Virginia Tech football head coach Brent Pry addressed the media on Wednesday, Feb. 2 on National Signing Day.
He discussed the three new 2022 signees, recruiting the Commonwealth and the 2023 class, which you can read about here. Pry also talked about the quarterback battle, the spring practice schedule and his support staff, which we'll dive into today.
Who will be Tech's quarterback?
The quarterback position for Virginia Tech football has been a revolving door since 2015.
In seven seasons, eight different QBs have started games for the Hokies throughout 90 games. The last player to start every game for two straight seasons: Logan Thomas in 2012-13. On top of that, there were only three seasons - 2016, 2017 and 2021 - where one guy was the starter for every game.
In Brent Pry's first year, there's an opportunity to create some consistency, depending on who wins the battle.
The quarterback room consists of five players: Connor Blumrick, Tahj Bullock, Jason Brown (South Carolina), Grant Wells (Marshall) and Devin Farrell (signee).
Blumrick and Brown each have one year of eligibility remaining. Bullock and Farrell each have four (Farrell could still redshirt), while Wells has three.
Brown and Wells have experience, while Blumrick saw some action in the run game this year. The two committed at the same time (6 p.m.) on January 6 and are enrolled in classes for the spring semester. Brown started the final four games for the Gamecocks this past season, while Wells was a two-year starter at Marshall.
From film, Wells appears to be the most talented of the bunch. He's got a huge arm - he threw for 5,623 yards in two seasons with the Thundering Herd - and still has plenty of time to develop and be the quarterback of the future. Nevertheless, Pry said everyone's going to have an opportunity to challenge for the spot.
"I think it’s a healthy competition," Pry said of his QB room. "There’s a wide variety of skill set and age groups. I talked with Tahj [Bullock] prior to taking a commitment from Jason and Grant. I talked to Connor [Blumrick], as well as talking to Jason and Grant about one another. We were very straightforward with these guys.
"We’re going to give each of these guys an opportunity with the first group. There’s no starter right now, and I’m looking forward to it. I think we’ve got...a couple [candidates]. Connor’s committed to giving it a shot this spring and he’s in the hunt and he wants the job, and I’m super excited about Tahj. Tahj is an outstanding talent, he’s got great work ethic, incredible attitude and a ton of maturity for a young guy. We’ve got a good competition on our hands for the spring. It’s a good problem to have."
Spring Schedule
It's a new time in Blacksburg, and Pry's staff has a lot of work to do with the players. It starts in the weight room and figuring out who is tough enough to stay the course and embrace the culture, but Tech also has to teach and coach new schemes.
That's the main reason why Pry and the Hokies have set March 18 as the first day of spring practice - to give the coaches time to get their players familiar with the system.
"I wanted to give the coaches a little bit more time to get the defense installed, to get the offense installed," Pry said. "We’re maximizing meeting time with our players right now. The time that’s given to the strength staff and sharing that with some meeting time. But the other piece is just giving us a chance to have a really good winter. This is what phase one is to me, and we need to win phase one. We’ve got to have a great winter session."
Pry calls those sessions 'hunger drills,' and the coaches are hands-on with the players. It's also a good evaluation tool in terms of agility, change of direction and explosive movements. One of the things Pry didn't want to do is rush through those type of practices because they're so crucial to a new team with new players.
As far as the spring practice schedule goes, Tech will come back from spring break (March 5-13) and have a week of preparation.
"We’ve done it whenever we’re able to at Penn State and that’s have a mini-camp, Friday-Saturday," Pry said. "Back-to-back, a ton of installation, they’re only in helmets. … Lots of meeting time. There’s no banging. It’s walk-throughs and skellies [skeletons] and I’m excited about kicking it off that way, go Friday-Saturday, lot of film to watch Sunday-Monday, and let’s get on that Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule."
That's an outline of the schedule up until the final week, which will include an extra practice before the spring game on April 16. Pry said the format for the event has yet to be finalized, but he'd ideally like to have a version of a true game.
"We have to see how things shake out," Pry said. "Most importantly, it’s got to be what we need as a football team. I’d love to do that for the fans, to have condensed quarters, and I think it’s good for the staff, just operationally."
The spring game is at 4 p.m. ET in Lane Stadium and will be televised on the ACC Network.
Support Staff
Since his hiring, Pry has slowly added to his support staff. Most recently, it was finalizing his recruiting staff and adding three more analysts.
One of the things Chris Coleman has mentioned many times when discussing the old staff is a lack of accountability, and he's referenced an incident where a former player was disciplined by then-defensive line coach Darryl Tapp for being late to a team meeting.
That's clearly something Pry hopes to change with his culture, and it starts with the support staff and assistants. Transformation can come from multiple directions, such as the weight room or from position coaches. One of the roles that should help influence that aspect on Tech's new staff is the Director of Sports Science position. It's a job Pry saw first-hand at Penn State, and he said it's a very valuable one.
Bryan Jackson, who has three years of experience at the Division I level, holds that title. He's a U.S. Army veteran who saw combat duty in Iraq and served as a parachutist and scout with the 82nd Airborne Division. Chris sketched out what his role might look like back on Jan. 28 when the hire was made official, and he concluded that Jackson is likely going to be the liaison between the nutrition staff and the strength & conditioning coaches. He also predicted that Jackson might also be "an enforcer" or a "bad cop" at times, and he hit the nail on the head.
"We’ve got to have as much information as we can get our hands on to prepare and practice and train these guys efficiently," Pry said of the sports science role. "I don’t want to over-train, I don’t want to under-train. That position, what Bryan does, gives us the ability to track, with a GPS system, all of their movements, explosive movements, track their performance-based jumps, to give us the best idea of where they are week-in and week-out.
"At Penn State, I’d get a spreadsheet on my desk every Tuesday and it was a workup of the linebacker room and where they were. What miles they traveled, how explosive movements, who traveled the most during the ball game on Saturday, what their previous week looked like, and then any deficiencies in the baseline jumps. ‘Coach, I feel like there’s something going on with his left hamstring, he’s not as explosive in his jumps right now. You might want to watch him and be a little careful with him in today’s practice.’
"Those type of things, again, just getting as much information as we can, and also educating the guys on those types of things. It’s just more data, more research for us to make the best decisions and best choices in how we prepare these guys."
That type of information could be very crucial to improving the discipline aspect of the Virginia Tech football program, while also getting the most out of the strength & conditioning and nutrition programs.