It’s rare that a player leaves Virginia Tech, or any school, within a month of enrolling as a true freshman. That’s what happened with Cam Goode when it was announced on Tuesday that he had been granted his full release from the program.
According to Cam on Twitter, the parting was not mutual.
That’s his perspective, and I’m sure that’s also the perspective of his buddies back in DC, who get all of their information from Cam himself. But the fact is, it’s rare that a player leaves a program, for whatever reason, within a month. Coaches don’t want to run guys off that quickly. Why should they? It’s not like Justin Fuente wants to have zero defensive tackles in his 2018 recruiting class.
If Cam Goode, or any player at any school, was actually kicked off the team one month after enrolling, then they must have had one hell of a poor month. A lot would have to happen for a guy to get the boot that early.
From what I understand, Goode just couldn’t take Ben Hilgart’s offseason strength and conditioning program. Key word: conditioning. He’s always struggled with weight issues, and like all freshmen I’m sure he was given a workout plan to follow before he enrolled. He still showed up overweight, and I’m sure he was pushed hard by Hilgart and his staff to get in shape. That’s a normal part of the process for guys who come in overweight. It’s hard to go through workouts when you are carrying extra weight, but you have to do it. If you can’t get through those workouts, then you can’t be an effective player on the field. And the coaching staff certainly can’t lower their expectations for one player while keeping their expectations higher for every other player on the team.
From Goode’s perspective, Virginia Tech parted ways with him when they did not choose to change their level of expectation for him in the strength and conditioning program. From Virginia Tech’s perspective, Cam Goode chose to no longer be a part of the program when he decided that he needed expectations lowered for him.
You know who I’m going to side with here…Justin Fuente and Virginia Tech all the way. Goode is one of 71 recruits to enroll under Justin Fuente as part of the 2016, 2017 and 2018 classes, and he’s the only one of those 71 to not make it to the beginning of his first training camp. This is a Cam Goode issue, not a Virginia Tech issue. Unless your roster is built with primarily 4-star and 5-star recruits, culture is very important to the success of your program. It’s arguably the most important thing. As a coach, you will either get the culture you create, or the culture you allow. Fuente can’t let the inmates run the asylum. Here’s a great post by hokiehunter07 that sums up my feelings.
Goode is a likeable guy. His teammates like him, particularly the other young players. See this Tweet from Tre Turner.
However, there was another Tweet from Kyle Chung, that was retweeted by guys like Dylan Rivers and Tyrell Smith. It didn't mention Goode by name, but it has since been deleted, and it was obvious what Chung was talking about. Here's a screen capture taken before it was deleted.
That’s coming from a sixth-year senior who has had multiple surgeries and multiple ups and downs in his career. Chung has endured a lot of pain to put on a Virginia Tech uniform. I’ll take his opinion on the matter over just about everybody else’s.
Bottom line, if you can’t last a month without having issues like this, then you probably aren’t going to last 4-5 years in a college program. So I’m done talking about Cam Goode specifically. The rest of the article will be dedicated to a couple of other topics the Goode situation put in my head: Twitter, and DC recruiting. Let’s tackle the Twitter topic first.
Tweet, Tweet
I said earlier that I agreed with Kyle Chung’s comments. That said, I don’t think he should have Tweeted it, and Turner shouldn’t have Tweeted what he did, either. It just makes it look like the team is divided on the issue, and a few fans have even translated the Turner Tweet into him disagreeing with Tech’s handling of the situation. Not to mention that Turner’s Tweet was found by a bunch of guys from the DC area who turned into a huge Tech bashing thread. Nothing good came out of it. There has to be a team policy that NOBODY is allowed to Tweet about a guy who leaves the program in a situation like this.
It’s not a huge deal, but it’s a bad look. It reminds me of the time when Telvion Clark was dismissed from the program, and Tech’s players went to his defense on Twitter, with guys like Logan Thomas and Antone Exum openly campaigning for him to be allowed back on the team. It was a bad look for the program, with the players openly disagreeing with a coaching decision. Turner didn’t openly disagree with a coaching decision, but it could be interpreted that way.
Justin Fuente is all business. He’s the type of guy who thinks about football 24/7, with the exception of when he’s at home with his family. Someone who works with him on a daily basis told me something like this once: “You can pass him in the hallway and say hello, and he won’t respond. It’s not because he’s rude. It’s because you can tell that he’s so deep in thought about football that he literally didn’t even notice you walking by.”
Sometimes I think Fuente is so preoccupied with football that he doesn’t think about things like his players Tweeting, or how the fans feel about lack of transparency, etc. Frank Beamer didn’t necessarily think about those things either, but he had people around him like John Ballein who did. I’m not sure Fuente has a John Ballein.
DC Recruiting
The other thing I want to talk about is Washington, DC recruiting. I’m not from DC, and I’ve only been there for a couple of school field trips, a couple of baseball games, and I briefly rode through it before the WVU game. I can’t answer the “why”…I can only give you the facts, and the facts are that DC kids haven’t been successful at Virginia Tech throughout the years. I’m not talking about guys from Northern Virginia or Maryland. I mean players from Washington, DC itself.
Using the TSL recruiting database, here’s a list of the DC players I found who have signed with Virginia Tech since 1994. I included the school they attended before their arrival.
1994: QB Al Clark, Fork Union. Two-year starter.
1996: DB Donald Harris, HD Woodson. Never played.
1999: DB Lee Baker, Dunbar. Never played.
2003: DB Roland Minor, HD Woodson. Starter, but dismissed for academics.
2004: DB Theo Miller, HD Woodson. Never played. Arrested, dismissed, and now, sadly deceased.
2004: Josh Morgan, Fork Union. Good player, NFL.
2005: William Wall, Hargrave. Kicked off the team.
2010: Ricardo Young, HD Woodson. Never played.
2011: Boye Aromire, HD Woodson. Never played.
2011: Darius Redman, HD Woodson. Played some, but was quite frankly a bad player.
2015: DuWayne Johnson, HD Woodson. Never played.
2017: Sean Savoy, Woodrow Wilson. Started last season.
2018: Cam Goode, St. John's College Prep. Barely lasted a month.
Al Clark worked out. Roland Minor was a good player, but didn’t finish his career. Guys like Theo Miller and William Wall would have been good, but they either had grade or attitude issues. Josh Morgan was the best player on that list. He and Al Clark both attended Fork Union between high school and college. Perhaps more DC kids should take that route.
Tech in particular has had trouble at HD Woodson. I dug back through the archives and found this Will Stewart article from 2007. It includes the following passage…
“Minor’s inability to stay eligible is the latest in a series of problems with Hokie football players recruited out of H.D. Woodson High School in Washington, D.C. From 2003-2005, the Hokies signed four players out of H.D. Woodson: Minor (2003), Theo Miller (2004), Josh Morgan (2004, via Fork Union Military Academy), and William Wall (2005, via Hargrave Military Academy).
Miller was arrested in the spring of 2005 after brandishing a pellet gun out the window of an SUV that fellow cornerback Brandon Flowers was driving. Miller was dismissed from Tech’s football team in the fall of 2005 and was later convicted of reckless driving in January 2006 after he was clocked driving 110 mph in Botetourt County.