Those of you almost as old as us at TSF will remember Cornell Brown terrorizing offensive lines as a monster off the edge at the time that the Hokies were just beginning to make a name for themselves. He was a game changer at end and played for the Hokies on the '95 Sugar Bowl winning team that capped the season which is really responsible for putting the Hokies on the map of college football.
So the Hokies have two young coaches, one of whom has the recruiting chops and the other has a Torrian Gray-type of instant credibility due to the things he did on the field at Tech.
And just as we said the other day about Coach Hite, let's take a minute and appreciate Jim Cavanaugh who coached whips and rovers and was recruiting coordinator. Bear in mind that in every recruiting class we covered starting 4-5 years ago, we have said that Coach Cav has the best eye for talent. He was recently regarded by ESPN as one of the top 5 recruiting coordinators in the country.
Coach Beamer the Younger has a great RB coach in Hite and an amazing recruiter in Cav to learn from and Cornell Brown will bring energy, youth and instant credibility to the defensive side of the staff. And Coach Beamer the Elder keeps two of his most trusted assistants in the program to bounce ideas off of and mentor his younger coaches. These are brilliant moves made recently by Tech and now we anxiously await the promotion of Bryan Stinespring into the front office. Adding Ralph Friedgen as offensive coordinator would really be the finishing touch to a serious commitment for making a run at a national title.
2 comments:
I don't understand this move. Coach Cav is the best recruiter we had and taking him off the road makes no sense to me, especially if he didn't want to:
http://www.roanoke.com/sports/notebookplus/wb/277452
All due respect to Cornell Brown, but I'm underwhelmed by his resume and I can't imagine how he will be an improvement over Cav.
So Cav is still over all recruiting which is a good thing. I have a feeling Frank made this a good deal for Cav money-wise because:
a) he knows Cav wasn't as ready to hang up the cleats as Hite was and
b) he had to have Cav fully on board to be believable in recruiting and convincing high school coaches along the Eastern Seaboard that this is a good thing and he's still gung ho about VT. If Cav had really dug his heels in, I don't think this move would have happened.
I do agree that Cornell Brown is currently probably a step down in terms of coaching quality from Cav, BUT, in the long run Brown can become that type of coach and he helps bring the youth movement to the recruiting efforts. And it doesn't hurt that Coach Gray takes over the rovers so that he now has the entire secondary.
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