College Watch: Virginia Tech
Beau Warren, a former Centreville star, enters his second year as Virginia Tech's starting center. Last year, Warren claimed honorable mention all-ACC honors.
Photo By: Gameday
Want to know the hotspot for local talent? Just take a trip down I-81 into Blacksburg to find your answer. Virginia Tech, by all means, has transformed into the place for local talent. Put simply, Northern Virginia players excel at a much, much higher rate at Virginia Tech more so than anywhere else.
I touched on this a bit last week when spotlighting UVA, but there are more scholarship players at Tech and a lot more of them get serious amounts of playing time. Going into this season, three local players will start for Virginia Tech, which is something no other school in the country can say. West Virginia, N.C. State and Syracuse are next closest with two locals starting, but even then, none of those schools will be ranked nearly as high as Virginia Tech will when the preseason polls are released. With eleven local players on scholarship, that's also four more than UVA has. Throw in walk-ons and Virginia Tech again outnumbers UVA with 14 players compared to the Wahoos' 13.
Yet Tech is not only successful at recruiting local prospects, but they convert them into stars. That's where the icing on the cake is.
Just last year, Cody Grimm, Ed Wang and Brent Bowden, all area players from the Northern Region, attained all-ACC status and were drafted into the NFL. I don't have the research in front of me, but I can't even imagine a time when anything like that happened before. Three local players, all from the same college team, drafted in the same year is nothing short of amazing. Oftentimes we'll get excited if one local player is drafted into the NFL, but three all from the same school in the same year? Again, it's amazing.
Thing is, it's not just last year, either. Local players such as Eddie Royal, John Engelberger, Jimmy Martin, Will Montgomery and Willie Pile were all local players who attended Tech and were drafted into the NFL this decade. Again, that's some pretty impressive stuff. We've shown throughout this series that our local players have excelled in college. But to get drafted? That's a whole 'nother story.
This success rate for local players doesn't seem like it's going to slow down, either. Arguably the two best prospects in last year's class, Chase Williams and Brian Laiti, were both signed by the Hokies. From all reports out of spring practice, Williams has been outstanding thus far. This year, they already landed Ronny Vandyke and are a strong candidate to get four-star recruit Dominique Terrell to commit as well.
Now, it's not like every local player winds up committing to Tech, but there isn't another school in the country that's been as successful as the Hokies when it comes to this area. They currently have the most local players, the most local players starting, the most local players drafted, but the best part? They're one of the best programs in all of college football, making each player's success all the more sweet.
