May is 2004 Recruiting Kickoff Month at TechSideline.com, and we're pleased to launch our database of 2004 recruits and start coverage of the 2004 football recruiting prospects.

We've been pretty quiet since signing day back in February, but that doesn't mean that resident recruiting analyst Chris Horne hasn't been working hard. For weeks now, Chris has been touring Virginia and neighboring states, meeting with coaches and players, shooting pictures, and collecting video.

In his travels and in talking with various sources, Chris has generated his initial list of Hokie football recruits, which can now be seen via TechSideline.com's Prospect Search page -- but don’t go there yet! There's a few things you need to know first:

• The initial TechSideline.com list of prospects for the Hokies numbers about 65 players, roughly 35 in-state and 30 out of state players.

• No players have been assigned star ratings yet. All players are listed with their star ratings "pending."

• The pre-summer TechSideline.com list of the Top 30 in-state recruits has been folded into the database, so you can see how highly-ranked the in-state recruits are. We have also included Roanoke Times and TheSabre.com Top 30 rankings in each player's profile, for comparisons.

In the coming weeks, Chris will be interviewing the prospects in our database to introduce you to them, get their early thoughts on who their favorite schools are, and find out where they're going to football camp this summer.

Upcoming big events are the Nike camp at Virginia Tech on May 17th, followed by summer football camps throughout June and July at colleges everywhere. For many prospects, this will give them their first look at some campuses and coaching staffs, and it will give the college coaching staffs their first in-person look at the recruits. Expect a lot of activity this summer in offers and verbals, as well as colleges moving up and down players' favorites lists.

And before you know it, college and high school football practices will start, and the seasons will be under way. Yes, they seem a long way away at the beginning of May, but the action will start sooner than you think. Stick with us, and we'll bring you up to speed on this year's crop of recruits, and then carry you through the fall and right into the ultra-hot recruiting months of January and February.

Along those lines, you're no doubt thinking to yourself that a list of 65 kids is nice, but you're looking for some perspective. To get you started, Chris Horne has written an excellent introductory TSL Pass article in which he breaks down the available prospects by position, who they favor in the early going, what the Hokies' needs are, and who their highest-priority targets are. Click here to read it (TSL Pass subscribers only).

For those of you who don't subscribe to TSL Pass and have never really followed recruiting before, we encourage you to jump on right now, because it's a great time to get in on the ground floor of the 2004 recruiting class and ride the roller-coaster through signing day next February. TSL Pass is only $34.95 a year, and if you're not sure you want to do it, we offer monthly ($4.95) and quarterly ($10.95) options to allow you to dip your toe in the water and see what you think.

Hey, ACC expansion aside, there's nothing else going on this summer!

To subscribe to TSL Pass, click here.

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