Virginia Tech Adds Grad Transfer OL Johnny Jordan

Virginia Tech picked up a big graduate transfer commit over the weekend when Maryland transfer Johnny Jordan picked the Hokies.  He started at center this past season for the Terps, and he was an Honorable Mention All-Big Ten player.

Jordan played a total of 1,232 snaps during his career at Maryland, including 259 in the Terps’ short, abbreviated 2020 campaign.  He was Maryland’s third highest-grading offensive player according to Pro Football Focus.  PFF also rated him as the third-best center in the Big Ten with a minimum 200 snaps out of 14 eligible players.  He will be a senior in 2021.

Jordan could potentially play guard as well, but at 6-1, 305, he is best-suited for the center spot.  Brock Hoffman played offensive guard for one season at Coastal Carolina, and could slide over into Virginia Tech’s vacant right guard position for 2021.

Jordan was heavily recruited by Vance Vice and the Hokies coming out of high school, so that prior relationship helped him to quickly find a landing spot in Blacksburg.

We’ll have a more in-depth TSL Pass article about Jordan and Virginia Tech’s offensive line situation later in the week.

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  1. I’d like to thank all of the armchair coaches on here for their amazing insights in pointing out that our recruiting hasn’t been as successful as we’d like it to be. I’m sure that Tech’s coaches will appreciate hearing that amazing discovery as well. Should they also be looking forward to receiving the magical solutions that these recruiting geniuses have for them?

  2. UNC is signing 4* players from Virginia. VT is not.

    I have read all the BS excuses and they are just that… excuses.

    Glad to see us getting quality people thru the portal. It cannot replace high school home state recruiting of quality players. 3* will not suffice nor should VT be satisfied with all 3*. But the Portal is an excellent source of talent that should supplement, not replace, regular recruiting.

    VT having the second ranked team in the state behind Liberty is inexcusable. On top of that, they beat an undefeated team and won their bowl. Congratulations for a job well done.

  3. BHokie and 133743Hokie are correct as it relates to impact of Bud on recruiting. It feels like Fu brought in a staff without VA HS relationships or didn’t emphasize importance of VA recruiting. If so that’s on him. I’m guessing He thought Bud to be a strong recruiter, which my sense is that he wasn’t. Wiles was NC and FL …..and did well. Letting Gray slip out was probably a mistake as well.

    That said, Babcock isn’t scrapping together another $25 million for football simply because he can. Tech is woefully behind in analysts and recruiting staff. Apparently that makes a difference given that so many programs have dumped money into those positions. Additionally, the facilities arms race passedTech by and with improvements to Jamerson, a new dorm for Freshmen football players perhaps Fu has more “jewelry” to show recruits.

    I do think Ham, Tapp, Teerlink et al need time to build those relationships and agree I think they’ll be fine. These shortcomings won’t go away in a year. As much as everyone wants instant fixes, they aren’t going to happen. I think Babcock and Fu recognize them and are addressing them. Flogging both for past missteps is not necessarily a wing formula. Tenn, Arkansas and WVU can attest to the mediocre results of the coaching carrousel.

    1. yea hopefully people here will get off of Fuente’s case for “not being able to recruit”.

      the man has proven to be able to GET portal players that will contribute while losing portal players that typically DONT contribute.

      1. You think one OL transfer is going the change people’s perception of Fuente’s inability to recruit? Not a chance. We got lucky with Herbert but were DEAD LAST this year and are #10 for 2021 in the ACC. Pretty obvious we don’t recruit well the past couple years.

        1. Mostly due to the defensive side with Foster’s indecision and the new staff hire then covid. Two lost recruiting seasons on defense that have nothing to do with Fu.

          1. Yes, a lot of the poor defensive recruiting can be blamed on Foster’s indecision. It will take awhile for Coaches Ham and Tapp,etc. to move past that. But I thinks they will!

          2. Nothing to do with Fu? He is the HEAD Coach, getting paid $4.25 mil/yr. Whether you like him or not, he is 100% responsible for what happens in his program. He had great recruiting classes in 17, 18 and 19; deserved praise, from most everyone. However, he also gets deserved blame for ’20 and ’21 classes. as well as Nester, Hudson, HH and QP leaving (all his recruits).

            Ftr, I think the ’21 class is much better than ranking.

            But don’t give the guy excuses that aren’t warranted (Covid, yea, bad situation that affected all college football programs)

              1. You don’t understand how having new coaches on one side of the ball who were able to recruit in person for all of like 10 days before things got shut down would impact VT’s recruiting more than say a team who had no major coaching changes?

                Hamilton and Tapp were already behind the eight ball when it came to recruiting for the current year simply because of the nature of recruiting relationships and the timing of new coaches. Then the next year’s recruiting gets thrown into limbo because of the virus. Now you’ve got new coaches who aren’t even able to introduce themselves in person, visit families, bring guys on campus.

                Recruiting is all about building relationships and the combination of new defensive coaches and in-person recruiting being shut down made it very difficult to establish those relationships.

                As I’ve said multiple times, COVID impacted every program… but that doesn’t mean it impacted every program equally. We definitely had some bad luck/circumstances mostly because of replacing the entire defensive coaching staff. No spring practice, new defensive system, limited in person recruiting, best player opts out, various defensive coaches/players miss practices/games early in the season to the point where offensive guys were practicing on that side of the ball, 9 games in a row.

                That doesn’t mean Fuente and others don’t deserve any blame or whatever. But if you dismiss COVID as an “excuse” and not a valid reason then you’re simply not paying attention or being realistic.

            1. pharlap… you’re right in that Fuente made the decision to keep Foster around several years too many… out of loyalty to the Beamer years and Foster’s overall contributions to VT. Any other coach anywhere else who had his results on and off the field would have been gone. Just saying.

          3. Shouldn’t our O recruiting be better then following that logic. And the recruiting grade is on the class of which mostly are O related. Ultimately we will see what he puts on the field next year but I for one have not be impressed with what he was been able to sign.

        2. Recruiting isn’t Fu’s strongest point, but it’s very weak to say anything good that happens is “lucky” and anything bad that happens is his fault.

          1. I noticed that too, saying they were lucky w Herbert implies there was no evaluation at all of his talents.

            1. Well, Blackshear has been a bust to this point. Either bad evaluation or poor ability to use him to his strengths.

              1. I wasn’t impressed with Blackshear either. I have since heard that he wasn’t anywhere near 100%.

        1. But you can convince some kids to stay an extra year for the next three years to help build some bench strength…

        2. This will improve. AND…. whatever helps you win is what you live on. If Fu keeps bringing in superior talent out of the portal, then it’s good.

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