Blacksburg has entered that unmistakable season when résumés bloom like spring allergies and boosters begin speaking in tax-deductible tongues. The Hokies seek a coach who recruits five-stars, coaches walk-ons into stars, and smiles like someone who’s already outlasted a buyout. I watched from the sideline with the patience of a historian and the cynicism of a parking attendant on game day.

Candidate One: The Recruit-Forecast Whisperer. He studies high-school huddle tape like medieval cartography and predicts commitment fronts rolling in from the Tidewater with a 70 percent chance of swag. When a barometer drops, he flips a safety.

Candidate Two: The Portal Wrangler. He claims to have physically entered the transfer portal, where time moves sideways and everyone wears announcement graphics. He emerged clutching a depth chart and three players named “Bubba,” all immediately eligible.

Candidate Three: The NIL Economist. She arrives with an abacus shaped like a turkey leg and a whiteboard that smells faintly of compliance. She promises to stretch a donor dollar till it squeals like a referee’s whistle in overtime.

Candidate Four: The Lunch-Pail Traditionalist. He believes in special teams, clock management, and buttoned polos with the moral authority of a Supreme Court ruling. He shakes hands so firmly a three-star becomes a mid-four.

To prove seriousness, the athletic department standardized interviews. Each candidate must pitch a Tidewater lineman’s grandmother, then explain cover-two in terms of crockpots. They’ve already priced a Bluetooth sideline headset with cowbell filter for peak interference management.

The search committee uses a proprietary formula combining recruiting rankings, pep-band RPI, and how many times the candidate says “fit” before blinking. A retired statistician throws darts at a board labeled “culture.” The darts throw themselves back.

Recruiting is the headline, so the finalists will display county-by-county fluency. Loudoun? Speak in STEM and cul-de-sacs. 757? Compliment the barbershop and outrun the mascot while naming three aunties who actually run the program. Bonus points for knowing which backroads avoid that one speed trap shaped like an apologetic billboard.

Fan engagement remains crucial. One candidate promised a spring game halftime where prospects commit via carrier turkey while the others compose commitment notes on an Etch A Sketch. The souvenir concourse is already stocking a Beamer-era lunch pail replica that also holds 12 laminated depth charts and a small sense of destiny.

Rivals escalate. Alabama prints holograms whispering “process” into every living room. Georgia annexed an area code using eminent domain and a bulldog in a tie. Texas hired an oil derrick as Director of High School Relations and it immediately flipped a punter with a commemorative spittoon.

Meanwhile, Lane Stadium remains a living organism that feeds on third downs and late-October fog. Enter Sandman doesn’t just play; it testifies, it files the paperwork, it teaches a freshman tackle to set his feet. If you can’t recruit to that, hand me your whistle and the spare headset batteries.

In the end, the Hokies don’t need a magician, just someone fluent in bus routes, booster syllables, and the unstreamed truths television forgets by Monday. My vote goes to whoever can coach the quiet mechanics and still plug in the scarecrow. Because if the interviews go sideways, the scarecrow with Wi‑Fi already has two official visits left and a better vertical than the committee.