Friday, November 27, 2009
Signing of Michael Vick jump-started Tech recruiting
Loss of Curry critical to Cavs
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misidentified Bryan Randall's high school as well as Jimmy Wiliams' and Anthony Poindexter's colleges. The article has been changed to reflect the correction.
In hopes of obtaining lists of the state’s top 25 football prospects over the years, Norfolk sportswriter Kyle Tucker told me this week that Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster had cited the recruiting of Cornell Brown as a turning point in the Hokies’ program.Ever since Brown’s commitment, it was implied, Tech has had the upper hand in in-state recruiting.
Just because I compiled the lists doesn’t mean that I can find them now. Roanoke Times online archives only go back to 1990. Because my primary beat is Virginia, it’s hard to remember when Tech signed a particular player.
Heck, it’s hard to remember when some of the Virginia players played.
What I do remember is that I was at the news conference at E.C. Glass High School when Brown, a Hilltoppers linebacker, announced that he was signing with “the University of Virginia … Tech.”
One day, I’d like to ask if his announcement was scripted that way or whether he just got a little tongue-tied.
Here’s what his mother, Oglessa, said at the time:
"He shocked me when he said 'Tech' at the end of it,' " she said. "He said, 'University of Virginia,' and I said, 'Thanks, that's where I wanted him to go.' Then he said, 'Tech,' and I said, 'Wait a minute.' "
That was from the story that appeared in The Roanoke Times on Feb. 4, 1993.
Here’s what Foster has to say for a story that will appear in The Virginian-Pilot on Saturday, hours before a 3:30 p.m. kickoff between the Hokies (8-3 overall, 5-2 ACC) and the Cavaliers (3-8, 2-5):
“We had cultivated the state for a couple years, trying to build relationships with coaches in the state,” Foster said. “That particular guy, being the caliber he was, it showed, ‘Hey, trust these guys.’ “
AT THAT JUNCTURE, the Hokies had lost five of six games with Virginia, including four of five with Tech head coach Frank Beamer and his staff in place.
While it may have seemed as if the series was becoming one-sided, particularly to Beamer, Foster and Co., former Tech coach Bill Dooley had dominated his UVa counterpart, George Welsh during the early to mid-1980s.
Tech had defeated Virginia in six of seven games between 1980-1986, and the Cavaliers need a miraculous fourth-down pass from Don Majkowski to John Ford for their only win during that period, 26-23, in Blacksburg in 1984.
If the late Tom Fletcher were still living, I think he would tell you that Virginia did not have the upper hand on Virginia Tech during those years and was lucky to have signed wide receiver Herman Moore from Danville when the Hokies couldn’t assure Moore that he would be admitted.
At the time, it’s worth remembering, Moore was not even ranked among the state’s top 25 prospects by The Roanoke Times (one of the classic, all-time oversights). The more critical recruit for Virginia was Martinsville High School quarterback Shawn Moore, who signed with the Cavaliers in 1986 (one year before Herman Moore).
If you ask any of the old Hokies, like assistants Bryan Stinespring and Jim Cavanaugh, they would say that Virginia never would have gotten Shawn Moore if not for then-Cavaliers assistant Danny Wilmer, which makes it even more unconscionable that current UVa coach Al Groh did not retain Wilmer.
But. I digress.
FOSTER CERTAINLY KNOWS his program and, if he says that Cornell Brown turned the tide of in-state recruiting, you have to put a lot of stock in that.
Still, my feeling is that in-state recruiting changed for good in the fall of 1997, particularly the night of Sept. 4, when Virginia lost at home to No. 17 Auburn but received a verbal commitment from the state’s top prospect, Hampton High School quarterback Ronald Curry.
You could almost say that the change had occurred earlier, when the Cavaliers’ recruitment of Curry took them out of the running for another Hampton-bred quarterback, Michael Vick from Ferguson High School.
Vick’s coach, Tommy Reamon, had let it be known early in the process that schools needed to make a choice between Curry and Vick. If they were recruiting Curry, they need not bother coming after Vick as a fallback. That eliminated Virginia, which already had another Reamon quarterback, Aaron Brooks, in its system.
Curry, on the other hand, had eliminated the Hokies. So, Tech had no option other than to recruit Vick, who signed with the Hokies and became arguably the best quarterback in the history of the program, as well as the No. 1 pick in the 2001 NFL Draft.
Turns out, Vick was a better college quarterback than Curry. But, that didn’t matter to Virginia. Curry never made it to Charlottesville, deciding in the winter of 1997-1998 that he wanted to play college basketball. He ended up signing with North Carolina because it was perceived to have a better men’s basketball program, although the Cavaliers had a better team for stretches during his career.
Curry played basketball for the Tar Heels and also had a reasonably successful football career, both with Carolina and in the NFL. It’s hard to say what kind of impact he would have had at Virginia, which had Dan Ellis at quarterback for most of that time.
Curry and Vick both came out of the talent-rich 757 area code, but “757” never became the rallying cry elsewhere that it was for the players Tech signed from that area, and you can attribute much of that to Vick.
The No. 1 players in the state in 2000 and 2002 were quarterback Bryan Randall from Williamsburg (Bruton) and defensive end Xavier Adibi from Hampton (Phoebus). Both signed with the Hokies.
Adibi’s class included linebacker Vince Hall from Western Branch and fellow Top 5 choice Chris Ellis, a defensive end from Bethel in Hampton. Defensive back Jimmy Williams had come from Bethel to Tech in the class before that.
IF YOU LOOK AT the years following the Brown signing, Virginia continued to be a factor for a while.
One year later, the ‘Hoos and Hokies each got one of the top two players in the state, with defensive back Anthony Poindexter from Jefferson Forest going to Virginia and running back Ken Oxendine from Thomas Dale going to Tech.
Poindexter and Jones were rated the No. 1 player in the state by The Roanoke Times, as was running back Antwoine Womack from Phobeus in 1997. The only No. 1 prospects to sign with Virginia since then –- or during the Al Groh coaching regime -– were linebackers Ahmad Brooks in 2002 and Olu Hall in 2004.
Hall never panned out and was overrated in an in-state recruiting class that included Tech-bound Sean Glennon and Eddie Royal. Brooks had moments of brilliance but eventually was dismissed from the team.
No. 1 in-state prospects to sign with the Hokies since then have been Adibi in 2003, Macho Harris in 2005, Tyrod Taylor in 2007 and David Wilson in 2009. Tech has certainly taken the upper hand, which, as much as anything, has sealed Al Groh’s fate at UVa.
