Temple First Team All-AAC DE Transfer Darian Varner Signs With Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech has made a major Early Signing Day splash landing talented Temple DE transfer Darian Varner.

Varner is the third transfer for the Hokies this cycle joining Old Dominion WR Ali Jennings and Baylor QB Kyron Drones. He chose the Hokies over other offers from Vanderbilt, Colorado, Indiana, Tulane, East Carolina, JMU, ans Appalachian State.

He had this to say about why he chose the Hokies.

"Great place with great people and I have the opportunity to produce back in state and be a part of this identity they are trying to restore on defense," Varner said.

Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry had this to say about Varner during his Signing Day press conference this afternoon with the context of Tech's need to improve their pass rush.

"We really like the way he rushes the quarterback. He's a twitchy guy and particularly when he gets closer to the football, he was a problem for people. He's a homegrown guy. Like I said to him, his defensive coordinator at Maury, they went 15-0 and he was the heart and soul of their defense, he was a captain of their team so he's got a lot of things going for him. He's been as heavy as 290. He's going to be plenty big enough. He's twitchy. He's strong. He's mature. He was a captain as a third year player at Temple which is impressive so I feel like that was a really good get for us. We had multiple guys that checked that box that we were recruiting and he was really high on the list of wants so it was nice to see him come home. And that didn't work out till late last night," Pry said.

Varner is a massive addition for the Hokies after he had an impressive 2022 season at Temple with 12 tackles for loss including 7.5 sacks. He has two years of eligibility and absolutely has the talent to come in and provide an upgrade at DE especially on the pass rushing side of things.

We will have more as this story develops.