Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993 TAG: 9304190224
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
HOPING FOR RIGHT BLEND
VIRGINIA TECH'S new football staff members combine age, youth and intensity - all trying to get the players to rebound from a lowly 2-8-1 season.\ Right now, Virginia Tech's revamped football coaching staff is shining.The spring game is here, the new coaches' feet are wet and their appetites are whetted.
Will they be as bright seven months from now?
"I'm evaluated on 11 Saturdays," said Rod Sharpless, one of four new assistants to seventh-year coach Frank Beamer. "If I don't make that sale, I can't come back in two or three weeks, sell a million and have everyone patting me on the back."
Sharpless didn't have to go to Blacksburg; he had a job, at Division I-AA Cornell. After two straight losing seasons, many Hokie observers think Beamer's future at Tech depends on how his seventh team fares. Yet Sharpless admits to no security worries.
"The won-loss record doesn't affect me at all," he said. "We all like challenges."
Beamer's is to correct Tech's course, and to try to do so he jettisoned three assistants last winter. Another aide, Steve Marshall, left for Tennessee after six years as Tech's offensive coordinator. Beamer rebuilt his staff to include some age, some youth, some intensity and, thanks to the university, some security in the form of defensive coordinator Phil Elmassian's two-year contract.
The new staff has spent almost three months together, but the transition was eased by familiarity. Defensive ends coach Sharpless was on some Kentucky and Maryland staffs with current Tech aide Terry Strock. Offensive line coach J.B. Grimes was good friends with Rickey Bustle, promoted to offensive coordinator over the winter. Elmassian coached at Tech with current staff member Billy Hite in the mid-'80s. And tight ends coach Bryan Stinespring has been hanging around the Tech staff for a few years.
Grimes said he found out something else comforting during the spring.
"The nose has already been bloodied," he said, referring to the returning players and their 2-8-1 season last year. "It didn't break their will or their spirit a year ago."
Beamer collected some disciplinarians in Elmassian, Sharpless and Grimes, in part because Tech routinely killed itself last season with sloppy play - a lot of penalties, including some late hits.
"We want to be very exact and very tight in what we do," said Beamer, never known as a rigid head coach. "We just need to do better at the top. I've been a little lax because I don't like to always be hounding people. By being more in control and exact off the field, I expect us to be more in control and exact on the field."
Sharpless served in the Air Force from 1967-72.
"Character is what people do when you're not watching. I try to preach, `Do what you think is right,' " he said.
Some Tech fans questioned whether Beamer was right to promote a graduate assistant, Stinespring, for the second straight year. Todd Grantham was elevated before the '92 season. Stinespring, however, benefited from the different techniques required of Tech offensive linemen who play "split side" and "tight side."
"Steve [Marshall] took a tight side and ran drills and coached, and I would take a split side and run drills and coach," Stinespring said.
Stinespring has inherited the recruiting responsibility of Marshall's pipeline to Fork Union Military Academy, and the graduate of former Clifton Forge High School (now Alleghany), believes Tech fans shouldn't fret. During the staff's turnover early this year, Stinespring said, he took over the recruitment of eventual signees Brad Baylor and Michael Murray.
"I don't feel like I'm under the gun," he said. "It's just a matter of me getting my kids to play. And I have no qualms."
Stinespring is working closely with Grimes, who has had the offensive linemen out early for some practices. Grimes would not have been retained by the incoming Arkansas staff, and said the Tech job was his first offer among other possibilities.
"I've never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth," he said. "This was a very comfortable situation, right down to the size of the town, the countryside, the conference is very comparable [to the Southeastern], the players are very comparable."
Elmassian's job is to produce a defense that can't compare to last year's, which yielded 405 yards and 25.6 points per game. One element of his plan was to pare Tech's defensive staff from five to four. That way, secondary players and linebackers don't get different coaching talks.
Neither Elmassian nor Beamer said he was fully satisfied with the progress of the new 4-3 defense. Elmassian, however, seems to feel it coming.
"I've got two days [left]," he said Wednesday. "The last scrimmage, the last five minutes there were things we wanted to see. The question is, where do we go from here?"
The same question could be asked of Beamer and his entire staff.
"Everyone here feels like we were better than a 2-8-1 team," Beamer said. "Everyone also knows saying you're better won't get it done."