A new era deserves a new name, so when Hokies assistant Fontel Mines went about revamping Virginia Tech’s wide receivers room by first recruiting Ali Jennings and Da’Quan Felton to Blacksburg in late 2022 before adding Jaylin Lane in the first week of 2023, he tasked them with coming up with a group nickname.

Jennings and Felton made a list with funny names like “Men In Blacksburg,” riffing off the ’90s Will Smith movie, or just straight up “The Avengers” to give it a more superhero feel. When they sent the list to Mines for his input, neither of those felt right, though one moniker emerged from the options — “BadBoyz.”

“We have that mentality,” Jennings said of a nickname that’s spawned NIL merch. “We come in every day, we take what we want on the field and just come with a physical and mean approach to the position.”

As the Brent Pry era enters its third year in Blacksburg, no position group has been as radically transformed as the wide receivers, where Tech went from being desperate for a No. 2 option to wondering how to keep everyone happy with enough reps to go around in such a deep and talented room.

...