Four PrepStar Dream Teamers. Two from SuperPrep's Elite 50. Seven SuperPrep All-Americans. Thirteen PrepStar All-Americans. One Rivals.com five-star player and four Rivals.com four-star players.

As Hokie fans peruse the list of recruits that comprise the best football recruiting class in Virginia Tech history, they can only wonder how far this new crop of kids will go. Tech has already put together two straight 11-1 seasons with recruiting classes that weren't even ranked in the Top 20. What can a class that includes the likes of Bryan Randall and Kevin Jones, the #1 recruits in the state of Virginia and in the country respectively, accomplish in orange and maroon?

The prospects, so to speak, are dizzying for a Virginia Tech program that is intent on keeping the Top 10 ranking it has worked so hard to achieve the last two years. Just 13 days after Michael Vick rocked the Tech world by announcing his intentions to enter the NFL draft, sending many Hokie fans into a state bordering on depression, Kevin Jones of Cardinal O'Hara High School in Springfield, PA pledged to put his signature on a letter of intent (LOI) for the Hokies.

Jones made his commitment to Tech on January 24^th. The day before, one of my best recruiting contacts emailed me and said, "Remember January 24, 2001. Tomorrow will provide further vindication that Virginia Tech will be a Top 10 program for some time to come, even without

Michael Vick." I could see my contact thrusting his chest out with pride as he typed those words, banging the keys hard with vindication.

When Jones told a media throng the next day that he had selected Tech, it sent shockwaves through college football. The top recruit in the country simply does not select … the Hokies. Jones said that Tech won a two-horse race over Penn State, and the bottom feeders in the Penn State fan base, to say the least, did not take it well. Allegations of crooked recruiting on Tech's part and indictments of the character of Kevin and his father immediately started flying from the keyboards of Penn State fandom's lunatic fringe. Had it not been so sad and disgusting, it would have been comical.

Now, for the first time ever, the Hokies have a Top 20 recruiting class that includes the #1 recruit in their home state and the #1 recruit in the nation. Many services will rank Tech's haul as a Top 10 class.

I would rhetorically ask the question, "How did this happen?" But I think we all know how. It happened over the course of years, as Tech slowly built up its football program, and it was finally sparked to a flame by the 1999 season.

Five years ago, after the Hokies appeared in the 1995 Sugar Bowl and defeated Texas 28-10, many Virginia Tech fans and followers thought that the Hokie football program had arrived. They thought the victory in an Alliance Bowl (as they were called back then) over a traditional power would lead to increased national respect, attention, and best of all, recruiting success.

Virginia Tech was no longer a regional secret, they said. The Hokies had already had some good recruiting success, getting the likes of Cornell Brown, Ken Oxendine, and Tony Morrison to come to Blacksburg, and that was back when Tech was either posting losing records or spending their time in such renowned bowl venues as Shreveport, Louisiana.

Surely a win in the Sugar Bowl would equate to Top 20, perhaps even Top 10, recruiting hauls.

It never panned out that way. The recruiting class of 1996, the first one signed after that Sugar Bowl, was pretty good, but certainly not the stuff of a Top 20 ranking. It had its big names and highly ranked players -- Robert Adams, Lorenzo Ferguson, and Shayne Graham, to name a few -- but it didn't rank up there with the likes of the classes put together by Florida State, Michigan, and other big name schools.

Be patient, Tech Coach Frank Beamer said. Big seasons usually don't pay off right away. It takes the kids a year to absorb the rise of the program and take an interest.

When the Hokies followed the 1995 Sugar Bowl win with an Orange Bowl appearance in 1996, that figured to be all the momentum they would need. Virginia Tech was on a roll, and the recruiting would follow.

But the recruiting class of 1997 wasn't Top 20 stuff, either. Again, there were some names there (Tyrone Robertson was the biggest name), but in reality, the Hokies got their clocks cleaned in January and February by the UVa Cavaliers as Ljubmor Stamenich, Ahmad Hawkins, Devon Simmons, Monsanto Pope, and Darryl Smith all picked UVa over Tech. And Yubrenal Isabelle rubbed salt in the wounds by allegedly committing to Tech (his commitment was never verified by Isabelle himself) and backing out and committing to UVa.

Not to mention that in 1997, out of state schools like Penn State, Florida, Michigan, and Tennessee all cleaned house in the state of Virginia.

So the anticipated rush of recruits from Tech's Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl appearances in 1995 and 1996 never developed. Instead, after the late slide of 1997, things incrementally got better, but Tech never quite broke through. The class of 1998 that included Michael Vick, Lee Suggs, and Jake Houseright was the best-ever at the time, and the class of 1999 was a very nice follow-up to it.

Then came the 1999 season and the 11-0 run to the National Championship Game. It was the year of Corey, Michael, and Frank, as the three of them brought home more hardware than you can find at Lowe's or Home Depot. During that season, recruiting went pretty well, and the Tech coaching staff got commitments from four of the top ten players in the state of Virginia by November 1^st.

But much like 1997, Tech limped to the finish line in February of 2000. In the month following the Sugar Bowl, the Hokies only got commitments from four players: Jason Lallis, James Davis, Eric Green, and Channing Reed. During that time, Tech lost Brandon Royster to Stanford, Maurice Shanks to Maryland, Derek Wake to Penn State, Ervin Holloman and John Culp to Kansas, and Jason Witten to Tennessee. The poor finish left a bad taste in the mouths of those who follow Hokie recruiting.

In a quote that was eerily reminiscent of what he had said following the 1995 Sugar Bowl, Coach Beamer once again told Hokie fans that a magical season like the one Tech had in 1999 usually doesn't pay off immediately, but instead, in the following years.

I've got to tell you, I read that, and it reminded me of Beamer saying the same thing he said in 1995, and I was skeptical. Very skeptical. I was starting to wonder if the Hokies would ever have a breakthrough year in recruiting.

But Beamer was right. Some of the top recruits in the nation, Jones among them, took notice of the Hokies. Tech was heavily involved in the recruiting of three of SuperPrep's Elite 50 (Jones, Randall, and Michael Robinson) and snagged two of them. The Hokies were also in tight on an impressive six of PrepStar's Dream Team of 120 top players (Jones, Randall, Robinson, Fred Lee, Curtis Bradley, and Mike Degory) and snagged an unprecedented four of them (Robinson and Degory got away, to PSU and Florida, respectively).

What made the aftermath of the 1999 Sugar Bowl season so different than the aftermath of the 1995 and 1996 seasons? What was the 1999 season able to do for Tech recruiting what the 1995 and 1996 seasons could not do?

Well, in short, Tech followers discovered a number of things. There's a huge difference between going 9-2 and beating Texas in the Sugar Bowl, and going 11-0 and narrowly losing the National Championship game to Florida State.

There's a big difference between having a first-round draft pick named Jim Druckenmiller as your QB, and having Michael Vick, the third-place Heisman finisher and the most electrifying player in college football, as your QB.

And there's a big difference between having a pretty good coach named Frank Beamer (1995) and the National Coach of the Year (1999) doing your recruiting for you.

I think the 1995 Sugar Bowl team for Tech was an awesome team. If the 1999 Sugar Bowl team was better, it wasn't better by all that much. But the public's perception, and the perception of the high school players who were being recruited, was much different. The 1995 Tech team didn’t really seem to register with recruits, but the 1999 Tech team, and the year of Michael Vick hype that followed in 2000, apparently resonated with recruits.

The 1999 Tech team taught that yes, you can play for the national championship at Virginia Tech, and yes, you can be a megastar player at Virginia Tech. Those two facts, which speak volumes to top-level recruits, were never established by the 1995 and 1996 Virginia Tech teams.

And that, my friends, is the difference, and one of the main drivers behind the 2001 recruiting class, Virginia Tech's best ever. This class began with DeAngelo Hall's verbal commitment in January of 2000 and ended with the signing of 22 athletes on February 7^th, 2001. It has been one heck of a ride watching this class form, and it will no doubt bring many great thrills and surprises in the coming years.

Now the Hokies find themselves beginning to straddle a chasm. Their recruiting classes full of second-tier kids are starting to feature more and more star athletes. Getting those high school hot shots to buy into the VT team philosophy and work hard and play together is a challenge that Frank Beamer hasn't really had to face yet (Bobby Bowden's got it down to an art, but Frank has yet to be faced with the situation).

For example, Tech gets some good running back recruits here and there, but this class is jammed full of top-notch tailback recruits, any one of whom would cause Hokie fans to do flips: Kevin Jones, Cedric Humes, and Justin Hamilton. How is Beamer going to juggle those high-achieving players, particularly when he's already got the NCAA scoring leader, Lee Suggs, on his roster?

As Virginia Tech recruiting gets better and better, Beamer will have to deal with more and more big-time high schoolers expecting gobs of playing time. I'm not accusing Jones, Humes, or Hamilton of having a big ego, but over time, if Tech continues to get more successful in recruiting, it's going to happen.

Fortunately, Beamer and his staff still dot their recruiting classes with unsung and unheralded players like DL Tim Sandidge from Amherst County, LB James Anderson and ATH Chris Clifton from Deep Creek, and TE Brandon Frye from South Carolina. From the list of the "unknown" athletes, true team players often arise, providing the fire and the work ethic that makes Tech football succeed. These guys are the glue that holds together stars like Michael Vick and Lee Suggs.

Cav takes his lumps. It wasn't a very good February for master Tech recruiter Jim Cavanaugh. Coach Cav, one of Tech's best recruiters, lost QB Michael Robinson and CB Lionel Bolen, both key recruits, to Penn State and Notre Dame, respectively.

Jim Cavanaugh takes his recruiting personally, and I can't help but think that losing Robinson and Bolen gave him some severe heartburn. These are kids who were VT leans all along, and they slipped from Coach Cav's grasp at the last moment.

More on both of those players, and the reasons Cav was not able to sign them, later. But suffice to say that it's situations like that that give the 52-year-old Cavanaugh the motivation to go right back out there and do it all again next year. And if you can take anything positive from the loss of Robinson and Bolen, it's this: whatever motivates Coach Cavanaugh is a good thing.

According to TSL's information, the usually productive Cavanaugh "only" had two recruits this year: DL Kevin Hilton and QB Bryan Randall. Given that Randall is the first #1 recruit in the state of Virginia that the Hokies have landed in at least 15 years, Cavanaugh certainly made up in quality what he lacked in quantity this year.

Speaking of quantity and quality, a couple of Tech's "lesser-known" recruiters really stepped up this year. Cavanaugh, Bryan Stinespring, Rickey Bustle, and Charley Wiles have been Tech's most successful recruiters in recent years (for statistical support, see VT Coaches Recruiting Territories and their Individual Successes by James Arthur, 3/7/00), and this year, those four coaches landed 13 of Tech's 22 recruits. But some of the other guys came up big, either in quantity or quality:

(Note: for a complete breakdown of the coaches and their recruits, see The Class of 2001, by the Numbers.)

The last hurdle: graduation rates. As Virginia Tech competes at a higher and higher level in recruiting, the stakes get higher … and so does the ugliness.

The recruiting wars got nasty with Penn State this year, and the Hokies and the Lions went head to head over a number of recruits, most notably Jones, Murphy, Robinson, and Lionel Bolen. The sources I have close to the football program tell me that the PSU coaches did not take kindly to losing out on Jones, and that they used negative recruiting tactics against the Hokies throughout the recruiting process.

PSU coaches supposedly harped in particular on Virginia Tech's low graduation rate for its 1993 class of recruits when talking to Jones, Robinson, Murphy, and Bolen, even after some of those players committed to Virginia Tech.

I was also told that in an effort to get one or more VT commits to "decommit" to Virginia (an effort that was not just rumored by Hokies, but was hinted at by this post on the Wahoo Wagon web site) the new UVa coaching staff also used graduation rate statistics in their efforts.

What's all the fuss about? Well, in the latest graduation rate statistics released by the NCAA, the class of Virginia Tech football recruits that entered in the 1993-1994 school year (click here to see the list) only had a six-year graduation rate of 29%, including a terrible 13% rate for black football players. I was told that PSU and UVa coaches trumpeted these statistics loudly to Tech football recruits.

The latest four-year rolling average (which counts the recruiting classes of '90-'93) for Tech was 45% for football players and 45% for black football players, but although that stat is nothing to be proud of, the really juicy 29% and 13% figures for the 1993 class of recruits were the ones that opposing coaches used against Tech.

In the case of Robinson, it certainly didn't hurt PSU's cause. Robinson himself was a VT lean, but sources tell me that his mother would have no part of the Hokies. I was told that she was more impressed with Penn State's tradition, its legendary coach, and their graduation rates, so PSU won out over Tech for Robinson's services. Moms matter in recruiting.

The story that was passed on to me about Lionel Bolen is even more interesting. Bolen, a very highly rated cornerback prospect from New Jersey, was a reported Hokie lean for a long time and supposedly committed to Tech and Coach Jim Cavanaugh in early February. It was reported here on TSL and by Doug Doughty of The Roanoke Times, and I can tell you that my sources and Doug Doughty's sources don't make this stuff up.

Bolen himself was not available for comment, though, and just a few days later, on Feb. 6^th, it was reported that Bolen had actually committed to Notre Dame, not Tech. Bolen denied ever having committed to VT and was quoted by one on-line recruiting service as saying words to the effect of, "I don't know where The Roanoke Times got that idea. I never talked to them," which, technically, was true.

So let's assume Bolen did commit to Cavanaugh. What changed his mind? My sources say that a heavy dose of negative recruiting by the PSU coaches, centered on Tech's graduation rates, did the trick. Unfortunately for Penn State, it sent Bolen packing to South Bend and Notre Dame, not Happy Valley and PSU. That would be funny, except it cost the Hokies a valuable recruit.

Are these stories about Robinson and Bolen, and the reports of PSU and UVa using VT's graduation rates against them, true? More likely than not they are, but remember, the recruiting wars are full of tall tales and juicy half-truths, and all of my sources happen to be pro-Tech, so what I hear is, of course, one-sided.

But the stories point out that Frank Beamer and company have one more hill to climb: the graduation rate hill. Tech's graduation rates have got to improve, because as the Hokies continue to recruit against the top football schools in the country, all of which have great teams, great facilities, great universities, and play in great conferences, graduation rates become a differentiator. And not one that works in the Hokies' favor, at least not at this point.

It will take time for Tech's graduation rates to improve. The Hokies had a player retention problem in the mid-90's, and that recruiting class of 1993 is probably the worst. More recent classes have fared much better in the classroom, but it will take years for those classes to filter into the NCAA's statistics.

(For the record, this was discussed on the November 21^st Hokie Hotline Radio Show, and the following summary of that class was given: "Seventeen student-athletes entered in that recruiting class, including five who transferred, five who graduated on time, two who graduated the next year and two who turned pro and are coming back to finish their degrees. Taken as a whole, that means that the real graduation rate should be closer to 75%.")

For more information about graduation rate statistics, see the NCAA's home page at www.ncaa.org.

Enough heavy stuff. Let's get on to the annual TSL Recruiting Awards. Here they are:

This award is given to the highest-rated recruit to sign with Virginia Tech. It is named in honor of, well, Kevin Jones. This award also represents the guts and bravery shown by an out-of-state recruit who signed with the Hokies despite intense pressure from the home folks to sign with an in-state program.

This year's winner: Kevin Jones, of course.

This award is given to the recruit who is not highly rated by recruiting specialists but is deemed by TSL to have the capability to pleasantly surprise the Tech faithful. This is often pure guesswork, and it is fun in future years to come back and see if the "sleeper" pick was correct. Past winners include Shawn Witten.

This year's winner (tie): DL Jason Murphy from Baltimore and ATH Chris Clifton from Deep Creek HS in Chesapeake.

Murphy was not highly rated by recruiting services because of academic uncertainties, but he had a monstrous 63 sacks in his high school career, including 30 as a junior!

As for Clifton, the #22 ranked player in the state of Virginia, he was an early surprise commitment at Tech's 2000 football camp. One member of the media told me, "Keep an eye on Chris Clifton, word is he may work out at quarterback, and he's got big time ability. One person told me, if Bryan Randall is better than Clifton, then they might as well give him (Randall) number 7, because the kid (Clifton) is unreal." Coach Beamer says that Clifton will get a look at QB, and Bryan Stinespring raved about his leadership, arm strength, and playmaking ability. One other possible destination for the 6-4, 200-pound Clifton is wide receiver, where the Hokies recruited just one player this year (Fred Lee) and one player last year (Richard Johnson).

This award is given to a recruit who verbals to Virginia Tech and then renegs on that verbal to sign a letter of intent with another school. It is named in honor of West Virginia native Yubrenal Isabelle, a high school All-American who was widely reported to have committed to VT in 1997, only to back out and attend UVa instead, where he had a successful career as a linebacker. Other past winners of this award are Richard Rodgers (UVa) and Larry Anderson (Miami), with an honorable mention to Tyrone Robertson (who actually did sign with Tech, but then intentionally failed to graduate from high school to get out of his letter of intent. Robertson later surfaced at Georgia).

This year's winner: CB Lionel Bolen, who backed out of a reported Tech commitment to sign with Notre Dame. Honorable mention goes to DL Kelvin Dubouse of West Virginia, but Dubouse's situation is a little different. Sources tell me he was denied admissions to VT and presented the option of prep school. WVU stepped in and offered him a scholarship and admission to their school, and he understandably took it. Good luck to Kelvin, and no hard feelings.

This award is given to a recruit who is reported as a VT lean and is heavily rumored to favor Virginia Tech, but who unexpectedly signs with a different school because of a "heavy parental influence." It is named in honor of running back Brandon Royster, the top recruit in the state of Virginia in the year 2000, who rejected VT in favor of, uh, Stanford. Yep, Stanford. Mom really liked Stanford.

This year's winner: QB Michael Robinson, who favored Virginia Tech but signed with Penn State to please his mother.

In his BeamerBall.com interview, DL Chris Pannel echoed the thoughts of the Hokie faithful when he said, "Look Out!... 'cause the flood gates are opening!"

This is not just the most highly-rated Virginia Tech recruiting class ever, but one of the most balanced between skill players and linemen. Along with the likes of Kevin Jones, Fred Lee, Bryan Randall, and DeAngelo Hall, the Hokies signed 11 players classified as tight ends, offensive linemen, or defensive linemen.

These players will all be thrown into the mix and sifted around until they fall into the best positions, and in the future, they will provide the backbone of the Virginia Tech offense and defense. While Randall, Jones, Lee and others are getting all of the press, it is these guys who will be clearing the way on offense and clogging up the middle and sacking the QB on defense.

As usual, I find myself on signing day wishing that the time machine had been invented. I want to jump in one and take a look at where all these kids are going to be in the coming years, and see who's going to develop, who's going to flop, and who's going to lead the Hokies to victory in the coming years.

This has been a long article (if you have actually read the whole thing, I thank you), and there are topics I haven't even touched on yet. I will no doubt add some thoughts in future columns, but for now, just sit back and look over the lists, read about the kids, and dream about national championships.

TSL Football Recruiting Page