The leash for college football coaches in the transfer portal era is shorter than it has ever been before. While the portal does allow you to flip a roster faster, it doesn't mean that the time it takes to build up a culture and leaders who have been in that culture for 3+ years has suddenly become shorter.
For the first three seasons of the Brent Pry era, most of his team's leaders were players who played for Justin Fuente or transfers who would only be around for a year or two. While they were able to provide good leadership, most of the best teams are built on having leaders who have played for the same head coach for 3+ years.
Well, the Hokies now have more players than ever before who fit that mold with five players from his first full cycle recruiting cycle (2023) who have a good chance to start at worse with most being certain starters in WR Ayden Greene, LB Caleb Woodson, LG Layth Ghannam, CB Dante Lovett, and CB Thomas Williams.
That's not including guys like TE Benji Gosnell, WR/PR Tucker Holloway, and LT Johnny Garrett who signed with VT in the 2022 transition class plus veteran starting QB Kyron Drones who will be entering his third year in the program.
All of that veteran leadership has Brent Pry excited about what those players will be able to do stepping into leadership roles along with a couple other starters who have been in a Pry program for multiple years now.
