Good morning Hokies on this transfer portal season Monday! It was a crazy week of departures for the Hokies in the portal as they lost a few starters and top backups to the transfer portal. This includes Xavier Chaplin (who has committed to Auburn), Braelin Moore (who has LSU and Michigan State in pursuit), Mansoor Delane, Mose Phillips, Jalen Stroman, Keli Lawson, and Malachi Thomas. Some of these departures weren’t surprising like Thomas, Lawson, or even Delane (albeit the portal part was a surprise) but some were including the offensive line losses which likely inspired part of the other biggest headline last week.

Brent Pry also made a trio of staff changes, letting go of defensive coordinator Chris Marve, OL coach Ron Crook, and strength & conditioning coach Dwight Galt IV. Those searches are ongoing with it being a priority to fill the DC and OL coach roles quickly with transfer portal season in full swing.

On a different note, both Men’s Basketball and Women’s Basketball took care of business as the MBB team beat NC A&T and Navy to end their six-game losing streak while WBB blew out Radford in a game that felt like it was over before it even started. Wrestling was off last week, but takes center stage on the competition front this week with a top 10 showdown against Oklahoma State that we’ll dive into more later on.

Let’s get into our feature for today diving into the changes and the bad process that led to an unnecessary delayed timing for those changes.

Understandable Changes But Poor Process and Timing

As you are aware of, Brent Pry made some staff changes last week in dismissing Chris Marve, Ron Crook, and Dwight Galt IV. After a disappointing 6-6 season, the moves were understandable given how the offensive line continued to be the biggest weakness, the defense struggled to close out this game, and this team failed to have the toughness to finish off close games while also lacking consistent push in the trenches.

All of these decisions are more than fair and understandable and do indeed seem like the right calls, though I could have made a strong case as well for retaining Marve just like the case for making a change.

However, the timing of this is not ideal coming days into the transfer portal cycle despite the fact that this could have been done a week ago.

Let’s start with the fact that Brent Pry and Whit Babcock met this past week rather than last to discuss the state of the football program and any potential decisions to be made. Babcock referenced in his interview with Bill Roth that Signing Day and the busyness of the push for closing things out made the schedule too busy at that time. Of course, the transfer portal season is no less busy so I’m not sure I fully buy the case that this past week was a more opportune time than the week prior.

Now the delay means that during the midst of the transfer portal season, Virginia Tech is now without a coordinator along with an OL coach for an important early stretch where lots of visits are not only happening, but getting scheduled. When you have some instability, it can slow some things down and open doors for competition to land players you want even when the offers are similar. Given that in-person visits being allowed end this weekend till just after the new year starts, that’s a little problematic for Tech.

What makes that worse is that Tech has a big need on the offensive line along with needs to supplement depth and fill in starting spots across the roster including on defense. While having a defensive head coach in Pry plus a veteran assistant OL coach in Brent Davis can help mitigate those two issues some, it still can present some unnecessary challenges for the last week of December visits in the portal window ahead of the Christmas and New Year’s holiday season.

If you have the meeting during the week of Signing Day and make the changes at the end of that week, Pry likely has a DC in place sometime over this weekend or early this week at the latest. That allows VT to attack the transfer portal with more stability right now, especially since Pry hinted that more staff “shuffling” could happen once a new DC is in place. That could be the difference in convincing a top target to visit your school or postpone till January to wait for the hire, risking that he ends up committing elsewhere before even reaching campus.

Now some may say that Pry could have made these changes before meeting with Babcock but given that there’s about $2-3 million worth of salaries to be paid out for coaches no longer working here, that’s a move that in part requires AD involvement, even if it’s a rubber stamp of approval. There’s plenty of blame on the poor timing to go around for both Pry and Babcock.

While the decisions make sense, the process was poor due to the timing of it all, and it may be hurting the Hokies’ ability to acquire portal talent early on in this transfer cycle. The good news is that Tech should have this resolved in the coming days based on normal timelines for these type of moves, but that still may be a few days away from happening.

In the interim, Tech will have to overcome questions about who will be leading their unit or primarily coaching their position for their offensive line and defensive transfer portal targets. The visit opportunities and transfers that this could end up costing the Hokies could prove to be the difference between a successful 2025 and a complete overhaul next year including the AD and the head coach.

The Week in Review Highlights

Hokie of the Week: Ben Hammond has had some of the struggles you would expect for a freshman, but this week may have been a minor turning point in him becoming more comfortable at this level. The true freshman point guard shined in both wins this week with 28 points, seven assists, and seven steals in 44 minutes between the two victories, shooting 10-12 from the field including 4-4 from three-point range plus 4-4 from the free-throw line.

While Brandon Rechsteiner remains the starting point guard for now, it’s fair to wonder if the Hokies may be better off switching to Hammond. It’ll be interesting to see what the minutes-split looks like next Saturday against Saint Joseph’s in what is a nice step up in competition before ACC play resumes on New Year’s Eve at Duke.

Stat of the Week: 20. That’s the number of scholarship and walk-on players that have entered the transfer portal so far for Virginia Tech.

In the past, the walk-on count hasn’t been of concern, but it is now because of the House Settlement that changes the model from a 120-man roster with 85 scholarship players to a 105-man roster with all 105 able to be on scholarship. So far, most of the departures have been scholarship players which has brought VT to 103 by my estimations. With more walk-ons certain to be heading for other opportunities in the coming weeks, expect VT to have the room to bring in 15 or more transfers this cycle.

Quote of the Week: The most revealing quote that Brent Pry gave about his decisions was about OL coach Ron Crook. When you are reading out the description of what a college football coach does, it’s usually not a good sign that things went well or as hoped.

"I think in general, it's important to understand that the job description isn't just what you see on the field. There's recruiting, there's relationships, there's player development, there's player production; all of it's very important. And when I evaluate coaches and staff members, the entire job description is part of that, where are we meeting standards and where are we not. And when not enough of those boxes are being checked, that's when there's a concerning issue.”

Like I said, it’s not a good sign when the head coach responds to a questions about a dismissal decision by laying out the job description without pointing to just one issue. Safe to say, Brent Pry missed on his second OL coach hire and now needs to make a third hire for the role.

Monday Notes

Brent Pry Discusses Staff Changes: During his press conference on Friday, Brent Pry shared details on the process that led to staff changes and why he made each of the three decisions that he made. While the OL coach decision is included earlier on, you can get the full insights on Pry’s decisions here.

Kyron Drones, Pop Watson Both Returning: One of the biggest positives for Virginia Tech recently is the fact that Kyron Drones and Pop Watson will both be returning to the Hokies in 2025, giving the Hokies a strong QB depth chart. You can read more about the return of Drones and Watson, and what that means for VT here.

Standout FCS Cornerback on Campus: Utah Tech CB Scooter Jackson is currently on campus as I reported to our TLP Insiders on Saturday. Jackson also has visits set to Arizona and Virginia after his trip to Blacksburg, while he also made a trip to Tulane last week. Jackson is a versatile cornerback who could provide depth there and give VT a quality option to fill the nickel spot that Dorian Strong worked out of at times this past season.

Virginia Tech Leads for Recent Offer: A recent Virginia Tech defensive transfer portal offer told me that the Hokies are the leaders in his recruitment currently and that he is working up to set a visit soon. Indiana, Wake Forest, Houston, Texas State, and others also have varying levels of interest in him. You can learn more on him here.

Replacing VT’s Transfer Portal Departures: The Hokies have had several notable transfer portal departures who will require a mix of in-house and transfer replacements including Xavier Chaplin, Braelin Moore, Malachi Thomas, Mansoor Delane, Mose Phillips, Jalen Stroman, and Keli Lawson. You can read my thoughts on how the Hokies’ offensive transfer portal departures here and the defensive transfer portal departures here.

Antwaun Powell-Ryland Earns Multiple Honors: Antwaun Powell-Ryland continues to receive lots of honors for his 16-sack season as he’s received Second Team All-American honors from multiple publications including CBS Sports and Walter Camp. Additionally, Powell-Ryland earned the Dudley Award which is given to the best college football player playing in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Carles Coll Marti Wins World Title: Virginia Tech swimmer Carles Coll Marti shined at the 25-meter World Aquatics Championships this past weekend, winning the world title for Spain in the 200 meter breaststroke. To my knowledge, the Spaniard is the first swimmer to win a world or Olympic title either in the traditional 50-meter length pool or in the shorter 25-meter pool.

The Week Ahead: Here’s a look at the Virginia Tech Athletics schedule from now through Sunday.

Thursday (12/19)