What makes him top ten? While Buzz is was a pretty good recruiter here that certainly can’t be it. He had two good classes, which both involved some major luck, then players that came in that were already considering Virginia Tech for reasons other than Buzz. The “first” class was incredibly fortunate as he came in with two fringe NBA players that were already committed to James Johnson. The other player to really come in that class was Ahmed Hill, and he did really well recruiting him to Marquette then VT, but if he hadn’t gotten injured and had to redshirt a year I don’t think Buzz would be looked at in the same light (more on that in a minute).

Buzz’s true first class was his other good recruiting year but was very fortunate once again. Justin Robinson was a big pull and Blackshear Jr was good but you could argue neither player got the offers they deserved. The other person in the class was Chris Clarke who has originally committed to Tennessee but left with a recruiting scandal so he came back to Buzz’s offer. Again, some pretty fortunate luck involved there. The only other major players in the Buzz era all had connections with McNeilly (Georgia and Canada).

Then we can look at his results and style of play, and while they certainly are impressive a large chunk of the success should go towards Jamie McNeilly. Jamie was the one who redid the defense to give VT one of the top groups in the country and was in charge of in-bounds plays. Pretty fair to say those two areas were some of VT’s biggest strengths. You can also factor in some luck here with Hill having to redshirt and becoming a force this past season and look at other seasons of success and questions his decision making (Sy the only backup, redshirting Kerry with 10 games to go, etc).

I don’t share all this to just tear Buzz down, but I do think too many are giving him too much credit. Buzz was a very good coach and built a solid staff most years but he shouldn’t be on the pedestal some appear to be placing him on. He did good work to raise the national profile in Blacksburg and put together some of the best seasons we have ever seen, however, he also mailed in recruiting the last two seasons and that limited how successful the team could have become.

He set the bar high but it is attainable and Mike Young has more than enough ability to reach it and surpass it. That won’t happen overnight and it likely won’t happen in the first two years but I have no doubt Virginia Tech will be very successful in the Young era.