
Andy, how does Frank Beamer fit in the recruiting tour. Is he just used as needed for the high end recruits?
Rob, Loco, you need to look at the UT roster for the last dozen years. UT doesn’t pull a lot from the East Tennessee area, that which would fall in VT’s 6 hour radius.
If a kid lives in Knoxville, and UT has interest, we might as well go buy a lottery ticket. That’s where they get most of their East Tennessee recruits. UT recruits nationally, or a broader region than Tech does, because Tennessee football, high school wise, just isn’t that strong. NOVA and Tidewater provide two areas that are prime to Tech – you don’t need to expand to the west (toward Knoxville), because SWVa football is really weak. The best UT has done in East Tennessee was Jason Witten, and we got his brother first, a good player in his own right.
Voice of Reason, the head coach can only make but so many home visits, so yes, the head coach is used to close deals. The head coach never has a “territory.”
I can always find overlooked late bloomers in Texas. Call me! Email me! They recruit so early around here that they miss the kids who develop that last year.
For Cornell Brown, one school on the Peninsula that gets overlooked is Woodside. They usually have some big boys on that squad. To me, Woodside is a sleeping giant!
Virginia is loaded with talent but not in all areas like OL for instance. For OL at least VT should’ve scrapped the whole 6 hour radius philosophy and done it a long time ago. If you’re talking about neighboring states that are neglected how about North Carolina. VT could do a lot better in a very talented state. I don’t know what a couple of you’re talking about Tennessee for. It doesn’t produce many good players at all
#7:
“SWVa football is really weak”
Tommy Francisco
Carroll Dale
Paul Adams
Jake Houseright
Neal McMeans
Justin Hamilton
All from West of Wytheville.
Yeah SW Va. is pretty weak.
#7 Rick H, I agree with you on the lack of return on effort that would come from recruiting eastern Tennessee. That are is so overwhelmingly UT Vol-centric it would be a lottery pick to get talent out of there. The time & effort is much better expended elsewhere.
As to the exceptions someone else made to your SWVA comment, I notice he had to go back 50 years to list 6 notable players. That kind of makes your point for you. Yes, there is talent in far SW Va, but it is much more sparse than in the talent rich spots of the 757, Richmond, & NoVa areas. Much more. That’s not an insult, it’s just the numbers.
The strategy seems to make sense to me, as I’ve mentioned on here previously, especially the part of position specific recruiting for Loeffler & Grimes. I also think the most notable exceptions to the ‘six hour rule’ should be QB’s, OL, & DL.
I agree that we do not want to lose the top notch players from in-state. However, to be a top 5 team we need to pursue more Florida and Texas areas. To me it seems odd that WVU gets alot of talent from Florida. Why would they want to go to Morgantown? Maybe its the type of offense they run, but I would hope VT could outrecruit WVU.
Rob,
You forgot Ahmad Bradshaw from Bluefield. Not sure who the guys in your list are.
@11, Rob, come on, you are spanning DECADES of recruiting SWVa. Tech can pull that many, or even better, in one class from Tidewater, and, you are pulling some pretty weak names, outside of Dale, Houseright, and Francisco. Let’s put together one class from Tidewater, or even NOVA, and you get bigger output than those, in one year. Don’t cherry pick on this. Population drives opportunity, and the population of NOVA and TW are far greater than SWVa.
Population is important, but you can’t ignore parts of the state. A big part of recruiting is relationships. You build those over time. You can’t just pop in once every 10-15 years, when remote high schools have a legit D-I prospect. You do that groundwork over time. That’s really the biggest thing Beamer has going for him in recruiting.
Adding Charlotte to Shane’s territory is a smart move, this would ensure the hot dog market would be greatly enhanced. The guy is a salesman, as I told you people earlier, I never liked hot dogs until Shane sold me on those convenience store brands. Did y’all notice those GT Yellow Jackets putting the whup on the Hokies basketball team? It is going to be a good year down South.
The original point #7 Rick H made was that it’s a waste of time trying to recruit East Tennessee. Folks can go back and re-read to understand. He then said that the recruiting in SW Va was weak (compared to so many other regions in Va). Thus, with the neighboring Va territory not a Hokie stronghold for talent, there’s no influence to get Tennessee recruits, even though the distance is half that from the 757. Hugely strong UTenn influence, weak Hokie influence hurt further by sparse talent from SW Va. He never said – don’t recruit SW Va. He said – you can’t convert east Tenn. He’s right. The time and effort in east Tenn would be better spent with Hokie coaches trying to prevent so many 4/5 star recruits from leaving our stronghold regions.
Andy, @15, your comments are really more about ‘targeted’ recruiting.
Crooked’s post pretty much sums it up.
You can’t necessarily recruit SWVa with a lot of emphasis, because the numbers are not there. It is a waste of time. It is a bunch of VHSL A schools. There are more targets in a single Tidewater school than all of the schools west of Roanoke, in Virginia.
Its like kids from NE Tennessee, if UT wants them, they’ll be Vols, and if kids from SWVa are wanted by VT, they’ll likely be Hokies. You truly recruit areas where there is some differential in choices.
In Tidewater and NOVA, schools like UVA, PSU, UNC and a couple others are close competition, but west of Blacksburg, in Virginia, Tech has what it wants, if it wants it, for the most part.
For UT, in NE Tenn, and VT, in SWVa, it is like fishing in a barrel – problem is, it is a very, very small barrel.