Virginia Tech's backyard has proved fruitful during the Hokies' May recruiting surge with Tech's fourth commit of May coming from three-star WR Marcell Baylor out of Radford, VA.
Baylor chose the Hokies over other offers from Boston College, Temple, Applachian State, JMU, Liberty, Old Dominion, and UCONN. He's the first WR commit in the 2023 class and third in-state commit this cycle along with three-star DE Jason Abbey out of Richmond and three-star OT Hannes Hammer who is from Germany originally but currently goes to North Cross School in Roanoke as he pursues his football future.
Baylor may not have consistently faced the toughest competition so far at Radford HS, but he's been a dominant playmaker regardless of who he's facing with plenty of multi-touchdown performances for Radford HS.
When Tech offers a player in their backyard, those battles are must wins, and Brent Pry & his staff have done well early on from locking in Benji Gosnell late in the 2022 cycle to getting Hannes Hammer and Marcell Baylor in early in the 2023 cycle. Of course, Tech did pretty well at that during the Justin Fuente era with guys like James Mitchell, Jaden Keller, Gunner Givens, Jesse Hanson, and Cole Beck; but this is a strong start for Tech in the Pry era on home turf.
It'll be interesting to see where the Hokies go from here as they'll likely look to bring in 1-2 more receivers though outside receivers may not be as big of a priority with the 6'3'' Baylor on board.
