As we began the new year, trying to stay committed to our New Year's resolutions and looking forward to crowning college football's new champion next week in Los Angeles, it's a great time to look ahead to how different 2023 should be for Virginia Tech's football program.
When the Hokies open their spring practice, there will be 15 new players in the mix, including 11 early-enrollees who signed National Letters of Intent in December, and four transfers who picked Tech in the transfer portal.
While not all 15 will impact the '23 Virginia Tech team, there will be a bunch of new names in the mix for serious playing time at nearly every position.
We will have plenty of time before spring football practice begins to assess the depth chart and look at which players may change positions and where the newcomers will fit. But for now, it's clear the flavor of Virginia Tech's program changed in the early signing period in three big ways – leadership skills, winning pedigree and geographic familiarity.
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As I mentioned to Mike Burnop on our most recent Level Seven podcast, the Hokies' December recruiting haul was in some ways straight out of the mid-'80s Penn State playbook: Just recruit all the team captains. On his TV show back during that period, coach Joe Paterno would annually talk about the value of recruiting team captains. Leaders. Kids who had already earned the respect of their peers, teammates and coaches at the prep level. Well, of the 25 players who signed with Tech in December, 21 of them were team captains.
When you have those kinds of people in your program, the strong-character types, you have a winning locker room. And a winning weight room. And winning classrooms. You have kids who aspire to be leaders and those are winning people. That's the DNA of winning programs.
Of those 25 players, 19 of them have played on state championship teams, including nine who won state titles in 2022. The winning pedigree, whether at the prep, collegiate or professional level, isn't necessarily coachable. Some kids are … well … winners. Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry and his staff valued kids who played in winning programs for successful coaches. Again, another part of the DNA of championship programs at the college level.
And finally, the geographic piece. Virginia Tech signed 12 played from the Commonwealth of Virginia this year. Last year Tech signed seven. In 2020, the total was one. Yes, just one. How can that happen?
Head coach Brent Pry views a monitor connected to Zoom with a signee and his family during National Signing Day.
Anyway, that's a pretty drastic change and shows a commitment to the in-state coaches on the both the VHSL and private school level.
It's an often-heard refrain of why Virginia Tech must win in-state recruiting battles, but it is quite simple.
Here's the deal. That 2024 stud linebacker, or 2025 four-star quarterback, or 2026 All-America tailback is more likely to come to Tech if his former high school teammate is already here. He's more likely to pick Tech if his pals and his high school coaches know Tech's staff is committed to them as players and people.
Quarterback Tyrod Taylor, the ACC's Player of the Year in 2010, hails from Hampton, Virginia.
There's a ninth or 10th grader in Virginia right now who in the next 36 months will sign with Virginia Tech, even though he will have offers from Penn State or Alabama or Ohio State or Georgia. It will happen. We know this because it happened with David Wilson and Ryan Williams and Tyrod Taylor and so many others.
Wilson didn't want to be the next Percy Harvin at Florida. And Bryan Stinespring, Tech's lead recruiter, won that battle with then-Gators coach Urban Meyer.
In Manassas, Williams believed his high school coach (Loren Johnson), who said he'd fit better at Tech than at Notre Dame. So, when Johnson's former teammate Torrian Gray made the recruiting pitch (see how that all works?), the Irish didn't have a chance.
When Tyrod's high school coach Mike Smith talked about his relationship with Tech recruiter Curt Newsome, there was no way Taylor would end up as a Dawg or Nittany Lion.
But these relationships just don't happen in one recruiting cycle. And that's why Pry is committed to the geographic area over the long haul. The players and coaches in Virginia are good enough to win championships. Even if Tech doesn't "clean-up" the state in 2022 or '23 or even '24, the windfall will come eventually.
And when it does, Virginia Tech fans will look back to December 2022. It will be that signing class that will have gotten it all started.
Running back David Wilson, the ACC's Player of the Year in 2011, grew up in Danville, Virginia.
On the field, The story of the year for Virginia Tech football? The team's passionate fan base.
Clearly, the 2022 football season wasn't as successful as Virginia Tech fans would've liked. The Hokies suffered through a 3-8 season, which included a seven-game losing streak – the longest for Tech in over 70 years.
But despite the on-field struggles, Virginia Tech fans continued to pack Lane Stadium, a feat that now appears to be the true story of the year for Tech's program.
For the season, the Hokies averaged 64,387 fans per game, and their season-long capacity was at 98.06%. Those figures rank third in the ACC and No. 23 nationally. (Of note: those rankings would've been higher had the Virginia Tech-Virginia game been played. Tech would've ranked second in the ACC behind only Clemson.)
The following factoid will make you cringe, yet give you hope. Only two teams in the country lost eight games in 2022, yet averaged over 60,000 fans per game – Nebraska (86,637) and Virginia Tech.
While that's not a list anyone in Blacksburg, or Lincoln, wants to make, those numbers are indicative of the tremendous passion Virginia Tech fans have for their team, even during a season in which the on-field results were underwhelming. It also reflects creative marketing campaigns from Tech athletics what proved to be winners for Hokie fans.
Student attendance is as good as anyone in the ACC. One look at Lane Stadium's south end zone or the upper east stands during the '22 season was proof of that.
Despite some rain in the forecast, Hokie Nation still showed up strong at Lane Stadium versus Boston College on Sept. 10, 2022.
Also, this past season, new packages for the upper south end zone saw that area sell out for all six home games.
Perhaps most notably, community engagement campaigns through group ticket programs led to over 8,000 tickets sold to groups throughout Virginia and over 1,500 tickets for Troops to Veterans.
The net result? Lane Stadium rocked again in '22, as if the Hokies were in the College Football Playoff (CFP) hunt.
"We're building it to be sustainable, and hopefully so it can withstand a downward trend in the wins column," Senior Associate Athletics Director Brad Wurthman told me. "Nearly 20 percent of all fans are single-game buyers now in Lane. That number used to be zero percent. It's awesome to see because it builds the pipeline."
New people were exposed to the Lane Stadium experience this season. First-time visitors bought into the culture of fan participation at the Home of the Hokies.
"I've been so impressed with Hokie Nation this season," ACC Network analyst Eric Mac Lain told me. "No matter the circumstances, those passionate fans have brought it every game."
The circumstances? Of course, are losing games. That Lane Stadium is loud and crazy and fans are jumping around, singing and making an impact is nothing new. But for this to happen week-after-week during a 3-8 season?
"Virginia Tech is one of my favorite places the ACC Huddle has visited," Mac Lain said. "When Lane Stadium is rocking, it's one of the toughest environments in all of college football."
It's a top selling point for Tech coach Brent Pry.
"That stadium and those crowds are a big, big positive for our team," Pry said. "When you come down that tunnel and see and hear that crowd, that's motivating.
"When you have a bunch of recruits in town, that's the environment they want to play in."
"For me, the message to recruits is this – here is a team that's in a transition year and struggling to get wins, and look how we're packing them in. Imagine when we get this thing rolling, what it's going to look like."
Lane Stadium is packed with a sea of maroon on Oct. 15, 2022 when the Hokies took on Miami (Fla.).
When long-time Virginia Tech fans talk about amazing crowds at Lane Stadium, they often talk about the primetime games in the '90s. Thursday games against Clemson and WVU. Or the Miami (Fla.) game when Tech ended the 'Canes 31-game winning streak.
But, in a way, two games this season stand-out among the most notable crowds ever at Lane. The home games against Wofford and Georgia Tech. Why?
The Wofford game on Sept. 17 was played at 11 a.m., which was the earliest kickoff in school history. And even though the opponent was an FCS team with a 12-game losing streak, Lane was packed. An hour before kickoff at 10 a.m., the student section was full, which was remarkable for typically sleepy college kids.
The Georgia Tech game on Nov. 5 was played in miserable conditions (foggy, rainy), yet Lane was packed again with over 60,000 fans. The Hokies were 2-6, sheets of rain were cascading in front of the stadium lights and yet the place was jammed. And loud. Could any other fan base in the ACC do that?
It's easy to pack a stadium when the team is great, chasing a league title and in the playoff hunt.
But when a team is struggling, enduring its third straight losing season and the weather is miserable? At Virginia Tech in 2022, it didn't matter. The fans came anyway. And participated.
Television networks love live theatre. And Lane Stadium provides that theatre each week, which makes it even more valuable for ACC media partner ESPN for the 2023 season.
This fall, ABC/ESPN loses the Big Ten rights, opening attractive windows for ACC games on the Disney networks. That, of course, will change in 2024, when ESPN gets the SEC exclusively and Texas and Oklahoma join that conference the following year. But in 2023, the Hokies have the chance to show off their 'theatre' in a big way.
Attendance figures and packed stadiums resonate with sponsors, too. There are plenty of teams with winning records that can't match Virginia Tech's attendance figures or fan interest. That sponsor interest drives revenue for the entire athletics department.
And, of course, sponsor interest drives NIL participation. That has a positive impact on the entire program as well.
So, when the on-field results turn in the Hokies' favor, the place will be even more special for fans and players alike.
Antonio Cotman Jr., the highest-rated recruit from Virginia for the Hokies in this signing class, poses for the camera during a high school game.
Oddly, I recalled visiting with former Vanderbilt and UAB head coach Watson Brown about playing games in Blacksburg. His teams lost to Tech 18-0 in 1989 and then 37-0 in 1997 in Blacksburg.
When the Hokies visited Birmingham in 1998 and shut them out for the third straight time, 41-0, coach mentioned, "It's was never (Lane) stadium, it's those dudes on defense that caused us problems."
In 1999 at Lane, Brown and his Blazers finally did score, but the Hokies won anyway 31-10. That day, Tech held UAB to just 63 total yards for the entire game, after which Brown joked that, "at least we scored," and credited the crowd for several false start penalties that day. UAB had 10 penalties on the day.
It's a note to recall, because a crowd and the team can work together. Home field advantages are real, and Lane can be intimidating. If you have a top-10 team full of NFL dudes, that makes it even better, right? Regardless, the crowd will be critical for Tech in 2023 if the Hokies are going to reach the level of success they want.
The '23 schedule is significantly tougher than '22, with Purdue, Pitt, Syracuse, NC State and Wake Forest visiting Blacksburg. Those are all winning programs as we know.
On the field, 2022 was not a season to remember. But in the stands, it certainly was.