HokieCentral Columnists

During the 1998 football season, as the weeks wore on and things remained quiet on the Virginia Tech football recruiting front, Frank Beamer would coyly respond to questions about the state of Tech’s recruiting by simply smiling and saying, "Things are going well."

But as other schools piled up verbal commitments, Tech held steady at just two (Shawn Witten from Tennessee and Ryan Angelo from Florida), and Hokie fans were getting nervous. Was last year’s awesome recruiting haul, the best in Hokie history, just an anomaly? Had the coaching staff put together their one great class, and now things were going to return to normal?

After all, the nasty finish to 1997’s recruiting season was as fresh in Hokie fans’ minds as the great finish to 1998’s class. In 1997, Tech was putting together a solid class and was going head to head with UVa for a number of the state’s top recruits during the month of January.

As signing day approached, it seemed that every one of those Tech/UVa recruits picked the Hoos. Every one. One of them, the infamous Yubrenal Isabelle, twisted the knife even further by (reportedly) verbaling to Tech, and then backing out and choosing UVa.

The only big recruiting success that Tech was able to hang their hat on late that year came when Tyrone Robertson of GW-Danville committed to the Hokies. But Robertson’s desire to attend Tech seemed wishy-washy at best, and sure enough, he would later tank his academic standing, fail to graduate, and go to prep school instead, where he signed to play for the Georgia Bulldogs.

Although the Hokies inked a pretty solid class in 1997, the bad finish, including getting pummeled by UVa in-state, left a bad taste in the mouth of most Hokies. Many fans started to panic, as it seemed that two straight Alliance Bowl appearances had done nothing to enhance Tech’s recruiting profile.

1998 was the exact polar opposite of 1997. That recruiting class is now legendary. It started out strong and finished with a spectacular flourish, as Tech got commitments from Jake Houseright, Lee Suggs, and Michael Vick in the eleventh hour.

But, going into 1999, the question was, which year was more indicative of Tech football recruiting? 1997? 1998? Or somewhere in between?

As I mentioned, this year’s recruiting class got off to a slow start. Tech received two verbals early from Witten and Angelo, but then things ground to a halt and got eerily quiet. Meanwhile, although they weren’t receiving verbals from in-state players, UVa was doing well out of state, and Tech fans started to fear that a Wahoo recruiting class that was building momentum would convince many Virginia high school players to go to Charlottesville.

But Frank Beamer seemed calm, and in January, he pulled a very public maneuver that may have done more good for Tech’s recruiting than the six straight bowl games the Hokies have gone to. Namely, Beamer let himself be courted by Clemson and South Carolina in a show that played out very openly in the sports pages across the state of Virginia.

As Hokie fans groused that their beloved coach was killing an already somnambulant recruiting year with his antics, Beamer played his hand. He turned down the Clemson job with a statement that it was the last college job he would ever even consider, and that Blacksburg was where he wanted to finish his college coaching career.

The stampede of verbal commitments started immediately. Frank Beamer may be a good ole country boy, but he’s not dumb. In retrospect, I think he knew all along what he was doing. His gambit paid off in a flood of verbals that came so fast they were impossible to track, and Hokie fans suddenly had a new point of concern: did Tech have enough scholarships available for all of these kids?

The Hokies also began to pound the UVa Cavaliers in the in-state recruiting wars, receiving a string of verbals from players who also had the Hoos on their list. UVa managed to steal a couple away from Tech, R.C. Cosby and Jerton Evans, but Tech returned the favor by snagging Thomas Woodley, Keith Willis, Nathaniel Adibi, and Andrae Harrison, all four of whom were ranked in Doug Doughty’s top 10, higher than Cosby and Evans.

Also of note, and no doubt a big contributor to this success: along the way, Tech successfully saved their great defensive coordinator, Bud Foster, from the clutches of the Florida Gators, whereas UVa summarily dismissed their great offensive coordinator, Sparky Woods, allowing him to go to Mississippi State. The timing of both moves, and the messages it sent to the kids who were being recruited, didn’t escape notice, and I think it cost UVa.

For the second straight year, the Hokies won the in-state war over UVa, and this year, it wasn’t even close. 1998 was arguably close, but 1999 was no contest.

The In-State Results: Number of Players Signed
Player Ranking	Tech	UVa
1-5	1	1
6-10	3	0
11-20	3	2
21-25	2	1
Top 10	4	1
Top 25	9	4

Fortunately (for them), the Cavaliers did very well out of state, saving what otherwise would have been a terrible recruiting year for them. But you’ve got to figure that losing the in-state battle two years in a row will have an effect on this on-the-field rivalry in the coming years.

All of this recruiting success, and the unexpectedly huge class in a year where Tech didn’t have nearly that many scholarships to give, begs the question: is it time to raise the bar in recruiting?

Without naming names, I will bluntly say that this year’s class has a lot of "projects" in it. That’s typical for Tech recruiting classes, and we do well with those kids, but when we’re signing the almost maximum number of recruits, 25, and it’s causing us scholarship numbers problems, perhaps its time to consider pursuing more highly rated players, and leaving some of the projects alone.

If it’s time for that, then the coaching staff needs to be careful, because if you aim too high, you may wind up overestimating whom you can get, and you end up looking silly when nobody signs with you.

I think UVa went through this struggle last year, and I think they raised the bar too high, too early. When Tech topped them on a number of late recruits in 1998, the Hoos had no backup plan, and they wound up only signing something like 14 players, when they had many more scholarships available.

Although they got some good players last year, they didn’t sign very many, and I can’t help but think that a relatively thin senior class will haunt them a few years from now, when those kids are supposed to carry the team.

So, while I advocate aiming for a higher standard, I certainly understand that it must be done carefully, slowly, and with great thought. But when we start beating out the likes of Michigan (for Deon Provitt and Keith Willis), Notre Dame (Garnell Wilds), and Penn State (Adibi and Woodley) for recruits, it’s time to think hard about it.

The scary thing is, one report said that every one of the players Tech signed this year was on their "A" list. There was no settling at the end, no signing of last minute recruits who otherwise would have gone to William and Mary or JMU. Ironically, shortly after losing Farrior and Jones, UVa signed Doug Doughty's "sleeper of the year," which used to be the sort of thing Tech would do. My, how things have changed.

One comment: if everyone on the "A" list is signing up, it’s time to make up an "A+" list and go with that.

Without a doubt, the thing that was most troubling about the 1996 and 1997 recruiting classes was the fact that Tech’s appearances in the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl didn’t appear to be paying off on the recruiting front. The Hokies were playing in the highest level bowl games, but yet, the recruiting classes didn’t show a similar jump in quality.

This makes sense. While I was never naïve enough to assume that success on the field would immediately translate into recruiting success, many people didn’t understand why recruits weren’t falling at the feet of the mighty Hokies, the Big East and Sugar Bowl champions.

The fact is, there are many facets to recruiting and a player’s decision to attend a certain school, and success on the field is just one small part of the puzzle. And success on the field is one of the slowest developing pieces of that puzzle.

It takes years of winning to build a fan base, and likewise, an impression in young kid’s minds. The kids that we were recruiting in 1996 and 1997 weren’t used to the thought of the Hokies as a perennial bowl team and conference champion.

In the state of Virginia, for example, many of our targets a few years ago were ten or eleven years old when UVa was ranked number one in the country in the fall of 1990. That no doubt made an impression on the kids of that age, and as they grew up, they were used to thinking of UVa as a successful team, not Virginia Tech.

The Hokies have now been to six straight bowls, so the high school pipelines are finally getting flushed clean of kids who remember 1992, when Tech was only 2-8-1. Today’s high-schooler is used to thinking of the Hokies as a successful team, because the Hokies have been going bowling since these kids were the impressionable ages of 10-12.

That impression of a successful football program is finally starting to pay dividends. Many kids growing up in the state today don’t even have vague memories of UVa’s 1990 Sugar Bowl season, and they no longer perceive UVa as the place to play football in the state of Virginia.

And when players visit Tech and get to see the program up close, the results are no longer disappointing. Tech’s facilities used to be a joke, but the Merryman Center changed all that. Now, when recruits visit, the perception of a program dressed for success holds up under close scrutiny.

Of course, we still have miles to go where facilities are concerned, and with UVa’s new stadium improvements in the works, Tech will lose ground in that area until we can catch up. This spring, the addition of 4000-5000 seats in the North (Cassell) end zone will make Lane Stadium a little more "big-time," and that will help, until later improvements like a Jumbotron, luxury boxes, and additional seats can be built to impress the recruits.

Add the on-field success and improving facilities to a coaching staff that is increasingly becoming embedded in Blacksburg, and you have the recipe for success.

As for conference affiliation, we may never overcome the advantage of perception and media coverage that the ACC and SEC have over the Big East in our area, and it will continue to be a hindrance to us, as the Big East’s TV air time and image suffer under its buffoonish commissioner, Mike Tranghese.

Tech’s recruiting will become more national in nature as time goes on, and the Hokies will be able to compete for better out of state talent in the coming years. Conference championships, lofty national rankings, and an improving out of conference schedule will help there.

For reference, we need only look again to our in-state neighbors in Charlottesville to see what years of playing good out of conference games have done for their national image. When UVa played Michigan, Texas, and Auburn on national TV over the last four seasons, it cost them some losses on the field but vastly improved their national image off the field.

That national presence, which I admit isn’t solely attributable to their out of conference games, contributed to their good out-of-state recruiting year this year. It was an effort that saved them from a pure recruiting disaster.

Why are Hokie fans so enthusiastic about this recruiting class? After all, like most Tech classes, it isn’t even rated in the top 30 by most "experts," and one recruiting analyst even placed this class in the mid-50’s (sure, it was prior to Harrison’s commitment, but even so, that’s just ludicrous).

So why so excited? Because, on paper, this class is better than the classes that won two Big East championships in 1995 and 1996. As the old line goes, if the Hokie coaching staff was able to mold more lightly-regarded classes into champions, what do you think they’ll be able to do with this year’s class, when combined with last year’s?

Besides, Tech has always been able to do well with "solid" classes peppered with just a few superstars. For example, the 1995 defense only featured one true high school superstar, Cornell Brown. Sure, we had tons of NFL-caliber players on that defense, but at the time those players were recruited, only one of them - Cornell - was perceived as a superstar. And indeed, Cornell’s dominating presence at one end of the defensive line helped make that defense what it was.

This year’s "superstars" are Harrison, Adibi, and Willis. If only one or two of those guys goes on to be a star in college, it will be enough, when combined with the rest of the class, for the Tech coaches to mold a championship team. I truly believe that, and most Hokie fans do, as well. That’s why we love this class, particularly on the heels of last year’s class.

But beyond that, for the second year in a row, the character of the kids we’re recruiting is phenomenal. Adibi, for instance, is an aspiring engineer and the son of a college professor. Tech is no longer recruiting marginal kids in the hopes that they’ll keep their nose clean while they contribute on the playing field.

There may be a bad apple here or there in this class, but as a group, they seem to be a classy, well-grounded bunch, just like last year’s class. As painful as the lessons of 1996’s off-field troubles were, they have served the coaching staff well, as they strive to recruit good football players who are good students and good people, as well.

Most Pivotal Recruit: Nathaniel Adibi. After next season, the Hokies lose defensive ends Corey Moore and John Engelberger, and if Adibi lives up to his rating and hype, he will provide a much-needed superstar at the DE position. At defensive tackle, the Hokies can replace Carl Bradley and Nat Williams with Chad Beasley and David Pugh, but there didn’t appear to be an heir apparent at the defensive end position until Adibi signed.

Adibi's recruitment reminds me of the recruitment of Courtney Brown, a high school All-American from South Carolina a few years back. In the end, it came down to Penn State and Tech, and PSU won. Brown started early for PSU and is having a good career for the Nitanny Lions.

Now, it's three years later, and this time, in the recruiting of Adibi, it once again came down to PSU and Tech, but this time, the Hokies won. It's worth noting that Penn State was completely shut out in the state of Virginia this year, a rare occurrence.

Biggest Potential Waste of Talent: Keith Willis. What do I mean by this? Namely, if the highly-regarded two-sport star Willis plays tight end for Tech, and Tech’s philosophy of not throwing to the tight end doesn’t change, his football career will be a stone-cold waste. He may wind up contributing more on the basketball court for the Hokies than on the football field, unless something changes in the Tech offensive scheme.

Sleeper: Shawn Witten. The Hokies got a verbal from Witten early last fall, and he went on to have a monster senior year. He is a phenomenally talented athlete who can play any number of positions, but the biggest reason I have named him sleeper of the year is that he was recruited by Charlie Wiles. Charlie was responsible for recruiting another famous Hokie "sleeper," some guy named Corey Moore. Charlie knows how to pick ‘em.

Most Hyped Player: Andrae Harrison. Harrison has a lot to live up to. He is expected to contribute as a true freshman (ask Emmet Johnson how tough that is), and to team up with Michael Vick to torch Hokie opponents for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns per game. Good luck living up to that, Andrae.

Best Recruiter: Coach Jim Cavanaugh. In the last two years, Cavanaugh has inked Michael Vick, Andrae Harrison, and Nathaniel Adibi, among others (I don’t have the time to research who else he has signed, but I think he was responsible for Marlan Hicks, also). He has helped resuscitate Tech recruiting in Eastern Virginia, and is responsible for getting the first recruit from Phoebus (Adibi) to sign with the Hokies in fourteen years.

Players to Watch (besides the obvious): Woodley, Buie, Witten, Wilds, and Provitt.

Boy, if you're a Tech signee, you don’t want to be named my favorite recruit. It’s the kiss of death, or at least, misfortune. Here’s the history of the award:

In 1996, I named FB/LB Jeremy Kishbaugh from Berwick, PA as my favorite recruit. Kishbaugh tore up his knee his senior year in high school and disappeared. I was never able to get a straight answer as to what happened to him. He either couldn’t rehab the knee, or he got homesick for his girlfriend, and I’m not sure he ever even enrolled at Tech.

In 1997, I named Camm Jackson, a linebacker from Amherst High as my favorite. Camm injured his knee during freshman drills, struggled with rehab, and dropped out of school.

In 1998, I refused to name a favorite, but I think it was obvious that Jake (Brick) Houseright made me swoon. House injured his knee in fall practice (I think there’s a pattern developing here) and was later switched to fullback, where he, in my opinion, wasted a year on special teams and offense. Hey, you gotta give Houseright credit - at least he made it beyond his first year, which is more than Kishbaugh and Jackson can say.

So, with all due apologies to the "lucky" recruit, my favorite 1999 recruit is … Shawn Witten. Godspeed, Shawn, and good luck with the knees.

I don’t know what it is about Witten, but he just intrigues me. I think he is a forgotten recruit of sorts, who would have drawn major interest from SEC schools, if he hadn’t committed to Tech so early (call it the Grant Noel effect).

Without surfing all over the web, I can give you an idea of how Tech's main competition - the other Big East schools and UVa - did in recruiting.

One ranking that I found, by Bobby Burton for ESPN.com, actually ranked the Hokies' class in the top 25, at number 21. Burton also included other Big East teams and UVa as follows:

Although this is only one set of rankings, it jives with everything else I've been hearing. Miami in particular is having a stellar year, ensuring that the increasingly bitter rivalry between the Hokies and the Canes will continue to ratchet up in intensity and quality of play for years to come.

As a matter of fact, Tech lost one verbal commitment, defensive lineman Larry Anderson from Florida, to the Canes on signing day. This wasn't a surprise, because it seemed all along that Anderson's commitment to Tech was tenuous, and that he really wanted to go to Miami. When the Canes came through with a last-minute scholarship offer, Anderson went with his heart and inked with the Canes.

Frankly, I'm glad. The yearly games with Miami are all-out wars, and I don't want any of our Hokie soldiers going into them half-heartedly. If Anderson really wants to be at Miami, then by all means, I'm glad he's there.

Anderson, by the way, was one of two verbals who reneged on the Hokies. The other was defensive lineman Colin Cole, who eventually settled on Iowa as his destination.

I'm happy with this class. I'd like to see Tech continue to improve their recruiting, and to challenge for the national championship, we need to recruit more, more, and even more all-Americans, but I think our classes are coming along nicely.

After struggling and playing second fiddle to UVa for years, Tech has finally established an excellent in-state recruiting presence. The Tech coaches get along with many of the best high school coaches in the state, and the continuity in the Tech staff is paying big rewards. The Hokies have some great recruiters on staff.

If I was UVa, despite the out-of-state success, I'd be seriously worried. This was supposed to be UVa's year, because there were a ton of UVa "legacies" in-state. Almost none of them panned out, and the Hoos wound up with serious egg on their face when Julius Jones and Matt Farrior, the #2 and #3 players in the state and the brothers of former and current UVa players, went elsewhere. Jones signed with Notre Dame and Farrior signed with Florida.

It will be interesting to see if UVa can recover, or if Virginia Tech is now the top dog in in-state recruiting (other schools, such as UNC, routinely snag large portions of the top 25 recruits from the state, but I'm talking about the Tech/UVa battle here).

The progression of recruiting has been nice over the last four years, 1996-1999, after a somewhat disastrous 1995. Now, if the Hokies can continue to improve in recruiting, yearly Big East championships and trips to Alliance Bowls are in the cards.