The Virginia Tech recruiting class of 1995, and the recruiting "season" leading up to the signing of that class, provides a fascinating case study as to why the collegiate recruiting process can't be defined, ranked, or graded with certainty.  As our coaches have been known to say, much of the process is a guessing game, and you really can't judge the quality of a certain class until its members have been in the program for at least two or three years, sometimes even longer.

In part one of this article, I intend to provide a refresher to Hokie fans regarding the interesting recruiting season leading up to the signing of that class, and the significant lesson learned by Frank Beamer and his staff from that recruiting season.  Part two, which will come later, will look at the progression and development of that class throughout their college careers, as some members of the 95 class lead Virginia Tech to its first ever shot at a National Championship.

Under Frank Beamer's tenure as the Hokies Head Coach, and after a few years of digging out from under the scholarship sanctions placed on the program by the NCAA from 87-89, the Virginia Tech staff had been averaging just over 7 recruits each year from Doug Doughty's "Roanoke Times Top 25" over the five  recruiting classes of 1990-1994.

You can see the complete list of the Total Number of RT "Top 25" Prospects signed by Virginia Tech each year since 1976 at this link.  It seemed like the recruiting "machine" under Beamer was beginning to roll along at a steady pace, building the program with a solid foundation of successful in-state recruiting.  The University of Virginia was always the primary competition for the best in-state prospects, but Virginia Tech seemed to be able to hold its own against the Cavaliers under Beamer's leadership during that time.  In 1994, however, a new adversary for Virginia prospects emerged, and it caught the Tech staff totally by surprise.

Dan Henning and the BC "Raiders"

At some point in 1994, Boston College's Head Coach Tom Coughlin left to become the Head Coach of the new NFL expansion franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Boston College hired former NFL Head Coach Dan Henning, and Henning proceeded to instantly set his targets on talent-rich Virginia as a recruiting area.  This was mainly due to the fact that the talent level in Massachusetts in 1994 was described by many experts as "very poor."

Henning and his staff proceeded to raid Virginia for Top 25 commitments like few other programs outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia have ever been able to do. The Eagles hurt UVa's efforts in Virginia somewhat, but they hurt Virginia Tech's in-state efforts significantly.

Before Virginia Tech's staff knew what hit them, Boston College had verbal commitments from 6 of Doug Doughty's "Roanoke Times Top 25", including the number 1 ranked prospect, and a seventh commitment from a "Second 25" prospect from right out of Virginia Tech's backyard.  Only UNC, in 1979 and 1999, has ever topped that number by an out-of-state program, signing 7 Virginia "Top 25" prospects each time.

Boston College had commitments from 4 primary Virginia Tech targets:

Crittenden had strong Hokie ties, being the brother of former Virginia Tech tight end Ray Crittenden, who played for the New England Patriots at the time.  The fact that Ray was living in the Boston area didn't help the Virginia Tech recruiting efforts for Derrick.

Boston College had also garnered commitments from 3 additional Virginia prospects, one of which was the top rated prospect in the state, also with strong ties to Virginia Tech.  Mike Willets told SuperPrep that he "is the son of Virginia Tech alumni and was a Hokies' fan while growing up."  It remains unknown why Willets had no desire to even consider the Hokies.  

As difficult as Henning's "raid" may have been for Tech fans to accept in February of 1995, it should put a smile on their faces to note that of those seven Virginia prospects that signed with Boston College, only two of them ever experienced a win over Virginia Tech.  As true freshmen, Woody and Maleki were on the 95 BC squad that beat the Hokies at Lane 20-14.

The remaining five recruits from Virginia all redshirted in 95, and consequently never experienced a win over the Hokies during their football careers.  Additionally, Woody and Maleki never participated in a bowl game during their careers, or even played on a BC squad with a winning record.  Crittenden, Alford, and Willetts tasted one winning season in the four years of their career in 1999, resulting in one minor bowl game, a 62-28 loss to Colorado in the 1999 Insight.com Bowl.  The other two were not on the 1999 Boston College roster.

Did the VT staff get caught napping early on in 1994?

The answer to that question is yes.  The evidence supports the fact that, for whatever reason, the Virginia Tech staff decided to bank on scheduling very late "official" recruiting visits for the majority of the targets they were interested in.  

Earlier recruiting, earlier visits, and a certain amount of "pressure" tactics leading to much earlier verbal commitments, seemed to be the norm during the late-summer, fall, and winter of 1994, and Virginia Tech completely missed the boat.

Take a look at the official Virginia Tech Recruiting Target Master Board of "wants" as of late November of 1994.  HokieCentral.com believes this information to be the real list the Virginia Tech staff was using at the time.  Additionally, take a look at the Master List of Official Visits lined up for December and January, as of late November of 1994.

It's not to hard to recognize that Virginia Tech didn't even get a visit out of the majority of prospects they considered to be high on the "want" list in late November.  Many had already made commitments after much earlier recruiting efforts by our competition and simply were not interested in visiting Virginia Tech.

Here's the way the numbers were taking shape for Virginia Tech:

VT had four verbal commitments (Myron Newsome, Greg Melvin, Angelo Harrison, and Keith Short) in mid-January, with less than two weeks to go until National Letter of Intent signing day.  In contrast, the University of Virginia had twenty verbal commitments by Christmas of 1994, seven of which were ranked in the "Top 25 of Virginia" by Doug Doughty.

With UVa and Boston College rapidly landing commitments from Virginia Top 25 prospects, and with Virginia Tech seemingly struggling to catch up,  I can only begin to imagine the state of meltdown the HokieCentral.com Message Board would have been in had it been in existence at the time.

As you can see, the Tech staff really found itself behind the eight ball with the majority of their official visits for prospects lined up in the last two weeks of the recruiting season.  Additionally, the program was coming off a disappointing end to the 1994 season, losing 3 of its last 4 games in unattractive fashion, as well as losing Offensive Coordinator Gary Tranquill in December before the Gator Bowl.

There was also a fair amount of speculation that Virginia Tech's competitors were using Coach Beamer's contract negotiations at the time against the Hokies while recruiting the prospects Tech had targeted as well.

Billy Hite signed Ricky Hall, who unfortunately failed to qualify and headed off to Butler (Kansas) Community College's program for the next two years.  Hite also wisely picked up Carpenter, who had been a recruiting-season qualifying question, and had several schools keeping him "on hold".  Carpenter ultimately qualified, and entered Virginia Tech in the fall of 1995.

In a stroke of unusual luck for Virginia Tech, Rickey Bustle found out about teammates Prioleau and Rice during his one year stint as Offensive Coordinator for South Carolina in 1994.  Bustle wisely saw the potential in Prioleau, who was fully qualified but generally un-recruited, and signed him.  Rice failed to qualify.

The addition of Prioleau and Carpenter gave Virginia Tech eighteen new freshman football players in the fall of 1995.  Coach Beamer was quick to defend the quality of the class against the critics, but also recognized and admitted the need to recruit earlier, and especially wanted to emphasize lining up more "official" visits for the following years in earlier months than January.  He was quoted by the Hokie Huddler as saying heavier emphasis and effort would be placed on the month of December for recruiting, from immediately after the end of the season right up until any bowl games in which the Hokies would be participating.

Here's a table that shows the official visit month of all of the recruits Virginia Tech has signed over the past five classes.  It's obvious Coach Beamer learned his lesson, and made the proper adjustments to the staff's recruiting methods, with 65% of the official visits of the recruits VT ultimately signed being lined up in December, as opposed to only 23% falling in January.  Has it worked?  Absolutely.

Virginia Tech signed progressively better classes in 96, 97, and 98.  The classes of 99 and 2000 don't quite top the outstanding 98 class, but they've been right on track as far as the same quality level.  Also, with much more emphasis placed on earlier recruiting by the staff, Virginia Tech has seen a recent trend of more and more early verbal commitments by prospects to the Hokies over the past several years than ever before.  Below you will also see the verbal commitment numbers by month for the recruiting years of 1996, and 1998-2000.  Unfortunately, I did not have access to the verbal commitment months of the 1997 recruiting class, as they were not reported in the 97 Huddler recruiting issue, or in the individual profiles of the members of that class.

I expect the trend of earlier verbal commitments to continue for this year's recruiting class.

Part two of this article, examining the 1995 recruiting class in depth, will follow soon.

James Arthur is the Recruiting Information Coordinator for HokieCentral.com. He keeps his eye on Virginia Tech football recruiting year-round and maintains HokieCentral's Football Recruiting Pages. To contact him, email  james@hokiecentral.com

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