BLACKSBURG, Va. — The sun’s not up yet but a buzz is starting to build in the player’s lounge of the Jamerson Athletic Center. Virginia Tech coaches and staffers start to trickle in, a few taking part in an early prayer circle with the team chaplain before hitting the nearby breakfast buffet line, while the athletic department’s technical folks make sure a handful of cameras and screens are functioning properly.

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Soon the room will be bursting with activity, with close to a hundred backers of Hokies football — administrators, donors, coaches’ kids, cheerleaders, even the Hokie Bird — in attendance to celebrate the start of the early signing period. It’s what Virginia Tech is calling its first national signing day “draft,” a full-on celebration of the 2023 class with NFL Draft-style announcements for each of the 29 players sending in their letters of intent.

Right before the signatures start rolling in at 7 a.m., head coach Brent Pry enters the room donning a business casual look straight out of the laid-back CEO catalog: dark maroon pants, a light maroon blazer and white, untucked shirt. Despite the early hour, he’s his usual bountiful bundle of energy, and the room soon follows, with Sam Hunt’s “House Party” piped through the speakers to liven things up.

“It’s 7:01! Where’s the fax!?” Pry says a few minutes later, drawing some laughs. “Let’s go!”

The stage is set 👌#ThisIsHome23 | #GroundUp

— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) December 21, 2022

Recruiting in general, and signing day especially, is a dog-and-pony show. So why not lean into it? The days of receiving signatures over a fax machine and putting them out on a list at the end of the day are long gone. (In fact, these schools started using e-signatures a while ago, making obsolete what felt like the last task of the fax machine.)

While being tuned in to the tick-tock of signing day used to be just something for the die-hards, that’s evolved over the years. Signing day turned into a national holiday for the recruitniks, with more casual fans being pulled in as Twitter made real-time reporting of incoming signatures commonplace over a decade ago. Soon there was Alabama’s Fax Cam, with schools trying to spruce up what amounted to a reading of names.

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While signing day stunts from players have long been a trend (perhaps with its genesis from former Hokies running back great Kevin Jones), the schools themselves have gotten more advanced with their presentations recently, with increasingly sophisticated behind-the-scenes looks at coaching staffs reacting to letters of intent as they come in.

Pry’s been in on the ground floor of those types of productions for a while. He was part of James Franklin’s staff at Vanderbilt, a co-defensive coordinator in a group of assistants with three future head coaches (ODU’s Ricky Rahne and Marshall’s Charles Huff were the others). The Commodores were hardly a recruiting juggernaut, but Franklin infused some life into the program on signing day, something that would show up on the field in subsequent years.

The seedlings for a more blockbuster signing day event are evident from the following 2011 clip on YouTube, which features a relatively docile gathering of coaches and the initial “draft” concept. You can see a baby-faced Pry and his current chief of staff, Michael Hazel, in several shots. (Plus a blast from recruiting past that caused plenty of consternation in Hokies circles at the time, overblown as it turned out, when Vandy announced the signing of quarterback Lafonte Thourogood out of Virginia Beach.)

That signing day production expanded over the years, something that Franklin brought with him to Penn State, where Pry, Hazel and Co. have drawn a lot of their inspiration for how they operate now in Blacksburg.

This year, the show really starts at 7:20 a.m., when the signees begin being officially announced periodically.

“It’s like you’re at the hospital waiting for the doctor to come out,” outside linebackers coach Shawn Quinn says before any signatures are officially in.

Defensive back Dante Lovett is up first. And it’s more than just putting a name on a board. It’s a full-blown show, scripted out over the course of the morning, with presenters assigned to every signee joining the program.

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Pry is at the head of a U-shaped table in front of two giant video screens flanking a TV monitor, with director of on-campus recruiting Jalyn Ballein seated just off to the side, coordinating it all on a headset. Soon, Lovett and his family are up on the big screens via Zoom, able to see the throng of Virginia Tech coaches and observers in the room behind Pry.

“What’s up, fam!” Pry bellows. “We’ve got a gigantic group of Hokies here and you are A-No. 1.”

Evan Hughes, the voice of Hokies women’s basketball and baseball, serves almost as an emcee, stepping up to a lectern in a Roger Goodell-type role (minus the boos) to announce who will make the first “pick.” Cornerbacks coach Derek Jones, decked out in his trademark Cheetah-print gear, has the honor. Lovett and his family can hear him but can’t see him, a minor technical glitch that’s soon resolved before they get to the formalities.

“With the first pick in the 2023 national signing day draft,” Jones announces, “the Hokies select, from DeMatha Catholic High School, by way of Landover, Maryland, Cheetah, Dante Lovett!”

A little behind-the-scenes video from the first “pick” of the #Hokies’ signing day draft today: defensive back Dante Lovett. VT made a big production out of every signee. I’ll have a story up about it in a bit.

— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 21, 2022

The room goes wild with applause as “Enter Sandman” blares in the background. Jones walks over to a mock draft board numbered 1-30 and slaps a magnetized nameplate with Lovett’s picture on it before the coaches take turns addressing the player and his family.

“You are the foundation,” Pry says. “You represent everything that we’re about, the way you stuck with us. There’s going to be a ’30 for 30′ story one day, man. And you’re going to be a featured star in it.”

Jones is next, praising Lovett for being the “rock of the group” — Nebraska and new coach Matt Rhule made a big production about offering Lovett, who never ended up going on an official visit — and reaching out to other players to try to bring them into the fold.

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Defensive coordinator Chris Marve follows up with a message to the family: “I just want to say thank you. It’s both an honor and privilege that we get to be a part of his development and his journey. We’ve got your back.”

Things circle back to Pry: “You are a captain in waiting. You understand that? Leadership, work ethic, sacrifice, investment. You embody all those things, Dante. So can’t wait to get you here in person, man! Keep training your butt off. Give both your mom and dad a hug there, please!”

Lovett obliges as more applause comes from the room. Thank yous and congratulations conclude the quick call. Ten minutes later, it’s on to the next.

What takes place over the next five and a half hours is a carefully choreographed show, with a different person from the football staff (and a few from outside, like Kevin Jones, athletic director Whit Babcock and wrestling coach Tony Robie) stepping up to the lectern in scheduled 10-minute increments to announce each name in the class

Tech adds some bells and whistles once things get rolling, playing the familiar NFL Draft “next pick is in” chime before each selection and getting a more raucous reaction as the room fills up.

It’s on these Zooms with players that you see Pry in his element, a charismatic showman who can easily chop it up with any member of the family. He’s got some go-to lines — the class has 21 captains, he’ll say many times, and there’s similar language wrapping up most of the calls, with Pry encouraging players to celebrate today but be ready to get to work tomorrow — but the rest is pure, unfiltered Pry, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of each player’s immediate family members and appears to have a renewable energy source that keeps his stamina up for 29 calls.

The calls range from silly to poignant, but all of them are joyous. Defensive end signee Jason Abbey’s preschool-aged brother, Legend, steals the show on his Zoom, clad in orange and maroon striped pajamas and offering a premature “Bye-bye!” on the call, drawing laughs in the room.

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“I’ll tell you this, Legend, we’re offering you a full scholarship to Virginia Tech right now!” Pry says. “If he has half the motor and half the character you do, Jason, he’s on board, man.”

Pry cuts it up with wide receiver signee Chance Fitzgerald’s mom, Toni, who had a notebook full of questions during the coach’s in-home visit earlier this month.

“Hey, where’s your notebook, Toni?” Pry asks.

“Oh, stop it!” an apparently diligent Toni shoots back.

Once Williams is officially announced, Pry returns to the subject.

“I’m glad to see your mom didn’t have her notebook out this morning,” he says, “because he already signed on the dotted line, mom. I wasn’t going to answer any more questions!”

When Pry notices defensive back Thomas Williams’ grandmother tearing up in the background of his call, he brings her into the forefront of the conversation.

“Grandma, you crying still?” Pry jokes to a chorus of laughs. “I knew she was! T-Will, when you get homesick, don’t call her, because she won’t be the force we need. She’ll be lightning quick to pick you up!”

Offensive lineman Layth Ghannam, the top-ranked recruit in the class, calls in from his school, with his family and coach sitting at a conference room-style table. Baylor quarterback transfer Kyron Drones and his family apparently had a close encounter with a deer on I-81 on his way out of town during his official visit, something Pry revisits on the call. Receiver Takye Heat has so many relatives call into Zoom from various locations to share the moment that Pry can’t help but comment.

“You’ve got 35 family members on this Zoom!” Pry says, almost shouting. “I love it!”

There are touching moments among the hoopla too.

Receiver Marcell Baylor, from just down the road in Radford, lost his father in October from heart, kidney and liver failure after he’d been on dialysis for months. Pry recalls the moment in his office he officially extended Baylor a scholarship offer — the receiver slid off the couch and hit his knees on the floor, tears coming to his eyes.

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“You lost your dad this fall, persevered through your family, through your coaches and your friends,” Pry says. “You stayed the course. You’re graduating early. And you’re a Virginia Tech Hokie, man! I know your dad is so proud. He’s going to be watching all the accomplishments that happen here for you at Virginia Tech.”

When it comes time to announce defensive back Braylon Johnson, the son of Loren Johnson, who was a standout Hokies cornerback in Tech’s ’90s heyday and is now multi-state champion coach from Highland Springs, the Hokies dip into its past, asking former legendary Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster to do the honors, a nice touch to bridge generations of Virginia Tech football.

“LJ, you helped start this thing, many, many years ago,” Foster says. “Braylon, you’re going to get this thing back on track, I promise you that.”

Safeties coach Pierson Prioleau, who’ll coach the younger Johnson, jumps on the call. He was a teammate of Loren’s back in the ’90s. Defensive line coach J..C. Price, also among those congratulating the Johnsons, was on those teams too.

“It’s hard not to get emotional with this one,” says Pry, who was a graduate assistant on those teams. “Coach Foster, my greatest mentor, what he means to me. And to have J.C. up here and LJ and P-Lo, and everybody that understands what this place is about.

“Coach Johnson, the mentality and the lessons that you’ve taught your son about what Virginia Tech means and what it’s about and how we’ve got to get there, you get it! Braylon, you get it! You’re the glue to this thing. … You understand the Virginia Tech experience and how we’ve got to do this. And we’re gonna do it.”

By mid-afternoon, Pry moves on from the family Zoom calls but not from talking about the class. He meets with the local media at 2:15 p.m., looking a little worse for wear, sans sports jacket and a bit fatigued from close to six earlier hours in front of the camera.

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Despite all that face time, his energy never dips when he’s in front of the recruits and their families.

“Every time I wanted to get a little bit tired, that next family would pop up there and it’s easy to get excited,” Pry says. “You just know their story and how it got to this. … So it’s easy to get excited when they jump on there and they’re signed, sealed and delivered.”

In all, the Hokies sign 29 players — 25 from high schools and four as transfers. It’s a group ranked 35th nationally in the 247Sports Composite as of Wednesday evening, not one that’s going to shake the foundations of the ACC, but a respectable class in Pry’s first full recruiting cycle that’ll be integral to the rebuild of a 3-8 team.

That start of something really special in one photo.

🔥Brick By Brick, Stone By Stone🔥

“It’s a great time to be a Hokie!” #LGH

— Derek Jones (@CoachdjCheetah) December 21, 2022

After fielding 25 minutes of questions from local media, Pry’s still not done. A 247Sports podcast awaits, plus some other national outlets that will talk to him about the Hokies’ haul. Only after that will he have time to crash.

All the work will be worth it, though, to onboard this 2023 class in style, hoping to make them feel like part of the Hokies family right off the bat. It’s why Tech went goes through with all the bells and whistles.

“We want this to be special. It is special,” Pry says. “And I think when you see the smiles on those moms’ faces and on those kids, and everything that’s poured into and everything that they’ve been through in this process, it just helps it mean more to do something special like that.”

(Top photo: Courtesy of Virginia Tech Athletics)