Just like the offensive side of the ball, the Tech coaching staff did a good
job filling defensive needs with talented recruits this year. The 2007 class saw
the Hokies do well at linebacker and in the secondary, but not such a good job
on the defensive line. They made up for that this year, and still managed to do
very well at the other positions on defense.

The correct way to evaluate a recruiting class is to determine the positions
of need, how many players the coaching staff wanted to sign for each position,
how many they actually signed, and how highly rated those recruits were. Let’s
take a look at the 2008 defensive recruiting class and determine what grade each
position should receive.

A note about grading: All players have potential, and sleepers often go on to
be NFL draft picks, while four and five star recruits flame out. But for
purposes of this article, we’re not going to grade prospects on how much the VT
coaching staff is rumored to like them, or whether or not they’re great kids, or
how strong they are, or how fast they are. We’re going to grade them (partially)
on how highly-rated they are: how many stars they are, where they rank in their
state, and where they rank nationally at their position. That’s the best data we
have to go on right now, and that’s what we’ll use.

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