Securing the State has a lot to do with it. With limited recruiting time/budgets and a smaller market profile than say Bama/ND/OSU/USC etc... VT has to rely on getting it "right" on the 3 and 4 star guys. We can't afford to bring in marginal recruits that may or may not pan out unlike Bama etc.. who have 4 and 5 stars pounding down the door. The footwork is already done on these types of guys. It isn't on the players VT can legitimately get consistently and hence we need to get it right every time to compete. How do you do this? You get to know every high school in the state. You build trust with the coaches and upcoming players and you evaluate them early on. Our coaches can't do this with a player in say California or Texas due to cost of travel so by the time they get on our radar we are behind on them or maybe don't get the chance to fully evaluate. Bottom line is a 3* or 4* in state kid the coaches have watched for years is way more likely to be successfu athletically/socially than a 3* guy they just got film on as a Junior and maybe have met in person once or twice. Gotta own the State on the guys we really want for VT to consistently be top 10.