But it obviously gets lost because Teller and Nijman switched sides. Then the staff added T.Hill, Darius Fullwood, and Melvin Keihn at DE in 2015 (all 4-stars on at least one service). Obviously Keihn transferred in the middle of his first spring after being ridden very hard (undersized too, not great fit probably).

I'm not disagreeing that recruiting on defense has been rough in previous years but it's mostly been at LB. Add in Reavis, Fuller (4/5stars) and Ladler, Chuck Clark, Terrell Edmunds (who was massively underrated coming from Dan River) and you can see where the defense has also really had most of VT's biggest recruiting successes in the last couple cycles..

The problem was how bare the cupboard was 3 years ago and different series of events that exacerbated misses in key areas. Incoming Talent fell big time around 2010-2011 yet recruiting has largely been on the upswing with the '14, '15, '16 classes filling key areas. Looking at Tech's roster compared to 3 years ago we are in much better shape. I agree that the Hokies HAVE to put together more success on that side of the ball in recruiting, but the pantry is not so bare in the trenches that missing a handful of targets will throw the program into a downward spiral.

Some of VT's most elite talent in the trenches are r-FR and r-SO's that just haven't seen the field yet. I'd be much more worried if the trenches were senior laden and the secondary didn't have a solid group of young talented players that actually have seen the field. Alexander, Edmunds, Facyson, all give the secondary some time. If Reavis (another 4*) is still here I don't even know if we are having this conversation right now about talent level...

tl;dr - Defensive recruiting was horrendous, but has brought in most of VT's most recent "big gets".... It's easy to forget about the excitement around r-FR when they've been out of sight for a while