The Tech Lunch Pail is excited to announce the launch of the new TLP Insider subscription. Sign up for an account and get the best news, inside scoops, and analysis on the Hokies! Learn more

Overlooking Hendon Hooker Worse Than Overlooking Steph Curry

Hendon Hooker 1 VT BC 2020 From ACC

One of the great "what ifs" for Virginia Tech fans is what if Steph Curry would have been offered a scholarship by Seth Greenberg and played his college ball in Blacksburg instead of at Davidson?

There's plenty who see that as the biggest miss/what if in Virginia Tech Athletics history but there's at least one miss that is definitely worse in my book: Justin Fuente going with Braxton Burmeister over Hendon Hooker at QB in 2020 leading to Hooker's transfer to Tennessee.

Now you may be wondering where this thought to write this even came from, but it started with seeing The Athletic's Heisman Poll this week which ranked Hooker #2 behind only Ohio State QB CJ Stroud.

Yes, we have seen transfers win the Heisman Trophy like Joe Burrow, but Burrow came from an Ohio State program that had plenty of other talented QBs with Burrow not starting at the time of his transfer.

Meanwhile, that was definitely not the case with Hendon Hooker who we had seen plenty of starting in 2019 when he replaced Ryan Willis after Tech's blowout loss to Duke. Hooker turned around Tech's season and nearly led them to their second ACC Coastal title in four years under Justin Fuente with a loss at UVA costing them in the end.

Then 2020 happened and though Hooker clearly looked like the better QB when he was on the field, Tech was trigger happy to go to Braxton Burmeister who had his moments including an impressive game against UVA to close that season.

However, it was clear that Tech's best QB and clear best passer was Hooker who had the arm strength to stretch the field with impressive accuracy that made it look like he was placing the ball where he wanted it and not really throwing it. As someone who has watched loads of Tech football in person starting in 2014, Hooker has the most talented arm that I've seen during that time period.

Instead, Fuente went with Burmeister while Hooker understandably sought greener pastures in a better offense which he found with Tennessee. Of course, Josh Heupel briefly overlooked Hooker as well before eventually bringing him to replace Joe Milton just a couple games and then seeing Hooker lead Tennessee to a solid 2021 before having the Volunteers as a legitimate top 10 team in 2022.

In Blacksburg, the bottom fell out for the Hokies with Justin Fuente facing the axe before the end of the season and Braxton Burmeister transferring to San Diego State after the 2021 season seeing the writing on the wall that the new Tech staff would be looking for a new QB.

Now some of you may say that Hooker wouldn't have done as well in a Fuente offense in 2021 as he did at Tennessee which is accurate, but he definitely would have been a clear improvement over Burmeister.

Some may also say that if Hooker stays, Justin Fuente is likely still the head coach, but Fuente survived 2020 in my view largely due to the fact that a lot of coaches wanted to change jobs knowing in part that the COVID-induced recruiting dead period wouldn't be over till well into 2021, making it hard to build critical recruiting foundations early on. Therefore, it would have likely taken Fuente winning at least 8 if not 9 games to save his job for another season and he still might have hit the reset job and left for another opening like TCU in that scenario where he would have some momentum.

Okay so what about the receiving corps that was left behind at VT? Well talented wide receivers want to play for high-end proven talents with Tayvion Robinson not willing to take a chance instead transferring to Kentucky who has potential 2023 first round pick Will Levis plus the #1 WR spot like he would have been at VT this year. If Hooker is still on this roster, Robinson likely stays and the interest from transfer portal WR talent is likely even greater than what Tech had.

So those who view the Steph Curry miss as the worst miss of all-time may still be wondering how missing a future top 10 NBA player who was the son of your greatest future basketball pro is somehow not as bad as Hendon Hooker? Well context and data matters here.

The year of Steph Curry's HS graduation, Virginia Tech had only one scholarship available and signed a four-star, top 100 recruit in PG Nigel Munson while Curry didn't have a single major conference and signed with Davidson which at the time was in the Southern Conference still with the SoCon not being as high profile as it is today.

If Tech had another scholarship or if the transfer portal was a thing, there's probably a decent chance that Seth Greenberg and his staff take a chance on Curry with a scholarship.

Instead, they went with the top 100 recruit which, let's be honest, if Tech went with an unrated Curry-type prospect who is the son of a prominent VT alum but has 0 major conference offers over a top 100 recruit today, my colleagues who have message boards would be quite busy moderating them for the large chorus of anger that would certainly spew over for a decision like that.

Meanwhile, Hendon Hooker was a proven talent who had shown he was a better passer and better QB both by simply watching games and by the numbers. He led a Tech team out of the abyss immediately in 2019 to nearly winning the ACC Coastal before COVID through things out of whack for him in 2020 though he still had plenty of good moments and was the better QB than Burmeister who was a fighter with great work ethic like Hooker, but just not as good of a passer and QB.

Here's a quick stat comparison from 2020 between Hooker (the first numbers), and Burmeister (the second numbers).

  • Completion Percentage: 65.3% vs. 56.5%
  • Yards Per Attempt: 8.9 vs 8.1
  • Passer Rating: 153.5 vs 129.8
  • Passing TDs per Attempts: 1:16 vs 1:42
  • Yards Per Carry: 5.2 vs 4.1

This wasn't a case of choosing the four-star recruit over the guy with 0 power conference offers. Rather, it was a case of not going with a proven, winning QB and better passer by both the stats and eye test who likely had a NFL future to go with a talented athlete but a guy who's only chance to make it in the NFL will be at a position that isn't QB.

Yes, Steph Curry was a missed high school evaluation that Virginia Tech probably shouldn't have missed, but Hendon Hooker was a missed evaluation after years of winning games for the Hokies. That's the type of miss that should never happen but instead, Hendon Hooker is making Tech's previous staff foolish for turning elsewhere at QB in 2020 while Tech fans wonder what could have been if Hooker would have stayed and gotten to play in a better offense.

Advertisement
You must login in order to comment on this post.
Loading Indicator