I'm probably saying the same thing as "wasris" but just in a different way.

The team currently has - in the room and committed HS - more than a few guys who are special talents. Any one of them could AA, and a few could push to top three, maybe higher. And I should add that the Hokie coaching staff, year after year, gets more out of the talent they recruit than other programs do (in terms of expectations/projections coming out of HS). Walz and Haught, for example, were very good coming out of HS, but probably didn't project to top 3 in the country - which is where they ended up. (Short Walz ramble for a moment: think about how good he became, and imagine if he was competing at the college level this year and next in a less competitive HWT class that does not have GWiz, Coon or Snyder. Timing matters. Damn.)

The only thing the team is missing and has had difficulty locking down is the "sure thing". The sure thing is NOT the guy who "does well" at the major tournaments like Beast of the East, Ironman, Powerade, etc.: it's the young man who crushes the other guys who "do well" at those tournaments. There are only a handful of these guys coming out of HS each year and they tend to end up at the same places - but a few slip beyond the Big four sometimes. Like Hidlay to NC State and McHenry to Cornell. I can't imagine that McHenry will not be a National Champ. He crushed this year's competition at the Beast.

The Hokie's have been on a good run for a while now, and one of the guys in the room now (maybe Mekhi or McFadden) or incoming may break through to the top of the podium soon. Jared Haught was soooo close! Once that happens, maybe a few more "sure things" put Tech closer to the top of their short lists.