Having balance among your positions, in terms of scholarship numbers, is key when it comes to running a college football program. You have to keep a good balance across the spectrum, and avoid having too few or too many at one position.

Today, we’ll break down the 2017 Hokies in terms of scholarship players by position, and compare the numbers to some past Virginia Tech teams.  How have the scholarship numbers at specific positions changed through the years?  How should they look going forward?  What’s the ideal number of scholarship players at each spot?  We’ll discuss all of that in today’s article.

I need to make a couple of notes before I get started.  First, I assumed that one kicker, one punter and one long-snapper were on scholarship for each of the Frank Beamer teams.  I counted Joey Slye and Oscar Bradburn as scholarship players for 2017.  I’m not sure if Tech has a scholarship long-snapper this year, so I didn’t include one.  I included CJ Carroll and Steven Peoples as scholarship players, though I don’t know for a fact that they have scholarships.  I also included all past walk-ons who were given scholarships, to the best that my memory allowed.

Here are the scholarship numbers for four Virginia Tech football teams: three from the recent past, and 2017.

...