Three years ago, we ran an article about VT's assistant coaches, their recruiting territories, and the players each coach had signed from 1998-2000. In the year 2003, now with twice as much data to work from, we strive to answer the question: Who is Virginia Tech's Top Gun recruiter?

Back in March of 2000, James Arthur, who has since moved on to become the BeamerBall.com webhost, wrote an article for TSL (then called HokieCentral.com) by the title VT Coaches Recruiting Territories and Their Individual Successes Over the Past Three Years -- a wordy title, yes, but one that fit the article perfectly.

James broke down the recruiting territories for each of VT's nine assistant coaches at the time, and then he listed the players in the three recruiting classes from 1998-2000, and the coach who signed them. At the end, James tallied up the score and found out that in terms of number of players signed, Charley Wiles (13 players) edged out Jim Cavanaugh (12), Rickey Bustle (11), and Bryan Stinespring (10). All other coaches were far behind that prolific quartet.

It's now a few weeks after Signing Day 2003, and we're going to revisit James' numbers and add the three classes from 2001-2003 into the mix. This time, we'll shift the focus from talking about recruiting territories to getting right down to the nitty-gritty and naming Virginia Tech's Top Gun recruiter.

I will not only go on the sheer number of players signed, but I'll also consider quality of players signed. I'm going to go against my usual numbers-driven tendencies and instead go with a subjective rating in naming the coach that I feel is VT's Top Gun recruiter. The numbers will enter into it -- Bud Foster and Billy Hite, for example, don't have a prayer in this competition, since they have only signed seven and six players, respectively, in the last six years -- but I'll go beyond the numbers and apply a fudge-factor for my final verdict.

Is it fair to judge the success of a recruiter based on what players do after they enroll at VT? You can argue no -- Jim Cavanaugh recruited Michael Vick, for example, but he didn't coach him, he didn't lift weights for Michael Vick, he didn't study film for him, and he didn't bless him with inhuman speed and arm strength.

But you can bet Cavanaugh's resume, if he's even got one made up, has a line item on it that says, "Recruited Michael Vick to Virginia Tech."

But you can also argue that recruiters are judges of talent and potential, and at any time, they can suggest that Virginia Tech back off a player, or push harder for a player. So from that standpoint, yes, it is fair to judge a recruiter on what his players do after they enroll. Because the recruiter is on the front lines and is the first judge of talent and potential.

Sources of Data

For signings from 1998-2000, we'll use the data in James' article. James combed old Hokie Huddlers, newspapers and VT football media guides for his info. For the 2001-2003 info, we have a much more compact, more rock-solid source: BeamerBall.com, which has listed recruiting coaches for every player signed for those three years.

Some Caveats

First of all, while a coach's personality, drive, and sheer hard work enter into the picture greatly when it comes to getting recruits to sign on the dotted line, coaches can be limited by their respective recruiting areas. An assistant coach might be a great recruiter, but if he recruits a dead area that simply doesn't produce many VT-quality players, then he won't sign many kids.

By the same token, VT's best recruiters -- Charley Wiles, Bryan Stinespring, and Jim Cavanaugh, plus the departed Rickey Bustle -- are given Tech's most fertile recruiting grounds: Florida, Hampton, Newport News, Chesapeake, and others. So their "success" in signing a lot of kids is a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are more good players in those areas, and VT recruits Virginia and Florida harder than other states, by order of the big man (Coach Beamer).

On the other hand, the Hokies rarely hit North Carolina, New Jersey, and Kentucky for players, so the coaches who are assigned those areas won't be given much opportunity to show their stuff.

Secondly, many of VT's coaches haven't been here the entire time period from 1998-2003. Here's a breakdown of the coaches involved in VT recruiting over that time span, and the years they actively recruited for VT:

The table is organized in such a way that you can see who replaced whom. Kevin Rogers replaced Rickey Bustle as QB coach; Danny Pearman came in to coach the tight ends when OL coach J.B. Grimes left; Tony Ball replaced Terry Strock as wide receivers coach; and Lorenzo Ward replaced Lou West as defensive backs coach.

Note that in the case of Rickey Bustle leaving in the month prior to Signing Day 2002, he receives credit for the players he was recruiting at the time: Chris Burnett, Nic Schmitt, and Brian McPherson. Burnett's recruiting was closed out by Charley Wiles, Schmitt's recruiting was closed out by Danny Pearman, and McPherson's recruiting was finished off by Lorenzo Ward, but note that all three players verbaled while Bustle was still at VT.

Also note that since Terry Strock and J.B. Grimes did not recruit any players for the 1998 signing class, those two coaches will be dropped from this analysis and will not be mentioned in the remainder of this article.

Drum Roll, Please ...

Without further ado, here are the numbers for each coach, listed by most prolific recruiter first:

Sorted a different way, here are VT's most prolific recruiters in terms of players signed per year:

Having overwhelmed you with numbers and names, let's trim things down a little bit. Since the purpose of this article is to name VT's Top Gun recruiter, let's jettison guys who aren't on the staff any longer: Rickey Bustle (a prolific recruiter who was very hit-or-miss; he recruited some superstars -- Lee Suggs comes to mind -- but also whiffed on a ton of recruits -- like Ryan Angelo and Jason Davis) and Lou West.

Let's also, sadly, throw out Coach Rogers. With four players signed in 2003, he shows promise as a recruiter, but he's hard to evaluate at this point, since he has only recruited for VT for one year. Every other coach on our list has at least four years under his belt.

That knocks us down to eight coaches. Let's present the data in a different way.

More interesting stuff: the "total players" and "players per year" rankings track almost exactly with each other. The only difference in the two rankings is that Ball and Ward flip-flop in the 4 and 5 spots.

It's pretty clear, though, that no matter what numerical measurement you take, Jim Cavanaugh, Charley Wiles, and Bryan Stinespring are 1-2-3, and in a class by themselves.

Cavanaugh is number one in the numerical measurements, beating out Wiles and Stinespring narrowly. Let's move on to the subjective measures.

Naming the Top Gun

Those are the straight numbers. Once you start looking at individual players, we can make our minds up about who's the Top Gun Recruiter among the trio of Cavanaugh, Wiles, and Stinespring.

This is where things get sticky, and we veer off from numbers into opinions. First, I'm going to name the top "proven" players each coach has recruited -- these will consist mostly of guys who have finished their Tech careers or who have one or two years to go but have made significant contributions.

Then I'm going to name players "with potential" that are still in the early part of their VT careers but appear to have good potential and are developing nicely. In the case of players already in the program, this will consist of guys who have done well in the first year or two or three, have moved up the depth chart, and are generating "buzz." In the case of brand-new recruits, this will consist, I admit, of the most highly-rated and highly-hyped guys, though none of that will matter once they enroll.

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to name "busts" or "wash-outs," particularly if a player is still in the program. It's safe, for example, to call departed players like Jason Davis and Ryan Angelo "busts," but I'm not going to label players who are still in the program.

So let's break down the "proven players" and "players with potential" for Cavanaugh, Wiles, and Stinespring. Remember, this is my opinion.  You might think players that I'm going to list don't belong in the category I put them in, or don't even belong in either category. And you may think I've deleted players who ought to be listed.

I see the name Michael Vick.

Yes, Jim Cavanaugh's got the Mack Daddy of all recruits listed next to his name. He's also got (soon to be) four-year starter Nathaniel Adibi, record-setting receiver Ernest Wilford, current starting QB Bryan Randall, and a good, long-term contributor in defensive end Jim Davis.

In the "potential" column, Cavanaugh's got some guys who are already working their way into the starting lineups and could be stars as early as next year. You can even argue that some of them should be moved to the "proven players" column: the Lewis brothers and FS Jimmy Williams, most notably. And in Chris Ellis, Xavier Adibi, and Duane Brown, Cavanaugh signed some highly-rated kids.

And I see the name Marcus Vick, too. 'Nuff said about Cavanaugh.

Charley Wiles' list of proven players is a little longer than Cavanaugh's, but there aren't any show-stoppers there, no record-setters like Vick or Wilford. Wiles has helped fill the team with a solid group of contributors like Jake Houseright (sure could have used him in 2002), Cols Colas (arguably the best DE on Tech's team right now), Shawn Witten, and Eric Green.

Under "Players With Potential," Wiles has some guys who can really establish him as a recruiter of quality players, not just quantity players. Guys like Justin Hamilton, DT Jimmy Williams, James Griffin, David Clowney, and Michael Brown could really add some shine to Wiles' rep as a recruiter.

Bryan Stinespring boasts some good ones, too. DeAngelo Hall is his best, I think. Ronyell Whitaker, regardless of his mistakes over the years, was named a third-team All-American after his junior season and contributed a lot over the years. Emmett Johnson and Anthony Davis were both long-time contributors throughout their careers. Vegas Robinson and Keith Willis teeter between "Proven" and "Potential," but both have spent significant time as starters, and I think Vegas's best year is ahead of him this coming fall.

In the "Potential" column for Stinespring, Aaron Rouse appears primed for stardom, and any one of the other players listed could turn into good ones as well, particularly Vince Hall. Outside of those two guys, Cedric Humes, Robert Parker, and Josh Hyman all have the best chance, I think, of enhancing Stinespring's recruiting resume.

The Top Gun

I don't think there is any question that Jim Cavanaugh is Virginia Tech's Top Gun recruiter. He's the most prolific in terms of sheer numbers, and he has also landed some seriously productive players, guys who have contributed in major ways for long periods of time.

Cavanaugh is a fierce competitor who takes recruiting personally. He has been rumored to, uh, not take losing a recruit lying down. He's had his misses -- losing Michael Robinson to Penn State was a big blow recently -- but more often than not, Cavanaugh gets his man. He's one of the main reasons -- Stinespring being the other -- that VT signs more in-state players than any other school.

Cavanaugh speaks emotionally and passionately about recruiting, and for a 54-year-old man who should be winding down, there are no signs of a letup from "Coach Cav." His frank, brutal style works with the recruits, so although he's not young and hip, at least recruits and their families know where they stand with Cavanaugh.

Stinespring and Wiles are good, as was the departed Rickey Bustle, but in my mind, Jim Cavanaugh is the Top Gun on VT's staff.

Send me your thoughts to [email protected]. 

The Data

You can download the list of recruits signed by VT over the last six years, and their recruiting coaches, as a Microsoft Excel 97 spreadsheet, or an HTML page.

The spreadsheet is available for download at the following location (Microsoft Excel 97 compatible):

http://subscription.techsideline.com/tslpass/2003/vtrecruitingcoaches.xls

To load the spreadsheet in your browser, left-click the link. To save it to hard disk, right-click the link and select "Save Target As�"

To view the list as an HTML (Web) page, go here:

http://subscription.techsideline.com/tslpass/2003/vtrecruitingcoaches.htm

Half of the data was lifted directly from James Arthur's March, 2000 article:

VT Coaches Recruiting Territories and Their Individual Successes Over the Past Three Years

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