Antone Exum claims he didn’t start it. The rehabbing Virginia Tech cornerback was simply responding to some Twitter trash talk  from Clemson wide receiver Sammy Watkins, a friendly back-and-forth rekindled from a month ago.

“The other day, some fans on Twitter added me and said he had posted some pictures, and one of the captions said, ‘This guy, LOL.’ I knew that it was directed at me, but he didn’t @ me in it,” Exum said. “But that still doesn’t fly. I still see it. And the fans told me about it, so I had to respond.”

No stranger to talking trash, Exum’s response — that he couldn’t help it that Watkins “signed up for the Exum Island Daycare” — went over well with the Hokies’ fans. One even Photoshopped this.

“The next day, I get on Twitter and they added me and I saw the picture and I died,” Exum said. “I was in rehab and I couldn’t even focus anymore. So I had to add him and show it to him.”

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Twitter wars aside, Exum is keeping himself busy with his rehab, which he says is ahead of schedule. Tuesday was nine weeks removed from surgery on his right knee for a torn anterior cruciate ligament, torn meniscus and bone fracture. He’s started running on an anti-gravity machine called the AlterG and on an underwater treadmill, building back strength.

Does that mean he’ll be ready for Alabama? He thinks so, although he hasn’t received an official timetable for returning to football activities.

“We’re just kind of taking it week-by-week,” he said.

He’s taken in spring practices as a spectator, trying to set up his rehab schedule so he can be present to take mental reps, usually a few steps away from defensive coordinator Bud Foster or defensive backs coach Torrian Gray.

“He’s not wasting time with his injury,” Gray said. “Mentally, he’s having a better time understanding what’s going on. That’s going to help him when he gets back.”

“It’s real difficult [to watch],” Exum said. “I try to make the most of it by just being a student of the game and getting mental reps and coaching the younger the guys. But I’m a performer, so I want to get out there and play with the guys. But it will come in time.”

Exum’s main focus has been on his rehab, though. He’s been in Blacksburg for the last three to four weeks but has another trip soon coming up to the Andrews Institute for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in Penascola, Fla., where he had the surgery done in late January by Dr. James Andrews.

Andrews has been on the cutting edge of ACL surgeries for years, bringing down the rehab time significantly.

“It’s not like 20-30 years ago when the injury was the end of guys’ careers,” Exum said. “I think just where they’re at medically and with the technology they have now, that’s what’s causing guys to come back faster than before. … It wasn’t that guy couldn’t recover. It was just the time period. It was taking a year, two, three. But now, guys can come back in months.”

Exum used to lie in bed late at night, Googling players who were coming back from ACL injuries. He stopped, though, the more he learned that all ACL tears aren’t the same. The only thing similar in Vikings running back Adrian Peterson‘s injury, for instance, is the ACL tear itself. He didn’t have the meniscus tear and bone fracture that Exum did.

Exum’s injury is actually the same one suffered by New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis (a strange coincidence, considering the title of Exum’s YouTube rap debut in November, “Revis”). Revis has worked with Brett Fischer of Fischer Sports Training in Arizona. Exum is considering doing the same, depending on where he’s at in his rehab this summer.

In the meantime, he’s focused on his work in Blacksburg, taking occasional breaks to stir things up on Twitter. Who gets more hateful tweets: defensive end James Gayle from Florida State fans or Exum from Clemson fans?

“That’s a good question,” Exum said. “Florida State fans were jumping in and talking trash to him for what I was doing with Sammy, and they don’t even have anything to do with it. I was like, ‘Where do y’all fit in this?’ But I might say Clemson, because they were coming at my head. I stood tall, though.”

Exum is holding out hope that Tech and Clemson, who don’t play in the regular season, can meet in the ACC championship game.

“I’m expecting them to throw my way at least 50 times that game if we play them,” he said.

Instead of spreading out the team’s 6 a.m. workouts this offseason, Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer lined them up in a row for the first time.

The Hokies did five straight days of conditioning drills in the wee hours of the morning and a sixth today the team had to cancel because of weather.

“I told the kids the other day, I want this to be the toughest football team we’ve ever had here at Virginia Tech,” Beamer said at a pre-spring teleconference Monday. “I just think when you sit back and evaluate, there’s something about mental toughness, physical toughness that I think is important to winning.”

Left unsaid was what that meant about last year’s team, which struggled to a 7-6 record, the Hokies’ worst in 20 years, and led to an overhaul of the offensive staff.

Now, as Tech prepares to begin spring drills Wednesday, toughness has been the buzzword of the offseason. New coach Jeff Grimes mentioned in his introductory press conference that he wanted to have the toughest offensive line in the ACC. The staff has made known its desire to get back to having a hard-nosed running game. The intensity of the offseason workouts fit in to that line of thinking.

Two players got through the five 6 a.m. workouts earning effort shirts every day — cornerback Kyle Fuller and safety Kyshoen Jarrett. The number of players who were recognized for their effort increased exponentially throughout the week, with three earning an effort shirt the first day and a record 64 on the fifth day.

“I thought the kids handled it great,” Beamer said. “I thought each day got a little bit better. Each time I thought we fought through some legs that were tired and bodies that were tired, and they fought through that great.”

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Here are a few more notes and quotes from Beamer’s pre-spring teleconference …

– Beamer has been very hands off when it comes to the new assistants. He’s let them do their work and will meet with them tomorrow to discuss how to go forward into the spring. “My management way is to let them do it,” he said. “We’ll talk if we need to, if there’s something to talk about. But basically, if it’s successful, it’s them, and if it’s not working so good, it’s them. So I think it’s much better when … it’s their offense. They’re responsible for it.”

– Other than cornerback Antone Exum, Tech has few injuries worries this spring. Beamer thinks fullback Riley Beiro (shoulder) might still be limited. Center Andrew Miller (leg/ankle) and receiver D.J. Coles (knee) participated in the 6 a.m. workouts. With all of those taking place in Rector Field House on turf, it wore on them. Miller sat out for part of the last workout, but other than, both were OK. Regarding Coles, Beamer said: “We don’t want to rush it. … Next fall is when he really needs to be ready to go full tilt.”

– Offensive tackle will be a position to watch this spring, with Nick Becton, Vinston Painter and Michael Via gone. Junior Mark Shuman will start at the No. 1 spot at left tackle, followed by redshirt freshman Augie Conte. On the right side, junior Laurence Gibson will be No. 1 going into the spring, followed by redshirt freshman Adam Taraschke. “Those are two promising young guys, I think,” Beamer said of Conte and Taraschke. “Let them battle.” Junior Nick Acree, who is coming off ACL surgery, will slide inside from tackle to guard and compete for playing time there.

– There are a few position changes of note: Center Jack Willenbrock will be a tight end. Jerome Wright and Fuller Hoepner will play fullback. And Josh Trimble and Derek DiNardo will work at whip linebacker.

– Part of Wright’s move to fullback is related to that toughness goal. He was a running back at Fork Union, so he has some skills, but at 223 pounds is big enough to block too. “I think that position is going to get some attention and probably get more involved in our offense,” Beamer said. “You know it’s not just blocking. It’s running them and getting the out on passes and so forth, so we want a good athlete, a good, tough, big athlete at that position. I think that’s going to be the change.”

– Speaking of the running game, Beamer said he definitely wants a pecking order at tailback coming out of the spring. Redshirt freshman Trey Edmunds “ is kind of right in the middle of it,” Beamer said. He said Edmunds had “a great offseason and I think he’s got a bright future.”

– It sounds like it’s possible not everybody listed as a running back will stay at running back by the time things are hashed out. “These guys that may not figure in there or see if there’s a better position for them,” Beamer said. “Again, they’re athletic, they’re usually very skilled. There’s positions for them on defense, positions for them at wide receiver. Not talking about anyone in particular, but there’s places for them to go and help the football team and help themselves. So we want to give them all a shot there, but at the end of the day, we want to know who we plan on going into next fall with and in what order they should be.”

– Those in the running for reps in Exum’s vacated cornerback spot this spring: Donovan Riley, Donaldven Manning, Der’Woun Greene, Davion Tookes, Carl Jackson, Nick Bush. Those last two are walk-ons. “I think when you give them an opportunity, sometimes they’ll work themselves right by a scholarship guy and all of a sudden they’re on scholarship,” Beamer said.

– Although they are listed as redshirt freshmen on the team’s online roster, receiver Josh Stanford and linebacker Deon Clarke have not heard back from the NCAA about their request for a medical redshirt for last season. Both played early and got hurt before the NCAA’s cut-off to apply for a medical hardship. Beamer was optimistic they would be approved for it.

– The receivers behind Coles have plenty to prove this spring. Beamer was excited about Demitri Knowles, who came on near the end of last year. He also mentioned Joel Caleb (“has had a good winter workouts”), Charley Meyer (“a hard-working athletic guy”) and E.L. Smiling (he’s “kind of a new guy right now”).

– Beamer said linebacker Tariq Edwards looks completely healthy after a lost season last year because of a leg/knee injury. “I think he’s back and he needs to be a good leader for this football team,” Beamer said. “I think he will be.”

I caught up with cornerback Antone Exum this week to talk about how his recovery is going from ACL surgery last month. Here’s how today’s newspaper story starts:

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BLACKSBURG — Fresh out of knee surgery, Antone Exum was too heavily medicated to remember the specifics, but his mom told him what happened.

Virginia Tech’s All-ACC cornerback had surgery in Pensacola, Fla., on Feb. 5 to repair the ACL, lateral and medial meniscus and a bone fracture in his right knee, a significant injury he suffered playing pickup basketball the previous week.

It was done by famed orthopedist Dr. James Andrews, a Birmingham-based doctor who is a big Alabama fan and serves as a consultant to the Crimson Tide’s medical staff.

Exum, a rising senior whose ambitious goal is to return for the Hokies’ season opener against the Crimson Tide in Atlanta on Aug. 31, couldn’t help but engage in a little friendly smack talk, despite his condition.

“[Andrews] went up to my mom and was like, ‘He’s delirious in there. All he keeps saying is how he’s going to be back for Alabama and they’re going to beat Alabama,’ ” Exum said. “So I guess that was the first thing on my mind.”

Read the entire thing here. It covers Exum’s rehab timetable and the fact that he thinks his knee was already weakened from an injury earlier last season against Cincinnati.

I couldn’t get everything into the story. Here’s some leftover stuff:

– Near the end of the story, I note that Exum said he will be getting a stem cell injection by Dr. Andrews during one of his visits to Pensacola in the next few weeks. According to this ESPN.com article from December, this method is becoming more common. Why is this so helpful? The story says “stem cells are unique in that they can become any other type of cell, including that elusive articular cartilage.” Exum said that they’ll essentially take blood cells from his hip and inject them in his knee to aid the healing process.

– Here’s an interesting line from that article that should be encouraging for Hokies fans: “Andrews has mostly employed stem cells in the deteriorated knees of football players, and virtually all of them have reported significant decreases in pain and inflammation. ‘It’s early,’ he says, ‘but the results have been remarkable.’”

– Who exactly has had this type of treatment? It’s tough to say. Andrews doesn’t advertise it, although it is believed Vikings running back Adrian Peterson had it, and his rehab time for an ACL tear last year was remarkably quick. Exum said he thinks South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore also had a stem cell injection.

– That’s not to say that Exum’s injury is as serious as Lattimore’s. Or, as he described it: “It wasn’t like a Willis McGahee or anything like that.”

– When Virginia Tech’s new assistant coaches were introduced at the end of January, Exum was joking with people in the back of the interview room, boasting about his basketball prowess. He even had a friendly back-and-forth with men’s basketball coach James Johnson about his skills. That’s when he got the urge to play some pickup hoops. “When they asked me to play, I was like, ‘Damn, I do miss playing,’” Exum said. “It was just unfortunate, I guess.”

– Exum’s heard from plenty of fans who have been quick to pass judgment on him for getting injured playing pickup basketball, although he was hardly the only Virginia Tech football player out there. “It’s always the guy who gets hurt that gets all the stupidity comments of, ‘Why were you out there doing that?’” Exum said. “And I’m like, ‘Man, there were like 15 other guys out there playing with me.’ I should have learned my lesson because Darius Redman was out there and he rolled his ankle in the game before I got hurt. And he was like, ‘Naw, I’m sitting out, man.’ I should have listened in my head then, like, ‘Man, maybe I need to get out of here too.’”

– But, he doesn’t think like that too often. It goes against his nature. “At the end of the day, we’re athletes, competitors,” Exum said. “That’s probably my biggest issue is how competitive I am. Because the game was on the line. I’m going to the rim full force. It wasn’t like I was just chilling out there just taking shots. I was really trying to win the game, which I do anytime I compete in something. And I guess I should have just taken it easy a little bit.”

– Exum’s still on crutches for now, although he can walk on his own power. “They don’t want to irritate the bone fracture,” he said. “They want to give that cartilage time to heal, so they’re keeping me on crutches so I don’t irritate that.”

– He said sophomores Donaldven Manning and Donovan Riley will be taking his reps with the first team at cornerback in the spring. “At the end of the day, it can only help us and build more for them guys to get experience like that, otherwise they wouldn’t get that experience,” Exum said. “So I’m sure the coaches will use that as an evaluation tool for some of the young guys and how they progress over the spring. Like I said, just use it as a developmental period mentally and physically.”

– If you missed Exum’s second rap video on YouTube, you can watch it here. His mom took the video of him rehabbing his knee early and getting ready for the operation.

Hokies safety Michael Cole announced yesterday that he’ll no longer play football because of the neck injury he suffered against Florida State in November.

The former Cave Spring High standout sat down with a few media folks to discuss the injury and his decision on Friday. Here’s some of what he had to say:

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Q: How hard of a decision was this to give up football?

Cole: “It’s definitely really been a hard decision. I think my family and the coaches supporting me has really helped. Their recommendations have really just led to this decision.”

Q: When you looked at the medical things involved, would it have been impossible to come back?

Cole: “Yeah. There was definitely a lot of grim circumstances, I guess, for coming back, a lot of high risk. And it was probably the best decision for my future.”

Q: Had you come to grips with this a while ago?

Cole: “Definitely when it happened it was pretty traumatic, pretty scary for myself and my family. But this decision has kind of been a process. My faith has played a huge role in it in kind of coming to terms with everything, what I’m going to do next, because football has been such a huge role in my life. But it’s definitely been a process and I’m slowly getting there in coming to terms with it.”

Q: What are you going to do with the football team next year?

Cole: “Not really sure yet, but I would definitely like to be on the medical side of things. I’ll probably talk to Mike [Goforth], our trainer, and probably the team doctor and see if I can get into something with them, because that’s kind of what I want to do later in the future.”

Q: You’re a biological sciences major. Did this pique your interest more in the medical side of things?

Cole: “I guess you could say that, yeah. Definitely talking to Mike, being able to stay with the team in this kind of aspect is exciting for me. So hopefully we can still make something work.”

Q: What was it like to not be able to play the last few games?

Cole: “It was tough. It was really tough. Because I felt like I was definitely starting to improve throughout the season. Kind of got thrown in there early, and I kind of felt like I got better as the season went on. So for me to go down like that, so sudden, it kind of hurt me mentally. Because I felt like I was improving and getting better. So to sit on the sidelines for the last three games was tough.”

Q: What happened on the play against Florida State?

Cole: “I’ve looked at the film and I don’t really see anything incredibly different. It was just a routine play, a routine tackle is what it looks like to me. But I guess just the way things happened, it didn’t really turn out the best. But that’s just the way it is, I guess.”

Q: You’ve had stingers before?

Cole: “Yeah, I’ve had a series of stingers in the past. So I guess I was battling with that. My freshman year when I first came in, I had some stinger problems. And whether that contributed or not, I’m not sure. But I’ve been doing the best I can now.”

Q: You had surgery earlier, right? 

Cole: “Yeah, I had surgery on Jan. 2 just to relieve some of the pressure. I had some nerve discomfort from the injury. [A doctor] in Roanoke did the surgery and just kind of cleaned some stuff up and I’m feeling better now. I have better range of motion and stuff. I’m kind of starting to feel back to normal a little bit.”

Q: Did you know during that surgery you wouldn’t be playing again?

Cole: “Right. Yeah. At that point I think the decision was kind of made. There were kind of two routes. I could have had that surgery or I could have had a fusion, a double-level fusion, which was really ill-advised by all the doctors and everybody. So that kind of made the decision there a little bit. So I went ahead and got this surgery done to kind of relieve some of the pain and pressure from the nerve.”

Q: Are there any long-term effects?

Cole: “That’s a possibility but that’s a possibility for anybody as they age. In football, a lot of people have problems anyways so whether this contributes to it or not, I’m not really sure. I think definitely getting this surgery hopefully will buy me some time if I do have problems. We have kind of just see.”

Q: How much will you miss football?

Cole: “Probably too much. I already miss it now and we’re not even in season. So I feel like when we start rolling around, putting the pads on in the spring or the fall, I think that’ll probably be a tough time for me. But it’s just something I have to deal with.”

Q: Can you remember a time when you weren’t playing football?

Cole: “It would go so far back. When I was like real, real little. And it’s been there ever since, so it’s definitely going to be different. It’s going to be hard. But it has to end eventually for everybody. Unfortunately, a little premature for me. But I think I’ll be OK.”

Cole said his career highlights are the interceptions he made against Clemson and Duke. The Clemson one, if you remember, was a circus catch. Here it is:

Michael Cole’s football playing days are over.

The rising sophomore Hokies safety from Cave Spring High in Roanoke, who had to be immobilized and taken to a hospital after suffering a scary neck injury in the Florida State game last November, has been advised by Virginia Tech doctors not to continue his football career, the school announced Thursday.

Cole will retire from football but remain an active part of the team on the sidelines.

“I would just like to thank coach [Frank] Beamer, coach [Bryan] Stinespring — who recruited me — and all of the coaches in making my dreams come true,” Cole said in a release from the school. “It truly has been an honor and a blessing to be led by such a highly respected group of people.

“I would also like to thank my friends and family back home and the entire Hokie Nation, which has supported me throughout my career. It pains me that I will never be able to put the pads on again for this prestigious program and university, but in spite of all this, I will forever be a Hokie.”

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Per NCAA rules, Cole qualifies for a medical disqualification and will remain on scholarship, although it does not count toward Tech’s limit of 85.

“I am disappointed that Michael Cole will no longer be playing football at Virginia Tech,” Beamer said in the release. “Good players with great character are hard to replace. I believe Michael has a great future no matter what road he decides to take.”

Cole, who turns 20 a week from Friday, was diagnosed with a cervical neck sprain during the Florida State game and did not return to the field the rest of the season. After consulting with Virginia Tech’s medical team, it was decided that surgery would give him only a minimal chance of playing football again and was a route not worth pursuing.

“The doctor basically said that the only way he would let him go back and even consider playing was to do a two-level discectomy and fusion, basically take the discs out and fuse the vertebrae,” Cole’s father, Jim Cole, said. “And that’s not done very often. They’ve done some in the NFL for one level, but two-level is almost unheard of.

“And even then, he wouldn’t know if he could do anything for about six months and it was all healed and it was fused together to see if it would even work properly. … In his situation, they just said that the risk too great, particularly for a guy that young.”

His absence is another blow for a secondary that’s been hit by injuries the last few months. Cornerback Antone Exum is out six to nine months after tearing his ACL playing pickup basketball last month. He had surgery last week.

With the Hokies light on cornerbacks last season, Cole played a significant number of snaps in the team’s nickel package. He played in 10 games, starting four, and had 43 tackles, two interceptions and a fumble recovery. He was an honorable mention Freshman All-American by CFN.com.

His season was cut short during the Thursday night game in Blacksburg against Florida State, however.

Cole stayed down at the end of a play in the third quarter, lying motionless as team trainers rushed onto the field. He was immobilized on a spine board but never lost consciousness, taken to LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, where a CT scan revealed no neck fracture. He was released from the hospital that night.

Jim Cole said Michael underwent surgery earlier this month to treat some of the symptoms from the injury — shoulder and neck pain, plus some reduced strength in his right arm. He said the successful procedure cleaned out part of the vertebrae to make more room for nerve bundles. Michael has since resumed weight lifting.

“He’ll be able to do basically everything except play contact sports,” Jim Cole said. “But anything else, it’s not going to be a problem.”