I spent a couple hours last night reading some articles and other material about Devyn Ford, the most important recruit in Virginia Tech’s Class of 2019. I also pondered what it means to be “the most important recruit” of a class, and how much getting Devyn Ford to commit and sign really matters.
The Basics
(For those who have followed Ford’s recruitment closely, the next couple of sections will be stuff you already know.)
Devyn Ford is a running back out of North Stafford High School in Stafford, Virginia. Stafford is about 50 miles southwest of Washington DC (Google Maps link), well outside the Beltway, and it’s about 225 miles from Stafford to Blacksburg.
Ford is listed at 5-11, 195, excellent running back size, and his junior year tape is impressive.
He’s listed in the 247Sports Composite ranking (which is an aggregation of rankings from various sources) as an upper 4-star player, the No. 63 player in the country, the No. 3 running back in the country, and the No. 2 player in the state of Virginia for 2019.
Here are his proprietary rankings for the major services.
| Service | Stars | Nat'l Rank | RB Rank | State Rank |
| 247Sports.com |  |
122 | 6 | 2 |
| Rivals.com | |
9 | 1 | 1 |
| ESPN.com | |
150 | 7 | 3 |
Devyn Ford is big-time, and he has 29 (per Rivals) or 30 (per 247) offers. He could have more; those are just the ones that are listed.
It’s Down to Penn State and Virginia Tech, and No One Knows Which
Ford has said that he will announce his college choice in two weeks, on Friday, May 18, his grandmother’s birthday, at a 4 PM ceremony at his school.
Virginia Tech has been recruiting Devyn Ford for a long time, and the other schools that have been big in his recruitment are, to some degree, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Clemson, and Penn State. He tweeted those schools as his top six back on February 1.
https://twitter.com/tsunamiford/status/959143015540514819
UNC, OK, OSU and Clemson are out of it now, and it’s a two-horse race between Penn State and the Hokies, per multiple outlets.
Virginia Tech has been regarded as the leader in Ford’s recruitment for a while. They offered him as a freshman, which would be in the 2015-2016 time frame. Justin Fuente made recruiting Ford the number one priority for Virginia Tech’s 2019 class, and there’s no question that the Hokies need elite talent at tailback.
Ford’s 247Sports timeline lists him as going to Penn State for an unofficial visit way back in November of 2015, in James Franklin’s second season as head coach of the Nittany Lions, so PSU has been involved with him for a long time as well. They offered him in April of 2016.
Ford's history with Virginia Tech and Penn State goes way back, and it came down to those two schools in mid-April. Where things really got serious were the weekends of April 14, when he took his official visit to Virginia Tech for the spring game, and April 21, when he visited Penn State for their spring game.
When Ford was in Blacksburg, they had him don the Hokies’ new uniform on Friday, April 13, and Ford tweeted this picture out (the unis look much sweeter on him than they did the mannequins for the official roll-out):
https://twitter.com/TsunamiFord/status/984917373206646785
Ford’s recruitment by Virginia Tech crested, and there were even theories that linked him as a “silent verbal” to the program.
Then he went on his official visit to Penn State the following weekend, and James Franklin and his troops put on a great visit. If you thought Virginia Tech fans did the Spring Game well, then you would really be impressed with Penn State fans. They had a reported 71,000 fans at their Spring Game, nearly double Tech's reported number of 36,000. It suddenly became a neck-and-neck race between the Hokies and the Lions. There have been multiple published reports that it’s now 50/50 with Penn State, and that’s the same feedback that people connected to the Virginia Tech program have been giving via back channels.
In short, no one knows who Ford is going to pick. Ford himself might not even know.
Reading the Tea Leaves
Landof10.com (a Big 10 web site) has run some good articles recently on Ford’s recruitment, with quotes from Ford’s high school coach, Joe Mangano, including this one:
“These are staffs [Virginia Tech and Penn State] he really trusts and, in particular, both head coaches connect well with him,” North Stafford coach Joe Mangano told Land of 10. “In our football program, we always say the most important word is ‘trust’, and if you don’t have that then nothing matters. Going through this process, I don’t think he’s looking for the best facilities or the best offense. He’s looking for which program is going to look out for Devyn Ford for the next 40 years, not just the next few.”
Very interesting. According to Mangano, it’s a question of which staff has done the best job convincing Ford that he’ll be taken care of for the next 40 years. Per this quote, he’s not going to be swayed by the number of seats in the stadium, or the size of the weight room, or visions of making it to the NFL (although maybe that’s part of the “next 40 years” calculation).
That same article says that Ford won’t be scared by competition, nor will another high-profile running back PSU is recruiting, Noah Cain, who is ranked just ahead of Ford in the 247Sports Composite. Ford recently canceled a visit to Ohio State when the Buckeyes got a commitment from Steele Chambers on April 18, but that’s rumored not to be a competition issue, but a trust issue: Ford didn’t know the Buckeyes were on the verge of getting Chambers, and was surprised when Chambers committed.
(A side note: canceling the Ohio State visit shortly after visiting Virginia Tech, but before visiting Penn State, helped make the Ford optimism peak among Hokie fans.)
Note what Mangano doesn't say: he doesn't say that Ford wants to blaze his own trail, or that he wants to be the featured back, or that he's paying close attention to depth charts and early playing time. These are all things that would favor Virginia Tech.
And I wonder if the "next 40 years" comment favors the Nittany Lions. Penn State's football program and history are much bigger than Virginia Tech's, from their 106k-seat stadium to their long record of winning and the sheer number of fans and decorated former players. The scale of their history and program could be comforting to a recruit when it comes to being taken care of for "the next 40 years."
Never mind what James Franklin and Justin Fuente say: neither one of them will be around in any capacity 40 years from now.
I don't like that Ford's former high school teammate, offensive tackle Nana Asiedu, is on the Penn State roster and is recruiting Ford to PSU, and I don't like that Ricky Slade, a fellow Northern Virginia superstar running back who went to C.D. Hylton in Woodbridge and who knows Ford from their high school days, is also on PSU's roster.
Who does Ford know and feel comfortable with on Virginia Tech's roster? There are no North Stafford players on the Hokies, and though there are some Northern Virginia players, I don't know that any of them have any sort of prior relationship with Ford. (Let me know in the comments of anyone who fits that bill.)
It’s an understandable reaction to throw your hands up in the air and give this one to Penn State, to think that the Hokies have been strung along this far only to be left at the altar again, Josh Sweat-style. The college football blue-blood has interfered and will get the commitment, like Ohio State did with Javontae Jean-Baptiste. The highly-prized in-state running back recruit is going to spurn the Hokies for the third year in a row, following Khalan Laborn (2017 to FSU) and Ricky Slade (2018).
Maybe, maybe not. The Hokies have gone toe-to-toe each of the last two recruiting cycles with big programs in high-stakes, drawn-out recruiting battles and have gotten signatures from Devon Hunter (2017) and Dax Hollifield (2018). Virginia Tech has been beaten more often than not, but they have won some as well, and those guys were arguably Virginia Tech’s top targets in those years, similar to Devyn Ford for 2019.
Don’t look to me to make a prediction. I reached out recently to someone in the know, and he said only, “We have work to do” to get Ford’s commitment and signature. It is indeed 50-50. This one is too close to call.
Why Devyn Ford Matters
What if Devyn Ford picks Penn State? Individual recruits don't make or break the program, right? The Hokies can just turn their attention to Jordan Houston and crank up the heat on him. Virginia Tech will be fine.Yes and no. No one who thinks about these things in any detail expects Virginia Tech to go head-to-head with the Alabamas, Ohio States, Penn States, etc. of the college football world and win many battles, not when the other school really wants the recruit in question. So I don't expect and demand that Virginia Tech win a lot of these recruiting battles.
Ford does matter in one respect: he is a star recruit at a position of need, and it's a high-profile position.
The Hokies don't have a star-quality running back, at least that we have seen yet. Anyone on the roster is welcome to step up and gain 1,000 yards next year and prove me wrong. They're also getting short on defensive tackles. But most every other position has been recruited well in the last few cycles, however, a big-time player is needed at running back.
Running back is also a high-profile position, along with quarterback, that fans can sink their teeth into. Devon Hunter, Dax Hollifield and a handful of other Justin Fuente recruits will be good-to-great players, but fans tend to show up to see the running backs and quarterbacks. It's those guys that make the crowd hold its breath when they have the ball in their hands. Think Kevin Jones, Michael Vick, Ryan Williams, and Tyrod Taylor. It's the QBs and RBs who get the big press and all the attention, and that's why Devyn Ford matters as much or more than any other lone recruit.
Landing Hunter and Hollifield and holding on to the commitment of Quincy Patterson as his star rose were all great recruiting moments. But I can't shake the feeling that getting a commitment from Devyn Ford might be a swing moment, an instant in which the Hokies could put a stake in the ground and pivot in a different direction. I probably shouldn't get so caught up in it.
So we sit and we wait. Ford will take no more visits and will announce two weeks from today, and I expect things will be pretty quiet between now and then. We'll start hearing stuff a day or two before May 18, and then at 4 PM that day, we'll know for sure.