We Got One

Episode Transcript
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(01:48):
And welcome back to the BoundaryCorner podcast, a part of the
College Huddle Network along my partners, Brian Siegler,
Jonathan Talley and Shelton Moss.
I am Curtis Wilson and as always, we are brought to you by
Doctor Jeremy Counts down at theCounts Family pharmacy, your
friendly neighborhood pharmacy located at three O 1 S Main St.

(02:08):
in Blacksburg. Boys, the band is all back
together one last time for a little while, potentially
because Shelton's about to get into hell season for his.
It's busy season. Busy season, hell season,
however you want to say it. But it's good we got one last
episode before he takes off. Maybe he'll sneak in from time

(02:30):
to time. And luckily before he left, we
got one. We got one, man.
We got one. It only took seven weeks, but we
got one. 47 days that it that the official count. 47 days. 46
days until we got one, so obviously we'll be talking about

(02:51):
the DC hiring. Got a few other things to hit on
tonight. Talk a little bit about the
schedule, but how's everybody been?
How have you been? We hadn't talked to you since
before Christmas. How's everything been in your
life? It's been good, man.
I've just, you know, enjoyed my break and, you know, kind of
getting back into the work rightnow.
So like I said, I'll be busy pretty soon.
But yeah, just been, you know, Iwasn't really super plugged into

(03:15):
the, to the DC, you know, coordinator search.
I just, you know, it got to a point where I was like, you know
what, whoever they hire, they'regoing to hire.
I'm not going to sit around, youknow, twiddle my thumbs and read
every single message board rantsabout how this, you know, the
entire administration's a failure and we need to fire the
entire staff and it's a lame duck staff and all that stuff.
So I think they end up with a pretty solid hire as we'll

(03:38):
discuss hopefully in this podcast.
You want to know who did sit around and look at every message
board rant? Me.
You know who did put in a thumbs?
Me like a dummy. Been mad as hell.
Tally was bought in. Trying to figure it out, trying
to read crumbs. It was a whole different cookie.

(03:59):
I'm just saying. Tally figured at some point he
was pot committed. He might as well stick with it.
To the end, it's. Kind of, it's kind of like when
you, it's kind of like when you watch like a bad movie series.
I go back to like Twilight. I don't know if y'all ever watch
Twilight. Like I watched the first one and
I felt like I could not turn away, you know what I'm saying?

(04:20):
Not in a good way. It was like this is so bad.
Was it the shiny skin? It was just a whole bunch of
stupid shit, you know what I'm saying?
Like the one guy's a werewolf and then the other guy's a
vampire, and he's watching his girlfriend lay with this guy to
keep her warm. I don't know man, there was a
lot going on. Hey, we just need Tally to like,

(04:42):
give quick summaries of movies, man.
Just like that's an entire series unto itself.
Yeah, I watch a whole bunch of stupid movies, man.
I'm telling you, I watch a lot of stupid movies.
But one movie that is not stupidthat I did watch again last
night. It's been a thieves great movie.
I had to refresh myself on Been a Thief so I can go or get ready

(05:04):
to watch #2 that they just came out with.
So I hope they do that justice. That's what I'm interested in.
Good deal. Good deal, Brian.
Everything been good with you man?
Busy, good rocking and rolling, man.
It's a I, I was getting a littlefrustrated with the process of

(05:24):
the, of the DC higher. I think that was probably my
biggest complaint of the whole thing was feeling like we did.
We didn't get a whole lot of information throughout the
process. And then when we finally got
some leaks there at the end, they were all bullshit.
So I think that kind of left a bad taste in, in everybody's
mouths and kind of set us up for, you know, being a little

(05:48):
bit underwhelmed initially untilwe learn more.
And yeah, the the the more digging I've done, the the
better I feel about this guy. Do we have two Matty BS in the
chat or is it the same Matty B on a different platform?
Whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on. I think it's same Matty B on a
different platform, but I cannotconfirm.
I think it's the same if that's Matty B, is it the same Matty B

(06:11):
this that's got, but it's a different Matty?
Yeah, it's got to be two. That's the same Matty.
That's the same Maddie. It's.
The same Maddie, same Maddie B. Different platform.
Maddie, come to Atlanta. Come to Atlanta.
Come to Atlanta, he's going to both of them.
He's going to. Both of them eat wings.
I'm. Telling them strip club.
Eat wings. Nobody knows strip club now.

(06:32):
I already told all the good wings.
That's where a lot of good wingsare.
There's some other stuff in the strip club that you might not
want to get involved in. Go listen to the Go listen to
the the space the other day. I don't want to get us cancelled
on here, but I'm just saying. Have you seen Hangover when they
went to Bangkok in Atlanta? Just letting y'all know.

(06:54):
There you go. How about this guys?
There you go. You watch you watch us on the
big screen. But let's let's get into it and
and I know people are putting out there who they thought it
was. We won't we won't talk about
that later, but let's do tonight.
Let's talk about Sam Pronounce. Let's see how I do this.
Let's see how many times I screwup Sam's name between now and

(07:16):
the beginning of the season. It's not going to be the first
night. Sam Cifkis nailed it.
Nailed it. The first one for one.
One for one, it ain't going to be like that for long.
You all know that. Let's get a little background on
him first of where he comes from.
First of all, the guy's 33 yearsold.
That is insanely young. So go to his background.
He was a Division Three player defensive back, got hurt at

(07:40):
University of Wisconsin lacrosse.
Then he became a student assistant coach 2011 to 2013.
So tells you right there, student assistant, you ain't
getting paid anything. It's AD three level.
Brian can tell you about the conditions at the D3 level.
Exactly, exactly. Pomp and circumstance.
Now, now, now, the way they do D3 up there in in Wisconsin, a

(08:00):
little bit different than Virginia, a little.
Bit but still D3 from there and also during that time he
actually got to do like an internship at Air Force
strengthening conditioning coaching during the summer with
the football team back in 2013 before he rejoined as a student
assistant. 2014 he goes down to FIU quality control coach. 2015

(08:22):
he's Aga at Wisconsin. Couple big points here.
That was under Dave Aranda. If anybody knows college
football the last two decades, Dave Aranda has been one of the
better defensive coordinators incollege football.
He was now the head coach of Baylor 2015 and probably made
the point today, and it's true. 2015 Wisconsin had the top
defense in the country statistically.

(08:43):
So say that what you will. From there he goes down to D2,
University of Wisconsin Platteville as a defensive
coordinator. Shelton's going to share some
info on that in a little while here.
From there, 2018 to 2020, he wasin the Southern Conference,
which Shelton knows all about. Shelton's got some other info on
that as well. He loves the soap on, so he's

(09:03):
got info on him there. He was a defensive coordinator.
First of all, I'm going to say something about this we can get
into in a while. This guy at the age of 26, 26th,
was the defensive coordinator inthe FCS. 26 years old, OK,

(09:24):
Doesn't matter what level it is.That's insane.
He was there from 2018 to 2020. Defensive coordinator at
Wofford. We'll get the data on that.
Went to the Vikings in 2021 to 2022.
His first year there. He was defensive quality control
coach and then he became the assistance linebacker coach.
We've got some info on that as well.
And obviously, the last two years he has begin making his

(09:46):
hay over at the Arizona Cardinals as the full time
linebacker coach, as the head man in that room.
So let's talk about that background.
Shelton, you got a lot to unload, so I want you to hold
tight. Brian Talley feelings on just
reading through the stuff and all that.
Chris Lester, what's going on? Tally, I'll let you lead you.

(10:10):
You got a lot off your chest last night.
I'm going to let you kind of piggyback on that.
Man, I my, my problem is that I ain't going to say problem, but
I guess it's a good thing is that I talk to people before I
talk or listen to people before I talk.
So I get a little bit more information.
And on the surface, it definitely pissed me off, mainly

(10:34):
because of the process more thanthe person because I don't I
don't I knew nothing about him. The main thing, and I think a
lot of people were just like, who, who is this?
You know, it wasn't all he's going to suck or this is a bad
hire. Some people's going to say that
no matter who it was. I do know if Bateman, if, if we
would have went after Bateman and got Bateman, that their fans

(10:57):
were going to be happy. And some of our fans had already
set their set their tweets up toto file off about how it was a
horrible hire. So, yeah, the process was a
little bit clumbersome to me, inmy opinion.
But I do feel like what you may talk a little bit later.
I just feel like certain things what's going to happen, You

(11:20):
know, this is prize for season or going into his fourth season,
by all accounts, he's probably on the hot seat.
He should be. You got to win games in
football. I think he does a great job at
some things. Off season.
He's been doing a great job portal, He's been doing a great
job. He hadn't really messed with the
portal. We probably talked about a

(11:41):
little later too, some of the Senior Bowl stuff that we've
seen, which has been been great for us.
But I just don't feel like it was going to be the people that
names were thrown out, weren't going to attach their jobs to a
coach that they don't know who'sgoing to be here.
They don't know where this program is going.
You know what I'm saying? Everybody, look, I think the

(12:03):
world loves Virginia Tech as faras they want us to be good.
Because when Virginia teams likeVirginia Tech's good, college
football's better. But when you start throwing out
those big defensive coordinator names, it's like, come on, man.
Are they really going to attach their name to a coach that is
pretty much unproven as a head coach?

(12:23):
And we don't know how long that ship's going to sail.
I don't know, man. I don't, I don't think that
that's what it was. I just think that most people
are going to use what they can for a paycheck.
You know, they're going to boosttheir stock.
I think Brian kind of talked about, which you probably will
talk a little bit more. Agents do a great job as far as

(12:45):
like with players as well, When they hear something or if
they're offered something, they're going to let everybody
know that, you know, no matter how big or small it is, so they
can up to the next level becauseit's about money, you know, it's
a job. So it's about money, it's about
a job. And the main thing with me, once

(13:05):
I sit back and talk to smarter people like Shelton, I was like,
well, let me look at this hire and see what I think about it.
But I did know that I was frustrated with the process.
Brian, how was you feeling? Yeah, I mean, and we've talked
about it a lot. The process sucked.
I mean, there's, there's really no other way to to phrase it.
And I think, I think the part ofthe process is when it drags on

(13:28):
that long and there's so little information that's coming out,
everybody creates their own narrative.
And then you hire someone that was a part of nobody's
narrative, right? And so immediately you get a
knee jerk of, like you said, Tally, who the hell is this guy?
I haven't heard anything about him by default.
That's probably not good, right?That that's like the mindset

(13:50):
immediately, right? You go, you go right to that.
If I haven't heard of him, it's probably not a good hire.
And then you start digging a little bit and you look at the
resume, you look at what you know, what he's done, who he's
done it with. Way more play calling experience
than Marv coming in. And and you can say you know,
UW, Platteville and Wofford all you want to, but call and plays

(14:14):
Apples to Apples is called and plays you.
Can do it or you can't. It, it matters, it, it's
experience. I like it.
And then to Tally's point as well, every place this guy has
went and left fans, staff, everybody involved, you're
hearing nothing but good things and, and disappointment that

(14:38):
he's moving on to, to greener pastures.
And that's, that's the kind of guy you want a guy that left it
better than he found it and the guy that, you know, people are,
are sad to see go. So, you know, I think initially
I was like, all right, y'all know, I'm, I'm not a knee jerk
guy. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to
gather my information. But at first I was like, all

(15:00):
right, I need to do some digginghere because I don't really know
what to feel because I hadn't really heard this guy's name
floated out there. I hadn't, I hadn't done enough
research. I hadn't seen enough
information. So upon digging some more, I
feel a lot better. That's not to say this isn't a
risky hire, at least in terms ofsome of the other names that
were floated out there. But I think it's it's a definite

(15:25):
improvement from Marv. And I think the ceiling is
insanely high of what his potential could be, especially
we can get the right personnel in the building either this year
or early next year. All right before I give it to
Sheldon, you got a lot to unload.
So I, I, I want to give you the full floor in a second here and
I want to give my quick take because first of all, I was like

(15:48):
tally me and tally got down the rabbit hole.
I would send messages and be like Groundhogs day, like day
43. Y'all saw me tweeted the other
day, day 43, it's Groundhogs day.
We ain't got a defensive coordinator yet.
So there's I'm like a split personality on this.
I'm two faced from from Batman because on one side I am not

(16:08):
overly excited about like his recruiting prowess because he
really has not done it at the highest of levels.
And also college accolades. No knock on the Socon.
And yes, calling plays is calling plays, but he has not
been at the collegiate level. And you can say what was it the
NFL? And it's like, well, it's a
different ball game. It's professionals who are

(16:28):
getting paid. They can get their asses cut at
any time versus an NIL that you have to pay the kid regardless.
So I was like, that's not the greatest piece.
But then to Bronze point, I did a little further research.
Shout out Dan Pulse, Me and Dan found some good stuff.
Shout out our coach Robbie Compton, who had an interview
from this guy back in 2000. I think it's either 19 or 20,

(16:52):
talking about some philosophies and stuff.
But when I started listening to that, started seeing those
things, the first thing I can say is this, and I said it a few
minutes ago, the age at which hegot to the NFL is impressive.
He got to the NFL at the age of 29.
I don't care what you're doing. Before he was 30 years old, he

(17:14):
was in an NFL building. By the time he was 31, he was a
linebacker's coach. That doesn't happen usually.
If that it's nepotism, it's a Brian Schottenheimer to Kyle
Shanahan. Papa's in the business.
I'm going to get put in regardless.
You normally don't see guys in their late 20s, early 30s being
put in that position that quick.Usually you got to work 10-15

(17:36):
years, then you start getting there.
The other thing was the scheme video.
Y'all want to know what he's doing?
Go look at my Twitter account today.
I tweeted it out there 2 videos about this scheme.
This scheme excites me. It truly does.
It excites me not only from all the stuff you can do with it,

(17:57):
but I've told these three guys sitting in here before we came
on and I'll say it again, I think a scheme like this favors
how we can recruit. How many times do we say, well,
that guy's a tweener and that's not great.
There are some things with this defense.
A tweener will work better than a full blown safety or a full
blown defensive tackle. You know what?
We actually need a guy who's a tweener to play big in when we

(18:19):
play four eyes or something likethat.
Or we need a guy who's got some twitch, but he's got to be able
to do things in linebacker Kane Bronze, we'll get into that a
little bit later. That's what I'm excited about.
South Shelton did his research and he's got a bunch of stuff.
So Shelton, I'm going to give you the floor.

(18:41):
Go for it. Yeah, well, I was doing some
digging on Mr. Sikis, looking atsome some events.
That's obviously, you know, the,the traditional metrics, I think
kind of speak for themselves, you know, total defense, 3rd
down conversion percentage. They were fourth in the country
at Platteville in 2017. And you know, yards for rush,
all that stuff, you know, is pretty good.

(19:02):
But I got some SP plus rankings,advance stats for his teams when
he coached, before he coached and after he coached at his
respective schools. So let's start with Platteville.
So it came on as DC in 2016. And just for the record, the
conference that they play in theWIAC is a really competitive
conference. Like it's probably close to the

(19:23):
SEC of D3 at that level, just with how good Wisconsin and you
know, the the the Midwest is a football at the at that level.
So lots of really good teams. But the year he took over the
first year, they were 19th and SU plus on defense at that
level. And then next year they're 22nd
he leaves 2018 they dropped to 125th.

(19:46):
So that's a 100 spot drop in a single season directly after
after he leaves. So the the head coach at
Platteville was a guy named MikeEmmendorfer.
So he retired in 20/21 after a pretty successful stint.
Overall record was about 500 but.
That 2016, the 2016 team of Platteville was the only one of

(20:08):
two playoff appearances they've ever had in school history.
So he played a big part of that apparently.
You know, Emma Dorfer really just couldn't get the defense
right after that 2017 season, and he eventually retired.
They just weren't winning a ton of games.
So I think it speaks positively about Seekhus that he was able
to, you know, create a good defense and a situation where

(20:29):
they really hadn't been all thatgood, you know, either after he
was there or before he was there.
So that's a big plus for him andhe goes to Wofford.
Now Wofford, as you guys know, historically was, you know,
pretty good under Mike Ayers, who's sort of like the Mike
Young of their football program LED them to a bunch of
conference championships. He retired in 2017.
So 2018 was the first year that Esikas was ADC there.

(20:50):
So taking over a a first year staff, obviously some transition
there. You know, that was right as the
portal was starting. So they retained most of their
teams of players and it was a pretty good defense that he
inherited. But he's still able to keep it
going for the most part. 13th inFC plus first year, then 20th
and then 31st in that spring altered COVID season, which was,
you know, obviously very difficult on those FCS teams

(21:12):
that had to play in that season because they had lots of opt
outs and, you know, some teams decided to quit, but, you know,
kind of a chaotic situation. And then so 31st in 2020, next
year he leaves. They dropped to 108th.
So that's a I'm trying to jump out my head 7777 spot drop.

(21:32):
Now, Wofford had some issues. Granted, you know, their head
coach did not turn out to be good.
They kind of screwed up the offense and he got fired
eventually. So you know, how much of that
was solely due to him? I mean, you know, we don't know
exactly, but we do know that he was really good when he was
there and they're really bad in both spots after he left at both
schools. So I think that speaks to kind
of his track record of, you know, getting the most out of

(21:54):
the talent that he has. And a couple other things that I
heard from some insider connections I had.
You know, I'm very well connected in the the coaching
scene these days. Not really.
I just have a buddy who who worked on a on the staff of the
Southern Conference rival when Cekis was at Wofford and he was

(22:14):
at that school. And he said that the Vikings
were really sad to lose him in 2022 when he left for the
Cardinals. And they even tried to increase
his pay, which is a very rare for an assistant linebacker's
coach, does not happen often, usually.
And they fail. They just, you know, they just
let guys walk. And he also reportedly had a
much higher degree of involvement with their defensive

(22:36):
operations than you would typically expect for a coach of
that stature. So on the whole, lots of really
good things to think about Esikas I, I think as I, the more
I learn about this hire, I thinkthe more I, I feel good about
it, I'd say. Yeah, I think, I think Sheldon
right there the the, the two points you're making, especially
it's the fall off right? Because, you know, we we all see

(22:58):
that from time to time. Tally and Brian have played and
seen it where good coach leaves shit sometimes ain't right.
It's just not right whatever reason for whatever.
So thanks for bringing that up, Shelton, about how those teams
effectively fell off a Cliff defensively after he left.
And to that Wofford point, I mean, I know there was a lot of

(23:19):
offensive issues teams, but I mean, Conklin was still a
defensive minded head coach. So he he should have had a good
grasp of, of where to go next. And and and to see that steep of
a fall off is is pretty pretty staggering.
Pretty, yeah. And they and they, they really
haven't recovered at all like I was looking at.
I mean, even if you look at someof their numbers since 2021,

(23:41):
they really have not fielded a good defense since that year.
So he was really kind of the last, the last true good
defensive guy they had. 100%. All right, so we play this year,
Curtis. Wofford.
Hopefully they still bad. Hopefully still bad.
Hopefully he holds them to a goose egg on that Saturday in

(24:02):
September. All right, something I mentioned
in my little rant there and and it's probably been mentioned
more than a few times and me andBrian talked about a little bit
this afternoon is a likely a scheme change is going to come
to Blacksburg. I think everybody saw the
writing on the wall with some ofthe guys we got from the portal.
But Brian, you, you, you looked at that video, you read a few

(24:26):
things here and there. I know.
And we're not going to get into the details because I think what
we're going to probably have to do in a couple weeks here is
look at our defensive roster andsay who's going to play where in
this scheme? But Brian, what can be expected
or what do you expect him to bring in and how we going to
look different next year? Yeah.

(24:47):
I mean, you know, you're lookingat most of the schemes that he's
ran have been multiple typicallyodd fronts and there's going to
be a lot of three high safety looks.
So what we're looking at is going to be some version of a of

(25:08):
a hybrid or multiple 3335 defense, but with the so-called
Jack backer that for the most part is going to act like a
stand up defensive end in in most of the schemes there.
So it it allows us to to really be flexible, especially in a

(25:31):
conference that has a lot of airraid and a lot of big spread
concepts that we're playing against it.
It lets us match up a whole lot better.
I don't think we'll get RPO to death like we did in in a
handful of games with with this type of scheme.
It lets you get your best 11 on your best 11 without really

(25:54):
having to do a ton of substitutions.
It lets you do a whole lot of different things from pressure
coverage, manipulating the box, and it's really hard to prepare
for if you're an offense just because of how much, how many
different alignments and assignments they have to account

(26:16):
for. So I'm excited and I think the
thing that stood out to me when talking about this, like I, I
throw a lot of stuff out there and this is going to be a lot.
But he emphasized simplifying the concepts.
I'll still being hard to preparefor and thinking of it from the
philosophy of if it's game prep week and I've got my players

(26:41):
asking me about our scheme, that's a problem.
If, if it's game week and they're asking me about the
opponent's scheme, I've done theright thing.
So I, I, I think that that's, that's the mindset that he's
coming at. This is is keeping it simple
while still being complex and hard to prepare for.

(27:04):
Tally anything from Scheme. Not really man.
I've just been kind of taken in.I was kind of thinking where we
would add, you know, like the the ginger freak when we got
him. I can't, I don't know the kids
name, but just kind of him just kind of thinking about what we
would add him on the defense once we got him, seeing how

(27:26):
productive he was there to when he's coming here.
But then when you start talking about a scheme similar to what
Brian's talking about and Sheldon's talking about like it
makes sense that you have a linebacker defensive end hybrid,
because it's like, does that guygoing to put his hand in the
ground? Is he going to stand up?
Well, you know, this scheme kindof changes things a little bit.

(27:47):
So I don't know, I think it, I think it, I think it's exciting,
at least you know what I'm saying.
It gives us something to look forward to because what we what
we seen last year was, I mean, there was some excitement there,
but it wasn't exciting. So another thing, yeah.
So another thing to to add on tothat too, is the strength and

(28:13):
conditioning piece. You know, we've got a new
strength and conditioning coach here at Ferguson.
So we've had, I think it's kind of been split, man.
I just kind of read the room andsee what other people have to
say. Like I said, I mean, y'all know
I'll talk. I do like to listen as well.
And it's kind of been a split reaction.
Some people say, you know, this was a lazy hire.

(28:37):
I ain't going to call them names, Pete.
Some people say that this is a really good hire.
And, you know, from inside the building, I feel like the
players have really respected him and really taken to this.
And it's been some change, whichis a good thing.

(28:58):
You know, it's got to be changing the way you prepare.
It's got to be changing the way that you you go at game day.
If you continue losing by 1 score and the conditioning
piece, you know, if we're getting to end the games, we
can't get people on the ground. We got to figure out exactly
what we need to do strengthen conditioning wise.

(29:19):
It's going to help that. So I think that was a big hire.
I think that was a big piece that needed to be filled, so I'm
interested to see how this is going to all play out.
Hold on, wait a second. Let me put this up real quick.

(29:41):
Just. Saw I definitely read it all
wrong A. Lot of people said that.
When I when I looked over there I definitely read that wrong.
I thought that said better than Batman.
That, that might be a bridge toofar, man.
That might. You know, it's hard to be better
than Batman. We'll we'll get back a little
bit more on the first thing I want to get Shelton.
Shelton, what about you in this scheme, you know, did you get a

(30:04):
chance to look data points or anything like that with this
sort of, I don't know what you call it.
It's it's just a unique scheme. Yeah.
I mean, I don't really know about the intricacies of the
scheme. I do know they've typically been
a pretty good third down defenseunder him and he talked about
that in the podcast that Brian referenced.
They were, they were fourth in the country and 3rd down defense

(30:26):
in 2017. And, you know, generally pretty
good most seasons. But I, I do think, you know,
kind of what Brian was saying about the simplicity point, like
he talked about just, you know, making it as black and white as
possible, Meaning, you know, you're teaching players to kind
of read and react based on what they see.
So, you know, if a run goes one way, you react that way.

(30:46):
If it goes this way, you do thatjust so that players aren't, you
know, kind of getting their, their hands and their feet, you
know, and their, and their brains tied up.
I think that's, that's really good.
I, I really like kind of just the stuff that you had to say
about, you know, the principles that, you know, he, he operates
by and just making sure that players focus on their
technique. Because as we've seen, you know,
it's very easy for linebackers to miss their assignments.

(31:07):
If you're not teaching the concepts right, then players
don't understand what they're supposed to do.
You got to teach the concepts first, the fundamentals first,
and then everything kind of filters down down through that.
So it seems to me like he's got,he's got a really good grasp of
how to be an effective teacher. Yeah, and something he said and
I, I listen to that podcast as well.
And again, Brian mentioned it, shout out Robbie, who is on here

(31:28):
tonight with us. He, he, he found it for us and
sent it over so we could listen to it.
The the one thing from that thatreally caught my eye, it was 2
pieces. The first one was the way he
talked about every week you haveABCA hear the concept they do
the most. This is the, this is what we're
going to focus on. I think he said probably 60% of

(31:50):
the time, I don't know if y'all remember, he's like, hey, this
is what they do the most, This is what they run the most.
Here's concept B like this. We are, we are going to know in
and out because effectively Brian mentions it, Cali said it,
Shelton has said it. That's their bread and butter.
They're going to run this. It don't matter.
Give a damn who they play, what looks we give, they're going to
run this. Then he talks about B and he

(32:12):
says we're going to look at thisin like 30% of the time.
He's like, we know they run thisoccasionally, but we can't be
heavily focused on that. But he says we still have to pay
attention to it. And then and he said something
like maybe 1015 * a game, they'll run these plays.
The last one. He says they might run these
plays one to three times a game.And I love what he said.

(32:33):
He says this last little piece. So he's building, right?
I mean, graining what they're going to do a lot.
I'm going to layer the next one.And he said the last one, these
ones where they won one to threetimes, one they might pull out
on you the trick, play somethingslick.
He's like, I look at this last, this is a Friday night
walkthrough. This is the last thing I look

(32:54):
at. And when I think philosophy and
skiing, it's like a building basically saying, if we know
these plays, we can stop this and this.
And I mentioned this to you at the last possible second.
This is ingrained. This is ingrained.
If they try to pull one of theseslick plays, I just mentioned it
to you less than 12 hours ago, it's probably going to be

(33:14):
something you remember versus trying to tell you something to
remember from the bread and butter, which should already be
in ways. And I like the way this and it
talks about, it's a common way that they break down the high
school. It's simplifying things.
Let the guys play right, simplify, make it easy.
Let them go out there and play. Let's talk about this real

(33:36):
quick. Go ahead.
Inside linebacker? No.
Big nickel? Probably.
Who you talking about? Oh, this right here.
Yeah, yeah. OK, you so you're talking about
some of that. He's, he's essentially going to
be one of those, one of those box safeties.
The, the, the, the big nickel here.

(33:56):
In my opinion, I think you need to, when you look at inside
linebackers, I think you're going to be looking probably at
Woodson at this point, Bass probably playing the other spot
there. And then we, you know, we talked

(34:18):
about Jonkum probably sliding inthere at the Jack backer.
It's going to be interesting to see where the other spots in the
in the safety room shake out. But yeah, I, I peg Caleb Spencer
for being a big nickel in this in this scheme.

(34:40):
Well, that, that's some me and me and Brian.
Actually I, I talked to him at lunchtime today.
We were both doing our power walks and like, that's what
we've got to figure out. And probably in a few weeks,
probably through conversation. If we can get sheltered in here,
great. If we can't, yes, probably not.

(35:02):
That's what happens. I had to get some laundry done
today and unfortunately I didn'tthrow them out of the picture.
My wife is going to be horrifiedwhen she sees this.
So everybody remember if I'm in trouble in the next few weeks,
but that's him. Going to be on your ass
tomorrow. She is.
She really is. She's like 295 people saw your
laundry I'm going to be getting.It more than that by the time

(35:25):
it's all said and done, a whole lot more than that.
But but either way, that's what we've got to look at as we get
into the next few weeks is once he's in and once we also know
who the other coaches is becauseit was said today and I'm going
to get to the other piece that was said today as well.

(35:46):
We're not quite done yet. We're not done with the shuffle.
I know y'all all heard it and you know what I think is going
to happen and y'all come back. I, I, I, I do believe that there
is going to be a new safety coach.
I do not think Pearson Fraley will leave the program, but
again, he was in a player personnel role before they got

(36:08):
put in a pinch. Pearson's a loyal guy.
But I think we're going to have a safety coach hopefully by the
end of this week. But, you know, maybe like 46
days from now, spring ball starting.
I, I, I think that's the most obvious move.
I think the other thing you got to look at is.
Who's on the road? Who's on the road, who's

(36:31):
actually coaching linebackers day-to-day?
Because we know that it sounds like Sam's not going to have his
own room. He's obviously going to have a
heavy influence in the linebacker room, but I don't.
Obviously, he's not going to be assigned as the position coach
to that room. Is, is, is Quinn sliding in?
Is ADB taking over? Are we bringing in two guys on

(36:54):
defense? What's this going to look like?
We still have a little over what, $800,000 potentially to
play around with it sounds like.More because what you got to
think of Brian is if Prelo leaves, takes a less role in a
cut. Yeah, I think he's making three
and a quarter. So reality is you have about
1.2, maybe more. I guess it depends on where that

(37:19):
gets allocated, but yeah, I meanI will.
Use all the money. Yeah, Yeah, you got it, you need
it. Go ahead and spend it.
So that that brings him to the question, you know is, is this
going to be AI guess? I guess the question is going to

(37:43):
be, do you still look at a John Scott junior and does he just
work with outside linebackers? He's coached outside linebackers
in the past. He's been primarily with
defensive ends. I don't know.

(38:04):
I I'm very intrigued to see whatthe other staff moves are going
to be, even though I do think safety is probably the the one
that we we're definitely going to get in this move.
Tally Sheldon. Any feels on that?
Yeah, I can't think about no more coaching moves.
I just got to sit back and let them, let them do what they do.

(38:25):
I can't even rack my brain aboutit.
I just need them to make some good decisions and put put
something good together so we can win.
I need, I need to go to Atlanta and win.
So. He needs to go to Atlanta and
y'all remember that? Y'all remember that?
Let's go back to the what you brought up before because it was
not announced the last time we were here.
But with FUR taking over the strength and conditioning

(38:49):
program, I know some people werelike, oh, well, that's just an
inside move. And it's really not because Dege
had his own philosophy on how totrain and it was not from the
school that FUR came from. So it is a different mentality.

(39:11):
And Brian, which one of y'all said something was either Tally
or Brian that mentioned some couple weeks ago about you can
have your own philosophies and you can work with someone in
that field, but you still have your own philosophies of how
doing things. True.
Was it you tally? Would you be?

(39:33):
I don't know, I think, I think we just kind of brought it up.
I can't remember who exactly brought it up, but yeah, no, I I
agree. And sometimes like, I mean,
there's ideas that I have, but if my boss don't bring them up,
I can't just go in and implementthem.
You know what I'm saying? Like there's a pecking order.

(39:55):
So I'm sure that it was things for him to, and I'm sure they
had to do some interviewing, youknow what I'm saying?
Like there was some he didn't just say, OK, we're going to
give you the job. Like I'm sure it was other
people that they reached out to and interviewed and things like
that. And they pretty much looked at,
you know what, what do we need and who can be the one to help

(40:18):
us get there as quickly as possible.
And sometimes it's just love, and sometimes it's just the
person who's willing to put in the most time.
You know, and just get as deep into the job as they can before
it's done. And somebody who's been there
and understands what the cultureneeds to get back to.

(40:41):
Sometimes it's because, again, we weren't far off on a lot of
stuff, you know, not making excuses, but it's like if, if we
can shore up those small things,the big things will happen on on
Saturday nights and Sundays and Tuesdays or Thursdays, whatever
nights they got us playing now. But yeah, I think I'm just from,

(41:05):
from what I've heard and I, I'm again, I'm just a fan.
He's came in and he's done some things that no other strength
and conditioning culture has been doing.
You know what I'm saying? Walking in, saying this ain't
play time, Turn the radio off, let's get the lifting.

(41:25):
We going to get stronger. We going to be serious about
this. You know, little stuff like that
sometimes is what a team needs, you know, to find those leaders.
Sometimes you got to push peopletoo close to the breaking point
to figure out who's going to grab the people up and bring
them along as well. And I think that's what we kind
of missed last year, you know, some leaders on the field and

(41:45):
some people that were able to finish.
So I'm hoping that that's what Ferg brings to to the team as a
whole. Bron.
Yeah. I think just in general, like,
like Tally's point there. Yeah, I think with Ferguson's
toughness and the the he's been exposed to kind of two or three

(42:11):
different ways of doing the job at this point.
And I think he understands that one of those we saw a lot of
success, especially with the waywe prepared athletes for the
field. And I think so he I think we're
looking at more of a, a Gentry model.
I feel like that that is what he's going to lean on when it

(42:33):
comes to strength and conditioning with a little bit
of modernization, right? It's it's still going to have
some more more modern concepts, but I think at some point you
still got to get back to the bread and butter of what made
this program great and what whatwe saw success at.

(42:54):
You know, I think he's going to give us that.
I think I think the big thing isgoing to be the the conditioning
piece, because this team definitely looked like they
faded in fourth quarters pretty consistently, both on both sides
of the ball, but particularly ondefense.
Yeah, I, I, I don't think we're going to be in a situation where
that's going to be a problem with the Jarrett Ferguson in

(43:16):
that position. And I'll say this too, just
because it's been so long since I've really been into like a
locker room where I had to do some stuff.
You know, I'm old man. I don't, I don't care about
doing that stuff. But going through the stuff with
my son and watching what is saidabout their strength and
conditioning coaches and how they feel about their coaches

(43:39):
and things like that, it's a bigdeal.
Because like his basketball teamhas a strength and conditioning
coach and it's like everybody looks to him.
Even during the game when thingsgo a little bit awry, they like
they look to Coach B to settle things down or to, is it OK for
me to get amped up? You know what I'm saying?

(44:00):
Just because they're with him somuch and he's with them during
those grueling times that the players kind of look at him as
a, you know, a go to figure, youknow, because he's not the head
coach, but he's the strength andconditioning coach sets the
tone. So a lot of times he's and he's
at every game. He's, you know, he doesn't have

(44:21):
any kids on the team. It's his job is just to to to
coach them in the weight room. But he's at every basketball
game and he's constantly talkingto players and he's constantly
telling them things that can help them get better from a
strength and conditioning point.So sometimes it's not XS and OS
that he's saying about the actual sport.

(44:43):
He's talking to them about what he coaches them in.
So if somebody's invested like that on the sidelines, like I
think Fergie is, I think that it's definitely going to going
to help a lot. So again, I think Chris put up
something, said it's different than that.
I mean, Chris has a a son on theteam.
So I'm sure he can attest a little bit better than we can of

(45:03):
what goes on in there. But not just Chris, you know
what I'm saying? That's other players and parents
that I've talked to that have raved about some things that
Fergus done. So I just want to get to a third
quarter or fourth quarter and get the quarterback on the
ground. Good play call, be strong
enough, be disciplined enough toget the quarterback from Miami

(45:27):
on the ground and let's go win the game.
I want to be able to do that. I want to see the players do
that all. Right, Shelton?
Anything on Berg? Anything like that?
I mean nothing specifically really.
I would just say, you know, in my experience, you know,
straining, initiating coach, like every other coach, it all
starts with relationships. You have to show that you you

(45:47):
care about the players as peopleto get the most out of them.
And so I think that, you know, the bond that you have with them
is the foundation for everythingelse that you can accomplish.
So it's not just about, you know, what's what's my workout
or what's my routine like you got to show that you care about
them to get the most out of them.
And that's, you know, obviously the most most important thing
you got to, you know, find the balancing part between, you

(46:08):
know, tough love, but also, you know, holding them accountable
and, you know, showing appreciation for the same time.
There's always a a balancing actthere between not being too
soft, but nothing too hard either.
You know, what I I've read about, you know, the some of
those SEC coaches under, under Nick Saban, the job that they
did, you know, being, you know, so, so widely respected in the
program. Just, you know, how much time

(46:29):
that the athletes spend with those strength coaches is really
critical. I mean, it's it's a critical
part of the part of the program.So again, I can't speak to, you
know, Farragut and his specific traits, but hopefully they can
get someone in there. They're really just, you know,
again, can you know, just hold them accountable.
Yeah, you, you just said it and Brian put it up there with the,
Robbie says the guys do spend a,a ton of time with the

(46:50):
strengthening conditioning coachbecause it's, as we know, winter
workouts start soon. They're with them more than
anybody here. They're within their summer
workouts. They're with them in the in the
locker room getting treatments and all that stuff.
So with that staff more and more.
But I think going back to the Ferguson mentality, AI think a
couple people have said if a guydon't look like Jerry Ferguson

(47:12):
in your strengths in the conditioning room, then that
ain't your strengths and conditioning coach.
Because you look at him, he is abig SOB.
He played mean, he played hard. He was a, he was the last of one
of the full backs way back in the day in the early 2000s.
But I also think Brian, you mentioned he's been through

(47:33):
several strength and conditioning coaches.
So obviously it's picking up extra things.
But the thing that made getting gentrified was it was what Tally
has mentioned it was. We got late deep in the games
and guys still had the energy level to get to quarterback on

(47:53):
the ground to make that run. I'll always go back, go back
2009, close your eyes, go back to Alabama.
When Brian, when Ryan Williams broke that big one like that was
late third quarter and he exploded away from basically an
NFL defense. Why?
Because to tallies point, to Brian's point, to Shelton's

(48:14):
point, he was conditioned, he was ready to explode like that
late third quarter, not the early part of the game, late
third quarter. So there, that is right there.
All right, you mentioned Brian afew minutes ago.
It's kind of a talking point. It looks like he's going to be
ADC only. That will all to me.

(48:35):
That's all going to fall out in the next few weeks with
additional hires in the reshuffling of the staff.
So we'll probably talk a little bit more about that at a later
time, but I want to let's just be straight up on this and I
don't know how many other peoplewill talk about it, but I do
want to talk about it. What option was saying, because

(48:56):
I'll give pry credit and he didn't say it, but he said, hey,
we had a guy catching in the national championship game that
we had interest from. We know he want one.
Was he 2? Was he 3?
Was he 4? Was he one?
What do y'all think? What do you think?
I'll I'll pitch it back to you first.
Where do you think he was? I mean, based on what I'm

(49:18):
reading, I would say anywhere from 3:00 to 5:00.
I mean, I know they went in Knowles.
I know you know, they're lookingat Bateman.
And it seemed like Bateman was aguy for a little bit of time.
I don't know where. I mean, look, Price in his press
conference today, they initiallyhad a list of about 20
candidates. So they kind of they're down to
10. And that's when they started
doing the very Thor research. They started doing those, you

(49:38):
know, 4 hour interviews with allthose candidates.
So out of the pool of 10, I'd say he's probably top five, but
I I don't know where exactly in that pecking order he was
specifically. Tally Brown Y'all got a feeling
on this? No, I kind of, I kind of go
with, Shelton said. I was thinking he probably was
in that, you know, three to fiverange somewhere around there

(50:01):
just because like I said, of course, I mean the big names is
probably out there when some people say no, some people say
banks. And again, I don't know these
people. I just I mean, I know the
defense when I watch football, but I don't know these people
until people start telling me their names.
Derek just put in the chat that Seth Wallace from Iowa, I don't
know him, you know what I'm saying?

(50:22):
I know I was defense, but I don't know none of these people.
So I just know kind of what I'veheard of people.
And I feel like once we talked about it, once we looked at
things, there's no way that Bateman was the choice on when,
when did he announce this month?Yesterday.
Yesterday. So there's no way that Bateman
was the choice on Sunday night and then we hired Sam Monday.

(50:49):
It just don't, it can't be, it don't make sense.
Like when you're doing all the research and then you know, how
did you get the stuff in place that quickly?
I don't know. I just don't think that I think
it was a little bit more thorough than us as fans know
it. Just when you're not right, you
probably get a little bit upset because you want to be the one

(51:09):
to break the news or know a little bit more or just want to
be in the know. Just wanted it to happen.
So again, it is a very wait and see type hire.
Some people thought that I probably would be a little upset
on him, which I'm not. I mean, again, everybody kind of
knows how I feel. I haven't heard this.

(51:30):
I think it all goes back to the head coach.
I don't think that, yes, you do have to make some good coaching
hires, but I think that if Pry elevates his game this offseason
as a coach, then the team will be fine.
I think that we get some of those games that we lose if the
head coach elevates his game, sothat's kind of how I feel.

(51:53):
I can agree with that. I think, you know, looking at
options, I'd say 3 or 4. I don't think it's probably
lower than that. I don't know where the Bateman
smoke came from, if that was just a play by Bateman's agent
to get some some smoke out thereto help with everything that's
going on with the A&M situation.I I don't know.

(52:16):
But to Tally's point, I don't think it was Bateman Sunday
night and then Sam Monday afternoon.
So whether we think there was some other guys in that mix.
I mean, I know Derek said, you know, Seth Wallace, we obviously
think Jim Knowles at this point.You know, we heard we heard
banks early that kind of, you know, if we talk about, you

(52:40):
know, Allen was really the the the the first movement that kind
of started the trickle down effect with everything else.
So yeah, I mean, these like blueblood or borderline blue blood
programs shuffling defensive coordinators in what I, you
know, I think a lot of people felt were pretty comfortable
positions. You know, you usually don't have

(53:03):
a national championship defensive coordinator going to a
in conference rival just for some more money.
So that's that's an interesting look.
But it apparently, you know, Knowles was going to be the fall
guy after Michigan or so the thethe story is going and all of a
sudden they're going to run and the rest is history.

(53:23):
So he ends up getting a a biggerpayday instead of, you know,
getting shown the door. So that's interesting And and
I'm sure that played some of theroles in in kind of what we were
dealing with there. But you know, again, I'm not
disappointed that with the higher that we have, I think
it's one of those where, you know, you see the potential

(53:45):
maybe in other areas. When you look at Knowles
defense, it's a it's a base for two, but they play a lot of that
three high safety. There's there's a lot of lot of
different, you know, similar schemes, even though, you know,
the the base alignment is a little different, right.
So I mean, it's, it's we, we definitely had a very

(54:06):
intentional hiring process for this defensive coordinator with
what we wanted to do from a personnel standpoint.
So I like that. That that's the truth.
And and I'm with Shelton, I wantto probably put it 4:00 to 5:00
because I do think, I mean, the rumors are flying out there that
Ryan Day was going to axe Jim Knowles, even though that

(54:28):
defense was really good this year.
Apparently they had butted headson shit.
And you heard Knowles that if they had lost to Tennessee, the
Knowles thing was going to be done.
Maybe, maybe not, you don't know, but it's early in the
process. And then you hear Banks.
I personally, everybody says we had Banks.
Like, no, we didn't tally you with me on this.

(54:51):
Me and Tally talked about it. Banks came here because he knew
they can offer me blah, blah, blah.
And I'm going to go back to Tennessee and say they just
offered me blah, blah, blah. Where do you go off me?
And what did he get? Oh, wow, he got a $2.1 million
brand new contract. I wonder how that happened.
It's a game people just because you think somebody's coming,
they playing games out there with the money, the Seth

(55:13):
Wallace, the Tom Allen, but I think he was somewhere 4th to
5th. Again, I think pride his head
has this envision of doing the three high safety look because
we probably can recruit better to it.
And he laid out some guys where,hey, they're running something
similar that might fit this. I can recruit to this and I can

(55:33):
land one of these five or six guys.
Yep, put yeah, put gems up there.
Yeah, banks definitely used us as leverage 100%.
So yeah, I mean, again, I don't think this was off the radar
completely to us. It was because we know names.
Right, that's we were looking conventional we were looking.

(55:54):
Conventional. That's a great way to say it.
Brown, we were looking conventional.
All right, let's roll on and let's talk about the portal
because y'all, we weren't done Tally.
We went through like 19 guys last time we thought we were
done with the portal Shelton, I won't bring you in on this
combo. I know recruiting you don't
follow anymore but. For the sake of my mental

(56:16):
health, yes. He's got to take a break.
On some part of. That let's talk about this.
Let's talk about the two guys wegot.
I want to start with Ben Bell, the Texas State transfer, one of
the higher recruited transfers that we got out of it.

(56:37):
It looked like he was going to go to Ole Miss, but for somehow,
some reason, some way, some shape from form, we pull him
out. We got the ginger gang.
Now all the redheads. He looks like Andrew Parent.
I don't care what Andrew Parent tries to say.
That might be his kid from an illegitimate relationship.

(56:58):
He he was busting that one out early, then you.
Damn right. And that is what it is.
But any thoughts on this guy? I mean, he was pretty highly
thought of at the beginning of the season.
The Red Sea. The Red Sea.
All right, if if they can get 30sacks combined, we'll call them
the Red Sea. But y'all, Brian Talley, whoever

(57:19):
wants to go first, what do y'alldo?
Y'all look at Bell. What do y'all see from him?
What do you like? Bill's just got a motor man.
He's got a great motor. I don't think he didn't play
much in this season. So looking looking last season
because I know I think he didn'tplay so he could red shirt.
So because he knew he wanted to get out.
But again, high level player does have some production graded

(57:48):
out really well in most people who watching him play.
So I'm interested to see what hebrings.
Just bring some toughness too. You know what I'm saying?
Anytime, like anytime you got a white dude with red hair that's
playing on the defensive line orclose around the line, then he's
probably going to be good. So being Bill is if you go watch

(58:09):
his tape, you can watch just a little bit of what he does and
he's going to fly off the tape just of his motor and how he how
he he's trying to get to the ball.
Like he's not trying to take a double team just to to free
somebody else up. He's trying to beat it.
He's trying to get to the ball. So I'm excited to see what he
can bring to the defense. He's he's got that those, those

(58:32):
crazy eyes that you like to see in a defensive lineman, like
when they when they kind of that, that, that almost like the
shark eyes, like when they smellblood in the water.
Like he's he's got those type ofeyes in intensity about him when
he plays. I'm excited.
I think it's good skill set. I think it matches.

(58:55):
It would have been, it would have been good in what we were
doing. It's going to I think be great
in what we're moving to. So I'm really excited.
And tell you made the point about like, what did he do?
He he only played four games this year in four games, 1313
tackles, 6 for loss, 3 1/2 of those were sacks.

(59:19):
Also forced to fumble in four games.
And this is something we're going to see.
There's going to be guys who were down at G5 that know I can
get money somewhere else. I might not make it in the
league, but I can make 6 figuresfor one year.
What? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was a good one tally. That was a good one.

(59:39):
Jumping Guy in 2023 was an absolute monster. 57 tackles, 10
sacks, 16 tackles are lost. A forced fumble.
Like in play the crazy eyes 100%.
All right, let's flip to the other guy that we got here
coming out of Coastal Carolina with Braden Bennett.

(01:00:04):
Braden's old. I feel, I think Brain's, I think
Brain's a COVID guy, so he's been here a while.
But anything you'll see like locks, all statistics and stuff
like that because it's a good late pick up. 622262215 that
that's enough as a running back,right?

(01:00:26):
We I'll take it production. I think he had about 900 yards
this past year and that's what we need, the last thing we need.
And I know a lot of people were asking questions and again, I
know that y'all watch the game. Nobody in the chat.
Maybe I'm just talking to some people on Twitter that don't
watch the games. But again, I know that all of us

(01:00:51):
watch the games. You never want to be in a
position where you cannot run the ball at all.
When we played against Clemson, we we would, we didn't even
attempt to run the ball. You just can't win.
One reason was our running back was hurt, then RB, one was hurt,
then RB2 was hurt, and then we had a young guy that I think

(01:01:12):
fumble that the coaches were scared.
So you got to be able to run theball, man.
And that's part of the reasons why the defense was put in bad
positions is because we couldn'tfinish certain drives.
It's what I get so pissed about with the offense going back to
last year. But anyway, great pick up to

(01:01:33):
have AI think what James said inhere like a third down back, you
know, and I think that I have togo look at the stats, but I
think he was good at catching the ball out of the backfield as
well. So you do want, I mean, you're
bringing in two guys that have been there who's already had
some production, who's played ata high level in Stewart and in

(01:01:55):
in Bennett. And you want to be able to get
them in games and let's see who gets hot.
Because it's a slippery slope when you're dealing with stuff
like the portal and recruiting and bringing people in.
But then you go and look at OhioState who had a beast of a
running back in Trayvon Henderson.

(01:02:15):
And then they go get a beast of a running back from Ole Miss and
Junkman, like 1 running back just can't do it.
You got to be able to have options and you got to account
for injury. So I'm excited that they did go
out and get him. I I don't understand, like I was
thinking when we got him, like what, why like not why did we

(01:02:36):
get it, but like why is he stillthere for us?
You know, I thought that would have been a little bit, but you
just it's part of recruiting, man.
And it's still it's still players that want to play for
Virginia Tech. You just got to find them and
you got to have something to to draw them in and want to come
here and I'm trying to read while I'm talking and Josh just

(01:02:57):
put up some good, he said. Bennett had 25 catches for 188
yards and two touchdowns. Thank you.
At at six two, you know, 220, you know that that's that's what
we want. And then also, you know, I know
we've already talked about seldom coming in, who's played
some running back, but probably going to be more of like a slot
widely with some kind of like a Debo Samuel Samuel setup.

(01:03:19):
But you can never have too much production.
So I'm I'm all about it. I think Sheldon had something
that he wanted to throw in. Sheldon, what you got, buddy?
Yeah. So my understanding is Terry on
Stewart isn't quite as well-rounded as facial tune was
in terms of just, you know, passblocking and pass catching.

(01:03:40):
So I think what they wanted to do adding Bennett was get, you
know, just just add some more bodies there and kind of have it
be more of a bike committee approach, you know, because
Bennett's got some decent numbers, not necessarily, you
know, eye popping, but, you know, he's a pretty solid, you
know, explosive guy. But they just want some more,
some more options there for for their third down, you know,

(01:04:02):
personnel selection in particular.
Brian, anything on Braden Bennett as we wrap up the portal
section here? Yeah, I think to to Sheldon's
point, you know, getting that insurance policy and having a
guy that you can trust on 3rd downs is always going to be
important, whether you're using that person out of a backfield
or whether you're you're keepingthem in there to block.
Having someone that you can count on the rely on on 3rd down

(01:04:24):
is so important when it comes topass protection.
So that's going to be a big point.
And I think that's where you'll see Bennett shine with that
size, the ability to to to pass block, but still being a
productive receiver out of the backfield.
All righty, let's roll on just afew more notes before we look at

(01:04:45):
the schedule for a few minutes here.
Jordan Bass love it. Have mercy.
Now, in some cases, some people are saying this is good.
You need some stupid ones and crazy ones out there because you
got to balance everybody. Can't be a choirboy football,

(01:05:07):
but it was it was report. I think it was on January 5th
because I went back and looked into some record.
There was a DUI by the by Virginia Tech police on that
day. Then just a few weeks later pops
out. But Lord have mercy, could you
have waited like this summer? Could you have waited till

(01:05:31):
summer? He should have waited till just
after the spring game like 420 right?
No, he needed to go ahead and get it out of his system.
Now, from my from my understanding, he's hurt anyway.
So I think Bass is going to be real limited in the spring.
Not that doesn't. I ain't saying that that makes a
difference that he should go andget in trouble.

(01:05:52):
But I don't think this is I mean, he wasn't going to be able
to do much in the spring anyway.So sometimes you got to, you
know, you got to start a a villain art, you got to have a
villain origin story. So if this is what it takes for
you to get serious, you know, you just transferred you coming

(01:06:14):
back home and then you go and you get in trouble.
So now you know it's serious. You know, these kids all want to
get NIL. They want to be able to take
care of the families and get money.
But there is stipulation that comes along with that.
There's some, you know, some some grown upness that comes
along with having a job. This is treated as a job now

(01:06:35):
because you're getting paid. So I'm not saying that I'm glad
it happened, but if it's going to happen, I think now's the
time so we can get on track to spin it into something positive.
And again I'm going. To say this hold on so firkin
work his ass and a little bit ofextra for the stupidity.
And then I'll say this, I don't smoke.

(01:06:58):
It's weed, man, You know what I'm saying?
It's weed. Nobody's ever nobody, nobody's
ever got high and drove a car 100 miles an hour.
You probably got high and drove a car 10 miles an hour.
I'm just saying you're probably going under the speed limit
instead of over it. So I'd rather you be smoking and
driving than drinking and driving.

(01:07:19):
Don't do neither one of them if it's any kids out there, but I'm
just saying them Georgia playerswas getting behind the wheel of
cars and they was getting all kinds of stuff from here and
they were still playing. So let's just go ahead and let's
get past this and and let's not let's not get in trouble no more
everybody else. Let's let's let's keep it
straight. Yeah, there we go.

(01:07:41):
I real quick. It was announced spring game
April 12th IMTBD tally. Haven't even thought about it
yet. I don't know.
Hopefully, hopefully I can make it.
It's always fun to go to the spring name.
My wife likes to go. We usually stay in Bristol, go

(01:08:01):
to the casino a little bit, thendrive up.
So I don't know man. I'm going to try to, I'm going
to try to. I'm going to try my best.
Even better, Tal, it's a 3. It's a late pick this year so
that gives you time to go gambleoff Friday night, get a little
nap, wake up by 9, be in town by11 and you still can tailgate
and everything. Shelton, I don't know what the

(01:08:22):
schedule looks like or is there a potential you could be there
the 12th or is it a no go? There's potential.
OK, OK. There's potentially potential.
There's potentially potential, Brian.
I'm there. I'm already booked.
I'm I booked before the announcement came out so.

(01:08:43):
Was April 12th? Is that what you said, April?
12th. Yeah.
OK. We might be able to slide
through that. We'll, we'll be coming back from
the cruise. I'll have a week at work and
then I'll head down to head downto Blacksburg baby.
You'll hey you go Brian, you will have a week to convince my
wife to let me go that weekend. Yeah, I'm.
I'm going to be the pitch man. I'm.

(01:09:04):
Going to be the pitch man all the.
Way or you going to put Andrew you.
Going to call Andrew, be like gogo go pitch to Kim.
Y'all going to be in that? Y'all going to be in that tiny
room four weeks she going to be itching for you to get out of
her hair I promise you. Cruise rooms.
We got. Hold on.
Real quick, get out. We got some friends of ours
going that I kid you, they've got a teenage daughter and a son

(01:09:28):
that's a little bit younger thanme and Brian's kids.
They just wouldn't get 2 separate rooms.
Mom and dad, daddy, dad, dad andson staying in one Mom and dog
staying in. I'll tell you, man, we went the
last year we went on a cruise. It was my son's first cruise and
we got 2 rooms, but my daughter and her friend went in one room
and then my son stayed in the room with me and my wife and

(01:09:49):
we'd never seen it. We'd never seen it.
I wish he was that way while he was at home.
He would get up, he would wake himself up and he would be out
of the room at like 6:30 in the morning.
He was going and eating lunch with people.
I mean eating breakfast with, with little girls and their
families. And I would just get random
pictures of people, like snapping pictures and be like,

(01:10:09):
Hey, did you know he was over here?
He was going and playing basketball early in the
mornings. And then he'd be like, Hey, how
like, you know, stay out. We going, we all going to get
pizza because they'll have on the cruise we was on.
The big thing was pizza late at night, so.
That's what we. Heard too.
They were all yeah, they were all out eating pizza at 2:00 in
the morning until they. So we never seen him, you know,
not saying that you still don't need no space, but for for me, I

(01:10:33):
was like, I kind of like this. He's here, but he ain't here, so
I'm gonna let him do a thing. There we go, all righty.
So as always, we are brought to you by the Count Family
Pharmacy, Friendly Neighborhood Pharmacy, 301 S Main St. in
Blacksburg. Go check Jeremy out, check
Jeremy's podcast Blacksburg on the Rock with Paul Van Wagner,

(01:10:53):
formerly of ESPN Blacksburg. But Tally, you hit me up today
and told me a little something because if y'all did not see
ESPN put out just a little earlier today the top 100 games
of 2024 college football edition, Tally was teasing me

(01:11:13):
and asking. So Tally, I'm going to put this
on you. How many games did the Hokies
have in the top 100 this year? I just looked at the one, they
may have one more, but I know they had one and it was at 7 and
it was the Miami game, the MiamiVirginia Tech game.
And I just thought, I wonder what Curtis, when I first seen

(01:11:36):
that, I said, I wonder what Curtis thinks about us losing
this game and them cheating us and it turning up to be the
number 7 best game of the year. So Curtis, you was my first
thought when I seen that. That was your first thought,
because you know you're going tomake me mad about that.
It was my first thought it. It it it yeah, there we go.

(01:11:58):
We got ho that's the honest to God truth.
But it was a great game, That game on that Friday night AI
think the numbers were like 4 million.
It was like one of the highest rated Friday night games ever. 4
million's a ton of people for a Friday night game and it was a
great game. But whatever you want to say.
I was pissed about the iPhones because we did get screwed

(01:12:21):
calmer bit them in the ass against Syracuse later in the
year if they deserved it, but itshould have happened to us.
But it was truly a great game. I mean from beginning to end,
you know, it had all the drama, it had stops, it had go ahead
scores, it had comeback and thenthe crazy shit at the end.
It's some I don't know is if it's, you know, maybe it should

(01:12:45):
have been top five, but I'd haveto go through everything.
Sheldon, do you Sheldon, I feel like you have that, don't you?
Did we have any the the you had?And I think David Hale wrote it
the top 100 games of the year. Let me find it because I think.
We're no, I don't have it linked.
You don't have it linked. Let me try to find it because I

(01:13:05):
think someone said that the Syracuse game is on there.
It might have been on that, too.I know, I know.
The first thing that caught my eye was the Miami game.
And what I remember about the Miami game is that this is even
though we lost, this is what Virginia Tech looks like.

(01:13:29):
Like we looked like a football team that was poised to take the
next step. You know what I'm saying?
Now you win that game, you definitely feel better about
taking the next step. But just the from the way that
we, you know, came out and was chirping at their players.
I mean, it's the NFL players over there.

(01:13:50):
We we chirping back at them. They're chirping.
And it was a true rivalry. You know what I'm saying?
Like even I told people when they said when they took the
Miami game away, I was like, that's the that's the real
rivalry. Like Miami was the first team
I've seen Virginia Tech play against in person.
And it's, it's electric, man. Like, not that the fans don't

(01:14:12):
like each other, but they like, that's a real game where they
really, they respect each other,but they want to beat each
other, you know? Like it was Miami fans there
that we talked to and it was just like they wanted to win.
And it's always like that, you know, we talked about UVA.
Yeah, it's a rivalry. But is it, is it really a
rivalry? You know what I'm saying?
It's like when you push the special kid down out of his

(01:14:37):
wheelchair so many times, like come on, man, like are you going
to keep doing that? Are you all right with that?
Or you or you really, you know, you're going to you're going to
stand up to somebody, just punchit back.
You actually in a in a in a 12 round bout.
That's what I like to see. But I would have really liked
for us to win that game. I feel like if we catch that

(01:14:58):
ball, that game goes a little bit.
Higher, we did catch that ball. We did catch that ball.
I don't know man. You like David Cole?
We caught that ball, too. I don't even want to think about
it, but. He he knows what to get me going
about. Yeah.
I'll just say this year, I'm hoping that we end up on the top

(01:15:18):
100 games and we're coming on wewe coming on, on, on the on the
top end of it. Now I will tell you this,
Curtis, I'll bring you this. It says the Vandy game was on
that too. So the number one game of the
season was Vandy versus Alabama.No.
That's what they that's what they put, that's what.

(01:15:39):
ESPN put I like Bill Collier stupid the game of the year.
I like Bill. Collier, that's stupid.
What's who? Georgia Tech, Georgia.
I think that was probably like four.
Yeah, I. Think that that should have been
one. That game was unreal.
I think I know the Vandy Alabamagame was higher.
That was 5. That was five, OK.
And then the the scataboo comingout party in the playoffs was

(01:16:04):
like 2. Yeah.
So which that was a that was a freaking good game, man.
Oh, that was three. OK, Yeah, that was 22.
Was Bama Georgia one back in September?
I don't even remember that game.That's.
That was an iconic. Game, whatever, I get it.

(01:16:28):
Vandy Vandy Vandy Bama was one Idon't agree with that the the
whole Bama Georgia game. The only thing that made that
game like, hey, Bama went up early.
Georgia gets all the way back. It was the Ryan Williams
touchdown. Like, that was an iconic play.
When they hit that touchdown on the sideline, it was just like,
they should have lost. They should have lost the Orange

(01:16:51):
Bowl. Orange Bowl.
Orange Bowl. Wait a SEC.
Orange Bowl was Penn State, Notre Dame, right?
Yeah. Orange Bowl.
Oh, yeah. There you go.
Ohio State, Oregon. That was a great game.
Yeah, the Orange Bowl was a me and Brian, we watched that
playing poker. I lost some money that night
because I was about halfway focused on it.

(01:17:14):
That was a good like that was like the classic old school
thing. It was back.
It was forth that he knew he knew what to do to rile me up
and the the Texas, Arizona Stategame, they they were just I sat
here almost all day. Yeah, that was a that was a
great game, man, that. Was a great game.
I enjoy probably watching that game more than any other game

(01:17:35):
this year, you know, besides Virginia Tech games, which I
didn't enjoy watching some of them.
But anyway, that was I, I, like you said New Year's, sitting
around watching that with my brother-in-law.
And that was that was just a that's what you want, man.
That's what you want. That's what you expect A playoff
game to feel like, You know whatI'm saying?
Like that was just a great game.So I'm looking forward to it.

(01:17:58):
For all the people who say it, the playoffs was nothing when
you see something like that and y'all got lucky too.
Y'all got lucky because in the national championship they did
make it a little bit closer thanit should have been.
So I couldn't come in here and really go off like I wanted to
because so many people was talking about, you know, how it
was just so messed up. And I was like, it's always been

(01:18:21):
A1 sided national championship game for like the last seven
years. You know, it's eight years,
however long we got to go back. So essentially it was the same
this year. They was about to get boat raced
and then they calmed it down. Because somebody it was it was
it was it was entertaining because you knew at the end
there like if a house. Well, first of all, let's talk

(01:18:41):
about this play this this is a Virginia Tech podcast.
But again, I love college football.
We all do. How the hell he put the hat on
back with you? How the hell on 3rd and nine do
you play Jeremiah Smith off 9 yards with third and nine?
That boy is going to get the ball.
I don't give a shit where he is.He was getting the ball that

(01:19:05):
play and you play off man, against him and when he did that
little hitch, he was dead. I sit here and I say, could you
at least have played press? What if he beats press?
At least you tried. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. I think that was a head
scratching move too. So I don't know.

(01:19:25):
Curtis was texting me about that.
I was like, what was so pissed about?
He was hot man. See shit.
And it's just like, how is Al Golden getting paid $1.8 million
a year and it's the biggest playto you.
You stop them, you get the ball and you had a chance to tie this
football game. You already screwed up once at

(01:19:46):
the from the 10. We're going to kick a field
goal, we're going to be down to scores.
Still talk about game management.
And then it's like against that kid.
Anybody else fine. Anybody else they beat you,
fine. That kid?
No. That kid is elite.
And you let him do that? All righty.
Where were we? Schedule.

(01:20:08):
Schedule, schedule. The the full schedule release
has happened and that's what we'll kind of close it down here
with the night 2 trips to Atlanta.
Everybody, just so you know yourtally, we be there both times.
Look for him, for those who wantto get you.
Meet him. Go there, meet him.
He'll take him. Take.

(01:20:28):
Six weeks apart, baby. I'll be there about 3 hours from
my house. I got to go all.
Righty, so look real quick over the schedule.
I got it out there for y'all. What did I tell y'all last week
about the schedule? I texted all three of y'all
wherever what Florida State's our furthest trip this year,

(01:20:51):
whatever week we play that I told y'all we're getting Miami
right after it. They going to screw us in that
way to make air travel. So they they did as my
prediction to make sure Miami was after it.
But anything on here y'all like you dislike you wish was
different? I, I wish that we were at FSU on

(01:21:16):
the open date and they had the open day between FSU and Miami.
Everything else I'd be fine with.
All right, I don't really like NN is going to be kind of a not
the best month other than UVA. It would be great stop.

(01:21:36):
Could be great, could be great, but I'm saying if, if, if we're
trying to, if the goal is to spread out the difficult
contest, we put a lot of them, at least from a talent
perspective, at least from a talent perspective in November.
Sheldon, anything you like, you hate.

(01:21:58):
I wish the kickoff game was in Charlotte, but that's more of a
personal complaint. I think we you.
Don't want to. You don't want to come to
Atlanta, man. Charlotte's my city.
Like that's, you know, it's just, it's my city, so.
I got to get to Charlotte, man. I've heard some good stuff about
Charlotte. I've never been so I I need to

(01:22:19):
go. Maybe one December we can just
go there. You got to get to the clip.
Yeah, I think that's what I'm waiting on.
We got to get to the we got to get to the spot so I can so I
can go to Charlotte. Can y'all make that happen for
me, Pry? If you watch it please can you
get to can you get to Charlotte so I can experience what
Charlotte is. My boy Sheldon is telling me how
great of a city it is. He tells me I can get all kind

(01:22:42):
of food there. I'm fat, I like to eat and y'all
are hindering me going and eating good food because you
won't get to Charlotte. Please get to Charlotte please.
That's all. There's one, there's one
restaurant there that had the best cornbread I've ever tasted
in my entire life. I don't know if you're a
cornbread guy, but. I'm black.
We love cornbread. You got it.

(01:23:02):
You've got to try it, man. What's the place called?
Sheldon? Do you know I'll?
I'll talk to my friend and I'll I'll get the, I'll get the name.
So there you go, Coach Pratt. You have to get us to Charlotte.
So. We can go to the cornbread.
Sally needs cornbread it. Was a, it was a, it was a
transcend transcendental experience, like cornbread.

(01:23:22):
That's great. Yeah, I know we got 7 home
games. We do.
That's a lot of home games. Maybe we may get the one this
year. Maybe maybe we can actually, you
know, take advantage of that. I hope so.
You know, let's try 7 home games.
I know every team is different, every year is different.
But looking at that back half ofthe schedule, you know, you go

(01:23:45):
Louisville at home, then you go Florida State, then you go
Miami, then you go Virginia. It's like really, I get it.
It's a, it's a for me not to sound like a Homer, I'll just
say I'm more worried about our team than I do those teams.
Florida State fucking won two games this year.

(01:24:07):
I think I'm not too much worriedabout what Florida State has
going on. Maybe, maybe they come back next
year and they go to the playoffs.
I don't know. Miami had a a very, very good
quarterback this year and we took them to the brink of the
end of the game. So Carson Beck.

(01:24:28):
He's ugly. He ain't worth. $4 million.
I don't know how he's going to play, but nobody ugly.
They get. What is that?
Does that sound right? Yes, I'm like, oh, you're
talking about that place. A good place as as Pinky and
Merits. It sound like it's good.
I don't even know what it I don't know if that's the same

(01:24:49):
place, but it sounds good. You're looking at I want to eat
that. I'll close it down.
We get a traditional Thursday with Cal great or Thursday or
Friday. I'm sure when it comes out it's
Friday, everybody will bitch andcomplain about it being on a
Friday. But like, overall, it's it's
like fairly balanced up until the last month of the season.

(01:25:13):
Like, like, you know, you go through, it's like, well,
Georgia Tech should probably be a tough game.
NC State should probably be rebuilding the beginning with
South Carolina and Vanderbilt. But like you asked me to key in
on a date, I think what happens October 11th down back in
Atlanta tells the story of the team middle of the season.

(01:25:35):
Like I think that's the that's like the that's the pivot game,
I think. And if it's a year to if if good
things happen there, we're sitting here having good
conversation. If not, we're talking about some
new coaches, potentially more people being fired.
So there we go. All right, anything that has
happened in the last hour and 25minutes, gentlemen, y'all want
to share? I don't see anything else out

(01:25:58):
here, man. I think we're good.
All right. I did confirm it is Merch Soul
Food in Charlotte. So thank you, Rob, for bringing
that up. I totally forgot the name of the
restaurant. So we'll have to get, we'll have
to get Tally there sometime. We're gonna get Tally to merch
because we're gonna go to Charlotte this year.
One way show get. The merch baby.
Get the merch. All right.
With that, that wraps up this episode of the Boundary Corner

(01:26:20):
podcast, brought to you by Counts Family Pharmacy in
Blacksburg. I am Curtis Wilson.
I'm Brian Siegler. Joe Katelli.
And I'm Sean Moss. We are part of the College
Shuttle Network. Visit our website
boundarycornerbt.com to listen to all of our episodes.
Check the merchandise shop out while you're there.
Follow us everywhere. Y'all know where we are?

(01:26:42):
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, subscribe on YouTube, also
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So whatever you like to listen to, we can get you.
If it's one we're not on, let usknow.
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If it is one we are not on, please let us know because that

(01:27:09):
really is going to bother Brian for a while.
If if he's missed a podcast source that we have, we could be
on. He will definitely get it on
there. As always, our buddy Jason Long,
he plays us in. He plays us out every week.
Chest his website jasonlongmusic.com out for all

(01:27:33):
his latest stuff. Man got called back into
emergency wrestling coaches overthe last few weeks.
So I don't think he's had a chance to listen in, but check
out his Spotify, his YouTube pages.
As always, we appreciate all y'all out there listening.
Y'all have been very entertaining in the chat tonight
and as always we appreciate y'all and let's go.

(01:27:58):
Hokey.

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