Thursday, September 07, 2006
Holland still confident despite his slow ride
Randy King
Randy King's Tech Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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Ideally, for all parties involved, Roanoke’s Brandon Holland would be part of the solution to Virginia Tech’s ongoing puzzle to find a workable two-deep on its depth-shy offensive line.
But since playing his last down at Northside High School three years ago, Brandon Holland has discovered that nothing comes easy on the road to becoming a contributor for one of the nation’s top-notch Division I-A programs.
"Yeah, high school seems like a pretty long time ago now," Holland said recently. "But just give me time. I’m definitely going to be a factor before I leave here."
The big question is when?
Talk about a guy taking the long road. After being an All-Timesland performer in 2003 at Northside and receiving his high school diploma in the spring of 2004, Holland spent the next year at Hargrave Military Academy, where he played defensive end for Coach Robert Prunty’s team the ensuing fall.
"I had one class that I didn’t have the grade in -- Algebra II," Holland said. "Because Algebra II was a high school course, I had to stay a full year for that. Plus, I had to get my SAT scores up."
After shoring up his academic shortcomings at Hargrave, Holland’s impending move to Blacksburg was delayed again when Tech decided to gray-shirt him last fall. As a result, Holland didn’t enroll in his first Tech class until this past January’s winter semester.
While handling the books had been a much tougher assignment than playing football for him in his Northside days, Holland has found life at Tech the past eight months to be a total flip-flop. In an ironic twist, he has found the classroom gig to be much easier than mastering the football end of the deal.
Holland, whose massive 6-foot-4 and 300-pound plus frame and athleticism coming out of Northside had Tech’s coaching staff picturing him as a viable future contributor to the Hokies’ O-line, admitted he’s had some difficulty making the transition from the trenches of the defense to offense.
"It’s a big adjustment," said Holland, whose only previous experience on the offensive side of the ball had come as a tight end at Northside.
"Playing defense my whole life, and coming up here and playing offense has pretty much been a whole different game to me. Having to learn the offense and the schemes, and going from tackling to blocking people, it’s pretty hard.
"I have a way better perception of it now than I did in the spring. Now, I’m way better as far as picking up the plays and all that."
Still, Holland couldn’t impress the Tech coaches enough in August to become a helper in the Hokies’ thin O-line corps this fall. So Holland, 20, finds himself taking a redshirt season and performing on the scout team.
"Brandon has a lot of talent and I think he will help us eventually. He's just some stuff to learn," first-year Tech O-line coach Curt Newsome said.
Holland, who turned 20 last April l, said that’s not any April Fool’s Day joke, either. If he sticks to his guns, he will be 24 1/2 years old in his senior year of football at Tech in 2010.
"When I finally got here last January, the winter workouts, the spring ball, the running and conditioning, all of that was tough," Holland said. "But I got through that. I don’t think you can really tell a person how hard it is unless they come up here and actually experience it for themselves.
"It’s a big adjustment, but I can play with these guys up here, and I feel real good about that."
Holland said he weighed 328 when he entered classes at Tech. He said he is committed to keeping his weight at a number where he can effectively play. He now has another year to get stronger in Mike Gentry’s program.
"At Northside, I pretty much could dominate guys with my size alone," Holland said. "That and the speed of the game is totally faster here than it was in high school. The guys up here, they’re strong, big and fast. I’ve lost some weight -- I’m down to about 315 right now and I feeling good -- and I’ve gotten faster and stronger.
"Basically, I’ve just got to learn the offense, that’s the only thing. The coaches tell me I’m very athletic. It’s just me knowing the offense and getting the terminology down."
Meanwhile, he’s found the learning coming much easier in the classroom.
"School is going great," said Holland, who joins senior punter Nic Schmitt of Salem as the only two Roanoke Valley natives on football scholarship at Tech. "School hasn’t been as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought coming up here it was going to be real hard going to class and doing the school work.
"Hey, tell everybody in Roanoke I’m OK. I’m going to get everything down. It will all work out. Just give me time."
Don’t worry, big fellow. There are plenty of coaches here waiting on your arrival.
